<p>The purpose of this ministry project was to help 1^st United Methodist Church of Glassboro, NJ connect with their community. The intent was to strengthen the outreach and hospitality ministry in the church in such a way that it became a part of the church&rsquo;s DNA. The goal was to set up a process that was an integral part of all decisions in the church and would be used to connect with the community. </p><p> The project proved that community could be taught and nurtured. It also helped show the importance that scripture places on community. We used sermons, bible study, teaching, and projects to find ways to engage with each other and the community around us. During the project, attention was taken to involve every aspect of the church and to encourage the church to participate in community building ways. </p>

<p> This qualitative study focused on social class and its influences on student engagement in high school settings. The study employed a narrative inquiry approach. Through the examination of narratives of the participants, this study sought to discover the ways in which students, parents, teachers, and administrators think about, view, and act upon their understanding of social class as it relates to student engagement. The researcher conducted the study at three high schools in the Desert Mountain region of San Bernardino County located in Southern California. The schools were selected based upon their socioeconomic makeup as measured by the percentage of students who qualified for free and/or reduced lunch (PFRL). The narratives were all screened for emerging themes related to social class and student engagement. In addition, the narratives were analyzed to find instances of commonalities and differences. The results of this study revealed that social class is identified in various manners; it also revealed that although social class plays an important role in education, social class alone does not predict academic achievement. The results of this study may aid in increases to graduation rates, thereby an obvious reduction in dropout rates especially as it relates to social class. </p><p> Keywords: social class, engagement, influences, high school, policies, dropout rate.</p>

<p> To increase the number of male teachers at the elementary level in public education, the use of recruitment strategies is necessary. The problem is a lack of literature concerning recruitment strategies for male educators in elementary education. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the perceptions of male teachers and district recruiters to identify common themes of recruitment used in school districts in Texas to procure more males at the elementary public education level. This study was framed through theories of social cognition and self-efficacy. A sample of 23 male teachers from elementary and secondary public education provided responses to 16 openended survey questions. Using Nvivo10, four major themes were identified based on keyword weighted percentage: recruited and applied, viewed as masculine, elementary men are stereotyped as feminine, and recruit using males in current positions of employment. The findings revealed recruitment strategies identified by male teachers that could influence more males to teach at the elementary level as well as factors that influence males to work at this education level. This study authenticates recruitment strategies to employ more males at the elementary level in public education.</p>

<p> Many social change groups employ formalized multiparty collaborative efforts to create sustainable social change around today's complex public issues. This study investigates the role and perspective of foundations in these interorganizational collaboratives, specifically collective impact initiatives. It highlights a disconnect between the traditional culture of philanthropy that provides only short-term funding and the long-term nature of systems change. This paradox hinders the impact that foundations and nonprofits alike can make toward addressing complex issues. The study recommends that nonprofits and foundations take active roles in changing the narrative of separatism between philanthropy and nonprofits and begin seeing themselves as part of one interconnected system. This will require foundations to become more active participants and make longer term investments in interorganizational change efforts. Social change groups in turn must consider foundations as more than a funding stream and include them in the cocreation of the collective impact effort and evaluation.</p>

<p> This thesis explores a gendered conflict in nerd culture. I sent an online survey to self-identified women nerds with a series of questions asking their opinion of the representation of women in nerd media and about their experiences within the nerd community. Seventy-five percent of respondents reported that a sexy or sexualized appearance was the most prominent aspect of women's representation in nerd media. Eighty-two percent of participants had experienced a gender-based insult when participating in nerd media. Findings suggest that harassment and representation in media is worse for women comic book and video game media and communities than in other sub-genres within the culture. More research is needed on racial representation and participation and on nerd men's experiences with gate-keeping.</p>

<p> Within the discourse on environmentalism and transportation, artists and activists have engaged the bicycle as more than a means of transportation. For an American culture infatuated with the automobile, bicycling has taken on new meaning. Far beyond simply moving people from one place to another in an economical and ecologically friendly way, bicycling can now be understood as a set of symbolic acts intended to subvert and critique automobile culture. For example, artist and author David Byrne advocates for a burgeoning culture of bicycle riders as part of a transportation revolution. Commute Clot, (also known as Critical Mass), a monthly public cycling event in over 300 cities worldwide, situates hundreds of bicyclists, riding en masse usually at rush hour, as activists on busy urban streets, promoting an active, physical and frequently dangerous confrontation between the motorist and cyclist.</p><p> Even without the in-your-face confrontation staged by Critical Mass, the material and social conditions of urban cycling can be anything but pleasurable. This project engages media and technology to explore and articulate the roadway as a landscape of frictions between the unprotected flesh of the cyclist and the unyielding metal of the automobile. The topic emerges as especially timely and urgent because the symbolic value of the bicycle as a healthy and environmentally positive option to automobiles frames this opposition anew as a conflict between carbon powered and human powered movement.</p><p> The daily confrontation between the motorist and the cyclist, however, involves a real level of danger. To articulate the non-motorist's relationship to the roadway, I consider the bicycle within potential hostile contexts such as roadways without bicycle lanes, locations with extreme weather, and shared roadway space where the non-motorist's bicycle awareness and bicycle knowledge are less evident.</p><p> As an artist, I am drawing on the data of the lived bodily experiences of the bicyclist in order to reveal the complexity of social-spatial relations embodied in the non-motorized roadway. Through doing so I am specifically interested to challenge urban design and transportation policies that create hegemonically fraught roadway spaces. Such institutionalized design processes, like those found in urban planning, whether top-down or participatory, tend to be abstracted, where the embodied experience of the roadway users are not considered in the planning discourse. Because the body is missing from the planning dialogue, a public perception evolves where the roadway is assumed to be a space for motorized vehicles. This perception is marginalizing if not life threatening for cyclists and other pedestrians. Casting others' and myself as the quantified interface with the roadway systems using audio recording, photography and interviews, I track the mental and physical experiences of others' and myself while on the roadway. My projects <i>Rest Stop Bike Repair Shop,</i> and <i>Bike Date</i> become platforms for promoting a phenomenological approach to critical roadway design. From a ground up, grass roots-based activist art practice, it is my hope that these planning and design processes can become more informed and influenced by the lived experience of non-motorized roadway inhabitants.</p>

<p> Objectives: Study was designed to explore questions examining relational satisfaction in long-term non-monogamous heterosexual couples in comparison to relational satisfaction in long-term sexually monogamous heterosexual couples, as well as gain insight into whom those involved in non-monogamous relationships disclose to and the potential stigma felt by this disclosure. Demographic variables were also explored to see if any prediction of marital satisfaction occurred. </p><p> Methods: Both long-term sexually monogamous and long-term sexually non-monogamous participants responded to a secure online survey. The survey consisted of informed consent, inclusion criteria, ENRICH marital satisfaction scale (Fowers and Olson 1993) items, and open-ended questions for items not assessed by the ENRICH scale alone. </p><p> Results: After checking for univariate normality and outliers and assessing missing value patterns, results show that both the Marital Satisfaction and Idealistic Distortion scales were reliable. The findings in the study revealed that relationship type did not have a significant impact on marital satisfaction or idealistic distortion, with similar levels of satisfaction and idealistic distortion in both monogamous and non-monogamous couples. The results also demonstrated, through linear regression for demographic variables, that only income level significantly predicted marital satisfaction. After qualitative data was coded, there were many themes found within both monogamous and non-monogamous couples. </p><p> Conclusions: Data supports the original hypothesis that there was very little difference in marital satisfaction between monogamous and non-monogamous heterosexual couples. With these results, non-monogamy is a more viable relationship option than previously recognized for couples that are interested, and it is necessary to create models to work with these couples. Developing further research within this population specifically is also necessary for the future. </p>

<p>The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological, epoche study was to explore the lived experiences of seniors who attended a Recovery High School and the phenomenon associated with transitioning from high school. No studies have been conducted on the lived experiences of seniors who attended Recovery High Schools. Data collection included three interview sessions. Participants of the study reviewed their final response before analyses began. The results of the study contributed scientifically by providing data of Recovery High Schools as alternatives and post continuum care resources for adolescences and young people who suffer with substance abuse disorders. </p>

<p> With the rapid growth of Facebook, the social networking website is becoming a lucrative target for malicious activity. Users of Facebook therefore should be aware of various malicious attacks and know how to identify them. This research analyzed Facebook users' level of understanding in the domain of malicious social engineering on Facebook. The research examined differences in awareness among multiple generational groups; secondary research questions focused on how factors such as age, gender, education, Internet usage, and trust affected users' awareness of malicious activity. Results suggest that the Baby Boomer generation is the least aware of malicious social engineering tactics on Facebook, specifically in regard to the Donation scam category. In addition, education level and educational background are significantly associated with awareness. These findings indicate a need for future work to gain a deeper understanding of Facebook users' awareness of malicious social engineering and generate targeted training in order to increase said awareness. </p>

<p> While the reform of Catholic liturgy that followed the Second Vatican Council by no means rejected Latin as a language of liturgical celebration, the Latin Mass quickly became the province of traditionalist groups that refused to accept the revised Order of Mass and offered the pre-conciliar Tridentine Mass in defiance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Nevertheless, there have always been some Catholics who either obtained permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass or found celebrations of the post-conciliar Mass in Latin that maintained certain practices associated with the pre-conciliar Mass. This dissertation focuses on this latter group of Latin Mass Catholics, who have remained within the bounds of the institutional church and who, since 2007, have had permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass as an &ldquo;extraordinary form&rdquo; of the Mass of the Roman Rite.</p><p> In particular, this study seeks a better understanding of the motives of contemporary Latin Mass Catholics in America. Critics sometimes view attachment to the Latin Mass as an example of modern Catholicism&rsquo;s still incomplete liberation from &ldquo;dead ritual.&rdquo; Supporters, on the other hand, often valorize the same attachment as a sign of resurgent interest in &ldquo;the sacred&rdquo; following Vatican II&rsquo;s alleged desacralization of the liturgy. As an alternative to both of these positions, this study explains adherence to the Latin Mass as the embodiment of one particular approach to the formation of an &ldquo;authentic&rdquo; human subject of liturgical prayer. Personal sincerity and continuity with tradition are both essential to how Latin Mass Catholics evaluate authenticity in liturgical prayer and cultivate authenticity in their own selves. In practice, these modes of authentication are held together by an acquired <i>habitus</i> of &ldquo;reverence.&rdquo; </p><p> An ethnographic account of contemporary adherence to the Latin Mass fleshes out the particular practices associated with this inculcation of reverence. Fieldwork in four Latin Mass communities and interviews with Latin Mass adherents reveal the viability of this approach to liturgical formation. It is argued that the liturgical reform and adherence to the Latin Mass can provide complementary insights into the formation of an authentic human subject of liturgical prayer in the modern world.</p>