<p> This study is an examination of how ethnicity and religion affect political behavior of Kurds of Turkey. Despite the presence of some predisposing factors (violent conflict, high ethnic polarization, and significant population size), a substantial portion of Kurds prefer non-ethnic political parties (specifically the ruling Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party) to the pro-Kurdish political parties that have struggled for certain ethnic political and cultural rights. This dissertation systematically and comparatively investigates the ethnicity-based demands (political and cultural) and ethnic identity perceptions of the Kurds who subscribe to either ethnic or non-ethnic political parties. To this end, I have developed a model based on a significant conceptual distinction, derived from the relevant literature, between ethnic category and ethnic group. I demonstrate that membership in the Kurdish ethnic category does not necessarily imply membership in the Kurdish ethnic groups constructed and led by Kurdish political entrepreneurs. More specifically, my argument in this study is two-fold: First, while Kurds generally support ethnic cultural demands, they differ significantly in terms of their political demands. That is, while the overwhelming majority of those who support the pro-Kurdish political parties constitute the Kurdish ethnic groups by sharing the political demands raised by their ethnic entrepreneurs, the majority of those who support non-ethnic political parties do not support these political demands. Second, I argue that there are two forms of Kurdish ethnic identity perception in relation to Islam: secular and non-secular/religious. The Kurds who support the pro-Kurdish political parties as ethnic political groups are more likely to adopt a secular form of Kurdish identity that has been constructed and promoted by the Kurdish political elites, while those Kurds who support the ruling Islamist party (JDP/AKP) are more likely to display a non-secular form of Kurdish identity. </p><p>

<p> On November 5, 1996, California became the first state in the US to legalize Marijuana for medical purposes through the enactment of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Later Marijuana for recreational use was also enacted through the Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016. Presently, 29 States in the U.S including the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for either medicinal or recreational purposes (Election 2016&ndash;Marijuana Ballot results). With the legalization of Marijuana, there have been tremendous higher rates of distribution, sales, and consumption of the drug in California. The use of Marijuana has not only been socially accepted but has also laid a foundation for more research about the social economic and health effects to the communities. Therefore this paper seeks to assess the detrimental and beneficial effects of marijuana use among the racial/ ethnically diverse population of northern California.</p><p>

<p> Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and survival rates of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) patients are worse than those of non-Hispanic White (NHW) patients. A contributing factor to the worse outcomes may be lower healthcare utilization of AIAN patients. But improving healthcare utilization of AIAN to levels used comparable to those of NHW might increase costs of their care to amounts comparable to those of NHW. <b>Objectives:</b> 1) To examine differences in total healthcare costs and healthcare utilization 12 months following lung cancer diagnosis between AIAN patients and NHW patients, 2) To examine differences in total healthcare costs and healthcare utilization during the end-of-life period (last 6 months of life) between AIAN patients and NHW patients who died from lung cancer or any cause, and 3) To compare the incidence of depression disorder 60 months after cancer diagnosis and determine depression treatment utilization among those with a depression disorder. <b>Methods:</b> The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare dataset was used. Patients included in the study were those age 65 years and older, diagnosed with lung cancer between 2000 and 2011, Part A coverage, Part B coverage and no managed care plan before. Diagnosis and procedure codes were used to identify costs, utilization, and depression diagnoses. The propensity score matching method was used to balance groups. A generalized linear model (GLM) was used for costs analysis and the negative binomial regression model was used to analyze healthcare utilization. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to identify risk factors for new diagnosis of depression. <b>Results:</b> Being AIAN was associated with lower total healthcare costs 12 months following lung cancer diagnosis. In contrast, being AIAN was not associated with total healthcare costs six months before date of death among patients diagnosed with lung cancer and &le; 6 month survival time. The incidence of diagnosis of depression disorder 60 months after lung cancer diagnosis was 3.67% for AIAN patients and 6.16% for NHW patients. The mean number of depression treatment visits suggests higher utilization among AIAN patients compared with NHW patients. AIAN patients were not at increased risk for depression after cancer diagnosis. <b>Conclusions:</b> The healthcare utilization of AIAN patients with lung cancer could be improved while keeping costs of care no higher than those of NHW patients. But any improvements of health care use would need to take account of the variability among AIAN patients receiving health care 12 months following cancer diagnosis, in the last six months of life, and after depression disorder diagnosis.</p><p>

This dissertation examines trickster sensibilities and behavior as models for racial strategies in contemporary novels by African American and Chinese American authors. While many trickster studies focus on myth, I assert that realist fiction provides a unique historical and cultural space that shapes trickster behavior. John Edgar Wideman, Gloria Naylor, Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston use the trickster in their novels to articulate diverse racial strategies for people of color who must negotiate among a variety of cultural influences. My critical trickster paradigm investigates the motives and behavior of tricksters. It utilizes close literary readings that are strengthened by my comprehensive knowledge of the history of African Americans and Chinese Americans. Throughout time, images that define individuals in both groups develop in the popular imagination. The authors use the trickster to critique and revise those representations. African American authors also influence the racial discourse of Chinese American writers. I concluded that the literary trickster's behavior and sensibilities vary from character to character. I found that African American and Chinese American authors share some racial strategies. They also utilize different racial strategies as a result of the different historical and cultural experiences of African Americans and Chinese Americans. Moreover, male and female African American authors differ in the kinds of racial strategies they advocate, just as male and female Chinese American authors. Such research is significant because of its interdisciplinary exploration of racial strategies of African Americans and Chinese Americans. It provides an alternative approach to the study of the trickster. My work also goes beyond the black/white racial paradigm to explore the cultural dialogue between African American and Chinese American writers.

The recruitment, retention, and promotion of Black women in the academy continue to be a challenge even after numerous policies and programs to rectify historical and social injustices in American society. This study utilized a womanist lens as a framework to conceptualize the interlocking impact of race and gender on the experiences of Black women in higher education. Utilizing a quantitative design, the primary source for the study included data gathered from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty conducted by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) in survey cycles of 1993, 1999, and 2004. The researcher examined the pace at which Black women full-time faculty have advanced during this period compared to White women full-time faculty.;The results of this study revealed very little difference between the two populations in degree attainment, institution type, age, salary, discipline, workload, productivity, and job satisfaction. The greatest differences were found in marital status and perceptions of fairness. The findings from this study contradict the literature that paints a picture of objective inequality, but leave room for further study based upon the uniqueness of the Black woman's experience when placed in the context of race, gender, and class. It is possible that objective equality of status comes at personal sacrifice that the researcher did not measure or assess. The researcher suggests the study be expanded to include a qualitative segment, which would provide a more holistic picture of the Black woman faculty member.

Baptist minister and author of novels, plays, sermons, and essays, Thomas Dixon, Jr. today remains most known as the storyteller behind the 1915 D. W. Griffith Film The Birth of a Nation. I argue that Thomas Dixon crafted a white supremacist rhetoric and narrative of modern whiteness indebted to the structures of Fundamentalist Christianity. With varying degrees of success, later writers struggled with the legacy the Dixonian cultural narrative bequeathed them.;Fundamentalist theology offered a whole host of tropes, metaphors, and arguments to its users. In short, Fundamentalism presented a rhetorical stance that was, in the hands of an ambitious and designing opportunist like Dixon, capable of being adapted for other purposes. Dixon structured his narrative of whiteness like a religion and drew the blueprints for that architecture from the Fundamentalist theology that he and his brother A. C. Dixon promulgated. That Fundamentalist mindset included consequential interpretations of the apocalypse that divided theological positions between premillennial and postmillennial points of view. Drawing on rhetorical analysis from Kenneth Burke, I analyze the ways Thomas Dixon crafted a blueprint for a revived Klan trained for constant surveillance of eschatological signs as a way to intervene and avoid the racial apocalypse he prophesied. Fundamentalist rhetoric and imagery provided Dixon tropes, arguments, and stirring icons that he could assimilate and incorporate into his vision of whiteness. This morality play for Dixon had some form of a threatening black man who menaced a pure white woman and called forth a white paladin of vengeance to be her savior. This savior then grouped all the men in the community in a white supremacist cult that would forestall the racial apocalypse Dixon worried would arrive. This study traces Dixon's creations, strategies, and eventual failure at dressing his white supremacy in religious robes.;Far more than being a study of one author, this project ranges beyond Dixon himself to his impact on a surprisingly wide range of twentieth-century cultural texts and artifacts, including film. From the immediate response from writers like Charles Chesnutt, Kelly Miller, Sutton Griggs, and W. E. B. Du Bois to the epic engagements of William Faulkner and Margaret Mitchell, Dixon's legacy has involved several writers in its wake. Ultimately the rise and fall of Thomas Dixon's version of white supremacy offers a view of America's racial and sexual obsessions and the rhetoric bestowed by white Protestantism through which to articulate and structure those obsessions into narratives and social formations designed to consolidate and preserve whiteness. Any view of the Dixonian narrative that treats it as a freakish aberration ignores the centrality and popularity that it enjoyed at its height, and such a view would risk misunderstanding the forces that shaped such a damaging vision, one that inspired the second Ku Klux Klan and codified the symbol of the burning cross. Religion and racism run throughout the cultural and literary history of the United States, but they were never so infamously mingled and menacingly deployed than in the writings of Thomas Dixon.

Mercury concentrations and determinants of mercury accumulation were examined for ten finfish species from the lower Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. None of the sampled fish had total mercury concentrations approaching the U.S. EPA human health screening value. Mercury concentrations in different fish species generally increased with increasing delta 15N, but not delta 13C, suggesting that trophic position, but not dietary carbon source was a dominant determinant. A methylmercury biomagnification model was built to estimate a food web magnification factor of approximately 10-fold increase per trophic level in Chesapeake Bay. Based on otolith strontium-calcium ratios, Atlantic croaker inhabiting less saline waters might accumulate more mercury than those inhabiting more saline waters. Positive intraspecies relationships between methylmercury concentration and delta 13C were identified for summer flounder, weakfish, American eel, Atlantic croaker, and spot. Fish consumption and associated mercury exposure were explored for two ethnic (Chinese and Vietnamese) church communities along coastal Virginia, as well as two general population (non-Asian) churches in this region. Individual seafood consumption rates for the ethnic communities were higher than the general U.S. fish consumption rate of 12.8 g/person/day. People from the general population churches and Chinese church took in most of their mercury from market fish (distributed and sold nationally) whereas people from the Vietnamese church took in mercury from both the market and local fish as they tended to eat a large amount of diverse local species. Hair mercury concentrations in the Chinese and the Vietnamese church were higher than the overall level for U.S. women (0.20 mug/g), but lower than the published WHO exposure threshold of 14 mug/g. Regression between seafood consumption rates and hair mercury concentrations suggested that dietary mercury ingestion through seafood was positively related to mercury exposure. Mercury exposure of the Vietnamese community was higher compared to the Chinese community, which itself was higher than the general church communities. Regardless, the daily methylmercury intake rates for all studied communities were lower than the U.S. EPA Reference Dose of 0.1 mug/kg BW-day. Keywords: Mercury, methylmercury, trophic ecology, biomagnification, fish, Chesapeake Bay, exposure assessment, seafood consumption, Chinese, Vietnamese.

The purpose of this study was to investigate three models of family therapy: Bowen Theory, Haley's Strategic Family Therapy, and the Satir Process Model. The question that was explored concerned what family therapy approaches achieve what types of engagement, dropout, completion, satisfaction with treatment, locus of control, and family functioning outcomes with what kinds of delinquent families. Further, what effect do traditional court services have on a similar sample of delinquent youths and their families.;A non-equivalent, quasi-experimental design with pre and posttest treated (n = 188) and comparison (n = 61) groups was employed. Independent variables included the treatment interventions (Bowen, Haley, Satir, and comparison group). The dependent variables included seven criterion variables of clinical engagement, clinical dropout, completion, satisfaction with treatment, locus of control, and family functioning.;The Bowen and Satir groups engaged significantly more families than the Haley group. The Satir group had fewer premature terminations than the Haley and Bowen treatment groups. There were no significant differences between the Haley and Bowen Dropout samples.;The Satir group completed with the highest number of families, followed by the comparison group, the Bowen completed sample, and the Haley treatment group.;The Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control resulted in a significant effect for Time. Thus, at the end of treatment, parents had lower mean scores, indicating a move toward being more internally directed.;The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales resulted in some significant findings, specifically: Identified Clients' Cohesion subscale (Group effect); Mothers' Social Desirability (Group effect); Fathers' Social Desirability (Group effect); and Identified Clients' Social Desirability (Group and Time effect).;Testing indicated that families were more satisfied with the Satir Process Model than Bowen Theory.;In general, results indicated that all family members were more satisfied with the Satir Process Model therapists, than with the Bowen and Haley clinicians.;Families were dissatisfied with the some aspects of the treatment they received in particular: Bowen Theory: exclusion of the Identified Client from therapy; Strategic Family Therapy: unknown observers on the other side of mirror engendered a perception of vulnerability and lack of confidence in the therapist; Satir Process Model: the brevity of treatment within the confines of the research project. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).

This dissertation explores how American representations of Italians and Italian Americans engaged, reflected and helped shape the United States' developing concepts of immigration, ethnicity, race, and national identity from 1880 to 1910, when masses of Italian and other "new immigrants" rigorously tested the country's attitudes and powers of assimilation. In a larger sense, the research examines how the process of constructing the modern Italian/Italian American was part of the process of America constructing for itself a modern national identity for a new century.;The dissertation looks at a variety of "texts," including journalism, travel literature, autobiography, fiction, and photographs and illustrations of the period, but concentrates on a handful of American writers and their works. Chapter 1 compares the reportage and photography of the immigrant journalist Jacob A. Riis with the reporting of the "new" immigrant journalist Edward A. Steiner. Chapter 2 examines Henry James's The American Scene in the context of his other writings on Italy and Italians, including travel essays, short stories, and The Golden Bowl . Chapter 3 focuses on Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad and I. Also part of the discussion are two works by William Dean Howells, Venetian Life and A Hazard of New Fortunes .;The research showed that these writers alternately supported and subverted America's often conflicting and confused attitudes and ideas about Italy and Italians, a tangle of discourses related to the romance of artistic, heroic, picturesque Italy and the reality of the Italian "Other" arriving in the form of masses of immigrants on American shores.

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