Behavioral self-regulation has emerged as an important predictor of academic success as early as preschool. Few studies, however, have examined ways to improve children's behavioral self-regulation in preschool, prior to formal school entry. This dissertation includes two studies examining a pilot intervention using classroom games to improve behavioral self-regulation with...
This dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive portrayal of doula care in the lives of pregnant and parenting adolescent mothers. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationships between psychosocial stress, social support, institutionalized constraints, and their impacts on health and well-being among adolescent mothers in the Northwestern...
Human development researchers consider adolescence a rich time for interest development and identity exploration. A relatively new movement in the Free-Choice Learning (FCL) arena, the Maker movement, offers learners interest-driven, experiential, often collaborative, and process-oriented activities ranging from game design (computer-based and otherwise) and robotics, to sewing LEDs into clothing...
This dissertation draws on ethnographic data and political ecological theory to analyze the experience of residents living in the IBM-Endicott Superfund site in Endicott, New York. Combining in-depth narratives and quantitative measures from a household survey, it highlights residents' perceptions of 1) environmental health risk, 2) risk mitigation, 3) deindustrialization...
The War Production Board issued limitation order 85 in April 1942 in order to conserve fabric and manpower needed for the war effort. The L-85 order froze the silhouette so no major style changes in women's wear would occur during the war. It is clear that on the one hand...
Positive youth development posits that all youth possess the capacity to change and grow as they interact with their contexts. That capacity is activated and nurtured by a beneficial ecological environment often unavailable for homeless youth. Only a limited number of studies focus on the positive development and strengths of...
This manuscript-style dissertation explores Diné (Navajo) education and teaching in the context of a research project that negotiated the demands of both Navajo Nation IRB and Oregon State University IRB. In the first manuscript, the researcher examines his journey of using cultural resilience strategies to succeed in the education system...
Adolescence is a developmental stage marked by crystallization in individuals’ sense of identity (Erikson, 1994; Harter, 1999). Research on positive youth development stresses the ways in which thriving trajectories during adolescence contribute to positive lifelong outcomes (Lerner & Overton, 2008; Scales, Benson, & Roehlkepartain, 2011) A symbolic interactionism perspective (Mead,...
Assessing the risk from exposure to a chemical mixture in the environment can seem prohibitively challenging. Most components of the mixture are not readily identifiable, chemicals may interact to cause other-than-additive toxicity, and the number of potential combinations of environmental contaminants is enormous. These challenges can make it seem impossible...
Post-secondary education institutions across the United States are increasingly allocating resources to promote international education exchange programs as a pedagogical praxis to develop students into global citizens. Underlying such notions of global citizenship is the assumption that students will also develop a stronger post-national or cosmopolitan identity as a result...