The Implementation of the Rights of the Child; Transcending the Traditional Practice of Child Marriage in Niger, Yemen, and Thailand

Child marriage is a harmful traditional practice that affects approximately 60 million children around the globe. This thesis examines the different laws that protect children from this practice and analyzes its implementation in countries where traditional practices violate children’s rights. International provisions, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, charges state parties with the responsibility to protect their children. Each state has the capacity to transcend traditional practices and implement local laws that protect their children. This thesis claims that mobilization of advocacy groups is vital in promoting the well-being of children even when the norms established by social groups appear to be unchangeable. It begins with an overview of what child marriage is and how it should be a concern to the international community. The case studies considered for this thesis is Niger, Yemen and Thailand

Improving reading comprehension by considering culture and effective interventions for a struggling reader

The purpose of the action research study was to address the topic: Improving Reading Comprehension by Considering Culture and Effective Interventions for a Struggling Reader. The participant is a fifth grade African American female student named Sarah Brown (pseudonym). The intervention took place over a three week period. Each intervention session was 60 minutes. The first and third week incorporated partner reading with short narrative and expository stories for the first thirty minutes of each day. The remaining thirty minutes of each session during the entire intervention was dedicated to teaching comprehension strategies and introducing literary terms. The second week incorporated of sustained silent reading. The results were that Sarah showed improvement in her recall task and her overall explicit and implicit comprehension of narrative and expository literature

Preventing Urinary Tract Infections in the Acute Care Setting

More than 13,000 deaths and $340 million in health care costs are the result of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) annually in the United States. CAUTIs can also result in acute patient discomfort and potentially preventable exposure to antibiotics. The hospital for which this quality improvement project was developed was above the National Healthcare Safety Network CAUTI bench mark. Framed within the Iowa model of evidence-based practice, a multidisciplinary team of 8 hospital stakeholders guided the project (n=8). The purpose of the project was to develop an indwelling urinary catheter maintenance checklist using evidence-based practice guidelines related to preexisting inappropriate risk factors for catheterization and appropriate indications for catheterization, as well as evidence-based maintenance practices for care of the indwelling catheter. Each piece of evidence to be included in the checklist was evaluated by 4 content experts using a 10 item 5 point Likert scale ranging from \u27strongly disagree\u27 to \u27strongly agree\u27. Descriptive analysis showed an average of 4.8/5 for all items with \u27agree\u27 being voiced in two of the items rather than \u27strongly agree\u27. The checklist was completed and presented to hospital senior leadership who recommended that the checklist be incorporated into the hospital CAUTI prevention plan. All project team members (n=8) completed an 8 item 5 point Likert scale summative evaluation of the purpose, goal, objectives, and my leadership which averaged as 5 or \u27strongly agree\u27 supporting the development of the project. Implications for social change include improved patient outcomes, mindful stewardship of healthcare dollars, and increased patient and family satisfaction

Synthesis, Characterization, And Spectroscopic Studies Of Lanthanide Complexes With Potential For Increased Sensitization And Luminescent Enhancement

This work presents basic research in the area of lanthanide spectroscopy that could have the potential in chemical sensor technology. As part of the overall theme of developing synthetic scheme that may remove water from lanthanide inner sphere coordination we have targeted phosphines oxides. The synthesis of lanthanide TPAO compounds have been carried out by a reaction of Ln3+ trichloride hexahydrate and TPAO in solvent system containing water

Recruiting: An Act of Trust

The realization for incoming freshmen to be able to balance education and participate in athletics at the college level takes complete dedication. Participation in athletics has been linked with reports of growth in the individual\u27s personality and leadership skills and with their overall satisfaction with the college experience (Ryan, 1989). Using former student-athletes as participants, the study aims to look at college athletics through the eyes of the student-athletes. The purpose of this study offers an inside look at former Division I football student-athletes perception of the recruiting process, along with the perception of the financial agreement and the National Letter of Intent. Although there are thousands of high school athletes that get recruited to attend a college or university every year, little is known about the recruiting experience of student-athletes. Eight former football student-athletes at an NCAA Division-I FBS institution was interviewed. Also, four significant themes emerged naturally from the interviews: feeling like a celebrity, feeling overwhelmed, lack of knowledge, trusting of coaches. The results of this study will allow those working with student-athletes to develop a greater understanding of their experience

An Investigation of Factors Motivating Employee Attitudes and Intentions to Share Knowledge in Homeland Security

The terrorist events of September 11, 2001, highlighted the inability of federal employees and officials to collaborate and share actionable knowledge-based information with the right people at the right time. However, much of the literature on knowledge sharing provided insight into knowledge sharing in private sector organizations and foreign public-sector organizations, instead of domestic public sectors or the United States federal government. While the importance of knowledge sharing for homeland security has been documented in the literature, there are no established frameworks that evaluate knowledge sharing motive and intentions in this context. The main goal of this research was to understand what motivates employee attitudes and intentions to share knowledge, by empirically assessing a model, testing the impact of the factors of expected rewards, expected contributions, expected associations, trust, and information technology (IT) type and usage on employee attitudes and intentions toward knowledge sharing in homeland security. The technology acceptance model and the theory of reasoned action served as the theoretical framework to understand motivation factors that affect employee attitudes, intentions, and their influence on knowledge sharing behaviors, as well as the technology used in sharing knowledge. Data were collected from employees and affiliates of the United States Department of Homeland Security (N = 271), using a Web-based survey. The effects of expected rewards, expected contributions, expected associations, trust, and IT type usage were studied using regression analyses. The statistical results revealed that expected contributions and expected associations were positively related to attitudes to share knowledge, but expected rewards were not significantly related to attitudes to share knowledge. Results also revealed that attitudes to share knowledge was positively related to intentions to share knowledge, but trust did not significantly moderate this relationship. Finally, the results revealed that intentions to share knowledge was positively related to knowledge sharing, and IT-type usage positively moderated this relationship. The research model showed significant results to support five of the seven hypotheses proposed and revealed key findings on factors that influence employee attitudes and intentions to share knowledge in homeland security. This research advances prior findings and contributes to knowledge sharing research, practice, and overall literature regarding knowledge sharing, individual behaviors, attitudes, and intentions to share knowledge, technology acceptance, and usage. This contribution to the body of knowledge provides researchers, policymakers, and decision-makers with foundations for improving collaboration through information and knowledge sharing across traditional and nontraditional organizational boundaries

The Women On/Of the Porch: Performative Space in African-American Women\u27s Fiction.

Mediating Structures in African-American literature are essential in the formation of identity in the lives of the characters. Contemporary theory has moved into a deeper layer of hermeneutics beyond self/other dichotomies to look at the space between binary opposites. Therefore, modern theorists look at sites of play, of exchange, and of transformation. The porch is such a space. A mediating structure is a space that allows the various characters to develop and define themselves. Because of African-Americans, lack of freedom, it was important for them to find a space in which they were able to move and express their ideas, emotions, artistic ability, and thoughts. These spaces were both theoretical and literal. Spaces like gardens, and new theories like womanism, and performative actions like music, as well as countless others helped and help African-Americans to define themselves. The porch in African-American women\u27s literature becomes a space for transformation and self-definition. On the porch, Denver in Toni Morrison\u27s Beloved, Celie in Alice Walker\u27s The Color Purple, and Janie in Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Their Eyes Were Watching God define, redefine, and narrate themselves

Acting White Among Black College Students: A Phenomenological Study of Social Constructions of Race

This study was a qualitative examination of Black college students\u27 experiences with the Acting White label. In conducting this study, two gaps in literature were addressed: (1) the lack of literature on Black college students and the acting white label, and (2) lack of attention to a US racial history and current structures which allow a label such as acting white to exist. Thus, the purpose of this study was to call attention to the experiences of Black college students as it relates to the acting white label. Additionally, the study calls attention to social constructions that allow the acting white label to exist and to be sustained. Data was collected from 14 Black college students at a predominantly white, private, liberal arts university in the west. Based on responses from students in the study, Black college students do hear that they are acting white. Yet, their reaction to hearing the label does not cause them to underachieve academically, but does have an impact on their social actions. The ways in which Black college students in the study were labeled as acting white was based on academic pursuits, speech patterns, dress, and hobbies. Student reactions to the label ranged from ignoring the label to challenging the accuser. In regards to how the acting white label is sustained, students in the study expressed that they learned what it meant to act white or black from family interactions, social interactions and observations from family and friends, and from media sources. It was concluded that Black college students, despite reactions, do hear the label and that the label seems to be used as a means to attack Black students and their identity

Race, Resilience, and Resistance: A Culturally Relevant Examination of How Black Women School Leaders Advance Racial Equity and Social Justice in U.S. Schools

This culturally relevant qualitative examination of the leadership of Black women educational leaders (BWEL) committed to advancing a social justice leadership agenda within the contested spaces (Stovall, 2004) comprising United States (U.S.) P-12 schools, employs an African centered emancipatory methodology (Kershaw, 1990, 1992; Tillman, 2002), situated in a conceptual framework grounded in the research on applied critical leadership (Santamaria, 2013). It examines, highlights, celebrates, and makes transparent, the unique leadership of BWEL. Engaged to rebuke the silencing and marginalization of women educational leaders of color in the educational leadership discourse, this study bridges engages a multiple case study approach, phenomenological analysis, and participatory orientation to better understand how eight complexly diverse BWEL leverage positive aspects of their multicultural perspectives and subjectivities to respond to equity challenges linked to educational inequality for HMMS, while simultaneously navigating 21st century school reform policies and practices situated in white privilege, power, and anti-black oppression. This study also opens up brave liberatory space for participating BWEL to engage in a recursive cycle of critical reflection, dialogue, problem-posing, and action on the site-based equity challenges they face within their respective leadership spaces in real-time, filling an important gap in the educational leadership research. Specifically, it responds to calls for more constructive models of social justice leadership praxis centered in the voices and experiences of those engaging the work in communities confronting the equity challenges of our time, thereby comprising research and theory in action, and provoking a necessary dialogue on what it means to lead for social justice. Having implications for how the field might reimagine and reconstruct educational leadership, theory and development, this research bridged critical race and critical multicultural education theories to the discourses in educational leadership, birthing emergent themes for an alternate and culturally-centered approach to leadership I call critically relevant transformative multicultural leadership or CR-TML. This study has import for practicing educational leaders, those who develop educational leaders, legislators and policy makers impacting the work of educational leaders, and anyone with an interest in educational leadership for social justice