A qualitative investigation of the college choice experiences and reentry expectations of U.S. American third culture kids

Thurston-Gonzalez, Sara J Loyola University Chicago 2009 해외공개박사

The focus of this qualitative study is on U.S. third culture kids (TCKs), youth who have grown up abroad because of their parent's work, and their college choice experiences and reentry expectations. Through a background questionnaire and personal interviews with eleven students transitioning from two international secondary schools in a Spanish-speaking Latin American country to a U.S. college, I invite students to tell their stories in order to begin to understand this process. Further, I interview the schools' college counselors, in order to gain more insight. Previous research on U.S. third culture kids and college choice is quite limited and retrospective. This dissertation offers a new perspective to the topic by exploring this process while the research participants are experiencing the college choice process first hand. Further, this study is the first to explore U.S. third culture kids' expectations of college in their home country. Findings regarding college choice reveal numerous patterns. Parents were the biggest source of influence on students when considering individual college choice. Other family members and friends also influenced the process. Findings also indicated numerous organizational characteristics that influenced choice including the pre-college international location, pre-college school guidance, access to college recruitment activities, availability of academic major, and familiar location. Findings on expectations and predicted challenges revealed a range of responses. Expectations were for the most part vague, though realistic. Predicting challenges was an easy task for the students. Most recognized adjustment issues to be one of the challenges they would have to face. Conclusions from this study include: (1) International location influences numerous aspects of the college search process; (2) Strong student ties to the "familiar" play an important role in their college choice process; (3) Adjusting to U.S. culture is an expected challenge; and (4) College orientations are extremely important to third culture kids. Recommendations for practice are offered to international secondary schools, U.S. colleges, and other invested parties which include third culture kids, sponsoring organizations of families, and EducationUSA offices. Additionally, numerous recommendations are offered for future research to even further expand the scope of literature on third culture kids.

The Place-Experience of Inhabited Solitude: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Implications

Thurston Goodroe, Laura Michelle ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Georgetown Univers 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

Investigating α-Oligothiophenes of Chain Lengths 3 to 5 Using Anion Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Thurston, Glen K The University of Wisconsin - Madison 2019 해외박사(DDOD)

An exploration of family interactions and male juvenile sexual offending: A qualitative study

Thurston, Stephanie C Texas Woman's University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore family interactions and juvenile sexual offending. The participants were 20 male juvenile sex offender males who were between the ages of 13 and 17. A semi-structured, audiotaped interview was conducted on a voluntary basis with juveniles who were placed on sex offender probation and were currently attending court-ordered sex offender therapy. The participants were recruited via flyer notification and interviewed at a North Central Texas outpatient therapy clinic. Parental consent for participation of the juveniles was obtained prior to conducting the interviews. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed and coded for emerging themes. Trustworthiness and credibility of the study's findings were established by utilizing an internal examiner, a team of external examiners, peer reviewing, member checking, a pilot study, and thick descriptions of the experience. The following research questions were addressed in this study: (1) How do juvenile sex offenders experience family interactions? (2) What emotional needs do juvenile sex offenders experience regarding their family experience? (3) How is sexuality experienced in a juvenile sex offender's family interactions? (4) What themes emerge regarding juvenile sex offenders and experienced family interactions? An analysis of the data revealed the following seven themes: (1) Strained Parent-Child Relationship, (2) Limited Family Verbal Communication, (3) Unhealthy Parental Sexual Education, (4) Poor Parental Financial Management, (5) Little Family Substance Abuse or Mental Illness, (6) Family Participation in Criminal Behavior, (7) Juvenile Sex Offenders' View of Parental Contributions to the Offense, Two additional themes also emerged: (8) Focus on Parents Rather Than Siblings, and (9) Positive Impact of Therapy and Probation. The findings revealed that parental influence is significant in juvenile sex offender development. Parents, particularly fathers, tended to be disconnected and abusive. Families failed to verbally communicate well or foster healthy relationships. Parents also failed to adequately supervise their children and modeled unhealthy functioning to them. Such family interactions were reported to result in poor self-image, unmanaged emotional needs, and deviant behaviors contributing to sexual offending behaviors. The results of this study may help the juvenile criminal system address and manage juvenile sexual offenders, aid therapists in providing appropriate treatment for juvenile sexual offender families, and help family scientists in developing theoretical understanding of juvenile sexual offending. The findings have limited generalizability due to several delimitations of this study. Implications and recommendations were also made for future treatment and studies.

Laughter on the Grassland: a Diachronic Study of a Mdo Tibetan Comedy and the Public Intellectual in Western China

Thurston, Timothy O'Connor ProQuest Dissertations & Theses The Ohio State Uni 2015 해외박사(DDOD)

The post-Mao reform era brought massive social and cultural changes to the Northeastern Tibetan region of A mdo, located in Western China. New technologies, policies, sociocultural ideas, and discursive practices appeared in waves on the Tibetan Plateau during this period. In response, minority intellectuals modeled a uniquely Tibetan engagement with modernity through the unexpected vehicle of comedy.Performed on state-sanctioned stages and broadcasts, A mdo Tibetan comedies—and their messages about modernity—do not remain constant, but adapt to emergent conditions through the first three decades of China's reform era (1980-2010). This dissertation traces the development of Tibetan-language comedy from dialogues to sketches in a shifting constellation of popular discourse, lived experience of social changes, state frameworks, and minority intellectual concerns. Chapter One takes Tibetan comedies as a point of entry into the ethnolinguistic region of Northeastern Tibet, known as A mdo. The laughter these comedies inspire questions both Western perceptions of Tibet as a hermit kingdom solemnly working towards spiritual enlightenment, and Chinese state narratives of old Tibet as a hell on earth. The next three chapters proceed decade by decade through this comedic genre as the region experiences state-led modernization. Chapter Two, “The Early Years,” analyzes the rise of Tibetan comedic dialogues to cultural prominence in the 1980s, discussing the emergence of an intellectual field in China and A mdo in this decade, and also providing close readings of two early comedic performances. Chapter Three, “Ushering Society into Modernity,” examines the genre’s growth into a popular art form in the 1990s. A close reading of favorite sketches reveals top comedian Sman bla skyabs and his peers as proponents of a modernizing project that draws upon the state-supported Chinese version but posits language practice as a shibboleth for Tibetans. Chapter Four, “Leading Society into a New Political Consciousness,” details the role of 21st century sketches in fostering a distinctly Tibetan modernity based in culturalist discourses of linguistic purism, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation. Chapter Five examines the cumulative impact of these three periods, with performances from each period persisting, coexisting, and influencing cultural stances in the present. The comedies examined in this dissertation cover a variety of topics ranging from marriage to international encounters, and provide immense entertainment through witty banter and satire. Over the course of three decades, however, we find that language is at the center of comedian and intellectual concerns, shifting perceptibly from an initial concern with language maintenance in the 1980s to purism in twenty-first century.

Wheeling: A diagrammatic analogue of the Duflo isomorphism

Thurston, Dylan Paul University of California, Berkeley 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

We construct and prove a diagrammatic version of the Duflo isomorphism between the invariant subalgebra of the symmetric algebra of a Lie algebra and the center of the universal enveloping algebra. This version implies the original for metrized Lie algebras (Lie algebras with an invariant non-degenerate bilinear form). As an application of this isomorphism, we will compute the Kontsevich integral of the unknot and the Hopf link to all orders. At the core of the proof, we use an elementary property of the Hopf link which can be summarized by the equation “1 + 1 = 2” in abacus arithmetic: doubling one component of the Hopf link is equivalent to taking the connected sum of two Hopf links. This property of the Hopf link turns out, when suitably interpreted, to be exactly the property required for the Duflo map to be multiplicative. To compute the Kontsevich integral of the unknot, we use a property of the unknot that can be summarized by “<italic>n</italic> · 0 = 0”: the <italic>n</italic>-fold connected cabling of the unknot is again an unknot.

Conflicting decisions: Measuring group conflict management styles in a crisis decision-making environment

Thurston, Cathryn Quantic George Mason University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

The main hypothesis stated that a group's approach to conflict (resolve, avoid, or aggressive), combined with the decision rule (consensus or majority rule), would strongly impact the group final decision. The study proposed 4 types of decisions that these groups might make: dominant, subset, integrative, or deadlock. Small decision-making groups were studied in the context of crisis intervention using an experimental simulation. Participants included 296 students in 100-level basic communication courses at George Mason University. Three homogenous groups were built around each conflict approach (avoid, resolve, aggressive) and one diverse group included members from each conflict approach. Each group was divided between majority rule and consensus for a total of 8 groups of three people each. Groups were asked to decide whether or not to intervene in a fictional ethnic conflict in a neighboring country. The subjects answered a short questionnaire and tape-recorded their discussions. The main hypothesis was partially confirmed. A group's approach to conflict had a strong impact on the group final decision (F(3,3) = 25.31, p < .001). But the decision rule had no effect on the group final decision (F(1,3) = .03, p = .857). The type of group (resolver, aggressive, avoider, or diverse) did not determine the type of decision (dominant, integrative, deadlock, or subset). Most groups made dominant or low integrative types of decisions. However, 90% of the conflict resolver groups favored integrative types of decisions, as hypothesized. There was no difference between consensus and majority rule in the type of decision. However, consensus and majority rule did affect group process. For example, in a test of the group polarization effect at the .05 and .10 level of significance, aggressive and resolver groups in the consensus condition (t = 3.13, 70 df, p = .003; t = 1.83, 70 df, p = .07) and diverse groups in the majority rule condition (t = 1.99, 76 df, p = .05) became significantly more assured that their conflict roles were justified. This finding suggests that consensus causes extreme homogenous groups to become more extreme, but tempers opinions in groups with diverse views.

Occurrence of human pathogenic microsporidia in irrigation water and ultraviolet light and chlorine inactivation of enteric adenovirus type 40 and feline calicivirus

Thurston, Jeanette Ann The University of Arizona 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

The occurrence and disinfectant effectiveness for pathogens which are known or thought to be important in waterborne disease was evaluated. In the first study, the occurrence of human pathogenic microsporidia, <italic>Giardia </italic> cysts and <italic>Cryptosporidium</italic> oocysts in surface waters used for the irrigation of vegetable crops was determined. Twenty-eight percent of the irrigation water samples tested positive for microsporidia, 60% positive for <italic>Giardia</italic> cysts and 36% positive for <italic>Cryptosporidium </italic> oocysts. Concentrations of <italic>Giardia</italic> cysts and <italic> Cryptosporidium</italic> oocysts detected in water samples collected in Central America compared to the United States were 559 cysts and 227 oocysts, and 25 cysts and <19 oocysts per 100 L, respectively. The presence of human pathogenic parasites in irrigation waters used for production of crops traditionally consumed raw suggests that there may be a risk of infection to consumers who come in contact with or consume these products. In the other investigations, the effectiveness of UV light and free chlorine on the inactivation of feline calicivirus (FCV) and enteric adenovirus type 40 (AD40) was assessed and compared to model viruses, poliovirus type 1 (PV-1) and coliphage MS-2. FCV was used as a model for members of the “Norwalk like virus” (NLV) group. The UV doses required to achieve 99% inactivation of AD40, coliphage MS-2 and FCV in buffered demand free (BDF) water were 108.6, 58.5 and 16.8 mWs/cm<super>2</super>, respectively. For chlorine reactions, higher Ct values for high pH and low temperature conditions was observed for FCV and AD40. Both viruses were more resistant to chlorine than the well-studied PV-1. FCV and AD40 were inactivated rapidly by ∼0.5 mg/L free chlorine by ≥4.00- and ≥2.54-logs at pH 6 and 5°C whereas, PV-1 was not inactivated by 4.04-logs until 10 min contact time. Experiments conducted with aggregated FCV and PV-1 and experiments conducted in treated groundwater had slower inactivation kinetics than dispersed viral suspensions in BDF water. The high disinfectant decay rate of some experiments was most likely due to the decrease in chlorine concentration throughout the experiment. However, low disinfectant decay rates of the AD40 experiments suggest that aggregation or clumping of the viruses may have occurred. The results of these studies provide information on the effectiveness of two common water treatment disinfectants in waters with different physical and chemical qualities. The results of this study may provide a basis for the establishment of guidelines for proficient application in drinking water treatment.

Malaria pathogenesis: Deformability limits of malaria infected erythrocytes

Herricks, Thurston E University of Washington 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

The pathology of severe malaria is poorly understood. Parasite-induced changes in erythrocytes have been suggested to play a role in capillary blockage. While methods for measuring membrane elasticity have been well developed, an investigation into the limits of deformation due to geometric constraints of individual cells has not been performed. Recent developments in microfluidics have allowed for direct measurement of surface area and volume of both infected and uninfected erythrocytes using a method which is independent of membrane elasticity. The volume and surface area are used to calculate a theoretical minimum diameter through which a cell can pass without having to increase its surface area. These microfluidic measurements can accurately predict the size of constrictions which are clogged under physiologically relevant pressures. Observations were then made over the 48 hour asexual lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum. Such measurements may provide additional insight to the pathology and treatment of severe and complicated malaria.

Brain drain and brain gain: Educational segregation in the United States

Domina, Thurston City University of New York 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

The post-industrialization of the American economy, combined with the expansion of American higher education, has created a new form of residential segregation. This dissertation demonstrates that the United States became increasingly segregated by educational attainment during the second half of the Twentieth Century, even as racial and economic segregation declined. In this period, college graduates became increasingly clustered in a handful of communities; and within these human capital hubs, the highly educated became less likely to live in the same neighborhoods as the less highly educated. Today, more than half of America's college graduates live in just 10% of its counties. At the other end of the educational spectrum, college graduates are underrepresented relative to the national average in more than 85% of American counties. My analyses demonstrate that selective patterns of internal migration are driving the educational polarization of the American landscape. A combination of economic incentives and natural and cultural amenities lure large numbers of college graduates into communities where the concentration of college graduates is already pronounced. The consequences of educational segregation are wide-ranging. The spatial concentration of college graduates stimulates innovation and local economic growth, creating new economic inequalities between places. In many of the nation's nonmetropolitan areas, the outmigration of highly educated youths is leading to an overall population decline. Human capital concentration has spill-over effects for children's education, bringing educational opportunities to children who grow up in human capital hubs (regardless of their own parents' educations), and limiting opportunities to children raised in brain drain areas. Finally, I demonstrate that educational segregation is a major factor behind the geographic polarization of American political culture. As educational segregation levels have risen, the county-level concentration of college graduates has become an increasingly salient predictor of voting patterns. The result is the distinct red and blue map of the 2004 presidential election: George W. Bush and John F. Kerry split the college graduate vote evenly in 2004, but Kerry won healthy majorities in human capital hubs and Bush's electoral base centered in brain drain counties.