Browsing by Subject "Community"
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Item Item Assessing the Community Impacts of Sex Offender Concentration(Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 2014-05-05) Johnson, Ashley; Girma, LidiyaItem “Assimulation” in the Land of Ten-Thousand Iranian Communities: Public Assimilation Strategies, Private Preservation Identities(2016-09) Zank, TracyEarly research on Iranians in the global diaspora has demonstrated specific contexts in which Iranians express transnational identity. Much of this research presents and configures “the community” as a harmonious whole through narrow frames of reference, such as ethnic institutions, economic enclaves, majority-minority assessment based on discrimination and prejudice, and inter-generational and gender change. This study addresses the Twin Cities’ Iranian community as a dynamic, dispersed body of relationships and interactions characterized by an institutional fission-fusion pattern with consequences for ethnic group consciousness and individual identification with and expression of Iranianness. I employ a national and gender identity approach to underscore how Iran’s vacillating political history has crafted modern Iranian men and women, first, in alignment with the West, and then along Islamic ideals. Community, consequently, expands and contracts according to global, micro-macro occurrences. A waning sense of identity incites a centripetal “fusion phase” of institutional life, uniting Iranians through the public celebration of pre-Islamic heritage, privately with extended family, and attempts to teach Persian, a critical tool to navigate the complexities of communication in a hierarchal culture. Paradoxically, the “fusion phase” presents obstacles in intra-cultural interaction, leading to a “fission effect.” Fissioning eludes national camaraderie and community involvement as individuals assess each other’s location in the social hierarchy. The analysis of these identity patterns has been explained using transnational approaches with an emphasis on associations forged in power-vying activities aimed to displace authority and reconfigure national narratives. This dissertation explores these social dynamics in the context of the centripetal fusion and centrifugal fission pattern to explain how Twin Cities’ Iranians cultivate community, despite geographic dispersal, through a shared, intimate micro-history forged in a portable ideology that displaces monolithic assumptions of tradition, identity, and belonging.Item A Case Study of Radical Education: Gaining Vocational Clarity through the Collective(2021-07) Valesano, MichaelThis interpretive case study explores how adults within an intentional learning community make meaning of vocational calling (Dewey, 1966), collective learning (Kilgore, 1999), and a sense of place (Low & Altman, 1992) and the interactive and interrelated connections between these constructs. The context for this study was set at a retreat center in southern Minnesota that had been constructed with architectural intention to house and facilitate events designed for co-created learning and fostering community. The participants that took part in this study were part of a course that had been offered annually at the University of Minnesota for the past 17 years. This reoccurring intentional learning community looked to question or trouble what it meant to ‘live a good life’. Using situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 19991) as the main theoretical framework, I examine how both the physical and social context in which learning occurs, matters deeply. I document how the landscape and the geographic positioning of the study had profound influence over and mediated processes of learning and development. My analyses focus the stories and life narratives as offered by the community members engaged in this study. Stories, narratives, interviews, observations, and dialogue served as the primary sources of data. The implications of this study demonstrate the necessity to create, with intention, spaces of learning and development that acknowledge and find meaning in the stories that make up our lives. Further, this study acknowledges the connection between processes of learning and development and the place or physical geographic location in which they occur.Item Co-creating community change: responding to violence through youth media practice(2014-05) Sethi, Jenna KristenYoung people have unprecedented access to media. They are not just "watching" media content; they are critiquing popular media and creating a variety of their own media projects to examine their lived experience (Sefton-Green & Soep, 2007; Chavez & Soep, 2005). The purpose of this critical qualitative study was to illuminate the ways youth, as active agents, address violence in their communities through producing media. The second purpose of this study was to better understand the youth work practices that support young people who examine and change their communities. The following questions guided this project: How do youth experience violence in their communities? How do youth create media to address violence? What does the process of creating media to address violence mean to them? What youth work practices support the efforts of young people in the process of creating media to address violence in their respective communities?Constructivist, critical and participatory theories guided this study (Guba & Lincoln, 2000; Friere, 1970; Cammarota & Fine, 2008). Semi-structured in-depth interviews (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009; Patton, 2005; Madison, 2005) with 15 staff and young filmmakers, mural and spoken word artists in three different urban communities were conducted in order to better understand this phenomenon. Findings expand upon our knowledge of young people's experience with violence. Their experience required a multifaceted analysis of violence including: physical, structural, institutional and emotional realities. Young people in this study created media to address these forms of violence through a sustained and complex process that included personal growth, building media skills and community development. Youth workers supported this process through creating an intentional sense of belonging attuned to young people's context, culture and community. They also co-created spaces where spiritual healing and critical hope could flourish by standing with youth to examine and speak back to injustice inspiring positive change.Item Communication of place identity through designed objects:can Public Artwork foster a sense of community?(2009-05) Olson, Randy MickelPublic artwork has been used as architectural embellishment or served as visual narrative to venerate a particular point of view. Over the past fifty years the purpose of public artifact has shifted to relevant site amenity. Utilizing a phenomenological method of inquiry this study seeks to determine to what extent a resident's experience of community is shaped by public sculptures placed in neighborhood parks. These artifacts were commissioned through the City of Minneapolis' Neighborhood Gateway Project. Between 1992 and 2004, eighteen Neighborhood Gateways were established. This study examines twelve residents' experience of these artifacts in three different communities to determine to what extent these resident's experience of community was shaped by the Gateway project. The results of this study provide commissioning agencies and artists with methods to address this shift and create artifacts with imbedded intrinsic value. Five pertinent themes were discovered by this study: Binding Metaphor, Multimodal Sensory Engagement, Sense of Pride, Creation of an Axis Mundi, and Opportunities for Dialogue These themes provide a framework whereby artists, funders and curators can more successfully integrate their artwork into community.Item Community and aggregation in the Upper Mississippi River Valley: the Red Wing Locality.(2009-06) Fleming, Edward PaulThe Red Wing Locality is a cluster of Late Precontact villages located in the Upper Mississippi valley of the Midwestern United States. It has long been interpreted as a monolithic presence within the broad regional context of Late Precontact times. While these studies place Red Wing into a broader context relative to a presumed dominant, Mississippian culture and other cultural entities, they have been at the expense of addressing cultural relationships within the Red Wing region itself. The research presented in this dissertation is a community-based, inside-out approach to understanding how the Red Wing Locality functioned for the populations it served. The core focus is the nature of the relationship of Red Wing Locality villages to one another and to their hinterlands. For decades, scholars have recognized the Red Wing Locality as a locale of intense social interaction, and the processes of social aggregation at central places provide an explanatory model for this phenomenon. A diverse range of materials are examined that highlight similarities and differences among villages in the Red Wing Locality. These data demonstrate that contemporary villages on opposite sides of the river had different hinterland contacts and access to resources. One conclusion of this research is that interactions and mobility patterns into and out of the Locality were structured by the Mississippi River. Finally, the Red Wing Locality is examined in the light of a three-tiered non-hierarchical community conceptual framework that at once separated individual settlements, combines the settlement cluster, and ties individual settlements to a broader region that included supporting hinterland populations that aggregated at Red Wing villages. A major contribution of this research is that it provides a new, holistic perspective of the archaeology of the Red Wing Locality and the Upper Mississippi River valley.Item Competition and community: exploring the inter-organizational relationships underlying dual credit programs.(2012-03) Schefers, Oscar CarmodyDual credit programs, in which a student takes a course that fulfills both high school and postsecondary requirements, are one method employed to increase the number of high school students matriculating into a postsecondary program. This study investigates how postsecondary institutions and high schools work together to develop student access to dual credit programs. Implementing this arrangement requires establishing new relationships between high schools and postsecondary institutions. Using qualitative methods, the research explores how institutions involved in a dual credit partnership manage the arrangements and are affected by them. Interviews were conducted with postsecondary faculty and administration, high school teachers, counselors, and administrators. As a result of the investigation, a framework focusing on the following elements of an inter-organizational relationship is proposed: Curriculum, collaboration, support services, and organizational structure. The study's findings suggest that when the curriculum for a dual credit program is jointly developed between the high school and postsecondary faculty, and is coupled with strong leadership in both institutions, dual credit programs have the ability to serve a wider range of students than traditionally continue on to postsecondary settings.Item Conference on Community-Based Transportation - Designing a System for Minnesota (October 2003)(Center for Transportation Studies University of Minnesota, 2003-10) Center for Transportation StudiesTopics at this conference: Coordination of Community Transportation Resources: A Tool; Opportunities and Barriers for Community-Based Transportation in Minnesota; Brokerage Systems: Examples and Opportunities; Measuring the Outcomes and the Value of Community-Based Transportation; Leveraging Existing Systems; What Policies are Needed to Move Forward?Item Conference on Community-Based Transportation - Improving Access for the Transportation-Disadvantaged (October 2001)(Center for Transportation Studies University of Minnesota, 2001-10) Center for Transportation StudiesTopics at this conference: Minnesota’s Community-Based Transportation Challenge; Turning the Trickle Down Theory on Its Head: Maybe What’s Good for Elderly,Disabled, and Disadvantaged Travelers Might be Good for Other People; Minnesota’s Current Situation: Innovations and Barriers; Solutions for Minnesota: Policy Issues; Reaction and Reflections; Medical Providers’ Role; The Role of Volunteer Drivers in Community-Based Transportation Systems; Sharing Resources for Transportation Service Provision; If You Build It, Will They Come? Development and Community-Based Transportation; Overcoming Language and Cultural Barriers to Using Public and Community-Based Transportation; Logistics and Operations Support Solutions for Providing Transportation; Taxis as Community-Based Transportation Providers; Providing Access to VehiclesItem Convivial spaces for seasonal artists.(2009-12) Jansen, Joshua PeterAbstract summary not available.Item Cooperative Student Family Living: A History and Census of the Como Student Community.(1987) Wagner, PhilipItem Course specific collaborative teams in high school: an analysis of collaborative work, relationships and products.(2011-03) Edwards, Daniel LeeImproved student achievement has arguably always been a goal of schools and school districts. Within the past thirty years as the focus on increased student achievement has intensified, various calls for school reforms have resulted. These reform initiatives have taken on many appearances including government mandates as well as self-imposed changes. One of the most recent examples of reform that schools and school districts have embarked upon to bring about change has been the development of learning communities. Learning communities, often times referred to as Professional Learning Communities (PLC's), have evolved quite significantly over the past ten to fifteen years, often being implemented in a variety of different ways across all levels of education. An approach that has been often implemented at the high school level is the development of course-specific teams of teachers working together collaboratively on a variety of tasks associated with teaching. As approaches to the creation of learning communities have varied across settings, there is much to be learned by studying the application of these different approaches to the creation of a learning community and specifically teacher collaborative work that is focused at the course level. This research examined course-specific teams of teachers brought together for the purpose of working collaboratively to develop curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessments. Through the process of observing five course specific collaborative teams during two of their team meetings, follow up individual interviews with each member of the team, and an analysis of documents created by the team, this research illustrates the work of these teams. Three major findings inform the field of education related to the practice of learning communities and specifically teacher collaboration in a high school setting. First, collaboration that involves teachers with interdependent teaching roles, i.e. common courses, can result in improved professional practice. Second, having the opportunity to work collaboratively with teaching colleagues resulted in decreased feelings of isolation. Third, teacher collaboration resulted in improved relational trust among members of the collaborative teams.Item Crafting objects, selves, links: the embodied production of relational exchange in performances of craft in the United States(2011-06) Glover, Jessie"Crafting Objects, Selves, Links" formulates an ethnographic analysis of craft practice in the contemporary United States. Using performance as an analytic frame, the author examines the ways that crafters use the productive gestures of craft to generate opportunities for relational contact, achievement, learning, buying and selling, and other forms of exchange. The manuscript is divided into four sites: craft in recognizable sites of performance, the performance of leisure craft in craft circles, craft sellng spaces formed by crafter entrepreneurs, and sites on the World Wide Web where crafters take action together.Item Data used for the RUMM2030 Rasch analysis of the scale Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS)(2022-02-28) Deng, Wei; Carpentier, Sydney; Blackwood, Jena; Van de Winckel, Ann; avandewi@umn.edu; Van de Winckel, Ann; Brain Body Mind LabThis datafile is connected to a planned manuscript submission for the journal BMC Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. This xls file contains brief demographic and clinical data as well as the scoring of the 14 items of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) in Community-Dwelling Adults and in Adults with Stroke in the US.Item Item DuluthStreams.org: Community Partnerships for Understanding Urban Stormwater and Water Quality Issues at the Head of the Great Lakes(University of Minnesota Duluth, 2004-12) Axler, Richard P; Lonsdale, Marion; Reed, Jane; Hagley, Cynthia; Schomberg, Jesse; Henneck, Jerald; Host, George E; Will, Norman; Ruzycki, Elaine; Sjerven, Gerald; Richards, Carl; Munson, BruceThis final report summarizes the accomplishments of the Duluth Streams Partnership from its inception through an EPA Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking (EMPACT) Program grant in January 2002 through September 2004. Duluth, Minnesota lies at the westernmost end of Lake Superior, the source and headwaters of the entire Laurentian Great Lakes ecosystem. Although perhaps better known for its extremely cold winters, Duluth residents and visitors know it as a city of forested hills, wetlands and trout streams with 42 named creeks and streams moving through the City in 30 subwatersheds. Duluth's park system is one of the most extensive in the nation, and the City owns and maintains 11,000 acres, including 125 municipal parks. Streams form the fabric of the aesthetic appeal and character of Duluth (Duluth Vision 2000), but are also the core of the City’s stormwater runoff system, with 250 miles of storm sewer, 93 miles of creek, 4,716 manholes, 2 lift stations, 13 sediment boxes, and over 138 miles of roadway ditches. Urbanization and rural development have placed increased pressure on the region’s coastal communities and on Duluth’s urban streams, in particular, on the 12 (with 2 more pending) that are designated as Trout Streams and 14 that are classified as Protected Waters. In addition, since the early 1990s, over 50 new lodging establishments were constructed along Lake Superior’s North Shore. One county located along the North Shore of Lake Superior (Cook) experienced a 24% population increase during that time. Stream communities of fish and amphibians and the invertebrates that sustain them are being adversely impacted by increased temperature, excessive turbidity and suspended solids, road salts, organic matter, and nutrients. Some of these streams have been placed on the Minnesota List of Impaired Waters, and several have been targeted for Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) development. Further, all of these streams discharge either directly into ultra-oligotrophic Lake Superior or indirectly via the St. Louis River Estuary- Duluth Superior Harbor. This is particularly important because Lake Superior has been designated as a zero-discharge demonstration project by the International Joint Commission for eliminating inputs of persistent toxic chemicals to the Great Lakes system. Second, the lake’s nearshore zone, the source of much of its biological productivity, is extremely nutrient deficient and sensitive to increased inputs of nutrients, suspended solids, turbidity, and organic matter. Lastly, the Harbor itself is one of the 43 Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs) because of serious impairments to its beneficial uses. There are also significant social and economic impacts associated with this region - the Minnesota DNR reports that angling in North Shore streams and Lake Superior produces $63 million in direct sales and income and over 1,200 jobs. For North Shore streams alone, the numbers are over $33 million direct sales and income, and over 435 jobs. Stormwater issues have become increasingly important to resource and regulatory agencies and to the general public. In 1998 the City of Duluth established a stormwater utility to address the quality and quantity of surface water moving through the City and in 2003 was issued a Stormwater Permit under Phase II of the federal Clean Water Act’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Beginning in January 2002, under funding through EPA EMPACT in combination with in-kind effort from various agencies, the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) and Minnesota Sea Grant formed a partnership with the City of Duluth, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the Great Lakes Aquarium, and the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD) to create Duluth Streams. Additional partners have since joined together to form a Regional Stormwater Protection Team (RSPT). The Partnership's chief goal is to enhance the general public's understanding of aquatic ecosystems and their connections to watershed land use to provide both economic and environmental sustainability. The project’s majors objectives were to: 1) link real-time remote sensing of water quality in four urban streams and GIS technology to current and historical water quality and biological databases (all 42 Duluth streams) using advanced data visualization tools in World Wide Web and information kiosk formats; 2) incorporate visually engaging interpretive text, animations and videos into the Duluth Streams website to illustrate the nature and consequences of degraded stormwater and the real costs to society; and 3) engage the public in the stormwater issue via programmatic activities such as establishing high school directed neighborhood stewardship and/or monitoring of 3 streams, developing curricula for high school and college students for inclusion in our Water on the Web curriculum, hosting a Duluth Streams Congress as a community forum for presenting all project results, and adapting the Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) program to the greater Duluth Metropolitan Area. This final report summarizes the accomplishments of the Duluth Streams Partnership from its inception in January 2002 through September 2004. The website at htttp://duluthstreams.org is the focus of the project and offers water quality, biological, and GIS data in the context of a variety of school- and community-oriented educational material.Item Educacion and culturally relevant teaching in U.S. public schools: lessons from the Haitian Community Center in Miami, Florida(2013-06) Un, SilvyThe U.S.'s history of racial politics continues to shape the educational experiences of Haitian American students in public schools. Despite their presence as the second most visible immigrant group in Miami, Florida, Haitian American students' experiences continue to be masked by pan-racial categories used for statistical purposes. Investigation into the work of 2 teachers and 8 Haitian American students at an ethnic community-based organization's (CBO's) after-school and day-long summer program, The Haitian Community Center (HCC), through a qualitative case study design suggested that Haitian American youth and families were drawn to this organization based on a shared immigrant, linguistic, and racial experience in Miami's public schools. Data in this study also revealed how HCC's Youth Leadership Development program (YLD) emphasized knowledge and skills reflective of educación, which drew many Haitian American youth and families to this site. How HCC students and teachers processed and filtered messages about what schooling in the U.S. looks like with others at the CBO illuminated ways that culturally relevant pedagogy was viewed in this space. By studying the work that is being done at HCC and by including perspectives outside of traditional public school settings, this study contributes to a gap in literature related to Haitian American students in the U.S. Likewise, this study extends conversations related to culturally relevant teaching practices for educators in U.S. public schools. It also has implications for researchers interested in the educational experiences of students from similar immigrant and racial minority backgrounds.Item Effects of Winter Hypoxia on Fish Communities in Northern Wisconsin(2023-07) Ellman, MarkHypoxia is a significant source of winter mortality for freshwater fish in north-temperate lakes and has the potential to alter fish communities. A multi-year dataset on Buckskin Lake, a shallow, productive drainage lake in northern Wisconsin with a history of winterkill, allowed the investigation of the effects of periodic winter hypoxia on fish communities. An aeration system was installed in 1984, which raised winter oxygen levels to levels sufficient for higher fish survival. In the winter of 2007-2008, the aerator system failed, causing an extensive winterkill. The lake was sampled from 2002-2005, before the aerator failure, and in 2008-2009, after the winterkill event. In addition, 16 similar lakes in the area with no winterkill history were sampled using similar methods. Using the combined datasets, two hypotheses were tested with non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and PERMANOVA analyses. We hypothesized that (1): after 18 years of aeration, the Buckskin Lake fish community from 2002-2005 would be similar to the non-winterkill lakes due to the recolonization of species from connected lakes, and (2): the fish community changed significantly in the lake due to the 2007-2008 winterkill event. The first hypothesis was not supported, as NMDS and PERMANOVA analyses showed that Buckskin Lake retained a fish community distinct from the non-winterkill lakes. Our findings were consistent with the second hypothesis: an incomplete winterkill occurred in 2007-2008 due to lack of aeration, causing changes in fish abundances, including the reduction of game fish species and centrarchids, with no notable extinctions. Together, our findings indicate that winter aeration may improve gamefish survival and allow lakes with winterkill tendency to support sport fish communities with healthy piscivore populations such as walleye and largemouth bass, which would be otherwise greatly reduced.Item Expanding the boundaries of community: toward measuring a solely psychological sense of community.(2011-05) Mannino, Clelia AnnaResearch on psychological sense of community (PSOC) has documented its importance and connection to many varied factors (e.g., health, volunteerism). However, three gaps in the literature remain. First, there is a lack of consensus in how PSOC is conceptualized. Second, researchers have failed to consider that sense of community could be defined in solely psychological terms. Third, there is little insight into what comprises a solely psychological sense of community and how it manifests itself (i.e., its correlates). The three studies presented here address these gaps by (a) better elucidating the structure of a PSOC defined in solely psychological terms and its cross-cultural applicability (Study 1); (b) providing insight into how PSOC manifests itself (i.e., its correlates) and how these manifestations are similar or different across cultures (Study 2); and (c) presenting evidence for the role of PSOC in predicting and influencing prosocial action (Study 3). Results shape a concrete conceptualization of the PSOC construct, including a well-documented understanding of its composition, what it relates to, and its cross-cultural variability. Findings also support the idea that PSOC is not only a theoretically-relevant construct, but that it also has ties to many key aspects of our daily lives, enriching both theory and real-world applications.
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