Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item The Invisible Neighborhood: Designing for Intersectionality(2023) Clark, Kiara; Matthews, Georgeanne; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explores a resilient neighborhood and school for Black and Brown disabled communities displaced by climate change in New York City, New York. Marginalized communities around the world are constantly displaced due to climate disasters. But the people most affected are those at the intersection of those groups. These communities typically live in lower-status neighborhoods incapable of withstanding a climate disaster, which is becoming more frequent as climate change becomes a more persistent issue. Black and brown disabled communities are at the heart of the groups, often overlooked during a climate crisis and often displaced from their support groups and at a higher risk for mortality during an event. Exploring the design of a resilient neighborhood that prioritizes these communities would set the framework for future development and prevention of disproportionate impact on them.Item "It's Not Like I Can Just Pause Diabetes:" How People Living with Type 1 Diabetes Navigate Relationships, Reproduction, and Parenting(2023) Maietta, Justin T.; Doan, Long; Cohen, Philip N.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation draws on 26 qualitative in-depth interviews to explore how people who live with type 1 diabetes (T1D) navigate three important and intimate areas of life: dating and relationships, reproduction, and parenthood. Applying a sociological disability framework to this research, I explore how participants’ trajectories and outlooks, decisions, and feelings of agency and self-efficacy in these areas of life are influenced biographically, structurally, and culturally on account of living with T1D. Each of the three substantive chapters of this dissertation is an article that examines the relationship between living with T1D and either dating and romantic relationships, reproduction, or parenthood. First, I argue that dating and relationship norms and expectations can be rooted in ableist ideals that marginalize potential partners living with impairment or disability. I also demonstrate the importance of two kinds of support that dating partners offer to participants living with T1D: tangible support and incorporative support. Both kinds of support work against assumptions made about dating and relationships among people living with impairment or disability. I then examine facets of living with T1D occurring at multiple analytical layers (structural and cultural, interactional, self, and body) across the life course and how they influence whether people with T1D feel having children is something they want or need or is within their reach. This article enriches our understanding of disability by demonstrating that individuals with less noticeable or visible disability are subject to similar social imperatives of risk management and moral reproduction as those with more noticeable physical or sensory disabilities. Finally, I discuss how participants think about and practice balancing caring for their T1D and caring for their children, as well as how they reconceptualize “good parenting” within an intensive parenting culture that expects child-centered and self-sacrificing parenting. I also discuss how adults who grew up as children and adolescents with T1D reflect on how they have been and continue to be parented regarding their T1D, leading them to challenge norms of “expert-guided” parenting within an intensive parenting culture. This challenge is made through advocating for more agency, autonomy, and expertise grounded in embodied experience to be afforded to children and young adults with T1D in ways that supersede the expertise of doctors and researchers. Overall, this dissertation illustrates: (1) how experiences, interpretations, and representations of disability at multiple analytical levels have the power to remove some feelings of agency and self-efficacy from disabled people throughout the process of reproduction, in their dating lives and romantic relationships, and in their roles as parents; and (2) the ways that individuals with disability adapt to, challenge, and disrupt the norms, ideologies, and assumptions that marginalize them in these intimate areas of life.Item Dissecting the Dark Figure of Dis/ablist Violence: Intersectional Variations in Reporting Across Dis/ability Types(2023) Castillo, Isabella Elena; Hitchens, Brooklynn; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Individuals with dis/abilities are at a heightened risk for lifelong violent victimization. Although victimized by the same types of crimes as non-dis/abled individuals, a deeper examination reveals dis/abled individuals experience unique circumstances that increase opportunities for victimization and barriers to reporting. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey from 2017-2020, the present study seeks to understand how intersecting identities (dis/ability, race, ethnicity, and gender) affect the likelihood of reporting violent victimization to the police across types of dis/ability (hearing, vision, cognitive, and physical). Findings indicate statistically significant associations between Black individuals with cognitive dis/abilities and other or mixed racial/ethnic females with cognitive dis/abilities with reporting outcomes. Results inform policy and practice regarding the critical need for solutions that consider the impact intersecting identities have on reporting violent victimization across dis/ability types.Item Understanding the Risk of Drug Overdose and Alcohol-Induced Deaths Among Adults with Different Types of Disabilities(2023) Aram, Jonathan; Dallal, Cher M; Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Background: Disability is associated with drug and alcohol morbidity and mortality, which have reached high levels in recent years. Previous disability studies often combine all disabilities into a single category or focus on a single type of limitation. This dissertation characterizes different types of disabilities among U.S. adults and assesses associations with drug and alcohol morbidity and mortality. Methods: Using the 2018-2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH, Aim 1), a nationally representative cross-sectional survey (n=83,485), different individual disabilities and co-occurring disabilities were identified. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations between disability type and prevalence of drug and alcohol use disorders. Disabilities were also characterized within the Mortality Disparities in American Communities Study (Aims 2 and 3), a nationally-representative prospective cohort with baseline data collected in 2008 and mortality follow-up through 2019 (n=3,324,000). Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and CIs for associations between disability type and drug overdose death (OD, Aim 2) and alcohol-induced death (AID, Aim 3). Results: Within the NSDUH analysis, adults with cognitive disability had increased odds of drug (aOR=3.3; 95% CI=2.9–3.8), and alcohol use disorder (aOR=2.3; 95% CI=2.0–2.6), compared to adults without disability. Positive associations of lesser magnitude were observed between hearing/seeing and ambulatory disabilities and drug use disorder. In MDAC analyses, OD risk was elevated among adults with cognitive (aHR=2.6; 95% CI=2.4–2.9), ambulatory (aHR=2.8; 95% CI=2.6–3.1), ambulatory and hearing/seeing (aHR=2.5; 95% CI=2.0–3.1), and hearing/seeing disability (aHR=1.6; 95% CI=1.4–1.9), compared to adults without disability. The risk of AID was elevated for adults with co-occurring ambulatory and hearing/seeing disability (aHR=1.8; 95% CI=1.5–2.2), ambulatory disability only (aHR=1.5; 95% CI=1.3–1.7), and hearing/seeing disability only (aHR=1.2; 95% CI=1.0–1.4). Conclusions: The examination of specific disability categories reveals unique associations that are not apparent when all disabilities are combined. These findings can be used to improve access to recovery support services. Expansion of educational and occupational opportunities for adults with disabilities should be considered as strategies to reduce drug and alcohol morbidity and mortality.Item Inclusion, Exclusion, Agency, and Advocacy: Experiences of Women with Disabilities in China(2021) Hu, Luanjiao; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research has repeatedly shown that women with disabilities are more disadvantaged than both disabled men and non-disabled women due to the impacts of sexism and disability discrimination in different societies. In this dissertation study, I aim to add to the global body of literature and empirical research in the field of disability and gender. Currently, there is relatively little research focusing on the lives of women with disabilities in China. By examining the life courses and experiences of six Chinese women with disabilities, I explore how societies impact people’s experiences and how the disabled women negotiate their identities and deal with the multiple oppressions situated in their respective social positions. Research questions that guide this dissertation include: What is the general situation for women with disabilities in China? What are the experiences for women with disabilities in different aspects of their life, e.g., education, relationships, employment, family life, and social activism? To answer these questions, a qualitative multi-case study approach was adopted. Data collection consisted of multiple individual interviews, in order to study challenges that women with disabilities face, as well as their aspirations in their life courses. An overlapping conceptual framework combining a feminist perspective, critical disability lens, symbolic interactionism, and life course perspective was used to conduct a close examination of the issues concerning disabled women. The study traces important developments within the historical context for women with disabilities in China. The findings of the study reveal deeply embedded biases and discriminations in the social, political, economic, and educational systems of China; these biases and resultant discrimination manifest in disabled women’s everyday life experiences. The study also documents key life events and factors that empower women with disabilities to exert agencies in their educational and career courses. Findings of this study will be useful for government, disabled persons’ organizations, related civil society organizations engaged in disability and gender work, and disabled women in general.Item Drawn from the Well of the People: The Living Stage Theatre Company and their Groundbreaking Community-Based Practice(2020) Crowley, Patrick Abram; Harding, James M; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Drawn from the Well of the People is the first full-length history of the Living Stage Theatre Company. Founded in 1966 by Robert Alexander, Living Stage was the education and outreach arm of Arena Stage in Washington D.C. until their closing in 2002. A multi-racial, improvisational, and community-based company, Living Stage broke ground with many socially engaged theatre practices, and through their process-based approach they created theatrical engagements with, not just for their constituents. Famous for engaging the “forgotten” people of D.C. and beyond, Living Stage worked with young people besieged by poverty and segregation, seniors, the deaf and hard of hearing, disabled students, and inmates at correctional facilities like Lorton Prison and D.C. Jail. This project relies on the Living Stage Records at George Mason University Library’s Special Collections Research Center and is the first major work to do so. Additionally, long-tenured company member Jennifer Nelson donated her personal archive, which was gifted to her by Robert Alexander, to aid in the completion of this project. Oral histories from five company members were collected to supplement and enliven the written records. The dissertation also addresses the work of Haedicke and Biggs, the only extant scholarship on the group. Living Stage’s contributions force us to reconsider the intellectual history of socially engaged theatre in the United States, as they devised similar strategies to those found in Theatre of the Oppressed but did so before Augusto Boal created and published on his system. Similarly, how they obliterated the fourth wall and troubled the hierarchy between artists and audiences by engaging participants as co-creators expands the canon of radical and experimental theatre in the U.S. While their participatory approaches and commitment to marginalized communities radically democratized theatre practice, their institutional practices replicated systems of domination in important ways. For scholars and practitioners alike, Drawn from the Well of the People, offers potent models and philosophies of socially engaged theatre, case studies to illustrate the work in action, and some cautionary tales about failing to apply the ethos of the work to the internal workings of the company.Item Disability, Embodiment, and Resistance: The Rhetorical Strategies of Disability Activitm(2018) Osorio, Ruth Danielle; Enoch, Jessica; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Disability, Embodiment, and Resistance: The Rhetorical Strategies of Disability Activism” argues that disability activists channel their experiences of disability at each stage of organizing and delivering activist rhetoric. This dissertation deepens rhetorical studies’ understanding of activism and citizenship by identifying collective caregiving and embodied difference as sources of activist invention and delivery. For my first chapter, “Disabling Citizenship: The Embodied Rhetorics of the 504 Sit-Ins,” I investigate the 1977 504 sit-ins, when one hundred disability activists occupied a federal building in San Francisco for twenty-four days to demand federal protection from discrimination. Examining personal and news photographs, oral histories, and news articles, I argue that disability activists displayed the civic power of disabled bodies by displaying the disabled body as resistant, connected, and resilient. In Chapter 2, “Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera’s Rhetorical Survival: An Ecological Perspective of Disability Activism,” I examine the disability activism of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two disabled transgender women of color and prominent activists in 1960’s and 70’s gay rights organizing. I assert that behind-the-scenes survival work and caregiving functioned as critical forces behind their enactment of disability activism within gay liberation. My third chapter, “I Am #ActuallyAutistic, Hear Me Tweet: The Topoi of Autistic Activists on Twitter,” explores the rhetorical implications of contemporary online activism in the autistic community. In my study of almost 2,000 #ActuallyAutistic tweets collected during Autism Awareness month in 2016, I argue that the #ActuallyAutistic activists on Twitter leverage the affordances and constraints of Twitter to challenge dominant, and often dehumanizing, perceptions of autism in popular discourse. For my fourth chapter, “Creating an Accessible Legacy: Professional Writing as Disability Activism within the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC),” conducted interviews with authors of the 2011-2016 CCCC Accessibility Guides, which notes the accessibility challenges and features of the selected conference city and venue. In my examination of these interviews, I argue that the guides’ authors craft and circulate a policy document that ultimately moves CCCC toward greater disability awareness.Item Barriers and Facilitators to Homeownership for African American Women with Physical Disabilities(2016) Miles, Angel Love; Thornton Dill, Bonnie; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the social, economic, and health characteristics and experiences of members of a social group that has been otherwise under-examined: African American women with physical disabilities. It raises questions about homeownership to facilitate a better understanding of the relational aspects of gender, race, class, and ability related inequalities, and the extent to which African American women with physical disabilities are, or are not, socially integrated into mainstream American society. It uses grounded theory and develops a Feminist Intersectional Disability analytical framework for this study of homeownership and African American women with physical disabilities. The study found that African American women with physical disabilities experience barriers to homeownership that are multiple, compounding and complex. It suggests a research and social policy agenda that considers the implications of their multiple minority status and its impact on their needs.Item ABLE-BODIED WOMANHOOD: DISABILITY AND CORPOREALLY EXCLUSIONARY NARRATIVES IN BLACK AND WHITE WOMEN’S RIGHTS DISCOURSES, 1832-1932(2016) Temple, Heidi Anne; Struna, Dr. Nancy L; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project is a feminist disability rhetorical analysis of US black and white women’s rights movements from 1832-1932. Guided by Disability and Feminist Theory, it works to identify the presence and use of patterns of disability tropes in women’s rights discourses. From Lucretia Coffin Mott to Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Mary Church Terrell, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Addie Hunton, this project interrogates the rhetorical work of dominant narratives and lesser known voices in women’s rights discourses. I argue that early black and white women’s rights advocates often utilized and repeated a disability rhetoric that relied on disability metaphor, narrative prosthesis, and corporeally exclusionary narratives in order to construct definitions of womanhood. Their insistence on cognitive ability as a marker of “fitness” and “ability” provided the foundation for rights arguments based on ableist assumptions of autonomy and citizenship. I also argue that this use of disability rhetoric relied on and furthered a pervasive ableist ideology present not only in many of these movements, but in US society. In the process, US black and white women’s rights discourses have continually elided women with disabilities from women’s rights discourses because their bodies (physically, cognitively, and/or psychologically) did not meet the ableist prerequisites set for claiming women’s rights during this time period.Item Essays on the Effects of Social Insurance for Disability(2016) Rennane, Stephanie Louisa; Kearney, Melissa S; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines how social insurance, family support and work capacity enhance individuals' economic well-being following significant health and income shocks. I first examine the extent to which the liquidity-enhancing effects of Worker's Compensation (WC) benefits outweigh the moral hazard costs. Analyzing administrative data from Oregon, I estimate a hazard model exploiting variation in the timing and size of a retroactive lump-sum WC payment to decompose the elasticity of claim duration with respect to benefits into the elasticity with respect to an increase in cash on hand, and a decrease in the opportunity cost of missing work. I find that the liquidity effect accounts for 60 to 65 percent of the increase in claim duration among lower-wage workers, but less than half of the increase for higher earners. Using the framework from Chetty (2008), I conclude that the insurance value of WC exceeds the distortionary cost, and increasing the benefit level could increase social welfare. Next, I investigate how government-provided disability insurance (DI) interacts with private transfers to disabled individuals from their grown children. Using the Health and Retirement Study, I estimate a fixed effects, difference in differences regression to compare transfers between DI recipients and two control groups: rejected applicants and a reweighted sample of disabled non-applicants. I find that DI reduces the probability of receiving a transfer by no more than 3 percentage points, or 10 percent. Additional analysis reveals that DI could increase the probability of receiving a transfer in cases where children had limited prior information about the disability, suggesting that DI could send a welfare-improving information signal. Finally, Zachary Morris and I examine how a functional assessment could complement medical evaluations in determining eligibility for disability benefits and in targeting return to work interventions. We analyze claimants' self-reported functional capacity in a survey of current DI beneficiaries to estimate the share of disability claimants able to do work-related activity. We estimate that 13 percent of current DI beneficiaries are capable of work-related activity. Furthermore, other characteristics of these higher-functioning beneficiaries are positively correlated with employment, making them an appropriate target for return to work interventions.