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
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item There goes the neighborhood school: Towards an understanding of gentrification's effects on public schools(2021) Butler, Alisha; Galino, Claudia; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The growing presence of middle-class families in urban neighborhoods and schools has catalyzed interdisciplinary investigations designed to investigate the transformative promises and challenges of gentrification for public education. This three-article dissertation expands our understanding of school gentrification through complementary, qualitative investigations designed to understand the meanings and implications of demographic and cultural changes for urban schools. Study 1, “Responding to Gentrification: Navigating School-Family Partnerships Amid Demographic Change,” draws on data collected through a multisite case study of three elementary schools in Washington, DC to investigate how school staff respond to gentrification. This study foregrounds the perspectives of 21 school staff members (i.e., teachers, administrators, support staff, and external partners) and finds that staff members recognized the potential of gentrification to alter their school’s existing cultures and implemented several strategies to promote inclusive school-family partnerships. This study’s findings suggest that when school staff are intentional about equity, they can minimize the marginalization and exclusion of longtime resident parents in gentrifying school communities. Study 2, “School Gentrification and the Ecologies of Parent Engagement,” adds to the growing conversation about middle-class parents’ engagement in gentrifying schools. This study foregrounds the perspectives of 17 middle-class parents and finds that their experiences in and perceptions of gentrification influenced their motivations for and practices to engage in their children’s schools. This study’s findings reveal the potential of collectively-oriented middle-class engagement to improve the experiences of all students and families in gentrifying schools. Study 3, “What’s Best for my Child, What’s Best for the City: Values and Tensions in Parent Gentrifiers’ Middle and High School Selection Processes,” draws on retrospective interviews with a sample of 20 parent gentrifiers to understand how families select secondary schools for their children. Although interviewed parents espoused many civically-oriented values that might suggest an automatic preference for neighborhood schools, just two of the interviewed parents had children enrolled in these schools during the study’s focal year. This study’s findings reveal critical differences between elementary and secondary schooling decisions and reveal the limits of civic values in informing parent gentrifiers’ schooling decisions.Item Neighborhood Transition and the Criminalization of Minorities(2019) Triece, Molly; Xie, Min; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates the relationship between neighborhood transition and criminalization in Washington, D.C. census tracts. The main hypothesis predicts that racially diversified census tracts will experience increases in formal social control (a.k.a. criminalization) of minority and low-income groups due to social tension between race groups. Existing ethnographic literature links neighborhood levels of racial diversity to various forms of criminalization but quantitative literature on the topic is sparse. This study uses demographic census data and official stop-and-frisk data to examine how changes in neighborhood racial composition affect police stop-and-frisk practices in Washington, D.C. The longitudinal nature of the data and the spatial methods employed build upon the existing body of quantitative criminalization research. Findings indicate that increases in racial diversity are associated with increases in the criminalization of black individuals, particularly in tracts that were predominantly black at the beginning of the study period.Item Social Enterprise Development: A preventative approach to homelessness and displacement in Point Breeze, Philadelphia(2019) Huntington, Cassandra Aaryn; Gabrielli, Julie; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social enterprise development focuses on creating economic value to help solve social problems. This thesis tests the viability of this concept by creating a mixed-use, mixed-income property in a low-income neighborhood in South Philadelphia. A profit-sharing financial model is used to support both affordable housing and transitional housing for homeless adolescents. The thesis uses biophilic design principles and values to explore architecture’s role in healing from adolescent trauma and preventing future health issues. This thesis presents a preventative solution to social issues rather than a reactive solution. Prevention of chronic homelessness and prevention of displacement are key to addressing social injustice and help break cycles of poverty in low-income communities. This thesis exemplifies architecture’s ability to provide equal access to both housing and services to help the most vulnerable members of society and help them become self-sufficient and contributing members of the community.Item "Jazz is Back": Alternative Jazz Venues and Gentrification in Washington, D.C.(2016) Jackson, Benjamin James; Rios, Fernando; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gentrification has dramatically changed the urban landscape of Washington, D.C. Non-profit alternative jazz venues have become important sites for negotiating this complex process that is re-shaping the city. Each such venue aligns itself with one of the two primary factions of gentrification: new urban migrants or long-term residents. Westminster Presbyterian Church’s Jazz Night in Southwest fosters a community of repeat-attendees resisting social displacement. The Jazz and Cultural Society unabashedly foregrounds ties to long-term residents in highlighting a black identity and its local interconnectedness. CapitolBop’s Jazz Loft demonstrates the difficulties that come with trying to cater to a young audience, and at the same time, resist gentrification. These venues present three perspectives on gentrification and together bring light to the overlapping complexity of gentrification.Item Ledroit Park, A Portrait In Black And White: A Study Of Historic Districts, Social Change, And The Process Of Neighborhood Placemaking(2016) Henry, Christine Rae; Linebaugh, Donald W.; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research examines the process of placemaking in LeDroit Park, a residential Washington, DC, neighborhood with a historic district at its core. Unpacking the entwined physical and social evolution of the small community within the context of the Nation’s Capital, this analysis provides insight into the role of urban design and development as well as historic designation on shaping collective identity. Initially planned and designed in 1873 as a gated suburb just beyond the formal L’Enfant-designed city boundary, LeDroit Park was intended as a retreat for middle and upper-class European Americans from the growing density and social diversity of the city. With a mixture of large romantic revival mansions and smaller frame cottages set on grassy plots evocative of an idealized rural village, the physical design was intentionally inwardly-focused. This feeling of refuge was underscored with a physical fence that surrounded the development, intended to prevent African Americans from nearby Howard University and the surrounding neighborhood, from using the community’s private streets to access the City of Washington. Within two decades of its founding, LeDroit Park was incorporated into the District of Columbia, the surrounding fence was demolished, and the neighborhood was racially integrated. Due to increasingly stringent segregation laws and customs in the city, this period of integration lasted less than twenty years, and LeDroit Park developed into an elite African American enclave, using the urban design as a bulwark against the indignities of a segregated city. Throughout the 20th century housing infill and construction increased density, yet the neighborhood never lost the feeling of security derived from the neighborhood plan. Highlighting the architecture and street design, neighbors successfully received historic district designation in 1974 in order to halt campus expansion. After a stalemate that lasted two decades, the neighborhood began another period of transformation, both racial and socio-economic, catalyzed by a multi-pronged investment program led by Howard University. Through interviews with long-term and new community members, this investigation asserts that the 140-year development history, including recent physical interventions, is integral to placemaking, shaping the material character as well as the social identity of residents.Item A Case Study of Anacostia: The Role of Housing Vouchers on the Local Housing Market(2012) Scott, Derrick A; Geores, Martha; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)From the time of the New Deal legislation in the 1930s, the Federal government has provided some form of housing relief for people with low income. Today, the primary demand side subsidy program is the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP), which subsidizes rents for low-income people and households to live in places where market-rate rents are beyond their economic means. During the last two decades many Americans cities have been transitioning and affordable housing is becoming scarce even in formerly low-income neighborhoods. In these transitioning neighborhoods current rents are prohibitive for low-income residents. However, with a subsidy through HCVP, this population can remain in its original neighborhood. Landlords are assured full market value rents, while renting to low-income tenants. The residents of the Anacostia neighborhood in Washington, D.C. are predominately low-income and African-American. Using Anacostia as a case study, this paper shows how HCVP has increased in volume and, in the face of diminishing affordable housing, recipients of this subsidy are concentrating in this low rent neighborhood rather than dispersing throughout Washington DC. This is a mixed methods study using data gathered from the Washington D.C. Housing Authority, home sales, home rental prices, census, and interviews with participants in HCVP. The findings of this study reveal that HCVP has been successful in improving the lives and residences of low-income people but that vouchers are geographically concentrated to the lowest income neighborhoods of Washington D.C.