Creating a Healthy Community Arts and Music Initiative in Columbus, GA Introduction With the goal of finding a local healthy arts and music community initiative, I went looking for local programs because there has been at least one in every city I have lived, and because I am personally more interested in and committed to music than most other cultural activities. Unfortunately, I was not able… Read More
Media Propaganda: What Are the Key Issues Examined by Feminist Theorists Relating to Unintentional Sexist Propaganda? Abstract There is a substantial amount of feminist research on sexism in language and various forms of media sexism (children’s literature, print, radio, and television advertising and programming, and motion pictures). However, after an extensive search for studies linking language and media sexism to unintentional propaganda that occurs in small groups and one-on-one, nothing… Read More
How Do Italians View Creativity: A Critical Analysis Abstract Most people consider Italian creativity to be art, sculpture, music and literature. While these are valid, they exclude the creativity of everyday, industry, innovation, science, and education. This analysis will utilize a humanistic psychology perspective that investigates creativity of the everyday through industrial and business innovation, urban life, science, and education. This analysis will… Read More
Reflections on Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki, and Dow’s Freirian praxis in health education and community organizing: A case study of an adolescent prevention program Any initiative that actively engages adolescents to take control of their lives by illustrating how they can actively and positively participate in their social environment instead of being a victim of it, is powerful. Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki & Dow (2006) explore a program that utilized at its heart Freirian empowerment education methods and Ronald Rogers (1984… Read More
Quantitative and Qualitative Research Mini-Proposals Quantitative Research Design Introduction Area of Interest and Statement of the Issue. My primary area of research interest is the influence of sexism in media propaganda upon the self-esteem of Black American teen girls and young women. Queries into propaganda research and the influence on gender and racist stereotypes have revealed no direct studies of… Read More
Reflections on Pritzker’s Writing and creativity and Richards’ Frank Barron and the study of creativity For a long time, I’ve had my own hypotheses regarding creativity, writing, and imagination, and Pritzker (2011) discusses some of them. What’s immediately intriguing in the citation of large-scale biographical studies is that the writers that were analyzed were likely to be voracious readers and came from homes as very unhappy. This explains a lot… Read More
Reflections on Minkler’s Community organizing among the elderly poor in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district While I am very enthusiastically in support of participatory action research as well as asset-based community development (ABCD) I am also in favor of combining methods to use, whatever is most effective. In this case, neither of the above seemed to work for the Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project but a combination of methods utilizing adaptations… Read More
Reflections on Cropley’s Definitions of creativity, Richards’ Everyday creativity, and Richards’ Everyday creativity and the arts Creativity is part of human life and it may be a part of existence on earth whether it is human or not, but that is a conversation and a debate for a later day. Human beings, and this is my view, have an innate and vital need to create, whether it is procreation or some… Read More
Reflections on Gutiérrez and Lewis’ Education, participation, and capacity building in community organizing with women of color Gutiérrez and Lewis (2006) discuss a topic close to my heart and one that will be an aspect of my participatory action research in the future, community organizing in communities of color, especially with women and girls of color since societally they are the most oppressed and taken for granted and forgotten by the larger… Read More
Reflections on Nelson’s Psychology, religion, and spirituality, Johnson and Friedman’ Enlightened or delusional? Schneider’s Awakening to an awe-based psychology, and Fehl’s Spirituality and existentialism Within the Universe, spiritually and otherwise, I see connections everywhere. Nelson (2009) posits that that interconnectedness between psychology and religion has been especially dominant over the last century, but I would argue that it has been especially for millennia, though not categorized under any specific labels of Western Psychology, as is the case with Hinduism,… Read More