This research examined the perceptions of refugees towards social entrepreneurship in Arizona through focus group discussions with 77 members of the refugee communities that have been organized under nine groups. Business experience, problem solving experience, conception of social entrepreneurship, examples, opportunities, support, and needs emerged as the themes of the study. Available opportunities as well as barriers for refugee social entrepreneurship based on the views of refugees in Arizona were explained. The difference between commercial entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship was highlighted and some examples of refugee social entrepreneurship described. Qualitative data analysis revealed that refugees in Arizona have entrepreneurial characteristics such as risk taking, hardworking, problem solving, and determination. They also have a good understanding of commercial entrepreneurship but very little understanding of social entrepreneurship. The findings underlined that social entrepreneurship can be used as a helpful strategy for self-sufficiency of refugees residing in Arizona. Given their life trajectories, refugees in Arizona have high potential to be social entrepreneurs with the right exposure and training. If supported adequately and planned appropriately, the refugee social entrepreneurship project can lead to self-sufficiency and faster integration of participating individuals to the mainstream society. The findings may spark interest among practitioners, policy makers, and scholars. It may redefine refugee social work practices as the passion of enterprising empowers refugees and helps them to discover self-confidence and rebrand their image. Policy makers may consider incorporating refugee social entrepreneurship in to the current self-sufficiency plan for refugee resettlement. Future research needs to investigate how refugee social entrepreneurs can be successful and focus on the measurement of their success.

This study situated a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) softball league within the logic of homonormativity and queer futurity and explored how community and identity were constituted, practiced, negotiated, and problematized. The project endeavored to address the questions: What is the meaning and significance of community for the League participants? To what extent and how does participation in the League affect gender and sexual identity discourse and practice? And, in the context of the League, how are dominant ideologies and power structures reinforced, disrupted, and produced? A critical ethnography was undertaken to render lives, relations, structures, and alternative possibilities visible. Data was collected through participant observation, interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and archival document analysis. A three stage process was employed for data transformation including description, analysis, and interpretation. LGBT identified sports clubs, formed as a result of identity politics, are understood to be potential sites of transformation and/or assimilation. Although the League was imbued with the discourses of inclusion and acceptance, the valorizing of competition and normalization led to the creation of hierarchies and a politics of exclusion. The League as an identity-based community was defined by what it was not, by what it lacked, by its constitutive outside. It is possible to learn a great deal about community by looking at what and who is left out and the conspicuous absence of transgender and bisexual participants in the League highlights a form of closure, a limit to the transformative potential of the League.

All ethnic groups in the U.S. have suffered from elder maltreatment (EM), but literature on this topic among Chinese Americans is sparse. Only one group of researchers has exclusively focused on the EM experiences of Chinese Americans in the U.S. A recent study indicated the prevalence rate of EM was 24% among residential-dwelling Chinese American elders and the most prevalent forms of EM are psychological maltreatment (10%) and financial maltreatment (10%). However, the effect of family relationship and cultural factors on EM have not yet been explored. The traditional Chinese culture emphasizing family cohesion and filial piety, along with the acculturation stress and language barriers may increase the risks of EM in this population.

This exploratory research aimed to understand EM perpetrated by family members in residential settings among Chinese American elders and the risk factors of EM in this population, focusing on the Phoenix metropolitan area. Particularly, understanding EM through both a cultural lens and a legal lens shed light on the roles of socio-cultural variables (family support and cultural variables) associated with EM among Chinese American elders, one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S.

To achieve these research aims, a larger quantitative component building on a small qualitative component was utilized. In Phase I, focus groups were conducted to ensure subsequent survey questions were culturally and linguistically appropriate. Feedback from the focus groups was used to refine the questionnaire designed for this study. In Phase II, revised questionnaires were distributed to 266 Chinese American older adults to detect EM prevalence and to identify the factors associated with victimization. The ecological theory provides guidance for the study.

In the end, one of ten Chinese American elders experienced general EM perpetrated by family members. The dominant forms of EM, elder neglect and emotional maltreatment, may have serious emotional outcomes and threaten the well-being of Chinese elders. To prevent the occurrence and recurrence of EM, service professionals and gatekeepers in the community need to work with Chinese American families to reduce elders’ depression levels, promote family cohesion and eliminate the intergenerational culture/acculturation differences.

Sexual exploitation is a problem faced by women victimized by sex trafficking and are involved in the commercial sex industry as a result of limited employment options. Negative consequences associated with engaging in sex work in the United States include violent victimization, physical and mental health problems, addiction, isolation from positive social support, and economic instability. These consequences make exiting difficult, and recently Baker, Williamson, and Dalla (2010) created an integrated prostitution exiting model to help explain the exiting process, accounting for the impact of these consequences and identifying the role that failed exiting attempts play in leading women to a final exit. Currently, much remains unknown regarding the usefulness of the model and researchers have yet to explore the process of exiting from the perspective of former sex workers. This dissertation examines the process of exiting commercial sex work from the perspective of 19 adult women who exited the sex industry and had not engaged in sex work for at least two years. The goal of the study was to compare findings from these interviews to Baker et al.'s (2010) integrated model and to further understand the experience of exiting sex work. A narrative approach to data collection was taken (Wells, 2011), and individual interviews were conducted with each participant in order to elicit narratives about their experiences exiting sex work. A phenomenological approach was utilized to analyze the data (van Manen, 1990), and five overarching themes encompassing 21 subthemes emerged as key findings. Many of these themes supported the stages of Baker et al.'s (2010) model, including the experience of becoming disillusioned with the prostitution lifestyle as a precursor to successfully exiting, the likelihood that women will attempt to exit and then re-enter sex work a number of times before finally exiting, and the presence of specific barriers that inhibited the exiting process. Additional themes emerged, offering new information about the importance of involving former sex workers in treatment, the role that children, customers, and other relationships play in helping or hindering the exiting process, and the development of resiliency among women undergoing the exiting process. Recommendations for research and practice are discussed.

Using integrated threat theory as the theoretical framework, this study examines the impact of perceived realistic threats (threats to welfare) and symbolic threats (threats to worldview) on anti-immigrant sentiment among a nationally representative sample in the U.S. Analysis of the antecedents of prejudice is particularly relevant today as anti-immigrant sentiment and hostile policies toward the population have risen in the past two decades. Perceived discrimination has also become salient within immigrant communities, negatively impacting both mental and physical health. Using logistic ordinal regressions with realistic threat, symbolic threat, and immigrant sentiment scales, this study found that both realistic and symbolic threats increased participants' likelihood of selecting a higher level of anti-immigrant sentiment, suggesting both are predictive of prejudice. However, symbolic threats emerged as a greater predictor of anti-immigrant sentiment, with an effect size over twice that of realistic threats. Implications for social work policy, practice, and future research are made.

Families with intellectually disabled caregivers are more likely than families without intellectually disabled caregivers to experience poor child welfare outcomes, including high rates of substantiation. However, little research has examined child maltreatment re-reports among this population. The objectives of this study were to begin to address this gap by examining maltreatment re-report rates, and factors associated with maltreatment re-reports, among child welfare-involved families with intellectually disabled caregivers. Survival analysis was conducted using restricted release data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) to examine the hazard rate and survival rate of maltreatment re-reports for cases with, and without, intellectually disabled caregivers. Multivariate discrete-time hazard models were run using logistic regression to examine the relationship between various predictors and the hazard of maltreatment re-reports. Results revealed that child protection cases involving caregivers with intellectual disabilities were no more likely than cases without intellectually disabled caregivers to experience maltreatment re-reports. Predictors of maltreatment re-reports varied based on whether or not a case involved a caregiver with an intellectual disability. Child gender, child disability, and child race/ethnicity were significant predictors for cases involving caregivers with intellectual disabilities, whereas prior involvement with CPS, caretaker drug problems, and initial allegation substantiation were significant predictors for cases not involving caregivers with intellectual disabilities. These preliminary findings suggest that prevention, screening, and intervention strategies should consider variability of predictive factors based on caregiver intellectual disability status.

This research examined successful aging in a convenience sample of 14 women in Phoenix, Arizona. The study used a mixed methods approach involving individual interviews and administration of a standardized instrument designed to measure success using an alternative construct, gerotranscendence. Explorative questions were designed to gather data regarding diverse women's lived experiences. In order to examine the impact of lived experiences on successful aging, demographics were collected and participants were administered the gerotranscendence scale further revised. Findings reveal that when success is conceptualized using gerotranscendence theory, women of color may still appear less successful than their white counterparts. Narratives yielded rich data regarding the influence of factors such as care giving and violated expectations. This research helps to expand the knowledge base on factors that impact successful aging of diverse women. This research contributes to the field of social work by providing insight into the complex factors that impact diverse woman, which may aid in the empowerment of social workers to advocate for more effective macro interventions for diverse older women.

Las personas públicas de mujeres fuertes mexicanas generalmente se definen como desafiantes y contrarias a los roles sociales generalmente aceptados de las mujeres sumisas. Dichas personas públicas exigen atención y buscan incluirse en la cultura popular. Sin embargo, cuando se analizan mediante los rubros de la teoría queer, se revelan arquetipos heternormativos. Esta tesis examina cronológicamente la obra de tres cronistas mexicanos de los siglos XX y XXI, Salvador Novo, Carlos Monsiváis y Sara Sefchovich, analizando su retrato de mujeres fuertes que ocupan sitios urbanos públicos en la Ciudad de México. Se investigan los efectos sociales elitistas de las imágenes públicas de mujeres fuertes, revelando restricciones patriarcales de mujeres en espacios públicos y construcciones subsecuentes de personas públicas como exóticas y cosificadas, asimismo facilitando interacciones con una sociedad sumamente masculinista y machista. La falta de agencialidad social real se revela cuando el patriarcado se reafirma, a pesar de la índole disconforme de las mujeres retratadas. Los constructos de familia y de masculinidad exigen la existencia tanto del padre y del esposo ausentes como del hipermacho y de la acompañante mujer sumisa limitada a sitios privados. El retrato de mujeres fuertes en la obra analizada desnaturaliza la imagen de domesticidad, señalando que las mujeres mexicanas salen del hogar para ocupar sitios públicos en la Ciudad de México. Como la normalización del constructo de familia se cuestiona, la teoría queer se utiliza en una manera innovadora para analizar dichos retratos de mujeres fuertes y agencialidad sociopolítica.

Filicide, the killing of a child by a parent, is the focus of this meta-study. In the United States, the total number of nonaccidental deaths of children at the hands of a parent is unknown. Five children a day under the age of five die from fatal abuse and neglect (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995). This number is a conservative estimate and does not include children kill by means other than abuse and neglect. Regardless of the number, this author views each filicide as a sentinel event for the United States and the world. A sentinel event is an unexpected occurrence involving death and signals the need for immediate investigation and response. The perspectives of social constructionism and role theory frame this meta-study. The author explored six questions of the extant filicide research: What is the research knowledge on filicide? How is filicide constructed in the research discourse and what is the context of this research? Is filicide constructed as a social problem? Can the use of role theory advance our understanding of filicide? Are there common themes in the filicide research findings? Is there disagreement in the research? What is missing, assumed, or overlooked in the research? The sample consisted of 66 international studies of parents (i.e., genetic, step, foster, person in role of parent) who killed their child(ren) from 1969 to 2009. Major findings include "meta-categories" of filicide research, risk factors, salient themes, and new conceptualization of filicide based on role theory. Individual, social, and structural variables to identify and prevent filicide are presented. An outline for educating practitioners and a tool for screening families for filicide risk are offered

The goal of this exploratory study is to learn how undocumented immigrants remain resilient by adopting new strategies to survive and thrive despite confronting challenges as they legally justify their presence in the United States. This study will focus on three research questions: first, what are the demographic factors that describe undocumented immigrant family resiliency in the United States? Second, how are social service providers; perceptions of the challenges faced by their clients modified by the services they provide? Third, how do resiliency factors identified by their social service providers allow undocumented immigrants to overcome the challenges of criminalization in the United States? The theoretical framework for this study was based on two approaches: first, a symbolic interaction approach which was specifically inspired by Benedict Anderson's classic Imagined Communities (1983, 2006). The second approach is Ecological Risk and Resiliency. This study used mixed methods of research: interviews and descriptive analysis. The qualitative data was drawn from ten social service providers from a faith-based agency, and from a narrative analysis of participants enrolled in an ESL program (English as a Second Language). The subjects for the quantitative design were drawn from a group of undocumented first-generation Hispanic immigrants who received social services during the year 2009 from the same faith-based agency. In summary, this exploration discovered that immigrants show great ability for imaginatively developing strategies in order to survive and thrive under their difficult circumstances. Furthermore, undocumented immigrant survival does not completely depend upon food and shelter and even money, but also on a sense of well being. Noted was that women undocumented immigrants show greater resiliency than their male counterparts. Also discovered was that social services do make a difference in the lives of undocumented immigrants but not all social service providers are fully trained and prepared to assist them beyond normal standards. In conclusion, the Hispanic undocumented immigrant displays remarkable resiliency despite tremendous obstacles and personal difficulties and this resiliency could only improve by social service providers' improved understanding of their needs and personal resources.