A secondary analysis was conducted of data from the 2004 National Nursing Assistant Survey (NNAS) a nationally representative sample of CNAs employed in... ]]> Janet Sweeney Rico http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/10 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/10 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:25:38 PST The numbers of older adults continues to rise and is expected to soar to 19 million by the year 2050. Economic and social realities make institutional long-term care increasingly challenging and undesirable for many people. As a result, older adults are choosing to remain in the community, often with help from informal caregivers. There are no known studies that have looked at the demographic and clinical differences in the care giving populations; in particular, there is limited information to help our understanding of the comparative needs of those receiving informal care versus formal care services. Further, there is no known... ]]> Dorothy Marita Bausemer http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/9 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/9 Fri, 07 Dec 2012 09:56:27 PST The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms an individual's right to health and essential medicines are a crucial element in improving health. Part of South Africa's extensive legislative framework promotes medicines access and use, and since the first democratic elections in 1994, key Constitutional Court cases have shaped health as a human right. The World Health Organization has called for the inclusion of a gender perspective in national essential medicines programs. However, little is known on gender and medicines among patients with chronic conditions in low- and middle-income countries, including South Africa. There is no empirical evidence that describes the... ]]> João L. Carapinha http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/8 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/8 Fri, 30 Nov 2012 07:09:58 PST Due to a lack of formalized long-term care options in the community, dementia care for people living at home is primarily the responsibility of informal family caregivers. This informal family care goes unnoticed; the provision of informal care is "invisible" because the real work of family caregiving takes place in our most intimate and private of places, our homes. This dissertation utilized ethnographic methods to examine the real-life experiences of family caregivers providing dementia care in the community, and examined the applicable laws and long-term care policies and supports.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1999 Olmstead decision reinforced the right of... ]]> Molly Perdue http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/7 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/7 Wed, 21 Nov 2012 05:36:16 PST Underage drinking among college students is a serious societal problem. This study investigated the adoption and implementation of the 1998 Amendment to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, among four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. Historically colleges and universities have been unsuccessful in dealing with drinking among college students, leading to the enactment of 11/9 of PL 105-244, 112 STAT.1581(to be codified at 20U.S.C.}101h) as part of the Higher Education Amendment. The federal effort of parental notification for alcohol violations aims to engage parents as part of the solution, by allowing universities at their discretion and without student... ]]> Christine Letzeiser http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/6 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/6 Thu, 25 Oct 2012 06:42:58 PDT Over the past two decades, the role of career and technical education has shifted from one preparing students directly for employment, to one that offers vocational training as well as college preparatory academics. To support this effort, the federal government enacted the "Tech Prep Act" Title II under the larger 1990 Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. This law authorized federal funds to support articulating programs between career and technical education secondary programs and postsecondary programs of study. The intent of the policy was to increase college enrollment and retention in technical and career areas. Each state in... ]]> Christine Shaw http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/5 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/5 Tue, 03 Jul 2012 05:39:51 PDT Homeland security (HS) is a major public policy issue in the United States. The HS literature is growing but the growth is unbalanced as federal and local perspectives receive the lion's share of academic inquiry. Addressing the dearth of state level research in HS, this study examines the implementation of HS policy in two U.S. states: Idaho and Massachusetts. Two state studies are not particularly generalizable so dissimilar sampling was used to bookend the range of U.S. states.

This in-depth qualitative analysis is based on semi-structured, open-ended interviews with state officials who work on NIMS compliance, or what academics call... ]]> Christopher P. Mathias http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/4 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/4 Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:04:41 PDT This study investigated how housing assistance and household composition shaped access to material, instrumental, and symbolic resources for 23 low-income African-American, European-American, and Latina mothers in Boston who were living in subsidized housing. The objectives were to describe how young mothers residing with their natal families, mothers cohabiting with a male partner, and lone mothers acquired resources through members of their households; and to discover the role of housing-assistance access and regulations in mediating these resource flows.

Using a resource theory framework to examine interpersonal exchanges revealed that symbolic resources of status and information were important complements to material and... ]]> Marya Leroy Dantzer http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/3 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/3 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:38:19 PST The aim of this study is to conduct an exploratory baseline survey of West Bank students to assess student attitudes and practices towards Human Rights and Democracy (HDR). To achieve the goal of this research, a survey of 3450 youth was conducted that included students from the 8^th, 10^th and 12^th grades throughout the West Bank. The specific research goals of the study was to first assess the overall importance of HRD to West Bank youth, and examine whether the value students placed on HRD varied according to demographic and socio-economic background factors. The second research goal of the study... ]]> Imad Fayeq Abukishek http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/1 http://iris.lib.neu.edu/law_pub_pol_diss/1 Wed, 14 Sep 2011 06:45:55 PDT In the context of rising judicialization of politics, Argentina presents a case that is relevant and is worth our attention for the insights it provides to the phenomenon of legal mobilization. This dissertation describes and analyzes how two disadvantaged groups in this country--LGBT and indigenous--used law and courts to achieve their policy ends.

I suggest some answers about what factors make the groups choose the courts, the impact of using the courts, whether social mobilization -support structure- makes any difference on the impact, and what "new" roles are thrust upon courts in the policy making process. Through an interdisciplinary appraisal... ]]> María Gracia Andía