As the United States' baby boom generation ages, the future of nursing home care becomes increasingly important. Through this study the researcher seeks to understand quality in nursing home care from the family's perspective. Surveys were collected at one North Texas nursing home, and data were analyzed to determine how gender and level of family involvement impact their concept of quality. Further, the information in this study is aimed at clarifying if interventions, specifically empowered CNA teams, have an impact on how family members view quality. Findings are identified and recommendations for future study are made.

This study attempts to explore the strains that terror organization members experience prior to the training process in the organization. The primary goal of this research is to understand the relationship between the earlier experienced strains of terrorists and their violent behaviors. In the study a Turkish Hezbollah terror organization sample (N = 144) was utilized in the frame of Agnew's (1992) general strain theory. Initially, quantitative methods, such as bivariate analysis and multivariate analysis, were utilized to identify the cumulative effect of strains on the violent behaviors of terrorists. Later, by utilizing case studies with a qualitative approach the mediating effect of negative emotions (anger, frustration, depression and fear) were identified. This study found that among Turkish Hezbollah members, prior to joining the terrorist organization, individuals who experience higher levels of strain are more likely to perform violent acts when compared to individuals who experience lower levels of strain. This study affirmed earlier studies on strain-crime relationship. Moreover, utilized case studies support that negative emotions -specifically anger- mediate between strains and violent actions. In sum, this research retests and builds on Agnew's theory and argues that general strain theory can help terrorism studies to understand the sources of strains …

The influence of the role identity expectations of Turkish Hizbullah's leadership on actual members' terrorist identities was documented in this dissertation. This study explored the leadership's identity expectations from members through content analyses of four books written by major figures of Hizbullah. Those books were selected following comments of the literature and expert suggestions. Eleven identity features stood out. These content analyses also revealed that leadership had different expectations from political wing members and military wing members. The following six identity features were listed as expected more from military wing members: belief in jihad and resistance, desire for martyrdom, embracing the hierarchical structure, depersonalization, hatred against enemies of God, and aloneness. Whilst cemaat (religious congregation), being religiously educated, patience (gradualism), dedication to a Muslim brotherhood, and being politically active were listed as expected identity attributes of political wing members. Qualitative analyses investigated these identity features using the available literature and 144 handwritten reports of actual Hizbullah members. To confirm the findings of content and qualitative analyses, quantitative analyses were conducted on the relatively representative sample (144 reports). The results of cross-tabulation and logistic regression demonstrated that two (out of 6) military wing and two (out of 5) political wing identity …

The primary focus of this study is to explore the relationship between structural factors of a specific society and occurrence of terror related crimes. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine how or to what extent social disorganization theory, which is the basic theoretical foundation of this study, can explain terrorism related crimes in Turkey. Although several previous studies investigated the social and structural dimensions of terrorism in a country, many of those studies did not go beyond investigating the impacts of traditional structural factors such as poverty, inequality, and education on terrorism. This study goes a step further by adding the mediating factors between those primary social disorganization variables and terror related crimes. Direct, indirect and, total effects of structural variables on terrorism through the mediating variables, that is prevalence of voluntary associations and religious institutions, are examined. Findings obtained from multivariate and mediation analyses show that while some structural variables such as education and poverty are directly related to distribution of terror related crimes, this relationship became indirect through the mediating variables for other structural variables such as residential mobility and unemployment. Results suggest that rather than overreliance on traditional antiterrorism strategies which are mostly depending …

The conduct of young adults has long been a concern in societies. The primary objective of this study was to gain greater understanding of what influences the deviant behavior of young adults in Turkey. Factors assessed in their background included family rituals, self-esteem, religiosity and deviant behavior. It was expected that levels of family rituals, religiosity, self-esteem and other risk factors would be significantly different between incarcerated youth and youth not incarcerated. Overall, these higher levels of family rituals, religiosity, and self-esteem plus lower levels of other risk factors were expected to negatively affect young people's engagement in deviant behavior in Turkey. Walter Reckless' containment theory provided a framework for this study. The non-probability sample of Turkish youths consisted of 205 incarcerated respondents and 200 college students. Each responded to four survey instruments, the Family Rituals Questionnaire, the Culture Free Self-Esteem Inventory, the Religious Background and Behavior Questionnaire, and a Family Information Inventory. Data were gathered cross-sectionally from January through March of 2007. The incarcerated respondents significantly practices less family rituals and had lower levels of religiosity than the college students but they did not differ significantly on self-esteem. Furthermore, overall participation in family rituals was associated with decreased likelihood …