Students work directly with faculty and often in collaborative teams of students on projects that can reach around the country and globe.
Penn State students presented their ACURA research projects at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society on February 25th, in Baltimore.
Kyleigh Byers, Emma Jamison and Fi Montany presented a project called "Cooking, Cleaning, and Contributions: Gendered Division of Labor in Family Thanksgiving Celebrations."
In this project, supervised by Dr. Montemurro, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, they explored whether there were gender differences in participation in tasks associated with planning, preparing for, and hosting Thanksgiving. Overall, they found that most participants were very involved in planning and that gender differences were more common among older participants.
Dante Thomas, a senior majoring in Psychological and Social Science presented research looking at race, sexuality and dating. His project, supervised by Dr. Liz Hughes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, is titled, "Black Men's Romantic Partner Preferences: Exploring How Race and Color Matter." In this research they looked at how Black men view the ways their skin tone impacts choices in romantic partner selection.
Lexie Williams presented a poster entitled "Quality of Life and Coping in Individuals With Chronic Illness" at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association on March 4, 2023, in Boston, MA. Her project, supervised by Dr. Diane Rosenbaum, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, found differences between those with and without chronic illness in physical health, but not mental health, aspects of quality of life. Follow up analyses in the chronic illness group found maladaptive coping styles were associated with lower quality of life.
