Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Bloomberg Way: Development Politics, Urban Ideology, And Class Transformation In Contemporary New York City, Julian Brash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the links between a development project, a particular urban ideology, and processes of class transformation in contemporary New York City. The city's postindustrial transformation, especially since the 1970s fiscal crisis, has created a newly dominant corporate elite consisting of executives and high-level professionals. This ruling class alliance has begun to supersede the city's older, real estate-centered traditional growth coalition, as emblematized by the political rise of billionaire ex-CEO Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, along with other ex-corporate executives in his administration, implemented a private-sector inspired corporate, technocratic, and antipolitical approach to governance in general and urban and economic …

Maze Learning And Recall In Weakly Electric Fish, Mormyrus Rume Proboscirostris Boulenger 1898 (Teleostei, Mormyridae): Sensory Bases, Alice G. Walton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Animals use navigational strategies ranging from taxes, landmark and compass orientation, and path integration to cognitive maps. The debate concerning the use of mapping strategies, or less complex mechanisms such path integration, landmark orientation, or dead reckoning is far from settled. Nocturnal weakly electric fish (family Mormyridae) leave their daytime hiding places at night to forage for food and return at dawn. Thus, these fish provide an excellent model to explore their navigational strategies.

The present studies explore these strategies using a novel paradigm: after learning to swim through a maze (acquisition), the maze barriers are removed and the fish …

Demographic Issues In Infant Health In The 1990’S And Measurement Issues In Costing Medicaid Expansions, Danielle H. Ferry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

National measures of infant health in the 1990s were flat, but rates of low birth weight and preterm birth among blacks, especially in center cities, improved. Health gains were especially marked in Washington, DC. Analysis at the metropolitan area level reveals that center city-suburban gaps in black infant health declined. The first two chapters of this dissertation use the 1990-2001 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Natality Files to examine improvements in infant health among African-Americans, first, in Washington, DC, and second, in 37 metropolitan areas with large black populations.

Although Washington, DC also experienced substantial, above-average reductions in its …

Empire's Footprint: Expulsion And The United States Military Base On Diego Garcia, David Stiefel Vine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1956 and 1973, the U.S. Government orchestrated the forced removal of the people of the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago to create a military base on the island Diego Garcia. This dissertation provides a historical ethnography of Diego Garcia detailing the creation of the base, the removal, and the effects of the removal on the people known as Chagossians to ask what Diego Garcia reveals about the United States as an empire and empire more broadly.

Contrary to arguments that the United States became an empire of economics in the 20th century, Diego Garcia represents a reactionary reliance on traditional …

The Intersection Of Race, Gender, And Class In Social Transitions: Caribbean Immigrant Women Negotiating United States Higher Education, Tracy A. Mcfarlane

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The experiences of immigrant women of color within US higher education provide a unique opportunity to understand the complex influences of intersecting identities within changing social contexts. This study was designed to determine how the social categories of gender, class, race, and nationality operate in Caribbean immigrant women's experience of being college students. Focus groups and life story interviews were conducted with 27 English-speaking Caribbean-born women attending CUNY undergraduate colleges. The data yielded four main findings: First, Caribbean gender roles and traditions are not homogenous; hence, there is variation in the ways in which these affect women's experiences in the …

The Technical Fix Or The Systemic Solution For Urban Water Quality? A Case Study Of Grassroots Activism On Behalf Of New York City's Drinking Water, Mirele B. Goldsmith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study examines the activities of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition from 1996 until 2004. The Coalition opposed construction of a filtration plant for the Croton water supply. The study traces the Coalition’s campaign against filtration, which took place in the context of the widely heralded New York City Watershed Memorandum of Agreement (1997). Although the Agreement permitted New York City to avoid filtration for its Catskill and Delaware water supplies, plans were laid for filtration of the Croton supply.

My study is informed by political ecology which provides a framework for understanding politics, practices and contradictions involved …

The Paradoxes Of Diversity: Race, Class, And Gender Relations In A Federal Bureaucracy, Linda B. Benbow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study analyzes the perspective of urban postal workers regarding their experiences in a diverse workplace. It will describe the social relations of workers and shows how race, gender, and class are implicated in those relationships. The research design involves in-depth interviews, participant-observation, and analysis of postal and postal union literature. The theoretical framework undergirding this research is multidimensional; theories of diversity in the workplace will be incorporated with race, class, and gender theories. The premise of this research is that diversity problems are rooted in the organizational structure. Power differences are inherent in hierarchically arranged bureaucratic settings and …