Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Interview With Dr. Theda Skocpol, Sarah Russell

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

No abstract provided.

Working From Within: Observations Of Non-Governmental Efforts To Decrease Social Marginalization In Buenos Aires, Elisabeth Tilstra

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This essay is a modification of an excerpt from the senior thesis written for the Chancellor’s Honors Program at The University of Tennessee. The complete project—titled “Bringing the Outside In: An Examination of Non-Governmental Aid Organizations in Buenos Aires”—first examines the political and economic history of Argentina as a context from which to understand the current stage of actors in the social sector. Then, drawing from my fieldwork in the slums surrounding urban Buenos Aires, it introduces the twelve organizations I studied that work with issues of poverty and development, exploring organizational elements that aid or limit a nonprofit’s efficacy. …

Promoting And Developing Oromummaa (Power Point), Asafa Jalata

Sociology Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Local Residents' Experience Of The Coal Ash Spill In Kingston, Tennessee: A Phenomenological Study, Amy Lynn Mathis

Doctoral Dissertations

On December 22, 2008, near Kingston, Tennessee, a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) retention pond holding approximately 1.7 million cubic yards of coal fly ash failed, spilling the ash into the nearby Emory River and inundating farms and homes in the Swan Pond community. As a result more than 100 people were permanently displaced from their homes and the clean-up effort is ongoing.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of living near Kingston, Tennessee, in the aftermath of the spill. Using existential phenomenology as the guiding research methodology, I interviewed 9 participants from the area and asked …

Characteristics Of Foster Parents Willing To Care For Sexual Minority Youth, Justin Douglas Bucchio

Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

Sexual minority foster youth living in out-of-home care are in need of enhanced services to promote successful development. Scholars have focused on providing insight into the lives of these youth as well as effective treatment approaches. None have focused on the willingness of the providers of their care. This nationwide non-probability cross-sectional study assessed foster mothers’ (N = 304) willingness to care for sexual minority youth, using secondary data analysis.

Willingness was assessed using the Willingness to Foster Scale (WFS), which identifies four levels of willingness ranging from not willing at all to willing without any extra help …

The Politics Of Protection And Promotion: The Case Of The Coal Industry In Environmental Politics, Elizabeth Ashley East

Masters Theses

Business actors have historically been an important point of discussion for environmental sociologists. However, theoretical assumptions of business as an environmental actor provide divergent understandings of business’s role in environmental problems, politics, and improvements. Also, empirical studies of business actors primarily examine how individual firms or industry-funded organizations participate in specific environmental controversies or in the attempted implementation of specific environmental policies. Although these approaches have been instrumental in understanding the roles power, privilege, and resources play in environmental politics, they present an understanding of business engagement in environmental issues as reactionary rather than sustained. Such a characterization neglects the …

Understanding Biotechnology: Conceptualizing And Measuring Us Public Concern, Jenna Ann Lamphere

Masters Theses

Biotechnology has had a short but rather conflict-ridden history. The technology was commercialized in 1995 and since has become a volatile topic for international debate. Arguably, the United States is the biggest supporter of this technology. The United States conducted the first study using recombinant DNA, grows more biotech crops than any other country, and houses the vast majority of the largest biotech corporations. Proponents frequently claim that biotech crops are a way to improve crop production, lower food prices, decrease the need for petrochemical inputs, and alleviate international food security problems. Others see them as accelerating the loss of …

"To Preserve This Much-Injured Race": Techniques Of Neutralization And Indian Removal, 1829-1831, Robert Michael Keeton

Doctoral Dissertations

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 gave the President of the United States the authority to negotiate treaties with the Native American tribes in the east for their emigration to territory west of the Mississippi River. Although the emigration was technically voluntary, in practice, the Native tribes emigrated under coercion and force, the most infamous instance of which was the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1838, which resulted in the deaths of at least 4,000 Native people. This dissertation applies Sykes and Matza’s (1957) neutralization theory to archival data including the papers of Andrew Jackson and publications documenting the removal …

Leadershape: Creating A Vision, Living In Possibility, Courtney Michelle Holder, Amber Moore, Ryan Wade, Torrey Armstrong

Black Issues Conference

Leadership involves living in possibility, committing to a vision, forming relationships that will help visions take action, and upholding a high level of integrity. Leadership takes place in a community and allows positive changes to occur. The LeaderShape Institute is a six day experience which explores and develops such leadership skills. In the program, students address questions such as, “Who am I?” and “What kind of leader am I?” LeaderShape is a program with the mission of transforming the world with individuals who lead with integrity and have a healthy disregard for the impossible. Participants in this session will learn …

Gender Intersections And Environmental Concern, Carmel E. Price, Stephanie A. Bohon

CSSJ Working Papers

The work presented here provides an exploration into the complexities of gender when considered in conjunction with other socio-demographic variables. Our goal is to look at how gender moderates several socio-demographic characteristics (age, race, class, education, political orientation, residence, marital status, number of children, religious beliefs, and scientific knowledge) as these characteristics predict several measures of environmental concern. Previous researchers suggest that inconsistencies in findings regarding gender as a predictor of environmental concern are largely due to differences in question wording and the various types of environmental concern that can be measured. We do not disagree that the framing of …

Promoting And Developing Oromummaa, Asafa Jalata

Sociology Publications and Other Works

As any concept, Oromummaa has different meanings on conventional, theoretical, and political, and ideological levels. Although the colonizers of the Oromo deny, most Oromos know their linguistic, cultural, historical, political, and behavioral patterns that have closely connect together all of their sub-identities to the Oromo nation. There is a clear conventional understanding among all Oromo branches and individuals on these issues. The Oromo national movement has gradually expanded the essence and meaning of Oromummaa. The colonization of the Oromo and the disruption of their collective identity and the repression and exploitation of Oromo society have increased the commitment of some …

Book Review: On Critique By Luc Boltanski, Alexander M. Stoner

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

No abstract provided.

Intergroup Dialogues, Building Community And Relational Justice, Bennett M. Judkins

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Intergroup Dialogues, Building Community and Relational Justice

Abstract

Research suggests that civic engagement in American communities and connections among their residents seem to be in decline. With demographic changes indicating a greater population diversity, many are concerned about the social fabric that binds people together. One solution offered in the last two decades is engagement in intergroup dialogues - efforts to bring diverse populations into face-to-face facilitated conversations that attempt to craft better understanding, stronger relationships, and possible social action. This paper will look at the current research on "intergroup dialogues" to address three questions. First, why might such dialogues …

Gather At The Table: The Healing Journey Of A Daughter Of Slavery And A Son Of The Slave Trade, Thomas Norman Dewolf, Sharon Leslie Morgan

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

ABSTRACT

Two people from diverse backgrounds — a black woman and a white man — embarked upon a three-year “healing journey” to attempt to overcome the trauma of historic harms brought on by America’s legacy of slavery and the lingering effects of present-day racism. Illustrated through the stories of their lives—and those of their ancestors — Gather at the Table is informed by trauma healing, restorative justice, and peacebuilding skills the authors learned through their work at Eastern Mennonite University and its STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) and Coming to the Table programs. EMU is an acclaimed resource …

Race, Memory, And Historical Responsibility: What Do Southerners Do With A Difficult Past?, Larry J. Griffin, Peggy G. Hargis

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Newly emerging, transitional societies –– that is, societies that traded dictatorial or authoritarian rule for some form of open or liberal polity –– face at least three interdependent problems of what is called in legal scholarship and social science “transitional justice”: the first is how (if at all) to hold the old regime’s autocratic, often violence-laden leadership responsible for its wrongdoings while in power; the second is what (if anything) to do with thousands upon thousands of ordinary folk whose participation in, or compliance with, the old regime helped legitimate and thus perpetuate the wrongdoing; and the third task how …

The Intersection Between Home And School: Developing A Scale To Measure Parental Perceptions Of Childhood School Stress, Teresa Marie Henke

Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

Parents in the home and educators in the schools are key adults in the most important contexts in the daily lives of school-age children. In the demanding, achievement, and accountability oriented culture of today, it is expected that children experience normal everyday stressors as they move between these two environments. The impact of stress related to daily hassles has been reported to have both cognitive and physical effects on the present and future well-being of children. This study represented an attempt to advance the understanding of childhood stress in the intersection between school and home by investigating the perceptions …

The Future Of Citizen Science: Emerging Technologies And Shifting Paradigms, Greg Newman, Andrea Wiggins, Alycia Crall, Eric Graham, Sarah Newman, Kevin Crowston

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

Citizen science creates a nexus between science and education that, when coupled with emerging technologies, expands the frontiers of ecological research and public engagement. Using representative technologies and other examples, we examine the future of citizen science in terms of its research processes, program and participant cultures, and scientific communities. Future citizen‐science projects will likely be influenced by sociocultural issues related to new technologies and will continue to face practical programmatic challenges. We foresee networked, open science and the use of online computer/video gaming as important tools to engage non‐traditional audiences, and offer recommendations to help prepare project managers for …

Perform + Function: A Proposal For A Healthy Public Housing Community, Brandon M. Harvey

Masters Theses

PERFORM+FUNCTION: Proposal for A Healthy Public Housing Community

Architecture exists in Place, the integrated context of both the built and natural environments, including socio-economic, cultural, and political climates that influence our growth, development, and survival. As architecture necessitates around human purposes, it is important that architecture is built for and sited in an environment compatible for human well-being. My thesis focuses on human habitation and its immediate relationship with human health, assessing the performance and functionality of Place that have an impact on human health. Using public housing as the vehicle of my investigation, I will seek the appropriate application …

Short-Term Missions: Reinforcing Beliefs And Legitimating Poverty, William Vaughan Taylor

Masters Theses

Every year more than a million short-term missionaries travel abroad. Many encounter intense poverty. Popular discourse suggests short-term missionaries return home radically changed. Social movement theory shows collective experiences can transform participants. In this thesis I explore the narratives of short-term missionaries to understand how they understand the poverty they encounter abroad. I have found short-term mission participants think about encounters with the poor in ways that produce contradictory beliefs and legitimate poverty. Interviewees consistently employed deficiency and fatalistic theories of poverty that provide little moral or practical justification for helping the poor. However, these beliefs conflicted with religious convictions. …

Equal Protection Under The Law? Examining Tennessee's Drug Free School Zone Act (Tndfsza), Jordan T. Smith

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Global Debt Minotaur: An Analysis Of The Greek Financial Crisis, Steven Alfonso Panageotou

Masters Theses

Since November 2009, Greece has been mired in financial crisis with little indication that it will be solved in the near future. Research and media accounts have faulted Greece for sowing the seeds of its own financial crisis through fiscal mismanagement extending back to the 1980’s. Successive Greek governments have been criticized for racking up an unsustainable amount of foreign debt. Due to the prevalence of such accounts, European officials and Greek politicians have adopted a nationally oriented strategy to resolve the current crisis. This strategy means that the brunt of the reform effort falls on Greece to neoliberalize its …

Parenting Behind Bars: A Qualitative Study Of Incarcerated Mothers, Beth Allen Easterling

Doctoral Dissertations

Policies of mass incarceration have resulted in a dramatic increase in the prison population in the United States over the past few decades. The number and proportion of women who are incarcerated have vastly increased as a result. Despite increased interest among criminologists, a variety of questions remain as to how women experience incarceration. Most women who are incarcerated are mothers, but criminological literature has yet to fully explain how mothers fulfill their parenting roles or navigate motherhood while incarcerated. No dominant theoretical framework exists to explain the experiences of incarcerated mothers in relation to their mothering roles. This research …

Gender, Social Ties, And Reentry Experiences, Jennifer Rhiannon Scroggins

Doctoral Dissertations

A great deal of research has been conducted on factors associated with successful prisoner reentry. However, except for a few studies on women's reentry, most studies have failed to examine the role of parolees' social ties in contributing to reentry outcomes. Additionally, most studies on prisoner reentry only focused on male parolees, and few addressed the influence of gender on reentry experiences. Thus, my goal in this dissertation is to understand the influence of gender on male and female parolees' social ties, and how the resources their ties provide shape their reentry experiences. My dissertation research examines men and women’s …

Changes In Us Ethnic Niches, 2005-2010, James N. Maples

Doctoral Dissertations

Ethnic niches are overrepresentations of an ethnic group in an occupation or industry. Ethnic niches occur as a mechanism for coping with discrimination in the larger labor market. Studies on ethnic niches have typically focused on single cities (such as Los Angeles or New York), but they have failed to provide a larger picture of ethnic niches in the United States. Hence, researchers know much about niches in a few places but very little about the state of ethnic niches across the United States. Additionally, researchers know a great deal more about the niche behavior of some groups (notably Cubans …

The Oromo: Toward A Psychology Of Liberation And Oromo Empowerment, Asafa Jalata

Sociology Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Life In The Stands: The Experiences Of Female Major League Baseball Fans, Kelly Lynn Balfour

Doctoral Dissertations

Females have long been overlooked as sports fans in our society, especially female fans of men’s professional sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA). There is a vast amount of research available as to what motivates females to attend sporting events, but not on their experience of being a sports fan. Professional sport organizations are now beginning to acknowledge the female fans in their marketing and team apparel. The purpose of the proposed research study is to understand the experience of females who self-identify as fans of Major League Baseball (MLB). Ten female fans of MLB were interviewed and asked to …

"When Are You Going To Get A Real Job?": An Experiential Sport Ethnography Of Players' Experiences On The Men's Pro Tennis Futures Tour, Jacob Cannon Jensen

Doctoral Dissertations

In this experiential sport ethnography, I examined the experience of former NCAA college tennis players competing on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Men’s Pro Futures Tour, the entry level of professional tennis. Limited research has focused on players competing on this tour, especially former top-level NCAA players transitioning from collegiate to professional tennis. The contributions of ethnographic studies are gaining greater recognition in sport psychology literature, and I conducted a year-long experiential ethnography in which I entered the field as a participant and researcher. I gained access to Futures tournaments and players by participating in the qualifying rounds and collecting …

New Means, Old Ends? World Bank Governmentality In Thailand And Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nicholas Ryan Zeller

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to make explicit the arts of government, defined as a field of power in the Foucauldian sense, employed by the World Bank in the cases of Pak Mun Dam in Thailand and Nam Theun II Dam in Lao PDR. Much of the literature on the latter case, both from the World Bank and its critics, focuses on the incorporation of conservation practices and the creation of state apparatuses which account for natural resources and local populations through a discourse of environmentalism. Using World Bank planning and evaluation documents, I argue that although these practices …

The Effect Of Race On Crime: A Multilevel Analysis, Wanjun Cui

Doctoral Dissertations

Many studies have been carried out to examine the sources of racial disparities in crime. However, there are some limitations in most of those studies. One limitation is that the majority focus on black-white comparisons. Another limitation is that many primarily examine violent offending. In addition, most studies have solely relied on either contextual level or individual level explanations. My dissertation attempts to address these limitations in previous literature by using data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine racial disparities in different types of offenses among non-Latino whites, non-Latino blacks, non-Latino Asians, …

Gadaa (Oromo Democracy): An Example Of Classical African Civilization, Asafa Jalata

Sociology Publications and Other Works

The paper briefly introduces and explains the essence of indigenous Oromo democracy and its main characteristics that are relevant for the current condition of Africa in general and Oromo society in particular. It also illustrates how Oromo democracy had functioned as a socio-political institution by preventing oppression and exploitation and by promoting relative peace, security, sustainable development, and political sovereignty, and how the gadaa system organized Oromo society around economic, cultural and religious institutions. Finally, the paper explores how the Oromo movement for national self-determination and multinational democracy struggles to revive and revitalize the Oromo democratic tradition.