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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta May 2012

Deciphering A Duality: Understanding Conflicting Standards In Sex & Violence Censorship In U.S. Obscenity Law, Rushabh P. Bhakta

Political Science Honors Projects

This research examines the division in US obscenity law that enables strict sex censorship while overlooking violence. By investigating the social and legal development of obscenity in US culture, I argue that the contemporary duality in obscenity censorship standards arose from a family of forces consisting of faith, economy, and identity in early American history. While sexuality ingrained itself in American culture as a commodity in need of regulation, violence was decentralized from the state and proliferated. This phenomenon led to a prioritization of suppressing sexual speech over violent speech. This paper traces the emergence this duality and its source.


Reconstructing Race: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach To A Normative Politics Of Identity, Andrew Pierce Jan 2012

Reconstructing Race: A Discourse-Theoretical Approach To A Normative Politics Of Identity, Andrew Pierce

Andrew J. Pierce

This paper aims to get clear on the normative implications of the idea that race is a “social construction,” not just for political practice in non-ideal societies where racial oppression remains, but in “ideal” (presumably non-racist) societies as well. That is, I pursue the question of whether race and/or racial identity would have any legitimate place in an ideally just society, or to state it another way, whether the concept of race can be extricated from the history of racial oppression from which it arose. The position I defend is a version of what has come to be called a …


The Changing Politics Of Diversity: Lessons From A Federal Technical Assistance Grant, Erica Frankenberg, Kathryn A. Mcdermott, Elizabeth Debray, Ann Blankenship Jan 2012

The Changing Politics Of Diversity: Lessons From A Federal Technical Assistance Grant, Erica Frankenberg, Kathryn A. Mcdermott, Elizabeth Debray, Ann Blankenship

Kathryn A. McDermott

This paper begins with background information on the federal grant program, and on the scholarship that has informed our research. We then provide brief sketches of the eleven grantee districts and how they have used their federal funds. Our analysis focuses on how the school districts defined diversity, and how local politics were shaped by national factors like the economic recession. These policies fundamentally affect the distribution of educational and social opportunity within communities, and, in fact, may be even more subject to local variation and political dynamics than were earlier federal diversity efforts. We conclude that existing ambiguity about …


Lessons From A Federal Grant For School Diversity: Tracing A Theory Of Change And Implementation Of Local Policies, Elizabeth Debray, Kathryn A. Mcdermott, Erica Frankenberg, Ann Blankenship Jan 2012

Lessons From A Federal Grant For School Diversity: Tracing A Theory Of Change And Implementation Of Local Policies, Elizabeth Debray, Kathryn A. Mcdermott, Erica Frankenberg, Ann Blankenship

Kathryn A. McDermott

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education made grants to eleven school districts under the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans (TASAP) program. The impetus for the program came mainly from the Council of Great City Schools, which was concerned that school districts would respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Parents Involved in Community Schools decision by dismantling policies intended to maintain diverse school enrollments. In this paper, we use data from interviews with federal and local participants to identify the theory of change behind TASAP and to determine the local effects of TASAP. The federal government’s intentions for the …


Examining The Relationship Between Participatory Democracy And Nonwhite Domestic Workers In Porto Alegre, Brazil: Issues Of Race, Class And Privilege, Alexis Nicole Mootoo Jan 2012

Examining The Relationship Between Participatory Democracy And Nonwhite Domestic Workers In Porto Alegre, Brazil: Issues Of Race, Class And Privilege, Alexis Nicole Mootoo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Brazil is a nation that has professed to be a `racial democracy' such that race categories are not recognized. This implies that every citizen experiences equal access from a political, social and economic point of view, irrespective of skin color. Nevertheless, palpable racial inequalities exist in Brazil such that there is a primarily white elite class while Brazilians of African descent are typically poor. Male dominance is a worldwide phenomenon. When racial inequities are coupled with male dominance, Brazilian women of African origins suffer as they occupy the lowest socio-economic strata, which often remand them to work as domestics. Some …