Other Sociology Commons^™

Spiritual Well-Being And Its Relationship To Resilience In Young People: A Mixed Methods Case Study, Lindsay Smith, Ruth Webber, Erica Defrain

Faculty Publications, Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies

Questions have arisen recently about the role of spiritual well-being in strengthening resilience of youth. To explore this association, this case study focused on the relationships and connectedness of young people who attend one religious organization as a means of enhancing their spiritual well-being. In line with the purposes of an instrumental case study, different sources of data (quantitative and qualitative) were collected on the phenomenon of interest—spiritual well-being. A theoretical purposive sample of 65 people participated in the study. A mixed methods research approach guided this case study, which incorporated both single- and multicase study techniques. Through an abductive …

Assessing Connections Between Young Children’S Affinity For Nature And Their Experiences In Natural Outdoor Settings In Preschools, Camilla S. Rice, Julia C. Torquati

Faculty Publications, Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies

The purposes of this research were to: develop a reliable measure of children’s affinity for nature or “biophilia”; determine whether young children’s biophilia was related to the “green-ness” of the outdoor play area of the preschool they attend; examine whether demographic variables are associated with children’s biophilia; and determine whether demographic variables predict children’s enrollment in nature-oriented programs. We recruited children from ten early childhood education programs—six that had outdoor play spaces with many natural elements and four that had few or none of these elements. One hundred fourteen preschool-aged children completed an 11-item measure of biophilia that included preferences …

Are Women The New Dominant Sex?: Investigating The Impact Of Feminism On Masculine Roles And Identity, Lauren Boothby

Lauren Boothby

Women are becoming the new dominant sex in Western society. Pursuing feminist equality reform results in a trend toward extremes. The trajectory of women’s rights needs to be examined in light of its effects on men. The present paper examines the decline of patriarchy and progression of matriarchy, as evidenced by female superiority in educational and vocational attainment, degrading representations of men – “the idiot man” – in popular sit-coms, and feminist ideological dominance in political and academic discourse. Normlessness and anomie result from the subversion of masculine roles. Sociological theories – including those of Mead, Goffman, Hochschild, Schutz, Durkheim, …

Dark Tourism Scholarship: A Critical Review, Philip Stone Dr

Dr Philip Stone

Commonly referred to as dark tourism or thanatourism, the act of touristic travel to sites of or sites associated with death and disaster has gained significant attention with media imaginations and academic scholarship. However, despite a growing body of literature on the representation and tourist experience of deathscapes within the visitor economy, dark tourism as a field of study is still very much in its infancy. Moreover, questions remain of the academic origins of the dark tourism concept as well as its contribution to the broader social scientific study of tourism and death education. Thus, the purpose of my invited …

Deviance, Dark Tourism And ‘Dark Leisure’: Towards A (Re)Configuration Of Morality And The Taboo In Secular Society, Philip R. Stone

Dr Philip Stone

Dark Tourism, Heterotopias And Post-Apocalyptic Places: The Case Of Chernobyl, Philip R. Stone

Dr Philip Stone

Family Life Cycle Revisited: Age And Life Course Effects On Church Attendance At “Conventional” And Middle Age, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

We examined the effects of marital status and parenthood on church attendance using panel data from the 1975 and 1992 Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Consistent with prior research, both cross-sectional and fixed effects ordered logit models indicated that marriage and parenthood were positively associated with church attendance. However, prior research has examined only adults in more “conventional” ages of family formation, and our findings indicated that the effects of parenthood extend into middle age. We also found support for prior notions that divorce/separation has negative effects on church attendance and that this effect is present among adults in their thirties as …

The Globalization Of Cosmetic Surgery: Examining Bric And Beyond, Lauren E. Riggs

Master's Theses

What is driving the globalization of cosmetic surgery? Using BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries as a model, this master's thesis systematically identifies and analyzes (1) the origins of cosmetic surgery in historical, regional, and country-specific terms, and (2) examples of how cosmetic surgery has become normalized. As a result, clear patterns emerge in regards to: embedded power structures related to racism and war; the results of Western interests rapidly opening countries’ markets to high media and corporate influence—especially in the wake of political oppression and austerity; the exacerbation of pre-existing class, color, race, and gender prejudice by hyper-consumerism; the …

On The Social Construction Of Hellenism Cold War Narratives Of Modernity, Development And Democracy For Greece, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary …

Exposing A Lack Of Communication Regarding Sport Policy: An Analysis Of The Canadian Talent Identification Process, Geoff Schoenberg, Winston Wing Hong To, David Legg

Winston Wing Hong To

The Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success (SPLISS), a comparative high performance and elite sport (HPS) model, has identified nine distinct pillars that contribute to the success of a country’s HPS system. The study was originally conducted in 2003 with seven nations from Europe and North America. Beginning in 2009, the study was repeated and expanded to include 17 nations from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. While the SPLISS study was designed to examine and compare countries’ HPS systems, the aim of this research is to compare the intra-country results of Canadian athletes, coaches, and …

Social Evolution, Gerald Gaus, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"It is a mater of dispute how far back evolutionary explanations of social order should be traced. Evolutionary ideas certainly appear in the work of the ancient Greek philosophers, but it seems reasonable to identify the origins of modern evolutionary thinking in the eighteenth century natural histories of civil society such as Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1750, Part III), Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776, Book III). In these eighteenth century works, the explanation of current social institutions as an unplanned …

An Entrepreneurial Approach To Career Development, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

This article explains how people can use an entrepreneurial approach to career development in and effort to advance their careers and employment opportunities.

Economic Outlook 2010: Innovation, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

This article discusses the importance of innovation to individuals and the overall economy.

Gay Parenthood And The Revolution Of The Modern Family: An Examination Of The Unique Barriers Confronting Gay Adoptive Parents, Nicholas Arntsen

Nicholas Benedict Arntsen

Abstract: In recent decades, the structure of the American family has been revolutionized to incorporate families of diverse and unconventional compositions. Gay and lesbian couples have undoubtedly played a crucial role in this revolution by establishing families through the tool of adoption. Eleven adoptive parents from the state of Connecticut were interviewed to better conceptualize the unique barriers gay couples encounter in the process adoption. Both the scholarly research and the interview data illustrate that although gay couples face enormous legal barriers, the majority of their hardship comes through social interactions. As a result, the cultural myths and legal restrictions …

Professional Deceit: Normal Lying In An Occupational Setting, Janet M. Ruane, Karen Cerulo

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Normal lies are those that social actors legitimate as appropriate means to desirable outcomes. Such lies have been acknowledged in the literature as tools for maintaining social order. Yet, little has been done to document the social structural sources of normal lying. This paper offers a first step in filling this research gap, examining aspects of occupational structure and their connection to the practice of normal lying. Specifically, we discuss four dimensions of occupational structure — occupational rewards and entry requirements, occupational loyalties, social control styles within an occupation, and an occupation's level of professionalization — and we explore the …

Toward An Agenda For Placing Migrant Hometown Associations (Htas) In Migration Policy-Making Discourse In Ghana, Thomas Antwi Bosiakoh

Dr Thomas ANTWI BOSIAKOH

Migrant hometown associations (HTAs) are arguably the most recognizable migrant institutions in migration destination countries. As institutions for the welfare of migrants and for the development of migrant home and destination countries, migrant HTAs have engaged the attention of migration scholars for a number of reasons. Their activities straddle across different spheres of endeavours, including adjustment and integration, development, promotion of peaceful co-existence, socio-cultural empowerment, and resolution of conflicts, among others. These activities of migrant HTAs are important in achieving co-development and therefore require policy focus. While it is important to commend Ghana for initiating a process for migration policy …

Comparative High Performance Sport Models, Winston Wing Hong To, Peter Smolianov, Darwin Semotiuk

Winston Wing Hong To

This chapter discusses different models that have been used to compare high performance sport (HPS) systems. It includes case studies covering the USSR and Post-Soviet Russian HPS systems, the Canadian HPS system, and the US HPS system. The chapter includes a comparison of these case studies.

Learning Outcomes: Identify various approaches to comparing high performance sport systems (HPS); Define strengths and limitations of various approaches to comparing HPS ; Profile HPS systems in the former USSR and current Russia, USA, and Canada; Discuss the challenges the above countries face and their international sporting performance in the future.

Neural Responses To Infants Linked With Behavioral Interactions And Testosterone In Fathers, Patty X. Kuo, Joshua Carp, Kathleen C. Light, Karen M. Grewen

Faculty Publications, Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies

Few fMRI studies have investigated the brain-behavioral basis of parenting in human fathers. Ten fathers were videotaped and gave salivary testosterone samples while interacting with their 2–4 month old infants, and viewed video clips of their own infant and an unfamiliar age-, ethnicityand sex-matched other infant during an fMRI protocol. Infant stimuli activated a network of prefrontal and subcortical brain regions. Furthermore, a subset of these regions activated significantly more to own (OWN) than other (OTHER) infants. Finally, neural responses to OWN versus OTHER were linked with paternal sensitivity, paternal reciprocity, and testosterone. In sum, our results provide a novel …

A Call To Integrate Religious Communities Into Practice: The Case Of Sikhs, Muninder Kaur Ahluwalia, Anjali Alimchandani

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

Sikhs, an ethnic and religious minority group in the United States, have seen a significant shift in their social location since 9/11. They have experienced harassment and violence beyond race and ethnicity to the visible markers of the religion (e.g., turbans). In this article, we address how counseling psychology is uniquely positioned to work with Sikhs given these circumstances. We provide an overview of Sikh Americans, including specific experiences that may affect treatment such as race-based traumatic injury, identification as a part of a visible religious minority group, and the impact of historic community-level trauma. We discuss recommendations for practitioners …

Beyond Dogma: The Role Of "Evolutionary" Science And The "Embodiment" Of Archetypal Energies, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

At individual and collective levels (locally, nationally, and globally), humanity is currently entertaining many challenges and opportunities for growth. In my view, these challenges and opportunities are connected to Energy shifts that are taking place on the planet, and the inability of some to move beyond dogma in relating to these Energy shifts. By its pre- and proscriptive nature, dogma fosters limiting beliefs that often interfere with how best to relate to these Energy shifts as vibrational beings in an evolving, vibrational world. Here, I want to briefly identify some of the limiting effects of dogma, and the role of …