Digital Commons Network^™

What Happened To Sanders? Millennials Analyses Of The 2016 Election Post-Primaries, Jacquelyn R. Fernandez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The Millennial generation is now the largest living generation. This generation has absorbed many labels, including the one of not being civically engaged. Many news sources focused on their lack of engagement throughout the 2016 election, stating that they were the key to a win in the election. Since Bernie Sanders was the first candidate to capture the attention of such a large amount of the Millennial generation, this research is designed to understand why and provide an in-depth analysis of the thoughts about Sanders from the largest living generation. The data was collected by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with …

Young Adults And The Consequences Of Precarious Work, Aaron Robert Lemelin

Masters Theses

Despite the appearance of affluence attained by the community’s economic growth, the prevalence of service sector jobs have altered the employment structure of South County. Within this thesis, it is my purpose to answer two questions. First, how are young adults limited in their economic security due to precarious work? Second, how has precarious work disempowered young adults and altered their ability to respond to their immiseration? In order to answer these questions I conduct qualitative interviews with young adults within a region of Hillsborough County, Florida. These interviews help me elaborate on young adults and their experiences with precarious …

Making Sense Of The Distrust Of The Chinese Government In Light Of China’S Successes In Economic Modernization, Rachel L. Neuhauser

Honors College Theses

This paper explores the contrast of China’s spectacular economic development and the low scores of trust for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) legitimacy among the Chinese people. The sharp contrast may reflect flaws in the shaping of de facto authority of the Chinese government. The de facto authority is examined in connection to the notion of the Mandate of Heaven from the Confucian tradition. The severe imbalance of economic growth and lack of political reform is discussed against the backgrounds of the domestic and international political circumstances. This paper argues that, in spite of the phenomenal economic development of the …

Back To The Future: Student Time Period Analyses, Jordan Barge, Sarah Ebert, Anna Gaskin, Renay Gladish, Quinn Hamilton, Morgan Hanson, Hannah Markham, Mark Mclean, Callie Smith, Bertha Vega, Shelby Watkins, Jamie Weihe, Jillian Whitney

Student Publications

This newsletter began with the Fall 2015 Honors English class. These students were challenged to initiate research over a topic they thought was interesting and show how it related to our campus, Stephen F. Austin State University. It is our hope that this cumulative research will help readers look at SFA a little differently.

Review: Animal Oppression & Human Violence, Corey L. Wrenn

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

Teaching Progress: A Critique Of The Grand Narrative Of Human Rights As Pedagogy For Marginalized Students, Robyn Linde, Mikaila M. L. Arthur

Faculty Publications

With the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, education about human rights became an important focus of the new human rights regime and a core method of spreading its values throughout the world. This story of human rights is consistently presented as a progressive teleology that contextualizes the expansion of rights within a larger grand narrative of liberalization, emancipation, and social justice. This paper examines the disjuncture between the grand narrative on international movements for human rights and social justice and the lived experiences of marginalized students in urban environments in the United States. Drawing on …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Urban.Boston (Urban Research-Based Action Network): Creating Meaningful Connections Between Community & Academia, Mark Warren

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN) is a national platform that facilitates community-based research, teaching, and learning for action across disciplinary lines, connecting scholars and community activists within and across cities. It was started in 2011 to honor the memory of activist scholar Marylin Gitell, and has received generous support from SAGE Publications. URBAN currently has 5 local nodes: Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Northern California, and Philadelphia; as well as 3 discipline nodes: Education, Sociology, and Urban Planning. More nodes will be established in the future. In the meantime, efforts are focused on connecting academics and community partners …

Individual And Society: Sociological Social Psychology, Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak

Katherine B. Novak

Stew Of Discontent:“Middle Class” Americans' Economic Populism In The 1990s And Beyond, Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin

This article highlights the hidden subtlety of ordinary Americans' economic populist sentiment, a longstanding and politically pivotal form of popular resentment concerning class inequalities. Based on my research in the late 1990s, I describe how economic populist attitudes in the United States can be much more complex than suggested in the relevant literature. I use data from interviews with a small number of “ordinary middle class” Americans to illustrate little known nuances in these attitudes and to highlight how such subtleties are overlooked in prevailing characterizations of public opinion. I suggest that the oversight is the result of the fragmentary …

Hegemonic Duopoly: Why Progressive Third Parties Rarely Win State House Elections, Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin

No abstract provided.

Pedagogy Of The Alienated: Can Freirian Teaching Reach Working-Class Students?, Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin

This article considers the possibilities for fostering critical consciousness (awareness and understanding of oppression) among American working-class students in the face of their often severe educational alienation. After noting the failure of existing critical pedagogical literature to address this problem adequately, it establishes the seriousness of the challenge in three ways. First, it describes how the most famous critical pedagogue, the late Paulo Freire, and one of his most eminent American followers, Ira Shor, recognized the special difficulty of working with highly alienated American students. Second, it documents the extensiveness and severity of educational alienation in the United States, especially …

Mediating Justice: Toward A Critical-Reflexive Sociology, George Christopher Gondo

Masters Theses

Today, an increasing number of sociologists incorporate the theme of social justice within their work and strive to contribute to efforts to improve existing social conditions. In their view, sociological work that actively engages in issues related to social justice exemplifies ‘the promise’ of sociology and represents a means of refocusing and reinvigorating the discipline at a time of perceived crisis. Yet, a growing body of evidence questions whether previous efforts to use sociology as a mechanism of improving social conditions have been successful. In this thesis, I rely on the works of Alvin W. Gouldner to examine the relationship …

Black Visibility, Early Political Victories, And Income Inequality, Pamela Jackson, Gail Marhewka

Pamela Irving Jackson

Racial income inequality has long been viewed as an indicator of discrimination against blacks and as reflective of their subordinate group status in the United States. Researchers have tried to isolate the structural, demographic, and geo- graphic catalysts of discrimination and, hence, of racial income inequality in U.S. urban areas. Much attention has been paid to the influence of minority group presence-that is, percent black-on income inequality. The impetus for this attention has been that percent black may be determinant of the threat perceived by the white population and, therefore, of the discrimination initiated against the minority (see Blalock, 1956: …

Women In Law Enforcement: Subverting Sexual Harassment Through Social Bonds, Jill Hume Harrison

Faculty Publications

Female law enforcement officers who have strong social bonds with their colleagues can reduce the effect that sexual harassment has on job satisfaction. We test social bond theory to examine the relationship between sexual harassment and job satisfaction from a sample of n=109 active duty male and female police and correctional officers. Law enforcement personnel are thought to be particularly vulnerable to stressors on the job, like sexual harassment, but they can significantly benefit from strong departmental and colleague support. With some progress toward gender equity, this study shows that female officers still face barriers that are linked to this …

Sulle Basi Motivazionali Delle Lotte Sociali. Honneth Versus Fraser, In "Iride", Xxiii, N. 60 (2010), Pp. 448-452., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

No abstract provided.

Axel Honneth, "Capitalismo E Riconoscimento", Edited And Translated By Marco Solinas, Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2010., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

Archetypal Energies, The Emergence Of Obama As A Practical Idealist, And Global Transformation, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

During this time of change, AHP and kindred spirits on the edge have important roles to play. We are the keepers and nurturers of a transformative and evolutionary Vision for Consciousness and a more humane world. At issue is what I will call the “psychic politics” for global transformation, nurtured by practical idealism and the Archetypal Energies. In other writings, I have described Archetypal Energies as Higher Vibrational Energies, operating deep within our individual and collective psyches, which have their own transcendent value, purpose, quality, and “voice”, unique to the individual. We experience them as “creative urges” to move us …

The Search For Self-Fulfillment: How Individualism Undermines Community Organizing, Rachel Rybaczuk

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This paper focuses on the role of individualism in community organizing. My case study follows the organizing efforts of the Coalition for Affordable Northampton Neighborhoods (CANN) and residents’ attempts to save an affordable neighborhood from Smith College’s campus expansion. As a resident and co-founder of CANN I was particularly interested in identifying the reasons for our difficulty in organizing residents whose homes would be torn down. While attending community and city meetings, interviewing core activists and activists who left the organizing efforts, I observed individualism undermining community organizing and political involvement. People’s search for self-fulfillment was in conflict with the …

Thinking Outside The Master's House: New Knowledge Movements And The Emergence Of Academic Disciplines, Mikaila M. L. Arthur

Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for understanding emergent disciplines as knowledge-focused social movement phenomena called New Knowledge Movements, or NKMs. The proposed theoretical framework is developed through a synthesis of new social movement theory and Frickel and Gross's Scientific/Intellectual Movements (SIMs) model. In contrast to the SIMs model, this paper argues that many new disciplines emerge through contentious collective action on the part of political and intellectual outsiders rather than through the action of intellectual elites. The framework is examined through historical narratives of two disciplines, women's studies and Asian American studies, in the USA. This framework will be …

The Emerging New Human Being, The Culture-In-The-Self, And Ahp's New Multidimensional Intercultural Initiative, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

The emerging New Human Being will need to explore and come to terms with a phenomenon, operating deeply, uniquely, and diversely at a core level of all human beings on the planet. I call this phenomenon the “culture-in-the-Self,” a term coined some years ago by cofounders of Interculture Inc. What we commonly think of as culture is just the surface of this phenomenon, often appearing outwardly in the diverse “forms” of cultural scripts, beliefs, values, behaviors, and customs). I want to call attention to what goes on beneath surface culture(s), and how AHP intends to play a primary role in …

A Primary Human Challenge, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

We may ask why, at both the individual and collective levels, it has seemed so difficult for us to choose to evolve our human games with Joy. There is no one answer for such a question, for each of us has the gift of free will. I will suggest, however, that built into our human games is what I call a primary human challenge. That primary human challenge is a dynamic tension, flowing from our creative urge for the freedom “to be” who we really are in our current physical form, and simultaneously to embrace our responsibility for our Being-ness.

Gender In Politics, Sheri L. Kunovich, Pamela Paxton, Melanie M. Hughes

Sociology Research

Women’s political participation and representation vary dramatically within and between countries. We selectively review the literature on gender in politics, focusing on women’s formal political participation.

We discuss both traditional explanations for women’s political participation and representation, such as the supply of women and the demand for women, and newer explanations such as the role of international actors and gender quotas. We also ask whether women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a difference to public policy? Throughout the review we demonstrate that a full understanding of women’s political representation requires both deep knowledge of individual cases such …

Systems Of Distribution And A Sense Of Equity: A Multilevel Analysis Of Meritocratic Attitudes In Post-Industrial Societies, Sheri L. Kunovich, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski

Sociology Research

Meritocratic attitudes are defined as general beliefs that education and its correlates should determine personal economic outcomes. Using the International Social Survey Project (ISSP): Social Inequality Module (1992), we examine both individual-level and country-level determinants of pro-meritocratic attitudes. According to self-interest and rational-action theories, individuals with high educational attainment and high personal income are expected to have strong meritocratic beliefs because meritocracy is in their best interest—they would gain under such a system. At the same time, both modernization and post-industrial theories imply that persons living in countries with a high degree of societal meritocracy hold stronger meritocratic beliefs than …

Organizing For Community Benefit: Anti-Gentrification Effort In Providence, Ri, Katiuska Pérez

Senior Honors Projects

Throughout my college experience I didn’t really gain any basic foundation on how to organize and work with a group of people in a collective effort. I thought the best way to learn these skills in such a short amount of time would be to work with an organization that has been campaigning for positive social change for many years. I was referred to DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) in Providence. I approached the director of the organization, Sara Mersha, and shared with her what I wanted to gain from a possible internship in her organization. She gave …

The Department Store, Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy

Wendy A. Wiedenhoft Murphy

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology is published in both print and online. Arranged across eleven volumes in A-Z format, it is the definitive reference source for students, researchers, and academics in the field. This ground-breaking project brings together specially commissioned entries written and edited by an international team of the world's best scholars and teachers. It provides: Clear, concise, expert definitions and explanations of the key concepts An essential reference for expert and newcomer alike, with entries ranging from short definitions of key terms to extended explorations of major topics Materials that have historically defined the discipline, but also more …

Pathways To Power: The Role Of Political Parties In Women’S National Political Representation, Sheri L. Kunovich, Pamela Paxton

Sociology Research

The authors extend previous research on women’s participation in politics by examining the role of female elites in political parties in selecting and supporting women as political candidates. They hypothesize that political parties, in their role as gatekeepers, mediate the relationship between country-level factors, such as women’s participation in the labor force, and political outcomes for women. The article focuses on three outcomes for women: the percentage of female political party leaders, the percentage of female candidates in a country, and the percentage of women elected. New cross-national measures of women’s inclusion in political parties are developed and analyzed in …

Fordism And Postfordism, Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy

Wendy A. Wiedenhoft Murphy

The Encyclopedia of Social Theory contains over 500 entries varying from concise definitions of key terms and short biographies of key theorists to comprehensive surveys of leading concepts, debates, themes and schools. The object of the Encyclopedia has been to give thorough coverage of the central topics in theoretical sociology as well as terms and concepts in the methodology and philosophy of social science. Although 106 theorists are given entries, the emphasis of the work is on the elucidation of ideas rather than intellectual biography. The Encyclopedia covers the leading contemporary domains of debate on social theory and the classical …

Richard Rorty, Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy

Wendy A. Wiedenhoft Murphy

The Encyclopedia of Social Theory contains over 500 entries varying from concise definitions of key terms and short biographies of key theorists to comprehensive surveys of leading concepts, debates, themes and schools. The object of the Encyclopedia has been to give thorough coverage of the central topics in theoretical sociology as well as terms and concepts in the methodology and philosophy of social science. Although 106 theorists are given entries, the emphasis of the work is on the elucidation of ideas rather than intellectual biography. The Encyclopedia covers the leading contemporary domains of debate on social theory and the classical …

Between Scylla And Charybdis: Sociological Objectivity And Bias, Lester R. Kurtz

Lester R. Kurtz

The Greek tragic flaw refers to a virtue extended to such an extreme that it becomes a vice. Sociology's tragic flaw includes a virtue - the pursuit of objectivity - when carried to an extreme exchanges personal prejudices for abstract ones.