Digital Commons Network^™

Driving Down The Virtual Broadway: Testing The Feasibility Of Educating Young Drivers In Virtual Worlds, Christopher Ball

All Theses

The Clemson University Automotive Safety Research Institute funded the creation of a three-dimensional virtual representation of an established teen driver education program. This virtual safe driving program was created within the public virtual world of Second Life. The overall objective of this project was to explore the use of virtual worlds as potential mediums for teen driver education. The specific objectives of this study were: (1) to adapt and translate the Petty Safe Driving Program curriculum into a virtual world; (2) to create a virtual learning environment that can exist as an engaging, entertaining, and educational program addition; (3) to …

Ecological Revival And Sustainable Living In The Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest Of Tamil Nadu: A Measurement Of Residential Perception In Sadhana Forest, Elizabeth Collette Mcguire

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Since 1970, the role and function of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been to promote environmental quality and to form strategies for carrying out environmental policy¹. The EPA has committed to sustainability as the next level of environmental protection. The agency states that sustainability calls for policies and strategies that meet society’s present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs². Presently, society’s requirements have resulted in natural resource exploitation and population distention- projected to reach 10 billion people within two human generations³. These paired occurrences are …

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 …

Part-Time Faculty In Higher Education: A Selected Annotated Bibliography, Robert Pankin, Carla Weiss

Sociology Department Faculty Publications

At this writing (Fall 2011), two-thirds of the faculty in higher education are contingent part-time or full-time. Only one-third of the faculty is tenured or on the tenure-track. This selected, annotated bibliography is organized by year of publication, from 1977 to 2010. (An earlier version was published in 2008.) It is the purpose of this publication to facilitate understanding of the meaning and implications of this major change in the structure of higher education. The annotations in the bibliography were written from the perspective of a part-time faculty member, unlike most of the literature, which is written from a management …

Black Visibility, City Size, And Social Control, Pamela Jackson

Pamela Irving Jackson

The research reported in this article tests the hypothesis that the relationship between the public fiscal commitment to policing and minority group size is not the same in small cities as it is in large cities. The results of a comparison of all cities in the United States that were greater than 50,000 in population in 1970 with those that were between 25,000-50,000 at that time indicates that the impact of the relative size of the black population on social control efforts differs in both strength and form in the two subpopulations. In large cities percent black has a significant …

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: …

Organizational Institutionalism And Sociology: A Reflection, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] In 1991, DiMaggio and Powell observed: Institutional theory presents a paradox. Institutional analysis is as old as Emile Durkheim's exhortation to study 'social facts as things', yet sufficiently novel to be preceded by new in much of the contemporary literature. (1991: 1) We argue that this paradox is, at least in part, the result of a long-standing tension in sociology between more materialist, interest-driven explanations of behavior and ideational, normative explanations, a tension that has often driven oscillating waves of sociological theorizing. It underlies many classical debates (e.g., between Spencer and Durkheim, Weber and Marx, and even Parsons and …

The Undefined Middle: Exploring The Role Of The Union Representative In The Modern Teachers Union Structure, Amanda Erin Lee

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

As an integral part of the teachers union, the union representative works to serve the needs of the union on a local level while also maintaining employment as a teacher within the school system. The continuously evolving political climate that surrounds this organization including shifting educational laws and leadership on the federal and state levels, has left the role of the union representative largely undefined in the current teachers union structure. As a necessary aspect of both the school and the union, the union representative must fulfill role requirements in two structures that are frequently at odds with each other, …

Youth Empowerment Through Math Literacy: An Analysis Of Young People’S Project At Hamilton College, Hannah Roth

Hannah Roth

Through my sociology concentration I was able to experience working as a Coordinator for Young People's Project (YPP), as well as the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.

YPP is a grass roots youth organization that focuses on math literacy and social justice for local disadvantaged students. Hamilton College students are trained to develop and facilitate workshops to students in the Utica area middle schools. Each week Hamilton College students travel to the Donovan Middle School in Utica, NY to facilitate these workshops. YPP strives to use math literacy as a tool to develop young leaders with the …

For Love Or Money: Has Neoliberalism Impacted Fertility? A Historical Comparison, Elizabeth Anne Kiester

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Known as neoliberalism, an economic philosophy has spread throughout the world and may be contributing to total fertility rates that have fallen well below replacement value. I present two neoliberal mechanisms and how they may have driven total fertility rates around the world well below replacement levels and inhibited growth. These include increased social risks in the labor market as well as in the household. I then build a theoretical framework based on the social embeddedness of markets as conceived by Karl Polanyi and the concept of social risk as suggested by Richard Breen, suggesting that the unique combinations of …

Book Review: Coping With The Effects Of Deprivation: Development And Upbringing Of Romanian Adoptees In The Netherlands, By Catharina Rijk, Josephine A. Ruggiero

Sociology Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Attitudes, Behavior, And Social Practice, Harris Chaiklin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The relationship between attitudes and behavior is not symmetrical. A literature review is used to organize a summary of methodological and practical problems in this area. In turn, these findings are used to comment on how sociology and social work practice can take this into account.

The Holy Ghost Beyond The Church Walls: Latino Pentecostalism(S), Congregations, And Civic Engagement, Norman Eli Ruano

Dissertations

In what ways is Pentecostalism a catalyst or an inhibitor of congregational and congregant civic engagement among U.S. Latinos? And how does this compare to other religious traditions, specifically Latino Catholicism, Evangelicalism, and Mainline Protestantism? The dissertation argues that Latino Pentecostal congregations, depending on a variety of reasons such as demographics, and pastor's education, can either be very conservative, inward-looking, and otherworldly, or progressive and this-worldly--in addition to other options along this continuum. Such findings are particularly important given the common social scientific research assumption that Latino Pentecostal congregations are generally conservative, inward- looking, and otherworldly.

After surveying a representative …

Kicking And Screaming, Roger Clark, Rachel Filinson

Faculty Publications

The authors provide an account of their department's minimalist and largely reluctant approach to mandatory assessment in the past decade. A decade earlier, the department had gone all out in an experimental assessment effort supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, an effort the department was neither willing nor able to make once the college's accreditation agency mandated assessment in 2000. The authors describe another "less-than-ideal design" that has nonetheless involved many of the assessment elements described elsewhere (e.g., alumni and student surveys, classroom assignments, external reviewers, research papers) and has nonetheless yielded usable and utilized feedback …

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 …

“Creating A Nation Of Joiners: Democracy And Civil Society In Early National Massachusetts” By Johann N. Neem, Cedric De Leon

Sociology Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Designing Incentives For Inexpert Human Raters, Daniel L. Chen, John J. Horton, Aaron D. Shaw

Faculty Scholarship

The emergence of online labor markets makes it far easier to use individual human raters to evaluate materials for data collection and analysis in the social sciences. In this paper, we report the results of an experiment - conducted in an online labor market - that measured the effectiveness of a collection of social and financial incentive schemes for motivating workers to conduct a qualitative, content analysis task. Overall, workers performed better than chance, but results varied considerably depending on task difficulty. We find that treatment conditions which asked workers to prospectively think about the responses of their peers - …

We Live This Shit Rap As A Reflection Of Reality For Inner City Youth, Parag Patel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rap is an extremely popular form of modern music that is notorious for incorporating themes of guns and violence into the lyrics. Early rap was mainly party or dance music until the mid-80s when structural shifts in social conditions brought feelings of hopelessness and frustration into black inner city communities and youth culture. These feelings now find expression in rap lyrics. This thesis uses rap lyrics as qualitative data to understand the plight of urban black youth. Rap music can be seen as a form of resistance for young African Americans who have historically never had such a medium to …

Dying Today: Perspectives Of The Modern Hospice Worker, Nicholas Jay Mac Murray

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

From a sociological standpoint, death is relatively difficult to research. While some individuals may describe near-death experiences, the actual act of death cannot be fully known to the living. The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the nature of death and dying in the United States today. This research examines the perspective of modern hospice workers. These individuals work near death on a regular basis and therefore have a privileged understanding of what death is like in US society today. Data consist of ten in-depth interviews with hospice/ palliative-care workers in the Midwestern United States. Respondents were …

A Qualitative Approach To Spiral Of Silence Research: Self-Censorship Narratives Regarding Environmental And Social Conflict, Christopher John Ryan

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this research is to seek narratives of self-censorship from in-depth interviews of 19 participants acquired through a purposive (criterion) sampling protocol. The primary research question driving this study is “What types of sanctions contribute to people choosing to self-censor their strongly held beliefs, values, and opinions.” Previous research conducted on the topic of self-censorship (generally under the rubric of the spiral of silence theory) has been predominantly quantitative and consideration of sanctions influencing self-censorship have been limited to fear of social isolation. I suggest that ostensibly important sanction variables have not been utilized within these existing frameworks. …

A Study To Reduce Medication Administration Errors Using Watson’S Caring Theory, Tommie Nelms, Jackie Jones, Linda A. Treiber

Linda A. Treiber

Tourist Experience: Contemporary Perspectives, Philip R. Stone

Dr Philip Stone