Digital Commons Network^™

Race And The Criminal Justice System: A Study Of Racial Bias And Racial Injustice, Nicole C. Haug

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Midwest Or Lesbian? Gender, Rurality, And Sexuality, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Research suggests a gendered dimension to the geography of sexual minorities, as gay couples are more likely to live in cities than are lesbian couples. Using data from 60 interviews with rural gays and lesbians, this article employs an intersectional analysis of the mutually constitutive relationships among place, gender, and sexuality in order to assess how acceptance of gays and lesbians in small towns is gendered. Findings indicate that femininity aligns with gay sexuality but not rurality. In contrast, masculinity underpins both the categories “rural” and “lesbian.” Furthermore, both lesbian women and gay men gain acceptance in rural areas by …

I'M Polynesian Too: Philosophy Of Assimilation, Cosmopolitanism, Colonialism, Race, & Culture, Aaron Hire

Senior Theses

Finding identity is difficult for mixed race and culture Polynesian Americans because there is no full integration into either racial/cultural side. For many Polynesian Americans (mixed race or not), finding an ethnic, cultural, and philosophical identity is a life-long struggle that constantly toils in matters tied to their souls and well being: issues of right and wrong, gender roles, morals/ethics, acceptance, and what it means to be human. For Polynesians and mixed race Polynesians, tribulation and alienation stem from the assimilation model that is present in the world today. “American Consumerist Cosmopolitanism,” as descended from colonialism, has impacted the well-being …

Romania For Beginners: Intersections Of Race, Class, And Gender, Linda A. Treiber

The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology

In this article, I discuss a faculty learning community abroad in Romania. Key topics include cross cultural comparisons of race, gender, and medical care.

Bias Crime And Minority Threat, Michele Stacey

Dissertations

Beginning in the 1980s, the term hate crime became part of the research canon of criminologists across the United States. Researchers have examined the characteristics of hate crime victims, offenders, and offenses. However, little is known about the context of hate crime, and more specifically about the ways that the changing demographics of the United States have contributed to hate crime. The dissertation examines the relationship between these demographic shifts and the trend in hate crime from 2000 to 2007 through the use of population averaged panel models. These models assess changes over time and across place in the number …

A Critique Of Political Self-Deception: Kant And Freud At The Edge Of Critical Theory, James A. Manos

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

In the spirit of Kantian critique this dissertation pursues the enlightenment project of examining the limits of reason and its political ramifications. Beginning from the claim that psychoanalysis is the inheritor of the Kantian project, this dissertation argues the limits of political reason lie beyond the concepts of overcoming and mastery. While traditionally this conversation has been occupied with the concept of ideology, this dissertation draws on the Freudian concept of self-deception. It contends the concept of ideology contains the seeds of its own overcoming, and thus cannot represent the limits of political reason. In contrast to ideology, this dissertation …

Validity Of Infact Race/Ethnicity From Birth Certificates In The Context Of U.S. Demographic Change, Lisa Reyes Mason, Yunju Nam, Youngmi Kim

Center for Social Development Research

In this study, we examined consistency of infant race/ethnicity across two data sources (N=2,63) using measures of sensitivity and positive predictive value. First we created and compared conventional measures of infant race/ethnicity from 2007 Oklahoma birth certificates and SEED for Oklahoma Kids baseline survey data, classifying infants as White, African American, American Indian, Asian, or Hispanic. Then we created and tested alternative measures with a biracial classification, based on biological parentage from birth certificates or parent report of infant biracial identity in the survey. We find that, for conventional measures, sensitivity is highest for Whites and African Americans and lowest …

Racial And Ethnic Health Disparities In Incarcerated Populations, Meghan E. Borysova, Ojmarrh Mitchell, Dawood H. Sultan, Arthur R. Williams

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Alarming disparities in population health and wellness in the United States have led to multi-disciplinary research efforts to create health equity. Identifying disparities, elucidating the etiological bases of disparities, and implementing solutions to eliminate disparities are part of the U.S. national health agenda. Racial and ethnic disparities have been identified throughout the cancer control continuum, in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and a multitude of other conditions. The causes of disparities are complex, condition specific, and conjectured to result from combinations of biological and socio-behavioral factors. Racial and ethnic health disparities within the vast incarcerated communities have been excluded from most studies, …

Toward A Recovery Of The Legacy Of Martin Luther King Jr., David Fleer

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Racism: Its Impact On The African American Family, Kenneth R. Greene

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Cross Of Christ As A Treatment For America's Racial Schizophrenia, Ira J. Jolivet Jr.

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Hungry For Respect: Discrimination Among Adults Using Emergency Food Services, Gilbert C. Gee, Kathryn J. Lively, Larissa Larsen, Jennifer Keith, Jana Stone, Kara Macleod

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Objectives: We examined how adults using emergency food services report discrimination and how these reports may be associated with well-being.

Methods: Data come from a survey (n=318) and from five focus groups of adults using emergency food services, conducted between 2003-2004. The survey included measures derived from the Everyday Discrimination Scale and the Centers for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Focus groups were analyzed with content analysis.

Results: The survey data suggest that everyday discrimination was associated with the CES-D, conditional on covariates. Focus group data are consistent with the survey results and suggest several avenues for future research, including …

The Perceived Effect Of The Sociocultural Context On Hiv/Aids Identity Incorporation, Lisa M. Baumgartner

The Qualitative Report

Contexts influence the experience of disease. In this study, I examined how the sociocultural context (e.g., race, class, gender, and sexual orientation) affected the experience of living with HIV/AIDS and the incorporation of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self. I interviewed 36 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Findings indicate that race, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation affected access to HIV/AIDS resources and/or the disclosure of one’s HIV-positive status that, in turn, influenced the integration of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self. Additional research concerning the impact of gender on the HIV/AIDS identity corporation process is warranted.

Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Nichole Griffith

Social Sciences

This paper examines racism in the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system creates and perpetuates racial hierarchy in the United States. African Americans are criminalized and targeted because of their skin color. I analyze the Reagan administration, the War on Drugs, corrupt police practices, media, inner city enforcement, police discretion, racial profiling, and sentencing to reveal this racism and unfair treatment of African Americans. These victims of racism face lifelong marginalization and exclusion because they were criminalized. I also draw a link between the criminal justice system and slavery and Jim Crow. This racism explains why there are so …

Building Brotherhood: An Examination Of Race, Violence, Sexuality And Black Fraternity Membership, Ashley Y. Stone

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how black men in black fraternities construct and negotiate their masculinity. We argue that the purpose of black fraternities’ hazing and pledge practices is different from that of white fraternities. Black fraternities use these processes to educate members about the historical oppression of black men and to mold members’ manhood. We maintain that black fraternity members use various strategies to resist yet conform to the fraternity philosophy at the same time to negotiate their manhood. Using in-depth interviews with current and previous members, we examine the embedded gender, sexual and racial meanings throughout the pledging and hazing …

Bradenton, Fl: A Patchwork City, Rebekah G. Brightbill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The City of Bradenton is a patchwork city, whose neighborhoods vary greatly in quality. While its neighborhoods differ in type based on consumer preference, they vary in quality because of federal, state, and local planning and urban policy. These policies have resulted in inequality of place and race, clustering racial minorities in center city neighborhoods with deteriorated infrastructure and income inequality. This impacts the ability of the City to be competitive with other cities as a metropolitan whole. The City's economically and racially segregated neighborhoods are not the inevitable outcome of market forces, but rather reflect decades of federal, state, …

College Students' Plans For Graduate Or Professional School: A Comparison Of Different Racial And Ethnic Groups, Lei Gong

Open Access Theses

Most research on educational plans has focused on high school students’ plans for college. Few studies have examined graduate or professional school plans among college students. This thesis uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF) to examine: (1) racial and ethnic variations in graduate or professional school plans; and (2) the effect of race-ethnicity on graduate or professional school plans relative to other factors such as sex, SES, college type, parents’ aspirations, peer aspirations and students’ evaluation of college experiences. It also provides detailed analyses of the graduate or professional school plans of the Asian subgroups. Results indicate that …

Differential Effects Of Race And Poverty On Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions, Farrukh B. Hakeem, Daniel L. Howard, Timothy S. Carey, Yhenneko J. Taylor

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

This study is a continuation of an earlier study that examined hospitalization rates for ambulatory care sensitive (ACS) conditions, as a proxy for quality of care, and found evidence of a racial disparity among African American and White Medicare beneficiaries. The current study sought to determine whether neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) explained this disparity. Differences in rates of ACS hospitalizations by race were assessed using Cochran-Mantel Haenszel tests and Poisson regression. Unadjusted rate ratios for ACS hospitalization for African Americans vs. Whites were found to be higher in low poverty areas (rate ratio (RR)=1.13; 95% CI (1.08, 1.17)) than in …

Differences In Race And/Or Gender In Attitudes And Beliefs Towards Obesity Among Students At The University Of Southern Mississippi, Erick Brown

Honors Theses

Overweight and obesity have been described by various experts as critical problems in populations around the world, especially in the United States. These issues are so characterized because they affect numerous facets of life in this society. Researchers in the medical community have repeatedly described the health-related risks associated with obesity rates, asserting that higher risks of debilitating or fatal disease are tied to one’s level of obesity. They also say that obesity rates of populations are related to other disease rates, and many imply or clearly state that obesity is the cause and therefore the problem to be contested. …

Seeds For Change: Examining The Association Between Race, Food Security, And Urban Agriculture, Komal Razvi

Honors College Theses

Access to healthy, nutritious food is one of the most basic human needs. Unfortunately, a large portion of the global population, including that of the United States, has limited access to such food, hence putting families in a state of food insecurity. Food insecurity occurs when households are unable to (or struggle to) provide adequate food to all household members due to lack of funds or food resources. This phenomenon is considered to be a major concern in many urban settings such as Detroit, as it is a characteristic of societal distress. Interestingly, research has shown that while food insecurity …

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.

The Stares To Achievement: African American Youth Resist Risk And Rhetoric To Achieve Academic Success, Ch́E Yvette Wyatt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

For African American students, academic achievement is often discussed in terms of student deficits and cultural deficiencies. Citing high dropout rates and the achievement gap, focus is often centered on understanding African American achievement in terms of school failures. As such, African American students are, at times, recognized negatively in terms of their academic abilities. Moving away from this deficit perspective of understanding African American students and their school achievement, this study examines the standpoint of six African American students who, despite possessing characteristics that complicated their school experiences, achieved success. Interrupting common discourse and recognizing these students as holders …

Applying Indices Post-Grutter To Monitor Progress Toward Attaining A Diverse Student Body, Roger W. Reinsch, Sonia Goltz, Hong Chen, Joel C. Tuoriniemi

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The Supreme Court decision in Grutter v. Bollinger provided more definitive guidance for institutions of higher education desiring to use racial preferences in an effort to achieve a diverse student body. This Article first examines Grutter and other relevant cases to set forth the parameters established by the Supreme Court concerning how university preferences, including but not limited to race, may be used in an admissions policy. This Article then provides a framework for creating and using diversity indices that can help institutions implement the guidelines found in these court decisions and monitor whether or not the goal of diversity …

Factors That Influence Helping Behaviors: Does Race And Socioeconomic Status Of A Victim Influence Whether Others Help?, M’Keba Barksdale

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Personal Factors that Influence Helping Behaviors The murder of Kitty Genovese played an historic role in promoting research on helping behavior (Manning, Levine & Collins, 2007). For many years research articles, psychology books, and other references about the murder of Kitty Genovese informed people that she was stabbed to death in front of her home while 37 witnesses watched and did not help. However, more recent research has shown that this research was not accurate (Manning, Levine & Collins 2007). There were actually 38 witnesses and some who testified at the murder trial, that at a first glimpse it did …

Parental Educational Expectations By Race/Ethnicity And Socioeconomic Status, Youngmi Kim, Michael Sherraden, Margaret Clancy

Center for Social Development Research

Research has linked parents’ educational expectations to children’s educational attainment, but findings regarding differences in educational expectations by race/ethnicity have been inconsistent. In addition, existing studies have focused on school-age children and their parents. In this study, we examine educational expectations in mothers of newborn children using a state representative sample. a series of logistic regressions are conducted for the full sample (N=2,572) and for individual racial groups to investigate parental educational expectations by race and Hispanic origin. The study finds that non-Hispanic Whites hold higher educational expectations for their children compared to African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics. However, …

The Significance Of Race For Neighborhood Social Cohesion: Perceived Difficulty Of Collective Action In Majority Black Neighborhoods, Tamara Leech, Tara Hobson-Prater

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This article explores William Julius Wilson's contentions about community cultural traits by examining racial differences in middle class neighborhoods' levels of social cohesion. Specifically, we explore the perceived difficulty of these actions-as opposed to general pessimism about their outcomes-as a potential explanation for low levels of instrumental collective action in Black middle class neighborhoods. Our results indicate that, regardless of other neighborhood factors, majority Black neighborhoods have low levels of social cohesion. We also find that this racial disparity is statistically explained by shared perceptions about the amount of effort required to engage in group action in different neighborhoods. These …

Moving Beyond Dichotomies: How The Intersection Of Race, Class And Place Impacts High School Graduation Rates For African American Students, Heather L. Storer, Joseph A. Mienko, Yu-Ling Chang, Ji Young Kang, Christina Miyawaki, Katie Schultz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Over thirty years ago, William Julius Wilson declared that class trumped race as the more significant determinant of social mobility and economic opportunity. Despite the acclaim and scrutiny for Wilson's work, the United States has grown increasingly divided by intersecting factors of race, class and other demographic factors such as place (Massey, 2007). These divisions are especially evident in the public education system. We analyze how race, class and place interact to predict high school graduation rates in a national sample of schools and students. Results confirm that a singular focus on race, class, or locale is insufficient to explain …

Standing With Students: An Exploration Of Educational Inequality, Grace Hurner

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

"Waiting For The White Man To Fix Things:" Rebuilding Black Poverty In New Orleans, Robert L. Hawkins, Katherine Maurer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper revisits William Julius Wilson's thesis that class has surpassed race in significance of impact on African Americans. Our study uses qualitative data from a three-year ethnographic study of 40 largely low-income families in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. We also include a review of the recent U.S. Census study assessing New Orleans's current economic state. Participants in our study viewed race and class as major factors in four areas: (1) immediately following the devastation; (2) during relocation to other communities; (3) during the rebuilding process; and (4) historically and structurally throughout New Orleans. Our analysis concludes that racism …

Research Brief: "Veteran Status, Race-Ethnicity, And Marriage Among Fragile Families", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes an examination of the impact of men's past military service on the likelihood that a couple will marry within 5 years of a nonmarital birth.