Digital Commons Network^™

The Segmentation Of Social Experience, Wyatt Stahl

McNair Scholars Journal

Previous research has shown that people break up or segment activities into discrete events. Most everyday activities are comprised of both social and nonsocial behaviors. For example, a trip to the zoo includes social behaviors such as interacting with the person at the ticket booth and non-social behaviors such as following a map to find an exhibit. While there has been some research on how social characteristics affect event structure, little has been conducted that investigates how the perception of social interactions between individuals affects one’s segmentation of those experiences into events.

In this study, we tested the effect of …

Small Groups As Context For Institutional Entrepreneurship: An Exploration Of The Emergence Of Commercial Microfinance In Bolivia, Silvia Dorado

College of Business Faculty Publications

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on inhabited institutions. It argues that institutional entrepreneurship, as most social action, is not an individual-bounded endeavor, at the hands of isolated individuals, but a group-bounded one, at the hands of social individuals inhabiting groups which motivate, inspire, and enable their engagement. The inhabited group-bounded conceptualization offered helps to overcome voluntaristic biases and atemporalism plaguing much micro research on institutional entrepreneurship. The paper builds on a qualitative case study of the emergence of commercial microfinance in Bolivia.

The Hispanic Profile Data Book For Idaho, Errol D. Jones, Rosaura Conley-Estrada, Greg Hill

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 2010 United States Census confirms the continuing dramatic growth of Idaho’s Hispanic people. Demand for demographic data and information regarding the Hispanic population continues to be essential for understanding and serving Idaho’s Hispanic community. In recognition of this need, in 2004 the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs developed the first Hispanic Profile Project, a demographic report of Idaho’s Hispanic community at that time. Another Hispanic Profile report was published in 2007.

The Politics Of Relevance: Law, Translation And Alternative Knowledges, Peer Zumbansen

Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy

In this article, I want to suggest that there is a significant difference between the current interest of law in sociology (anthropology, geography) and the earlier instance of legal sociology. Whereas historically earlier stances responded, in no small degree, to legal positivism and, eventually, to both technological and societal change, the current social scientific engagement by lawyers appears driven by a differently articulated concern, even anxiety, about the viability of legal analytical, conceptual and semantic tools in a changed, transnational context. With the shift of law’s bearings from the nation-state to globalization’s strange land, law’s need to learn anew and …

They Want To Be Global Citizens: Now What? Implications Of The Ngo Career Arc For Students And Faculty Mentors, Andrew M. Robinson

Human Rights and Human Diversity Faculty Publications

Once faculty have inspired their students to want to become Global Citizens, many of these students will approach them for advice about careers that will enable them to live out their commitment to global justice. This article seeks to inform such discussions by providing students and their faculty mentors with information to help consider whether the NGO sector is a good fit for the student, how to prepare for it, and how to advance within it. It does so by providing a snapshot of the nonprofit/NGO career arc based upon analysis of 220 responses to a survey conducted in 2010 …

“Babies Aren’T Persons”: A Survey Of Delayed Personhood, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

To better understand attachment from a cross-cultural and historical perspective, I have amassed over 200 cases from the ethnographic and archaeological records that reveal cultural models (D'Andrade and Strauss 1992) of infancy. The 200 cases represent all areas of the world, historical epochs from the Mesolithic to the present and all types of subsistence patterns (Appendix 1). The approach is inductive where cases with similar models of infancy are clustered into archetypes. My principal finding from this analysis is that, in the broadest overview, infants are, effectively, placed on probation and not immediately integrated into the society. Attachment failure is …

Una Herida Abierta A Content Analysis Of U.S. News Reports Covering Femicide In Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Eva Gray

Theses & ETDs

Since 1993, hundreds of femicides (murders of women) have gone unsolved on the US-Mexico border. This thesis is concerned with how two US newspapers, the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times, cover these femicides in Juárez, Mexico. The research looks at three separate time periods: 1996-2000, 2001-2005, and 2006-2010 in order to ascertain changes in coverage through time; I coded 32 articles. I found lower coverage in the first time period; peaking around 2001, when there was increased attention by governments and NGOs condemning the murders. The Houston Chronicle provided more frequent coverage, though it tended to be brief. …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Effect Of Disability Type And Emotional/Behavior Problems On Different Forms Of Maltreatment Across Childhood, Jennifer A. Vanderminden

Doctoral Dissertations

Children are among the most vulnerable people in our population, especially those with disabilities, emotional and behavioral problems (EBP), and those who experience maltreatment. This dissertation increases our understanding of the complex relationships between disability, internalizing symptoms (IS), externalizing symptoms (ES), and maltreatment across developmental stages. Previous literature suggests that children with disabilities (CWD) are at a heightened risk for maltreatment (Spencer, Devereux, Wallace, Sundrum, Shenoy, Bacchus, and Logan 2005 ; Sullivan and Knutson 2000). Yet, recently the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4) has challenged the notion that CWD are at increased risk, showing that …

Everyday Food Practices Among Three Low-Income Groups: Rural, Homeless, And Refugee, Amy L. Redman

Doctoral Dissertations

Lower-income groups are more susceptible to diet-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease (CDC, 2010). They are also more likely to need food and nutritional assistance (USDA, 2011). Yet very little is known about the day-to-day food practices of these individuals and families. Many times those who are relatively adjacent in terms of income are assumed to have similarities in food consumption (Hupkens, Knibbe, & Drop, 2000); however, this has not been empirically examined. The main objectives of this research are to 1) gain an exploratory in-depth understanding of the everyday food practices of individuals in three low-income groups: …

The Culture Of Intercollegiate Athletes: Pawns For University Economic Success And Academic Fraud, Derek Wagner

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Parenting, Peregrination, And Politics: A Study Of Family Policy And Immigration In West European Welfare States, Jeremy Lee Jackson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The title of this thesis is "Parenting, Peregrination, and Politics: A Study of Family Policy and Immigration in West European Welfare States." The author's name is J.L. Jackson, a candidate for a Master of Science degree in cross-disciplinary studies (foci in sociology and political science) at Minnesota State University, Mankato, located in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. This thesis was published in 2013. This writing seeks to answer the question "does an increase in immigration cause family policy spending and coverage in advanced West European democracies to expand?" Qualitative methods, including content analysis, as well as quantitative analysis of existing data …

Religious Freedom, Animal Sacrifice, And Community Maintenance: From Hialeah To The United States Supreme Court, Lewis Winstanley

Theses & ETDs

This objective of this thesis is to challenge the idea that secularization leads to a decline in religious authority through a content analysis of the United States Supreme Court case, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah. I build my argument against Max Weber's concern with expanding structures of rationality and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan's claim that in the field of US law, religious freedom is impossible. As an example of resistance to secularization, I examined the construction of the church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye. I contextualize the church's emergence in a history of Yoruban culture …

Reproducing Inequality?: A Comparative Analysis Of Social Relations In Non-Profit Organizations, Mariana Zapata

Theses & ETDs

This research project seeks to explore whether the structure of non-profit organizations enables or inhibits the reproduction of social hierarchies within the client-staff relationship. I study two structurally different organizations operating with similar constituents in Florida: a service-based organization with a defined hierarchy, and a grassroots organization with a participatory approach. Through in-depth interviews with clients and staff members, I sought to gain insight into the processes of interaction, empowerment, and expression that existed within both organizations. I found that, though both organizations reproduced social hierarchies, their structure impacted the extent to and the way in which these hierarchies were …

Drawing The Line: Student Reassignment Policies In South Carolina, Naomi Rachel Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the complex nature of student reassignment plans developed between 2006 and 2008 in three South Carolina school districts: York School District 3, Dorchester School District 2, and Greenville School District. The study is guided by the following research question: How are the district policies for student reassignment understood through the lens of institutional and organizational theories? To answer this question this research draws on Institutional Theory (both old and new) to develop a comprehensive model that specifically addresses the strategies a district uses to create a plan that responds to the demographic and political pressures exerted on …

The Body As Wartime Terrain: Social Control And Female Sexuality Under Military Occupation, Frances Choe

Theses and Dissertations

This project is a comparative-historical sociological analysis of the informal and formal responses to sexual contact in two WWII period cases: between French women and Nazi troops, and German women and African-American GIs. I focus on the connection between the regulation of women's bodies and cultural expectations of gender, ideas about sexuality, and racial ideology. The results of war and subsequent occupation of the defeated nation - population decline and the acute loss of male life, strained material resources and the daily concern of survival, the social psychological sense of defeat, and intimate relationships between occupiers and the occupied - …

The Role Of Parental Self-Efficacy: The Voices Of Mothers With Low-Income Navigating Supports, Services, And Obstacles, Sarah M. Bond

Master's Theses and Capstones

Through semi-structured interviews, the current study examined the role of parental self-efficacy as mothers with low-income navigated challenging contexts and experiences while receiving formal and informal supports. Mothers shared their unique experiences, which provided insight into their lives and how contextual variables influenced parental self-efficacy. As a result of this study, four themes emerged: 1) the function of mental health, 2) sense of community, 3) stability, and 4) the perceptions of child development and growth. Findings indicated that a sense of stability mediated contextual challenges and increased parental self-efficacy, identified that informal and formal supports contribute to both high and …

Trans Women And Aging: A Qualitative Study, Martha B. Leighton

Master's Theses and Capstones

Data from interviews with 11 transgender women ages 55 to 77 were used to examine the experiences of gender-diverse individuals throughout the lifespan. Specifically, qualitative methods were used to examine how participants had experienced discrimination, developed strengths and resiliencies as a response to discrimination, and employed strategies predicted by Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources Theory. Focused coding of the data revealed significant and pervasive discrimination in multiple settings and throughout the participants' lives. The data also, however, revealed a wide range of strengths and resiliencies and indicated that participants employed a variety of strategies that allowed them to amass, maintain, and …

Family Attachment, Family Conflict, And Delinquency In A Sample Of Rural Youth, Susannah Perron

Master's Theses and Capstones

This thesis applies tenets of strain theory and social control theory to explore the influences that family attachment and family conflict may have on juvenile delinquency and substance use. This thesis examines the effect of one type of strain, family conflict, and family attachment, one of the key bonds described in control theory, on juvenile's propensity to commit delinquent acts or use substances. In addition, this thesis explores possible gender differences in the way that these family variables impact risk for delinquency and substance use. This thesis includes a rural sample of two groups of adolescents (8th and 12th grade), …

Masculinity And Sexual Violence: Comparison Between Japan And The United States, Kei Saito

Master's Theses and Capstones

Japan has received considerable attention in the field of criminology in its unique features, such as its low crime rate. Available research seems to suggest that the Japanese rate of sexual violence, like other crimes, is equally lower compared to the United States. The present study examines the potential influence of gender construction on sexual violence, building upon previous research on the Confluence Model of Sexual Aggression by Malamuth and his colleagues. Data from the General Social Survey in the United States and Japan were used to compare elements that relate to gender roles, gender identity, and sexual behavior to …

The Association Between Sexual Orientation And Labor Market Outcomes, Justine A. Bulgar-Medina

Master's Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to begin to describe various aspects of interactions with the labor market (e.g. employment status, individual income, household income) based on sexual orientation, using nationally representative data from the General Social Survey. Much of the previous research suggests that any observed differences can be attributed to employee choice of occupation or other voluntary aspects of employment. Furthermore, previous research has found wage premiums for gay women and penalties for gay men, with sexual orientation, not gender, as the lead cause. Based on this current data, I assert that any observed difference is an artifact …

Socioeconomic Status, Mastery, And Goal-Striving Stress Among Rural Youth, Michael S. Staunton

Master's Theses and Capstones

Although a growing body of research documents the links between goal-striving stress and emotional disorder, less research examines the psychosocial antecedents of goal-striving stress. Drawing on longitudinal survey data from a panel study of rural youth, this thesis examines the effects of socioeconomic status and mastery on educational goal-striving stress, occupational goal-striving stress, and combined goal-striving stress. Results indicate that each measure of goal-striving stress is not equally well predicted by socioeconomic status and mastery. Notably, the effects of socioeconomic status on occupational goal-striving stress and combined goal-striving stress are conditioned by mastery, while neither socioeconomic status nor mastery is …

Rejecting The Rejecters: The Latent Effect Of Policy On Subculture, Ethan Maxwell Higgins

Online Theses and Dissertations

Specifically, this thesis is a look into rap lyrics, subculture, policy, reflexivity and the formation of the social self. In a broader vision, this thesis attempts to mold a theoretical pathway that illuminates where our cultural products "come from," not historically, but socially. Through the vehicle of rap lyrics I attempt to show that there is a historical and social structure that molds, limits and contains the very possibility of what music and lyrics can come to be. I try to show that the decisions we make on a national scale effects groups which have little political power, effectively recreating …

The Flow Of The Social: Developing A Constructal Systemic Approach To The Study Of Health Inequalities, William A. Anderson

All ETDs from UAB

Society is a dynamic, living system. People, groups, institutions, and cultures are intricately interconnected. Changes in one area of society create changes in other areas. Causes and results may be closely linked or separated by time and space. Sociologists readily acknowledge this dynamic reality. However, our mainstream theories and methods often fail to account for it. Even after decades of research into social inequalities in health, medical sociology still seems far away from being able to offer any definitive ideas about why such inequalities exist and persist despite efforts to alleviate them. Medical sociology (and sociology in general) is centered …

Durkheim's Internet: Social And Political Theory In Online Society, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

While the Internet has changed dramatically since the early 1990s, the legal regime governing the right to privacy online and Internet speech is still steeped in a myth of the Internet user, completely hidden from others, in total control of his online experience, and free to come and go as he pleases. This false image of the “virtual self” has also contributed to an ethos of lawlessness, irresponsibility, and radical individuation online, allowing the evisceration of online privacy and the proliferation of hate and harassment.

I argue that the myth of the online anonym is not only false as a …

Selling 'Fracking': Legitimation Of High Speed Oil And Gas Extraction In The Marcellus Shale Region, Jacob R. Matz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The advent of horizontal hydraulic fracture drilling, or 'fracking,' a technology used to access oil and natural gas deposits, has allowed for the extraction of deep, unconventional shale gas and oil deposits in various shale seams throughout the United States and world. One such shale seam, the Marcellus shale, extends from New York State, across Pennsylvania, and throughout West Virginia, where shale gas development has significantly increased within the last decade. This boom has created a massive amount of economic activity surrounding the energy industry, creating jobs for workers, income from leases and royalties for landowners, and profits for energy …

Measuring Normlessness In The Workplace: A Study Of Organizational Anomie In The Academic Setting, Tayo Glenn Switzer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The dissertation explores leadership and change by examining normlessness in the workplace through a multi-layered study of anomie theory, anomie research in the workplace, and organizational and business management theory. The research validates a quantitative survey designed to measure the level of normlessness experienced by workgroups within an organizational context. The survey reflects a set of six normative aspects that when disrupted produce organizational anomie—a state of normlessness that leads to an increase in worker resistance and a reduction in worker consent. The audience studied in this dissertation is associate professors at a large Midwestern research university. Data were gathered …

The Sociology Of Library Crime In Nigerian Academic Libraries, Flora Ifeoma Okogwu, Uchenna M. Nnam

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The spate of library crime in Nigerian academic libraries is presently alarming. This paper, therefore, is designed to dissect the patterns and trends of this crime using sociological tenets and social dynamics. Through the literature review, the major causes, dimensions and implications of library crime were unravelled. Dearth of knowledge-enhancing, sought-after and expensive reading materials, environmental nature (physical and structural arrangements) of libraries, and economic hardship are some of the causes of library crime, which manifests in various forms: theft, pilfering, mutilation, and fraud. This paper revealed that library crimes have deleterious effects on individual users, library staff, academic community …

Marriage Rights And The Good Life: A Sociological Theory Of Marriage And Constitutional Law, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

This is the first in a series of three Articles investigating the underappreciated role that the social theory of Emile Durkheim plays in the quest for the freedom to marry for gay Americans. To that end, this Article begins the discussion by examining the Durkheimian legal arguments that go unnoticed in equal protection and due process claims against marriage discrimination. This Article challenges two assumptions: first, that the most effective legal argument for marriage rights is a purely liberal one, and second, that the substance and rhetoric of liberal toleration cannot exist symbiotically in the marriage discrimination debate with a …

Transnational Interlocks And Global Business, Josh Murray

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Economic globalization raises questions about whether the emerging transnational business class acts in unison or whether the global business community is internally factionalized. In this context, interlocking directorates that connect transnational corporations play an important role. However, we know surprisingly little about the impact the growing number of such transnational interlocks has on national-level economic and political strategies. Transnational capitalist class (TCC) theory posits that a segment of global capital has emerged as a class and seeks to influence national governments on behalf of transnational class interests by engaging in political behavior that is 1) globally, rather than nationally oriented; …

Behind The Seams: An Ethnographic Study Of The Performative Nature Of Theatrical Costumes, Emily M. Lindholm

Student Publications

Actors are said to bring a play to life, but what about the garments that they wear? Like set production, light design, and direction, the role of the costume plays an important part in informing and enchanting the audience. However, this is not all that they do. This paper acts as an in-depth examination of the culture of costume creation and destruction at Gettysburg College, researching their roles as garments, as well as how the garments themselves "act" around others. Imbued with their own set of responsibilities, the costumes are expected to behave certain ways, perform specific functions, and put …