Sociology Commons^™

Dehumanization: A Case Study, Regina Varthi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The capstone “Dehumanization” is divided into three main parts.

The first part contains a brief presentation on the UN family (or UN system), showing its role through its organizational and managerial structures. All data are derived from UN corresponding websites.

The second part, “Homelessness,” focuses on the SDG 11 of the 2030 GA Agenda. In 2014 the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Leilani Farha Special Rapporteur on adequate housing in order to conduct research on the subject of homelessness as a violation of human rights. In her report, presented at the Human Rights Council in March 2016, Farha claims …

Should We Talk?: Examining Individual And Aggregate Level Predictors Of Mediation Selection At The New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, Cynthia-Lee Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Currently, there are few studies that examine mediation programs within civilian complaint review boards. Research that analyzes these programs mainly focus on the degree of citizen satisfaction. This study adds to existing research by examining possible individual and aggregate-level characteristics linked to mediation selection. Specifically, this study considers the long standing tensions shared between the police and certain groups (e.g. minorities, youths, and residents of disadvantaged communities), and attempts to uncover which groups are more or less likely to meet with officers to resolve police complaints. The data (obtained by the CCRB and US Census 2010) allows for the analysis …

The Fear Factor: Exploring The Impact Of The Vulnerability To Deportation On Immigrants' Lives, Shirley P. Leyro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact that the fear of deportation has on the lives of noncitizen immigrants. More broadly, it explores the role that immigration enforcement, specifically deportation, plays in disrupting the process of integration, and the possible implications of this interruption for immigrants and their communities. The study aims to answer: (1) how vulnerability to deportation specifically impacts an immigrant’s life, and (2) how the vulnerability to deportation, and the fear associated with it, impacts an immigrant’s degree of integration. Data were gathered through a combination of six open-ended focus group interviews of 10 persons each, and 33 …

Joseph Beuys And Social Sculpture In The United States, Cara M. Jordan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alongside the rise of the activist movements in the late 1960s, the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) proposed his concept of “social sculpture” — a method of fostering creativity, aimed at transforming society through interdisciplinary dialogue — as an alternative to the chaotic political, economic, and social life of postwar West Germany. He sought to heal society through a work of art with holistic and spiritual intentions, centered on the belief that art can include the entire process of living and therefore can be created by a wide range of people beyond artists. Although his ideas are understood and even …

Mónica Mayer: Translocality And The Development Of Feminist Art In Contemporary Mexico, Alberto Mckelligan Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on Mónica Mayer (b. Mexico City, 1954), analyzing her work to understand the role played by the artistic and activist exchanges between feminists from Mexico City and Los Angeles in the development of feminist art in Mexico from the 1970s to the present. While scholars and curators are increasingly drawing attention to Mayer’s large body of work, which includes prints, drawings, installations, and public art interventions, the available literature emphasizes her connections to other artists working in her home country, positioning her artistic production within narratives of contemporary Mexican art.[1] In contrast, this dissertation foregrounds Mayer’s …

Local Immigration Enforcement Entrepreneurship In The Punishment Marketplace, Daniel L. Stageman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary neoliberal economic order plays a significant role in American social organization and policy-making. Most importantly, neoliberal ideology drives the creation and imposition of markets in public goods and services and the valorization of free market ideology in cultural life. The neoliberal ‘project of inequality’ is in turn delimited and upheld by an authoritarian system of punishment built around mass incarceration, surveillance, and an unprecedented level of social control directed at the lowest strata of American society – a group that includes both the urban underclass, and unauthorized immigrants.

This study lays out the theory of the punishment marketplace …

Fitting-In: How Formerly Incarcerated New York City Black Men Define Success Post-Prison, Mika'il Deveaux

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The problem of community reintegration emerged following the rise of the US prison population, which began in in the 1970s, disproportionately affecting US-born African American men. In this qualitative study, the researcher examined the perceptions of 17 formerly incarcerated New York City African American men to understand how they defined post-prison success after having been in the community at least three years in the wake of the era of mass (hyper) incarceration.

During the study, the researcher employed a constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) approach using data from semi-structured interviews to identify factors that enabled these African American men to …

American Civil Associations And The Growth Of American Government: An Appraisal Of Alexis De Tocqueville’S Democracy In America (1835-1840) Applied To Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal And The Post-World War Ii Welfare State, John P. Varacalli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), a French aristocrat, intellectual, and commentator on American society during the 1830’s, described the United States as a society marked by a general “equality of condition,” that is, by a lack of noticeable social and economic distinctions among the citizenry. For Tocqueville, this characteristic of democracy encouraged the formation of an informal political bloc he termed “the majority” - a group who would often elect demagogues to political offices, since the latter were best able to give voice to majority opinion. Furthermore, de Tocqueville believed that this group was not only …

The Life And Death Of Urban Ethnic Enclaves: Gentrification And Ethnic Fragmentation In Brooklyn's 'Polish Town', Aneta Kostrzewa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the intersection of immigration and market-led gentrification in a fragmenting ethnic neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn– once home to a vibrant Polish community, now at risk of losing its social character as a traditional ethnic enclave. Extending Albert O. Hirschman’s theory of action to the Polish community in Greenpoint, I examine the conditions under which immigrants “participate”, “adapt” or “exit” as a response to neighborhood change. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews and quantitative data, I argue that displacement or loss need not be the primary experience of longtime residents in gentrifying ethnic neighborhoods. Instead of emphasizing ethnic …

Dominance & Survivance: Urban Latino Communities And Education In Racial Neoliberal Urbanism, Edwin Mayorga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

U.S. Latino youth are as undereducated and underprepared today as they were in the 1960s, leading some to declare that there is a national “Latino education crisis” that is affecting the lives of millions. While this problem is national in scope there are multiple narratives that underpin this story. Of particular interest in this study is the intersection of urban Latino core communities and public schools. This dissertation is based on the Education in our Barrios Project, #BarrioEdProj, which is a digital, critical participatory action research study of urbanism and urban education in the Latino core community of East Harlem …

The Dream Deferred: The School-To-Prison Pipeline And The Destruction And Potential Resurrection Of The Black Male, Alexandria L. Timoll

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In American society, Black boys are both “at-risk” for academic failure and for having their dreams deferred. The label at-risk is a larger consequence of the commonly portrayed image of the Black male as a criminal within American society. Unfortunately, what is thought of as the great equalizer, education and schooling, also plays a significant role in the criminalization of Black males. In schools, their intersectionality on measures of socioeconomic and special education status, race, and gender renders them susceptible to the thwarting effects of the school-to-prison pipeline. Through this paper I argue that (1) the education- related causes of …

Why Do Negative Employment Outcomes For Workers With Disabilities Persist?: Investigating The Effects Of Human Capital, Social Capital, And Discrimination, Martine Maculaitis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Little is known about why poor job outcomes for workers with disabilities (WD) persist. Hence, the aim of this study was to combine and extend human capital, social capital, and multiple jeopardy advantage theories to develop and test a comprehensive model of the processes explaining job outcomes for WD. Data from the 2010 US National Health Interview Survey (N=3,887) and O*Net were analyzed to investigate the extent to which disability status (i.e., WD with work limitations, WD with no work limitations, or non-disabled workers [NDW]) relates to four types of work outcomes (i.e., annual compensation, employment status, job …

The Value Of Value-Added: Science, Technology, And Policy In Educational Evaluation, Daniel Douglas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first decade of the 21^st century, researchers and policymakers in K-12 education began to focus on evaluating teacher and school performance based on students’ standardized test scores. One evaluative technique, value-added assessment (VAA), has been given particular attention. This research presents a comprehensive study of the theoretical, technical, historical and political dimensions VAA. Theoretically, the assumptions that underlie value-added diverge significantly from the observed operations of the schools and classrooms these models are supposed to evaluate. Technically, even if the theoretical assumptions are accepted, teachers’ actual value-added rankings are shown to be unstable across time periods and …

Retelling An Old Wife’S Tale: Postpartum Care Of Taiwanese And Chinese Immigrant Women, Kuan-Yi Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of this dissertation is the Chinese postpartum tradition zuoyuezi, often translated into English as doing-the-month. Having its roots in ancient China, this set of practices has maintained its salience today in Taiwan, China, and among first generation immigrant women in the U.S. Women not only continue to perform zuoyuezi at home, many also rely on emerging forms of commodified care. While immigrant women’s postpartum wellbeing and care has been the focus of scholarly research in health related fields, studies in the social sciences addressing immigrant women’s postpartum practices and the care relations engendered remain scant.

In this …

Overpopulation And The Impact On The Environment, Doris Baus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this research paper, the main focus is on the issue of overpopulation and its impact on the environment. The growing size of the global population is not an issue that appeared within the past couple of decades, but its origins come from the prehistoric time and extend to the very present day. Throughout the history, acknowledged scientists introduced the concept of “overpopulation” and predicted the future consequences if the world follows the same behavioral pattern. According to predictions, scientists invented the birth control pill and set population control through eugenics. Despite that, population continued to increase and fight with …

"Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime": Liberal Carceral Logics And The Reproduction Of Settler Colonial Violence In Winnipeg, Mb, Canada, Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation illustrates how settler colonialism is reproduced in present-day Canada through the governance of crime, and how political struggles against policing, imprisonment, and colonialism are linked. It focuses on the politics of crime in the Province of Manitoba from 1999–2016, during which the left-of-center New Democratic Party (NDP) government engineered a significant expansion of the carceral state, overseeing unprecedented increases in policing and jail growth. In Manitoba, the vast majority of prisoners are Indigenous. This dissertation explores the logic through which the NDP integrated their support for policing and imprisonment into their “progressive” value system, packaging their carceral expansion …

Warmth And Competence Traits: Perceptions Of Female And Male Nurse Stereotypes, Randolph E. Gross

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A nursing shortage looms ahead; 1.03 million new nurses will be needed by 2022 to meet society's healthcare needs. A major barrier to recruitment of women and men are nurse stereotypes. The literature suggests four female and four male stereotypes exist; however, no quantitative research exists that explores perceptions of non-nursing undergraduate students. Approximately, 90% of college students do not consider nursing as a career option, and 72% have misconceptions of what nurses do in reality.

According to social cognitive theory's Stereotype Content Model (SCM), perceptions are viewed through a combination of two dimensions: warmth and competence. The author devised …

The Use Of Physical Restraints In Long-Term Care In Spain: A Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Study, Gabriel J. Estévez-Guerra, Emilio Fariña-López, Eduardo Núñez-González, Manuel Gandoy-Crego, Fernando Calvo-Francés, Elizabeth Capezuti

Publications and Research

Background: Physical restraint is a procedure used frequently in long-term care. It is a controversial practice because its use is associated with numerous complications and also affects freedom and individual autonomy. The objective of this study was to examine the use of physical restraint of long-term care residents with the ability to move voluntarily.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional observational and correlational multi-center study. Nine centers agreed to participate. Of the 1,200 people present at the time of data collection, those without voluntary movement or in the facility for less than a month were excluded. Thus, the final sample was …

Local Measures: The Need For Neighborhood-Level Data In Youth Violence Prevention Initiatives, Jeffrey A. Butts, Alana M. Henniger

Publications and Research

In an attempt to assist local jurisdictions with violence prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies launched the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention in 2010. More than a dozen cities participated in the National Forum, collaborating to increase the effectiveness of their local strategies for reducing youth violence. The Department of Justice asked John Jay College of Criminal Justice to monitor and assess the outcomes of the National Forum beginning in 2011. The study investigated the accomplishments and perceptions of the leadership networks in each city.

Looking Forward, Looking Back: Collective Memory And Neighborhood Identity In Two Urban Parks, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Collective memory and narratives of local history shape the ways people imagine a neighborhood’s present situation and future development, processes that reflect tensions related to identity and struggles over resources. Using an urban culturalist lens and a focus on collective representations of place, I compare two nearby New York parks to uncover why, despite many similarities, they support different patterns of meaning making and use. Drawing on ethnographic observation, interviews, and secondary analysis, I show that multi-vocal and fragmented contexts of collective memory help explain the uneven nature of gentrification processes, with one park serving as its cultural fulcrum while …

Cognitive Sociology, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

Cognitive sociology is the study of the conditions under which meaning is constituted through processes of reification. Cognitive sociology traces its origins to writings in the sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture, cognitive and cultural anthropology, and more recently, work done in cultural sociology and cognitive science. Its central questions revolve around locating these processes of reification since the locus of cognition is highly contentious. Researchers consider how individuality is related to notions of society (structures, institutions, systems, etc.) and notions of culture (cultural forms, cultural structures, sub-cultures, etc.). These questions further explore how these answers depend on learning processes …

Research Methods In Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Chu-Hsiang Chang

Publications and Research

http://www.springerpub.com/occupational-health-psychology.html

Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) is a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field that focuses on the science and practice of psychology in promoting and developing workplace health- and safety-related initiatives. This comprehensive text for undergraduate and graduate survey courses is the first to encompass a wide range of key issues in OHP. It draws from the domains of psychology, public health, preventive medicine,nursing, industrial engineering, law, and epidemiology to focus on the theory and practice of protecting and promoting the health, well-being, and safety of individuals in the workplace and improving the quality of work life.

The text addresses key psychosocial …

The Puerto Rican Education Pipeline: New York City, New York State, And The United States, Luis O. Reyes

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Over the past 14 years, educational attainment among Puerto Ricans in the United States has been slowly improving. In 2000, 63 percent of Puerto Ricans 25 years of age and older had a high school degree or higher versus 75 percent in 2014 (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Similarly, only 12.5 percent of Puerto Ricans had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2000 versus 16 percent in 2014 (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Even though educational attainment has been steadily increasing, the disparity between educational attainment among Puerto Ricans versus non-Hispanic whites and other Hispanic subpopulations has remained constant.

School, Work And The Transition Of Puerto Rican Youth To Adulthood, Edwin Melendez

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

The purpose of this study is to present a statistical profile of Puerto Rican youth ages 16 to 24 not at school or work, commonly referred to as “disconnected youth” in the academic literature and popular media. Nationally, research on disconnected youth tends to paint a profile of a population that is largely African American, male, and low-income. However, as other research has shown, and as our analysis confirms, Latinos and particularly Puerto Ricans have as high an incidence of not being at work or school as African Americans, and for Puerto Ricans these rates are higher than for other …

Everything Passes, Everything Changes: Unionization And Collective Bargaining In Higher Education, William A. Herbert, Jacob Apkarian

Publications and Research

This article begins with a brief history of unionization and collective bargaining in higher education. It then presents data concerning the recent growth in newly certified collective bargaining representatives at private and public-sector institutions of higher education, particularly among non-tenure track faculty. The data is analyzed in the context of legal decisions concerning employee status and unit composition under applicable federal and state laws. Lastly, the article presents data concerning strike activities on campuses between January 2013 and May 31, 2017.

Beyond Ada Compliance: The Library As A Place For All, Jj Pionke

Urban Library Journal

In 2015, the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) celebrated its 25^th anniversary. While libraries have instituted ADA compliance initiatives since the law came into effect in 1990, and new libraries are generally designed with compliance in mind, to be truly accessible for all people, libraries must incorporate principles of universal design not just into the physical building but into all aspects of the library, including our web presence and the services we provide to patrons. This paper argues that libraries are falling far short of true accessibility and that there needs to be a serious mental shift in how …

Hackathons As Co-Optation Ritual: Socializing Workers And Institutionalizing Innovation In The “New” Economy, Sharon Zukin, Max Papadantonakis

Publications and Research

Hackathons, time-bounded competitive events where participants write computer code and build apps, have become a popular means of socializing tech students and workers to produce “innovation” despite little promise of material reward. Although they offer participants opportunities for learning new skills and face-to-face networking, and set up interaction rituals that create an emotional “high,” potential advantage is even greater for the events’ corporate sponsors, who use them to outsource work, crowdsource innovation, and enhance their reputation. Ethnographic observations and informal interviews carried out at seven public hackathons held in New York City during the course of a single school year …

Activistas Empedernidos E Intelectuales Comprometidos: Ensayos Sobre Movimientos Sociales, Derechos Humanos Y Estudios Latinoamericanos, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Literatura Heterónoma A La Salida Del Franquismo: El Caso Del Primer Nacionalismo Marxista Gallego, Pablo García Martínez

Publications and Research

Centrándose en el final del franquismo y el primer post-franquismo, este artículo estudia la teoría literaria articulada en un momento de inflexión, también para Galicia, como fue la consolidación de lo que se hizo llamar el “Nacionalismo Popular” gallego. El estudio se centrará en los años inmediatamente posteriores al cambio en la dirección del partido Unión do Povo Galego (UPG) producido en noviembre de 1976, momento desde el cual la cultura pasa a convertirse en piedra angular del discurso de esta organización. Se trata de un proceso resultado de dos dinámicas entrecruzadas, como son la utilización de herramientas de la …

Opening Education, Linking To Communities: The #Inq13 Collective’S Participatory Open Online Course (Pooc) In East Harlem, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz, Polly Thistlethwaite, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

Drawing on experiences with the JustPublics@365 participatory open online course, or POOC, this chapter discusses the politics and possibilities of open access pedagogy and the broader engagement with communities that academics might achieve. We situated the POOC in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood and to use the course to form an academic-community partnership. Rather than replicate the broadcast model employed by many MOOCs, in which an instructor delivers education to a broad audience of otherwise disconnected students, the POOC sought to engage participants through open site-based and online experiences, including lectures and class readings posted openly for any member …