Sociology Commons^™

Tablets As A Vehicle For Imprisoned People’S Digital Connection With Loved Ones, Andrea Mufarreh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The intersection between criminal justice and technology is fairly understudied, despite increasing technological advancements in the world and within the criminal justice system. A rather recent addition to the technological landscape of prison is the adoption of tablets used by imprisoned people for communication and connection with loved ones and other activities, which is particularly important given the context of COVID-19, a virus which caused a global pandemic from 2020-2022. While the use of tablets by imprisoned people appears to be a new trend, the use of tablets in prison both prior to and during the pandemic has remained an …

The Economic And Demographic Dynamics Of Pretrial Justice, Christopher Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars since Rusche (1978 [1933]) have tried to explain the observed relationship between changes in punishment patterns and changes in local labor markets, most recently framing the criminal justice system as a racialized labor market institution. In an era of bail and jail reform, this dissertation contributes to the literature on the causes and consequences of changes in one especially salient form of punishment, pretrial detention. In particular, it focuses on the macro relationship between pretrial detention and local labor markets. Prior research in this tradition has examined how changes in labor markets lead to changes in penality, as reflected …

The Problem Of Blackness In America: Becoming When The Being Never Comes To Be, Nkiru Anyaegbunam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The problem of Blackness in America is a consequence of the historical reality and continued legacies of colonialism, the triangular trade and chattel slavery that have been facilitated through violence and capitalism. This thesis will argue that this problem that is pronounced through racialized institutional systems of violence such as mass incarceration and housing inequality, which disproportionately negatively impacts Black Americans is part of a larger discourse on the human and (mis)recognition. This violence has created a quintessential incompleteness for Black Americans who neither are recognized as citizens nor human. The problem of Blackness will be continuously grounded in this …

"Queering" Age-Friendly New York City, Austin G. Oswald

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background and aims: The global population is aging and becoming more culturally diverse. As such, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are expected to think critically about strategies to improve the quality of life of people as they age. In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Age-Friendly Cities movement to improve the well-being and meaningful engagement of older adults living in the community. New York City (NYC) was the first city in the world to be designated “age-friendly” by the WHO, and is possibly viewed as a model for other cities to emulate. Few empirical studies have examined the age-friendly …

Diversion: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion And The Nonprofit Organization, Leah E. Glass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work is a billion-dollar industry that companies across all industries utilize to “transform” their workplaces and for many, increase profit. Despite the resources invested, there is, unfortunately, little to show for it. This qualitative case study draws on three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews at a national nonprofit, Education for All (EFA), to examine how DEI, coupled with organizational culture and structure, works to engrain inequality, rather than lessen it.

This research is based on 49 interviews with employees at Education for All, supplemented with observations and analyses of organizational artifacts. This study uncovers …

Lactating Justice: Constructing A Society Economically Focused On Optimizing Health Through Human Lactation, Shadley Hobour

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper uses a qualitative research method to answer if a Universal Base Income would be a good economic policy to adopt to optimize Black chestfeeding. The key idea this thesis aims to clarify is how anti Blackness is killing Black people and how one economic policy could improve health. In this essay, I will break down the significance and importance of human lactation for lifelong better health, and investment in a UBI would especially work as a preventative measure for several health issues Black people experiences.

Colonial Education: Puerto Ricans And The Carlisle Indian School, Progenitors Of The Mythic Identity, Melissa Swinea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

‘GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES’ reads a subheading of The Red Man –a historic periodical memorializing the tune of 19th century Americana with references to Godliness and its connection to Indianness and ostentatious capitalism in a canon of school newspapers. The Red Man was the staple periodical of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Institute published monthly and declared “in the interest of Indian education and civilization” for the annual price of 50 cents[1] The subject and recipients of The Red Man would also include 193 Puerto Rican students sent to Carlisle through the U.S.’s campaign to Americanize the Caribbean …

Exploring The Boundaries Of Queerness From Academia To Activism, Jillian M. (Silvia) Miranda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper gives a literature review that uses texts at the intersection of queerness, blackness, and/or criminality to explore the ways in which Queer Studies can be useful in the classroom (within critical race theory, quare theory) and on the streets in the fight for black lives.

Brave New Wombs: Hysterectomy, Gender, And Stratified Reproduction, Andréa Becker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hysterectomy is the most common gynecological surgery worldwide and approximately one third of people assigned female at birth in the U.S. will have their uterus removed by the age of 65. Despite the high prevalence, sociologists have neglected to examine this procedure amid broader systems of gender, health, and race inequality. Over 90% of hysterectomies are deemed “elective,” including for chronic reproductive illness or as gender affirming care for trans and nonbinary individuals. Given the various reasons for a hysterectomy, and the incidence of this procedure across gender identities, an analysis of hysterectomy experiences allows for a rich investigation into …

Time And Power: The Will To Temporalize In Digital Culture, Talha Issevenler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I analyze the new forms of temporalization of social media in relationship to arrangements of power through nonhuman agency of the algorithm. The new social media industry refers to the entities that make up its circulatory movement, simply as ‘content’. This suggests that scientific or empirical study of social media should deal with content and analyze this as the data of research through sampling (Manovich, 2020, p. 93-94). Yet the forms and the temporality in which the content is presented not only are open to empirical research but should be central to our understanding of the organization …

Navigating Their Way In: Non-Hispanic West Indians’ Class Of Admission And Neighborhood Settlement, Kenisha J.A. White

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

West Indians in New York City are as segregated today as they were 30 years ago. Not only are they segregated from the city’s Anglo population, but they are also moderately segregated from each other. As of 2019, West Indians were still concentrated in neighborhoods across the North Bronx, Central Brooklyn and South Queens. These were neighborhoods that were regarded as West Indian enclaves back in the 1980s and 1990s. As this project reviews, the experiences of non-Hispanic West Indians in the United States, specifically their neighborhood settlement patterns and the role of race in influencing their integration outcomes, have …

Elements Of Social Disorganization And Environmental Criminology: A Spatial Analysis Of Homicides In Villa Nueva, Guatemala, David J. Topel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate the main spatial theories of crime, social disorganization, and routine activities theories while investigating the spatial dimension of homicides in Villa Nueva, Guatemala. Empirical relationships at a small unit of analysis, the natural cadaster blocks as defined by the municipality offer a more appropriate unit of analysis for the context of the city. While there is a robust body of work in developed nations synthetizing social disorganization and routine activities theories, the exploration of criminological theory integration and the use of the smallest unit of analysis still needs the addition of empirical research in Latin …

Red-Collar Crime: The Field Re-Examined, Kortni Macdonald

Student Theses

Red-collar crime is an understudied phenomenon that occurs when white-collar crime turns into physical violence and/or death (also known as fraud-detection homicide). Frank S. Perri, coined the term red-collar crime following his study of 27 homicides that occurred at the same time as or before the deadly white-collar criminal occurrences. This study explores the generalizability and practicality of this definition as applied to a new set of cases. Using a case study analysis of six cases this study analyzed the behavioral characteristics of these offenders meeting Perri's definition; Characteristics such as entitlement, lack of empathy, power orientation, rationalizations, exploitations, and …

On Power’S Doorstep: Gays, Jews, And Liminal Complicity In Reproducing Masculine Domination, Andrew J. Shapiro

Publications and Research

This article explores the gender complexities of men caught between social power and powerlessness. Specifically, I consider the cases of Jewish men and gay men in the late modern West, two demographics with deep historic ties to both abjection and privilege. Such "in-between-ness” steers many, especially those who are white, cisgender, and/or otherwise privileged, toward what I term liminal complicity, a normative adaptation whereby men embrace manly ideals while disavowing femininity in themselves and others. I synthesize cultural, interactionist, and psychoanalytic literatures on stigma, boundaries, and gender practice to articulate liminal complicity as both an emotional retreat from stigmatization and …

Our Stories, Katelyn S. Lopez

Publications and Research

This semester, we participated in the “Our Stories” qualitative research project that involves learning more about students' first year, and first-semester experiences at City Tech during pandemic times. As we organized and read students’ posts, we journaled and practiced reflexivity, a qualitative research process that helps us examine how we are interpreting the data that we are engaging with. T Reflexivity is a process in qualitative research involving frequent examination of one’s position in the project. These positions include one’s assumptions, feelings, and so forth. An essential question for qualitative researchers, according to Leavy (2011), is “Has the researcher engaged …

The Start Of A New Revolution: Addressing Government Failure In Ending Homelessness In Nyc, Ruth Lovely Joseph

Publications and Research

Homelessness is a serious issue in New York City. This project involved research to establish the causes of the homelessness problem in NYC, investigate current solutions currently being implemented by the city, and finally to develop a detailed proposal about a community-based approach to homelessness.

The guiding research questions include: What are the major causes and effects of homelessness in New York City? What are the challenges and shortcomings of existing New York City programs addressing homelessness? What elements should a successful community-based organization include in order to address these shortcomings? What are the underlying biases and moralistic assumptions that …

Sociology Of The Family Textbook, Amy E. Traver

Open Educational Resources

This OER textbook provides students with a brief introduction to: the perspective, methods, and theories that constitute the sociology of the family; research on patterns and processes of dating/mating, cohabitation/marriage, parenting. divorce/remarriage, and family stressors/strengths in the United States. It was created through the integration of various OER texts, including OpenStax, Sociology Wikibooks, and many more. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 license.

Racial And Ethnic Composition Among Latinos In The United States (1990-2017), Sebastián Villamizar-Santamaría

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines the socioeconomic trends and differences among not only the four major racial and ethnic groups in the country (non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Latinos, and Asians) but also within the Latino population from 1990 to 2017.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata …

Female Prisoners, Mental Health, And Contact With Family And Friends, Katarzyna Celinska, Irina Fanarraga

Publications and Research

The present study explores the psychological symptoms of 194 female inmates housed in a northeast state prison. Imprisoned women completed Derogatis’ (2001) Brief Symptom Inventory-18 and responded to questions on the frequency of contact with family and friends via phone calls, letters, and visitations. The results showed significant correlations between psychological symptoms and modes of contact. Multiple regression models revealed that certain types of contact with family and friends had a statistically significant impact on the self-reported psychological symptoms of female inmates. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed.

Managing Illegality On Campus: Undocumented Mismatch Between Students And Staff, Holly E. Reed, Sofya Aptekar, Amy Hsin

Publications and Research

Contributing to the literature on the institutional experiences of undocumented youth, this essay by Holly E. Reed, Sofya Aptekar, and Amy Hsin explores undocumented and “DACAmented” students’ experiences managing their illegality on campus and how college staff and faculty manage that illegality while organizing programs and support. Their analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with more than a hundred undocumented college students and former students and thirty-five faculty and staff members at the City University of New York identifies multiple points of tension. The “undocumented mismatch” between campus management of illegality and student experiences was evident in the exclusion and …

In Place/Out Of Place Assignment, Peter Kabachnik

Open Educational Resources

This Geography assignment, ideal for Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, and so forth (and of course other related disciplines like Anthropology and Sociology), undergraduate courses, explores the concepts of in place and out of place. Based on a reading of the introduction of Tim Cresswell's 1996 book In Place/out of Place Geography, Ideology, and Transgression, this assignment is a great way to get students to think about these issues and connect them to their own experiences.

Neighbors At Risk, Jeffrey A. Butts, Gina Moreno, Richard A. Espinobarros

Publications and Research

Most New York City neighborhoods did not experience high rates of shootings in recent years, but others clearly did. Comparing crime rates across these relatively small geographic areas is important for officials considering where to invest in resources that support public safety and community wellbeing.

The Contemporary American Juvenile Justice System: Revisiting Parens Patriae, Katarzyna Celinska, Amina Cheboubi

Publications and Research

The American juvenile justice system has undergone significant transformations since its inception in the late 19th century. In this paper, the authors seek to analyze the historical context of and subsequent reforms to the juvenile system and process in order to determine whether they remain true to their origins of the legal doctrine of parens patriae. Specifically, the authors contrast rehabilitative notions of parens patriae with the “tough on crime” perspective that developed in the 1990s in response to rising crime rates. This debate is illustrated by landmark Supreme Court cases, waivers to the adult system, increases in the use …

A Portrait Of Partnership Statuses In The United States Between 1990 And 2017, Daeshin Hayden Ju

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines partnership rates among the US population by race and ethnicity from 1990 to 2017.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2017.

Discussion:

Over the past thirty years, the general proportion of married …

Four Corners: A Values Clarification Exercise, Montsine Nshom

Open Educational Resources

Four Corners is a values clarification activity that asks participants to stand/show whether they strongly agree to strongly disagree with a specific statement, and reflect on their position during and after the activity. This four corners activity is designed to help students think about and discuss topics that are pertinent to urban community health and public health.

No prior reading or coursework is required; it is a good option for the first day of class to introduce key themes that will be covered during the course as well as practice ground rules and class discussion norms.

Blurring The "Bright Line": Examining Age-Related Differences In Jail Incarceration Outcomes Using A Resources-Challenges Model Of Emerging Adulthood, Olive F. Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Jail incarceration represents an early and prevalent point of contact with the criminal legal system. While there is some evidence of age-related differences in jail incarceration outcomes such as rearrest and reconvictions, existing research typically only make comparisons between adults and adolescents. This bifurcation ignores the unique experiences of a third group: emerging adults aged 18 to 25. Evidence from developmental research combined with shifting social and cultural dynamics suggest that 18-25-year-olds, though adults by law, straddle the line between adolescence and adulthood while facing challenges that set them apart.

The current study incorporates a resources-challenges framework of emerging adulthood …

Maternal Wellness: Self, Matrescence, Obstetric Violence, And Self-Care, Vanessa V. Vales-Lewis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I engage in a self-study through an examination of my experience of matrescence (i.e., the transition to motherhood). I discuss my praxis in the development of a self-study on maternal wellness as it applies to my well-being as both a researcher and the researched. In Chapter 1, I preface this study by highlighting critical scholars and the bricoleurs who have been foundational in my undertaking of this work on a narrative study on maternal wellness. Using bricolage as part of a research methodological framework that involved key scholarly methodologies of authentic inquiry, emergence and contingence, and narratology, …

Go Off: The Geography And Labor Of Off- And Off-Off-Broadway, Sean C. Mellott

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Off- and Off-Off-Broadway remain ill-defined and misunderstood sectors of New York City’s theatre industry, at least when compared with Broadway. This capstone project examines these dual sociocultural spaces and defines some of their contours through a primary analytical lens of geography (the physical locations where Off- and Off-Off-Broadway are produced) and a secondary lens of labor (the professional contexts in which Off- and Off-Off-Broadway are produced). Both elements speak to the material conditions of theatrical production in New York City, offering clues as to Off- and Off-Off-Broadway’s position within the entertainment industry and their relationship to the larger social structure …

Fatal And Non-Fatal Police Shootings In The United States, 2015: An Examination Of Open-Source Data, Yuchen Hou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose and Significance: Police shootings do not always result in death. This fact raises a question of what distinguishes fatal and non-fatal police shootings (FNFPS). However, no existing database is available to address how often and under what circumstances civilians have died from or survived police shootings in the United States. To fill the gaps, this dissertation research uses open sources to create a crowdsourced national database on FNFPS in the United States in 2015. The creation of this database provides researchers insights into the suitability and sustainability of open-source research applied for studying police shootings and offers practitioners …

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …