Sociology Commons^™

11th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium Wrap Up

Groundings

We take a look at the monumental occasion that was the 11th Annual Walter Rodney Symposium, held on March 21st and 22nd. Included: A brief synopsis of events and a photo narrative.

Introduction

Groundings

This is the Introduction for Groundings Vol. 1, Iss. 1

Cover And Table Of Contents

Groundings

This is the Cover and Table of Contents for Groundings Vol. 2, Iss. 1

Groundings Volume Two, Issue One

Groundings

This is the full isee of Groundings Vol. 2, Iss. 1.

Hardship Withdrawals And Loans: Some Words Of Caution, Emily G. Brown Jd, Jeanne Medeiros Jd, Ellen Bruce Jd

Pension Action Center Publications

As defined benefit pension plans become more and more rare, the responsibility of saving for retirement falls increasingly on individuals. Many studies have been published about the average or median balances in retirement savings accounts and virtually all of them have reached the same conclusion - most Americans aren’t saving enough money to last them through their retirement years.

In this fact sheet we will take a look at one of the factors that contributes to this problem, that is, the availability of loans and hardship withdrawals from 401(k) retirement accounts, which can lead to lower account balances overall. Sometimes, …

Getting "Bi" In The Family: Bisexual People's Disclosure Experiences, Kristin S. Scherrer, Emily Kazyak, Rachel M. Schmitz

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

There are many similarities in gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals’ coming out experiences, but bisexual people face unique challenges. Despite this, an explicit focus on bisexual people is missing from family research. Using family systems and cultural sociological perspectives, the authors analyzed how social and cultural factors shape disclosure processes for bisexuals as they come out to multiple family members. After analyzing qualitative data from a diverse group of 45 individuals, they found that bisexual people navigate monosexist and heterosexist expectations in their family relationships. Cultural constructions of bisexuality shape the ways that bisexual people disclose their identities, including how …

New York’S “Close To Home” Initiative — Lessons Learned, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

The Close to Home initiative is a policy reform that brings young people home from far-away correctional institutions to be served by programs closer to their families. New York plans to implement a second phase of the program in March 2015, bringing back youth from “limited-secure” programs that house more serious offenders. The program appears to be effective in helping youth maintain positive connections to their families and communities, increasing Regent Exams scores of justice-involved youth, and returning youth to their neighborhood schools following placement. Although more research and analysis needs to be done on the effects of Close to …

New York’S “Close To Home” Initiative – Did It Work?, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

The report presents an overview of John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Research and Evaluation Center's study of the Osborne Association's Close to Home initiative, which aimed to reform the juvenile justice system by placing young offenders in community-based programs instead of distant facilities. It analyzed early outcomes, focusing on placement rates, arrest trends, system expansion, and detention impacts, highlighting successes and areas needing further research.

Vivre Et Travailler Plus Longtemps Dans Une Société Vieillissante: Vers Une Croissance Des Inégalités?, Yves Carrière, Jacques Légaré, Mélanie Léger St-Cyr, Chloé Ronteix, Viorela Diaconu

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

L’accélération du processus de vieillissement de la population canadienne se poursuit alors que les cohortes du baby-boom franchissent tour à tour l’âge de 65 ans. Plus nombreuses à franchir cet âge, elles y survivront aussi plus longtemps. Au nom de l’équité intergénérationnelle, plusieurs pays répondent à ce bilan démographique en réformant leur système de revenu de retraite pour favoriser le report de l’âge effectif de la retraite. Au Canada, sans que l’on ait adopté de telles réformes, on observe ce report depuis déjà une vingtaine d’années. Aussi souhaitable que soit le prolongement de la durée de vie en emploi, il …

Les Mouvements Migratoires Des Premières Nations : Reflets Des Inégalités, Marilyn Amorevieta-Gentil, Robert Bourbeau, Norbert Robitaille

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

Ce travail de synthèse s’inscrit dans le thème de la dynamique migratoire des Premières Nations, soit les Indiens inscrits et les Indiens non-inscrits, sous le prisme des inégalités. Réaliser une migration, c’est essayer de trouver un équilibre entre la situation actuelle d’un individu et celle qu’il aimerait avoir, pour améliorer ses conditions de vie. L’analyse de ces situations implique une prise de décision, qui mène un individu à choisir le type de migration qui lui apporte le plus de bénéfices.

Les Premières Nations constituent une population singulière au Canada. En plus d’être hétérogènes, elles présentent des caractéristiques sociodémographiques, culturelles et …

Bridging The Literature On Education Migration, Ann H. Kim, Gunjan Sondhi

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

This research synthesis examines key themes and findings on international students and education migrants in Canada. Our review focuses on research related to the first wave of international student mobility (ISM), and we define the literature broadly to include studies on international students, foreign students, visa students, study abroad students, sojourning students, unaccompanied minors for educational purposes, and education migrants at all educational levels and legal statuses. ISM to Canada can be divided into roughly two periods, pre‐1990 and post‐1990. Studies are drawn from across the social sciences with a focus on literature from the perspectives of sociology, geography, economics, …

Health Inequalities Among Older Adults In Developed Countries: Reconciling Theories And Policy Approaches, Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, Andrea Willson, Sandra Reiter-Campeau

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

Policies that are meant to support older people in Canada might worsen inequalities. Increasingly privatized pension schemes and lack of subsidized support services disproportionately reward those with the most social and economic means in old age. Those who benefit generally experience better health than those who are disadvantaged. Canada has opportunity to guard against such a skewed impact of programs for the elderly by drawing on approaches developed by the World Health Organization, international examples, and sociological theory and research. These approaches can to help design policies that transcend existing inequalities in older people, fostering more equitable health outcomes.

Disaster Risks Research And Assessment To Promote Risk Reduction And Management, Orhan Altan, Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Daniel N. Baker, Salvano Briceño, Susan L. Cutter, Harsh Gupta, Ailsa Holloway, Alik Ismail-Zadeh, Virginia Jiménez Díaz, David Johnston, Gordon A. Mcbean, Yujiro Ogawa, Douglas Paton, Emma E. Porio, Rainer Silbereisen, Kuniyoshi Takeuchi, Giovanni B. Valsecchi, Coleen Vogel, Guoxiong Wu, Panmao Zhai

Sociology & Anthropology Department Faculty Publications

Natural hazard events lead to disasters when the events interact with exposed and vulnerable physical and social systems. Despite significant progress in scientific understanding of physical phenomena leading to natural hazards as well as of vulnerability and exposure, disaster losses due to natural events do not show a tendency to decrease. This tendency is associated with many factors including increase in populations and assets at risk as well as in frequency and/or magnitude of natural events, especially those related to hydro-meteorological and climatic hazards. But essentially disaster losses increase because some of the elements of the multidimensional dynamic disaster risk …

Mental Health Courts: The Criminal Justice Response To The Rise In Mentally Ill Prisoners, Amberle Heath

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In 2005, more than half of all prison and jail inmates had a mental health problem, and correctional institutions had replaced all other mental health facilities to become America's primary venue for the treatment of mental disorder. Further, the proportion of the correctional population that is mentally ill is increasing significantly faster than the correctional population itself. From 1998 to 2005, while the overall correctional population increased 20.8 percent, the mentally ill correctional population increased 27.3 percent. This thesis discusses the most recent literature that documents this increase, and presents reasons for it, including deinstitutionalization, the criminalization of the mentally …

Dave Sprout Interview, 2015, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews Dave Sprout of the Lewisburg Prison Project. Thomson and Sprout discussed a recent policy change which resulted in a show of force by the Lewisburg prison administrators. Sprout discussed the established grievance proceedings, and he described the conditions within the Special Management Unit (SMU) and the culture of enforcement.

The Political Dynamics Of Corporate Co-Evolution: Replicating And Extending A Case Study, Ilan Avrichir, Maria Laura Ferranty Maclennan

The Qualitative Report

Although a significant body of knowledge about the strategies that companies use in their interactions with their environments exists, much less is known about the political dynamics of these interactions in situations of co-evolution between companies and environments. In this case study, we analyze the interactions between the representatives of producers (RPs) of ornamental rock and government authorities (GA) in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo (ESS). These interactions involved the regulation of heavy cargo transportation and resulted in a significant reduction in road accidents. In this analysis, we replicate a recently published case (Child, Tse & Rodrigues, 2013). Replicating …

A Grounded Theory Of Persistence In A Limited-Residency Doctoral Program, Donna H. Kennedy, Steven R. Terrell, Michael Lohle

The Qualitative Report

Approximately 50% of doctoral students in social science, humanities, and educational doctoral programs fail to earn their Ph.D. This number is 10% to 15% higher for students enrolled in online or limited-residency programs. Using in-depth interviews and qualitative data analysis techniques, this grounded-theory study examined participants’ recollections of their experience as students in a limited-residency doctoral program and their reasons for withdrawal while working on their dissertation. The study was guided by the central question “What is the nature of the participants’ experiences of doctoral attrition in a limited-residency doctoral program?” The resultant theory clarified relationships between attrition and a …

Exploring Teacher Development Through Racial Discourse, Lamont D. Simmons

The Qualitative Report

In reviewing the book, Making Meaning of Whiteness, by Alice McIntyre, I discussed the author’s examination of whiteness through the lenses of white female, student teachers. I underscored how McIntyre employed a Participatory Action Research methodology (drawing on feminist theory), as a way to understand how her participants made meaning of whiteness. The study’s findings reveal that for the participants, their “whiteness” is normal, which may serve to hinder their capacity for developing culturally responsive teaching practices.

Show Me: Effectively Collaborating With Community Partners To Develop Students' Macro-Practice Skills, Rashida Crutchfield, Simon Funge

Social Work Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Changing Nature Of Regional Poverty, John V. Moeser, Dillon Massey, Thomas J. Shields

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

We’re witnessing a dramatic change in the social geography of greater Richmond. It’s becoming more like that of the global south, where wealth is centered in the cities and poverty rings the outskirts of the city.

Conceptualizing Risk And Effectiveness: A Qualitative Study Of Women’S And Providers’ Perceptions Of Nonsurgical Female Permanent Contraception, Elizabeth K. Harrington, Diane Gordon, Isabel Osgood-Roach, Jeffrey T. Jensen, Jennifer Aengst

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: Novel approaches to nonsurgical permanent contraception (NSPC) for women that are low cost and require no incision or hysteroscope/surgical equipment could improve access to, and the acceptability of permanent contraception (PC). To better understand opportunities and limitations for NSPC approaches, we examined women's and OB/GYN providers' perceptions of NSPC in Portland, OR.

Study Design: Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with 40 women recruited from outpatient clinics with purposive sampling, and a focus group was conducted with 9 OB/GYNs in academic and community practice. Transcripts were coded and inductively analyzed with a grounded theory approach.

Results: The majority of women …

Violence-Related Police Crime Arrests In The United States, 2005-2011, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr, Joelle K. Bridges

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study is a quantitative content analysis of news reports and court records on 3,328 violence-related arrest cases of 2,586 individual sworn law enforcement officers during the years 2005-2011. The arrested officers were employed by 1,445 nonfederal state, local, special, constable, tribal, and regional law enforcement agencies located in 805 counties and independent cities in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Binary logistic regression and classification and regression tree (CART) analyses were conducted to predict criminal conviction in violence-related police crime arrest cases. Finding indicate that conviction of police officers on one or more offenses charged are driven by …

Les Oldest-Olds Canadiens : Une Population En Pleine Croissance, Mal Connue Et À Risque De Manquer De Services Adéquats, Jacques Légaré, Yann Décarie, Kim Deslandes, Yves Carrière

Population Change and Lifecourse Strategic Knowledge Cluster Discussion Paper Series/ Un Réseau stratégique de connaissances Changements de population et parcours de vie Document de travail

Dans les pays industrialisés, et au Canada en particulier, le vieillissement ne sera plus dynamisé par la baisse de la fécondité, mais bien par l’allongement de la vie. Cette baisse de la mortalité sera surtout aux grands âges.

Dans ce contexte, les réflexions de Peter Laslett (1989) et sa remise en question de l’approche traditionnelle du cycle de vie sont fondamentales. De trois étapes, il a montré le bien fondé de passer à quatre : l’enfance, les âges adultes, le nouveau troisième âge, qui va de la retraite à la vieillesse, qui devient le quatrième âge.

Ce rapport s’intéresse aux …

"Hide And Seek": Positioning The Hidden Curriculum To Lead To Service, Equity, Expectations And Knowledge, Keith L. Brown

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

In this engaging hands-on presentation, Keith L. Brown, challenges the paradigm as it relates to the widely known and accepted idea of the “Hidden Curriculum,” which in essence refers to the unwritten, unofficial and often unintended lessons, values and perspectives that students of color in particular and many others in general learn in school. Using group collaboration and team building, Keith illustrates how the physical, mental, emotional and cultural make-up of individuals can be altered to close not only the “achievement gap” but the “ambition gap” as well. He also presents real life examples to further highlight why youth advocates …

Flip The Prison: Using A Holistic, Interdisciplinary Approach To Transform Closed Prisons And Adjudicated Youth, Debby Hanmer, Noran Sanford, Jason Hutchens, Michael Menefee

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Flip the Prison: Is a collective Impact Model for transforming closed prisons into farms and educational centers utilizing mental health therapy, youth focused, sustainable agricultural entrepreneurship and service learning to stabilize adjudicated youth in the community. Of interest to educators, mental health clinicians, veterans, community leaders, clergy and entrepreneurs.

Cultural Transformation Of Schools With Challenging Environments And At-Risk Populations, Sheril Morgan Mrs., Madison Tomlinson Mr.

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Learn how any school (k-12) can use the Character Education Partnership’s (CEP) 11 Principles of Effective Character Education to transform culture resulting in increased attendance and academic achievement with decreased behavioral problems. Attendees will hear how specific high-risk schools decreased bullying, increased morale, and impacted their communities through the development of a school Touchstone, service learning, and advocate families.

Inter-Country Adoption Of Children Born In The United States, Madeline H. Engel, Norma K. Phillips, Frances A. Della Cava

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

Inter-country adoption of children from the United States has been going on for decades; however it had not been broadly recognized by adoption professionals. Prior to 2008, when the USA contracted with The Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, no protective legislation aimed at monitoring these adoptions existed, offering no protection from abuses that have been associated with inter-country adoption. Even after the policy change in 2008, the USA has had no requirements for reporting all inter-country adoptions. Historically, inter- country adoptions from the USA have involved children of racial minorities. This practice raises social justice issues and questions of protection …

Microdemographic Determinants Of Population Recovery Among The Northern Ache, Jack D. Baker Jr, Kim Hill, A. Magdalena Hurtado, Adelamar Alcantara, Eddie Hunsinger, Webb Sprague

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

A pattern of population crash and rapid recovery is a common feature of the pacification and settlement experience of the Indigenous Peoples of tropical South America. In spite of the obvious importance of these events to the demographic and anthropological sciences as a whole, as well as their significant practical implications, little is known about the microdemographic determinants of these paired phenomena. Utilizing methods of asymptotic and stochastic demographic analysis, we reconstruct the microdemographic drivers of this history among one Indigenous population: the Northern Ache of Eastern Paraguay. We then explore the implications of these relationships for understanding the overall …

The Rattler (Volume 103, Issue 3, Edition 1), St. Mary's University

The Rattler (Previous issues)

Founded in 1919, The Rattler is the student voice of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. The newspaper documents campus life, academic and social issues, student opinion, and local and national events as they relate to the University community. Content typically includes news articles, editorial commentary, arts and culture coverage, sports reporting, and advertisements.

Sagging Pants Does Not Equate To Sagging Values, Vanessa Lopez-Littleton

UCF Forum

I teach a class in the DeVos Sport Business Management graduate program at the For years I’ve debated the issue of people wearing sagging pants with anyone who cared to listen. I’ve hesitated to speak publicly for fear people would think I was condoning the style of dress. For the record, I believe style is a matter of personal expression.