Sociology Commons^™

Egyptian Labour Migration In Jordan, Dina Abdelfattah

Faculty Journal Articles

Over the past forty years, the situation of the Egyptian labour market has not improved and remains to be the principal factor determining labour migration. In the past decade, creation of job opportunities has lagged behind labour force growth, which has led many to resort to migrating. According to the Egyptian Population Census (2017), the total Egyptian migration amounted to 9.5 million, compared to 4.4 million in 2015 with Saudi Arabia and Jordan being the main countries of destination. This report tackles the current situation of Egyptian labour migration in one of its major Arab destinations, Jordan. The figure announced …

Perceptions Of Upward Social Mobility: The Role Of Culture, Social Class And Meritocratic Beliefs, Bek Wuay Tang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Perceptions of social mobility affect how people evaluate their society and influence support for policies to reduce income inequality. Although prior research has shown that Americans tend to overestimate upward social mobility (Alesina, Stantcheva, & Teso, 2018; Davidai & Gilovich, 2015; Kraus & Tan, 2015), this has not been demonstrated in a non-Western context. The primary goal of this research was to investigate if past findings of overestimations of social mobility would be replicated on a culturally different and non-Western sample (i.e. Singaporeans). A secondary goal was to examine factors that affect mobility perceptions in this sample and uncover possible …

Latinx Students In Boston Exam Schools: Growing But Consistently Underrepresented, Ava Marinelli, Fabián Torres-Ardila

Gastón Institute Publications

Boston Public Schools exam schools – Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Sciences – are widely considered some of the most elite schools not only in Boston Public Schools, but also in the country at large. They have also been the subject of numerous lawsuits and investigations, alleging racially biased admission standards, racism among faculty and students, and disproportionate enrollment numbers. The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy finds that while the enrollment of Latinx students has trended steadily upwards in Boston Public Schools and exam schools …

Law And Society: The Criminalization Of Latinx In The United States, Gabriela Groenke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The United States leads the world in incarceration with just over 2.2 million people in state or federal prisons or local jails in 2014 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2016). Although the number of incarcerated individuals has declined by about .5 percent since its peak in 2008 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2016), the fact remains that mass incarceration is an epidemic in the United States. Over the last decade much has been written about the effects of mass incarceration on people of color, with many analysts pointing to the fear of crime as contributing to the formulation of current policies, which …

Minority Students In Stem Careers In The U.S. – The Role Of Ap Calculus, Kendall Coleman

Dissertations

“The number of native-born S&E [science and engineering] graduates entering the workforce is likely to decline unless the nation intervenes to improve success in educating S&E students from all demographic groups, especially those that have been underrepresented in S&E careers” (National Science Board [NSB], 2003, p. 13). More than a decade ago, the National Science Board (NSB) sounded an alarm regarding the projected decline in native-born science and engineering graduates with the aim of driving strategic fundamental changes. There is limited evidence that the NSB’s prognostication is actively being addressed. Approximately 81% percent of all full-time graduate students in U.S. …

Same-Sex Union Formation And Dissolution In The United States And Europe, Eric Ketcham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite recent improvements in the availability of data on same-sex union formation and dissolution, the field remains understudied. Recent findings on the stability of same-sex unions in the United States and in Europe are inconsistent both within and between countries. Using three data sets – How Couples Meet and Stay Together, the Generations and Gender Survey, and the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences surveys – event-history analyses are conducted to examine the stability of same-sex unions relative to male-female unions in the United States and continental Europe. The availability of partners for LGBT-identified males and females in eighteen …

Rezoning, Real Estate, And The Dynamics Of Displacement In Inwood, Damaly Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis asks how New York City’s rezoning process combine with the dynamics of real-estate sales to create displacement pressures for low-income communities of color. A case study of the recent rezoning of Inwood, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan, in August 2018, will help to illustrate these dynamics. Through an analysis of building sales and extreme rent inflation embedded in a historical and contemporary analysis of zoning and the influence of real-estate developers and owners on these processes, this thesis paints a dire picture of the risks faced by the mostly-Dominican-American renters in Inwood. The principal contribution of the …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

Class Matters: School Affluence And Other Predictors Of Attainment For Wealthy And Poor Students, Alison Brockhouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public schools in the United States are becoming increasingly segregated by socioeconomic status. Though the educational consequences of socioeconomic segregation are well researched, segregation is often ignored or exacerbated by education reform. To learn more about the wider implications of socioeconomic segregation, this study utilizes theoretical frameworks derived from Max Weber’s theory of social stratification to analyze over 10,000 students’ experiences from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) 2002, 2004, and 2012 waves of data collection. More specifically, this research explores the impact of attending an affluent high school on long-term educational attainment. It finds …

Unstitching The Borders: Color, Class And Consumption In Queens, New York, Cassandra R. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following thesis is a comparative multipart examination into the ways in which globalization, translocality, and gentrification influence communities and their inhabitants through the lens of fashion. Political and social forces drive processes of consumption. In the Corona and Jackson Heights sections of Queens, New York, several waves of migration and immigration have given rise to an extremely diverse yet socially complex area. Historically, four major shopping districts: Roosevelt Avenue, 74^th Street, 82^nd Street, and Junction Boulevard developed in the two towns and reflected much of the demography within. Currently these districts are physically accessible to anyone able …

Signals In The Black Stack / Geometyr Design Manual, Jason T. Scaglione

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following white paper provides a critical accompaniment to my capstone project: the GEOMEtyr Design Manual. GEOMEtyr is a virtual reality to be made accessible as a mobile and web platform for the visualization of certain systemic elements of a utopic world that parallels our own planet’s geographies, polities, and climates. As such, the GEOMEtyr virtualization is designed to derive utopian space from the informational structures of our own world. The operations by which this may be accomplished are broadly described within the accompanying GEOMEtyr manual. The white paper, Signals in the Black Stack, elaborates vital world-building characteristics of informational …

Behavioral Effects Of Restrictive Housing On Prisoners, Mijin Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Restrictive housing (RH) is a complicated and controversial management tool used by local, state, and federal correctional agencies. Unlike previous studies that predominantly examined the psychological harms of restrictive housing placement, this study aims to extend the understanding of the use of restrictive housing, the conditions and specific utility of restrictive housing, and how such use can impact inmates’ subsequent behavioral outcomes or misconducts inside of the correctional facility. Restrictive housing data from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) was used to identify the differential impact of different types of restrictive housing (i.e., administrative, disciplinary, and protective RH) through a …

Restoring Solidarity: "Accountability" In Radical Leftist Subcultures, Sarah M. Hanks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In radical left activist subcultures, ‘accountability processes’ are a form of DIY transformative justice dealing with abuse and sexual assault, focusing on the needs of the ‘survivor’ and transformation of the ‘perpetrator.’ Within activism identifying abuse is particularly difficult because it means acknowledging abuse by a person considered politically virtuous. The specifics of a process are situational and provisional. The overwhelming pattern is male identified people abusing female identified, gender non-binary, and transgender people. My research examines why activists are developing processes to address problems and whether or not they are successful.

Within the subculture, the topic is important enough …

Transforming Through Power: Teachers And The Negotiation Of Authority In Schools, Madhu Narayanan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Schools are unique institutions where structural and cultural dynamics shape the actions of humans. Teachers work within structures of power to establish themselves as legitimate figures of authority worthy of the right to command respect. Such efforts are complicated by the multi-faceted and swirling relationships of power that exist everywhere in schools, defining and guiding individuals. In this study, I interview and observe the practice of seven secondary teachers working in New York City public schools. All in their third year of teaching, they were at an interesting time in their development, not novice teachers and not quite veteran. Using …

The Ferguson Effect In Contemporary Policing: Assessing Police Officer Willingness To Engage The Public, Christopher Mercado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Researchers suggest that as public scrutiny and video recording of violent/tumultuous police encounters increase, police would back away from proactive enforcement, resulting in an increase in crime—the Ferguson Effect. Recent scholarship refined these concerns over police disengagement with the study of de-policing, while other scholars explored police self-legitimacy, in order to explain law enforcement behavior, given the immediacy and ubiquity of social media and digital communication. This study surveyed 792 law enforcement officers from 10 different police agencies in the United States, to ascertain if police officers’ personal and contextual characteristics influence their decision to either take enforcement action (i.e., …

Illicit Psychoactive Medication Use: Experiences Of Medicalization And Normalization, Mark Pawson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores illicit psychoactive medication use among young adults. Overwhelmingly, the literature on this drug trend, particularly among this population, is grounded in a study of pathology. However, my research demonstrates that this obscures a significant portion of how youth practice and make meaning of their consumption of these controversial medications. The following phenomenologically based dissertation presents and unpacks the experiences, practices, and perspectives of young adults who illicitly consume psychoactive medications. Through analyzing 162 interviews of 18-29 year olds who report recent misuse of a prescription stimulant, tranquilizer, sedative, and/or opioid, I present the ways youth medicalize and …

Cyborgs For Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories From The 1991 People Of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Lisa Ng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this paper is threefold: to serve as an oral history archive of the East Asian American experience at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to analyze the role of East Asian Americans in the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM), and to fill an ideological and political vacuum that exists in East Asian American communities. This work analyses the experiences of East Asian Americans who were present at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit--an event scholars have attributed to igniting the EJM. The paper argues that East Asian Americans act as “Cyborgs”—both as their ascribed …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Towards A Pedagogy Of Life Purposes, Manny Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

College students who understand how the courses that they are enrolled in connect with their broader life goals are more likely to apply an approach of task perseverance with academic endeavors. Yet, nearly three million adolescent community college students in the United States may not have developed clear purposes in life. Relatedly, overtime the lack of lucid life purposes contributes to maladaptive behavior.

This dissertation is a compilation of three interrelated studies that took place in two public community colleges in the City University of New York. Guided by authentic inquiry and framed by sociocultural theory, central to each study …

Infinity Wars: Post 9/11 Superhero Films And American Empire, Peter J. Bruno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last two decades, superhero films have accounted for some of the most popular and financially lucrative films of all time. This thesis analyzes some of the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of various superhero films following their post 9/11 boom. Beginning with America’s response to the events of 9/11 and a subsequent retreat into a Manichean world of good versus evil, I introduce the term “empirical reality” in order to account for the ways daily American life is shielded from the worst effects of U.S. foreign policy. On screen this manifests by perpetuating the myth of the “clean war” …

Exploring Political Action And Socialization Through Group Improvisation Within The Music Of Frederic Rzewski And Cornelius Cardew, Marcel Rominger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the late 1960s, socialist composers, Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, each established ensembles with the purpose of performing works consisting of experimental forms of improvisation. By employing group improvisation, and including untrained, non-musicians within their performances, they strove to use these ensembles as a model for society itself; this model includes a dissolution of the hierarchy among performers and the barrier between performer and audience. Improvisation helped music resist commodification by the culture industry or appropriation by authoritarian regimes for the purpose of propaganda. This dissertation aims to explore how Cardew and Rzewski constituted effective socialization and political action …

Tensions, Dilemmas, And Radical Possibility In Democratizing Teacher Unions: Stories Of Two Social Justice Caucuses In New York City And Philadelphia, Chloe Asselin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the tensions, dilemmas, and radical possibilities faced by two social justice caucuses in democratizing their teacher unions: the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) in New York City and the Caucus of Working Educators (WE) in Philadelphia. It asks: What radical possibilities and structural constraints are generated and/or illuminated by educator activists in MORE and WE? To frame the research, this dissertation examines the historical, political, economic, and social contexts in which the caucuses exist and the daily realities that they face; provides an overview of educational and union politics in New York City and Philadelphia; and analyzes …

A Deep-Er Practice For Educators: Reflecting, Unpacking And Confronting Racism Through Critical Performative Pedagogy, Natalia Ortiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the current political climate, we have seen time and time again the killings of black and brown youth, witnessed the separation of immigrant families, and the mass murders caused by nativist xenophobic white rage. Teachers in schools across our country need to be better prepared to engage in critical race dialogues and need to understand their location in the larger educational system so to contest, rather than reproduce, racism. This study is based on the premise that teachers are not adequately learning about structural oppression that impact the experience of school children and are not trained in the art …

Emperor Of Work: Chinese Restaurants, Worker Subjectivities, And The New Regime Of Flexible Labor, Tommy Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is an ethnographic exploration of Chinese immigrants who work in Chinese and Asian fusion restaurants across the country. Based on sixteen months of fieldwork using participant observations, interviews, and social media analysis, my research follows workers as they negotiate and contest the changing work arrangement of an industry that is largely invisible to the general public and to the state. Specifically, despite the industry’s astronomical growth in the last few decades, with estimates nearing 50,000 in the country, little is known about the social and economic organization that fuels the expansion. Further, it is also puzzling why the …

Rich In Needs: The Forgotten Radical Politics Of The Welfare Rights Movement, Wilson Sherwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Situated temporally between the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement, the Welfare Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s distinguished itself by its militant critique of waged labor. Returning to the movement’s archives I examine how the mostly poor, Black, female participants developed their “antiwork politics”, how they asserted their right to live not only meager but occasionally luxurious lives—demanding not only bread but also roses. In the courts, streets, welfare offices, department stores, policy proposals, and numerous internal debates, these women waged national battles to assert full autonomy over their families, consumption, sexuality, and their own time.

As …

Reimagining The Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, And Embodiment, Sarah Carrier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies.

Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes …

Place-Making By Black And Latinx Students In Predominantly White Institutions: Participatory Design And Meaning Making Through A Social Enterprise, Joshua P.H. Livingston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black and Latinx male retention in post-secondary institutions, particularly predominantly white institutions (PWI), remains a critical social problem. Even though many PWIs set up structures to welcome and support Black and Latinx males, those structures are defined and created through dominant cultural norms. They have been challenged to mitigate the individualized facets of disengagement. A social innovation, proof of concept model was conceptualized, designed, and developed alongside Black and Latinx males in college. Social innovation is defined as a new way of approaching long standing and complex problems. Proof of concept (PoC) helps to validate that processes and designs are …

Lessons Learned: James B. Lockhart Iii, Ben Henken, Dan Thompson

Journal of Financial Crises

Insights from discussions with James B. Lockhart III, who was the Director (CEO) and Chairman of the Oversight Board of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) upon the agency’s creation on July 30, 2008. Topics include the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as other elements of the Bush Administration's 2008 crisis response activities.

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a global financial service provider, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by banking regulatory agencies in different countries. Bruno Iksil, the derivatives trader primarily responsible for the $6 billion trading loss in 2012, was based in JPM’s London office. This office was regulated both by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) of the United States (US) and by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which served as the sole regulator of all financial services in the United Kingdom (UK). Banking regulators in the US and the UK have entered into agreements with one another to define basic parameters …

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2013, the primary United States financial regulatory agencies jointly adopted final rules to implement Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which is often referred to as the “Volcker Rule”. Section 619 prohibits banks from engaging in activities considered to be particularly risky, including proprietary trading and owning hedge funds or private equity funds. Banking regulators designed the final rule against proprietary trading in part to prevent losses like the $6 billion London Whale loss that took place in 2012 at JPMorgan Chase. Given the controversial nature of the Volcker Rule, it is …