Sociology Commons^™

The Relationship Between State-Level Dynamics, Firearm Policies, And County-Level Homicides, Shawn M. Ratcliff

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines the causes and effects of four major firearm-related policies in the United States: Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW), Stand Your Ground (SYG), Child Access Prevention (CAP), and Universal Background Checks (UBC). Applying a social movement approach, the first research question addresses how a social movement organization (SMO) has employed resources to shape the adoption of (counter-)movement-related legislation. Using the gun rights movement as a case-in-point, I explore how campaign contributions – conceptualized as a professionalized SMO resource – have been employed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to shape the adoption of CCW, SYG, CAP, and UBC laws …

Returning Home: Effects Of Covid-19 On Migrant Households In Bihar, Unicef, Population Council Institute

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Many migrants from metropolitan cities in India began to return to their native homes with the rise in COVID-19 cases in the cities and the extension of the lockdown. With relaxation of travel restrictions, Bihar started receiving migrants who were returning home. The government made arrangements for them to be quarantined before they traveled to their villages and homes. The key objectives of this study are to understand the extent of return migration, the impact of lockdown on migrant household livelihoods, and the opportunities for household economic revival through social protection schemes. Among migrant households, about half may experience return …

Effects Of Covid-19 On Livelihood, Employment, And Financial Resources, Unicef, Population Council Institute

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

COVID-19 and steps to break the chain of viral transmission led to certain economic challenges that triggered loss in livelihoods and income and constraints on financial resources in Bihar, India. Often, these effects were disproportionately experienced among the most marginalized. The key objective of this study is to assess the loss of income, livelihoods, and jobs among households in Bihar to help with program planning and implementation. Data were gathered May 13–22, 2020, from the existing study cohort of households under the UDAYA study. Interviews were conducted with a total of 794 participant households. About four-fifths of respondents said their …

Are More People Adopting Covid-19 Prevention Measures?, Unicef, Population Council Institute

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Drawing on data from two rounds of COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) telephone surveys conducted in Bihar, India, this research brief sheds light on the socioeconomic differentials and changes over time in the adoption of COVID-19 preventive measures. Though the adoption of preventive measures has increased, around two-fifths of males and one-quarter of females reported that they were currently practicing all four standard preventive measures. The better educated, wealthier, and those belonging to privileged castes were more likely than others to practice these measures, as were those who perceived moderate or high risk of COVID-19 in their neighborhood. Social …

Awareness Of And Receiving Social Protection Measures During Covid-19 Lockdown In Bihar, India, Unicef, Population Council Institute

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Economic hardships caused by the nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been reported across India. Social protection measures have been announced by the state and central governments to ease these hardships. The key objectives of this research brief are to examine the awareness and the social protection measures received during the COVID-19 lockdown in Bihar, and the socioeconomic differentials in receiving these measures. The majority of respondents (64%) reported a family member losing their job/income-earning opportunity and lacking resources to survive for long. Awareness of social protection schemes was high (88%). Among households, 68% reported having ration …

Demand For And Access To Family Planning Services Among Young Married Women During Covid-19 Crisis, Unicef, Population Council Institute

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In Bihar, India, as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown and men returning home in large numbers and spending more time at home in high stress conditions, the need for contraceptive services could get greater. March to May are considered the “lean season” when demand is typically low for family planning (FP) programs in states like Bihar. However, higher demand caused by the lockdown and lack of access to health facilities has created a gap between demand and uptake. This could have negative consequences such as high numbers of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal mortality. Current use of modern …

Disparities In Vulnerability To Severe Complications From Covid-19 In The United States, Emily E. Wiemers, Scott Abrahams, Marwa Alfakhri, V. Joseph Holtz, Robert F. Schoeni, Judith A. Seltzer

Population Health Research Brief Series

Preexisting health conditions increase vulnerability to severe complications from COVID-19. Among middle-aged and older Americans, vulnerability to severe COVID-19 complications based on preexisting conditions is 2-3 times greater for those with low versus high income. Vulnerability is about 40% higher for middle-aged and older adults with a high school degree or less than adults with a four-year college degree. In every age group, Blacks are more vulnerable than Whites, but Hispanics are at lower risk based on fewer preexisting health conditions.

Important Lessons On Fgm/C Abandonment From Four Research Studies In Egypt, Nada Wahba, Nahla G. Abdel-Tawab, Abeer Salem

Reproductive Health

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) continues to be a widespread practice in Egypt. According to the 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey, the prevalence of FGM/C was 92 percent among ever-married women aged 15–49. However, Egypt continues to witness a drastic surge in the medicalization of FGM/C, with 74 percent of women aged 19 years and younger circumcised by medical practitioners, compared to 55 percent in 1995. This policy brief provides key results and recommendations of four studies conducted by the Population Council/ Egypt under the Evidence to End FGM/C project, in coordination with Egypt’s National Population Council. The four studies …

Commentary: Using Law More Effectively Towards Abandonment Of Fgm/C In Kenya, Agnes K. Meroka-Mutua

Reproductive Health

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is considered a harmful cultural practice and a form of violence against women. Kenya has an FGM/C prevalence rate of 21 percent, but levels vary by ethnic group. Kenya has adopted a robust legal framework for the prohibition of FGM/C, including passage of the Prohibition of FGM Act in 2011, a detailed law that criminalizes carrying out FGM/C and associated offenses. Kenya relies on the human rights–based approach and criminalization in its legal framework for the prohibition of this practice. Despite extensive legal provisions, Kenya has prosecuted fewer than 100 cases, raising concerns with the law’s …

Racial Justice Protests & Protestor Rights (July 15, 2020), Timothy Zick, Mikaela Phillips

Racial Justice & Social Reform Speaker Series

No abstract provided.

A Glimpse Into Metadata Inclusiveness: A Preliminary Literature Review Using Nvivo, Sai Deng

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study investigates social and metadata inclusiveness, on whose voices are underrepresented, how biases are presented, in which way and which domain, and how it affects the library community. It is based on a preliminary analysis of literature in this topic, and the text analyzed includes title, author, abstract and keywords for 26 articles and books. Their bibliographic information was extracted from my Zotero library to NVivo, and over 200 nodes were coded from the different literature, with 5, 6, 10 or more nodes for each literature entry. Additional names were added when terms in the text didn’t seem to …

Health Lifestyles And The Transition To Adulthood, Elizabeth Lawrence, Stefanie Mollborn, Joshua Goode, Fred Pampel

Sociology Faculty Research

Prior research has shown the theoretical importance and empirical feasibility of health lifestyles but has not examined their patterns over the life course or their dynamic associations with socioeconomic status (SES) and adult roles. The authors develop and apply a life-course approach to understanding individuals’ health lifestyles across the transition to adulthood, using U.S. data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 6,863). The results show that ascribed SES is associated with adolescent health lifestyles, and those health lifestyles are associated with later health lifestyles. The results also demonstrate the developmental specificity of health lifestyles. …

How Social Dominance Orientation Shapes Perceptions Of Police, Belen Lowrey-Kinberg, Hillary Mellinger, Erin M. Kearns

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose

There remain several underaddressed issues in the procedural justice literature. The authors draw from a rich body of psychological research on how the sociopolitical orientation to group inequality influences individual views on government and apply this to perceptions of procedural justice.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a laboratory-style experimental design to examine the extent to which social dominance orientation (SDO) shapes how people view the language of law enforcement. Four treatments are tested: procedural justice, rapport, deference, and direct.

Findings

The authors find that, overall, exclusively emphasizing rapport – as opposed to procedural justice, deference, or directness – is not …

Why People Move To And Stay In New Hampshire, Kenneth M. Johnson, Kristine Bundschuh

Carsey Publications

Migration is important to New Hampshire’s demographic future. Traditionally, the state has grown both because of migration into it and because of the surplus of births over deaths. However, recently all of New Hampshire’s population growth has been due to migration.

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson and Kristine Bundschuh analyze data from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center’s Granite State Poll to examine the characteristics of two groups of current New Hampshire residents—recent migrants and established residents—to understand why people move to and choose to stay in the state. Their findings illustrate that migration decisions are influenced by …

Why People Move To And Stay In New Hampshire, Kenneth M. Johnson, Kristine Bundschuh

Carsey Publications

Migration is important to New Hampshire’s demographic future. Traditionally, the state has grown both because of migration into it and because of the surplus of births over deaths. However, recently all of New Hampshire’s population growth has been due to migration.

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson and Kristine Bundschuh analyze data from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center’s Granite State Poll to examine the characteristics of two groups of current New Hampshire residents—recent migrants and established residents—to understand why people move to and choose to stay in the state. Their findings illustrate that migration decisions are influenced by …

The Persistence Of Indigenous Markets In Mexico's 'Supermarket Revolution', Diana Christina Denham

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation research investigates the paradoxical survival of Indigenous markets in the context of state-sponsored development strategies that privilege multinational retailers and rebrand Mexican cities as modern and globally competitive. I examine how Indigenous markets have survived the supermarketization (and, more precisely, Walmartization) of food retail that has taken hold in Mexico. Better known by their Nahuatl name tianguis, open-air Indigenous markets held in streets and public plazas predate the arrival of the first conquistadors and remain common across Mesoamerica today. My examination of tianguis in native language texts, colonial narratives, popular art, and mid-20th century newspapers demonstrates that …

America’S Legacy Of Redlining: State-Sponsored Segregation And Disenfranchisement Of Urban Minority Communities, Ashley Van Slyke

Population Health Research Brief Series

Redlining, the act of designating areas on residential maps as too risky to issue and insure mortgages, in place from 1934 to 1968, disproportionately affected people of color. The effects of redlining remain prominent nearly a century later and continue to contribute to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities.

Online Dialogue In Response To Disclosures Of Intimate Partner Violence, Bria Nicole Davies

Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) impacts the lives of millions of individuals, devastating survivors, and damaging families. Many survivors are unsure of how to get help, and many have limited access to resources. In recent years, those affected by IPV have turned online for answers and support, including forums such as Reddit, to anonymously disclose their experiences. This study examined the dialogue online between survivors of violence and those who respond to their posts on Reddit. The aim is to better understand the kinds of conversations and responses that are occurring in online communities discussing IPV. Analysis of the domestic violence …

"Courage Drives Us": Narrative Construction Of Organizational Identity In A Cancer-Specific Health Non-Profit Organization, Katie J. Hilderbrand

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Health care organization’s functioning and operating within the complex and shifting landscape of the U.S. health care system develop and publicize narratives that inform audience members about the organization, such as who is being served (clients/patients), what problems the clients are facing, what the clients need, and how they should be morally evaluated. For this study, I am focusing on the research questions: (1) What kinds of images of organizational work are promoted by publicly broadcasted stories of “typical clients”? (2) What types of work do these narratives do? I employ a narrative perspective to analyze publicly broadcasted stories featured …

A Cross-Cultural Qualitative Study On Students’ Attitudes Towards Computer-Assisted Language Learning, Dara Tafazoli, María Elena Gómez Parra, Cristina A. Huertas-Abril

The Qualitative Report

This cross-cultural qualitative study investigated the attitudes and perceptions of language students towards computer-assisted language learning (CALL). We examined the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of CALL in language education according to Iranian and Spanish students’ perceptions and attitudes. In addition, we found out the differences between Iranian and Spanish language students’ perceptions and attitudes towards CALL. The participants were 237 language students, and the researchers applied an online 10 open-ended question instrument for data collection and a SWOT analysis for data analysis. The findings of the content analysis revealed that many language students in Iran and Spain approved that …

Identifying, Understanding And Combating Complex Inequality: The Fight To Make The Invisible, Visible, Rachel Whitt

Black History at UNM

Dr. Nancy López, professor of sociology at UNM and director of the Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice, explains the role of complex inequality in fueling social unrest. Complex inequality is rooted in decades of disparities towards minorities, particularly Blacks, Latinx, people of color and Native American communities. López outlines how invisible, deeply embedded injustices are common practice in the United States citing research that shows there are compounding challenges facing marginalized communities. These hurdles are multifaceted and cannot be distilled down to single data points. Recognizing the experience of marginality is layered and must be viewed …

Racial And Ethnic Comparison Of Ecological Risk Factors And Youth Outcomes: A Test Of The Desensitization Hypothesis, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Minority youth, because of structural, ecological, and societal inequalities, are at heightened risk of reporting depression and experiencing negative sanctions associated with delinquency. Sociological theories suggest that greater exposure to ecological risk factors at the peer, family, school and community levels are associated with elevated rates of youth depression and delinquency. Desensitization theory posits that repeated exposures to ongoing stressors result in a numbing of psychological and behavioral responses. Thus, it remains unclear whether racial/ethnic differences exist with regards to how contextual stressors correlate with depression and delinquency. Using a sample of 616 Black, 687 Latinx, and 1,318 White youth, …

Blurring Boundaries : Life And Work Of Young Middle-Class Women In Post-2000s Urban China, Lili Lin

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

The research concerns young middle-class women’s labor practices and experience in cultural and creative industries (CCI) and the formation of labouring subjectivity in the post-2000s urban China, based on text analysis and eight months of ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai. Tracing women’s work histories throughout the twentieth century in urban China, it is apparent that women’s work has historically been prominently shaped by reproduction. Women have been positioned as flexible labour and are embodied in the contradiction between production and reproduction. Since the 2000s, a new round of reform has begun calling for ‘upgrading and transforming’ production that is ‘made in …

The Culture Of Violent Talk: An Interpretive Approach, Peter Simi, Steven Windisch

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

One of the defining characteristics of extremist movements is the adherence to an ideology highly antagonistic to the status quo and one that permits or explicitly promotes the use of violence to achieve stated goals and to address grievances. For members of extremist groups, talk is one of the most concrete manifestations of how adherents communicate their ideas to each other and the general public. These discussions, however, do not necessarily involve a direct correspondence between words and future behavior. To better understand the culture of violent talk, we investigate how white supremacist extremists use these discussions as a rhetorical …

Radna: The Holy Shrine Of The Multinational Banat Region (Romania), Erika Vass

Journal of Global Catholicism

Radna is the sacral heart of the Banat region in Romania. The shrine has united the Catholics for centuries in veneration of Virgin Mary regardless of their nationality and native language. Roman Catholic Bulgarians, Croatians (called Krashovani), Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Romanians, and Slovakians venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary together, but believers of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church also visit the sacred venue. Until the borders changed after the First World War, a great number of pilgrims had visited Radna every year from the region of the Great Hungarian Plain. The pilgrimage may be considered a rite of passage connecting …

Minor Letnica: (Re)Locating The Tradition Of Shared Worship In North Macedonia, Ksenia Trofimova

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper addresses trajectories of historical and devotional continuity of the annual pilgrimage to a Marian shrine. It analyzes the ways in which traditional worship of the Catholic Church in Letnica (Kosovo)—a major regional sanctuary of the former Yugoslavia—is relocated and replicated in a small chapel of St. Joseph in Skopje (North Macedonia). Both sites have been for a long period of time institutionally connected and shared by followers of different religious traditions (Catholic and Orthodox devotees, and especially by Muslims). Drawing upon fieldwork carried out in Macedonia and Serbia between 2014-2019, I focus on the processes of social construction …

“Give Me Some Beautiful Holy Images That Are Colorful, Play Music, And Flash!” The Roma Pilgrimage To Csatka, Hungary, István Povedák

Journal of Global Catholicism

This study introduces the Csatka pilgrimage, which is one of the most significant festive events for Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. Csatka, a small and secluded village, became one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Roma since the mid-20th century. Tens of thousands of Roma, entire families from Hungary and the surrounding countries arrive to the feast on Nativity Day at the beginning of September. For them, however, the rite is not only about religious actions, but also about their powerful role in strengthening Roma ethnic identity. Through the analysis of the rite, we can gain a good …

Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing The Dichotomy Between The Sacred And Profane In Csíksomlyó, Zsofia Lovei

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines how a Marian shrine in Csíksomlyó, Transylvania acts as a Foucauldian heterotopia for Magyar speaking individuals, residing in the Carpathian Basin, and beyond in the diaspora most especially during the annual Pentecost pilgrimage. Following introductory remarks on the site and my stance, I turn to methodology, and Hungarian scholarship on the topic. Afterwards, I provide a “thick description” of fieldwork I conducted on-site in May of 2015. I then turn to various theoretical ties, which I support with emic analysis. Lastly, I turn to ideas of heterotopias, and provide a brief formal analysis. My main incentive is …

Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

What If And What More: Disturbing Habits Of Thought About Playwork ‘Re-Search’, Wendy K. Russell, John Fitzpatrick, Bridget Handscomb

International Journal of Playwork Practice

This short article reports on a presentation given at an International Journal of Playwork Practice seminar in 2018. It describes an approach to evaluating the work of an adventure playground using Participative Action Research and a critical cartographic method for producing documentation that shows the unique nature of playwork.