Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Changing Minds Or Transforming Social Worlds? Re-Envisioning Media Literacy Education As Feminist Arts-Activism, Margaret Louise Mcgladrey

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This dissertation project seeks to address the sociological processes, dynamics, and mechanisms inflecting how and why U.S. society reproduces a sexually dimorphic, binary gender structure. The project builds upon the work of sociologists of gender on the doing gender framework, intersectional feminist approaches to identity formation, and hegemonic masculinity and relational theories of gender. In a 2012 article in Social Science and Medicine presenting contemporary concepts in gender theory to the health-oriented readers of the journal, R. W. Connell argues that much public policy on gender and health relies on categorical understandings of gender that are now inadequate. Connell contends …

Growing Economic Possibility In Appalachia: Stories Of Relocalization And Representation On Stinking Creek, Kathryn Engle

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This project explores the agricultural heritage and current social landscape of the Stinking Creek community of Knox County, Kentucky, and the legacy of the local nonprofit organization the Lend-A-Hand Center. Through participatory research, this project presents a reflexive account of the Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Gardening Program examining the diverse economy of the Stinking Creek watershed and possibilities for new economic imaginings and post-coal futures for central Appalachia. This dissertation includes an oral history project, a theoretical examination, and an ethnographic reflection, bridging several literatures in the fields of agricultural history, Appalachian Studies, Participatory Action Research, research within the diverse …

The Political Implications Of Religious Non-Affiliation In Emerging Adulthood, Philip Schwadel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Religious non-affiliation has increased considerably in the U.S. over the last few decades. The contemporary generation of emerging adults is the first to have a sizable proportion raised with no religious affiliation. This article uses nationally representative, longitudinal survey data to examine how both non-affiliation in adolescence and switching to non-affiliation in emerging adulthood influence political interest, behaviors, orientation, and partisanship. The results show the following: 1) that unaffiliated emerging adults are less politically active than the religiously affiliated; 2) that the unaffiliated are relatively liberal and unlikely to be Republican; 3) that the unaffiliated are more likely than the …

Prosecution As The "Soul Crushing Job:" Complexities Of Campus Sexual Assault Cases, Tammi L. Slovinsky

Theses and Dissertations

On April 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague Letter on campus sexual assault reaffirming the intent of Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits discrimination sex-based under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. In response to growing concern over due process rights for defendants, in September 2017 the guidance was rescinded. Public policy continues to evolve, leading to potentially lasting institutional changes on many college campuses. These developments include the formalization of campus investigations and adjudications, the development of campus coordinating committees and expanded support mechanisms for victims. In Virginia, laws passed …

Flap Of A Butterfly's Wings, Gary E. Rotter Ii

Dissertations and Theses

The goal of this thesis is to draw attention to the often overlooked work that is done by activists and their networks when it comes to influencing international policy and law. The case study looks at the “Comfort Women” issue, an unresolved conflict from when the Japanese Imperial Army forced women from its colonies into sexual slavery during World War II. It is a fiercely debated topic throughout Asia, specifically between South Korea and Japan. Here I argue that not only do non-state actors have great influence over the debate and direction this issue takes in international forums, but that …

Inter-Female Hostility: Attractiveness And Femininity Vs. Likeability, Savanah Henshaw, Lydia Estes, Lauren Olsen

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Scottish Independence: Why Remaining A Part Of The Uk Still Makes Sense In The Wake Of Brexit, Lincoln Wilcox

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

Liberty And The Challenge Of Diversity, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Those who favor liberty face a dilemma arising out of human diversity.While some groups of people will place a high value on liberty, others mayconsider it a lesser good or may value it scarcely at all. Preserving a free society by forcing everyone to value liberty runs against the spirit of freedom;but leaving those groups who do not care for liberty to live in that way alsodiminishes liberty, if in a different way. In the end the dilemma has to beresolved in favor of tolerating even those who do not care for liberty andthreaten to undermine it.

The Meaning Of A Woman's Work: Refugees, Statelessness, Nationality, And The Women's International League For Peace And Freedom, 1918-1931, Monica Burney

Masters Theses

This work analyzes how the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) sought to influence how the League of Nations approached questions of nationality and statelessness between 1918 and 1931. Especially important were the WILPF's efforts to aid women and children who remained in Turkey following the Armenian genocide, as well as the organization's efforts to address the statelessness crisis that arose following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. Their activism helped to pressure the League of Nations into creating the Commission of Enquiry on Deported Women and Children in Turkey and Asia Minor. Their efforts to end statelessness culminated in …

Alton Sterling, My Dad, And Me: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Race Based Trauma, Balencia Crosby

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Trauma is often an undetectable and imperceptible agony experienced and re-experienced by individuals. Capable of transcending both; time and space, trauma(s) can trigger physical/psychological discomforts. Recognizing, individual (, or collective) trauma through the lens of persons of color is mostly disregarded. Therefore, a vital contribution found within this text is a shared intrapersonal account of race based trauma. Auto ethnography, as a method of exploring (RBT) is used as a tool of dialogue between author and reader - by which familiarity is established. This limited account of anecdotal recollections is meant to incite further dialogue centering the recognition of racialized …

The Intersection Of Civic Engagement And Civic Attidues Among Latino Youth Through A Factor Analysis, Nicole Webster, Erica Sausner, Bader Alotaibi, Ashley Patterson

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The extent to which civic and citizenship education captures the ways Latino youth perceive their roles as social change agents is largely absent from academic literature. This article examines how youth perceptions of and interactions with civic education define the civic lens they apply to their societies. The article examines a new way of interpreting the International Civic and Citizenship Study data and how it investigates new ways to view the civic lens of youth within three Latin American countries. Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicate a three-factor structure of civic lenses and show that youth who have been …

The Power Of Myths And Storytelling In Nation Building: The Campaign For The Independence Of Catalonia From Spain (2012-2015), César García

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

Background There is no nation without its origin story. The recent success of the Catalan campaign for independence (2012–2015) can be explained by a strong capacity to build and convey a story capable of informing, persuading, and eliciting emotional responses from Catalans and other Spaniards.

Analysis The recent Catalan nationalism narrative has been forged by updating the foundational myths of Catalan nationalism through four main plots—quest, escape, revenge, and transformation—that with a pragmatic character have been able to integrate current affairs into the old myths.

Conclusion and implications This article explores the elements of the new Catalan nationalism narrative by …

California As A “Blue-Print’ For Progressive Immigration Reform?: Uncovering Racial Liberalism To Expose Reconfigured Anti-Migrant Hegemony, Edith Jaicel Ortega

Scripps Senior Theses

Using the frames of analysis and language of political whiteness and anti-migrant hegemony, this paper examines the narrative of liberal immigration reformers transforming California’s political landscape within the period of 1994 to 2017. Taken as case studies the following articles of legislation are analyzed: Proposition 187 in 1994, the California Dream Act in 2010, the Trust Act in 2014, up to the present Senate Bill 54 in 2017. The paper finds that while California has experienced a recognizable shift in racial liberalism in rhetoric and legislation, its overall policy continues to work within the framework of anti-migrant hegemony that functions …

Taxation For Whom?:A Diachronic Analysis Of Taxation In Ireland And The United Kingdom From 1970-2015., Ewan Macdonald, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Other

This paper explores the discursive development of taxation within budget speeches in two countries, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, from 1970 to 2015 by means of a corpus-assisted discourse analysis. We ask the following questions; how have discourses of taxation developed diachronically in both countries, what are the similarities and differences in the observable discourses across both countries, and for whom and how are these discourses legitimised? In answering these questions, this paper makes use of Corpus linguistics, a methodological approach which utilises computational analysis of large bodies of text to draw statistically significant conclusions about the …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: Politics, Social Issues, Perceptions Of The Police, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

[Introductory paragraph]

This report examines regional perceptions of political figures and political affiliation from the 2018 Life In Hampton Roads survey (LIHR 2018) conducted by the Old Dominion University Social Science Research Center. Data from prior years is also provided when available to show comparisons in responses over time. Responses were weighted by city population, race, age, gender, and phone usage (cell versus land-line) to be representative of the Hampton Roads region. For additional information on survey methodology, and analyses of other issues, please see the SSRC website at www.odu.edu/ssrc. The political climate is one factor in understanding attitudes on …

“It Ruined My Life”: The Effects Of The War On Drugs On People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid) In Rural Puerto Rico, Roberto Abadie, C. Gelpi-Acosta, C. Davila, A. Rivera, Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background—The War on Drugs has raised the incarceration rates of racial minorities for non-violent drug-related crimes, profoundly stigmatized drug users, and redirected resources from drug prevention and treatment to militarizing federal and local law enforcement. Yet, while some states consider shifting their punitive approach to drug use, to one based on drug treatment and rehabilitation, nothing suggests that these policy shifts are being replicated in Puerto Rico.

Methods—This paper utilizes data from 360 PWID residing in four rural towns in the mountainous area of central Puerto Rico. We initially recruited 315 PWID using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) and collected data about …

The Almost Inevitable Failure Of Justice, Thad Williamson

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here (1967), Martin Luther King, Jr., warned that the struggle for black equality had moved into a more difficult phase that would test the moral commitments of white America to democracy. King commented that, for most whites, the battles over school desegregation and the Civil Rights Act had merely "been a struggle to treat the Negro with a degree of decency, not of equality." King's warning about the thinness of the country's commitment to democracy was combined with a profound optimism that ending poverty and creating a truly free society was …

Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

As same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in a rapidly growing list of countries, the time has come to assess what this means for families and relationships on the ground. Many scholars have already begun to examine how marriage is helping some same-sex couples, but in this introduction I call for a broader and more critical research agenda. In particular, I argue that same-sex marriage crystallizes a key tension surrounding families and relationships in many contemporary societies. On the one hand, strict family norms are relaxing in many places, allowing more people to form more diverse types of caring …

I'Ll Hang Around As Long As You Will Let Me : Hard Country Music, The White Working Class, And The Experience Of Loss In The American Neoliberal Context, Nicholas Johnston

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This paper utilises the object relations theories of Ronald Fairbairn to conceptualise the narratives of Hard Country music, and understand how they relate to the shifting experiences of the male, white working-class in America in the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper understands the privileges that masculinity and whiteness have afforded the male, white working-class in the post-war period, and attempts to locate the relative loss felt by this population in the subsequent eras of de-industrialisation, neoliberalisation, second-wave feminism and the civil rights movement. Undertaking a thematic analysis of Hard Country music, an art form that purports to …

Community-Based Initiatives For Neighborhood And Community Rehabilitation: A Case Study Of The Mission District, San Francisco, California, Francesca Monique Gallardo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Through the case study of San Francisco, CA’s Mission District, this research project addresses how community-based affordable housing development is operationalized to rehabilitate communities and neighborhoods experiencing effects of gentrification, mass displacement, and cultural dilution. My goals were to identify how the processes of building a sense of community, trust, and cohesion- rehabilitating and critical to affordable housing development efforts in the Mission District? And, how are nonprofit community development organizations engaging with these processes in collaboration with citizen and community partners? The final objective is to provide evidence-based strategies to assist other at-risk minority communities and neighborhoods in the …

Understanding The Micro-Situational Dynamics Of White Supremacist Violence In The United States, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew Demichele

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

While substantial effort has been devoted to investigating the radicalization process and developing theories to explain why this occurs, surprisingly few studies offer explanations of the micro-situational factors that characterize how extremists accomplish violence. Relying on in-depth life history interviews with 89 former white supremacists, we analyzed the situational, emotional, and moral considerations surrounding white supremacist violence. Overall, we identified a variety of strategies white supremacists utilize for overcoming emotional and cognitive obstacles required to perform violent action. Furthermore, we also identified the callous effect of habitual violence. We conclude this article with suggestions for future research and recommendations for …

Response: Labour And The Varieties Of Feminism, Monique Charles, Natalie Thomlinson

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

"In our last issue, Charlotte Proudman offered a strongly critical account of the Labour leadership’s engagement with the feminist tradition. Here, two scholars of feminism and race offer their reflections on the arguments she raised."

Recent Futures: Classical Antiquity As Biopolitical Tool, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Feminism After May '68, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.