Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Political Competition And Predictors Of Hate Crime: A County-Level Analysis, Eaven Holder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research on hate crime has tended to utilize sociological frameworks to best explain the incidence of such offending, but little research has been conducted to determine whether political factors may play a role. Although Olzak (1990) touched upon the relationship between racial violence and third-party politics during the American Progressive era (1882-1914), the research did not fully articulate how political competition may influence the commission of hate crime. The current study seeks to fill this gap, while also extending concepts associated with social disorganization theory and the defended communities perspective. It does so by utilizing a longitudinal research design to …

The Effects Of Media On The American Perceptions Of Islam From 2001-2012, Brently Pustelak

Senior Honors Theses

This study seeks to understand the correlation between the average American's understanding of a Muslim and the portrayal of Muslims in relevant news events. After defining terms and reviewing previous literature, two news sources will be used to compare various historically-significant events. The major events to be studied are the September 11 attacks of 2001, the American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the “Arab Spring”. Precedent literature shall be used to determine a baseline understanding of common American perceptions of Muslims. From the baseline understandings of American perceptions and the established definitions regarding Muslims, a connection will be drawn …

Community Initiatives Multiply University Partnerships, Christopher Lafontaine

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Christopher LaFontaine is a senior studying psychology and sociology at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW). He has concentrated on community engagement and service learning as areas of focus for the past year. He plans to pursue a career in applied sociology and he has been involved with applied research among vulnerable populations. Christopher has worked with homeless veterans in Fort Wayne and has studied health conditions in a rural county that ranks low in health outcomes. In this article, he describes his experience with service-learning partnerships between community organizations and an institution of higher education.

A County In Idaho Offered Spanish-Language Ballots For The First Time And Here’S What Happened, Gabe Osterhout

University Author Recognition Bibliography: 2018

On the morning of Election Day, the top trending search on Google was “donde votar,” which means “where to vote” in Spanish.

Local Governance Of Immigrant Incorporation: How City-Based Organizational Fields Shape The Cases Of Undocumented Youth In New York City And Paris, Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

City-based organizations and governments play an important role in incorporating undocumented immigrant youth. This article investigates how localities sociopolitically incorporate these immigrants by examining the governance constellations and institutional logics of the organizational field that manages undocumented youth. Comparing sets of municipal and civil society organizations in different national settings, I use the two cases of New York City and Paris to ask how the ‘city-based organizational field of immigrant incorporation’ shapes citizenship experiences of undocumented youth. Data come from multi-level longitudinal ethnography over 8 years with two dozen undocumented youth and with organizations in each city as well as …

No. 16: Cheap Industrial Food And The Urban Margins, Tony Weis, Marylynn Steckley, Bruce Frayne

Hungry Cities Partnership

From the middle of the 20th century onwards, the productivity gains associated with high-input, high-yield monocultures and livestock operations have become increasingly central to global food security and to dynamics of urbanization across the global south. On one hand, competition has deflated prices and helped undermine the viability of small farm livelihoods in many places. On the other hand, rising flows of cheap food have effectively subsidized urban migration in impoverished urban and peri-urban settings. But this cheapness is highly deceptive, as it hinges on the failure to account for an array of biological and physical costs – which can …

No. 17: Revisiting Africa's Supermarket Revolution, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence N. Kazembe, Jeremy Wagner

Hungry Cities Partnership

Africa is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate and food systems are undergoing rapid transformation. This transformation is being driven in part by a global supermarket revolution. However, the idea of an inexorable supermarket revolution on the continent has recently been contested. This paper examines the role of supermarkets in Namibia’s capital city Windhoek to test the applicability of the model. The paper is based on (a) a review of the literature on South African supermarket expansion; (b) a survey of the food purchasing behaviour of a representative sample of 875 households in Windhoek; and (c) a comprehensive product inventory of …

No.03: Devising Urban Food Security Policy For African Cities, James Sgro

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Informal food services are one of the few options for financially disadvantaged families. Food access policy needs to be created in partnership with informal economy actors to ensure that those who rely on informal systems are not ignored.

■ As household size increases, the likelihood of food insecurity grows exponentially. Adequate social protection programs are required to support household dependants including children and the aged and improve food security.

■ Secondary school completion is a specific milestone that significantly increases one’s food security outlook. Free primary and secondary school policies could return dividends in terms of nation-wide food security, …

Collective Shout's Victory Against Sexpo: A Win For Children's Rights, Caitlin Roper

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This report is an account of the legal battle between Australian grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout and Sexpo, the annual sex industry exhibition. Sexpo brought a lawsuit against Collective Shout after their campaign against Sexpo’s promotion of live-streamed porn shows on public buses servicing school routes. In April 2018, Sexpo’s application was dismissed, with Sexpo ordered to pay Collective Shout’s legal costs.

The 2018 Mid-Term Election: Estimated Voter Participation Rates By Race And Age In Arizona, Florida, Georgia And Texas, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: The razor thin margins separating the Democratic and Republican candidates for senator and governor in Florida; in the Georgia governor’s race; in the senatorial election in Arizona; and the strong showing by Beto O’Rourke in the senatorial race in Texas, mask the extraordinary problems faced by the Democratic Party as it turns to the presidential election scheduled for November 2020.

Methods: This study highlights these problems by examining the turnout rates by race/ethnicity and age in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Texas using 2017 IPUMS data with The New York Times and CNN Exit polls for each state.

Results: In …

The Great Recession And The Destruction Of Minority Wealth, Douglas S. Massey, Jacob S. Rugh

Faculty Publications

It seems obvious now, but there was a time when social scientists paid little attention to wealth as a factor in America's system of racial stratification. For many years, researchers focused primarily on black-white differentials in education, employment, and earnings; and in these dimensions progress was clearly being made. From 1963 (just before the passage of major civil rights legislation) to 2001 (just after the economic boom of the 1990s), the ratio of black-to-white median household income rose from 33 percent to 64 percent. Over the same period, the black-white ratio for high school graduates climbed from 51% to 89%, …

The Intentional De-Cohesion In Deportability, Talha Issevenler

Publications and Research

A critical exploration of loss or decohesion of political agency in deportability.

Navigating The Unknown: Experiences Of International Graduate Students From Muslim-Majority Countries In The Current Political Climate, Juanita Ariza, Madison Motoyasu, Holly Lustig, Ree M. Palmer, Benjamin Stalvey, Donna To

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

The United States was built upon oppression, colonization, slavery, and exclusionary policies. Today, our current policies and laws create and maintain acts of oppression through forms of discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization. Most recently, the Executive Order 13769 (2017) was created to intentionally restrict the travel of non-citizens, visitors, and residents from seven Muslim-majority countries. This study shares the experiences of 9 international graduate students from Muslim-majority countries in the current sociopolitical environments at a midwestern Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in the U.S. The study asks the question, “How do international graduate students conceptualize their sense of belonging on their campus?” …

Social Justice Guest Speaker Series: Does More Immigration Mean More Crime In The United States?, Ramiro Martinez Ph.D.

Social Justice & Activism

Professor Martinez is a quantitative criminologist. Within that broad arena, his work contributes to violent crime research. His core research agenda asks how does violence vary across ecological settings, and, does violent crime and violent deaths vary across racial/ethnic and immigrant groups? In 2011, he was a recipient of American Society of Criminology DPCC’s Lifetime Achievement for outstanding scholarship in the area of race, crime, and justice. In 2007 he was a recipient of American Society of Criminology DPCC’s Coramae Richey Mann Award for outstanding scholarship in the area of race, crime, and justice. In 2006 he was a recipient …

Non-Traditional Students At Public Regional Universities: A Case Study, Lizabeth Zack

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

This paper investigates the topic of non-traditional students enrolled at four-year public regional universities and addresses questions about who they are, what makes them non-traditional and how they experience college life. The analysis is based on survey data collected from 187 undergraduates at one regional public college in the southeastern United States. The study found a higher portion of non-traditional students than expected and that the non-traditional students tended to break down into two types, a younger worker-student and an older adult student, rather than conforming to a single profile. While the findings highlight other similarities with the broader population …

The Torch (October 2018), Crtp

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

Civic and Community Engagement | Civil Rights and Discrimination | Education | Gender and Sexuality | Inequality and Stratification | Politics and Social Change | Public Policy | Race and Ethnicity

Recommended Citation

Baldwin, Brandon and Civil Rights Team Project, "Torch (August 2013)" (2013). Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter. 58. http://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/torch/58

No.01: The Sdgs, Food Security And Urbanization In The Global South, David Celis Parra, Krista Dinsmore, Nicole Fassina, Charlene Keizer

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Urban food insecurity is distinct from that experienced in rural areas and must be addressed through a different set of policies.

■ While supermarkets are increasingly prevalent in urban centres of the Global South, the informal economy and state food distribution programs continue to play an important role in meeting food security needs of the urban poor.

■ The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, as part of a new in-ternational directive, recommends that governments aim to improve food security and nutrition over the next 15 years in response to the global challenge of fostering sustainability.

■ SDG …

No.02: An Urban Perspective On Food Security In The Global South, Michael Chong, Lucy Hinton, Jeremy Wagner, Amy Zavits

Hungry Cities Partnership

■ Food insecurity challenges in the Global South are changing as a result of rapid urbanization and the globalization of food supply chains.

■ Urban food insecurity is not distinct from rural food security challenges and policy seeking to address either should adopt a systems approach that strengthens their interdependence. There is an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of rural food security programming while concurrently addressing the growing food security needs of vulnerable urban populations.

■ This brief recommends that food security policy should prioritize intra-urban stages of informal food value chains and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their …

"Prescribed To Fuck Off": Examining The Role Of Heterosexual White Men In South Africa From The Perspective Of Seven Students At The University Of Cape Town, Meagan Murray

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Movements towards racial and gender equality in South Africa are experiencing growth because of the increasingly urgent need to rectify the inequalities of apartheid. These movements have destabilized notions of white hegemonic masculinity by creating a dissonance between the socially-constructed privileges that white men are entitled to and their perceived limited access to advancement. The primary responses to this “crisis” have materialized in the construction of male organizations aimed at either redeveloping masculinity or defending male privilege, as well as a desire to distance oneself from the stereotypical male identity. All reactions bear significant weight on the future of South …

Missing Youth: The Absence Of The Young Moroccan Voice In The Nation, Reid Leiter

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Morocco has long maintained stability in a region historically known for fluctuating sociopolitical climates, considerably in part to a robust constitutional monarchy. However, the 20 February movement that coincided with the 2011 Arab Spring showed that the government is vulnerable to an energetic, organized, and a vocal youth population. Now, seven years after a constitutional referendum aimed at installing more democratic processes was passed, the growing youth populous feel more detached from their nation than ever, ignored by the government and monarchy, and ultimately lacking a voice in Moroccan politics. By excluding their voice and ignoring their opinions, the government …

Changing Donor-Ngo Relations Thorough Viable Alternatives To Conventional Grantmaking, Kio Okawa

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this research is to explore ways in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can become more sustainable in light of a crucial challenge facing them today: that of financial instability. In the charitable sector in the U.S, NGOs, especially small-scale NGOs, have struggled with securing daily operating revenue rather than revenue for long-term program operations, in spite of the continuing needs of their beneficiaries (Janus, 2018; Le, 2017; Meehan & Jonker, 2017). Fundraising has come to involve relationships between NGOs and institutional donors such as foundations, government agencies and corporations. Competition among NGOs and rampant power asymmetry between donors …

Looking Beyond Primary: A Study Of Barriers To Secondary Education In Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, Uganda, Chloe Schalit

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The increase in protracted refugee situations around the world complicates the provision of public services such as education. Accessing secondary school is key to individual and community empowerment for vulnerable refugees through providing higher education and employment opportunities. However, secondary school attainment is often severely lacking in refugee settlements. In Uganda, 58.2% of refugees are enrolled in primary school, while only 11.3% attend secondary school. This study sought to understand the experiences of Ugandan refugees related to barriers to secondary education and its relation to social and economic empowerment, as well as solutions that refugee communities, Implementing Partners (IPs), and …

Church And State: The Impact Of Christianity On South African Politics During And Post-Apartheid, Calista Struby

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Within the South African context, there exists an intimate relationship between religion and politics. South Africa by definition is a secular society however data indicates that the South African population that is overwhelmingly religious. According to a General Household Survey published in 2015, 86% of the South African population identifies with some form of the Christian faith (“General Household Survey,” 2015). Historically religious civil society has played a prominent role in shaping the political climate and the political involvement of South African citizens. During Apartheid, Christianity played an influential role in the ideological formation and justification of the Apartheid political …

Challenges To Democratic Inclusion And Contestation Of Space: Contemporary Student Activists In Transforming South Africa, Momo Wilms-Crowe

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Twenty-four years into democracy, in a time marked by stark inequality and rising levels of political disillusionment, student activists are key players in the pursuit of a more just, more equitable, and more democratic South Africa. Using universities as spaces to contest, disrupt, and challenge the status quo, student activists challenge narratives of youth political apathy and act as agents of change, encouraging society to meet the goals established in the 1996 Constitution, the document enshrining the very promises they were born into believing would be their reality. Through mobilization and organizing, student actors boldly engage in questions of substantive …

Imagining Intersectional Anti-Rape Messaging At An Organization In Cape Town, South Africa: Visible And Invisible Subjects, Maslen Bode Ward

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Less than one month ago, South Africa held the first ever Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide to assess the most effective ways to approach solving the country’s high rates of gender-based violence. My study aims to consider anti-rape messaging and advocacy under an intersectional framework, using one organization in Cape Town as a case study. I examine how anti-rape messaging in South Africa has failed to consider intersectional identities in their imagined conceptions of survivors and perpetrators. I explore the potential for intersectional anti-rape messaging and the role of race, class, gender, culture, and language in the distribution, audience, …

Mind Control In The Post-Colonial State: The Impact Of Foreign Direct Investment In Tertiary Education In Senegal And Jamaica, Janiel Chantae Slowly

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since the end of 17th to 20th century colonization, Senegal and Jamaica have been victims of the rhetoric of development. The economic, social, and political progress of these nations have always been overshadowed by their categorization as “developing countries”. Yet, this development rhetoric fails to acknowledge not only the wounds of colonization but the more modern manifestations of continued exploitation of these countries often by the same countries that “emancipated” their colonies. Senegal and Jamaica for example, are both dominated by large percentages of young adults, in both cases a large majority of the populations are individuals under the age …

Frank Thoughts: Investigating The Construction Of Anne Frank As A Site Of Heritage And Identity Formation In A Globalized Postholocaust Society, Sarah Silverstein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research begins to investigate the ways constructions of Dutch-Jewish history and the Holocaust in the Netherlands post World War II have become active symbols of heritage or physical sites of heritage for tourists and host communities alike. In this paper I consider the ways in which the memorialization of Anne Frank in Amsterdam and the human rights violations documented more broadly in the host community, the Netherlands, during the Holocaust has and continues to influence identity politics of the Dutch nation-state, its culture, and citizens on both a local and global stage in contemporary times. The “Jewish History – …

Integrated Mental Health Care In Education For Syrian Refugees: An Exploratory Study, Emily Goldstein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Trauma-inducing experiences during conflict can significantly impede the ability to function and effectively learn in the classroom; thus, it is essential to integrate mental health services into the school setting for refugee populations. This study investigated the state of integrated mental healthcare for Syrian refugees in Jordan by surveying Syrian students on their attitudes towards seeking mental health and interviewing educators on their classroom practices. The scope of the study was extremely limited, as data was collected on only 21 students and 5 educators in one school and a number of biases could have skewed the results. It was found …

The Impact Of Foreign Involvement On Political Reform Organizations In Jordan, Sravya Tadepalli

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper assesses the impact of foreign involvement on the effectiveness of political reform organizations in Jordan. Through the qualitative analysis of the democratization work of completely foreign-funded international organizations, partially foreign-funded Jordanian organizations, and Jordanian organizations that do not receive foreign funding, derived from several interviews conducted with democracy practitioners in international and local NGOs, political activists, scholars, and others, this paper examines the effect of foreign involvement on organizational strategies, credibility, and effectiveness, ultimately arguing that foreign involvement (and conversely, the lack thereof) has several effects on the way political reform organizations have carried out their activities. This …

"Les Droits Ne Sont Pas Respectés": A Study Of The Effectiveness Of The Moroccan Law In Protecting The Human Rights Of Sub-Saharan Female Migrants, Meghan Gragg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper aims to determine to what extent Moroccan law is protecting female Sub-Saharan migrants against human rights abuses and in the process, it attempts to determine what the Moroccan government needs to do differently to protect this population. Female migrant women from Sub-Saharan Africa are a population that suffers human rights abuses because of their dual positionality as both women and Sub-Saharan migrants: both of which are discriminated populations in Morocco. The research was carried out by communicating with lawyers and non-governmental organization (N.G.O.) team members who work with women to determine the common legal and social problems affecting …