Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons^™

A Tent Census: How Counting Tents Informs An Understanding Of Unsheltered Homelessness In Seattle, Karen A. Snedker, Jennifer Mckinney, Charles C. Lanfear

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Tents are a familiar sight across many U.S. cities, especially West Coast cities. In Seattle, given the high visibility of tents, public perceptions of a widespread problem, the uncertainty surrounding the city’s number of tents, and national data showing a rise in unsheltered homelessness, the authors decided to count tents. They conducted a tent census to obtain a full count of the number of tents in the city of Seattle as well as two resamples of highly populated areas of tents. In the tent census, and in the two resamples, the authors find support for three general expectations: the census …

Ideational Diffusion And The Great Witch Hunt In Central Europe, Kerice Doten‑Snitker, Steven Pfaff, Yuan Hsiao

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The great upsurge of witch trials in early modern Europe remains a historical puzzle. Popularly known as the “witch craze”, this eruption of persecution is puzzling because belief in witchcraft had existed for centuries, but large-scale witch-hunting appeared rather abruptly, spread widely, and was remarkably brutal in comparison with the past. We define a theory of ideational diffusion to describe the general process of the emergence and spread of a new idea along with its prescribed behavioral change, in this case the adoption of witch-hunting. Ideational diffusion distinguishes between the adoption of new ideas, which lead social actors to reinterpret …

Intuitive Pathways Into Racist Beliefs, Mehr Latif, Pete Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew Demichele

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

In this article, we present empirical evidence on the cognitive processes underlying racist beliefs and judgement. We draw on 47 life history interviews with former members of White supremacist groups to better understand how social interactions and stimuli from the wider environment inform cognitive pathways or how people think. While we examine both deliberate and intuitive pathways to racist belief, we focus on the intuitive ways that extreme racist beliefs are cognitively processed before, during and after an individual is involved in the White supremacist movement. In doing so, we fill a critical gap in the literature by providing an …

Does Crime Trigger Genetic Risk For Type 2 Diabetes In Young Adults? A G X E Interaction Study Using National Data, Fangqi Guo, Kathleen Mullan Harris, Jason D. Boardman, Jennifer W. Robinette

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Living in neighborhoods perceived as disordered exacerbates genetic risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) among older adults. It is unknown whether this gene-neighborhood interaction extends to younger adults. The present study aims to investigate whether crime, an objectively measured indicator of neighborhood disorder, triggers genetic risk for T2D among younger adults, and whether this hypothesized triggering occurs through exposure to obesity.

Methods

Data were from the Wave I (2008) National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. A standardized T2D polygenic score was created using 2014 GWAS meta-analysis results. Weighted mediation analyses using generalized structural equation models were conducted …

Contextualizing The 2019 “Chile Despertó” Movement: The Impact Of Historical Relational Processes On Mobilization And Repression, Tanya Leon

International Studies (MA) Theses

To expand our theoretical and empirical understanding of mobilization and repression in Latin America, this thesis asks three critical questions. Are economic indicators sufficient predictors of social movement emergence in Latin America? What other factors contribute to large-scale mobilization in Latin America? How do government’s respond to large-scale Latin American social movements? Specifically, when, and why do democratic governments choose to employ repression against social movements? Accordingly, I construct a quantitative model to test the correlation between rise in protest and worsened economic conditions. I apply it to a comprehensive dataset of political events in multiple South American countries throughout …

Examining The Impact Of Socioeconomic Variables On Covid-19 Death Rates At The State Level, James L. Doti

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This study uses a step-wise regression model to identify the socioeconomic variables most significant in explaining COVID-19 death rates on a state-level basis. The regression tests cover the 1/1/2020 to 12/1/2020 period as well as the first and second halves of 2020. This study also uses the Oxford stringency index to measure more precisely the efficacy of governmental mandates at the state level. The results in this study rigorously showed that while the density variables were the most significant explanatory variables during the first half of the year, their significance fell during the second half. Use of the Oxford stringency …

Surgical Patients’ Hospital Experience Scores: Neighborhood Context Conceptual Framework, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac, Michelle A. Fortier, Pat Patton, Brad Giafaglione, Zeev N. Kain

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective:

Through geocoding the physical residential address included in the electronic medical record to the census tract level, we present a novel model for concomitant examination of individual patient-related and residential context-related factors that are associated with patient-reported experience scores.

Summary Background Data:

When assessing patient experience in the surgical setting, researchers need to examine the potential influence of neighborhood-level characteristics on patient experience-of-care ratings.

Methods:

We geocoded the residential address included in the electronic medical record (EMR) from a tertiary care facility to the census tract level of Orange County, CA. We then linked each individual record to the …

Decomposing Differences In Coronavirus Disease 2019-Related Case-Fatality Rates Across Seventeen Nations, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

As of 1 November 2020, estimated case-fatality rates associated with coronavirus disease 2019 are not uniformly patterned across the world and differ substantially in magnitude. Given the global spatial heterogeneity in case-fatality rates, we applied the Blinder-Oaxaca regression decomposition technique to identify how putative sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources influence variation in case-fatality rates. We show that compositional and associational differences in country-level risk factors explain a substantial proportion of the coronavirus disease 2019-related case-fatality rate gap across nations. Asian countries fair better vis-à-vis case-fatality rate differences mainly due to variation in returns to sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources among …

Hey Beautiful: Calling Out Catcalling Culture, Alanna Cronk

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Catcalling: almost every female-presenting person experiences it, yet everyone has a different interpretation of the experience. There is a gradient of opinions of the subject ranging from longing to experience the validation catcalling can bring to reviling the insulting nature of the act. After establishing the frequency of catcalling across age and gender, this ethnographic research project will use qualitative surveys with around thirty individuals to identify and evaluate the range of attitudes people have about catcalling. This study will use Kristen Di Gennaro and Chelsea Ritschel's definition of catcalling, defining the act as "a comment in public taking place …

Timing Of Departure From The Parental Home: Differences By Immigrant Generation And Parents’ Region Of Origin, Brian Joseph Gillespie, Georgiana Bostean, Stefan Malizia

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing on immigrant adaptation and life course perspectives, this study explores reasons for differences in the timing of young adults’ departure from the parental home. We extend existing research by examining: (a) associations between home-leaving, and immigrant generation and parental region of origin, and (b) the role of parental language use in the home as a moderator of these associations. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 5,994), we used Cox proportional hazard regressions to estimate the risk of home-leaving. Results revealed that 3+ generation immigrants are most likely to leave home, followed by …

Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing The American Dream In The Face Of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012, Gokcen Coskuner-Balli

Business Faculty Articles and Research

This article brings sociological theory of governmentality to bear on a longitudinal analysis of American presidential speeches to theorize the formation of the citizen-consumer subject. The 40-year historical analysis which expands through four economic recessions and the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Hussein Obama, illustrates the ways in which the national mythology of American Dream myth has been linked to the political ideology of the state to create the citizen-consumer subject in the United States. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data demonstrates first, the consistent emphasis on responsibility as a …

Kinship, Fractionalization And Corruption, Mahsa Akbari, Duman Bahrami-Rad, Erik O. Kimbrough

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We examine the roots of variation in corruption across societies, and we argue that marriage practices and family structure are an important, overlooked determinant of corruption. By shaping patterns of relatedness and interaction, marriage practices influence the relative returns to norms of nepotism/favoritism versus norms of impartial cooperation. In-marriage (e.g. consanguineous marriage) generates fractionalization because it yields relatively closed groups of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption. Out-marriage creates a relatively open society with increased interaction between non-relatives and strangers, thereby encouraging impartiality. We report a robust association between in-marriage practices and corruption both across countries and within …

Decomposing Trends In Child Obesity, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Robert L. Wagmiller

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We unravel the absolute level and relative prominence of two demographic processes that are relevant for childhood obesity, and that will ultimately determine the long-term course and pace of change in child obesity rates. We leverage data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to decompose change in child obesity from 1971 to 2012. We partition change into that attributable to (1) healthier, more nutritionally and economically advantaged cohorts in the population being replaced by cohorts of children who are less advantaged (between-cohort change), and (2) the health habits, nutrition, and social and economic circumstances of all cohorts of …

Kinship Ties Across The Lifespan In Human Communities, Jeremy Koster, Dieter Lukas, David Nolin, Eleanor Power, Alexandra Alvergne, Ruth Mace, Cody T. Ross, Karen Kramer, Russell Graves, Mark Caudell, Shane Macfarlan, Eric Schniter, Robert Quinlan, Siobhan Mattison, Adam Reynolds, Chun Yi-Sim, Eric Massengill

ESI Publications

A hypothesis for the evolution of long post-reproductive lifespans in the human lineage involves asymmetries in relatedness between young immigrant females and the older females in their new groups. In these circumstances, inter-generational reproductive conflicts between younger and older females are predicted to resolve in favor of the younger females, who realize fewer inclusive fitness benefits from ceding reproduction to others. This conceptual model anticipates that immigrants to a community initially have few kin ties to others in the group, gradually showing greater relatedness to group members as they have descendants who remain with them in the group. We examine …

3rd Place Contest Entry: Aesthetic Activism: Protest Art In The Delano Grape Strike, Felicia Viano

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Felicia Viano's submission for the 2019 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won third place. It contains her essay on using library resources, a three-page sample of her research project on the use of art as a social movement tactic by the United Farm Workers during the Delano Grape Strike, and her works cited list.

Felicia is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in History and Peace Studies. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Robert Slayton.

Like A Jar Of Flies? A Study Of Self-Control In An Organizational Social Dilemma With Large Stakes, Matthew W. Mccarter, Jonathan R. Clark, Darcy Fudge Kamal, Abel Winn

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We study the practice of self-control in an organizational social dilemma when the stakes are large, using 47 years of vital census data from 18^th century Sweden. From 1750 to 1800, eighty percent of Sweden lived in a simple-structure organization called a bytvång or village commons. The amount of resources a village family received was a function of their size. During this period, crop failures left the population facing starvation. Using autoregressive time-series modeling, we test whether the people of Sweden continued to take steps toward increasing the stress on the commons by marrying and birthing children or practiced …

Neighborhood And Social Environmental Influences On Child Chronic Disease Prevalence, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Justin T. Denney, Rachel T. Kimbro, Brady S. Moffett, Keila N. Lopez

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We investigate how distinct residential environments uniquely influence chronic child disease. Aggregating over 200,000 pediatric geocoded medical records to the census tract of residence and linking them to neighborhood-level measures, we use multiple data analysis techniques to assess how heterogeneous exposures of social and environmental neighborhood conditions influence an index of child chronic disease (CCD) prevalence for the neighborhood. We find there is a graded relationship between degree of overall neighborhood disadvantage and children’s chronic disease such that the highest neighborhood CCD scores reside in communities with the highest concentrated disadvantage. Finally, results show that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated …

Race, Xenophobia, And Punitiveness Among The American Public, Joseph O. Baker, David Cañarte, L. Edward Day

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We outline four connections between xenophobia and punitiveness toward criminals in a national sample of Americans. First, among self-identified whites xenophobia is more predictive of punitiveness than specific forms of racial animus. Second, xenophobia and punitiveness are strongly connected among whites, but are only moderately and weakly related among black and Hispanic Americans, respectively. Third, among whites substantial proportions of the variance between sociodemographic, political, and religious predictors of punitiveness are mediated by levels of xenophobia. Finally, xenophobia is the strongest overall predictor of punitiveness among whites. Overall, xenophobia is an essential aspect of understanding public punitiveness, particularly among whites.

Quantitative Historical Analysis Uncovers A Single Dimension Of Complexity That Structures Global Variation In Human Social Organization, Peter Turchin, Thomas E. Currie, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Kevin Feeney, Daniel Mullins, Daniel Hoyer, Christina Collins, Stephanie Grohmann, Patrick Savage, Gavin Mendel-Gleason, Edward Turner, Agathe Dupeyron, Enrico Cioni, Jenny Reddish, Jill Levine, Greine Jordan, Eva Brandl, Alice Williams, Rudolf Cesaretti, Marta Krueger, Alessandro Ceccarelli, Joe Figliulo-Rosswurm, Po-Ju Tuan, Peter Peregrine, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Nikolay Kradin, Andrey Korotayev, Alessio Palmisano, David Baker, Julye Bidmead, Peter Bol, David Christian, Connie Cook, Alan Covey, Gary Feinman, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Axel Kristinsson, John Miksic, Ruth Mostern, Camero Petrie, Peter Rudiak-Gould, Barend Ter Haar, Vesna Wallace, Victor Mair, Liye Xie, John Baines, Elizabeth Bridges, Joseph Manning, Bruce Lockhart, Amy Bogaard, Charles Spencer

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as “Seshat: Global History Databank.” We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information …

“That’S Why I Say Stay In School”: Black Mothers’ Parental Involvement, Cultural Wealth, And Exclusion In Their Son’S Schooling, Quaylan Allen, Kimberly A. White-Smith

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This study examines parental involvement practices, the cultural wealth, and school experiences of poor and working-class mothers of Black boys. Drawing upon data from an ethnographic study, we examine qualitative interviews with four Black mothers. Using critical race theory and cultural wealth frameworks, we explore the mothers’ approaches to supporting their sons’ education. We also describe how the mothers and their sons experienced exclusion from the school, and how this exclusion limited the mothers’ involvement. We highlight their agency in making use of particular forms of cultural wealth in responding to the school’s failure of their sons.

Proliferating A Culture Of Fear: Islam In A Post 9/11 America, Setareh Motamedi

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

The threat of terrorism perceived by the American public has been shaped by a series of traumatic events over the past decade. In the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001, fear of terrorism has extended beyond the threat of terrorist groups. Much of the American public considers not only terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, but the entire religion of Islam to be a security threat. In much of this security discourse, ideas of hatred, violence, and terror have become associated with Islam. This study explores that association, and aims to identify what motivates existing stereotypes. Drawing on research from …

Rulers, Religion, And Riches: Why The West Got Rich And The Middle East Did Not, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Books and Book Chapters

For centuries following the spread of Islam, the Middle East was far ahead of Europe. Yet, the modern economy was born in Europe. Why was it not born in the Middle East? In this book Jared Rubin examines the role that Islam played in this reversal of fortunes. It argues that the religion itself is not to blame; the importance of religious legitimacy in Middle Eastern politics was the primary culprit. Muslim religious authorities were given an important seat at the political bargaining table, which they used to block important advancements such as the printing press and lending at interest. …

E-Cigarette Specialty Retailers: Data To Assess The Association Between Retail Environment And Student E-Cigarette Use, Georgiana Bostean, Catherine M. Crespi, Patsornkarn Vorapharuek, William J. Mccarthy

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The retail environment is a major social determinant of health, yet little is known about the e-cigarette specialty retailer environment. The e-cigarette specialty retail environment may be associated with e-cigarette use by middle and high school students, an issue that was addressed in a recent article entitled, “E-cigarette use among students and e-cigarette specialty retailer presence near schools,” by Bostean and colleagues (G. Bostean, C.M. Crespi, P. Vorapharuek, W.J. McCarthy, 2016). We present data relating to e-cigarette specialty retailers in Orange County, California. We describe the data collection method (including the search methodology to identify e-cigarette specialty retailers), present descriptive …

E-Cigarette Use Among Students And E-Cigarette Specialty Retailer Presence Near Schools, Georgiana Bostean, Catherine M. Crespi, Patsornkarn Vorapharuek, William J. Mccarthy

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective. This study examined the association between presence of e-cigarette specialty retailers near schools and e-cigarette use among middle and high school students in Orange County (OC), CA.

Methods. The OC subsample of the 2013-2014 California Healthy Kids Survey (N=67,701) was combined with geocoded e-cigarette retailers to determine whether a retailer was present within one-quarter mile of each public school in OC. Multilevel logistic regression models evaluated individual-level and school-level e-cigarette use correlates among middle and high school students.

Results. Among middle school students, the presence of an e-cigarette retailer within one-quarter mile of their school predicted …

The Experiences Of Siblings Of Individuals With Disabilities: A Holistic View, Ashley Mc Adams

Educational Studies Dissertations

The research on siblings of individuals with disabilities has rarely addressed the perceived benefits of having a sibling with a disability. The existing research on the experience of siblings of persons with disabilities is also limited to European American families (Sage & Jegatheesan, 2010). With families from different cultures, I sought to capture the experiences of brothers and sisters who have siblings with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships of siblings with disabilities and typical developing siblings, and present a holistic picture from the perspective of the typical developing siblings. These gaps in the literature …

"Their Shadows Still Walk With Us": Mapping A Decolonial Cartography Of Struggle With Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa, Sandra Álvarez

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

This paper maps a cartography of struggle to document the dynamic, living legacy of Menominee leader Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa and her contribution to the decolonial possibilities of transnational Indigenous feminism. I propose that mapping a cartography of struggle is a useful way for movements to consider how the past informs the present and future possibilities of resistance and decoloniality.

Este artículo traza una cartografía de las luchas que llevó a cabo la líder Menominee Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa con el fin de documentar su legado dinámico y vivo y su contribución a las posibilidades decoloniales del feminismo indígena transnacional. Propongo la …

Culturally Responsive Methodologies At Work In Education Settings, Mere Berryman, Suzanne Soohoo, Ann Nevin, Te Arani Barrett, Therese Ford, Debora Joy Nodelman, Norma Valenzuela, Anna Wilson

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe culturally responsive methodology as a way to develop researchers. The aim is to illuminate the dimensions of culturally responsive methodology such as cultural and epistemological pluralism, deconstruction of Western colonial traditions of research, and primacy of relationships within culturally responsive dialogic encounters. An overarching question is: “How can we maintain the original integrity of both participants and researchers and their respective cultures and co-construct at the same time something new?”

Design/methodology/approach – Five case study narratives are described in order for readers to understand the range and types of studies …