Inequality and Stratification Commons^™

Taking Action For Social Change, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Research at the SMU Lien Centre for Social Innovation is helping to better understand and respond to the needs of vulnerable communities in Singapore.

See the papers:

• Elderly population in Singapore: Understanding social, physical and financial needs
• Single-parent families in Singapore: Understanding the challenges of finances, housing and time poverty
• People with physical disabilities in Singapore: Understanding disabling factors in caregiving, education, employment and finances
• A handbook on inequality, poverty and unmet social needs in Singapore

Anxiety And Hypocrisy: An Analysis Of The Skin Lightening Industry In India And The United States’ Criticism Of The Skin Lightening Practice, Alyssa Froehling

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

No abstract provided.

The Real Value Of Snap Benefits And Health Outcomes, Hilary W. Hoynes, Erin Bronchetti, Garret Christensen

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The food stamp program (SNAP) is one of the most important elements of the social safety net and is the second largest anti-poverty program for children in the U.S. (only the EITC raises more children above poverty). The program varies little across states and over time, which creates challenges for quasi-experimental evaluation. Notably, SNAP benefit levels are fixed across 48 states; but local food prices vary widely, leading to substantial variation in the real value of SNAP benefits. In this study, we leverage time variation in the real value of the SNAP benefit across markets to examine the effects of …

African American Mothers' Narratives Of Breastfeeding Support From Healthcare Providers, Tessa Treadwell

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Research indicates that African American women breastfeed at the lowest rates of any racial/ethnic group in the U.S. Breastfeeding has shown to have numerous health benefits for both mother and baby, making the lower rates of breastfeeding among African Americans a public health concern. Racial disparities in healthcare may contribute to these discrepancies. This research will analyze the perceptions of information and social support for breastfeeding provided by healthcare providers among a sample of African American mothers who breastfed their babies. The study asks: Do participants regard their healthcare providers as supportive of breastfeeding? Data were collected through in-depth qualitative …

The Puerto Rican Education Pipeline: New York City, New York State, And The United States, Luis O. Reyes

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Over the past 14 years, educational attainment among Puerto Ricans in the United States has been slowly improving. In 2000, 63 percent of Puerto Ricans 25 years of age and older had a high school degree or higher versus 75 percent in 2014 (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Similarly, only 12.5 percent of Puerto Ricans had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2000 versus 16 percent in 2014 (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). Even though educational attainment has been steadily increasing, the disparity between educational attainment among Puerto Ricans versus non-Hispanic whites and other Hispanic subpopulations has remained constant.

School, Work And The Transition Of Puerto Rican Youth To Adulthood, Edwin Melendez

CUNY Centro, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

The purpose of this study is to present a statistical profile of Puerto Rican youth ages 16 to 24 not at school or work, commonly referred to as “disconnected youth” in the academic literature and popular media. Nationally, research on disconnected youth tends to paint a profile of a population that is largely African American, male, and low-income. However, as other research has shown, and as our analysis confirms, Latinos and particularly Puerto Ricans have as high an incidence of not being at work or school as African Americans, and for Puerto Ricans these rates are higher than for other …

Impact Of Food Insecurity And Snap Participation On Healthcare Utilization And Expenditures, Seth A. Berkowitz, Hilary K. Seligman, Sanjay Basu

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

We tested three hypothesis related to food insecurity and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), America’s largest anti-food insecurity program. We hypothesized that 1)food insecurity would be associated with increased healthcare expenditures, 2)food insecurity would be associated with increased use of emergency department and inpatient services, and 3) SNAP participation would be associated with lower subsequent healthcare expenditures. We used data from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey linked to the 2012-13 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey. We used zero-inflated negative binomial regression to test the relationship between food insecurity and healthcare cost and use. We evaluated the association between SNAP …

Training Us Health Care Professionals On Human Trafficking: Where Do We Go From Here?, Clydette Powell, Kirsten Dickins, Hanni Stoklosa

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Some 21 million adults and children are labor-trafficked or sex-trafficked through force, fraud, or coercion. In recognition of the interface between trafficking victims and the healthcare setting, over the last 10 years there has been a notable increase in training of health care professionals (HCPs) on human trafficking (HT) and its health implications. Many organizations have developed curricula and offered training in various clinical settings. However, methods and content of this education on trafficking vary widely, and there is little evaluation of the impact of the training. The goal of this study was to assess the gaps and strengths in …

The Division Of The Humanity, Bryan Chavez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Jane Austen's personal experiences can be seen through the influence presented in her novel Pride and Prejudice. Austen grew up in the Victorian Era, a time period where women were socially and economically immobile, with the exception of marriage. Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice suggests that society is separated into a diversity of unfair and unequal socio-economic classes which still persists today. This is most evident in the lack of access to quality education for many members of lower socio-economic groups in the United States.

The Victorian Era heavily relied on a social structure that created socio-economic diversity …

An Ableist Society: What Does Disability Look Like?, Maricela Paramo

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

One out of every five adults in the United States has a disability. That is about 63.976 million people, yet, ableism is a common type of discrimination. This paper is an attempt to create awareness of ableism and its negative effects by providing testimonies and methods that will help people with disabilities live a life without prejudice.

The United States is nowhere close to being an ableist free society and it will remain this way until people stop using ableist language as an insult or to mock someone, until mocking the disabled is not a media entertainment, until public figures …

Helping Students Develop Affirmative Evidence Of Cross-Cultural Competency, Neil Hamilton, Jeff Maleska

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Cultivating A Culture Of Food Justice: Impacts Of Community Based Economies On Farmers And Neighborhood Leaders In The Case Of Fresh Stop Markets In Kentucky, Heather Hyden

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

In this thesis, I focus on two tensions within the alternative agro-food movement. First is a question of who/what community is allowed to define food systems problems and then implement solutions. For example, food desert metaphors rely discursively on defining communities as being “without”, which perpetuates needs-based narratives, in which only professional “experts” know how to solve problems of food access. These representations ignore the creativity, agency, and resiliency of everyday food justice mobilizations happening at the grassroots level. Second, what form can solutions take within hegemonic constructions of development? I build a theoretical model based on Black geographies (McKittrick, …

Examining Inequalities In Science Literacy By Religious Affiliation Among Adults, Alexis Swendener

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Much attention has been given to the general public’s lack of understanding of science and the adverse effect of this lack of knowledge in our ever-advancing scientific and technological society. Religion remains an important social frame through which individuals interpret information, including scientific findings and facts and one deserving of closer examination in understanding disparities in public science knowledge. Using a random sample of adults in Nebraska, this study explored the association between religious affiliation and adult scientific literacy of human biological concepts. Results found a relationship between religious affiliation and adult scientific knowledge, even after controlling for confounding demographic …

Expanding Access To Integrated Family Planning Intervention Packages For Married Adolescent Girls In Urban Slums Of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Fauzia Akhter Huda, Hassan Rushekh Mahmood, Sadia Afrin, Anisuddin Ahmed, Nafis Al Haque, Bidhan Krishna Sarker

Reproductive Health

This research report describes an intervention study conducted among married adolescent girls aged 15–19 years in four urban slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Objectives of the study were to examine the acceptability and feasibility of forming married adolescent girls’ clubs, and involving community health volunteers (Shasthya Skebikas) and marriage registrars to increase access to family planning (FP) information and services, to promote the uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, and to provide FP information to newlywed couples at the time of marriage registration. The study findings revealed that a noteworthy number of married adolescent girls received FP-related information, mostly from the …

Disparities In Infant Mortality: Are Sociocultural Risk Factors Shaped By Institutionalized Racism?, Madison Grimm

Honors Program Theses

The infant mortality rate (IMR) is an incredibly important indicator of the overall health of a nation. Because the IMR is so closely related with factors such as quality and accessibility of healthcare and socioeconomic conditions, it is helpful in evaluating a nation’s success. The United States (US) has one of the highest infant mortality rates among countries with a similar degree of economic development (those belonging to the OECD). In 2013, the IMR was 5.96 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC (Mathews, MacDorman, & Thoma, 2015). Furthermore, this rate …

Navigating The Post-Shelby Landscape: Using Universalism To Augment The Remaining Power Of The Voting Rights Act, Jesús N. Joslin

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Dialogue Not Diatribe: Methods For A Practice Of Socio-Humanitarian Playwriting, Siobhan Dow-Hall

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This dissertation is the result of a practice-led research exploration of how creative writing practice may be expanded and developed with particular application to the writing of what I refer to as socio-humanitarian drama. I have developed this notion to promote discussion and consideration of specific issues of social justice and human rights within playwriting. While this practice-led research enlisted reflective practice in the task of developing and extending my own writing practice, this dissertation does also outline specific, practical modes of creative process, or exercises, that could be applied more broadly for others who may seek to develop their …

The Impact Of Concentrations Of African Americans And Latinos/Latinas On Neighborhood Social Cohesion In High Poverty United States Neighborhoods, Laurie A. Walker, Daniel Brisson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

United States research concludes concentrations of Latinos/Latinas and African Americans have a negative impact on Neighborhood Social Cohesion (NSC); however, European research finds higher levels of NSC when controlling for measures of concentrated disadvantage. This study utilizes a longitudinal stratified random sample of 7,495 households in 430 Census Blocks within 10 United States cities that participated in the Making Connections Initiative. Results show higher NSC is associated with higher percentages of residents who are Latino/Latina, African American, and homeowners when controlling for measures of concentrated disadvantage. The study findings challenge the stigma associated with concentrations of racial minorities in …

Prescribing Change For Minority Students: Diagnosing Inequalities In Science Education In The Clark County School District, Brianna K. Cotter

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Promoting entry of underrepresented minority groups into the allied health professions is paramount to developing a balanced workforce that reflects the needs of an evolving populace. Currently, significant underrepresentation of racial minority groups in health and science related fields correlates with data showing an overrepresentation of black and Latino students in Title 1 (at-risk and low-income) schools. Data suggest that students who are exposed to “higher quality” science education, such as “hands on” experiences, have increased interest in pursuing a health or science related career. These findings prompt the hypothesis that Title 1 schools face inequalities in their science education …

Just World Beliefs, Identity Development, And Social Justice Advocacy Of Counselor Trainees, Sara Rundlett

All Master's Theses

This was the first study exploring the relationship between the belief in a just world, identity development, and social justice advocacy (SJA). A mixed methods design was conducted using a nationwide sample of ninety-seven counselor-in-training participants. Hypotheses included positive correlation between identity development and SJA, negative correlation between belief in a just world and SJA, and negative correlation between belief in a just world and identity development. Results were not significant but provided implications for future research and counselor training programs.