Sociology of Culture Commons^™

Acting In Good Faith: An Economic Approach To Religious Organizations As Advocacy Groups, Anthony J. Gill, Steven J. Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Advocacy groups are all the rage! Over the past two decades, a new cottage industry has erupted in academia examining the seemingly explosive growth in new social movements, advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that has occurred in Western industrialized nations and several developing nations as well. Many of these movements and NGOs have crossed international boundaries, feeding the notion that globalization is eroding boundaries between people all around the world. This literature certainly has added to our knowledge of how advocacy groups originate and operate. But curiously missing from these recent studies has been any discussion of what amounts …

Para-Romantic Love And Para-Friendships: Development And Assessment Of A Multiple-Parasocial Relationships Scale, Riva Tukachinsky

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Parasocial-relationships (PSR) are viewers' imaginary relationships with media personae. Despite the growing body of research on PSR, the field is still lacking a clear conceptualization and precise measure of this phenomenon. The present study suggests a novel theorization of PSR as para-friendship and para-love. Study 1 demonstrates construct validity of a new Multiple-PSR scale using the logic of a multi-trait multi-method approach. Study 2 replicates the factorial solution using confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, Study 3 provides evidence for the criterion validity of the scales. Together, these findings suggest that PSR encompass several types of relationships that might mediate different media …

Virtual Hood: Exploring The Hip-Hop Culture Experience In A British Online Community., Natalia Cherjovsky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this fast-paced, globalized world, certain online sites represent a hybrid personal-public sphere'where like-minded people commune regardless of physical distance, time difference, or lack of synchronicity. Sites that feature chat rooms and forums can offer a deep-rooted sense of community and facilitate the forging of relationships and cultivation of ideologies. This dissertation investigates whether this trend is relevant to web sites concerning hip-hop. This genre is arguably one of the most pervasive and influential global cultural forms, yet it is markedly different from most other forms of globalized culture because it emerged within and is still embedded in a distinct …

Residential Segregation And Social Integration: Do Blacks And Whites Differ?, Joongbaeck Kim, Hyeyoung Woo

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

While it is well known that racial residential segregation affects social behaviors and various outcomes of individuals, research about the relationship between residential segregation and social integration is limited. We examine how residential segregation is associated with three types of social integration: formal, informal, and advisory integration, and whether the associations differ for Blacks and Whites using data from the Americans’ Changing Lives survey. Our results show that residential segregation is negatively associated with advisory integration for both Blacks and Whites. It also predicts lower levels of formal integration for Blacks, but not for Whites. We did not find significant …

Charity And Information: Correcting The Failure Of A Disjunctive Social Norm, Brian Broughman, Robert Cooter

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Charitable donations fund social goods that the state and markets undersupply. Despite widespread belief in the importance of private charity, most Americans donate little or nothing. Experiments in behavioral economics show that anonymity, not human nature, causes low contributions. Anonymity poses a particular challenge for charity because of the special character of the obligation. Charity is a disjunctive social norm, meaning the obligation is owed to ‘A or B or C or …’. Disclosure of each individual’s aggregate conduct is necessary for the effectiveness of any disjunctive social norm. To revitalize charity we propose a public registry where each taxpayer …

“All The Men Here Have The Peter Pan Syndrome— They Don’T Want To Grow Up”: Navajo Adolescent Mothers’ Intimate Partner Relationships—A 15-Year Perspective, Rochelle L. Dalla, Alexandria M. Marchetti, Elizabeth (Beth) A. Sechrest, Jennifer L. White

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

In 1992 and 1995, data were collected from 29 Navajo Native American adolescent mothers. In 2007 and 2008, data were collected from 21 of the original 29 (72%). Guided by feminist family theory, this investigation sought to (a) examine Navajo adolescent mothers’ intimate partner relationships during the transition to parenthood, (b) identify themes in the young mothers’ intimate partnerships across time, and (c) assess participants’ psychosocial well-being in adulthood. Four themes emerged in the women’s long-term intimate relationships: limited support, substance abuse, infidelity, and intimate partner violence. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Humanizing The Other, Cynthia A. Ortega

CMC Senior Theses

In this piece of literature, storytelling is used as a method towards understanding, knowing, and validating the experience of the “other”, in this case Mexican immigrants of all shapes and colors, sexual preferences, and diverse socioeconomic standing. I would like to shift the discourse from their potential as socioeconomic assets towards a recognition of their essence as participating members of our community. Immigrants are artists, they are intellectuals, they are leaders. They are simply not given the space in American society to develop their potential without being chained down to the “immigrant” label. I would like to stress the recognition …

當代中國文化明星的製造 : 變動的文化生產場, Weizi Huang

Lingnan Theses

本文借助並修訂了布爾迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的理論框架，透過對中國大陸二十世紀九十年代以來文化明星的製造進行研究來理解變動中的文化生產場 (field of cultural production)，並探討在其間知識分子作為的新可能。文化明星問題之所以值得特別研究，首先是由於它處於當代中國文化生產的中心，涉及到電視、圖書、平面媒體、互聯網等不同的文化生產次場域（sub-field），以及製作人、 出版人、文化明星本人、“粉絲” (fans) 和批評者所代表的不同力量。考察圍繞著製造文化明星的複雜的關係網絡，正可以勾勒出當代中國變動的文化生產場域的概貌。其次，文化明星的產生和生產是對九十年代以來知識分子危機的一種回應，是知識分子問題的變奏。理解了文化明星的製造機制，有助於尋找在當下的文化生產場中知識分子作為的新可能。

本文選取余秋雨、易中天、于丹和韓寒四個個案進行深入分析。余秋雨是公認的第一個最成功的文化明星，對其案例進行研究揭示了文化明星產生的歷史轉變。易中天和于丹的案例則代表著著一種可以複製的成熟的文化明星製造模式的出現。韓寒的形象及製造是一種有別于以上主流文化明星的另類模式。

本文綜合運用多種研究方法，包括對十幾名相關的文化生產者進行訪問，組織了一個針對粉絲的焦點小組（focus group），並且到電視節目錄製現場、出版 社和大型書店進行參與式觀察。此外亦有歷史檔案梳理和文本、話語分析。 最終，本文繪製出了不同的文化明星在當代中國文化生產場中的位置，反思了現有文化明星生產模式的後果，並對知識分子/文化生產者參與文化生產提出有針對性的建議。

Communalism Predicts Prenatal Affect, Stress, And Physiology Better Than Ethnicity And Socioeconomic Status, Cleopatra M. Abdou, Christine Dunkel Schetter, Belinda Campos, Clayton J. Hilmert, Tyan Parker Dominguez, Calvin J. Hobel, Laura M. Glynn, Curt A. Sandman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The authors examined the relevance of communalism, operationalized as a cultural orientation emphasizing interdependence, to maternal prenatal emotional health and physiology and distinguished its effects from those of ethnicity and childhood and adult socioeconomic status (SES). African American and European American women (N = 297) were recruited early in pregnancy and followed through 32 weeks gestation using interviews and medical chart review. Overall, African American women and women of lower socioeconomic backgrounds had higher levels of negative affect, stress, and blood pressure, but these ethnic and socioeconomic disparities were not observed among women higher in communalism. Hierarchical multivariate regression analyses …