2009
Charles Pinderhughes
21st Century Chains: The Continuing Relevance Of Internal Colonialism Theory
This dissertation examines Internal Colonialism Theory’s importance to a comprehensive understanding of the oppression of African Americans still living in USA ghettos. It briefly explores the 180 year history of Black activist depictions of a “nation within a nation,” the impact of the depression-era Marxist notion of a Negro nation, Latin American influences on Robert Blauner, and the pervasive effect of international anti-colonialism and the Black Power Movement upon the development of American academic Internal Colonialism Theory. This appraisal evaluates Blauner’s seminal presentation, “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt,” and the major contributions of Robert L. Allen and Mario Barrera in analyzing African American and Chicano internal colonial experiences respectively. It re-assesses colonialism and moves beyond Eurocentric characterizations to elaborate a Continuum of Colonialism, including direct, indirect, external, internal, and “end of” colonialisms.
This analysis addresses the contradiction that the American Revolution supposedly decolonized America without improving colonized conditions for African Americans or Native Americans, and defines internal colonialism as geographically based, disagreeing with the prevailing interpretation which contemplates the existence of diasporic African America as one collective colony. While summarizing the USA’s course from settler colony system to today’s inner cities of the colonized, this investigation explores African American class formation utilizing a variation of Marable’s conception of Racial Domains as historical context through to the present. With the majority of African Americans in ghettos [internal colonies] scattered around the USA, this document outlines the positive and negative means of ending internal colonial situations within the contemporary USA.
While elaborating how Internal Colonialism Theory quite practically fits harmoniously within several differing conceptualizations of American and global racial relations, this perspective offers a framework for more rigorous future discussions and debates about Internal Colonialism Theory, and previews three major international populations to which this assessment of Internal Colonialism Theory can be extended.
Co-Chairs: Bill Gamson, Zine Magubane
Members: Eva Garroutte, Shawn McGuffey, Stephen Pfohl, Eve Spangler
Esteban Calvo Bralic
The Impact Of Pension Policy On Older Adults' Life Satisfaction: An Analysis Of Longitudinal Multilevel Data
This study assesses the influence of old-age pension policy on older adults’ life satisfaction, and examines factors that shape this relationship. It theorizes that two distinct dimensions capture variation in the type of pension policy: individualization of risk (as opposed to socialization, or pooling, of risk) and redistribution of resources (that is, poverty prevention through income redistribution mechanisms such as non-contributory pensions). To empirically evaluate the presence of these two dimensions and to assess their influence of life satisfaction among older adults, this study analyzes data for 126,560 adults age 45 and over living in 91 countries over the period 1981-2008. Using principal component factor analysis, it finds support for the two-dimensional model of pension policy. Next, using three-level hierarchical linear regression, this study assesses the effects of pension policy individualization and redistribution on life satisfaction, generating three additional major findings. First, redistribution increases life satisfaction, but individualization has no significant effect on life satisfaction. Thus, the potential impact of individualization (whether positive or negative), and of the associated with it increased risk, choice, and opportunities for return, has been clearly overstated in theoretical debates on pension policy privatization. Second, the relationship between pension policy and life satisfaction is contingent on the macro-social context.Specifically, individualization that takes place in more affluent societies has beneficial impact on life satisfaction, while individualization unfolding in contexts of material scarcity has detrimental impact on life satisfaction. Further, the overall beneficial effects of redistribution on life satisfaction are substantially higher in the context of traditional cultures and lower in the context of secular-rational cultures. A third finding is that governmental commitment to social security (i.e., government expenditures on social security as a percentage of total government expenditures) also shapes the relationship between the type of pension policy and life satisfaction: Higher government commitment to social security substantially improves the life satisfaction outcomes of individualization. Findings from this study are used to integrate and advance theory on comparative public policy and the larger macro-social context shaping subjective well-being. Policy implications for pension reform are discussed, highlighting redistribution of resources and alleviation of need as more efficient avenues to increase older adults’ life satisfaction than privatization or pooling of risk.
Committee:
Chair: John Williamson
Members: Natasha Sarkisian, James Lubben, Alicia Munnell
Alexandra Pittman
Transforming Constraint: Transnational Feminist Movement Building in the Middle East and North Africa
This dissertation focuses on the intersection of global and indigenous advocacy strategies in feminist women’s movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). I explore strategies of resistance and innovation in three contexts: (1) Globally, I analyze a sample of MENA NGOs in a transnational women’s rights network, Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) and their interactions in the international funding sphere; (2) Domestically, I examine a local Moroccan NGO’s strategy development process and their domestic and regional partnerships when organizing to reform the Moudawana (1999-2004); and (3) Regionally, I analyze inter-organizational collaboration and coalition building between three NGOs in the Campaign to Reform Arab Women’s Nationality (2001-2008). I locate the dissertation in a feminist activist framework and draw from diverse data sources, including years of fieldwork with WLP (2004-2008); participant observation and notes from five transnational women’s rights meetings (2005-2008); a content analysis of a sample of international funders’ and MENA feminist NGOs’ websites; and two in-depth case studies with data derived from historical analysis, three months of fieldwork in Morocco, interviews with Moroccan, Lebanese, and regional activists, and secondary document analysis. The findings provide deeper clarity into the strategic action of MENA feminist movements and the variety of social, political, and economic forces that shape their discourses and practices for achieving social change and gender equality. The findings contribute to the scholarly literature on transnational feminism and social movements and its intersection with the law.
Committee:
Members: Bill Gamson (BC Sociology), Brinton Lykes (Lynch School of Education) and Patricia Ewick (Clark University Department of Sociology)
Jeff Langstraat
New Boston Marriages: News Representations, Respectability, and the Politics of Same-Sex Marriage
In 2006, Mariane Valverde announced the birth of what she called, “a new type in the history of sexuality” (155), the Respectable Same-Sex Couple. This work analyzes newspaper coverage of same-sex couples during the
Committee:
Members: Eve Spangler and Sarah Babb
Readers: Charlotte Ryan and Sarah Sobieraj
Joelle Sano
Making the Grade: Moral Framing and the Catholic's Teacher Union
Over the past half-century, the percentage of U.S. Catholic secondary school teachers that are laypeople has skyrocketed from approximately 10% in the 1950s to more than 90% in 2006. With this change comes many important issues that beg to be studied in terms of labor relations between these lay employees and the Roman Catholic Church. While the Church has repeatedly made statements in support of labor unions such as in Laborem Exercens, the relations between lay teacher associations and Catholic dioceses in the U.S.
have not always mirrored these ideals. This dissertation investigates the case of one organization, the Catholic Teachers Union (CTU), which represents over two-hundred lay teachers at eight high schools in the diocese of Camden, NJ. Using interviews, content analysis, and archival analysis, the investigator found that the union overcame diocesan opposition by deliberately framing (through media outlets and direct communication) their movement and message as strongly connected to Catholic doctrine, Catholic Social Thought, and Church teachings. This "moral framing" helped the union gain support from the parent-consumers sending their children to these schools, which contributed greatly to the union's recognition in 1984 and then their negotiation of nine contracts for diocesan lay teachers. Incorporating Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis, Johnston and Noakes schema
for Social Movement Framing, James Coleman and Thomas Hoffer's concept of Social Capital and Intergenerational Closure, and the concept of Community Unionism, the author concludes that CTU can be considered a leader in lay teacher-Catholic Church labor relations and that its tactic of moral framing can inform other unions and the larger labor movement.
Committee:
Members: Charles Derber and Ted Youn (LSOE)
Readers: Sarah Babb and Rick Eckstein
Diane Watts-Roy
Technology to Delay Aging & Extend Life
The desire to defy the aging process and to prolong the lifespan has long captured the human imagination. Recognized as one of the most ancient known pieces of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh documents a King's quest to find immortality. More recent examples include the story of Ponce de Leon's sixteenth century search to discover the Fountain of Youth, Sir Francis Bacon's (1659) assertion that humans are naturally immortal "potens non mori," and Benjamin Franklin's desire to be preserved in a vat of madeira until science is capable of life extension. The present day "anti-aging" market, estimated to be worth $45.5 billion in 2007, is fueled by unprecedented optimism. Developments in science and technology, including telomere manipulation, genetic engineering, cloning, nanotechnology, the potential to create new organs from stem cells, and the creation of therapeutic pharmaceuticals that could significantly postpone disease, have served to inspire; aging in the twenty-first century is no longer regarded by scientists as an inevitable process programmed by evolution (Olshansky, et. al, 2006). This qualitative research project will explore the experiences of individuals currently engaged in the pursuit to delay aging and extend life in an effort to understand the present-day meaning, motivation, justification, and inspiration behind this ancient desire.
Marlene Bryant
Circles of Community and the Decline of Civil Society
This paper looks at a number of theoretical and phenomenological frames used in community sociology and the decline of civil society discussion to analyze data from 24 semi-structured interviews with African Americans. The structural-functional and systemic analyses that serve as the foundation of the decline of civil society social commentary falsely assume a linear continuum of human and societal development. There is a false dichotomy between urban-rural, folk-peasant, organic-mechanical, and instrumental-expressive models used to explain the evolution of social relationships and institutional dynamics in our technologically transforming society in America. These macrolevel theories ignore or minimize the significance of the microlevel interactions, that is, the formal, informal social and civic transactions that routinely occur in nearly every type of situation or setting.
This essay explores the ways in which individuals define community and how they use those definitions to inform their perceptions and discussions about civic engagement, responsibility and community memberships. Virtually everyone who participates in society is a member of circles of communities. These multiple communities offer researchers the opportunity to investigate why and how people place themselves in spatial, social, ideological, and experiential relationship or proximity to community members and institutions.
The articulation of the decline of civil society as a social problem continues to privilege those with power and influence in American society. Academics, politicians, writers and editors, religious leaders, radio and talk show hosts and many others have been able to gain credibility, implement policies and impose normative standards for civic engagement. These standards are often used to identify insiders and outsiders in society. This research adds the voices of those who have been excluded from the discussion.
Committee
Chairs: Charles Derber, Michael Malec
Members: James Jennings
Readers: David Karp, Eve Spangler
2008
Kristen DrummeyThe Role of Cultural & Economic Capital in Education 1972-2002
Beginning with Bourdieu’s observations on Algerian schools in the 1950’s, the role of cultural capital in the education system has been conjectured, confirmed, and scrutinized. He and other scholars have subsequently examined the influence of cultural and economic capital on academic success. While many studies have confirmed Bourdieu’s assertion that cultural capital plays a role in social reproduction, others have asserted that it can also affect student’s opportunities for social mobility. The conclusions drawn depend profoundly on how cultural capital is operationalized. Cultural capital acquired prior to schooling is associated with the social reproduction model, while that acquired through participation in school-based cultural activities is associated with social mobility.
Based on surveys undertaken by the National Center for Educational Statistics of three cohorts of students – the graduating class of 1972, 8th graders in 1988, and sophomores in 2002 – as well as a series of follow-up surveys for the two older groups, this study uses hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the role of both student and school levels measures of three types of cultural capital and economic capital on a wide range of academic outcomes.
Parental and family-based cultural capitals are used to confirm the role of cultural capital in social reproduction, while significant effects for school-based cultural capital also offer support for the social mobility model. Student-level effects have a larger impact on outcomes than school-level variables. Along with the analysis of separate models of social reproduction and social mobility, an investigation of equations for where all four types of capital are present indicates that social reproduction is the dominant effect of cultural capital throughout all three cohorts and for both immediate and long-term outcomes.
Committee
Chair: Juliet Schor
Members: Natasha Sarkisian, Ted Youn
Joyce Mandell, Ph.D.
Before, During And After Bricks And Mortar: Network Organizing As A Community Development Strategy
This is a case study of Lawrence Community Works (LCW), a community development corporation (CDC), in the mill city of Lawrence, Massachusetts.As a “deviant” case, LCW serves as a model in the movement for organizing truly community controlled development.This ethnographic study assesses the variables that make a neighborhood based organization a locus of participatory democracy. For Lawrence Community Works (LCW), the question is not whether to base development on what the community wants.Organizing “before, during and after” bricks and mortar is a given basic mode of operating.The question becomes:What kind of community organizing? What is the best way to engage residents to shape the development agendas in neighborhoods and cities? How can CDCs work with people to create a truly engaged civic culture on the streets?
This dissertation makes a contribution to the academic literature on community development corporations by demonstrating how CDCs can theoretically and in practice become true vehicles of grassroots neighborhood owned development. The case study of LCW demonstrates that CDCs are able to organize residents of a neighborhood effectively and become internally democratic neighborhood vehicles directing local neighborhood change. Secondly, this dissertation makes a contribution to the theories and literature on community organizing while drawing out the variables of a new method of community organizing based on network theory. A comparison of network organizing to traditional Alinsky style community organizing highlights the theoretical and practical differences between the models. The third contribution of this case study is to the literature on social capital and specifically the academic debate on whether there is a link between social capital and social change. Through an analysis of LCW’s success in community building emerges a model of how network building can be directly linked to civic power. This case study challenges the literature in the field that denies the link between “picnics” and “power”. Ultimately, the true test to the power of this work is if this case study can serve as a model and template in testing out the replication of this model in other contexts.
Committee
Chair: Paul Gray
Members: Eve Spangler, Charles Derber, Severyn Bruyn
Deb Piatelli, Ph.D
Stories Of Inclusion? Power, Privilege And Cross-Difference Organizing In A Contemporary Peace And Justice Network
This multi-method, qualitative study of the organizing processes of a predominately white, middle-class peace and justice social movement network enhances the literature on cross-difference organizing by bridging the literatures of social movement theory, critical race studies, and feminist theorizing on intersectionality and community organizing, challenging common assumptions about inclusivity and difference. Why are white, middle-class progressives experiencing difficulty working across racial and class differences? What are the obstacles and what is being done to overcome them? How do these activists approach cross-difference organizing when race, class, and other intersecting identities can often prevent cooperation? What type of movement structures, cultures, and practices can best facilitate building alliances across differences? Since working across race and class had been historically problematic for the white, middle-class peace movement, I was interested in uncovering how a newly formed network planned to overcome this history. What lessons might be learned? How are people within this network working to create a multi-racial, multi-class movement? How and to what extent are individuals and organizations within this network building relationships, goals, and strategies together? What might be uniting these actors and sustaining collective action?
This dissertation explores these questions through the examination of the practices, beliefs, and social biographies of a predominately white, middle-class peace and justice network that is working to transform itself into a multi-racial, multi-class network. “Stories of inclusion?” refers to the myriad of ways marginalized populations have been historically silenced and excluded from the peace movement. Stories of inclusion questions whether this network’s organizing practices are silencing and excluding diverse populations despite its commitment to create an inclusive movement. This dissertation explores the processes of collection action and examines the context in which members of this network are working, or not working, across differences.
The data provide a greater understanding as to how power and privilege influence the dynamics of cross-difference organizing, as well as what organizing practices may best facilitate inter-racial and inter-class solidarity. This research also calls attention to the continuing importance of race for those collective actors attempting to construct inclusive movements across diverse groups, and raises critical questions for this network as well as the larger community of progressives working for peace and justice. Can a broader definition of peace work be more successful in changing
Committee
Chair: Charles Derber
Members: Lisa Dodson, William Gamson, Juliet Schor, Margaret Lombe, Susan Ostrander
Abigail Brooks, PhD
Growing Older in a ‘Surgical Age’: An Analysis of Women’s Lived Experiences and Interpretations of Aging in an Era of Cosmetic Surgery.
This dissertation explores women’s lived experiences and interpretations of aging against the contextual backdrop of the growing normalization of cosmetic surgery. C. Wright Mills’ (1959; 1999: 21, 22) articulation of the “task and promise” of the sociological imagination—the reflexive interaction between “personal troubles” and “public issues”— inspired my investigation into the meanings women ascribe to aging in our contemporary era of commercialized medicine. How do women make sense of growing older in a world of expanding anti-aging surgeries and technologies, in a world whereby the older woman’s body is increasingly targeted as source of profit?
Drawing from intensive interviews with women between the ages of 47 and 76 who are having and using, and refusing, anti-aging surgeries and technologies, themes of self, identity, and self-body relationships are analyzed. I also investigate the construction of my respondents’ attitudes and experiences of growing older in and through their immediate social milieu (including interactions with friends, family members, colleagues, and doctors.) Finally, I seek to illuminate the interplay between my respondents’ understandings of aging and their encounters with, and exposure to, the cultural prevalence of anti-aging surgeries and technologies at large—from media images of older women, to anti-aging surgery/technology print and television advertising campaigns, to marketing brochures and posters in doctors’ offices.
This dissertation is located at the intersection of four emergent sociological fields: critical gerontology; feminist age studies; sociology of the body, and feminist theories of the body. Even within these fields, the older woman’s body is relatively absent. Through giving voice to women’s articulations of self, body, and aging, my research empirically informs each of these fields and contributes new theorizations of the older woman’s body.
Committee
Chair: Steven Pfohl
Members: Sharlene Hesse-Biber, David Karp, Juliet Schor, Margaret Gulletto
Delario Lindsey, PhD
Controlling the
The dissertation seeks to examine the relationship between crime/social control and the discursive production of World Cities (specifically
Committee
Chair: William Gamson
Member: Steven Pfohl
Readers: Sarah Babb, Zine Magubane, Anthony Farley
2007
Michael Anastario, PhD
An Analysis of Violence Victimization and Women's Mental and Reproductive Health in Two Internally Displaced Populations
Mental and reproductive health consequences of violence victimization have been reported in various female populations, however these associations have not been tested among internally displaced persons (IDP’s), who already have elevated rates of psychiatric and reproductive health abnormalities. This dissertation examined associations between violence victimization, individual symptoms of depression, and simple reproductive health attributes using data from two probability samples of women: those displaced by the 2006
Committee
Chair: Eve Spangler
Members: Charlotte Ryan, Natasha Sarkisian
Readers: Michael Malec, Sara Cherkerzian
Robert Levine, PhD
The Effects Of Organizational Democracy On Organizational Social Capital
Using multilevel modeling, this dissertation examines the effects of the organizational democratic structures of employee ownership and participation in decision making on organizational social capital. Non-managerial level employees (n=520) were surveyed in five traditionally owned companies matched to five employee owned ones. The results show that participation has a positive and linear main effect on the strength of ties among co-workers and trust towards co-workers. Employee ownership has a positive main effect on organizational identity, organizational commitment and reciprocity towards co-workers. Ownership also moderates effect of participation on organizational identity, organizational commitment, trust towards managers, and reciprocity towards one’s company with employee owned companies having higher levels of these outcomes.
The results also show how the effects of participation further differ between employee owned and traditionally owned companies. In traditionally owned companies, participation has a curvilinear relationship with organizational commitment, trust in managers, and reciprocity towards managers. Higher levels of participation are initially associated with increased levels of these outcomes, but the relationship reverses and increases in participation become associated with lower levels of these outcomes.
However, within employee owned companies the effects are linear with respect to organizational commitment and trust towards managers, and less curvilinear for reciprocity towards companies. Thus, in additional to higher levels of organizational social capital associated with organizational democracy, employee owned companies are in a better position to take advantage of the positive effects of participation in decision making.
Committee
Chair: Juliet Schor
Members: Natasha Sarkisian, Sandra Wattick, Christoper Mackin
William Wood, PhD
Asking More of Our Institutions: The Promises and Limits of Restorative Justice in Clark County, WA
In 1999, the Clark County Juvenile Court (CCJC) in
In this research I seek to better understand two questions, namely how or under what conditions do organizations such as juvenile courts change, and what do people do with restorative justice? I look first at the organizational changes that have taken place at the court in relation to its implementation of restorative justice and the integration of such practices throughout the court. I map the degree to which victims, offenders and community members have been afforded new decision-making capacities within the court’s diversion and probation processes. Within this organizational framework, I also consider how the court has navigated constraints and opportunities related to legal and political structures, funding, community support, support from other organizations, and internal problems related specifically to the culture of the court itself.
Secondly, I look at the experiences of victims, offenders and community members within three of the court’s restorative programs and interventions. Here, I give consideration as to what these groups and individuals do with restorative justice, as well as to how the standardization of juvenile justice practices in
Committee
Chair: Stephen Pfohl
Members: Juliet Schor, Diane Vaughan
Readers: Sarah Babb, Jessica Hedges
2006
Allen Fairfax, PhD
Challenging the Rules: The
The Merrimack Valley Project (MVP) is a regional organization of congregations, labor unions, and other community groups that began to come together in 1989 to address issues of common concern across the historic industrial district along the Merrimack River in northeastern
Committee
Chair: Paul Gray
Member: Severyn Bruyn, Charles Derber
Adria Goodson, PhD
Bridging Institutions and Social Policy: Philanthropic Foundations and the Development of Federal Funding for After School Programs
Between 1997 and 2002, federal funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, an initiative that funds after school programs for school-age children, jumped from $1 million to $1 billion. This increase made this small federal program one of the fastest growing federal social provisions over the past half-century. This dissertation utilizes Skocpol and Amenta’s polity-centered approach of federal policy development and social movement theory to explain the process by which organizational actors worked over twenty years to transform the federal government’s relationship to after school programs. It demonstrates the opportunities for institutions and individuals to influence the development and structure of social provisions. The historical institutional model undertheorized the importance of philanthropic foundations due to a lack of focus on the pre-figurative processes that bring a particular social provision to the federal level in the first place. In this case, philanthropic organizations played a critical role as a bridging organization. This role is similar to and yet quite different from the role that voluntary organizations played in the early 20th century. Using in-depth interviews and historical evidence from federal legislative documents, philanthropic foundations and grassroots organizations, I document the process by which philanthropic foundations, and individuals within these organizations, collaborated with grassroots organizations, national advocates, and federal agencies to build national support for increased federal funding for after school programs, ultimately resulting in a significant increase in federal dollars for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. In this case, philanthropic foundations are identified as one of the keys to political leverage in the development of
Committee
Chair: William Gamson
Member: Eve Spangler
Aimee Van Wagenen, PhD
Doing Outreach, Doing Sexual Citizenship: Meanings of HIV Prevention Outreach to Men Who Have Sex with Men
This dissertation explores the meanings of HIV prevention outreach to gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. I begin the investigation of the meanings of outreach from the perspectives of outreach workers, but also expand my angle of vision to include an examination of the broader institutional discourses of public health and the state in which outreach is situated. In this, I conceive of outreach as an interpretive practice in which outreachers actively construct the meaning of the work but not wholly on their own terms; the meanings of outreach are constrained by discursive structures. The research combines ethnographic methods and includes participant observation as an outreacher in a state-funded, largely volunteer outreach program and in the audience at several HIV prevention conferences, in-depth interviewing with outreachers and outreach program managers, and analysis of public health documents guiding HIV prevention.
Meanings of outreach cohere around differential understandings of the effectiveness of outreach and its measurement, around the tension between fixity and destabilization of sexual identity, and around the tensions between sexual liberation and regulation in understanding outreach. In the dissertation, I devote a chapter to each of these themes and also review the history of HIV prevention in the context of the history of the AIDS movement. Throughout the dissertation, I conceive of doing outreach as doing sexual citizenship. As volunteers, outreachers actively engage in civic participation in the realm of the sexual. They model a different kind of good sexual citizenship that rejects the compromises of mainstream sexual citizenship including the essentialization of sexual identity, the privatization of sexuality and the marginalization of gender dissonance and sexual deviance.
Committee
Chair: Steven Pfohl
Members: Juliet Schor, Diane Vaughan
2005
John Shandra, Ph.D.
The Economics and Politics of Deforestation: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis
Most previous cross-national studies of deforestation have been criticized for being largely atheoretical. While these studies provide some initial insights into deforestation, the absence of theory is problematic because the choice of variables for models remains unguided in that variables are included according to data availability or other ad hoc reasons. I address this concern by conducting an empirical analysis of deforestation informed by five different perspectives using the stochastic impacts (STI) by regression (R) on population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T) or STIRPAT analytical framework. In doing so, I include variables not taken into account in previous research but theoretically relevant to any study of deforestation. These measures include democracy, international non-governmental organizations, and political protests. Initially, these variables do not explain a significant amount of variation in deforestation. However, subsequent analyses incorporating interaction terms suggest international non-governmental organizations and political protests reduce deforestation more in democratic nations than in repressive nations. Analyses also reveal that export partner concentration, commodity concentration, multinational corporate penetration, and International Monetary Fund conditionality increase deforestation more in repressive nations than in democratic nations. I increase the validity and reliability of the findings by estimating the models with three missing data techniques including listwise deletion, group mean substitution, and full information maximum likelihood estimation. Similarly, I use a variety of different model specifications. The findings remain stable and consistent regardless of the method for handling incomplete data and the indicators included in the models.
Committee
Chair: John Williamson
Members: Robert Kunovich, Bruce London, Juliet Schor
Sandra George O’Neil, Ph.D.
Environmental Justice In The Superfund Clean-Up Process
In this work, I examine the concerns of the next generation of environmental justice – namely tracing the impacts of race, class and family composition on environmental remediation, or clean-up efforts. This study focuses on environmental “cleanup” justice, and the differential process of Superfund listing across different socioeconomic, racial, gender, and family variables. The overall logic of my argument remains the same; poor people, people in communities of color, and single parent families are at an on-going disadvantage in the remediation process, as they are in the processes which lead to initial exposures. The influence of demographic variables in the Superfund clean up process however, is not as straightforward as past environmental justice research, which supported a more clear-cut relationship between poor and minorities and exposure to environmental hazards. The association between Superfund listings and marginalized populations is one with many fine distinctions since a Superfund listing is dependent on several changeable factors such as: the Superfund budget, community pressure and organization, the availability of alternative cleanup strategies outside the scope of the EPA, and changes in the implementation of the Superfund program itself. Given these complexities, we would expect to see the pattern of association between race, class, family composition and environmental clean-ups to have far more nuances than the relationship between these factors and environmental exposures.
Committee
Chair: Eve Spangler
Members: Daniel Faber, Robert Kunovich
2004
Eitan J. Alimi, PhD
The 1987 Palestinian Intifada – Cracks in the
The study promotes a new perspective of inquiry into the analysis of the unprecedented 1987 Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. Combining theories of social movements and conflict study, I attempt to account for the so far neglected aspect in the literature on the Intifada: the reasons for the specific time context in which the Intifada consolidated. For accomplishing this, I combine two methods for data collection. As an exploratory method, I use in-depth interviews with several Palestinian grassroots activists and Israeli journalists and officials. Next, as an explanatory method, I analyze the content of three Palestinian dailies for examining the framing processes that take place in regards to (1) contention with Israeli forces and (2) internal Israeli events and developments throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The style and nature of Palestinian newspapers as a resource of political mobilization provides a rare opportunity for a researcher to grasp the process of social construction of meaning by a consolidating challenging collective actor. The study suggests that the Intifada’s inception is determined by a deepening Palestinian shared perception regarding ripe conditions to act collectively - an internal Israeli system-wide conflict over the future status of the occupied territories and the Palestinian populace inside them. The study suggests further that such a shared perception affects the internal relations among various rival Palestinian political actors and organizations such that a specific mode of action evolves and is elevated as the appropriate strategy for contentious politics. Finally, I argue that the tactics for contention Palestinian insurgents employ during the Intifada should be seen as a deliberate attempt to capitalize on their favored strategy, an attempt to influence the Israeli sociopolitical system and the international community, thereby increasing the prospects for political goals.
Committee
Chair: William Gamson
Members: Robert Kunovich, Charlotte Ryan, Diane Vaughan
Isabel Araiza, PhD
How Alternative Definitions of Retirement and Social Class Shape Conclusions about the Retired Population
The conceptualization and operationalization of retirement remains a challenge in retirement research. Those studies which have examined multiple conceptualizations of retirement often limit the investigation to two, three, or four definitions of retirement. These studies also produce contradictory results with respect to the degree of overlap among various definitions of retirement. Moreover, in the investigation of the relationship between predictor variables and the probability of retirement, push and pull factors (such as pension receipt and health) are often the focal point of the inquiry. While most studies include in their analysis a class measure as a control variable for the model, seldom is the relationship between social class and the probability of retirement the focal point of investigation. This study employs data from the 1998 wave of the Health and Retirement Study to perform an extensive analysis of seven operationalizations of retirement and five operationalizations of social class to evaluate how the use of alternative definitions of retirement and social class shape conclusions drawn about the composition of the retired population. Analyses are performed for the entire sample selected for this study, as well as for Non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic Black subgroups. The results of the analyses indicate that different operationalizations of retirement affect the characterization of the retired population; moreover the use of different operationalizations of social class influences the perception of the socio-economic condition of the retired population. Despite socio-economic achievements, the findings suggest that initial inequalities associated with ascriptive traits like race and gender continue to constrain women and minorities’ life course trajectories. While it is not possible to conduct a comprehensive examination of operationalizations of retirement in Gerontological literature, this study includes operationalizations of retirement that acknowledge retirement as an event, an identity, and a process.
Committee
Chair: John Williamson
Members: Michael Malec, Michael Smyer
Julia Childers, PhD
Achieving a ‘Beautiful Birth’: Holistic, Feminist and Medical Discourse in a Free-
In this dissertation I suggest that scholars should take seriously the social movement organizing that occurs inside mainstream institutions. My research takes up the issue of insider politics through examination of one of the most powerful discourses in our society: medical discourse and its incarnation in the institution of the hospital. I use ethnographic methods to develop a case study of the
I argue that the
Committee
Chair: William Gamson
Members: David Karp, Diane Vaughan
Cheryl Holmes, PhD
Sacred Meets Secular: Commonality and Difference Associated with the Self-Determined Nature of the Sacred Christ-Centered and Secular Assertive Life Practice
This study describes what happens when sacred and secular meet in the day and life of the sacred Christ-centered Disciple and the secular assertive practitioner. It suggests there is a difference between ritualized Christianity and sacred Christ-centered life practice. The term orthodox is used to describe how the sacred Christ-centered population learns to view the Holy Bible as the literal Word of God. The term reflexive describes how individuals within the population learn to believe that the person of Christ lives within the heart of the Disciple of Christ. Individuals within the sacred Christ-centered life practice suggest that they surrender individual free will to Christ by accepting him as Savior and Lord. It is a life practice engulfed by reflecting on how Christ responded to tension-generating dilemmas and then normalizing the character of Christ when bombarded by contemporary tension-generating dilemmas. The three tension-generating dilemmas considered within the study are:
- Anger
- Sexual propensity to act on sexual desire while single
- Gossip and speaking ill of others
Within the study the above life practice is juxtaposed against secular Assertiveness in the attempt to uncover areas of commonality and difference associated with the two selfdetermined life practices. The term self-determined is used suggesting that at some point in a practitioner’s life, individuals self-determine that it is best to adopt precepts associated with either life practice. The individual desire becomes the acquisition of greater inner stability while living within a violent and confused world.
Moreover, the study assists in developing an appropriate vocabulary bridging the sociological, secular humanistic psychological, theological and literal orthodox Christcentered domains. One might ask why study the relationship between these populations? The answer to this question is twofold. The field of sociology has neglected comparative discourse of these groups. In neglecting this area of study, sociology can not comprehend the unique import of commonality and differences associated with the relationship existing between both life practices and the secular society wherein they exist. Additionally, the study provides the field of sociology opportunity to explore the import and impact Christcentered Disciples have within the secular world as they attempt to adopt biblical narrative while living within contemporary secular society.
Primary framing data is drawn from full-participant observation, in-depth interviews conducted with more than twenty five individuals and a survey of secular humanistic psychological literature. With one exception research participants are African American. Yet, research participants indicate that issues addressed in this project extend to anyone who self-ascribes to the literal-orthodox Christ-centered life practice. Diversity was sought in gender, education, economics and age. The sample includes men and women 25-40, and over, who completed college, high school or less. Clusters consist of at least five individuals in each group.
Committee
Chair: William Gamson
Member: Eva Garroutte
Charles Sarno, PhD
Power and the Spirit: Methodological Studies in a Black Apostolic Church
This dissertation examines the sociological workings of the Holy Spirit in a
Committee
Chair: Steven Pfohl
Members: Paul Schervish, Eve Spangler
Leah Schmalzbauer, PhD
Striving and Surviving: A Daily Life Analysis of Honduran Transnational Families
Sociologists and anthropologists have focused considerable attention on contemporary transnational flows of capital, labor and culture, as well as on the ways in which communities create and maintain transnational ties. However very few have studied the specific role of the family in transnational processes and fewer still have looked at how families actually function in a transnational space. In this dissertation I address this gap in the literature by investigating how transnationalism works as a survival strategy in which families use the difference in living costs between
Committee
Chair: Juliet Schor
Members: Lisa Dodson, Eve Spangler