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The Local Organization of Refugee Service Provision: A Qualitative Comparison of Two Resettlement Cities in Texas
This comparative case study examines the organizational variations in refugee services in Dallas and Amarillo, Texas. Engaging sociological theories of organizations, migration, and the state, this study conceptualizes immigrant-serving organizations as brokers that operate within fields of similar entities that channel resources and services to refugees. Drawing on 60 in-depth interviews and over two hundred hours of participant observation, this study finds two distinct models of resource brokerage. In Dallas, immigrant-serving organizations operated as networked resource brokers, characterized by high levels of collaboration, robust local political support, and community engagement through consistent volunteer labor. These characteristics facilitated the sharing of resources and knowledge, resulting in the establishment of more professionalized services for immigrants and refugees. In contrast, immigrant-serving organizations in Amarillo operated as atomized resource brokers, characterized by fragmented collaborations, inter-organizational competition, limited volunteer labor, and varying levels of political support from local representatives. This atomized brokerage model hindered the efficient allocation of resources and support, leading to fragmented and less comprehensive services for refugees. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the variations within the organizational fields of ISOs in Texas. The comparative analysis of Dallas and Amarillo offers a nuanced understanding of the impact of local context on the provision of refugee services. The research contributes to academic knowledge in the fields of migration, organizations, and the state, and has practical implications for policymakers, ISO workers, advocates, and scholars in Texas and beyond.
The University for Who? Student Narratives of Native Identity, Belonging, and Navigating a Racialized Organization
This qualitative case study aims to understand the ways in which students identifying as Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous navigate attending a university informed by their identities. Through semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students and participant observation with a Native American student organization, this study identified how this demographic of students navigate and conceptualize their identities as Native and Indigenous peoples, the benefits of joining a Native American student organization on their university campus, and how they experience the university as a racialized organization. One overarching and three nuanced research questions were examined to illustrate how students' identities inform how they experience university life with themes surrounding Native and Indigenous identity construction informed by federal policy and Indigenous community practices, collective identity and student involvement, sense of belonging at college, and understanding universities as racial organizations that participate in racial capitalism. The study findings indicated that students' identities are regularly negotiated, engaged with, and leveraged throughout their college experiences and recommendations were made for how colleges and universities can more adequately and equitably serve this student demographic.
Gauging Gun-Based Social Movements Frames: Identifying Frames through Topic Modeling and Assessing Public Engagement of Frames through Facebook Media Posts
The lack of success of the gun control movement and the success of the gun rights movement in the United States have prompted research into the root causes. Although the political infrastructure, organizational resources, and public interest prove to be important factors in a social movement's success, how each social movement frames their arguments is extremely important for proposing policy initiatives and garnering support. In order to understand how gun control and gun rights organizations frame their arguments this study does two things: (1) performs topic modeling on the six gun control organizations' and three gun rights organizations' press statements to see the frames that each social movement engages in, and (2) identifying these frames in the most popular gun control and gun rights organizations on Facebook to predict likes, comments, and shares. This study is able to identify the top frames in the gun control and gun rights social movements and see how followers of each of these movements engage with each of these frames on Facebook.
Coercion and Consent among Employer-Sponsored and Dependent Visa Holders: A Study of Indian Workers in the U.S. Information Technology Sector
Highly educated and skilled Indian nationals are the largest recipients of H-1B visas in the US. An employer must be willing to sponsor an H-1B work visa for the worker to continue to live and work in the US. This stipulation has granted US employers unprecedented power over H-1B visa holders, which can be understood as status coercion; employers have state-sanctioned power to threaten or discharge a worker from their status, i.e., visa status, which interconnects work and migration status. While the expansive power of employers to curtail a worker's status is one factor driving the ongoing coercive conditions, the other factor is precarious work. There is a gap in the literature in understanding what occurs at the intersection of status coercion and precarious work, especially within high-skilled information technology (IT) jobs. For instance, how does status coercion operate for employer-sponsored H-1B visa holders? Is it similar for dependent visa workers on H-4 EAD visas that rely on their spouse's H-1B, and F-1 OPT visa workers who have employment authorization from USCIS? Lastly, do these visa workers ever resist status coercion? In this study, I draw on twelve in-depth, semi-structured interviews of Indian nationals in the IT sector on H-1B, F-1 OPT STEM, or H-4 EAD visas. Findings suggest these workers experience greater status coercion than non-visa holders due to their visa status. Also, H-1B, F-1 OPT STEM, and H-4 EAD visa workers experience greater status coercion regardless of whether their visa is employer-sponsored, employment authorized by USCIS or a dependent visa. The consequences of coercion are that these workers are underemployed, overworked, given limited access to claims-making, and subjected to repetitive tasks on outdated technology. Yet, workers also exercised agency and ingenuity in their interconnected migration and employment trajectories. I find that visa workers ‘game' the US visa system …
r/CryptoCurrency: Discussions of Climate Change
In this study, I examine how an online cryptocurrency community discusses the issue of climate change. In particular, I examine distinctive themes present within discussions that occur on the r/CryptoCurrency forum hosted by reddit.com. Existing research has demonstrated that there are significant carbon emissions linked to cryptocurrency. However, cryptocurrency primarily exists as a peer-to-peer system, meaning that the individual perceptions of cryptocurrency adopters may provide insight into how to address the emissions problem. Using latent Dirichlet allocation and publicly available textual data from Reddit, I find that Reddit's cryptocurrency community engages in robust discussions pertaining to the energy needed to power cryptocurrency systems, most of which is generated from fossil fuels. Therefore, the discussions identified in this study suggest that the social aspect of cryptocurrency may be important when examining the links between cryptocurrency and climate change since they help identify what subjects related to climate change are important for this community.
Leaving the Community: A Qualitative Study of Hijra Individuals in Bangladesh
The hijra community individuals are one of the most neglected and underprivileged sexual minority groups in Bangladesh. Historically this community has been excluded from mainstream society and was compelled to live and work in separate communal spaces. However, new policies of inclusion implemented by government and non-government organizations have resulted in many hijra individuals leaving their communities. In this research, I focused on how the hijra individuals of Bangladesh come out of their hijra communities to find work and accommodation in mainstream society. Based on 11 in-depth ethnographic field interviews and qualitative data analysis, I found that after leaving the community, the hijra individuals living in Dhaka enter a gendered borderland where they occupy a unique outsider-within position. They undertake different survival strategies to survive amongst harsh socio-economic conditions intersected by multiple modes of discrimination such as maintaining a new guru (leader) for social protection, developing support networks, and redefining their gender identity as ‘transgender,' provide the tools to survive life outside their community. Through these findings, I reflect on the ways poor sexual minority groups such as the hijra survive and use their limited resources to find access to housing and informal work. These findings will add to the limited research on hijra and enhance the understanding of the process of minority inclusion. It will help determine the needs of hijra individuals and implement better policies. However, there is scope for further research on hijra individuals across Bangladesh to accurately reflect their inclusion process and the different strategies they implement to survive in the bitter socio-economic condition intersected by multiple modes of discrimination.
An Explanation of Racial Attitudes Utilizing Intergroup Threat Theory and Group Empathy Theory
This project examined the effects of threat perceptions and group empathy on racial outgroup attitudes. The relationship between threat perception and increased racial prejudice has been well established within the literature, but the effect of group empathy within this dynamic has been largely undocumented. The following study utilizes data from the American National Election Study 2020 Time Series to analyze racial outgroup attitudes among subsamples of Blacks (n = 726), Hispanics (n = 762), and Whites (n = 5,962). Along with threat perception, group empathy was found to be a salient predictor of outgroup attitudes. These results suggest that an effective technique to reduce negative outgroup attitudes would aim to reduce perceptions of outgroups as threatening and increase group empathy.
Latinos for Trump? National Origin, Nativity Status, and Favorability for Trump in 2016
In this study, I examine the relationship between national origin, nativity status, and favorability toward Donald Trump among Latinos in 2016. In particular, I examine the relationship between Cubans, Dominicans, and "other" Latinos to understand how differences in national origin and nativity status influence Trump favorability. The term "Latino" is a pan-ethnic term used to describe individuals with ancestry from Latin America who share a common language, religion and culture. However, studies have shown that Latinos are actually more diverse and political attitudes may differ based on factors like acculturation, national origin, and nativity status. Using data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, I find that favorability for Trump differs by national origin and nativity status as immigrants of "other" national origins favor Trump than Cubans and Dominicans. This suggest that Latinos attitudes are not shaped by their pan-ethnic identity and are rather influenced by national origin and nativity status.
The Cost of Higher Education: Impacts of Student Loan Debt on the Life Course for Hispanic Americans
Student loan debt continues to be an issue in the U.S., with potential long-term effects on loan repayment and potential wealth accumulation. In particular, minorities face barriers in the educational system and accruing wealth. Hispanics occupy a middling position in the U.S. racial hierarchy. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 geocode data, in this study I examined how Hispanic-White differences in student debt change over time and how student debt influences wealth. In addition, I accounted for immigration status via parents' nativity status to investigate debt burdens and subsequent wealth for these respondents. I used hierarchical linear growth models to examine debt growth over time and linear decomposition to examine Hispanic-White differences in wealth accumulation and the impact of student debt on these differences. While findings were largely statistically insignificant, I found that Hispanics tended to start with less debt than their White counterparts and that student debt initially grew for both groups. However, White respondents pay off their debt more quickly than Hispanics. In addition, I found that the wealth gap between White and Hispanic respondents grew significantly between the ages of 20 and 35. While Hispanics tended to start with less debt, my findings suggest that student debt still plays a role in Hispanics' financial well-being, including Hispanic wealth development and the perpetuation of the Hispanic-White wealth gap.
Public Opinion and Maintaining Political Power: The Case of AKP Government and Social Media in Turkey
This dissertation consists of three chapters, aiming to analyze, understand and discuss how Turkish public opinion fluctuates on social media based on governmental actions and how that fluctuation affects the society and politics in Turkey. Using textual data from social media, I combined natural language processing techniques with statistical methods, to study how Turkish public opinion is shaped by governmental actions in various scenarios. In the first chapter, I created a social network of Twitter users to detect the differences in the extent of political polarization between pro-government and opposition voters during the June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election. The second chapter focuses on the stigmatization of a social/religious group in Turkey by government-driven labeling and terrorism designation. Word embeddings are used to pinpoint the offensive language and the hate campaign against the group, considering the labels that are used to identify the group. Finally, the third chapter examines the rally-around-the-flag effect during highly inciting moments like cross-border military operations. A corpus of tweets for each of the two Turkish cross-border military operations is analyzed using topic modeling and sentiment analysis to get a grasp of the rally effect and how the governments can benefit in internal matters from the changes in public discourse because of this rally effect.
"What we know is how we've survived": Tribal Emergency Management and the Resilience Paradox
In order to more fully inform moves toward equity in emergency management (EM), this research seeks to describe a general landscape of professional Tribal EM, and in particular, to examine how Tribal emergency managers and Tribal Nations are situated in relation to the EM enterprise (EME), and how they are doing resilience in their Tribal Nations. The findings presented in this dissertation reflect efforts to explore and document Tribal emergency managers' descriptions of their work and their perceptions about its context as they seek to do resilience in their Tribes. Specifically, qualitative interviews were conducted with Tribal emergency managers whose Tribal Nations span the United States. Findings indicate that there is significant variation among Tribal nations in terms of EM structures and capacities; Tribal emergency managers engage in a wide array of activities to promote resilience in their communities; and Tribal EM is becoming increasingly professionalized. Importantly, however, the research also uncovered a paradox in which Tribal emergency managers, both implicitly and explicitly excluded from the EME in many ways, find themselves doing resilience in the context of an increasingly popular disaster resilience paradigm that both increasingly shifts the burden of resilience to the local level, and expands the range of tasks associated with successful resilience processes. The dissertation concludes by discussing conceptual and practical implications of the research as well as directions for future research in this area.
Herb Users' Nondisclosure of Complementary-Alternative Medicine Use to Health Care Providers
Various forms of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are increasingly being used in the United States and globally over time. Among CAM, natural products, including herbal medicines, are the most used type. However, the increase in the use of CAM has gone on with minimal or without a corresponding increase in the rate of disclosure of use to the health care providers. The theories of care-seeking behavior and the behavioral model of health services use guided most of the study. Data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey were analyzed to determine the health factors that affect the nondisclosure of herbal medicine usage by respondents (N = 423) who used herbs as their first choice of CAM therapy. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a binary logistic model. About one quarter of herb users did not disclose their use of herbs to the health care provider. Nondisclosures were likely to be associated with herb users who also used homeopathy and those who used herbs to treat diseases that are usually short-term. The nondisclosure rate of the use of CAM, including herbal therapy, remains a recurring concern. As part of the practical implications, the study creates and supports the awareness of health factors associated with CAM and herbal medicine use nondisclosure issues that inform health professionals about mitigating the problem and improving health practice and medical consultations.
Essential and Flexible Expression: Strategies for Pronoun Use among Nonbinary-Identified Individuals
Drawing on in-depth, semistructured interviews with 42 nonbinary-identified individuals in Texas, I examine both the relationship between pronouns and identity and how individuals use pronouns in interaction. Some individuals speak about their pronoun set as a crucial component of their gender identity, adopting what I refer to as an essential expression strategy, while others discuss their pronoun set as more loosely connected to their non-binary identity, adopting what I refer to as a flexible expression strategy. Whether an individual adopts an essential or flexible expression strategy informs pronoun use in a particular context. Specifically, I find that respondents adopting an essential expression strategy are more likely to emotionally invest in using/enforcing a particular pronoun set and report strong emotions from the use of correct or incorrect pronouns in interaction. In contrast, respondents adopting a flexible expression approach are less emotionally invested in a particular pronoun set. As a result, these respondents are more likely to defer pronoun choice to the audience and prioritize the ease of interaction with less emotional consequences.
Artificial Intelligence at Home: Alexa, Are You Influencing My Family?
The purpose of this research is to measure the social shifts that take place in a home where artificial intelligent (AI) devices like Echo Dot and Google Home are fully integrated into their everyday life. Research is currently limited, being that the widespread use of these devices is roughly seven years old. Three main outcomes of this study were related to how often Alexa is being used in homes to solve everyday problems, the lack of overall privacy and security concerns users had, and the level of integration into the home as a member of the family. Some limitations and challenges are my ability to compare the households before and after installing these devices in the home; pinpointing when and where the device is used (i.e., room placement); collecting data on whether the device is used often or sparingly; and the depth of interactions these families actually have with the device on a whole. The broader implications behind the increased integration of AI devices is centered around health, labor, social inequality and ethics.
Does Experiencing Discrimination in the Workplace Change Opinion? A Mediation Analysis of Identity and Support for Affirmative Action
Affirmative action policies have been a popular topic in U.S. media since their inception in the Civil Rights Act 1964. Previous studies note that race, gender, and political identity are known influencers of support for affirmative action policies; however, this dissertation analyzes the mediating effects of perceived experiences of discrimination in the workplace on a person's level of support for the preferential hiring and promotion of Black Americans based on the intersection of the race, gender, and political identity. Through social dominance theory (SDT), this dissertation highlights the motivations people may have in support or opposition of affirmative action, especially for Black Americans. Due to the historical lineage of African Americans in the U.S., stereotypes about Black people's work ethic have continued to be mostly negative-which inform hiring, promotion, and admission procedures today. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) to conduct regression and mediation analysis, this dissertation found significant support for mediation of perceived experiences to increase support for affirmative action among white females, and Black people regardless of gender or political identity. While race and gender discrimination were thought to be the most influencing forms of discrimination experienced, age discrimination showed to transcend racial, gender, and political barriers. Accordingly, appealing to experiences of age discrimination may be a helpful approach to closing the implementation gap of those who voice support for equality yet constantly vote in support of inequality.
Contradictory Attitudes towards Partisan Issues: Abortion and Gun Control
In this study, I examine how self-reported religiosity predicts political opinion toward abortion and gun control. In particular, I examine how self-reported religiosity relates to individuals' inconsistent attitudes on these two issues where liberal attitudes are held toward one issue, but conservative attitudes are held toward the other. Most commonly, these inconsistent attitudes are found among individuals who hold pro-life (conservative) and pro-gun control (liberal) views. Using data from the 2018 General Social Survey, I find that religiosity significantly predicts these inconsistent attitudes regarding abortion and gun control. This suggests that religious ethics regarding life and death can offer a partial explanation for inconsistent attitudes toward partisan issues.
Static or Evolving? The Racial Principal-Policy Gap
Empirical studies have shown that white racial attitudes tend to predict racial policy support. It has also been established that the relationship between whites' espoused racial tolerance and their support for ameliorative racial policies is imperfect, due to the principal-policy gap which characterized misalignment between individuals' espoused values for racial equity and their limited support for policies aimed at achieving those ends. Less consideration however, has been given to how the principal-policy gap changes over time. Using data from over 14,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1994 through 2018, I show that the principal-policy gap is persistent, and that distances between principal and policy decline and expand over time. Using OLS regression models to analyze a sample of white adults, I find that the link between individuals' expressed liberal racial attitudes and their support for racial policies changed over the 24-year span. A noticeable narrowing of the principal-policy gap is also evident in the latter years of the sample. The reduction in the gap from 2014 through 2018 suggests that the influence of social movements like BLM may have been driving this trend.
Religious Affiliation and Sexual Permissiveness Over Time
In this study, I analyze the relationship between sexual permissiveness and affiliation with a fundamentalist religion and how this relationship has changed over time. I first consider previous research that reviews how religious affiliation, religiosity, and religious fundamentalism shapes sex attitudes and, therefore sexual permissiveness. I then review existing studies that discuss what factors influence permissiveness toward different sexual behaviors. Next, I discuss the mechanisms of religious institutions that influence sexual permissiveness. Prior literature motivates my research question as there is a lack of studies that explore sexual permissiveness across religious affiliations. This study fills a void in the existing literature by exploring the gap in sexual permissiveness between religious affiliations and how that gap has changed over time. After considering the current literature, I introduce a hypothesis exploring the relationship between sexual permissiveness and affiliation with fundamentalist religion. This study performs OLS regression using secondary data from the General Social Survey (GSS) that describes respondents' religiosity, religious affiliation, and attitudes towards sex. The study's findings show that affiliation with more fundamentalist groups is significantly correlated with more conservative sex attitudes reflecting lower levels of sexual permissiveness. The results also suggest that the gap in sexual permissiveness between those that affiliate with liberal, moderate, and fundamentalist religions has become larger over time.
An Ethnography of a Digital Archive: A Usability Study of the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
Digital language archives are used for the preservation of documented language data, such as video and voice recordings, transcriptions, survey data, and ethnographic fieldnotes. This data is most often used for research and linguists and anthropologists are generally heavily involved in the creation of language archives. Ideally, Indigenous communities that are represented in the archives are also able to access their data, but this is not always the case, especially if poor internet access and lack of technological know-how prevent archive use. In addition, western epistemologies are embedded in archival logics, exacerbating the issues surrounding Indigenous access and pointing to the need for a decolonizing archival design that centers the needs of its users. Using ethnographic research methods and a decolonizing framework, I conducted a usability study on the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) to uncover the cultural-based meanings that inform AILLA use. Using linguistics and anthropology listservs, I recruited research participants for a Qualtrics survey and conducted semi-structured interviews that explore the user perspective on AILLA. I analyzed AILLA's Google Analytics data and used qualitative and quantitative research methods to build upon the previous literature in user-centered design approaches to language archives. As one of the largest online language archives in the world, AILLA serves an important role in the language documentation and cultural revitalization movement. Continued research in the field of user-centered design and non-Western epistemologies is necessary to ensure the accessibility of language archives and for AILLA to fulfill its mission of support for the survival of the Indigenous languages of Latin America.
Perdóname, Madre, ¿he pecado? An Investigation of Hispanic Catholics in the United States and Their Attitudes toward Women being Allowed to Enter the Priesthood
Hispanic American Catholics are a growing immigrant population in the United States, with Hispanic cultures and Catholicism woven together in unique ways. This situation presents a window through which can be examined the dynamic between individualism and religiosity. Four logistic regression models were estimated utilizing data from the Pew Research Center 2013 Survey of U.S. Latinos, in order to investigate the correlates of Hispanic American Catholic support for women in the Catholic priesthood. Religious individualism (self-determination) was measured in two dimensions, while cultural individualism (acculturation) was measured in one dimension. The first three regression models test three hypotheses related to religious and cultural individualism, while the fourth model factors in all of the variables used. Findings generally supported the saliency of religious individualism over against the hierarchal dogma of the Catholic Church, but not the saliency of cultural individualism. However, findings also exposed the complexities inherent in both Catholic religiosity and acculturation among Hispanic American Catholics.
Increasing Mother and Child Safety: Social Factors Influencing Help Seeking Behaviors amongst Child Welfare-Involved Women Experiencing Family Violence
The purpose of this study is to determine social factors that influence help seeking behaviors by mothers who are concurrently involved in two social service systems: Child Protective Services (CPS) and family violence advocacy programs. Through the application of the behavioral model (of service use) for vulnerable populations, this study seeks to determine predisposing, enabling and need characteristics that impact help seeking behaviors at a family violence agency after participation in an ADVANCE (Acknowledging Domestic Violence and Navigating Child Protection Effectively) course, a group intervention class developed specifically for women involved with CPS. The research design is a mixed-method approach with an ADVANCE course evaluation embedded within the overall analysis of help seeking behaviors. The analytic strategies include pre-test/post-test means comparisons through paired t-tests, qualitative thematic analysis through arts-based methodology, and ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis. This study considers six outcome variables related to protective help seeking behaviors: seeking services, seeking protective actions related to children, seeking a safety plan, seeking a protective order, seeking safe housing, and seeking financial independence. Several social factors identified influenced help seeking behaviors amongst child welfare involved women experiencing violence, namely, number of children, age of children, level of interest in services, previous participation in services, level of social support, perceived victim status, perceived need for a safety plan, and perceived need for change in family. This study should serve to enhance intervention practices utilized by both family violence advocates and child welfare professionals.
Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, and Gender: Analyzing Gender at Raves
Doing, undoing, and redoing gender debates have established the omnirelevance and performativity of gender. Yet, little is known about the ways that individuals "do" gender in spaces that provide the opportunity for norms to be disrupted, such as subcultures. This study offers an empirical investigation into the performance of gender within the subculture known as EDM (electronic dance music) culture. Using 20 in-depth interviews that were conducted virtually, I analyze the way ravers experience and give meaning to gender within the EDM culture. I find that individuals within the EDM culture can participate in the doing, undoing, and redoing of gender and do so through the embodiment of their subcultural beliefs and ideology, known as PLUR (peace, love, unity, and respect). I argue that the embodiment of PLUR is gendered, and describe the body-reflexive practices that are associated with PLUR.
Intersectional Analysis of Perceived Racism as a Determinant of Children's Mental Health
Youth in the United States are experiencing a steep increase in mental health issues. Concurrently, unique political, economic and social dynamics in the U.S. make the circumstances of nonwhite children's mental health partially contingent on experiences of racism. In this study, I examine the relationship between racial minority children's mental health and perceived racism, while also examining the moderating effects of gender on this relationship. I first review prior research which suggest that racism is a salient determinant of several health outcomes among racial minorities and racial minority children, including depression and anxiety. I then review research on both gender and racial socialization and posit possible implications of these differentials on mental health. Considering both the racialized and gendered factors contributing to youth's mental health outcomes, this study fills a gap in previous research by exploring the differences by gender and race in the effect of perceived racism on children's mental health. I use data from the National Survey of Children's Health from 2016 to 2019. Using average marginal effects, calculated from a series of logistic regression models predicting depression, anxiety, behavioral and emotional problems, I find support for previous research which suggests that perceived racism predicts poor mental health among non-white children. I elaborate further by adding the intersection of gender, splitting and comparing the sample across race and gender subgroups. I find considerable variety in the effects of perceived racism across race and gender, such that Latina and Asian girls who experience racism are at heightened risk for being diagnosed with mental health conditions.
Not Just About a Piece of Cloth: Three Content Analysis of an Online Anti-Mandatory Hijab Movement in Iran
This dissertation investigates the My Stealthy Freedom (MSF) movement, an online movement against mandatory hijab laws in Iran, building on two leading lead social movements' theories, political processes and framing processes theories. Study 1 explores the utility of a tactical approach for explaining the movement's pace of insurgency. I employ a conceptual repertoire focused upon the political process model's core concepts of tactical innovation and tactical adaptations, supplementing these older concepts with the more recently proposed concept of tactical freeze and a newly proposed concept of tactical hashtags that is of particular relevance to online movements. Study 2 focuses on extracting hidden patterns and emotional characteristics in the MSF movement by conducting a topic modeling study on the text appearing in the captions of the main account of the movement on Instagram. It was shown that the actions of Masih Alinejad, the founder of the movement, represented by her online activity and extracted by means of topic modeling, is directly affected by the sequence of important events happening in Iran concluding to a transformation of a social movement to political one. Study 3 models how social movements use social media in the formation of affective publics and apply this model to Instagram post data from the MSF movement. Thematic analysis applied to samples of posts and comments revealed six main themes, one of which, aggression, includes three subthemes related to verbal aggression and physical violence. As the level of aggression increased in Instagram videos, the level of aggression in the comments increased as well, and videos containing verbal aggression and physical violence had more likes and comments than did non-aggressive and non-violent videos. In the conclusion, I consider implications of the three studies for social movement framing research and research on emotions and social movements.
Putting the Panic Back in Moral Panic Theory: A Case for Disproportionality
The appeal of moral panic studies, a once very popular sociological subfield, dropped precipitously around the turn of the century due in large part to debates about disproportionality, the notion a panicked group's concern about a perceived threat exceeds that warranted by its objective harmfulness. Classic theorists claim disproportionality is a panic's essential criterion and that it can be demonstrated by comparing a group's concerned reaction to the available facts. Critics argue it is a value-laden, ideologically tainted construct and often claim it cannot be demonstrated because there are no authoritative facts. These debates were and still are fraught with confusion. Perplexingly, both sides assume a shared definition despite clearly assessing the proportionality of different aspects of the relevant reaction. A typology differentiating the potential types of disproportionality either does not exist in the moral panic literature or remains shrouded in obscurity. In this paper, I review the classic theories, their critiques, and a new postmodern moral panic theory. By juxtaposing the different foci of the orthodox and contemporary theories, I derive a much-needed disproportionality typology. I also develop a new framework through which to assess moral panics predicated on this typology. My hope is these developments will stimulate a more sophisticated debate about disproportionality and encourage theorists to refine rather than simply reject classic approaches to the disproportionality problem.
The Impacts of Urban Sustainability on Economic Prosperity: Sustainability in the Spotlight
City officials are in the position to adopt and implement policies within their jurisdiction that can have lasting impacts for businesses, people, and the environment. Sustainability research has highlighted the need to protect the environment by adopting policies which support the three E's of sustainable development (environment, equity, and economy). Stepping aside from the traditional mechanisms for building a successful city focused on economy first can be challenging for policy makers. The problem city officials face is that changes towards environmental protectionism have long been considered harder on city economy than traditional development focused on economic prosperity. Additionally, sustainability planning is thought to mitigate potential negative impacts that planning for environmental protectionism and social equity may have on economic prosperity. To examine this problem faced by city officials, ordinal regression analyses was used to analyze (1) the possible effects of environmental protectionism and social equity on a city's economic prosperity, and (2) whether sustainability planning has a moderating affect between environmental protectionism, social equity, and economic prosperity. This analysis demonstrates that environmental protectionism and social equity are not associated with a decline in economic prosperity. Sustainability planning was directly associated with increased economic prosperity but did not moderate the relationship between environmental protectionism and economic prosperity.
Black and White Attitudes toward Interracial Marriage in the U.S.: The Role of Social Contact Characteristics
This research advances the literature on interracial marriage by using variables that align with the social contact hypothesis. The purpose of this project is to accurately gauge the exact social predictors influencing current attitudes towards Black and White interracial marriage. Multiple regression models containing social contact predictors are analyzed using data from the 2018 General Social Survey. The conclusive review of the literature summarizes age, region, and education as essential social contact predictors of attitudes towards interracial marriage. Therefore, the formulated hypotheses and multiple regression models measure this specific relationship controlling for other predictors such as sex and income. For Whites, the two most significant factors are age and living in the south vs. the west. Interestingly, a college education is not significant. For Blacks, the key contact variable that seems to matter is age. Baby boomers are less likely to favor interracial marriage. Overall, results show areas of convergence. Therefore, one's age is significant predictor for White and Black acceptance. However, it also shows divergence-region appears to only matter for Whites. Accordingly, younger Blacks and Whites were more likely to favor close relatives marrying individuals of the opposite race. Older Blacks and Whites were less likely to support interracial marriage. This analysis displays some of the critical gaps in using the social contact hypothesis to measure beliefs in Black and White conformity. Thus, there is a need to develop more logical variables to help solidify the exact social forces effecting attitudes towards interracial relationships.
Embodied Acts of Resistance: Portraits of Urban Breastfeeding Mothers
This dissertation examines how breastfeeding mothers develop distinct geographies due to the stigma, symbolic and structural violence they encounter while breastfeeding if different spaces. I utilize multiple in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photo elicitation to develop portraits of four urban mothers. My findings highlight the complexity of motherhood and demonstrate how distinct socio-spatial power dynamics situate and contextualize the experiences of breastfeeding mothers. I find that breastfeeding behaviors are influenced and maintained by broader social inequalities related to their social positions. Mothers seem caught in a paradoxical position, in which they must constantly discipline their bodies to maintain modesty while simultaneously ensuring their continued success breastfeeding. These issues are compounded by a mother's intersecting identities and their own social and cultural contexts.
Exploring the Transnational Meaning of Home Amid Insecure, Hazardous Housing
This project examines refugees' experiences of insecure housing and perceptions of home in the U.S. Many scholars of migration have focused on the resettlement experiences of refugees, including access to housing, yet refugees' experiences with housing in the U.S. remain largely undocumented. The following analyzes a case study of an apartment fire that displaced 16 refugee families in Dallas, Texas. Based on 18 in-depth interviews with tenants and members of refugee support organizations and non-profits who responded to the fire, this study reconstructs the events surrounding the fire to explore refugees' perceptions of housing conditions in a low-income neighborhood. This case study contributes to research on housing in two important ways. First, insecure housing conditions preceded the fire at Oakland Place and overall perceptions of housing quality varied among respondents. I find that case managers and members of refugee support organizations identify refugees' housing conditions as insecure, yet refugees express positive feelings about their homes, emphasizing community relations over building quality. Additionally, members of refugee support organizations and non-profits blamed the property manager of Oakland Place for insecure conditions experienced by refugees and perceived the manager as a barrier in refugees' lives. Second, I find that understandings of housing insecurity are shaped by meanings of home, which focus on familial and community-based relationships, and a place for survival. These ideas of home are not mutually exclusive, as refugees often defined home in more than one way.
Resettled: How Refugees Experience Employment and Unemployment in the United States
Research on immigration in the United States has commonly studied the employment experiences of refugees. Few studies on refugees have focused on both, refugees' employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. This article draws on twenty in-depth interviews with refugees, along with ethnographic observation at a local refugee resettlement agency, to investigate how refugees make sense of their employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. I find that refugee men and women experience different employment trajectories in the United States, which are shaped by gender inequality in the public and domestic spheres. I further find that refugees' navigation with work in the United Stated influences their unemployment experiences and work in the informal sector. My study extends previous literature on refugee incorporation by conceptualizing refugees' employment as a gendered process, which includes periods of formal paid work, informal paid work, and unemployment in the United States.
Off the Gender Spectrum: Exploring Agender Experience
With the proliferation of gender identity labels in the last twenty years, more individuals are identifying outside of a binary understanding of gender. Agender individuals are among this group, but we know very little about their experiences. Gender theorists have examined the ways that gender is performative and structural, but present theory does not provide the tools to understand the experiences of those outside of the binary, and even more so those who identify outside of gender altogether. To address this gap, I ask how agender individuals define their experience and how they navigate a binary gendered world. To answer these questions, I draw on 14 in-depth interviews with agender individuals as well as data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. First, I show the ways that agender individuals can understand this identity and how it shapes their experiences. Second, I develop a framework of four strategies (avoidance, advocacy, performance, and acquiescence) to analyze how agender individuals navigate gendered space. I concluded with a discussion of theoretical and empirical contributions as well as implications for future research.
Unpacking Asylum: Participatory Online Platforms in the Information-Seeking Phase
In the last few years, the world has been gripped by a crisis of forced migration and displaced persons. Being forced migrants, asylum-seekers are a unique and diverse population, originating from many countries with different backgrounds and experiences. This makes fulfilling the information needs of the asylum community difficult. Online participatory platforms, such as blogs and discussion forums, are flexible, adaptive information resources that could be used to meet the diverse needs of this population. In this study, I compare two online resources used by asylum-seekers, a blog and discussion forum, using social network analysis and topic modeling techniques. Through these analyses, I have determined the conversational archetype the best reflects both websites and discovered the information needs expressed and, in many cases, resolved through conversations in these online spaces. The core finding of this study is that providing direct access to an expert, such as through an interactive blog, promotes dialogue on a greater variety of topics and increases the likelihood of a thorough response. Furthermore, blog posts may inform participants' comments by providing them with the necessary vocabulary to participate fully in the online setting.
The Effect of Welfare Benefit Levels on Female Headship in the AFDC and TANF Eras
The purpose of this study is to revisit the question of whether welfare benefit levels influence female headship, and whether the effect differs between the two main eras of welfare policy relevant to female headship, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This study adds to the existing literature by including more up to date data allowing for a comparison between the AFDC and TANF eras. Results show that the effect of welfare benefits on female headship rates changes from negative to positive after welfare reform occurred among blacks, while no change occured among whites.
Stepparent-Child Relationship Quality and Young Adult Outcomes
This study set out to test the effects of relationship quality with a stepfather on other familial relationships, romantic relationships, and usual outcome measures for products of parental divorce. OLS regression tests were conducted using responses from over a thousand participants from the New Family Structures Study (N=1,696). Respondents were organized by self-reported level of relationship quality with their stepfathers. Various qualities of stepfather families were then regressed against other family types—single parent, intact, and others. Results show that respondents with high-quality stepfather relationships were able to develop relationships with their biological mothers at stronger levels than people from intact families. This supports resilience theory, which posits that the exposure to risk coupled with positive, promotive factors allows a person to grow beyond his or her original trajectory. The findings of this study assert stepfamilies that encourage good stepfather-stepchild relationships can assuage some of the negative outcomes typical for children of divorce.
When Women Swipe Right and Men Swipe Left: An Exploration of the Online Dating Preferences and Desirability of African American Women
The purpose of this research study was to conduct an exploration of the dating preferences of African American women and U.S. men between the ages of 30-74 years old. This research focuses on the dating preferences and desirability of African American women and if they are influential on the high unmarried rates of African American women. A weighted stratified sampling of 2,800 personal advertisements of African American, Asian, Latino and White men and women from Match.com were collected to conduct the research. The five research hypotheses of this study were tested using frequency and percentage distribution, logistic regression and cross-tabulation models. The findings partially support the hypotheses African American women are more likely to prefer a mate with a bachelor's degree or higher and African American women are more likely to prefer a mate of the same race compared to U.S. women of other races. The findings also suggested non-African American men are less likely to have an interest in dating African American women and non-African American men, who are interested in dating African American women, are less likely to prefer women with a bachelor's degree or higher or a more socially desirable body type.
Framing a Sacred Fight: Framing Analysis and Collective Identity of the #noDAPL Movement
The #noDAPL movement was an Indigenous-led environmental social movement occurring between 2015 and 2017, in which the Standing Rock Sioux and other American Indian tribes comprising the Oceti Sakowin garnered support to oppose the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. Pipeline opponents agreed that the pipeline's construction posed a threat to the health and safety of tribal members and other residents of the area and that the pipeline's path crossed previously-designated tribal treaty boundaries, compromising tribal sovereignty. In this body of work, I utilize Facebook data from the Sacred Stone Camp Facebook page to locate and identify collective action frames and core framing tasks, adhering to social movement framing theory. Further, I provide insight into the movement's most used collective action frames and how their use enabled to movement to maintain occupation at protest camps along the Missouri River, garner resources from participants and gain international social support. I also draw on concepts of pan-Indianism and supratribalism to discuss indigenous collective identity, as well as concepts like relational values and Indigenous traditional knowledge to better assess the nuances of Indigenous environmental activism and how this movement evoked discussions of modern day settler colonialism.
As the Need Presents Itself: Social Identity Theory and Signaling in Online Crowdfunding Campaigns
As social interactions increasingly become exclusively online, there is a need for research on the role of identity and social identity in online platforms. Drawing on Symbolic Interactionist approaches to identity, namely Social Identity Theory and Identity Theory, as well as Signaling Theory, this study argues that actors will selectively use religious language to signal their credentials to an audience for the purpose of garnering prosocial behavior in the form of donations to their fundraising campaign. Using latent semantic analysis topic models to analyze the self-presentations of crowdsourcing campaigners on GoFundMe.com, this study found evidence for the presence of signaling to a religious identity online as well as a significant difference in the presentation of need for campaigns originating in areas with high reported religiosity compared to campaigns from areas of low religiosity. In comparison to other campaigns, campaigners engaging in religious signaling were significantly increasing their donations. I suggest that strategically chosen religious topics in online crowdfunding is an example of low-cost identity signaling and provides insight into how signaling happens online and the potential outcomes resulting from this cultural work.
Participatory Management and Absenteeism and Turnover of Nursing Assistants in Nursing Homes
Nursing assistants (NAs) provide the majority of daily care to older adults in nursing homes (NHs); NAs working in NHs are the focus of this study. This study examined the influence of participatory management (the independent variable), and mediating variables, burnout – measured as emotional exhaustion, task performance, and affective organizational commitment, on NA withdrawal behaviors (the dependent variables absenteeism and turnover). Most of the data come from a 113-item self-administered questionnaire designed to measure NAs' perceptions of their job and work environment. Turnover data were collected from the NA's NH, on average about 16 months later. The two dependent variables were examined in separate analyses with the samples consisting of 246 participants for the absenteeism analysis and 244 for the turnover analysis. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25 and PROCESS 3.3, an SPSS macro add-in. Both ordinary least squares and logistic binary regression were used to examine the associations between variables. The results indicated that participatory management had statistically significant indirect effects on both outcomes. There were two significant mediation results for absenteeism: 1) participatory management increased NA task performance, which, in turn, decreased absenteeism and, 2) participatory management also decreased NA burnout, which, in turn, increased their performance and decreased absenteeism. There were four significant mediation results for turnover: 1) participatory management increased NA attachment to the NH, which, in turn, decreased turnover, 2) participatory management improved NAs' perceptions of their job performance, which, in turn, increased their turnover, 3) participatory management tended to decrease NA burnout, which, in turn, tended to increase attachment to the NH, and, then, tended to decrease turnover, and 4) participatory management tended to decrease NA burnout, which, in turn, tended to increase task performance, and, then, tended to increase turnover. These findings broaden the research on NAs' withdrawal behaviors and demonstrate the …
Our Own and the Others: What Happens to Perceptions of Immigrant Threat when Value Priorities Collide?
With immigration controversies increasingly found at the forefront of the European public arena, understanding the social and cultural forces driving negative perceptions of immigrants becomes a pressing task of academic scholarship. Situated within the broader theoretical framework of group-conflict theories, human values theory and social identity theory encourage different interpretations of how our interest to the welfare of the people closest to us (benevolence) and the broader human community (universalism) can inform attitudes towards immigrants. Human values theory argues for a unidirectional, negative effect of benevolence and universalism on negative perceptions of immigrants, while social identity theory suggests that, unlike universalism, benevolence would increase such perceptions. The present study seeks to examine how self-transcending human values (a.k.a. benevolence and universalism) affect perceptions of immigrant threat and whether the locus of our value priority matters. Using nationally pooled data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 15 European countries, the results provide robust evidence that benevolence and universalism affect perceived immigrant threat in opposite directions, generally aligning with the propositions of the social identity theory. The group we place our loyalty matters. At the same time, national context matters too suggesting that grand scheme interpretations of this phenomenon fall short. Theoretical implications and future directions are further discussed.
Cesarean Section Delivery and Exclusive Breastfeeding in Pakistan: Emerging Challenges
This research examined two interrelated issues relevant to maternal and neonatal health in Pakistan, namely, the rising rates of C-section delivery and low rates of exclusive breastfeeding. By using the Andersen's health behavioral model to frame two empirical studies, the data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13 was used. The first empirical study examined the correlation between place of delivery and the odds of cesarean section in Pakistan. Not all Pakistani women have an equal chance of delivering at a health facility where C-section delivery takes place; therefore, the study modeled mode of delivery as a two-step process. In the first step, place of delivery was a function of medical indications and various sociodemographic and community factors. Women who delivered at a health facility were included in the second step, where C-section was a function of medical indications and type of facility (private, public). It is found that women who delivered at a private health facility were more likely to have a C-section, even after controlling for the effects of medical/clinical factors, which is concerning. Findings suggest that the private maternal health sector in Pakistan may be over-medicalizing childbirth. The second study examined this paradox of low exclusive breastfeeding in Pakistan, taking into account not only individual-level characteristics of the child and parents, but also place and mode of delivery, sociocultural factors, and community composition. The sample consisted of 1,044 children 0-5 months old, currently living with their mothers. Binary logistic regressions of exclusive and predominant breastfeeding found women who delivered vaginally, whether at home or health care facility were more likely than mothers who delivered via C-section to predominantly breastfeed their infant, and that mothers who delivered vaginally at a health care facility were more likely than their peers who delivered via C-section to exclusively breastfeed …
Educational Degree and Career Satisfaction: Moderating Effects of Educational Expectations
Prior research supports the relationship between education and status attainment, mobility, and occupational attainment. Today, within an increasingly bifurcated labor market, where education is important for occupational attainment and the associated income and benefits, understanding the processes of status attainment is important. Educational expectations shape educational attainment, while educational attainment influences occupational attainment and satisfaction. Utilizing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study investigated the moderating effects of expectations on the relationship between education and occupational satisfaction. The results of this study partially support the moderating effects of expectations on the relationship between degree earned and career satisfaction, finding that expectations moderate this relationship for individuals who earned a bachelor's degree.
The Role of Male Fashion in Protests against the Majority Culture: An Exploratory Study
Throughout history, the Black Diaspora has used fashion as a form of protest. The element of fashion is often overlooked when considering the history and struggle for Black equality, because it is less tangible or definable in terms of its influence and effect, but it is still important because Black males resist the dominant culture via dress by dressing in military uniforms, creating their own style, and using different colors in their dress. Studying the Black struggle in American history during specific periods is one way to better understand opposition to the majority culture through fashion. We should also consider the mood of a social system when examining the dress of a particular group during conflicts. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of fashion as a protest tool against the majority culture, and the social mood that affects the fashion choices of Black males. The study focuses on Black fashion from 1910 to 2015. Text data were collected and analyzed from articles published in The Crisis magazine, and men's fashion was specially examined. Additionally, images were studied via visual ethnography and images were coded based on color choice, fit, and accessories. For conducting sentiment analysis, lexicons were used, and the text was examined for negative sentiment. The overall negative sentiment of the document was obtained. Graphical analyses are included to present the findings. The findings, conclusions, limitations, and future research are discussed.
Turkish Gazis' (Injured Veterans) Transition into Civilian Life
The aim of this study was to describe the dimensions of Turkish Gazis' transition to civilian life, to explore the main factors that make this process easier or more difficult, and their psychological integration, that is, specifically, satisfaction with their life. To that end, this study examined the impact of combat-related traumatic stressor (e.g., functional limitations), personal resources (social support, sense of mastery), perceived mental health on Turkish veterans' adjustment into civilian life and their psychological integration. The data was collected in Turkey in 2015 by the researcher with the help of Türkiye Harp Malulü Gaziler Şehit Dul ve Yetimler Derneği, a non-profit veteran organization. The final sample included 240 Turkish Gazis. The level of perceived transition into civilian life and veterans' life satisfaction were the dependent variables in this study. A series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was conducted. Hayes' PROCESS macro 3.0 was utilized to measure the direct, indirect and moderation effects of variables on transition and life satisfaction among Gazis. The results demonstrated that perceived available social support, perceived sense of mastery and mental health partially mediated the association between Gazis' functional limitations and transition into civilian life and they fully mediated the association between functional limitations and life satisfaction. Among control variables, only household income predicted transition into civilian life, and place of residence was the only significant predictor of life satisfaction. However, neither social support nor mastery had moderation effect on the relationship between functional limitations and dependent variables. Policy implications and suggestions for further studies are also provided at the end of the dissertation.
Chronic Homelessness and the Aging Population: Findings in a Homeless Sample from Arkansas
Understanding underlying mechanisms and pathways that lead to chronic homelessness would help develop intervention strategies that could help prevent subsequent episodes of homelessness. Quantitative data for this cross-sectional study was gathered by interviewing individuals who were homeless in the State of Arkansas, using a structured survey between 2007 and 2011. Qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews between 2016 and 2018. Chi-square statistics and a multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the quantitative data, while phenomenological methods were used to analyze the qualitative data. Nearly half of the study participants identified themselves as being chronically homeless. Chronically homeless adults in this region were significantly more likely to be older men with no family ties, more likely to be victims of domestic violence, have higher rates of physical health problems, and have alcohol and substance abuse problems. Results from the multivariate nominal regression revealed that individuals who reported themselves as chronically homeless were more likely to be in the 50 years or older age group. In addition, study findings highlighted a dynamic interplay between three biopsychosocial risk factors for homelessness. Fostering development of inclusive sustainable communities, intergenerational relationships, and shared housing practices could help ease such social inequities and prevent problems such as chronic homelessness in older homeless adults.
Suicidality among Turkish Adolescents: Comparing Durkheim's and Tarde's Perspectives
Suicidality is an important problem among adolescents. This study compares Durkheim's and Tarde's perspectives on suicide. While the Durkheimian perspective alleges that integration, regulation, and anomie play the major role on adolescent suicidality, Tarde's theory considers imitation as the most important factor affecting suicidality. Durkheim suggests that individuals with higher integration and regulation are less likely to commit suicide. Individuals with less integration and regulation, on the other hand, are more likely to experience anomie and higher suicidality. Tarde claims that individuals with suicidal peers are more likely to commit suicide. In particular, the effects of school integration, family integration, peer integration, religious integration, neighborhood integration, family regulation, anomie, and suicide imitation on adolescent suicidality in Turkey are examined using binary logistics regression in the current attempt. The results indicate that school integration, family integration, and religious integration have significant negative effects on adolescents' suicidality whereas suicide imitation has a positive effect. The results of the study are expected to help to prevention programs purposed at reducing suicidality among adolescents.
Religious Identity and Interreligious Communications: Predicting In-Group and Outgroup Bias with Topic-Sentiment Analysis
Intergroup relations and the factors affecting them constitute a subject of recurring interest within the academic community. Social identity theory suggests that group membership and the value we assign to it drives the expression of in-group favoritism and outgroup prejudice, among other intergroup phenomena. The present study examines how (ir)religious identities are related to topic-sentiment polarization in the form of positive in-group and negative outgroup bias during interreligious debates in YouTube commentaries. Drawing from the propositions of social identity theory, six hypotheses were tested. The data for the study, a product of a natural experiment, are comments posted on YouTube commentary sections featuring videos of interreligious debates between (a) Christian and atheist or (b) Christian and Muslim speakers. Using topic-sentiment analysis, a multistage method of topic modeling with latent semantic analysis (LSA) and sentiment analysis, 52,607 comments, for the Christian - atheist debates, and 24,179 comments, for the Christian - Muslim debates, were analyzed. The results offer support (or partial support) to the hypotheses demonstrating identity-specific instances of topic-sentiment polarization to the predicted direction. The study offers valuable insights for the relevance of social identity theory in real-world interreligious interactions, while the successful application of topic-sentiment analysis lends support for the more systematic utilization of this method in the context of social identity theory.
Mediational Pathways between High School Extracurricular Participation and Young Adult Educational Attainment: A Structural Equation Analysis
Little is known about the mechanisms by which extracurricular participation in high school influences educational attainment in young adulthood. Also limited is an understanding of the different types of extracurricular participation and how various activities may manifest within the relationship. The purpose of this study was to examine the link between high school extracurricular participation and educational attainment, with social capital, parental expectations, and academic achievement presented as mediators. Additionally, the present study will explore socioeconomic differences in the proposed relationships. The sample consisted of 5,239 ninth through twelfth graders from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple-group SEM were used to test pathways. Extracurricular participation was categorized into sports participation, non-sport participation, mixed participation (including both sport and non-sport), and no participation. Social capital, a latent factor, was measured by the latent variables of family and school capital. Various indicators of family closeness and inclusion of school culture from survey items operationalize social capital. Parental expectations, another latent factor, was measured by one survey indicator using the question of how disappointed would your resident father and mother be if you did not graduate from college. Academic achievement was measured by grade point average and calculated by the average of self-reported grades in four subjects: English, math, social studies, and science. Educational level attained used seven levels ranging from less than 8th grade to beyond a Bachelor degree. Gender, race, and parent education were also included as covariates. Social capital, parental expectations, and high school academic achievement were all shown to be mediators between high school extracurricular participation and educational attainment. However, social capital's impact on educational attainment was indirect through GPA rather than direct. Sport showed better capacity to strengthen social capital than non-sport. However, non-sport participants achieved higher high school …
How eHealth Literacy Impacts Patient-Provider Relationships: A Study on Trust, Self-Care, and Patient Satisfaction
It has been well established, in the literature, the association between low health literacy rates and poor health outcomes. With the increase of technology dependence, more people are using the internet to look up health information. Research has shown that shared decision making between providers and patients can improve patients' health outcomes. This research aims to examine whether electronic health (eHealth) literacy impacts patient-provider relationships. This research will also examine how geography specifically state residency impacts eHealth literacy rates. Data collected from a national sampling of online health and medical information users who participated in the Study of Health and Medical Information in Cyberspace (N=710) is used to construct structural equation models from SPSS AMOS v. 20.0. After path analysis, the results shown that white males with higher education were more likely to have higher eHealth literacy rates and that eHealth literacy rates are associated with better self-care, higher patient satisfaction and increased trust in provider. Also, state residency does not have an impact on eHealth literacy rates. eHealth literacy will be significant in patient-provider relationships. Program development should be established on focusing on eHealth literacy across the lifespan. Also, it will be important to review federal policy on technology disbursements in order to achieve national goals on eHealth literacy rates.
The Impact of Commuting on Mental Health
The purpose of this research is to explicate the relationship between commuting behavior, stress, and mental health. The overall results from the regression analysis turned out to be inconclusive given the researcher's initial hypothesis. The commute time reported by respondents did not have a statistically significant bearing on mental health outcomes. This was true for both the normal sample, and the sample that was split by gender.
Religiousness and Spirituality: How Are They Related to Moral Orientations?
This dissertation examines correlations between religiousness and spirituality, to moral orientations using moral foundations theory as a framework. Using the 2012 Measuring Morality dataset, which provides a representative sample of the population of the United States, I create linear regressions which test associations between religiousness, spirituality, and each of the five moral foundations ((harm/care, fairness, in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity). I find that religiousness is negatively associated with concern for harm, and positively associated with respect for authority, a finding which implies that the moral behavior of religious people is rooted in respect for authority more than in any other moral concern. Spirituality is positively associated with concern for fairness. The implications of all findings are discussed, as well as limitations and recommendations for future research.
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