Sociology Dissertations

Social capital and youth baseball: a qualitative investigation of parental social ties

Sean F. Brown — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:01:56 PDT

Participation in youth sports entails a variety of commitments from the children who engage in them, but they also require parental participation as well, encompassing both temporal and financial commitments. The commitment of parents may be thought of as distinct from the participation of the child, and may encompass a wide variety of tasks requiring differing levels of effort and energy. As the character of parental participation in youth sports should be treated distinctly from the participation of their children, it is thus productive to examine the potential benefits parents may derive through their participation, especially as it pertains to...

Averting the unlikely: fearing, assessing, and preventing threats of rampage violence in American public schools

Eric Madfis — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 12:43:49 PST

Over the last decade, school rampage shootings have taken multiple lives and caused widespread fear throughout the United States. During this same period, there have also been dozens of averted incidents where student plots to kill multiple peers and faculty members came to the attention of authorities and thus were thwarted. This dissertation entails in-depth interviews conducted with school and police officials (administrators, counselors, security and police officers, and teachers) directly involved in preventing what many perceived to be potential rampages at eleven public middle and high schools across the Northeastern United States. Interview data were subsequently triangulated via news...

Assessing the role of industrial and demographic change on regional economic health-a case study of Greater Boston

Mark Melnik — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 09:54:22 PST

Academics and public policy makers have long focused on changes in the industrial and occupational structure of the United States and what these shifts mean for matching workers with potential job opportunities. These issues have come under increased focus recently for two main reasons: the high unemployment rates experienced in the U.S. during the so-called "Great Recession" and the impending retirement of the baby boomer generation over the next two decades.

Using the Greater Boston labor market as a case study, the current research looks at labor market conditions in 2009 and projections for 2016. Employing job competition theory this...

City roots: grassroots efforts to build environmental and social capital in urban areas

Katherine Marie Rickenbacker — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:33:30 PDT

This dissertation explores the social impacts of an urban greening project in Boston, the Urban Ecology Institute's "City Roots" program. By "urban greening", I am referring to projects designed to bring natural elements back into urban areas - these projects altered the built environment by creating small pocket parks, greening front yards and installing rain barrels.

I examine how, on an individual level, a) participation in the urban greening process influenced political and civic participation and activism, and the impact of the participatory process on collective efficacy and flow of information, b) the impact of participation on individual perception of...

Non-traditional educational trajectories: the educational aspirations and expectations of women who are educationally disadvantaged

Claudia Ditmar Coffield — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:04:04 PDT

This dissertation focuses on the educational aspirations and expectations of a heterogeneous group of women who were enrolled in, or had graduated from, adult education and literacy programs in Boston, Massachusetts. The research questions guiding the inquiry are: 1) Why do educationally disadvantaged women value education--how are these values transmitted, and what are the social processes through which they are translated into the cultivation of educational aspirations and expectations? 2) What are the broader social processes and institutional arrangements that shape educationally disadvantaged women's educational aspirations and expectations? and 3) How are gender, age, race/ethnicity, and social class implicated in...

Globalization, unequal ecological exchange, and climate justice: The case of Turkey and the European Union

Lora Karaoğlu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:32:33 PST

Analyses of physical trade flows over the last decade reveal that the global South is running ever higher physical trade deficits. These deficits are being magnified by the increased export of both resource-intensive and pollution-intensive commodities onto the world market. A primary aim of this dissertation is to empirically demonstrate support for the theory of unequal ecological exchange in the case of Turkey and the European Union. This research undertakes three levels of analysis: cross-national, national, and local. The dissertation attempts to answer the following questions: To what extent have Turkey's natural resources been appropriated at the global level through...

Crime in the new destinations: the effect of changing patterns of immigrant settlement on traditional and biased crime

Vincent A. Ferraro — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 07:14:07 PDT

In recent years the link between immigration and crime has received renewed interest in academic research and public and political discourse, with the former tending to find little empirical support and the latter continuing to espouse a firm connection. Recent years have also witnessed the expansion of immigration to new destinations far from traditional ports of entry and settlement. Whether the lack of a connection between immigration and crime in traditional areas holds within new destinations warrants sociological attention. Moreover, as immigrants increasingly settle outside of traditional receiving areas, given the negative context of reception, the potential for victimization is...

The battle over Bisphenol-A: United States Chemical policy and the new networked environmental politics

Amy Lubitow — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:54:30 PDT

The chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) has been linked to a range of negative health outcomes including reproductive and developmental disorders, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. These scientific findings have resulted in an ongoing public debate over the safety of the chemical. Throughout the course of these debates, the chemical industry and environmental health activists have been visible contenders in the battle over the chemical's safety and the need for regulation.

The central purpose of this study is to examine how environmental policy-making arenas in the United States are influenced and shaped by both corporate elites and by social movement actors. In particular,...

Which bias crimes get prosecuted? an analysis of bias motivated incidents and prosecutions in the city of Boston, 2007-2008

Stephanie D. Cappadona — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 07:50:43 PDT

Research was collected from the Community Disorders Unit of the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, to determine which bias-motivated crimes are prosecuted and which are not. Additionally, interviews were conducted with 15 Assistant District Attorney's to determine how they socially construct the bias crime cases that do get prosecuted. This exploratory study was conducted to determine what, if any differences exist between 34 bias motivated crimes prosecuted in the city of Boston in 2007-2008 and 34 incidents matched for the same bias-motivation from the Community Disorder Unit. The current research will contribute to the lack...

Celebratory parade violence: an exploratory study of the role of impression management and deindividuation

Tonn Q. Cao — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 05:47:40 PDT

Each year, it is estimated that nearly 1500 incidents of violence occur during parades worldwide. However, little is known about the conditions in which these acts occur, particularly during celebratory parades. Traditionally, researchers in the area of interpersonal violence have attempted to explain acts of aggression in large crowds through the theories of deindividuation and impression management. This research sought to explore to which extent each of these two theories play in celebratory parade violence (CPV).

This project has two components: content analysis and interactive interviews. The content analysis of 50 parades reveals general information about CPV not previously known....

College students' self-predicted reactions to witnessing sexual assault: the impact of gender, community, bystander experience, and relationship to the victim

Sarah Cope Nicksa — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:45:03 PDT

This dissertation presents findings related to how college-aged bystanders would react if they witnessed a sexual assault at a typical college party. Using a hypothetical sexual assault vignette, a college-student sample (n=299) was asked to predict their willingness to intervene directly, indirectly, or request external help on behalf of a victim. Using gender, community, social learning, and relationship theories as a framework, this study focuses on the role that gender, sense of community, past experiences in bystander situations, and the nature of the victim-bystander relationship play in bystanders' predicted willingness to intervene. Regression analysis confirms that women are more willing...

Exploring "ethnic money knowledge" as an aspect of financial literacy among middle class African Americans

Jaronda Jane Miller — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:03:54 PDT

Sub-par financial literacy leading to poor economic decisions is an area of considerable concern in an era in which Americans increasingly need to plan for their financial future. For the past ten years, African Americans have consistently scored below their White counterparts on financial literacy measures even after controlling for social class. This dissertation argues that African Americans' historical and economical experiences have shaped the lens through which they see money matters, and in turn, these experiences inform their "appropriate" behavior and responses to financial situations. A particular kind of knowledge has been developed and transmitted in the Black community...

Encounters with "death work" in veterinary medicine : an ethnographic exploration of the medical practice of euthanasia

Patricia Morris — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:33:49 PDT

This dissertation details the work of veterinarians in the context of euthanasia situations. Data consists of interviews with over 40 veterinarians and fieldnotes from 18 months of observation in veterinary hospitals. Participants include skilled, experienced veterinary specialists as well as novice interns fresh out of veterinary school. Unlike most veterinary procedures typically done outside the public eye, owner-witnessed euthanasia requires both technical as well as social skills. In the beginning of their careers, veterinarians felt unprepared to negotiate the decision to euthanize, discuss financial issues, manage the impression of a "good" death for owners, and deal with subsequent client emotions....

"We eat cachupa, not clam chowder:" mapping second generation Cape Verdean youth identity in the greater Boston area

Paul Khalil Saucier (1976-) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:03:51 PDT

On the basis of fieldwork conducted in the Greater Boston area from May 2007 to May 2008, this dissertation explores the ways in which second-generation Cape Verdean youth in the Greater Boston area negotiate their identity as Cape Verdean and, by extension, as black through multiple articulations of diaspora. Using the ethnographic method this dissertation attempts to understand processes of racialization of "blackness." My objective is to examine how racialization works to create black identities and to challenge the assumptions that black people do not actively participate in the discourses and practices of racial identity formation. I argue that Cape...

Vulnerability and the social-production of disaster: Hurricane Mitch in Posoltega, Nicaragua

Marci Lee Gerulis-Darcy — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:44 PST

Two very widespread views of natural disasters see them as vengeful acts of a God responding to humans' evil deeds or as caused by random natural forces lying entirely beyond human influence. In turn, these views have led to shortsighted patterns of development as they negate that disaster is socially-produced and as a result have left a chasm between studies of development, ecological crisis, poverty, and disaster. How are we to understand development and its role in and relationship to disaster? Three major questions have been inefficiently explored: First, what are the structural origins of disaster? Second, what efforts are...

The good fight: variations in explanations of the tactical choices made by activists who confront organized white supremacists

Stanislav Vysotsky — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:42 PST

This dissertation seeks to understand the tactical differences between two groups of anti-racist activists who confront white supremacists. I dub these activists non-militant and militant anti-racists based on their tactical preferences. Non-militant anti-racists engage in what are understood to be conventional and demonstrative tactics. While militants are also likely to engage in similar tactics, their tactical repertoire also includes confrontational and violent approaches. I am particularly interested in how the two groups of activists explain the differences in their tactical choices, and therefore, posit that each group will use ideological explanations and perceptions of threat to explain their tactical choices....

First step or last chance : at-risk youth, alternative schooling and juvenile delinquency

Janese Lynette Free — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:40 PST

Schools are meant to be places where children can go to learn, play and socialize. While this remains true the vast majority of the time, some school children now face other issues such as assaults, robbery, weapons and even violence while in the classroom. As a result, policies such as the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, were implemented in an attempt to deter students from bringing weapons to school by promising a swift, severe punishment with no exceptions for breaking the law. The implementation of this bill, along with other key influential factors, led to an increase in the...

A national and a local response to a local problem: how the public, media, government, and local organizations reacted to the crime wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Peter P. Cassino — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:38 PST

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States of America experienced a crime wave that peaked in 1991 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2005c). However, not all Americans felt its impact. Only the few who lived in large urban centers experienced a disproportionate number of the homicides that drove the crime wave (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2006f). In other words, the crime wave was largely limited to large cities, as homicide levels in small cities, suburban areas and rural districts remained steady (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2006f). More specifically that literature showed that youths aged 14 to 24 were...