Sociology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2804
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Juvenile Delinquency and the Negro in Charles County, Maryland(1966) Seaman, Thomas W.; Lejins, Peter P.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)Are there differences between Negro and white juvenile delinquents? This was the question that constituted the basis for this exploratory study. The objectives of the project were to determine if Negro juveniles were proportionately overrepresented among juvenile delinquents and if there were differences in types of offenses committed by Negro and white delinquents. The differences found were analyzed in the light of socio-economic class differences between Negro and white delinquents. Previous research has tended to indicate that racial differences disappeared when socioeconomic class was held constant. The area selected for the project was Charles County, Maryland, because of the writer's access to court records and knowledge of the area. Delinquency rates were developed to determine if Negroes were proportionately overrepresented among delinquents and/or if lower class juveniles were overrepresented among delinquents. Delinquent offenses were divided into four types: offenses involving theft or attempted theft of property, offenses involving violence, offenses involving the destruction of property, and offenses injurious to the child himself. Delinquency rates were developed for Negro and white delinquents in each socio-economic class for each type of offense. A simple ecological investigation was conducted to determine if there were any significant patterns in the spatial distribution of the delinquents. The findings show that Negro juveniles were not significantly overrepresented among delinquents even though Negro delinquents were overrepresented among lower-lower class delinquents. White delinquents were found to be overrepresented among delinquents from the lower-middle and upper-lower classes. The analyses of types of offenses revealed that types of offenses could be identified with certain levels of the socio-economic structure regardless of race, but that differences existed between Negro and white delinquents within socio-economic classes. The ecological investigation indicated that there was no significant ecological pattern among county delinquents.Item Internal Migration to Osaka Prefecture, Japan(1956) Lewis, David Michael; Hoffsommer, Harold; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)Item The Fair Housing Movement: An Overview and a Case Study(1965) Noe, Kaye Sizer; Cussler, Margaret T.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The fair housing movement is a recent development in the general civil rights movement. While subscribing to the ideology of the general movement, community fair housing groups concentrate upon making middle-income, and particularly suburban, housing available to financially qualified Negroes. Few fair housing groups are affiliated with Negro civil rights groups, and most are all-white in membership. Their methods utilize many of the concepts first developed in sociology and social psychology; their programs emphasize community relations when a Negro move-in is imminent, property listing services which bypass the practices of discrimination entrenched in the real estate industry, and subscription by community members to open covenants. They seldom try to "force" integration using test cases, attempting rather to prevent discrimination against Negroes seeking homes in their communities and to avoid violence. The major portion of the research was a case study of a fair housing group in Greenbelt, Maryland. The program of this group emphasized a "planning" approach to integration and publicly avoided the moral-ethical arguments which have been central in the general civil rights movement. Such resistance as they encountered was from individuals concerned about the possible effect of Negro occupancy on property values in the older, low-income section of the city. The leaders of the group were active in civic activities, representative of most religious faiths, tended to be college-educated, and many had a history of affiliation with other "liberal" groups. Few were active in other facets of the civil rights movement. It was concluded that the fair housing movement tends to be moderate rather than radical in its membership and strategy, and that its scope (some 600 groups in metropolitan areas across the United States) represents near-spontaneous action at the grass-roots level based on a conviction that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong.Item Changing Observance of Traditional Jewish Religious Practices: A Study of Generations(1956) Greenberg, Meyer; Hoffsommer, Harold C.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Changes in the observance of traditional religious practices among Jewish families during the course of three generations are the subject of t his paper. The religious practices studied are those related to the cycle of the year--the Sabbath and holy days--and kashruth (the dietary laws). The population is a group of 180 families, chiefly from Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with children in the freshman class at the University of Maryland in the spring of 1949. The first generation, the grandparents, are in the main immigrants to the United States from Eastern Europe during the years of mass immigration which ended shortly after World War I. The second generation are the parents, most of them American born, while the third generation consists of freshmen at the University. For the earlier generations the interaction with the American environment is analyzed in terms of acculturation and social mobility. In the third generation attention is focused on changes in religious practice from the time the student was a child and under parental control, through his last year in high school, and then into the latter part of hi s first year at college. Information on the background of students and parents and on their religious observance was obtained by means of a questionnaire. This was followed by an interview to learn the circumstances surrounding changes in the student's observance. It was found that the parents belong almost entirely to the middle class and are engaged in business or the professions. The student group, of whom two-thirds are male, does not differ appreciably from the general student body either in scholastic aptitude or in grades. Upon analysis, the combinations of religious practices observed by the individuals were found to fall into seven repeated patterns or types. This classification system was used to compare the observance of the different groups into which the sample was divided. The relatively sharpest break with tradition occurred in the immigrant generation. The second generation continued to move in the same direction. The third generation departed even further from tradition, especially when under the influence of the college environment, but the rate of change appears to have slowed down. The process of discarding ritual practices has been a selective one. Observances which are frequent and involve economic sacrifice, such as the Sabbath and holidays, have been the first to be dropped. Others such as formal daily prayer and kashruth outside the home have been abandoned because of inconvenience and because they differ widely from accepted social norms. A minimum observance level seems to have been reached in the evolution of Jewish religious life. Attending synagogue and fasting on the High Holydays and participating in a Passover Seder are still observed by the overwhelming majority of American Jews. The lighting of Sabbath candles is widespread, and kashruth in the home is kept by a substantial number, though only a very small proportion of the students observe the dietary laws. The subjects of the study were also classified according to their self-identification with one of the three branches of Judaism--Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. It was found that while the first generation were overwhelmingly Orthodox, the members of the second and third generations have been moving increasingly into the Conservative and, to a lesser degree, the Reform groups. The Orthodox Jews indicate greater average observance than the Conservative, who in turn tend to observe somewhat more than the Reform. However, the observance of all three groups falls far below the standards set by the movements officially. In the student generation, the differences between the groups are further narrowed, and there appears a marked tendency toward similarity in observance patterns. Future studies are needed to analyze the continuing development and relative strength of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform groups. It would also be worthwhile to learn whether the students here studied at what is thought to be the lowest point of their religious observance will modify their practices when they are married and have families.