Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Neighborhood Characteristics and Participation in Household Surveys(2010) Casas-Cordero Valencia, Carolina; Kreuter, Frauke; Survey Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Declining response rates in household surveys continue to demand not only a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying nonresponse, but also the identification of auxiliary variables that can help assess, reduce, and hopefully correct for this source of error in survey estimates. Using data from L.A. Family and Neighborhood Study (L.A. FANS), this dissertation shows that observable characteristics of the sampled neighborhoods have the potential to advance both survey research topics. Paper 1 of this dissertation advances our understanding of the role that local neighborhood processes play in survey participation. The measures of social and physical environments are shown to be significant predictors of household cooperation in the L.A.FANS, even after controlling for the socio-economic composition of households and neighborhoods. A nice feature of the indicators of the physical environment is that they can be observed without performing the actual interview. Thus they are available for both respondents and nonrespondents. However, survey interviewers charged with this task might make errors that can limit the usability of these observations. Paper 2 uses a multilevel framework to examine 25 neighborhood items rated by survey interviewers. The results show that errors vary by type of item and that interviewer perceptions are largely driven by characteristics of the sampled areas -- not by characteristics of the interviewers themselves. If predictive of survey participation, neighborhood characteristics can be useful for survey fieldwork decisions aimed at increasing response rates. If neighborhood characteristics are also related to survey outcome variables they furthermore can be used to inform strategies aimed at reducing nonresponse bias. Paper 3 compares the effectiveness of several different neighborhood characteristics in nonresponse adjustments for the L.A.FANS, and shows that interviewer observations perform similar to Census variables when used for weighting key estimates of L.A. FANS. Results of this dissertation can be relevant for those who want to increase response rates by tailoring efforts according to neighborhood characteristics. The most important contribution of this dissertation, however, lies in re-discovering intersections between survey methodology and urban sociology.Item A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OF CONTEXT EFFECTS ON ADOLESCENT CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: THE ROLE OF FAMILY, PEERS, SCHOOL, AND NEIGHBORHOOD(2009) Wilkenfeld, Britt Skeens; Torney-Purta, Judith; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The relations between multiple contexts of influence and adolescents' civic engagement were examined in order to facilitate understanding of how adolescents are being prepared for citizenship. This study extends previous research by simultaneously examining the family, peer, school, and neighborhood contexts, including how contexts are interrelated in their influence, and by employing multilevel regression techniques. The purpose of the study was to understand how contexts interact to produce positive outcomes for adolescents, especially those deemed at risk for poor civic outcomes. Utilizing data from the 1999 Civic Education Study and the 2000 U.S. Census, I examined a nationally representative sample of 2,729 14-year-olds from 119 schools in the United States. Access to the zip-codes for each school that participated in the study enabled the connection between neighborhood characteristics and schools and students within schools. Given the multifaceted nature of civic engagement, the current study considered context effects on four different aspects of civic engagement: civic knowledge, support for the rights of ethnic minorities, anticipated voting behavior, and anticipated community participation. Predictors pertain to adolescents' demographic characteristics, political discourse with parents and peers, civic experiences in school, and the demographic composition of the neighborhood. Political discourse with parents was positively related to civic knowledge, attitudes, and anticipated behavior, indicating the consistency with which socialization occurs in the home. Across the contexts examined, student measures of civic experiences in school (or civic learning opportunities) had the most consistently positive relationships with students' civic outcomes. Civic experiences in school include student confidence in the effectiveness of school participation, perception of a classroom climate that is open for discussion, and learning about ideal civic practices. Interactions between the school and neighborhood contexts indicate that higher levels of civic learning opportunities particularly make a difference for students attending schools in impoverished neighborhoods, sometimes substantially improving their civic outcomes. Schools, although implicated in the existence of a civic engagement gap, have the potential to narrow the gaps. Civic experiences in schools contribute to the preparation of youth for active citizenship and full access to these experiences reduces civic engagement gaps between students of different demographic groups.