Sociology
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Item THE WORST OF TIMES? AGING WITH LIMITED FAMILY TIES IN THE UNITED STATES(2024) Liu, Jingwen; Caudillo, Mónica L.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The drastic demographic and family transitions since the 1970s have raised ongoing discussions about whether older adults fare well socially and psychologically when they are increasingly likely to age alone in the U.S. Based on the social convoy model, the three studies of this dissertation answer this question by extending the focus from the proximal kinship ties to nonkin networks and broader social participation. Particular attention is paid to gender and racial/ethnic differences as demographic and family transitions are experienced unevenly by different social groups. The first study examines how family instability and the deviation from “normative” family trajectories are associated with older adults’ mental health. It found different levels of importance of the structure and instability of family for men and women of different racial/ethnic groups. Moving beyond family and households, the second study explores the substitution effect of extended family, friends, and neighborhoods in the absence of proximal relations. It reveals the “double plight” of Black and Hispanic older adults who may suffer from both a disproportionate exposure to the declining marriage and a lack of supportive distant relations serving as buffer zones in the absence of core kinship ties. The third study disentangles the population-level age and cohort trends of social connectedness, a more comprehensive indicator of individuals’ social wellbeing. It finds distinct intercohort changes in both the overall level of social connectedness and intracohort gender and racial/ethnic disparities. These trends can be partially explained by cohort differences in socioeconomic resources and health. However, societal changes that emphasize the significance of intergenerational solidarity, friendship ties, digital communication, non-religious social participation, and volunteering may play a more significant role. Taken together, this dissertation depicts a mixed picture of different populations who demonstrate varying levels of vulnerability and resilience against the quickly developing society. Therefore, it calls for both the enhancement of social welfare regimes and more positive narratives about unique resilience and strengths for women, racial/ethnic minorities, and socioeconomically disadvantaged older adults.Item Why Does Employment Discrimination Persist against People with Mental Illness? Effects of Negative Stereotypes, Power, and Differential Discrimination(2016) Hipes, Crosby; Lucas, Jeffrey; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mental illness affects a sizable minority of Americans at any given time, yet many people with mental illness (hereafter PWMI) remain unemployed or underemployed relative to the general population. Research has suggested that part of the reason for this is discrimination toward PWMI. This research investigated mechanisms that affect employment discrimination against PWMI. Drawing from theories on stigma and power, three studies assessed 1) the stereotyping of workers with mental illness as unfit for workplace success, 2) the impact of positive information on countering these negative stereotypes, and whether negatively-stereotyped conditions elicited discrimination; and 3) the effects of power on mental illness stigma components. I made a series of predictions related to theories on the Stereotype Content Model, illness attribution, the contact hypothesis, gender and mental health, and power. Studies tested predictions using, 1) an online vignette survey measuring attitudes, 2) an online survey measuring responses to fictitious applications for a middle management position, and 3) a laboratory experiment in which some participants were primed to feel powerful and some were not. Results of Study 1 demonstrated that PWMI were routinely stigmatized as incompetent, dangerous, and lacking valued employment attributes, relative to a control condition. This was especially evident for workers presented as having PTSD from wartime service and workers with schizophrenia, and when the worker was a woman. Study 2 showed that, although both war-related PTSD and schizophrenia evoke negative stereotypes, only schizophrenia evoked hiring discrimination. Finally, Study 3 found no effect of being primed to feel powerful on stigmatizing attitudes toward a person with symptoms of schizophrenia. Taken together, findings suggest that employment discrimination towards PWMI is driven by negative stereotypes; but, stereotypes might not lead to actual hiring discrimination for some labeled individuals.Item Technoscientific Knowledge Practices of Adolescent Mental Health Care Work(2013) Nelson, Amber Dawn; Falk, William W.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines the technoscientific knowledge-practices of adolescent psychotherapy. Employing an interpretive, feminist version of grounded theory, 40 interviews with psychotherapists were analyzed. Building on Science and Technology Studies and the Sociology of Health and Illness, the following research questions are asked: How are adolescent mental illnesses defined and approached within and across social worlds? How do practitioners negotiate social processes of diagnosis? In what ways does the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a technology, shape the diagnostic and treatment work of mental health practitioners? In what ways does Managed Care (MC) shape adolescent mental health care? Social worlds define psychotherapy as an art and science, resist biomedicine and embrace eclectic theoretical orientations to treatment. Psychotherapists utilize Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) in their treatment plans but critique how EBPs privilege scientific evidence over patient subjectivity, social contexts and the therapeutic relationship. Psychotherapists challenge the cultural authority of the DSM and downplay its significance for clinical work. While the DSM is a socially-scripted technology, its significance is interpretively flexible. Psychotherapists employ work-arounds to the problems posed by biomedical and bureaucratic standardization, and participate in processes of cribbing. Cribbing signifies the collective knowledge building and translation work necessary to learn the codes that facilitate therapeutic service authorizations and minimize denials. The DSM technology and MC privilege a therapeutic focus on surface level symptoms and behaviors whereas psychotherapists focus on communication, relational and emotional issues. The assemblage of the DSM and MC creates diagnostic dissonance for psychotherapists--a conflict between their own theoretical orientations and the biomedical model. Biomedicalization processes are uneven and actively resisted. MC governs the clinical practices of psychotherapists. For-profit MC companies have shifted care from intense psychodynamic therapy towards short-term surface level medications and behavioral programs. MC policies limit services, over-manage treatment and harm the therapeutic relationship. MC stratifies providers and patients by encouraging seasoned professionals to leave public forms of insurance. The least experienced practitioners care for those with the most intense mental illness while those with experience opt-out and treat the worried-well.Item Role Occupancy, Physical Health and the Diminishment of the Sense of Mattering in Late Life(2007-11-28) Fazio, Elena Marie; Milkie, Melissa A; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mattering is an important but understudied part of the self-concept. Morris Rosenberg and Claire McCullough (1981) suggested that older adults feel they matter less than middle-aged adults and this discrepancy may in part be explained by a lack of role occupancies such as paid work, and a devaluation of the old in society at large. This dissertation examines sense of mattering in older adults and two mechanisms that may explain the decline of the self-concept in later life - fewer role occupancies and poorer physical health. It examines whether these processes differ for men versus women and for African-Americans versus whites. The study employs the first wave (2001) of data from the Aging, Stress and Health (ASH) Study, which includes over 1100 white and African-American adults over age 65 living in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Results indicate that there is a negative relationship between age and both dependence mattering and importance mattering and that it is in part explained by role occupancies as well as physical health status. Compared to informal ties, work and volunteer roles (productive or formal roles), are more important in explaining the relationship between age and mattering. Additionally, the total number of roles held is significantly and positively related to dependence and importance mattering. How roles mediate the relationship between age and dependence mattering depends on race and gender. The work role significantly mediates the age/mattering relationship for whites, but not for African-Americans. For African-Americans, the volunteer role mediates the relationship between age and dependence mattering, but this is not the case for whites. Also, self-rated health mediates the age-dependence mattering relationship for whites but not African-Americans. These findings point to the need to employ multiple mattering measures in analyses of older adults as well to study diverse samples; results differ depending on the outcome variable and group examined. Mattering is critical to the comprehensive study of the self-concept in later phases of the life course, as it is sensitive to social roles and physical health both of which are locations for key changes occurring during late life.