Sociology
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Item PATHWAYS TO EARLY PREGNANCY BY RACE/ETHNIC AND CLASS LOCATIONS: ADOLESCENT GIRLS' SELF-CONCEPTS AND AMBIVALENCE TOWARDS PREGNANCY(2010) Kendig, Sarah M.; Milkie, Melissa; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)An important paradox in adolescent pregnancy is that adolescent girls' stronger self-concepts (e.g., higher efficacy and self-esteem) are thought to reduce the likelihood of becoming pregnant: However, minority adolescents, particularly Black girls, have equal or stronger self-concepts than White girls, yet have higher pregnancy and birth rates in adolescence. Thus, the self-concept (or different components of the self) may operate differently for Black and Hispanic girls than White girls, either being positively related or unrelated to pregnancy. One way to disentangle the paradox is to focus on girls' feelings about becoming pregnant and their initial sexual decisions, which serve as more proximate determinants and occur prior to contraceptive behaviors and the occurrence of pregnancy. Based on a theoretical framework grounded in intersectionality and symbolic interactionism and utilizing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 5,735), this dissertation examines the influence of adolescent girls' self-concepts, including self-efficacy, perceived mattering, self-esteem and possible selves, on two primary outcomes--feelings of ambivalence towards pregnancy and the transition to first sexual intercourse--and how these relationships vary by race/ethnicity and social class. Statistical methods include discrete-time event history analysis and OLS and logistic regression. Results generally indicate that stronger self-concepts, in particular self-efficacy, mattering, and educational possible selves, are protective against girls' feelings of ambivalence towards pregnancy one year later. Two- and three-way interactions reveal that the relationship between educational expectations and aspirations and ambivalence varies by girls' race and class locations. Educational aspirations are protective for high-SES White girls and low-SES Black girls whereas educational expectations are protective for low-SES White and high-SES Black girls. Girls' perceived mattering is protective against an early transition to first sexual intercourse, particularly for low-SES girls. Ambivalence towards pregnancy is positively related to an early transition to first sexual intercourse and this relationship varies by race/ethnicity and class. This dissertation highlights contingencies by race/ethnic and social class locations and the complexity of the influence of girls' self-concepts in understanding the pathways leading to adolescent fertility.Item FROM MANY IDENTITIES TO ONE VOICE?: ARAB AMERICAN ACTIVISM FORGED FROM THE POLITICS OF ISOLATION(2010) Skuratowicz, Katarzyna Zofia; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Dance, Lory J; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation answers key questions about the reasons behind the mobilization and consolidation of Arab American collective identities expressed in political activism. Summarized into one overarching question, these key questions examine what encourages and challenges the mobilization of a consolidated political voice of Arab Americans in the American political arena. The ultimate goal of this project is to understand the reasons behind the existing political weakness of Arab American voices in the American socio-political arena. More specifically stated, the key questions are: "What, in the history of immigration of Arab American, impacted the current weakness of the collective, Arab American political voice?;" "What impact did political events and policies have on the mobilization of the consolidated Arab American identity?;" "What are the challenges and motivations for consolidation of the Arab American political voice related to the heterogeneity of Arab American communities?;" and finally "What role does counter-mobilization, namely pro-Israeli lobbies, play in affecting the intensity of Arab American voices in American politics?" The general answer, which was acquired through tracing the process of formation of this mobilization and consolidation of the Arab American identity, demonstrates that political isolation is the predominant mobilizing factor for identity-based activism and consolidation of Arab American identities. This study concludes that Arab Americans face political isolation due to several factors such as the relatively short presence of Arab immigrants in the United States, their brief political engagement in the American political arena, the heterogeneity of Arab American communities preventing a development of strong leadership uniting the communities, and the presence of counter-mobilized communities such as well established pro-Israeli lobbies which are often in opposition to Arab American political efforts. Historical events such as the 1967 War or the attacks of September 11 make Arab American activists aware of their political isolation. Thus, unlike many ethnic minorities motivated by cultural and economic factors, Arab American motivation is predominantly politically driven. In regard to methodological approaches, this research draws on interviews, life histories of members of self-labeling Arab American organizations in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area and document analyses to learn about their organizations and motivations behind identity-based political activism. In regard to pre-existing scholarship, this study engages the literature about panethnic mobilization and the incorporation of immigrants into a host society. A recurrent theme in this literature is how panethnic mobilization is driven by economic or cultural factors. However, economic and cultural factors are not key catalysts driving panethnic Arab American identities. At the collective level Arab Americans enjoy all elements of citizenship: legal status, rights and a sense of belonging yet their path to full participation in U.S. political arenas remains a challenge. The consolidated identity-based activism of Arab Americans focuses on gaining a political voice and creating an influential political constituency. As this study reveals, Arab American panethnic organizations strive to disrupt the monolithic and negative discourse about Arabs and Arab Americans in the popular and political culture of the United States by taking ownership over the "Arab American" label. Thus, the use of the monolithic label of Arabness is ultimately a strategic move towards gaining political voice(s). The complexities and nuances of this political isolation and corresponding political mobilization unfold in the chapters below.Item Spirituality in the Laboratory: Negotiating the politics of knowledge in the psychedelic sciences(2010) Corbin, Michelle Dawn; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this study I argue that psychedelic substances served as a doorway through which spirituality entered the scientific laboratory to an unprecedented degree given their traditionally demarcated relationship by making spirituality more amenable to scientific paradigms and accessible to scientific methodologies. I conduct a feminist discourse analysis of the politics of knowledge enacted in this unique intersection of spirituality and science in the psychedelic sciences. I draw on feminist theories of science and knowledge which conceptualize science as a dominant knowledge constituted through and productive of the intersecting and historically hierarchical systems of power of race, class, gender and nation. Using discourse analysis techniques, I analyze a documentary archive I created through a theoretically driven sampling of the psychedelic sciences of spirituality from the 1930's to the present. In Chapter 2, I analyze how spirituality was brought forward and negotiated in these sciences. I argue that psychedelic scientists utilized a range of what I call tactics of legitimation to justify the scientific study of these peculiar substances and the spirituality with which they are associated vis-à-vis dominant scientific knowledges and I analyze the attendant epistemological costs of this assimilation. In Chapter 3, I analyze the efforts to integrate psychedelic substances and the spiritual experiences they induce into western therapeutic assumptions and practices. I argue that their efforts to scientifically determine the mysticality of mystical experiences and their pursuits of scientific liturgical authority over the administration of psychedelic sacraments resulted in the emergence of a would-be psychiatric clerical authority. In Chapter 4, I analyze the efforts to integrate and develop indigenous spiritual psychedelic knowledges and practices across each step of a bioprospecting model from plant identification to the determination of mechanisms of action and finally to drug development studies. I argue that in each step indigenous spiritual knowledges were assimilated into dominant scientific assumptions and practices reifying western scientific authority over indigenous knowledges and practices and reinforcing historically hierarchical colonial relationships despite the `good intentions' of these psychedelic scientists. In the final chapter of this study I discuss future sociological and feminist projects analyzing these peculiar psychedelic sciences and spiritual substances.Item CONSTRUCTING A DISABLED IDENTITY: THE INFLUENCE OF IMPAIRMENT, SOCIAL FACTORS AND REFLECTED APPRAISALS(2010) Ridolfo, Heather; Milkie, Melissa; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The claiming of an identity as disabled has important implications for impaired individuals' interpersonal interactions and well-being, however not all impaired individuals claim a disabled identity. In this dissertation I build upon social and medical models of disability by extending the work in two key ways using multi-methods. First, using a symbolic interactionist frame, I examine how individuals' experiences are mediated through self processes in shaping their identity claims. Second, I assess how the identification process is influenced by individuals' social statuses. Data used in this study is from the 1994-1995 National Health Interview Survey on Disability, a large nationally representative sample of individuals with impairments. In addition, I supplement this analysis with data from 30 qualitative interviews. Results underscore prior research showing that not all individuals who experience impairment identify as disabled. The qualitative interviews illuminated a third group not obvious in the quantitative analysis - those in the process of negotiating a disabled identity. Experiences of socially constructed barriers have important implications for claiming an identity as disabled; however experiences of impairment also have strong effects on identity claims. In depth interviews also showed social barriers, but not environmental barriers, and impairment affect impaired persons' identity claims as disabled. Self-processes perform an important role in helping impaired individuals understand their positioning in society and verify their identity claims. Reflected appraisals of being disabled increased the likelihood of claiming a disabled identity and these appraisals mediated the relationship between the experiences of socially constructed barriers, impairment and the self. In the qualitative analyses, social comparisons and self presentations were also found to be an agentic tool used by individuals to assert their identities as disabled/not disabled and in shaping others' views of them. Finally, social statuses have important implications for the construction or rejection an identity as disabled. Those with higher social statuses were MORE likely to claim disabled identity, all things equal. In the qualitative analyses, women's disabled identity claims were often disregarded, perhaps underscoring their more difficult experience verifying their identity claims. Consistent with this, interactions between social statuses and the social and medical models were identified.Item The Politics of Teenage Sexualities: Social Regulation, Citizenship and the U.S. State(2010) Mann, Emily S.; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Mamo, Laura; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines the emergence of a now-hegemonic discourse of teenage sexuality, which constructs teenagers' engagement in "sexual activity" as a social problem with and about girls in general and low-income girls of color in particular, and explores how the U.S. state and the community health centers that contract with it regulate the sexual practices, relationships, and identities of teenagers in relation to these and related understandings. My analysis draws on feminist and queer theories of sexuality, gender, the state, social regulation, and sexual citizenship and emphasizes how intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and age are explicitly and implicitly articulated through dynamics of regulation prior to state intervention at the federal level; the federal policymaking process; and the discourses and practices of service providers working in two community health centers that provide health care and social services to a predominantly low-income Latina/o clientele in Washington, DC. I argue that the U.S. state and community health centers comprise important sites through which inequalities of gender, race, class, sexuality, and age are articulated and teenage sexual citizenship is produced. As such, this study is located at the intersection of political sociology and gender and sexuality studies, and makes contributions to the sociological and interdisciplinary literatures on intersectionality, welfare states, social regulation, sexual citizenship, and the social construction of adolescence.Item NONPARTICIPATION OF THE 12TH GRADERS IN THE NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS: UNDERSTANDING DETERMINANTS OF NONRESPONSE AND ASSESSING THE IMPACT ON NAEP ESTIMATES OF NONRESPONSE BIAS ACCORDING TO PROPENSITY MODELS(2009) Chun, Young I.; Abraham, Katharine; Robinson, John; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines nonparticipation of 12th graders in the year 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), using a model of nonresponse developed by Groves and Couper (1998). NAEP is a continuing assessment of American student knowledge in various subject areas including mathematics and science, and the possibility that its results could be contaminated by a low response rate was taken as very serious. The dissertation evaluates the statistical impact of nonparticipation bias on estimates of educational performance in NAEP, by applying response propensity models to the NAEP mathematics and science survey data and the corresponding school administrative data from over 20,000 seniors in the 2000 High School Transcript Study (HSTS). When NAEP and HSTS are merged, one has measures of individual- and school-level characteristics for nonparticipants as well as participants. Results indicate that nonresponse was not a serious contaminant, and applying response propensity based weights led to only about a 1-point difference out on average of 500 points in mathematics and of 300 points in science. The results support other recent research (e.g., Curtin, Press and Singer, 2000; Groves, 2006) showing minimal effects on nonresponse bias of lowered response rates.Item Internet communication among college students: its role and perceived effects on interaction and the self(2008) bern, thomas james; Dance, Lory; Milkie, Melissa; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study is a qualitative investigation into the effect of internet technologies on the social lives of college students who frequently employ them. Three research questions are addressed. First, how do college students understand the various roles or functions of the Internet in terms of their social ties with others? Second, what problems related to interaction occur through the use of these communication technologies? Finally, what problems or effects related to the notion of "the self" occur when maintaining social ties via Internet communication technologies? Focus groups with college students indicated that they could not possibly imagine maintaining their social lives without them. Among the limitations and problems frequently indicated were a difficulty in using these communication options to discuss important, sensitive, or emotional issues with significant others. Finally, these college students appear to be more authentic online and less-fragmented by this form of communication than previous literature would suggest.Item The Politics of Metabolism: The Metabolic Syndrome and the Reproduction of Race and Racism(2009) Hatch, Anthony Ryan; Collins, Patricia H; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Biomedical researchers, government agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry increasingly use the term metabolic syndrome to define the observed co-occurrence of the major biological risk markers for heart disease, type II diabetes, and stroke. The metabolic syndrome is a new feature in what I call the politics of metabolism, or the discourses, social processes, and institutional relationships that governs the metabolism of individuals and groups. The emergence of the metabolic syndrome reflects a growing network of scientific, state, and corporate actors and institutions that are invested in studying, regulating, and profiting from control over metabolism. Drawing on insights from critical race theory, science and technology studies, and Foucauldian studies of biopower, I analyze the metabolic syndrome as a new discourse about metabolism that continually draws upon racial meanings to construct individual and group differences in different kinds of metabolic risk. The metabolic syndrome not only constitutes a new way of constructing, studying, and treating metabolic health problems, it also constitutes an emerging site for the production of racial meanings. Researchers use race in metabolic syndrome research and to study, prescribe, and label prescription drugs that may be related to the metabolic syndrome. I investigate the use of race and the metabolic syndrome in biomedical research on prescription drugs and African Americans. I develop the metaphor of killer applications to examine how prescription drugs operate in the politics of metabolism. A killer application is a superior technology that combines human and non-human elements that structure bodily practices in a wide range of social, commercial, and scientific contexts--prescription drugs have become the new killer applications in biomedicine. I argue that the search for killer applications has transformed the ways that pharmaceutical corporations study prescription drugs, metabolism, and race. I compare how drug researchers use race and the metabolic syndrome to study antipsychotics and statins in African Americans, how physicians' race-based diagnoses of schizophrenia and high cholesterol structure the prescribing patterns of antipsychotics and statins, and how scientists' assumptions about the genetic basis of racial differences in drug metabolism structure the debate about racebased drug therapies.Item `Do-It-Yourself': Self-checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Self-Service Trend in American Business(2009) Andrews, Christopher K.; Landry, Bart; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A significant portion of sociology has always taken as its central focus the underlying relationship between economy and society. This dissertation continues this tradition by examining how self-service and its `do-it-yourself' ethos is changing the U.S. economy and the way in which Americans consume goods and services. Focusing upon the supermarket industry and the three principle stakeholder groups involved - employers, employees, and consumers - this dissertation examines why businesses are adopting automated checkout lanes. Particular attention is given to the reasons cited for their introduction, their effect upon work and employment in the industry, and the public's perception and attitude towards the technology. This dissertation adopts a multi-method approach, using information collected from eighty face-to-face interviews with customers, employees, and store managers, as well as secondary data and nonparticipant observation. Secondary data sources include published economic indicators and employment statistics, as well as information provided by newspapers and retail industry publications; nonparticipant observation was used to collect field notes documenting staffing levels, customer behavior, and other related information. Precisely why self-checkouts are being introduced remains a much-debated issue. Interviews indicate that organized labor and consumers view them as primarily a cost-cutting mechanism, yet labor costs within the industry continue to rise and employment remains relatively stable. At present, a number of social and economic barriers currently limit the extent of their use in stores; these factors include theft, maintenance, perceptions of service, internal controls, and specific labor contract provisions. Results also suggest that external, rather than internal, market factors may be driving current employment trends, including competition in the low-wage labor market and the emergence of non-union competition into the retail food industry. The benefits offered to consumers remains unclear. A majority of customers surveyed still prefer conventional cashier lanes, yet self-checkout clearly appeals to some consumers due to the perceived speed, control, and independence. However, results indicate that under most circumstances self-checkouts are not faster than conventional methods of checkout due to differences in user skill and experience. This may change, however, as similar self-service technologies become increasingly common in the service industry.Item Mandated Change and Gendered Organizational Culture: A Content Analysis of Graduate Perceptions of the U.S. Air Force Academy's Agenda for Change(2009) De Angelis, Karin Kristine; Segal, Mady W.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Women are a token group at the United States Air Force Academy and by extension within the social networks of Academy graduates. Using Kanter's theory on the effects of proportions on group culture, I complete a qualitative content analysis of the public discourse surrounding the removal of the words "Bring Me Men..." from an Academy ramp in response to the 2003 sexual assault scandal. The vast majority of male graduates and all of the female graduates publicly opposed the decision to remove the words. I observe three phenomena in the public discourse in line with Kanter's theorized process of boundary heightening: loyalty tests, exaggeration of the dominant's culture, and the use of formal in-group recognitions as reminders of difference between the dominants and the tokens. Both the dominants and the tokens failed to consider alleged sexual assault claims and whether these claims had connections to USAFA's organizational culture.