Sociology
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Item FROM BLACK LIVES MATTER TO WE DON’T EVEN MATTER: THE INVISIBLE HAND OF POWER ON SOCIAL MOVEMENT PARTICIPATION AND ACTIVISM IN URBAN AND RURAL SPACES(2024) Koonce, Danielle; Marsh, Kris; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The field of social movement research is vast and evolving as technological advances continue to expand the field of movement space to include virtual worlds and digital platforms, ensuring new research endeavors. However, as movement spaces expand, one constant is the pursuit and exchange of power between competing groups and within groups with similar collective identities. My research focuses on identifying and tracing some of the diverse paths within social movement spaces that power dynamics manifest. Specifically, I ask the following three questions. What do participants in Black Lives Matter reveal about the movement and internal power dynamics? How does power manifest itself in public hearing spaces? How do Black people living in the rural South engage in the Environmental Justice Movement? I explore power within groups such as Black Lives Matter participants in local chapters, participants in state-regulated public hearings, and development of a local movement center within rural, eastern North Carolina through engagement with the Environmental Justice Movement. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and discourse analysis, I investigate, analyze, and interrogate the various pathways of power within movement spaces. I find that participants in local Black Lives Matter chapters negotiate power through their activist identity. Also, residents can be rendered illegitimate because they do not speak the language of those in power even though they have the power to participate in public hearing spaces. Finally, there is a shift from indigenous funding sources within rural, Black communities which potentially disempowers those communities from advocacy and engagement.Item Reimagining Black Carceral Masculinities and Community Care Work: A Study of Credible Messengers in the Nation’s Capital(2024) Martinez, Rod; Ray, Rashawn; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following dissertation examines a group of community workers known as credible messengers in Washington, D.C. Credible messengers have lived experience surviving carceral systems such as prisons and environments and have transformed their lives to guide, relate to, and support others who share their backgrounds. Their credibility stems directly from their intimate knowledge of the communities they serve. This dissertation project draws on qualitative interviews with male credible messengers from a more considerable multi-year evaluation of a newly implemented credible messenger program housed in a youth agency. Sociologically, the project explores Black carceral masculinities and mentoring as civic engagement. The findings reveal how men resist and challenge prevailing notions around hegemonic and carceral masculinities through their racially gendered experiences, which shape how they approach their work with youth. The study also suggests that the men engage in credible messenger work for motivations other than redemption and in service of a larger mission to Black youth and their local communities. The dissertation project also includes a conversation with a formerly incarcerated public figure from Washington, D.C., as a call to action to researchers and others to uplift the experience of impacted people and communities. The dissertation project concludes with a set of recommendations aimed at policy and practice as it relates to criminalized Black men and boys.Item Trends in the Educational Differences in U.S. Mothers’ Paid Work and Child Care Time-Use and Implications for Mothers’ Well-Being(2024) Gao, Ge; Cohen, Philip N; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores U.S. mothers’ time allocation to employment and child care post-2000 and its implications for their well-being, addressing three empirical questions: (1) How have educational disparities in mothers’ developmentally adaptive child care time evolved in recent decades? (2) How have paid work-child care time divisions shifted differently for less-educated versus more-educated mothers? (3) What are the trends in educational disparities in mothers’ well-being, and to what extent do mothers’ time-use patterns contribute to these changes? This dissertation found that there has been a significant historical decline in educational disparities in mothers’ developmentally adaptive child care time investment over the past two decades. Second, mothers with different educational attainments have gradually adopted divergent paid work-child care time coordination strategies: while high school and less educated mothers saw an increased tendency to spend high volumes of time on child care without employment, college-educated mothers became more likely to invest moderate time on child care while maintaining full-time professional jobs. Finally, college-educated mothers, who were initially at a disadvantage, have experienced significant improvements in the quantity and quality of downtime over the past two decades. Some evidence suggests that the shifting distribution of paid work-child care time coordination patterns contribute to the enhancements in leisure quality for college-educated mothers. This dissertation offers an updated understanding of how US mothers with varying educational backgrounds balance work and family, the potential trade-offs between mothers’ well-being and children’s development, with suggestive impacts on the intergenerational transmission of advantage.Item The Effects of Causal Attributions and Previous Status on Expectations(2024) Greenberg, Mollie; Lucas, Jeffrey W; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I explore the influence of status history and causal attribution on expectations. I propose that information about status history and causal attribution of status help to explain how expectations form. To test these propositions, I develop a model that accounts for the possible influence of previous history with a characteristic on current expectations. I also propose that causal attribution and previous status information may work in concert to influence expectations. I examine the influence that causal attribution of status has on expectations when status remains consistent and the influence of causal attribution in the event of status change. I begin by assessing the utility of this combined “Status-Attribution Model” overall. Next, I build upon findings examining if perception of status affects both expectations of those being evaluated and behavior toward these individuals. Finally, I explore effects that the combination of status history and attribution has on the self-concept. In Study 1, I found, as expected, that information about status history and information indicating attribution of status can affect expectations. Status loss had a significantly negative effect on evaluations compared to evaluations of those with consistently low status. Also as expected, internal attribution of status led to significant differences between ratings. Results from Study 2 were more variable. As expected, those who experienced status loss were rated as significantly more dependent than those who remained consistently low status on that characteristic. But causal attribution of status did not always affect evaluations. In Study 3, many findings supported my hypotheses. As predicted, internal attribution of low status made individuals rate themselves as less trustworthy and report a lower sense of mastery and self-esteem. And the effect of attribution on self-concept was magnified when considered with status loss. But unexpectedly, those that experienced status loss rated themselves as significantly less able and competent relative to those with consistent low status. Results from each study indicate that factors apart from current status, including status history and causal attribution, can significantly influence expectation formation. Both expected and unexpected findings present many avenues for future research.Item PLATONIC CO-PARENTING: A NEW LENS INTO THE UNFINISHED GENDER REVOLUTION(2024) Reddy, Shilpa; Chuang, Julia; Madhavan, Sangeetha; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the extent to which platonic co-parenting (PCP), an alternative family form in which parenting is separated from romantic relationships and often also from coresidence, is creating and sustaining gender egalitarian parenting relationships. In other words, how gender egalitarian are these parenting partnerships? Using 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with men, women, non-binary and trans people, who were at different stages of the PCP journey, I investigated the practice of platonic co-parenting by focusing on the motivations for people to choose the PCP path to parenting; and how they navigated gendered patriarchal norms in the process of becoming PCPs including division of household labor. I found two broad categories of people who were drawn to PCP: those who attempted to subvert hegemonic, heteronormative ideals of family and parenting; and those who attempted to reproduce these ideals. The subverters aspired to form gender egalitarian and equal partnerships whereas the reproducers desired/imagined the mother as the primary parent and the father’s role being closer to a sperm donor’s—a father figure as opposed to an involved father. Among the subverters, the realities of the division of labor once they had a child turned out to be far less gender egalitarian than they had intended as the pull of traditional gender norms was quite strong for both men and women. PCPs engaged in gendered boundary work to separate aspects of their family that fell in the transactional realm and those that fell in the intimate/sacred realm free of monetary or other exchanges. Framing certain activities (childbearing, breastfeeding, relocation, and parental leave) as intimate had the unintended consequence of creating inequality between the male and female co-parents. By using the language of altruism to naturalize their arrangements, PCPs intend to be seen as “real” families while leaving in place traditional cleavages of the gendered division of labor.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 EFFECTS OF GROUP STATUS AND IDENTITY ALIGNMENT ON SOCIAL INFLUENCE(2024) Beavan, Kelly Ann; Lucas, Jeffrey W; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A series of three studies examine effects of social identity alignment versus social status on influence within task groups. Status Characteristics Theory (SCT) predicts that deference will be given to high-status members, and Social Identity Theory (SIT) predicts deference to in-group members. This dissertation investigates conditions under which social status or identity alignment might be more predictive of deference by examining status characteristics that also constitute significant identities or memberships to a social in-group (e.g., race, gender). By discerning when social identity or status holds greater sway in task groups, results of three experimental studies shed light on influence dynamics and the interplay of status and social identity. The studies tested three mechanisms—degree of in-group identification, identity threat, and task importance—expected to be impactful in affecting the influence of high-/low-status, in-/out-group partners under varying conditions. Study 1 examines these processes in a minimal group setting (based on abstract groups based on “cognitive association styles”), and Studies 2 and 3 use more naturally-occurring social groups (e.g., home state in Study 2), such as those attached to an overarching status hierarchy (e.g., gender and race in Study 3). Each experiment had participants work with two (simulated) partners to complete a series of trials on an uncertain group task. This setting met the scope conditions for the theories I am applying to establish group structures: Participants were task and collectively oriented (SCT), were working on a task with no immediate feedback about performance and were explicitly told of categorical group differences between themselves and their partners (SIT). The instructions for Study 1 assigned participants to minimal groups based on bogus cognitive association styles. Study 2 used self-reported home state as a group-differentiating characteristic, and finally, Study 3 tested theorized processes with gender and race. Hypothesis 1 predicted that high-status partners would exert more influence than low-status partners and found partial support in Studies 2 and 3, primarily driven by the influence of high-status (in-group) partners over subjects. Hypothesis 2 predicted that in-group partners would have more influence than out-group partners, and results generally supported this by revealing strong influence from in-group partners, regardless of status (although in-group high-status partners were most influential in Studies 2 and 3). Hypothesis 3, which expected heightened task importance to increase deference to high-status others, did not receive strong empirical or theoretical support and was only directly manipulated in Study 1. Hypothesis 4 predicted that under threat to group identity, the effects of group membership on influence would increase relative to that of status. Contrary to expectations, results revealed that identity threat significantly increased the influence levels of high-status partners, even when that high-status meant out-group membership. These findings suggested that identity threat did not heighten the SIT-based effects on social influence (i.e., in-group influence), as predicted, and in some ways point to an SCT-based explanation (i.e., high-status influence) under threat. Hypothesis 5, predicting that identification to the in-group would increase the impact of group membership, relative to that of status, on outcomes of social influence, was strongly supported in Studies 1 and 3. Participants who more highly identified with their in-group accepted greater influence from their in-group (compared to out-group) partners, regardless of that in-group’s relative (high- or low-) status. An SIT interpretation of this finding suggests that low-status in-group members who more highly identify with their (e.g., racial, gender) in-group may not necessarily be more influenced by similar in-group others simply because of their shared group membership. They do, however, appear to be significantly less influenced by out-group others (even when that out-group is higher-status), a finding consistent with my predictions on in-group identification. Finally, Hypothesis 6, predicting in-group identification to moderate the relationships between task importance (6a) and identity threat (6b) on social influence, found mixed support. More highly-identified participants were more influenced by in-group partners (compared to their out-group counterparts), and in-group identification significantly and directly predicted influence above and beyond effects from experimental manipulations. Results from the three studies show that subtle features of the group context (identity threat and heightened in-group identification) affect how much influence (high- and low-status) group members exert over individuals. Findings from this research highlight the complex interplay between status, group membership, identification and threat in shaping social influence dynamics, and I conclude by using these results to evaluate the relative strength of status-based (SCT) versus identity-based (SIT) processes in driving outcomes of social influence.Item Social Inequalities in Motherhood: The Consequences on Women's Well-being and Children's Outcomes(2024) Yan, Xu; Sayer, Liana; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Parenthood in general, and motherhood in particular, has long been documented to bring both costs and benefits to adults’ well-being. The well-being of mothers and the impacts of motherhood on women’s well-being are also found to vary depending on the social groups women belong to. However, current findings on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic differences in mothers’ well-being are limited, inconsistent, and concentrated predominantly in Western developed countries. Poor mental health in mothers can negatively affect children’s development. Children experiencing development problems, in turn, can also trigger poor mental health in mothers. Yet, so far, we know little about whether this bi-directional relationship varies according to mothers’ socioeconomic status (SES). Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: 2010-11 Kindergarten Class and the China Family Panel Study, this dissertation answers three sets of research questions. First, are there racial-ethnic differences in U.S. mothers’ parenting-related stress and its associations with depression? Using latent profile analysis to address the multidimensionality of mothers’ parenting stress, I find racial-ethnic disparities not only in the type of parenting stress that mothers face but also in the associations between each type of parenting stress and mothers’ depression levels. Second, do Chinese mothers aged between 20 and 49 report better or worse well-being than their peers who have never had a child? Does the effect of motherhood on women’s well-being vary by women’s SES? The results show that while Chinese mothers generally report worse well-being than women without children, the negative well-being consequences of parenting non-adult children are less pronounced among rural-to-urban migrant women with moderate income and education than among their more disadvantaged and privileged peers. But having only adult children, when compared to not having children, is more harmful to migrant women than to more privileged women. Third, how do U.S. mothers’ parenting stress and children’s developmental outcomes influence each other bi-directionally over time? How do mothers’ education levels moderate the relationships? I find negative mutual impacts between mothers’ parenting stress and children’s developmental outcomes. But both the harm of high parenting stress on child outcomes and the detrimental impact of children’s developmental problems on parenting stress are more pronounced among mothers without a college degree. Overall, my findings reveal the complex roles of race-ethnicity, SES, and national contexts in shaping mothers’ parenting experiences, well-being, and children’s developmental outcomes. I conclude by discussing the empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions of these findings to research on social inequalities in motherhood and the consequences on mothers’ well-being and children’s outcomes. Additionally, I address the policy implications of this dissertation for enhancing the well-being of women and children with diverse social backgrounds.Item Variability of Age at First Union Formation and First Marriage and Its Potential Effects on Experiencing Depression(2023) Cheng, Hao-Chun; Cohen, Philip N.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study aims to investigate changes in the variability of age at first union formation and first marriage and how the relative timing potentially affects the likelihood of experiencing depression at the age of forty in the United States. Both the destandardization of the life course and the deinstitutionalization of marriage over the past few decades may have contributed to less pronounced cultural conformity regarding the age at first union formation and first marriage. This, in turn, leads to a more diverse variability of age at first union formation and first marriage in recent cohorts among the overall and married populations. In addition, owing to the divergent paces of destandardization of the life course and the deinstitutionalization of marriage across gender, education levels, and race, changes in variability may differ among these social groups. Using multiple nationally representative datasets, the results reveal a U-shaped trend in changes in the variability of age at first union formation and first marriage. Specifically, the variability becomes less diverse in the mid-twentieth cohorts and then becomes more diverse in recent cohorts. However, the trend varies across gender, education levels, and race. While Black and highly-educated women have a more diverse variability of age at first union formation, women, non-Hispanic White, and highly educated people tend to have a less diverse variability of age at first marriage. The results indicate an insignificant effect of relative timing on the likelihood of experiencing depression. These findings shed light on changes in cultural conformity embedded within marriage as a social institution and highlight the important roles played by the destandardization of the life course and the deinstitutionalization of marriage in these changes in the United States.Item Latinx Motherhood Reassessed: How Second and Later-Generation Latina Mothers Redefine Motherhood, Latinidad, and Pursue Intergenerational Healing(2023) Reyna, Chandra V; Dow, Dawn M; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines how social location, experience with racialization, and generation since immigration influence the parenting practices and mothering ideologies of second- and later-generation upwardly mobile Latina mothers. Through 62 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Latina mothers across the United States, I explore four sets of questions. First, how do second and later-generation Latinx mothers approach parenting amidst multiple cultural scripts of motherhood? Second, how does social location, experience with racialization, and immigrant generation inform the motherhood ideologies and parenting practices of second and later-generation Latinx mothers? Third, how do Latinx mothers approach ethnoracial socialization and transmission of cultural knowledge with their children? And lastly, how do second and later-generation Latinx mothers’ experiences and practices highlight the incorporation strategies and challenges of later-generation Latinx people? My findings show that upwardly mobile second and later-generation Latinx mothers intentionally deviate from the mothering strategies used by earlier family matriarchs and also do not replicate those of white American mothers. Instead, they adopt what I call a culturally transformative mothering approach that involves 1) intentionally selecting and integrating valued aspects of their cultural background into their parenting practices while also 2) identifying and altering practices they deem harmful and remnants of structural inequalities. Overall, my findings demonstrate that middle-class Latina mothering is distinct from both mothers’ ethnic communities of origin and white American middle-class motherhood. It is instead informed by cultural expectations and traditions but adapted to fit their current social, cultural, and economic needs of mothering in the United States.