College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Investigating the Relationship Between Micro and Macro Levels of Efficacy and Their Effects on Crime(2010) Ahlin, Eileen M.; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The concepts of self-efficacy and collective efficacy have both been used by scholars to explain involvement in individual-level crime. Scholars have found that both types of efficacy are related to crime at the individual level. However, little research has examined the relationship between self-efficacy and collective efficacy and its influence on youths' involvement in crime. Using the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) data, this study focuses on the independent influences of self-efficacy and collective efficacy on involvement in crime among youths ages 9 to 19, and examines the potential moderating effect of collective efficacy on the relationship between self-efficacy and crime. The relationship between self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and crime is addressed by asking three questions. First, does a general measure of youth's self-efficacy influence their involvement in crime? Second, does a macro level measure of collective efficacy influence youths' involvement in crime? Third, does collective efficacy moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and crime? To control for the contexts in which youths live and individual-level factors that can influence involvement in crime, and may influence efficacy, neighborhood context, family context, and individual-level demographic variables are also examined. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling, the analyses indicate mixed support for a relationship between efficacy and individual-level involvement in crime. First, a significant negative relationship exists between self-efficacy and crime. Second, no significant effects emerge between collective efficacy and crime. Third, collective efficacy completely moderates the relationship between self-efficacy and crime, but not in the expected direction. After controlling for collective efficacy, the significant negative relationship between self-efficacy and crime is nullified. The conclusion then is that a general measure of self-efficacy influences a youth's involvement in crime, while a macro level measure of collective efficacy does not. Areas of future research and implications for theory and policy are discussed.Item Managing Water: Efficiency-Equity Tradeoffs in the Participatory Approach(2010) O'Donnell, Anna; Korzeniewicz, Roberto P; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates the hypothesis that participation can overcome trade-offs in equity and efficiency. Literature within the field of economics and sociology has argued for tradeoffs in outcomes of allocative efficiency and equity and institutional efficiency and equity, respectively. Community-based participatory institutions are expected to overcome this tension by introducing institutional accountability and local-level decision making, which serve to enhance technical and allocative efficiency while retaining mechanisms for equitable allocation and empowerment. This research draws on fieldwork from a community-managed water supply program in rural Bahia, Brazil to examine whether outcomes of efficiency and equity are mutually compatible. Findings from the field research indicate that explicit and implicit subsidies to the water supply systems led to outcomes of allocative equity in the sites visited, but that these generated tradeoffs with allocative efficiency. Findings from the research also indicated that the community organizations were relatively efficient in their administrative practices, but that this efficiency came at a cost to equality of membership and voice in the community organization. This suggests that participatory water supply programs generate certain and specific costs, although the findings also suggest additional positive externalities associated with participation.Item How University Athletic Program Success Associates With University Prestige Via the Halo Effect For Different Types of Universities(2008-12-05) Quattrone, Westleigh Alan; Lucas, Jeffrey; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Athletic program success may be a way for universities to achieve prestigious status. The halo effect may allow perceptions of athletic programs to be extended to other aspects of the university. This process was hypothesized not only to occur, but to occur to a differing extent across university types. I predicted that universities that are new, secular, public, outside of the Northeastern United States, and that do not have name designations would show the greatest gains in prestige upon achieving high athletic success. Regression analyses tested the relationship between expert ratings of universities and athletic success rates of major football and basketball sports programs. Results indicated a positive association between athletic success rates and university prestige. This process did not significantly vary by university types. Results also showed expert ratings of universities highly correlated with those of non-experts, indicating that expert assessment is a good proxy for typical prestige perceptions.Item Defying Expectations: Associational Participation and Democratization in Poor Communities in Argentina(2008-08-19) Sacouman, Natasha; Korzeniewicz, Roberto P.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the key to democracy is "knowledge of how to combine." This dissertation focuses on the following question: Can participation in associations facilitate democracy within the communities in which they exist even if such associations are not democratically organized - i.e., vertical, hierarchical organizations. To consider this question, this dissertation explores a poor community's transition from a sparse to a highly developed associational space, and examines the impact of this process of democratization on social relations at both the associational and the personal levels (between leaders, participants, and non-participants). Specifically, I compare three different associational settings in a barrio in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina -- i.e., a non-governmental organization, a religious network, and a political party network -- to assess whether democratization can occur with the construction and communication of symbolic meaning and objective practices by vertically structured, hierarchical organizations. I analyze the interplays between inclusion and exclusion; solidarity and generalized distrust; and inequality and protagonism. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates how the configuration of social relations serves to legitimate and reproduce civic life in poor communities. This dissertation is based upon extensive ethnographic observations in three different associations and the community itself, as well as upon qualitative interviews with community leaders, participants, nonparticipants, politicians and academics.Item Society and Infrastructure: Geographical Accessibility and its Effects on School Enrolment in Nepal(2007-10-12) KC, Shyam; Vanneman, Reeve D.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research examines the effects of geographical isolation on school enrolment in Nepal using mainly the Nepal Living Standards Survey-II (2003-2004). Nepal, a country with severe road accessibility problems, presents an especially suitable population for this research. Geographical access is measured as the time required by the household to reach the nearest motorable (dirt or paved) road. The accessibility profile that emerges reflects three forms of imbalance in the state-society relations in Nepal. The first imbalance is regional. The second imbalance is socio-economic reflected mainly in higher concentrations of poverty and illiteracy in inaccessible areas. The third imbalance is the state's inability to cater essential services for the people there. Stepwise regressions of the NLSS-II cross sectional data show that isolated children are less likely to be enrolled in part because they are poorer, have less educated parents and are from disadvantaged caste/ethnic groups. Another important part of the reason is isolated children are served by distant and low quality schools and also lack basic services such as electricity. Among secondary aged children, isolation continues to have an independent effect even after taking into account all other determinants of enrolment. This suggests that isolation operates beyond the socio-economic, familial and institutional disadvantages the children face in getting enrolled in school. Adolescent (but not pre-adolescent) girls are more likely to be impacted by inaccessibility than boys. There is no evidence that inaccessibility operates differentially amongst the poor and the non-poor in sending children to school. Analyses of the NLSS panel data reveals that improvements in accessibility improves the chance of the children to continue being enrolled in school, but the remoteness they lived through in their childhood also affects such chances in later years. 'Physical' networks in the form of roads have the potential to enhance social networks and the political voice of isolated households, which in turn enables them to value and demand education for their children. Sociology of roads is a field that needs to be expanded to get a better insight on the social changes that are associated with the building of roads.Item The World War II Veteran Advantage? A Lifetime Cross-Sectional Study of Social Status Attainment(2007-03-16) Smith, Irving; Segal, David R.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The impact of military service on the social status attainment of World War II veterans has been studied since the 1950s; however, the research has failed to come to any consensus with regard to the level of their attainment. Analyses have generally focused on cross-sectional data or longitudinal data without considering the effects of military service over the life course. In this study I argue that World War II veterans had greater social attainment over their lifetimes; that black World War II veterans attained more than white World War II veterans relative to their non-veteran peers; that veterans who served in the latter years of the World War II mobilization attained more than those who served in the earlier years; and that veterans born in cohorts with large proportions of veterans attained more than veterans born to cohorts with smaller proportions of veterans. Social status is measured in terms of education, income, and Duncan Socio-Economic Index. In order to test these hypotheses I use data from the 1950 through 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample. Military service clearly afforded veterans significant advantages through their early and middle working years; however, their non-veteran peers eventually did catch up. Black veterans attained more social status than their non veteran peers throughout their lives. Furthermore, the magnitude of the difference in social status attainment is greater for black veterans relative to their non-veteran peers than the difference for white-veterans relative to their non-veteran peers until very late in the life course. Additionally, peak mobilization phase veterans receive advantage although it is relatively short lived.Item INEQUALITY, INSTITUTIONS AND REDISTRIBUTION(2005-07-29) Aysan, Ahmet Faruk; Betancourt, Roger; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the role of efficiency of redistributive institutions (ERI) on redistribution. The first substantive essay proposes a theoretical model to explain the lack of strong empirical evidence in favor of a positive relationship between income inequality and redistribution. This chapter first shows that even exogenously given ERI affects the relationship between income inequality and redistribution. Then, it introduces three specifications to endogenize ERI. In these various specifications, increasing inequality reduces the ERI when (1) ERI is an increasing function of average income or (2) political influence on ERI is positively associated with income or (3) the median voter has some prospect of upward mobility. There is one common element in these various specifications. While income inequality increases the pressure for redistribution it also increases the incentive to reduce the efficiency of redistribution in order to constrain aggregate redistribution. Hence, the main conclusion is that one needs consider these conflicting effects in order to account for the puzzling lack of strong empirical evidence for a positive relationship between income inequality and redistribution. The second substantive essay empirically analyzes the role of efficiency of redistributive institutions on redistribution in the form of social security and welfare spending. When measures of ERI are incorporated into the existing empirical specifications of income inequality and redistribution, cross-sectional and panel data regressions show that the ERI significantly increases redistribution. However, we find weaker evidence for the role of income inequality on redistribution. Income inequality does not appear to be strongly significant in various specifications of the redistribution equation. Based on this evidence, this chapter concludes that ERI plays an important role in redistribution but this effect does not resolve the fiscal policy puzzle that is emphasized in the theoretical chapter. Moreover, this chapter also explores the determinants of ERI. Our empirical results confirm the theoretical model that an increase in GDP per capita and democracy increases ERI. However, there is less convincing evidence for the negative role of income inequality on the ERI. Among the other determinants of ERI, freedom of the press and trade openness improve ERI considerably.Item The Big Issue of Small Businesses: Contract Enforcement in the New Russia(2005-06-08) Vinogradova, Elena; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dissertation explores the problem of institution-building in nascent capitalist economies, with the emphasis on the role of culture in the genesis of new institutional forms. To help better understand the nature of the post-communist transformation in Russia, I address the questions of organizational adaptation and change in business practices resulting from the changing role of the state in the economy and society, focusing specifically on the problem of contract enforcement among small firms. The main source of data was the empirical research that I conducted in St.Petersburg, Russia, where I interviewed owners and/or managers of forty-five firms in 2001 and 2002. When firms perceive state institutions as unable to guarantee the enforcement of contracts and property rights, they rely on alternative (non-state) ways of enforcing their agreements. My research shows that these strategies can be either based on a given firm's own resources (financial or social), or come from various agencies that offer enforcement services for sale, which vary from government licensed private courts to criminals. Non-state enforcement strategies are rooted in preexisting institutions and cultural practices, and develop in response to specific kinds of state failure to provide contract enforcement. My research findings demonstrate a proliferation of non-state strategies of contract enforcement and dispute resolution, as well as the significance that state contract enforcement institutions have for economic exchange and building of market institutions. The lessons concerning the powerful structuring role of enforcement institutions which my dissertation draws from Russian experience have wider implications not only for analysis but also for policy, and contributes to the literature on the role of the state in capitalist development, and cultural neo-institutionalism. The evidence that I have collected contradicts the neo-liberal belief in the sufficiency of self-regulating markets for the smooth functioning of an economy. It supports an argument that that the capability to provide independent enforcement services for businesses is an indispensable feature of the modern state, and essential to the creation of successful modern capitalism. This is an argument of central importance not only for developing and "transition" countries, but for the long-term future of developed societies as well.