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 Connecting Spaces: Gender, Video Games and Computing in the Early Teens(Sage, 2023-04) Ashlock, Jennifer; Stojnic, Miodrag; Tufekci, ZeynepInformed by evidence that computing attitudes may be uniquely constructed in informal contexts and that the early teens are a key period for academic decision-making, we investigate lines of practice that connect computing skills, attitudes, and videogames. We compare the relationship between computer skill, computer efficacy, and activities associated with gaming using a data set of 3,868 children in middle school. The time that children spend gaming has very modest association with skill and efficacy. Accounting for the frequency with which children modify games, engage in social gaming activities, and the salience of gamer identity explains the gender gap in computer skill and significantly narrows the gender gap in computer efficacy. We find support for the argument that computer skill and efficacy are dependent on children connecting often isolated social contexts, a socially embedded characteristic of the digital divide.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 WOMEN IN ORANGE: HOW WOMEN IN PRISON ADAPT, NAVIGATE RELATIONSHIPS, AND MAINTAIN IDENTITY(2023) Philippon , Cassandra Nicole; Porter, Lauren; Ellis, Rachel; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The body of literature describing women’s prisons and the adaptations of women in prison largely overlook the role femininity plays in structuring life in the single-sex space of a women’s prison. Virtual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifty-six women housed at a women’s prison in Arizona. Participants described providing care for others and care for the self. Life in the prison was therefore structured primarily around care, which refers to a feeling of concern or interest, providing for the needs of someone, or paying close attention to doing something to avoid harm.Item Essays on the Economics of Crime, Gender, and Health(2023) Ramirez Pierce, Elena; Goldberg, Jessica; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation I study the impacts of large government programs on crime and health outcomes. I also run an online experiment about the use of professional titles to elicit perceptions of experts cited in major news outlets and to test whether these perceptions vary across genders. In the first chapter, I examine the effects of large changes in cash availability on crime. South Africa has a large social safety net comprised of numerous cash transfer programs, called social grants, that are paid on a monthly basis. Prior to late 2018, these social grants were paid mostly in cash at grant disbursement locations called paypoints. Using a differences-in-differences (DiD) strategy, I analyze the effects of the temporary increase in cash availability on crime by comparing crimes on social grant payment dates in small geographical areas, police precincts, between areas with differing numbers of cash disbursement locations. The results suggest a small decrease in crime the day prior to social grant payments, and small increases the day of payments or the day after payments, depending on the empirical specification. These results are consistent with perpetrators potentially delaying their labor supply of crime until the widely publicized cash grant payment days, an anticipation effect, and increasing their labor supply of crime on or after payment days consistent with a loot effect, resulting from increased cash and purchased goods availability. Chapter two investigates whether there exists a credibility penalty for female experts compared to male experts when major news outlets forgo the use of professional titles, such as ``Dr." that serve as an information signal on the level of their training. Given the extensive literature on gender and racial bias in media reporting and professional and academic environments, the practice of abstaining from the use of professional titles may reinforce and even exacerbate these biases. In this co-authored analysis, we test for differential effects by conducting an online experiment that presented survey respondents with news articles holding constant content, but varying the gender and title of the cited experts and asked them to rate the expert's credibility. Our design enables between-subject and within-subject analysis. While we are able to detect a positive credibility effect of using professional titles, we are unable to distinguish a differential credibility impact across gender. Finally, in chapter three I estimate the effects of a large-scale national physician provision program in Brazil on birth outcomes. Given the risk to mothers of injury and disease associated with childbirth that may affect the health of the newborn, as well as the myriad of complications that may arise that could threaten the health of the fetus, increasing access to and quality of medical care may have substantial effects on birth outcomes. The Mais Medicos Program (PMM) focused on equalizing physicians per capita as well as generally increasing the number of physicians across the country. Beginning in late 2013 and an executive branch initiative, the program placed almost 20,000 physicians by 2016, predominantly from Cuba, throughout the country. Using vital statistics data of the universe of births in Brazil from 2006 to 2017, I estimate the effect of increasing the supply of primary care physicians on birth weight using both a differences-in-differences and an instrumental variables approach. I find that PMM resulted in higher average birth weight for children throughout Brazil. However, I find no improvement on the incidence of low birth weight or any weight effects for those living in rural parts of the country. Hence, these results imply PMM did not affect the most vulnerable pregnancies.Item “You're biracial but…”: Multiracial socialization discourse among mommy bloggers with Black and non-Black multiracial children(Wiley, 2022-06-30) Reyna, Chandra V.Objective This study examines thematic content and discourse surrounding multiracial socialization between Black and non-Black multiracial families on multiracial mommy blogs. Background Mommy blogs have been recognized as a medium through which mothers challenge dominant representations of motherhood, create community with other mothers, and seek out advice. But little is known about how mothers write about and discuss race, racism, and multiracial socialization online. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing how a niche of bloggers—mothers to multiracial children—construct narratives surrounding race, multiraciality, and multiracial socialization online and how their narratives differ by the racial makeup of the blogger's family. Method Using a MultiCrit framework, this study analyzes 13 mommy blogs written by mothers of color with multiracial children. Blogs were analyzed for thematic content related to race, racial identification, multiraciality, and multiracial socialization. Results The findings demonstrate that mothers' orientations to multiracial socialization vary depending on whether the blogger has Black or non-Black multiracial children. Bloggers who are mothers to Black multiracial children blogged frequently about their engagement in safety socialization, whereas mothers with non-Black multiracial children did not. Conclusion The stark difference between thematic content from bloggers with and without Black multiracial children highlights the differing experiences among Black and non-Black multiracial people, for mothers of Black multiracial children, and the implications anti-Black racism has on family processes.Item Does Interacting with Women Encourage Civic and Prosocial Attitudes? Evidence from Simulated Contact Experiments in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait(Cambridge University Press, 2023-06-22) Jones, Clavert W.Research suggests that interacting with women may encourage civic and prosocial attitudes, yet findings to date have been limited to democracies notable for their egalitarian norms. Using simulated contact experiments under controlled conditions, this article tests hypotheses for the first time in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, arguably “hard cases” given persistent norms of patriarchy and gender segregation. Yet, despite stronger contexts for male dominance, results suggest that interacting with women may indeed steer Saudi and Kuwaiti men toward more civic and other-regarding orientations, including aspects of tolerance, egalitarianism, openness, and community rule-following. These findings add much-needed comparative perspective to experimental research on mixed-gender dynamics and align with broader work highlighting the benefits of diverse interactions for groups and nations.Item Essays in Gender and Development(2023) SIVARAM, ANUSUYA; Goldberg, Jessica; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation consists of three essays at the intersection of gender and economics in developing countries. In chapter 1, I study the economic implications of a particular cultural practice: cousin, or consanguineous, marriage. One sixth of all marriages in Egypt are between first cousins, but there are important differences in the characteristics of individuals who select into such relationships relative to those who marry non-relatives. To measure the causal impact of the practice on socioeconomic outcomes abstracting from selection, I instrument for the probability of marrying a cousin using exogenous variation in family structure, and use weak instrument robust methods to estimate parameters and evaluate statistical significance. I find that individuals who marry a cousin because of exogenous attributes of their natal family structure are further in age from their spouse, predominantly driven by older men marrying cousins. I also find that women married to cousins receive higher levels of marital transfers that give them bargaining power within their marriages, likely as compensation for their spouse's attributes. This contrasts to patterns for those who select into cousin marriage; those individuals are younger at the time of marriage, match with partners closer to their own ages, and have no differences in the level of marital transfers exchanged. The contrast between OLS and IV results suggests that selection into cousin marriage may be motivated by anticipation of not matching on the wider marriage market, credit constraints, or the desire to consolidate property within the extended family. In chapter 2, I present baseline statistics from an experiment which examines the impact of random job offers on women's experiences of intimate partner violence in Bangladesh. This paper build on a larger study which aims to increase women's labor force participation and use of mobile money services. I collect supplementary data on women's experiences of intimate partner violence, men and women's agreement with conservative social norms, and second order beliefs regarding their community's sanction of intimate partner violence. I validate survey measures of intimate partner violence with a list randomization elicitation. I also present results from two incentivized decisionmaking activities conducted at baseline. I specify the outcomes I plan to test once endline data is available, as well as the econometric specifications I will use. Finally, I present power calculations using baseline data to determine the smallest effect sizes I can detect. Finally, in chapter 3, I study the impact of an exogenous negative shock to labor demand for female migrants within Bangladesh. I use a difference in differences strategy and compare outcomes between districts that have a history of sending migrants with those that do not, before and after the shock. I find that migrants respond to the initial shock and return to their households rather than remain unemployed in Dhaka, and that at least some of these women marry. I see no decrease in the level of investment in children's human capital, which suggests households do not revise their perceptions regarding the returns to education, and have access to other tools to smooth consumption. Finally, I see no changes in the daily agricultural wage rate for women in the years after the shock. I lack data on several important margins of adjustment which would allow us to discern the mechanisms behind the effects.Item Mothers as Agents of Social Change in the Movement Against Sexual Violence(2023) Drotning, Kelsey J.; Cohen, Philip N; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation examines how the #MeToo movement is changing generational understandings of sexual violence. Through this research, I examine how sexual violence is both a cause and a consequence of systemic gender and race inequality. Using eighteen in-depth semi-structured interviews of mothers with at least one child aged five-years or older, I investigate three sets of questions. First, how are mothers evaluating their own experiences with sexual violence post #MeToo movement? Second, how is sexual violence part of mother-child conversations about sexual behavior? Third, how do mothers; social location contribute to how they feel about the #MeToo movement and how they teach their children about sexual violence? My findings suggest mothers are transmitting new understandings of sexual violence to their children. Specifically, mothers are teaching their children that appropriate touch, sexual or nonsexual, cannot be determined using a binary yes or no standard of consent. Their approach to sex education is driven by their own experiences with sex that was violating and/or nonconsensual and consideration of their own and their children's social location. Overall, my findings demonstrate the #MeToo movement and other associated events have ushered in a change in mothers' rape consciousness which is facilitating change in children's sex education. If successful, mothers will have contributed to decreased prevalence of sexual violence as these children age into adolescence and adulthood.Item Inequality in the College-to-Career Transition: Self-Scarring and Underemployment(2020) Dernberger, Brittany Noel; Kleykamp, Meredith; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A recent college graduate working as a coffee shop barista, earning minimum wage and carrying thousands of dollars in student loan debt, is a familiar trope in conversations about the value of a bachelor’s degree. In the college-for-all era, young people are encouraged to attain a bachelor’s degree to bolster their labor market opportunities (Rosenbaum 2001), yet 42 percent of recent college graduates, and 35 percent of all college graduates, are working in jobs that do not require a college degree (Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2020). The American Dream posits that individual perseverance will lead to increased economic security. Young people invest in college as a pathway to a good job. Why does a degree not equally benefit all graduates, and how do graduates respond when their college investment does not pay off? I employ restricted-access Monitoring the Future panel data (1976 – 2015) and interviews with 60 recent college graduates to examine how college graduates transition from school-to-work, and how they respond when it does not go as planned. I contribute to studies of underemployment scarring by extending the context from workplace consequences to individual decision-making, unpacking how and why young people make choices related to their post-graduation employment outcomes. By examining how graduates engage as students and connecting that to post-college employment outcomes, I illustrate how graduates self-scar by making choices that diminish their ability to quickly translate their degree into a good job along three dimensions: 1) not engaging in outside-the-classroom activities during college, which are critical for career exposure and career-relevant skill-building; 2) downshifting job expectations in response to underemployment; and 3) making labor market choices that elongate underemployment. However, graduates’ decisions are not made in a vacuum, and preexisting inequalities – in economic resources, first generation student status, and social and cultural capital – are often perpetuated in the wake of underemployment. Graduates often blame themselves for their lack of labor market success. This project illuminates how inequality is replicated during the college-to-career transition through graduates’ self-scarring decisions and contributes to our understanding of who can achieve economic mobility through returns on a college education.Item Gender Minority Young Adult Mental Health: Anti-Transgender Prejudice, Mediators, and Implications in the COVID-19 Era(2020) Pease, M; Iwamoto, DerekBinary and nonbinary transgender young adults exist in a state of marginalization in American society. Both interpersonal and institutional forms of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression against trans individuals have created a myriad of mental and physical health disparities in this population. Yet, limited research has examined the mechanisms of risk for transgender young adults. Moreover, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate risk for marginalized groups. Using a minority stress framework and online cross-sectional survey design (N = 239), the current study examines gender dysphoria, emotion dysregulation, and relational authenticity as mediators of the relationship between transgender distal stress and negative mental health outcomes (i.e., psychological distress, alcohol use, and e-cigarette use) during the early stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic (late May to early July 2020). Additional data examined stressors relating to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Findings suggest gender dysphoria and emotion dysregulation mediate the distal stress-psychological distress pathway. An indirect effect of relational authenticity on alcohol use and gender dysphoria on e-cigarette use was also observed. Results are contextualized within the COVID-19 pandemic and critical implications are drawn for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.
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