Utilizing an Afrocentric methodological framework, this dissertation research seeks to examine the general public perceptions of African American women as reflected in rap music videos, and to determine how African American females perceive the images that are presented of them in rap music videos. This study explores Black women’s representation through analyses of top ten rap music videos from January to September 2010 and conceptualizes the effects of these representations on Black female viewers. This study also explores the reception of Black women’s images in rap music videos as they are potentially exported to other cultures. This project is a multi-method examination including questionnaires and focus group sessions, exploring the effect of rap music video content on the representation of African American women, society’s perceptions of African American females, and how when given an opportunity to construct their own media image, how would African women be represented.
Posts Tagged ‘Sociology’:
The Making of the Presidency in Revolutionary Spanish America Executive Power and State Formation in Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela, 1810-1826
This dissertation examines the making of the presidency in nineteenth century Latin America by linking it to the processes of early national state formation. The aim is to offer a systematic and historical analysis that can explain the creation of presidential government in revolutionary Spanish America. It has a comparative historical focus with three cases: Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina. The period under analysis spans from independence from the Spanish Empire in 1810 to the mid 1820s, when all these countries had adopted presidentialism for the first time. The thesis that I propose is that the creation of presidentialism can be explained by the early nineteenth century constitution makers’ intention to create legitimate centralized political authority, namely an authority compatible with popular sovereignty, constitutionalism and liberalism in the context of post-revolutionary and post-colonial state formation. I argue that presidentialism was adopted against other choices because constitution makers regarded it as the most suitable institution for the needs of national state formation and liberal legitimation. I use an analytical framework that involves three contexts that facilitate the presidential outcome: revolutionary politics, state building and the fear of federalism and international relations.
Subjective Congruence for Public Expenditure: A Political Transactions Cost Approach
Previous public choice literature has paid little attention to individuals own perspective on public resource allocation. Their subjectivity, however, provides a useful proxy for experienced utility for public goods and services. I examine the subjective evaluation that individuals make by looking at the psychological distance between their preferred and perceived public expenditure, which I call subjective congruence, in four policy areas: education, health, pensions, and unemployment benefits. My dissertation is an effort to understand the determinants of subjective congruence within a transaction cost politics framework. I focus on the perceptual determinants of subjective congruence that go beyond self-interest and political ideology that are polarizing rather than compromising factors among citizens. Extant research in economics and political science offer the individuals self-interest and political ideology as the main factors that determine policy support or policy satisfaction. I argue that subjective congruence is strongly driven by perceptual factors such as effective public service delivery, political trust, and procedural fairness because these perceptual factors reduce political transactions costs that collective decisions impose on individuals in public life. In the first part of my dissertation, I examine what makes for variation of subjective congruence across countries. Using a cross-national analysis on 57 countries, I find evidence that regime type and political institutions per se do not systematically explain cross-country differences in subjective congruence and that the reduction of political transactions costs has a larger substantive effect on increasing subjective congruence under democracies than under autocracies. I then examine the perceptual factors that affect subjective congruence at the individual level. Using a hierarchical model with cross-national survey data, I find statistically significant and substantially larger effects of political trust and procedural fairness on subjective congruence than the effects of self-interests and of political ideology. My findings show how conflicting interests and heterogeneous preferences for public resource allocation can reach a workable consensus in a democracy, an outcome that standard models focusing only on individual self-interest hardly explain. The topic is important because individual perception drives public attitudes and behaviors toward tax payments, redistribution, and political participation.
Commercium Toward a Critical Social Theory of the Cosmopolitan
Most theories of postnational politics share a common flaw, in that they operate on a theoretical plane that flies “over the heads” of those who would actually participate in any future world order. A critical theory of world order, in contrast, aspires to a postnational politics that can be freely accepted, legitimated, and internalized by participants themselves. Drawing on Immanuel Kant’s writings on cosmopolitanism and Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action, I construct a model that traces the makeup of our world order to relations of “thoroughgoing interaction” that take place among thinking, speaking, and acting participants, who taken together compose what Kant called a “commercium.” I advocate the usefulness of this conceptual framework in (1) explicating the emergence and transformation of collective identities and their boundaries from a participants’ perspective as opposed to an objectivistic one, (2) analyzing the systemic constraints placed on human freedom by the modern state system, and (3) assessing possibilities, given such constraints, for developing new forms of political solidarity and legitimacy.
Mexican American women’s perspectives of the intersection of race and gender in public high school: A critical race theory analysis
This qualitative multiple participant case study examined Mexican American womens experiences at the intersection of race and gender in public high school. Mexican American womens experiences cannot be isolated and described independently in terms of either race or gender. The intersection of race and gender for Mexican American women has not been investigated fully. The few studies that include Mexican American females focus on dropouts and emphasize at risk factors such as gender, race, socioeconomic status, and language. Consequently, the gaps in the empirical literature are caused in part by the shortage of research on Mexican American women and the propensity toward examining Mexican American women from the deficit perspective. Critical Race Theory was the framework for the analysis and the interpretation in this study. The significant findings of this research support CRT, in that racism is prevalent and ordinary in the daily the lives of Mexican American females. The findings of the study included: First, racism is endemic and pervasive in public education. Second, colorblindness is the notion from which many educational entities operate. Third, the participants perceive social justice as the solution to ending all forms of racism and oppression. Finally, navigating the system is necessary to learn to be academically successful. The results contribute to the limited research on Mexican American women at the intersection of race and gender and the racism experienced in public high school to the overall CRT research in education, and in particular, to LatCrit research.
A study of the membership of the National FFA Alumni Association: Volunteering, loyalty, and benefits
There has been little research conducted related to the National FFA Alumni Association since its establishment in 1971. The purposes of this study were to determine the demographic characteristics of the membership of the National FFA Alumni Association, determine whether differences exist regarding members motivation to join and engage themselves in the local FFA Alumni affiliate, and whether differences exist in members loyalty to the FFA Alumni at the national and local levels based on their level of engagement. This descriptive study utilized survey research to accomplish the purpose, assessing the motivational functions for volunteering and measuring loyalty to the local FFA Alumni affiliate and the National FFA Alumni Association. The population of this study was the membership of the National FFA Alumni Association for the 2009–2010 membership year N ＝ 49,589). A proportional stratified random sample n ＝ 1,000) was used to identify study participants and ensure representation from the four membership regions of the National FFA Alumni Association. Based on a final usable sample n ＝ 913), the researcher obtained a final response rate of 43.7% n ＝ 399). The National FFA Alumni Association is comprised of predominantly white, male, college-educated, actively engaged former FFA members with an average age of 49.6 years. The results of independent sample t-tests indicated a significant difference between male and female members in the importance they place on six motivations for volunteering. Female members were considerably higher in the motivational functions of values, understanding, enhancement, social, career, and protective. A correlation analysis also indicated that age of the respondents played a role in the motivation to volunteer. Older members were less motivated in the areas of career, understanding, values, and enhancement. Paired samples t-tests determined members were significantly more loyal to the local FFA Alumni affiliate than the National FFA Alumni Association. There was also a significant difference in the loyalty of members based on their level of engagement with a local FFA Alumni affiliate with more highly engaged members expressing more loyalty to the association.
A few feet to failure: Two essays on enhancing the service experience through customer contact employee performance
The importance of the customer contact employee in providing a successful service experience and ultimately generating customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is unequivocal. Even with research regarding the improvement of customer contact employee performance, managers still struggle with achieving the desired level of performance from their customer contact employees. This dissertation addresses the managerial concern of customer contact employee performance through two essays. Essay 1 uses 308 customer observations nested within 184 customer contact employees and 157 customer contact employee responses nested within 88 managers to examine the key antecedents and consequences of customer contact employee in-role and extra-role performance. Essay 2 uses 1000 daily observations nested within 100 customer contact employees to examine the consequences of customer interpersonal injustice on the emotions, attitudes, and counterproductive work behaviors of customer contact employees. The results from Essay 1 show that while formal marketing controls have no effect on customer contact employee performance, informal marketing controls do increase customer contact employee performance and the manager has an influence on the development of informal controls within an employee. The results from Essay 2 show that interpersonally unjust treatment from customers results in the emotions of anger and guilt within customer contact employees and these two negative emotions reduce job satisfaction and increase counterproductive work behaviors directed at various targets. The results from Essay 2 also show that job satisfaction is negatively related to counterproductive work behaviors directed at various targets and the customer orientation of the customer contact employee increases feelings of guilt following customer interpersonal injustice. Furthermore, the implications for researchers and practitioners offered by the results of both essays are identified and discussed.
Suspended Futures: The Vietnamization of South Vietnamese History and Memory
In 1969, President Richard Nixon announced the “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War, a handover of responsibility for winning the war from the U.S. to its allies, the South Vietnamese. Vietnamization articulated the challenges of achieving political freedom and historical agency for South Vietnamese people. Conceptualizing this term in the early 21st century, I seek to address the ways the war and its subjects) is called into the present to speak about the representability and addressability of the South Vietnamese now. My chapters examine different figurations of South Vietnamese as subjects of modern discourse in the U.S., Vietnam and the diaspora showing how they are resignified and reimagined not simply as the “lost” side of history but those phantoms of the past that must be recognized and reconciled in a post-millennial moment characterized by the “Vietnam Syndrome.” I argue that the South Vietnamese historical experience remains the inassimilable trace of war and product of geo)political history that poses challenges to how the war is traditionally remembered and for whom. Employing a cultural studies and Foucaultean genealogical approach, I analyze contemporary efforts to reconfigure and incorporate South Vietnamese historicity. The first chapter on a U.S.-based Vietnam War archive examines how American recent efforts to represent and include Vietnamese American refugees in their memory work and historical preservation is another instance of Vietnamization that tries to give “voice” to the South Vietnamese without contending with the political contradictions such inclusion entails. The second chapter on the 2006 film Living in Fear depicts postwar struggles of a South Vietnamese soldier trying to survive in post-reunification Vietnam clearing landmines left by Americans—the enduring consequence of Vietnamization. I end with an examination of a protest over a Vietnamese American art exhibit in Orange County and how the issue of anticommunism that emerged from it revives the unassimilable memories and politicized histories of former refugees from South Vietnam. This last chapter illustrates how the South Vietnamese war memory is not a matter for assimilation into contemporary discourse but provides the grounds for endless conflict in negotiating the terms of a war that for many never truly ended.
A categorization scheme for understanding tornado events from the human perspective
Given the recent recognition that not only physical processes, but social, political and economic aspects of hazards determine vulnerability and impact of an event, the next logical step would seem to be the development of classification systems that address those factors. Classifications for natural disasters, such as the Fujita Scale for tornadoes and the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, focus on the physical properties of the event, not the impact on a community. Pre-event vulnerability to a natural hazard is determined by many factors, such as age, race, income and gender, as well as infrastructure such as density of the built environment and health of the industrial base. The behavior of residents in the community, construction quality of shelters and warning system effectiveness also affect vulnerability. If pre-event vulnerability is to be determined by such factors, post-event impact should, at least in part, be as well. The goal of this research was to develop the Tornado Impact-Community Vulnerability Index (TICV) that utilizes variables such as the number of persons killed, economic impacts and social vulnerability to describe to the level of impact a tornado event has on community. As tornadoes that strike unpopulated areas are often difficult to classify, even in the traditional sense, the TICV will take into consideration only events that strike communities with defined political boundaries, or “places” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By assigning a rating to the impact, this index will allow the severity of the storm to be understood in terms of its effect on a specific community and hence its impact, rather than an physically-based rating that gives only a broad, general indication of its physical strength.
Essays in Entrepreneurship
This dissertation contains three essays in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a key generator of economic growth. Entrepreneurial firms innovate, both on the product and process margins, creating new technologies and organizational novelties, bringing about positive spillovers to the economy as a whole. As such, understanding the factors underlying such activity is vital. This dissertation is concerned with who becomes an entrepreneur and why he or she does so, what factors influence the success of an entrepreneurial venture, and what types of institutions best facilitate entrepreneurial activity. The first chapter resolves a longstanding empirical puzzle； that most entrepreneurs enter and persist in self-employment, despite lower initial earnings and earnings growth Hamilton, 2000). I hypothesize that reported income is not a good measure for the returns to self-employment. The self-employed have the ability to underreport earnings estimated to be between 18 and 57 percent Slemrod, 2007)), and can compensate themselves in various ways that do not manifest as reported labor income. The estimation strategy employed to test this hypothesis relies on the presumption that reported consumption by the self-employed will not be systematically misreported, even though income can easily be. Using longitudinal data from the PSID, I find that while individuals report earning 27 percent less in self-employment they in fact consume 5 percent more. This implies a 32 percent differential between reported wage and consumption for the self-employed. Furthermore, this increased consumption does not seem to be offset by lower savings or higher uncertainty. Other results include that the self-employed work longer hours and that lifetime consumption is no lower for those who leave self-employment. The second chapter links the network structure amongst initial employees to the performance of a newly founded firm. We use a large employee-employer linked panel data set from Brazil that allows us to track workers across jobs and establish whether new firm employees have prior joint work experience. We use this information to construct a quantifier for network concentration using the Herfindahl Hirschman Index HHI), and test the impact of network concentration on new firm performance as measured by survival, employment, and wages. We find that new firms with higher network concentrations, i.e. wherein initial employees have worked together previously, are on average larger, have higher wages and survive longer when controlling for industry fixed effects and employees human capital, demographic characteristics, formal sector experience, and size of parent firms. This association increases with the initial size of the newly founded firm. However, we find a negative relationship between network concentration and initial firm growth. Finally, we look at how the size of an individuals parent firm affects the success of her new entrepreneurial venture and find that small firm experience correlates with better survival rates, but lower employment and average wages at the new firm. The third chapter examines the conditions under which an informal network may decide to formalize into an entrepreneurial organization. Such organizations are formal, not-for-profit entities whose main objective is to facilitate networking so as to generate partnerships leading to entrepreneurial ventures. In order to create fruitful business partnerships, both the informal network and the formal organizations seek to grow. The growth process in the informal network occurs via bilateral sponsorship which rigorously screens entrants and is therefore slow, while that for a formal organization is much faster but less certain to only admit high types. We formally model these two entities and set the stage for an analysis of the tradeoffs between them.