South Sudanese refugees are strongly motivated to effect change in South Sudan. After resettlement to the US, this motivation has resulted in much transnational political activism on their part. In Australia, Sudanese refugees have concentrated primarily on domestic political and social integration. Why? In this project I examine the possible causes of this difference, including the institutions, the policies, and the agents who implement settlement programs. I argue that refugee settlement policies of host countries directly shape the political activities of their refugees. When a host country provides assistance to integrate refugees, the government’s policies and the individuals who implement policy (professional service providers and volunteers) influence what activities refugee leaders are likely to pursue. I find evidence that professional service providers are more likely to channel refugees toward domestic political goals, especially when they are implementing specific refugee capacity building programs. In contrast, volunteers are more likely to support refugee leaders in the political activities that the leaders themselves are eager to pursue. Due to different levels of centralization and institutionalization across these two host country contexts, they have different compositions of policy implementers and utilize capacity building programs to differing degrees. These factors play a significant role in shaping the direction of South Sudanese political activities. I use evidence from examination of institutional policies and semi-structured interviews of Sudanese refugees, professional and volunteer service providers, and government officials in the USA and Australia.
Archive for the ‘Sociology’ Category:
Blue ribbon sentencing: Judicial decision-making and situated identities
This study examines judicial decision-making in the Wisconsin circuit courts through the sentencing decisions of incarceration type and sentence length to describe the social construction of sentencing processes within the courtroom workgroup environment. An electronic and traditional mail survey design was utilized to gather information from judges about their sentencing practices to determine whether situated identity theory aids in the understanding of sentencing decisions. Analysis included independent t-tests and chi-square tests of independence to determine the connections between the independent variables of judicial characteristics, courtroom workgroup participants, and situated identity factors and the dependent variables of incarceration type and sentence length. The results demonstrated that sentencing decisions are social constructed within Wisconsin circuit courts. Limited support was found for the three hypotheses, but descriptive statistics illustrated courtroom participants and judicial situated identities aid in the development of sentencing practices and that situated identity theory is an appropriate tool to help decipher the social construction of judicial decision-making.
How Neighborhoods Matter, and For Whom: Disadvantaged Context, Ethnic Cultural Repertoires and Second-Generation Social Mobility in Young Adulthood
One of the most important transformations of American society over the last four decades is the influx of immigrants and the emergence of the second generation in diverse communities across the country. Yet we know little about the neighborhood contexts in which the second generation grew up and how their presence in local communities affects neighborhood social processes. This project brings together research on immigration and urban poverty, along with theoretical insights from cultural sociology, to examine how neighborhoods matter for second-generation social mobility. I draw on geocoded survey and qualitative data from the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to document the spatial stratification in neighborhood contexts across groups； how disadvantaged context shapes second-generation attainment； and how ethnic cultural strategies structure youths navigation of their neighborhood and mobility. On neighborhood attainment, I find a clear pattern of ethnic stratification in the neighborhood contexts. Whites, Chinese and Filipinos grew up in the most advantaged neighborhoods, in peaceful environments with safe streets, whereas blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Mexicans grew up in the worst neighborhoods, with high levels of crime and violence. Across generations, blacks and Puerto Ricans are trapped in the poorest neighborhoods, whereas second-generation groups, including Mexicans, are more likely to be upwardly mobile. Neighborhood disadvantage matters for second-generation mobility, but how much it matters varies across groups. Specifically, I argue that ethnic groups significantly differ in how they “live” within their neighborhoods. I point to four sets of mediating mechanisms that matter most for second-generation socioeconomic outcomes, but also are broadly relevant to native-born groups: parenting strategies, neighborhood-based institutional resources, time use and local peer networks. I find that immigrant parents living in a disadvantaged context are more protective of their offspring than native-born parents, often enrolling their children in schools outside of their neighborhood and insisting that their second-generation children spend time inside the home, rather than outside on the streets with neighborhood peers. This research has broad implications for theories of immigrant assimilation and neighborhood stratification and for the future contours of ethnic and racial inequality in America.
The production and circulation of AIDS knowledge in Malawi
As the AIDS epidemic continues to spread across Africa, a demand for evidence produced by policy-relevant research means that expatriate-led research projects have become a fixture in highly infected countries. While many have drawn attention to the social and economic consequences of AIDS suffering, few have documented the everyday practices, contradictions and politics of producing AIDS-related knowledge in impoverished contexts. This study examines the ways in which AIDS survey research projects in Malawi produce new socialities and mobilities, generate new exclusions and inclusions and reconfigure expertise and evaluations of knowledge. Rather than focusing on a single knowledge community, the study follows AIDS knowledge itself as it is formulated and circulates through sites of production (the “field”), conversion and manipulation (the office) and consumption (conferences, journal articles or other forums). Drawing on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2005 and 2007-08 with case study research projects, researchers, fieldworkers, rural research participants and policy makers in Malawi, this study examines how actors’ positioning within the social field of “AIDS research” informs their stakes in research and analyzes the tactics they employ to achieve them. Central to the study is an illustration of how boundaries and differences (between people, knowledge and context) are produced and negotiated within interactions between actors with multiple and crisscrossing commitments, interests and ideas.
The role of private nonprofit organizations in promoting compulsory education in rural China: Applying the public-private mix model
Often referred to as the “public-private mix” in social policy, the social structure of all societies is characterized by a mix of the government, market, household, and nongovernmental actors. This dissertation examines the nature of the public-private mix in China, one of the worlds most rapidly developing countries. Particular attention is given to the changing responsibilities of the state, the market, households, and the nonprofit sector with respect to the provision of compulsory education in rural China. Government documents, media contents, and scholarly literature are used to map the changing roles of the state, market and households in contemporary China. A snowball sample of 464 private nonprofit organizations NPOs) is studied to examine the role of the emerging nonprofit sector. Government officials and nonprofit leaders are interviewed in an effort to better understand the unique challenges and opportunities that confront each partner in the public-private mix. The results suggest that, currently, the state remains the dominant provider, although the market, households and the nonprofit sector are taking on more responsibilities. The study demonstrates that there is a lack of a clear division of labor among the sectors, in that all four sectors are providing similar programs. The study argues that such a phenomenon is caused by China mobilizing the state, market and households to create the nonprofit sector. The state, market and households are each contributing to the development of NPOs and, in turn, are providing support for the organizations they created. Chinas efforts at establishing a viable nonprofit sector face challenges of various types and intensity. Findings of this study suggest that the process of NPO formation in China is similar to that experienced by the country in implementing market reforms, which resulted in the establishment of a vibrant market sector. Based on these observations and analysis, the study proposes strategies to facilitate collaboration among different sectors aimed at improving social welfare provision in China. Finally, the study extends and refines the public-private mix model and offers a methodological approach to the study of welfare provision in other countries going through structural social and economic changes.
African American women in leadership positions in Los Angeles City Government: A qualitative phenomenological study
This qualitative phenomenological study involved a purposive sampling of 20 African American women either serving, or have served in senior leadership roles in the Los Angeles City Government (LACG). Few studies exist exploring the competencies of African American women in leadership roles in local government. The results from the present study demonstrated areas of significance to African American women aspiring to obtain senior leadership positions, including (1) barriers, (2) competencies and characteristics, (3) mentoring and networking, (4) education, and (5) leadership styles. Results of the present study may be invaluable to African American women aspiring to promotion to senior leadership roles. The LACG may find the outcome beneficial in the organization’s continuing efforts to promote gender and race diversity within the organizational structure.
Forming, Doing, and Governing Adoptive Motherhood of Asian Children
This research journey began with the question concerning what can be revealed when we move from the bio-centric conception of motherhood to the perspective of non-biological motherhood. In exploring this question one of my goals was to increase understanding of the rich diversity of women’s experiences of motherhood. This study examined white adoptive mothers’ experiences of raising a child from an Asian country, China, South Korea, or the Philippines, hoping to gain new insights into the intricate relationship between the public and private spheres since becoming a mother through adoption is in part a product of institutionalized practices. The central methodology used to explore the multi-dimensionality of adoptive motherhood in this study is institutional ethnography. This methodology allows the researcher to develop a comprehensive understanding of adoptive mothers’ motherhood experiences and mothering activities in the everyday world and discover how mothering activities in private and local settings are coordinated with the activities of others in extra-local settings. I pursued my research goals at multiple sites and through the use of several research methods. I interviewed thirty eight white adoptive mothers residing in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The information and insights I obtained from the interviews with adoptive mothers led me to investigate adoptive parenting magazines and books, adopted children’s books, adoption agencies’ booklets and websites, and international adoption regulations and policies as well as to interview a U.S. adoption social worker. I extended my research sites globally by conducting field research at a Korean adoption agency and formally interviewing Korean adoption social workers and informally interviewing Korean birth and foster mothers. The findings of this research reveal the multi-dimensionality of motherhood: motherhood as an identity, motherhood as an activity, motherhood as institutionalized, and motherhood as experienced.
An exploratory study of the lived experience and contributing factors to blending stepfamilies — A dynamic systems and transformational learning theories approach
In the process of blending together, two single-parent family systems experience significant and unique challenges. Blending difficulties create barriers within the family system to relationship development and family functioning and without in academic, vocational and social arenas. With one-third of all Americans as part of stepfamilies, expanding research on this significant and growing population is vital. The purposes of conducting this exploratory study were to: 1) gain a better understanding of what it is like to be part of a blending family system for both parents and children, 2) examine the impact of attitudes and behaviors on blending outcomes, and 3) provide empirically-based knowledge to support a strengths-based approach to blending stepfamilies to promote intervention, program and policy development. Two theoretical frameworks Dynamic Systems Theory and Transformational Learning Theory) organized and guided the study. The mixed-methods research design produced informative results about the lived experience of blending stepfamilies and highlighted six common thematic categories/constructs: Relational, Family Structure and System, Boundaries, Managing Conflict, Commitment and Communication. Communication was identified as providing the central role in promoting family blending processes and behaviors within each of the constructs. Study respondents offered “Three Most Important Points of Advice,” facilitators, and obstacles specific to stepfamily blending. Correlation and multiple regression analyses provided consistent evidence that behavioral scales were strongly related to positive family blending outcomes, while in most cases the attitude scales had no such relationship. Study findings suggest that modifying beliefs may have little to no effect and that a more behavioral approach will be more effective in improving blending family outcomes. The input of 286 blending parents and children yielded significant data, both in terms of quantity and quality. The mixed methods research design provided a lens to create a Blending Stepfamily Developmental Model, which highlights the transformation process of blending families and activities that influence outcomes. The results of this study have implications for practice, policy and research that can promote the development of education, clinical interventions, program and policy advancement, and spur additional studies on a variety of blending family related topics.
Youthful voices: An exploratory case study of successful youth intervention and development programs
The absence of youth voice in the planning, design, delivery, and assessment stages of youth intervention and development programs is beginning to be recognized as a major flaw in determining the effectiveness of youth development programs. Early philosophers were erroneously guided by perspectives that viewed adolescence as a time of storm and stress for young adults. During the early stages of research in youth development, positive youth development (PYD) was viewed as the absence of negative or undesirable activities in adolescents. Modern proponents of youth development have yet to develop a widely accepted strategy or vocabulary for the evaluation of effective youth development programs, but they have advanced research ideas associated with the PYD theory. The PYD perspective is a tool for assessing the effectiveness of youth development programs. This exploratory case study explored the effectiveness of youth intervention and development programs through the perspectives of 15 graduates who were subject matter experts on their former youth development program. The graduates were interviewed using a modified semistructured interview guide to ensure responses were obtained related to the central research question and four subquestions. The data collected were then member checked, analyzed for themes, and coded to allow common themes for each research question to surface. The analyzed data supported the need to incorporate youth voice in the planning, design, delivery, and assessment of youth intervention and development programs and resulted in the creation of the Developmental Interventions Model for the Assessment of Neighborhood Systems (DIMANS).
The Relationship between the Illegal Cultivation of Hard-Drug Plants and Revolutionary Wars, Ethnic Conflicts, and Corruption
This research analyzes the relationship between the illegal cultivation of hard-drug plants and the two factors of internal armed conflicts and corruption. The majority of the literature suggests that internal wars and corruption have a positive impact on the illegal cultivation. However, there are some other studies that reject any connection between them and imply an impact of weak state mechanism with no or little conflicts. Moreover, most of the discussions revolve around the case studies and there are too few studies systematically analyze and try to find a pattern between these phenomena. Trying to fill this gap, this study breaks down the internal armed conflicts as revolutionary and ethnic wars and illegal hard-drug plants as opium poppy and coca bush, and then, examines the connection between them. This study also breaks down the illegal cultivation as the presence and magnitude and the internal wars as the presence and intensity. The panel data include observations that cover 131 countries and the years between 1990 and 2008. The results support the impact of internal wars on the illegal cultivation rather than the situation of no relationship or weak state mechanism with no or little impact, and partially support the impact of corruption on the illegal cultivation. The findings revealed that presence of revolutionary wars have a positive impact on the presence of illegal cultivation of opium poppy and coca bush while the presence of ethnic wars do not. Additionally, corruption does not have a positive impact on the presence of opium poppy or coca bush cultivation. On the other hand, it was revealed that the more intense revolutionary war the larger coca bush cultivation and the more intense ethnic war the larger opium poppy cultivation. Additionally, corruption has a positive impact on the magnitude of opium poppy cultivation but not on the magnitude of coca bush cultivation. Keywords: Revolutionary wars, ethnic conflicts, corruption, natural resources, illegal cultivation of hard-drug plants, coca bush, opium poppy, panel data.