Sociology Dissertations

Assume the Position: Exploring Discipline Relationships

Melissa E. Travis — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:20:42 PDT

Discipline relationships are consensual adult relationships between submissive and dominant partners who employ authority and corporal punishment. This population uses social media to discuss the private nature of their ritualized fantasies, desires, and practices. Participants of these relationships resist a sadomasochistic label of BDSM or domestic abuse. I conducted in-depth interviews and narrative analysis of social media to explore experiences and identities of people in discipline relationships. The sample includes social media bloggers and past and present participants in discipline relationships. I compared explanations participants give for wanting and participating in discipline relationships. I combine identity theory, constructionism, post-structuralism, and critical feminism as an analytic frame to understand this practice sociologically. I found gender differences in the media format and communication style of participants, but the ritualized expressions for discipline relationships remain consistent regardless of gender. The social process of community identification for participants includes coming out, educating others and “inviting in.” The online community provides a forum for relationship negotiation techniques, and encouraging the embrace of non-normative sexual identity. Participants use social media to form a nascent social movement that resists normative views of sexuality and relationships in the dominant culture.

The Dance of Privacy: Disclosure of Private Information in Semi-Public Settings

Amanda M. Jungels — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:15:46 PDT

From a sociological perspective, privacy is not an intrinsic part of our selves, but is a social agreement between us and others. Concealing information from others depends in large part on constructing boundaries around private information and doing what we can to ensure that the boundaries are maintained. Focusing on the social world of sex toy parties--a world where privacy and disclosure are delicately balanced--this research examines how disclosures of private sexual information, which are often regarded as taboo in contemporary American society, are carefully orchestrated and managed. Sex toy parties offer a unique venue to study how individuals navigate the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable levels of disclosure of sexual information, as sex toy parties involve discussions of sexual practices and products with diverse groups of women, and some disclosure is necessary to create a fun and engaging environment. To better understand how these boundaries are constructed and maintained and how violations of the boundaries are dealt with, I conducted 32 in-depth interviews with sex toy party consultants and observed 20 sex toy parties. Using grounded theory methods and a cognitive sociological approach, I argue that consultants engaged the guests in a complex “dance” of privacy, beginning with the construction of a sex toy party frame that changed the meaning of disclosures from profane to acceptable. This construction often relied upon heteronormative notions of gender; privileged heterosexuality; and involved the manipulation of time and space to create an environment that was conducive to the careful balance of disclosures the consultants desired. Despite this careful orchestration and management, guests were still occasionally “out of frame” with regard to privacy (either by refusing to participate or by over-disclosing). Consultants used a variety of tactics to move these guests back in frame and reinforce the boundaries of the frame without disrupting the party atmosphere and/or damaging their sales. This research adds to our understanding of how frame construction and maintenance occur and how existing cultural frames are selectively appropriated, adapted, and reshaped to give meaning to disclosures of private sexual information and create new frames.

Constructing Time and Space and Transcending Boundaries in Long-Distance Relationships

Orsolya Kolozsvari — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:15:45 PDT

Globalization, the economic crisis, fast travel, and modern communication devices have facilitated the proliferation of long-distance relationships (LDRs). As LDRs deviate from temporal, spatial conventions and some social norms, they provide an opportunity to study the social construction of time, space, norms, and boundaries. To understand the rigidity and permeability of different kinds of boundaries, I conducted qualitative interviews with both married and unmarried couples in LDRs, as well as partners who lived in the same country and were of the same nationality, and partners who lived in two different countries and differed in their nationality (20 couples, 40 individuals total). I used social constructionism, cognitive sociology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology, and applied grounded theory methods. In LDRs the boundary between distance and intimacy was blurred, often in a sociomental space. By using technology participants diminished the significance of separate time zones, shared synchronized activities, and increased solidarity. As long as couples spent time together, separate physical locations became irrelevant. Borders between countries created a less fluid boundary than distance because of bureaucratic obstacles (e.g., visas). Marriage and children turned out to be the most rigid boundaries. Most respondents considered marriage and coresidence to be essential goals. Many also assumed that children required two parents and coresidence. Gender did not make a significant difference in time devoted to the relationship and visits. However, women were more likely than men to relocate. I also found that boundaries were used in exercising agency, creating solidarity, and shifting norms.

From No Hope to Fertile Dreams: Procreative Technologies, Popular Media, and the Culture of Infertility

Evelina W. Sterling — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:30:47 PDT

Throughout history, both popular and scholarly literature depicted infertility as a devastating experience in a woman’s life. Infertility was unbearable, filled with stigma, and a perpetual state of conflict between those who cannot have children and the rest of the world who can. Until recently as treatments for infertility developed, families assumed childlessness as hopeless. While the process of overcoming infertility is still arduous, unpleasant and unpredictable, many options are available today to overcome infertility and have children. As a result, the portrayal of involuntary childlessness and infertility especially by popular media, changed significantly over the years. Current procreative technologies encouraged families to believe that the dream of having a baby was achievable for all. Using social constructionist and feminist theories, I analyzed the culture of infertility between 1960 and 2010. I used a mixed-method approach to the historical study of the infertility culture tracing the way the public became aware of the various medical treatments for infertility. First, I utilized a modified grounded theory approach to analyze the norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and goals pertaining to infertility and the treatment of infertility as reflected in popular magazines. Next, I interviewed six fertility specialists who practiced reproductive medicine and the treatment of infertility between 1960 and 2010 to gain their perspectives regarding how the expectations about infertility and treatments changed over time from the medical point-of-view. Finally, I analyzed data available from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s population-based National Survey of Family Growth describing public attitudes and behaviors with regard to infertility, infertility diagnoses, and the utilization of infertility treatments over all the years that the survey was conducted. Shaped heavily by issues related to power, patriarchy, gendered expectations, social stratification, and heteronormativity, the cultural story of infertility between 1960 and 2010 was much more complex and diverse than typically told by social science researchers. Overall, I found that although the increased media attention and the availability of procreative technologies changed the landscape of family building, the underlying social forces influencing decisions about procreation did not.

Neighborhood Social Interaction in Public Housing Relocation

Christopher W. Pell — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:50:56 PST

Nationwide, housing authorities demolish public housing communities and relocate the existing residents in an attempt to create more favorable neighborhood environments and to promote safer and more efficacious social interactions for public housing residents. Yet, studies of public housing relocation do not find strong evidence of beneficial social interaction occurring between relocated residents and new neighbors. Despite increased safety and relative increase in neighborhood economic standing, studies find relocated residents socialize outside of their new neighborhoods or else limit existing neighborhood interactions as compared to living in public housing communities. This raises the question of why relocated residents either do or do not choose to interact with their new neighbors within their new residential settings. In an effort to answer this question, I have conducted a study focused on neighborhood social interactions using public housing residents relocated from six of Atlanta, Georgia’s public housing communities.

As a backdrop to the study, I present relevant literature concerning both the study of neighborhoods and the study of prior relocation endeavors. I argue that neighborhoods do provide important social landscapes for attempting to benefit public housing residents, though more research and a different framework of analysis are needed in order to manifest theorized outcomes of relocation for all residents involved. I then employ the use of both quantitative survey data from 248 relocated residents and qualitative in-depth interview data from 40 relocated residents to provide further insight into social interaction patterns after relocation from Atlanta’s public housing. This research finds that prior to relocation residents in public housing communities differed in terms of their ideal zones of action and preferred levels of inclusion and engagement in the neighborhood setting and in terms of their surrounding community scene. By examining these different ideal-types of residents in detail, I argue that prior to moving the residents, a better fit between resident and neighborhood can be constructed by housing authorities such that more beneficial social interaction outcomes can be achieved overall in the relocation process.

Exploring the Black White Achievement Gap: The Connection Between Upward Bound, Oppositional Culture, and the Multicultural Navigator Concept

Mia B. Hardy — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 08:31:11 PST

Racial equality in the United States educational system has long been and continues to be a source of debate. Specifically, the disparities between whites and other minority groups have been increasingly more critical. Blacks and Latinos consistently score lower than whites on standardized tests and academic course work. There have been several explanations given for poorer school performance by certain minority groups than whites. In this dissertation, I explore the black white achievement gap through the examination of one widely known explanation, oppositional culture theory. This research investigates the major tenets of oppositional culture theory and the contemporary multicultural navigator concept. Using a grounded theory method of analysis, I examine the connections between suppositions of the theory and black students in the Upward Bound academic achievement program.

Self-Concepts of Homeless People in an Urban Setting: Processes and Consequences of the Stigmatized Identity

Josie L. Parker — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:12:29 PDT

This study investigates social psychological strategies homeless persons use to develop and maintain the self while homeless. To understand this topic, I apply the identity theory of Stryker, self-esteem ofRosenberg, self-efficacy of Gecas and Schwalbe, and homeless identity meanings and behaviors of Burke. Additionally, I examine what is needed to no longer be homeless. In all, 326 surveys were collected at six different homeless service agencies such as shelters and meal sites. The data analysis includes descriptive statistics and multivariate regression. The results only partially support identity theory in that interactive commitment (increased number of homeless friends) predicts salience (frequently invoking the homeless identity across different situations) which predicts increased length of time in role. However, affective commitment and centrality of the homeless identity have no effect. This study does confirm Snow andAnderson’s findings that homeless persons on the streets for a shorter period of time will distance themselves from the homeless identity, while those on the streets longer will embrace the homeless identity. As opposed to previous research, I find that the majority of homeless respondents do not have low self-esteem or self-efficacy. Instead it is certain factors such as being homeless longer and more often, accepting the homeless identity, viewing the homeless identity as most important, little to no family support and having a high school diploma (or less) that result in homeless persons having low self-esteem or self-efficacy. With homeless identity meanings, people thinking negatively about themselves is the result of having more homeless friends, being homeless longer and more often, possessing low self-esteem and low self-efficacy. Placing great importance on homeless identity behaviors such as helping other homeless people and staying sober influence these outcomes: thinking positively about the self, stronger ties with other homeless people, more homeless friends and invoking the homeless identity more often in different situations. For homeless people to obtain housing, two factors, income and social support systems, are most important. Of all the control variables, sleeping on the streets and multiple disabilities demonstrate the greatest impact for almost all of the independent variables. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Postpartum Depression: Standardizing Motherhood?

Pamela J. Regus — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:08:56 PDT

Postpartum Depression: Standardizing Motherhood?

Pamela J. Regus

Under the Direction of Wendy S. Simonds

ABSTRACT

An expansion of the medicalization of Postpartum Depression (PPD) is evident in increased screening for maternal depression that begins in pregnancy and continues in the postpartum period, and in the growing number of medical professionals alerted to watch for signs of maternal distress. Although a definitive etiology ofPPDremains elusive, the scientific and medical fields – highly imbued with authority to create knowledge in Western society – promote essentialist views of motherhood that espouse “natural” attributes such as maternal instincts and tendencies to nurture. Mothers who struggle with these standards of motherhood are then defined as being ill and become patients under the care of the medical profession until they can perform adequately in their motherhood roles, or they face social condemnation and legal repercussions for being “bad” mothers. Because characteristics of the “normal” postpartum period are said to be similar to symptoms of general depression, how do some women come to identify their postpartum experiences as depression while others do not? Does the choice of traditional obstetrics or an alternative, such as midwifery, make a difference in the incidence of postpartum depression? And what changes in the social support network occur in a woman’s life as a result of a diagnosis ofPPD? Using Foucault’s theory of docility, critical constructionism, and postmodern feminism as the theoretical focus, and in-depth interviews as the research method, I compare the postpartum experiences of mothers who have been diagnosed with postpartum depression with mothers who have not been diagnosed. The sample includes mothers who gave birth with the assistance of obstetrics and mothers who gave birth with the assistance of certified nurse-midwives. In order to examine the differences in approaches to and treatment of postpartum depression, I also interview a sample of obstetricians and certified nurse-midwives. Findings show that medical professionals use gender-normative assessments, such as physical appearance, language, and nurturing tendencies to determine whether the mother is performing as expected; if not, she is defined as ill and treated with antidepressant medication. Although the majority of mothers in the sample experienced feelings of depression in the postpartum period, many resisted diagnosis and medication. Mothers found the greatest support in their peers, rather than those closest to them, citing the ability to talk candidly about the struggles they face in their motherhood roles as the way to avert or heal from PPD. This finding highlights the enforcement of normative motherhood within the social institutions of the family and medicine; thus, cultural change from ideological representations of motherhood may come about through peer relationships.

INDEX WORDS: Postpartum depression, Motherhood, Medicalization, Expansion of medical control, Maternal behavior, Childbearing years, Normative motherhood

Coming Out Narratives: Realities of Intersectionality

Marni A. Brown — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:02:12 PST

Coming out of the closet and sharing a disclosure narrative is considered an essential act to becoming gay (Jagose 1996; Meeks 2006). Although coming out experiences vary by time and place, sexuality scholars note the assumed difficulties when claiming a non-heteronormative identity, including stress, isolation, and rejection (Chauncey 1994; Faderman 1991; Herdt 1993; 1996; Savin-Williams and Ream 2003). In the late 1990s, a post-closet framework emerged arguing that coming out of the closet has become more common and less difficult; “American homosexuals have normalized and routinized their homosexuality to a degree where the closet plays a lesser role in their lives” (Seidman Meeks and Traschen 1999:19). Moreover, post- gay activists and writers such as James Collard (1998) contended that being and doing gay “authentically” involves moving past oppression and despair and living an openly gay life. In light of such arguments, this dissertation research was constructed to explore coming out experiences. I collected 60 narratives from self- identified lesbians and gay men living in Atlanta, New York, and Miami and analyzed these narratives using an intersectional framework. Intersectionality highlights the ways in which multiple dimensions of socially constructed relationships and categories interact, shaping simultaneous levels of social inequality (Crenshaw 1989; 1995). Through the multiple and sometimes complicated intersections of race, class, gender, capital, place, religion, and the body, my analysis exposes institutional and interactional dimensions of power, privilege, and oppression in coming out narratives. Indeed, the kind of "American" or "routinized" homosexuality described by post-closet scholars privileges white, non-gender conforming, middle-class individuals, most often male and urban. Coming out stories that express or embody elements of non-normativity are marginalized and marked as different. In conclusion, intersectionality exposes how privilege functions as a dimension to coming out stories, leading to marginalization and oppression amongst already discriminated identities.

Paths to Peacebuilding: Amnesty and the Niger Delta Violence

Benjamin A. Okonofua — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:05:23 PST

This mixed-method analysis of three Nigerian states explores the ways in which a major policy shift has produced short-term peace outcomes in a vastly contested terrain entailing conflicting interests. The central argument of "Paths to Peacebuilding," is that disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration can create peace in resource-conflicted societies when there is governmental will and community and citizen involvement in both the design and implementation of the program. The overriding concern was whether the DDR process was capable of contributing to tangible improvements in real and perceived safety on the ground as well as destroying the structures that both contributed to and sustained insurgency for over two decades. The disarmament process yielded over 3,000 semi- and fully automatic weapons and other military style hardware. It also resulted in the demobilization of over 26,000 former fighters. The DDR program generated important but geographically differentiated reductions in militant violence across the three states studied.

The study analyzes survey and interview data from a random sample of 346 combatants and ex-combatants and other knowledgeable informants in three Niger Delta states - Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa. The dissertation compared DDR success rates between individuals who entered the DDR program and those who did not. An examination of the programming determinants, controlling for non-programmatic factors including community exposure to pollution reveals some evidence of macro success and micro failure. While the program has created a new sense of peace that allows oil corporations to continue oil production unhindered leading to increased oil earnings for the Nigerian state, there is lack of local level support for the program or its participants. For example, findings of significant association between participation in the program and the successful disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants are moderated by participation effects. While evidence of some level of macro success is clearly indicated in addition to some level of impact on the lives of program participants, the failure to adequately link DDR to broad economic and social development programs may obviate the tentative gains made and plunge the region into potentially more devastating rounds of violent insurgency and counter-insurgency.

HOV to the MD? A Multilevel Analysis of Urban Sprawl and the Risk for Negative Health Outcomes

William Mark Sweatman Ph.D. — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:28:32 PST

Urban sprawl often has a negative connotation, used as a derogatory label for certain forms and consequences of land development that are seen as environmentally and socially unpleasant. Although sprawl may be seen as offensive, there may be other, far greater and more harmful consequences of sprawl. The literature indicates that rates of negative health outcomes, such as obesity, tend to be higher in more developed areas. However, aside from a few studies, little empirical research looks specifically at the influence of sprawl when it comes to individual health. This research project focuses on sprawl and examines the relationships it has with health behaviors and health outcomes. By analyzing data from the CDC’s 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an annual telephone survey of adults that include more than two-hundred self-

reported and calculated variables, I investigate the associations between sprawl, physical activity, body weight, and health outcomes using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). By employing SEM, my research differs from previous research in this field by adding not only additional layers to the evaluation of sprawl and health outcomes, but also allows for the evaluation of associations through various “paths” instead of looking at variables within simpler hierarchical regression models. In addition to direct effects, it also allows for the determination of indirect, or mediated, effects between variables within a path model. Even though no direct relationship between sprawl and health outcomes was revealed, sprawl did show to have a statistically significant indirect effect on health outcomes mediated by physical activity and body weight. Physical activity is also shown to mediate the relationship between sprawl and body weight. Additionally, physical activity reveals both a direct and indirect effect on health outcomes, with its indirect effect being mediated by body weight. Finally, physical activity and body weight are both shown to have statistically significant direct effects on health outcomes. In the concluding chapter I propose a new path model in light of the results of the analyses of data in order to represent the associations between sprawl, physical activity, body weight, and health outcomes more accurately.

Not Just A "Place For Friends": Teenagers, Social Networks, and Identity Vulnerability

Cenate Pruitt — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:36:02 PST

This study is an empirical analysis of adolescents' risk management on internet social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Using a survey of 935 U.S. adolescents gathered by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, I investigate the influence of offline social networks on online socialization, as well as the impact of parental and self mediation tactics on risky online information-sharing practices. Overall, the relationship between offline social network strength and online communications methods was inconclusive, with results suggesting that most teens use online communications in similar ways, regardless of offline connectedness. Some relationships were discovered between parental and individual mediation tactics and risky online information sharing, largely supporting the use of active mediation techniques by parents and informed control of shared information by individual users. User demographics had a strong effect on risky information sharing, with gender and age playing a significant role. This study also offers some suggestions for parents and policy-makers interested in the topic.

Dynamic Parenting: Ethnic Identity Construction in the Second-Generation Indian American Family

Cynthia B. Sinha et al. — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 05:45:35 PDT

This study explores Indian culture in second-generation Indian American families. For the most part, this generation was not socialized to Indian culture in India, which raises the question, how do parents maintain and teach culture to their third-generation children? To answer this question, I interviewed 18 second-generation Indian American couples who had at least one child. Rather than focus on how assimilated or Americanized the families were, I examine the maintenance of Indian culture. Instead of envisioning culture as a binary between “Indian” and “American,” second-generation parents often experience “Indianness” and “Americanness” as interwoven in ways that were not always easily articulated. I also explore the co-ethnic matrimonial process of my participants to reveal the salience of Indian-American identity in their lives. A common experience among my participants was the tendency of mainstream American non- Indians to question Indian-Americans about India and Indian culture. My participants frequently were called upon to be “cultural ambassadors” to curious non-Indians. Religion served as a primary conduit for teaching Indian culture to third-generation children. Moreover, religion and ethnic identity were often conflated. Mothers and fathers share the responsibility of teaching religion to third-generation children. However, mothers tend to be the cultural keepers of the more visible cultural objects and experiences, such as, food, clothing, and language. Fathers were more likely to contribute to childcare than housework. The fathers in my study believe they father in a different social context than their fathers did. By negotiating Indian and American culture, fathers parent in a way that capitalizes on what they perceive as the “best of both worlds.” Links to the local and transnational community were critical to maintaining ties to other co-ethnics and raising children within the culture. Furthermore, most of the parents in my study said they would prefer that their children eventually marry co-ethnics in order to maintain the link to the Indian-American community. Ultimately, I found that Indian culture endures across first- and second-generation Indian Americans. However, “culture” is not a fixed or monolithic object; families continue to modify traditions to meet their emotional and cultural needs.

The Timely Use of Prenatal Care and its Effects on Birth Outcomes in Black Women of Low Socioeconomic Status in the South

Pamela V. Daniels — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:52:12 PDT

Despite substantial evidence linking improved pregnancy outcomes with receipt of prenatal care and recent improvements in prenatal care utilization, specific subpopulations continue to receive late prenatal care and experience adverse birth outcomes. This study will use the Health Belief Model and the Intersectionality Framework to examine the timing of prenatal care utilization, prenatal care compliance, and adverse birth outcomes within a group of low-income, black women in the South. Black women have worst rates of late prenatal care utilization and compliance than any other racial group. This late prenatal care utilization and compliance leads to adverse birth outcomes. A secondary data analysis was conducted using binary logistic regression and OLS regression to examine agency factors, structural factor, and risk health behavior in predicting timing of prenatal care utilization and compliance. In addition, this study also examines timing of prenatal care utilization and compliances and its effects on preterm birth and low birth weight. The results show that family size and knowledge/attitude significantly influences timing of prenatal care. Prenatal care compliance is influenced by church social support and low birth weight is influenced by private insurance. The results of this study show that although much is known in comparing different racial groups, more investigation is needed to explain why low income black women still experience less prenatal care use and compliance and worse adverse birth outcomes than any other racial group in the United States.

Patients, Partners, and Practitioners: Interactions and Meaning- Making Following Spinal Cord Injury

Alexis A. Bender — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:52:07 PDT

Sustaining a Spinal Cord Injury at any point in time is life altering – physically, emotionally, and financially – for all persons affected by the injury, but it can place unique challenges on younger married couples. This study examines the transition to injury for 18 couples (ages 21-55). Data were collected using individual interviews with each partner at three time points following injury, as well as observation in the rehabilitation setting (Creekview). This resulted in 96 individual interviews and 300 hours of observation. Using a combination of the life course perspective and cognitive sociology as guiding theoretical frameworks and grounded theory analysis, I examined how the health care institution influenced the couples’ relationships during their rehabilitation stay and the subsequent transition home. Overall, this study found that Creekview shaped a thought community that emphasizes a return to walking and high levels of physical recovery. Patients who achieved these goals constructed positive narratives about the future while those with lower levels of recovery constructed negative narratives over time. Additionally, because of the dominant medical narrative of wait and see regarding physical recovery, many respondents constructed fuzzy narratives about the future that reflect ambiguity about what life would look like following injury. Additionally, Creekview staff and couples accepted and reinforced the dominant cultural narrative that women are natural caregivers, but larger social structures of class, gender, and the division of paid and unpaid labor work together to push some women into caregiving faster or prevent other women from engaging in caregiving. Expanding on Aneshensel et al.’s (1995) caregiving career, this study examines how younger couples move through the caregiving career when the expected outcome is not long-term care placement or death. This study identified three main types of caregivers, each with their own path of caregiving – Naturalized, Constrained, and Resistant caregivers. Overall, the transition to injury is complex for patients and partners and this study highlights some of the ways the marital relationship is affected by a non-normative, unexpected transition.

"Yeah, I Drive an SUV, but I Recycle":The Cultural Foundations of Environmentally Significant Behavior

Gail L. Markle — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 05:57:03 PDT

The majority of Americans profess to hold pro-environmental attitudes and intend to engage in environmentally friendly behavior. Yet their actions tell a different story. The goal of this study was to explain the gap between widely held pro-environmental attitudes and the lack of corresponding individual and collective behavior. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods and applying the principles of grid-group cultural theory, cognitive sociology, and identity theory I examined the meanings people ascribe to the environment, how they think about behavior relative to the environment, and justifications for the performance of environmentally significant behavior.

I administered an on-line survey to a nationally representative sample of individuals. By applying grounded theory methods to the textual data generated by open-ended survey questions I developed a model of environmentally signficant behavior which describes the underlying factors that influence the performance of pro-environmental behavior. Individuals develop environmental socio-cognitive schemas based on the ways in which they use the six cognitive acts (perceiving, focusing, classifying, signifying, remembering, and timing) in thinking about the environment. They use these environmental socio-cognitive schemas to filter and interpret environmental discourse, construct a body of environmental knowledge, and guide environmentally significant behavior.

According to this study, the explanatory link between pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior lies in the concept of proximity. Performance of pro-environmental behavior is driven by the distance individuals perceive themselves to be from environmental issues. Attitudes toward the environment remain abstractions whereas behavior is situational. Individuals from different cultural groups hold different ideas about the relationship between humans and nature, the extent and severity of environmental issues, and how those issues should be addressed.

The findings from this study provide a foundation for developing effective strategies for influencing environmentally significant behavior. This study is important because environmental issues are real, their potential impact is substantial, and time is of the essence in addressing them.

Regulating Healthy Gender: Surgical Body Modification among Transgender and Cisgender Consumers

Elroi J. Windsor — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:52:04 PDT

Few bodies consistently portray natural or unaltered forms. Instead, humans inhabit bodies imbued with sociocultural meanings about what is attractive, appropriate, functional, and presentable. As such, embodiment is always gendered. The social, extra-corporeal body is a central locus for expressing gender. Surgical body modifications represent inherently gendered technologies of the body. But psychomedical institutions subject people who seek gender-crossing surgeries to increased surveillance, managing and regulating cross-gender embodiment as disorderly. Using mixed research methods, this research systematically compared transgender and cisgender (non-transgender) people’s experiences before, during, and after surgical body modification. I conducted a content analysis of 445 threads on a message board for an online cisgender surgery community, an analysis of 15 international protocols for transgender-specific surgeries, and 40 in-depth interviews with cisgender and transgender people who had surgery. The content analysis of the online community revealed similar themes among cisgender and transgender surgery users. However, detailed protocols existed only for transgender consumers of surgery. Interview findings showed that transgender and cisgender people reported similar presurgical feelings toward their bodies, similar cosmetic and psychological motivations for surgery, and similar benefits of surgery. For both cisgender and transgender people, surgery enhanced the inner self through improving the outer gendered body. Despite these similar embodied experiences, having a cisgender gender status determined respondents’ abilities to pursue surgery autonomously and with institutional support. Ultimately, this research highlights inequalities that result from gender status and manifest in psychomedical institutions by identifying the psychosocial impacts of provider/consumer or doctor/patient interactions, relating gendered embodiment to regulatory systems of authority, and illuminating policy implications for clinical practice and legal classifications of sex and gender.

Spectacular Subjects: The Violent Erotics of Imperial Visual Culture

Moon M. Charania — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:47:45 PDT

The central concerns of this project are the visual constructions of feminine and feminist subjectivities, significations and semiotics of the (brown) female body, and the pleasures and power of global visual culture. I consider the primary visual fields that seek to tell the story of Pakistani women, and Muslim woman more broadly, after September 11^th, 2001. Specifically, I offer detailed case studies of three visual stories: international human rights sensation Mukhtar Mai; twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and first woman to lead a Muslim country Benazir Bhutto; and female terrorists/religious martyrs of the Red Mosque events in Islamabad, Pakistan. I locate the relevance of these visual stories on three axes − human rights, democratization and the war on terror − where each operates as an arm of, what Jasbir Paur (2007) calls, the U.S. hetero-normative nation. I also examine the structures of affect, pleasure and eroticism that are embedded in these popularized representations and narrations in the U.S. cultural context. Finally, I offer ways to reread the potential radical subjectivities or possibilities that these visual subjects and their political labor open up.

Dynamic Parenting: Ethnic Identity Construction in the Second-Generation Indian American Family

Cynthia B. Sinha — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:07:43 PST

This study explores Indian culture in second-generation Indian American families. For the most part, this generation was not socialized to Indian culture in India, which raises the question, how do parents maintain and teach culture to their third-generation children? To answer this question, I interviewed 18 second-generation Indian American couples who had at least one child. Rather than focus on how assimilated or Americanized the families were, I examine the maintenance of Indian culture. Instead of envisioning culture as a binary between “Indian” and “American,” second-generation parents often experience “Indianness” and “Americanness” as interwoven in ways that were not always easily articulated. I also explore the co-ethnic matrimonial process of my participants to reveal the salience of Indian-American identity in their lives. A common experience among my participants was the tendency of mainstream American non-Indians to question Indian-Americans about India and Indian culture. My participants frequently were called upon to be “cultural ambassadors” to curious non-Indians. Religion served as a primary conduit for teaching Indian culture to third-generation children. Moreover, religion and ethnic identity were often conflated. Mothers and fathers share the responsibility of teaching religion to third-generation children. However, mothers tend to be the cultural keepers of the more visible cultural objects and experiences, such as, food, clothing, and language. Fathers were more likely to contribute to childcare than housework. The fathers in my study believe they father in a different social context than their fathers did. By negotiating Indian and American culture, fathers parent in a way that capitalizes on what they perceive as the “best of both worlds.” Links to the local and transnational community were critical to maintaining ties to other co-ethnics and raising children within the culture. Furthermore, most of the parents in my study said they would prefer that their children eventually marry co-ethnics in order to maintain the link to the Indian-American community. Ultimately, I found that Indian culture endures across first- and second-generation Indian Americans. However, “culture” is not a fixed or monolithic object; families continue to modify traditions to meet their emotional and cultural needs.

Culture, Cognition, and Parenthood in Japanese and American Homes

Saori Yasumoto — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:26:36 PDT

Previous family researchers have found that parents who share different demographic backgrounds construct unique parenting styles and beliefs. Although such studies contribute to understanding how parenthood is socially constructed, the information about how parents internalize cultural information and everyday experiences to raise children is missing in the extant literature. To fully comprehend the social construction of parenthood, the linkage between the mind and the behavior of parents within specific social structures needed to be studied. I thus conducted conjoint interviews with 24 Japanese couples and 24 American couples who were raising four-to-six year old daughters and sons to examine how culture and cognition produce parental philosophies and family relationships. By using cognitive sociology as a theoretical framework and grounded theory methods as a mode of analysis, I found that the parents’ construction of parenting beliefs and practices basically depended on how they thought about four analytically distinct relationships: (1) their relationship to their parents; (2) their relationship to their children; (3) their relationship to their marital partner; and (4) their relationship to other people in society. Although fathers and mothers in Japan and the United States talked in general about these four aspects, in the process of doing so they offered unique views on each aspect. Japanese parents tended to view their parents as role models, believe that children and parents teach and learn from each other, consider gender ideology to be the foundation of parental partnership, and rank understanding others' feelings as the most important skill for children. Thus, their parenting philosophies were manufactured through reciprocal relationships with other people. In contrast, American parents tended to want to become better parents than their own parents, prefer to influence and control their children’s lives, consider equality to be the foundation of their parental partnership, and encourage their children to become independent. Therefore, their parenting philosophies were manufactured through self motivation. Through the cross-national comparisons of parents’ cognitive processes, I also discuss: the levels of parental expectations and pressures; the issues around the gender relations within a family; and the roles of international parenting books in a globalizing world.