This study was designed to examine the opinions of Turkish immigrants living in the Houston metropolitan area about the conflict between secularism and Islam in Turkey. The study examined the role of the practice of religion on the opinions about the clash between secularism and Islam. A final sample consisted of 40 immigrants recruited through purposeful and snowball sampling. In-depth interviews and a survey including screening questions were conducted. The results indicated that practice of religion has a partial impact on the opinions of Turkish immigrants about the conflict between secularism and Islam. Future research should further examine if the experience of living abroad for a long period influence Turkish immigrants' opinions about the same issue.

This study provides a measurable model of the concept of place vulnerability for HIV/AIDS that incorporates both community and structural level effects using data provided at the ZIP code level from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Sociological literature on the effects of place on health has been growing but falls short of providing an operational definition of the effects of place on health. This dissertation looks to the literature in medical/health geography to supplement sociology’s understanding of the effects of place on health, to the end of providing a measurable model. Prior research that has recognized the complexity of the effects of place still have forced data into one scale and emphasized individual-level outcomes. A multilevel model allows for keeping the associated spatial unit data, without aggregating or parsing it out for convenience of model fit. The place vulnerability model proposed examines how exposure, capacity and potentiality variables all influence an area’s HIV/AIDS count. To capture the effects of place vulnerability at multiple levels, this dissertation research uses a multilevel zero-inflated poisson (MLZIP) model to examine how factors measured at the ZIP code and county both affect HIV/AIDS counts per ZIP code as an outcome. Furthermore, empirical Bayes …

The problem examined is community solidarity in a well-established prison town. The primary question addressed in this study is "what is the reported impact of a correctional facility's presence on community solidarity?" This study is concerned with the community's perception about the problems, as well as the benefits involved in the housing of a prison and in particular the solidarity of the community. The relevant literature dates from 1929 to 2004 and examines a wide range of concepts associated with community studies and prison studies. Based on themes found in the review of prison literature; work issues, safety, concern about children, stress, community image, benefits, community identity, and community cohesion, seven research questions were constructed. A semi-structured interview was conducted of 81 residents of Walker County in Huntsville, Texas. Huntsville houses 9 prisons. The prison system is the primary employer in the county. A qualitative data analysis using Altius/tr as a tool for content analysis was used. Throughout the data, community residents consistently indicated solidarity. Emerging from the data were seven themes associated with community solidarity:(a) unqualified community pride, (b) normalization, (c) defensiveness against the media, (d) qualified community pride, (e) denial, (f) community and myths, (g) economics.

Racial residential segregation in Dallas public housing projects is analyzed before and after the implementation of the "central tenant assignment plan," adopted in May of 1975, Among the socioeconomically segregated population served by public housing, the effects of race and the nondiscrimination policy are investigated using project occupancy data. Indexes of dissimilarity are used to measure racial segregation, and the racial compositions of the communities in which the projects are located are described using 1970 U.S. census and 1976 Dallas City Profile Survey data. The findings indicate that the nondiscrimination policy was not effective in reducing the high levels of racial segregation. A small decline in segregation was noted after a change in project administrative personnel late in 1974.

This study deals with the analysis of public opinion about crime and attitudes regarding criminal justice issues along two major dimensions. The first part concerns how respondents rank crime among a list of nine social problems (unemployment, high interest rates, inflation, crime, the high cost of living, moral decline, taxes, dissatisfaction with the government, and Reagan). The second dimension examines some research questions. These are whether there was any association between the respondents' perception of crime trends and each of the following: demographic background, neighborhood safety, the death penalty, gun ownership, frequency of locking doors, avoidance of teenagers, and the evaluation of police job performance; and also whether there was any association between the respondents' victimization experience and seriousness of crime and police job performance. The data were obtained from the archives of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in Michigan.

This study is concerned with drug knowledge and drug abuse attitudes of a sample of pre-adolescent schoolchildren, 90 from an urban community and 204 from two rural communities. The seven hypotheses tested compared drug knowledge levels and drug abuse attitudes with the variables of community of residence, sources of information, racial identity, acquaintance with drug users, and church affiliation. High levels of drug knowledge were found to be related to rural residence, perceived parental disapproval of drug use, frequency of church attendance, and, to a minor degree, to acquaintance with peer group drug users. The sample held negative views of drug abuse and intolerant drug attitudes correlated significantly with rural residence, parental interest in talking about drugs, church affiliation, and frequency of church attendance. High drug knowledge levels and intolerant drug abuse attitudes were related to only the .20 level of significance.

This research expands on recent sociological studies which maintain that environmental contaminants in America are disproportionately placed in neighborhoods inhabited by minorities and the poor. Prior studies have focused on the predictor variables which identify areas of contamination near residential neighborhoods, yet fail to explore the socio-political and historical factors which contribute to these phenomena. The Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory 1990 database, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission's Annual Report of the Hazardous and Solid Waste Program for 1992, and the U.S. Census Bureau's 1990 Census Data for Dallas County were utilized in pinpointing industries violating toxic release standards. Socio-historical data was obtained from government and historical records and reports, books, and newspaper clippings on Dallas County. Maps and data were obtained from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and the cities of Dallas and Garland. Chapter I discusses the synergetic forces of capitalism, urban growth, uneven development, and settlement patterns resulting in the distribution of environmental contaminants. Chapter II reviews the literature and presents evidence that race and class are strong predictors of where environmental contaminants are located. Chapter III outlines the data and methods employed. Chapter IV traces the historical development of Dallas County. Chapter …

Thesis written by a student in the UNT Honors College discussing the distribution of environmental contamination generated by public and private sector activities as it relates to the social, demographic, and economic characteristics of the inhabitants of Tarrant County, Texas.

Recent orders from the executive branch of the United States’ government have encouraged participation from faith-based organizations in providing human services because they are more effective in aiding impoverished citizens. This study examined the effectiveness of faith-based and non faith-based anti-poverty nonprofit organizations to find if one organization type is more effective in providing social services. the data for this study were collected through a survey-questionnaire which was administered to a convenience sample of 82 participants seeking assistance from four different nonprofit organizations (two faith-based and two non faith-based) in Dallas County and Tarrant County. the results from this study indicated that when controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables, recipients from faith-based organizations were less likely to report that they at least received services desired as compared to those who visited a non faith-based organization. Therefore, non faith-based organizations were better at meeting the needs of respondents than faith-based organizations.

Extant literature has documented well that people seek health information via the internet as patients and consumers. Much less, however, is known about interaction and creation behaviors in the development of new online health information and knowledge. More specifically, generalizable sociodemographic data on who engages in this online health behavior via social media is lacking in the sociological literature. The term “social e-health” is introduced to emphasize the difference between seeking behaviors and interaction and creation behaviors. A 2010 dataset of a large nationally representative and randomly sampled telephone survey made freely available from the Pew Research Center is used to examine social e-health behavior according to respondents’ sociodemographics. The dependent variable of social e-health behavior is measured by 13 survey questions from the survey. Gender, race, ethnicity, age, education, and income are used as independent variables. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the odds of engagement in social e-health behavior based on the sociodemographic predictors. The social determinants of health and digital divide frameworks are used to help explain why socioeconomic variances exist in social e-health behavior. The findings of the current study suggest that predictable sociodemographic patterns along the dimensions of gender, race, age, education, and income …

Conflict is present in all human relationships and societies. Throughout history, fighting has been more notable than peacemaking. Only recently have conflict resolution studies entered the mainstream of academia. Since peace is no longer an option, but a necessity, educators must become actively engaged in promoting the importance of peacemaking skills among their students. In 1986, the National Institute for Dispute Resolution funded a study of conflict resolution in higher education. Results disclosed a proliferation of courses but little about their quality. The present study evaluates the status of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the curricula of three major universities in North Texas and compares it with results from four other universities which were reported to have the heaviest concentration of ADR courses. A questionnaire was constructed to collect data in the following areas: place, significance of ADR in contemporary curricula, important factors determining attitudes toward ADR, and expectations/aspirations of faculty concerning teaching of ADR. Using a Likert scale, attitudes toward ADR were measured through regression analysis. Four of seven independent variables (age, sex, political orientation, and ADR training) were significant at jd = .05. Forty ADR-related courses were identified in seven universities. The concentration of ADR courses was management …

Hierarchical regression was used to determine if high school community type is an effective predictor of academic success when controlling for demographics, prior academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and current commitment or work habits for students entering Austin College in 1992,1993, and 1994 . Findings revealed that there is a relationship between attending high school in community types of rural and independent town controlling for the effects of SAT scores, high school rank, sex, and late application deposit on first semester grade point average.

It is hypothesized that Rex Hopper's model for the development of a South American political revolution will apply equally to the development of a social movement which is not a South American political revolution, namely, the Ku Klux Klan. The general purpose of this study was to test the generalizability of Hopper's model.

This study is an investigation of the relationships between selected structural characteristics of the community and the quality of housing. It quantitatively examines the relationship between the following structural elements as independent variables and quality of housing as the dependent variable. The independent variables are city size, sex-age composition, socioeconomic status, racial-ethnic composition, age of the city, regional location, form of government, city type and occupancy status.

Black students now have a choice of predominantly Black or integrated colleges. This investigation is concerned with the possible differences between Black students at these two types of institutions. It was hypothesized that these two student groups differ significantly in socioeconomic status, social mobility expectations, and type of orientation in regard to choice of school.

This study addresses itself to several issues in relation to public education in the United States. First, it examines the basic social philosophies underlying the development of mass education in the United States. Secondly, it asks the question: what is the purpose of public education? Thirdly, it relates the development of public education to a dominant source of social change--industrialization, and examines the relationship between the structure and function of education in the 1800's and early 1900's, and the needs of the marketplace. Fourthly, it examines the relationship between the curricula of education in the 1980's and the needs of high technology in the marketplace.

The purpose of this research is to explicate the relationship between commuting behavior, stress, and mental health. The overall results from the regression analysis turned out to be inconclusive given the researcher's initial hypothesis. The commute time reported by respondents did not have a statistically significant bearing on mental health outcomes. This was true for both the normal sample, and the sample that was split by gender.

As social interactions increasingly become exclusively online, there is a need for research on the role of identity and social identity in online platforms. Drawing on Symbolic Interactionist approaches to identity, namely Social Identity Theory and Identity Theory, as well as Signaling Theory, this study argues that actors will selectively use religious language to signal their credentials to an audience for the purpose of garnering prosocial behavior in the form of donations to their fundraising campaign. Using latent semantic analysis topic models to analyze the self-presentations of crowdsourcing campaigners on GoFundMe.com, this study found evidence for the presence of signaling to a religious identity online as well as a significant difference in the presentation of need for campaigns originating in areas with high reported religiosity compared to campaigns from areas of low religiosity. In comparison to other campaigns, campaigners engaging in religious signaling were significantly increasing their donations. I suggest that strategically chosen religious topics in online crowdfunding is an example of low-cost identity signaling and provides insight into how signaling happens online and the potential outcomes resulting from this cultural work.

The #noDAPL movement was an Indigenous-led environmental social movement occurring between 2015 and 2017, in which the Standing Rock Sioux and other American Indian tribes comprising the Oceti Sakowin garnered support to oppose the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. Pipeline opponents agreed that the pipeline's construction posed a threat to the health and safety of tribal members and other residents of the area and that the pipeline's path crossed previously-designated tribal treaty boundaries, compromising tribal sovereignty. In this body of work, I utilize Facebook data from the Sacred Stone Camp Facebook page to locate and identify collective action frames and core framing tasks, adhering to social movement framing theory. Further, I provide insight into the movement's most used collective action frames and how their use enabled to movement to maintain occupation at protest camps along the Missouri River, garner resources from participants and gain international social support. I also draw on concepts of pan-Indianism and supratribalism to discuss indigenous collective identity, as well as concepts like relational values and Indigenous traditional knowledge to better assess the nuances of Indigenous environmental activism and how this movement evoked discussions of modern day settler colonialism.

The purpose of this research was to describe the content of information surrounding a significant sporting event presented by sportswriters through the printed medium. The event chosen for analysis was Superbowl XVI. Three metropolitan newspapers were selected as the sample representatives of the urban style of sports reporting. Two of these newspapers were chosen because of their geographical representation of a participating team. The third selection was taken because of its large circulation and relative unbiased reporting. From a pilot study conducted on Superbowl XV, content categories were found to fit in either one of two basic domains: cognitive or affective. The sample population for Superbowl XVI yielded 5,759 individual category entries based on 215 articles. The cognitive category comprised 94 percent of all items categorized, thus clearly demonstrating the dominant theme used by sportswriters for this event.

This study uses secondary survey data collected from a sample population of clients from JPS Health Network in Tarrant County, Texas from July-August, 2000. Respondents for this study represents a group of working-age Hispanic immigrant adults, N=379. Andersen's "Behavioral Model for Vulnerable Populations" is used to as the theoretical framework. Bivariate crosstabulation revealed significant relationships for dependent variables: problems getting needed healthcare, doctor visits, emergency room visits, overnight in the hospital, and obtaining prescription medication. Findings confirm that lack of coverage, competing needs, and difficulties in the health care system are significant in access health care. Subsequent implications and policy recommendations suggests the inevitability of short and long term health consequences unless changes are made to policies and programs.

The primary purpose of this thesis is a description of some of the major changes which the population of Texas has undergone, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. Other approaches are possible. For example, it is both possible and important to develop the relationship of population change to social problems. However, it is not the purpose of this thesis to investigate these relationships. It is the purpose here to view the population problem in almost entirely a factual sense, basing observations and interpretations on strictly demographic data.

The Prothrow-Stith violence prevention curriculum for high school students was adapted and presented to middle school students. An adaptation in materials, reading level and administration should not adversely effect the outcome of program participation, as the concepts that form the foundation of this curriculum are applicable to all ages. The essential question addressed in this study is as follows: Is the adapted curriculum effective? The evaluation instrument used for both pretests and posttest showed three distinct sections that were composed of general knowledge statements; statements that indicated an attitudinal predisposition toward violence; and statements that indicated a behavioral predisposition toward violence. After factor analysis the general knowledge section showed three grouping factors: factual knowledge, murder knowledge and alcohol knowledge. Factor analysis of the attitude section yielded two factors: a positive attitudinal predisposition toward violence and a negative predisposition toward violence. Seven hypotheses were tested. The analysis showed in a significant difference between the pretest and posttest for all respondents as an increase in factual knowledge; a decrease in negative attitude predisposition toward violence; and, a decrease in behavioral predisposition toward violence. There was a significant difference between the participating schools; there was no significant difference between the ages; and, results …

Bivariate correlation was used to examine possible relationships between instructor immediacy and instructor presence, and a statistically significant correlation was found. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine whether the linear combination of instructor immediacy and presence caused significant variance in student affective learning, cognition, and motivation. For all three of the latter dependent variables, the linear combination of instructor immediacy and presence was found to cause statistically significant variance. However, although the overall regression models were significant in all three tests, instructor immediacy was not found to be a significant individual predictor for causing variance in affective learning, cognition, or motivation, whereas instructor presence was found to be a significant individual predictor of all three. Finally, factorial ANOVA revealed that, for perceptions of instructor immediacy, only classification and course type were found to explain significant variance, with undergraduate students in asynchronous courses reporting significantly lower instructor immediacy. For perceptions of instructor presence, graduate students tended to rate their instructors as having higher presence than did undergraduate students, and students in synchronous courses tended to rate their instructors as having higher presence than did students in asynchronous courses.