The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the social, cultural, and structural factors that contribute to or inhibit alcohol use and abuse in the Army among young males, unmarried or married without a present spouse. Seventeeen single, or separated, young male soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg Army Base were interviewed to provide insight into the research questions. Soldiers were largely located through face-to-face canvassing. The interviews, which lasted from 45 to 90 minutes, took place face-to-face and were then transcribed. Interviews were analyzed using grounded theory approach by locating patterns, themes and relationships to come to generalizations. The themes that emerged from the interviews include: 1) stresses of army work/life; 2) social/entertainment use; 3) tradition/brotherhood/entitlement; 4) fear/consequences; 5) impressionable youth; 6) treatment. While the themes which emerged were reported in discrete terms, there was overlap in them. The functional aspect of alcohol use to these soldiers mixed with the impact of social interaction influencing their use served to encourage and further the use of alcohol. The drinking patterns of young male soldiers can be seen to exist on a continuum of either social integration or social stress, in line with Durkheim's conception of suicide, with the existence of …

The lack of success of the gun control movement and the success of the gun rights movement in the United States have prompted research into the root causes. Although the political infrastructure, organizational resources, and public interest prove to be important factors in a social movement's success, how each social movement frames their arguments is extremely important for proposing policy initiatives and garnering support. In order to understand how gun control and gun rights organizations frame their arguments this study does two things: (1) performs topic modeling on the six gun control organizations' and three gun rights organizations' press statements to see the frames that each social movement engages in, and (2) identifying these frames in the most popular gun control and gun rights organizations on Facebook to predict likes, comments, and shares. This study is able to identify the top frames in the gun control and gun rights social movements and see how followers of each of these movements engage with each of these frames on Facebook.

This comparative case study examines the organizational variations in refugee services in Dallas and Amarillo, Texas. Engaging sociological theories of organizations, migration, and the state, this study conceptualizes immigrant-serving organizations as brokers that operate within fields of similar entities that channel resources and services to refugees. Drawing on 60 in-depth interviews and over two hundred hours of participant observation, this study finds two distinct models of resource brokerage. In Dallas, immigrant-serving organizations operated as networked resource brokers, characterized by high levels of collaboration, robust local political support, and community engagement through consistent volunteer labor. These characteristics facilitated the sharing of resources and knowledge, resulting in the establishment of more professionalized services for immigrants and refugees. In contrast, immigrant-serving organizations in Amarillo operated as atomized resource brokers, characterized by fragmented collaborations, inter-organizational competition, limited volunteer labor, and varying levels of political support from local representatives. This atomized brokerage model hindered the efficient allocation of resources and support, leading to fragmented and less comprehensive services for refugees. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the variations within the organizational fields of ISOs in Texas. The comparative analysis of Dallas and Amarillo offers a nuanced understanding of the impact of local context …

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.