The appeal of moral panic studies, a once very popular sociological subfield, dropped precipitously around the turn of the century due in large part to debates about disproportionality, the notion a panicked group's concern about a perceived threat exceeds that warranted by its objective harmfulness. Classic theorists claim disproportionality is a panic's essential criterion and that it can be demonstrated by comparing a group's concerned reaction to the available facts. Critics argue it is a value-laden, ideologically tainted construct and often claim it cannot be demonstrated because there are no authoritative facts. These debates were and still are fraught with confusion. Perplexingly, both sides assume a shared definition despite clearly assessing the proportionality of different aspects of the relevant reaction. A typology differentiating the potential types of disproportionality either does not exist in the moral panic literature or remains shrouded in obscurity. In this paper, I review the classic theories, their critiques, and a new postmodern moral panic theory. By juxtaposing the different foci of the orthodox and contemporary theories, I derive a much-needed disproportionality typology. I also develop a new framework through which to assess moral panics predicated on this typology. My hope is these developments will stimulate a …

City officials are in the position to adopt and implement policies within their jurisdiction that can have lasting impacts for businesses, people, and the environment. Sustainability research has highlighted the need to protect the environment by adopting policies which support the three E's of sustainable development (environment, equity, and economy). Stepping aside from the traditional mechanisms for building a successful city focused on economy first can be challenging for policy makers. The problem city officials face is that changes towards environmental protectionism have long been considered harder on city economy than traditional development focused on economic prosperity. Additionally, sustainability planning is thought to mitigate potential negative impacts that planning for environmental protectionism and social equity may have on economic prosperity. To examine this problem faced by city officials, ordinal regression analyses was used to analyze (1) the possible effects of environmental protectionism and social equity on a city's economic prosperity, and (2) whether sustainability planning has a moderating affect between environmental protectionism, social equity, and economic prosperity. This analysis demonstrates that environmental protectionism and social equity are not associated with a decline in economic prosperity. Sustainability planning was directly associated with increased economic prosperity but did not moderate the relationship …

This dissertation examines how breastfeeding mothers develop distinct geographies due to the stigma, symbolic and structural violence they encounter while breastfeeding if different spaces. I utilize multiple in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photo elicitation to develop portraits of four urban mothers. My findings highlight the complexity of motherhood and demonstrate how distinct socio-spatial power dynamics situate and contextualize the experiences of breastfeeding mothers. I find that breastfeeding behaviors are influenced and maintained by broader social inequalities related to their social positions. Mothers seem caught in a paradoxical position, in which they must constantly discipline their bodies to maintain modesty while simultaneously ensuring their continued success breastfeeding. These issues are compounded by a mother's intersecting identities and their own social and cultural contexts.

In the last few years, the world has been gripped by a crisis of forced migration and displaced persons. Being forced migrants, asylum-seekers are a unique and diverse population, originating from many countries with different backgrounds and experiences. This makes fulfilling the information needs of the asylum community difficult. Online participatory platforms, such as blogs and discussion forums, are flexible, adaptive information resources that could be used to meet the diverse needs of this population. In this study, I compare two online resources used by asylum-seekers, a blog and discussion forum, using social network analysis and topic modeling techniques. Through these analyses, I have determined the conversational archetype the best reflects both websites and discovered the information needs expressed and, in many cases, resolved through conversations in these online spaces. The core finding of this study is that providing direct access to an expert, such as through an interactive blog, promotes dialogue on a greater variety of topics and increases the likelihood of a thorough response. Furthermore, blog posts may inform participants' comments by providing them with the necessary vocabulary to participate fully in the online setting.

This research advances the literature on interracial marriage by using variables that align with the social contact hypothesis. The purpose of this project is to accurately gauge the exact social predictors influencing current attitudes towards Black and White interracial marriage. Multiple regression models containing social contact predictors are analyzed using data from the 2018 General Social Survey. The conclusive review of the literature summarizes age, region, and education as essential social contact predictors of attitudes towards interracial marriage. Therefore, the formulated hypotheses and multiple regression models measure this specific relationship controlling for other predictors such as sex and income. For Whites, the two most significant factors are age and living in the south vs. the west. Interestingly, a college education is not significant. For Blacks, the key contact variable that seems to matter is age. Baby boomers are less likely to favor interracial marriage. Overall, results show areas of convergence. Therefore, one's age is significant predictor for White and Black acceptance. However, it also shows divergence-region appears to only matter for Whites. Accordingly, younger Blacks and Whites were more likely to favor close relatives marrying individuals of the opposite race. Older Blacks and Whites were less likely to support interracial …

The purpose of this study is to revisit the question of whether welfare benefit levels influence female headship, and whether the effect differs between the two main eras of welfare policy relevant to female headship, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This study adds to the existing literature by including more up to date data allowing for a comparison between the AFDC and TANF eras. Results show that the effect of welfare benefits on female headship rates changes from negative to positive after welfare reform occurred among blacks, while no change occured among whites.

This study set out to test the effects of relationship quality with a stepfather on other familial relationships, romantic relationships, and usual outcome measures for products of parental divorce. OLS regression tests were conducted using responses from over a thousand participants from the New Family Structures Study (N=1,696). Respondents were organized by self-reported level of relationship quality with their stepfathers. Various qualities of stepfather families were then regressed against other family types—single parent, intact, and others. Results show that respondents with high-quality stepfather relationships were able to develop relationships with their biological mothers at stronger levels than people from intact families. This supports resilience theory, which posits that the exposure to risk coupled with positive, promotive factors allows a person to grow beyond his or her original trajectory. The findings of this study assert stepfamilies that encourage good stepfather-stepchild relationships can assuage some of the negative outcomes typical for children of divorce.

The purpose of this research study was to conduct an exploration of the dating preferences of African American women and U.S. men between the ages of 30-74 years old. This research focuses on the dating preferences and desirability of African American women and if they are influential on the high unmarried rates of African American women. A weighted stratified sampling of 2,800 personal advertisements of African American, Asian, Latino and White men and women from Match.com were collected to conduct the research. The five research hypotheses of this study were tested using frequency and percentage distribution, logistic regression and cross-tabulation models. The findings partially support the hypotheses African American women are more likely to prefer a mate with a bachelor's degree or higher and African American women are more likely to prefer a mate of the same race compared to U.S. women of other races. The findings also suggested non-African American men are less likely to have an interest in dating African American women and non-African American men, who are interested in dating African American women, are less likely to prefer women with a bachelor's degree or higher or a more socially desirable body type.

This project examines refugees' experiences of insecure housing and perceptions of home in the U.S. Many scholars of migration have focused on the resettlement experiences of refugees, including access to housing, yet refugees' experiences with housing in the U.S. remain largely undocumented. The following analyzes a case study of an apartment fire that displaced 16 refugee families in Dallas, Texas. Based on 18 in-depth interviews with tenants and members of refugee support organizations and non-profits who responded to the fire, this study reconstructs the events surrounding the fire to explore refugees' perceptions of housing conditions in a low-income neighborhood. This case study contributes to research on housing in two important ways. First, insecure housing conditions preceded the fire at Oakland Place and overall perceptions of housing quality varied among respondents. I find that case managers and members of refugee support organizations identify refugees' housing conditions as insecure, yet refugees express positive feelings about their homes, emphasizing community relations over building quality. Additionally, members of refugee support organizations and non-profits blamed the property manager of Oakland Place for insecure conditions experienced by refugees and perceived the manager as a barrier in refugees' lives. Second, I find that understandings of housing insecurity …

Research on immigration in the United States has commonly studied the employment experiences of refugees. Few studies on refugees have focused on both, refugees' employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. This article draws on twenty in-depth interviews with refugees, along with ethnographic observation at a local refugee resettlement agency, to investigate how refugees make sense of their employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. I find that refugee men and women experience different employment trajectories in the United States, which are shaped by gender inequality in the public and domestic spheres. I further find that refugees' navigation with work in the United Stated influences their unemployment experiences and work in the informal sector. My study extends previous literature on refugee incorporation by conceptualizing refugees' employment as a gendered process, which includes periods of formal paid work, informal paid work, and unemployment in the United States.

With the proliferation of gender identity labels in the last twenty years, more individuals are identifying outside of a binary understanding of gender. Agender individuals are among this group, but we know very little about their experiences. Gender theorists have examined the ways that gender is performative and structural, but present theory does not provide the tools to understand the experiences of those outside of the binary, and even more so those who identify outside of gender altogether. To address this gap, I ask how agender individuals define their experience and how they navigate a binary gendered world. To answer these questions, I draw on 14 in-depth interviews with agender individuals as well as data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. First, I show the ways that agender individuals can understand this identity and how it shapes their experiences. Second, I develop a framework of four strategies (avoidance, advocacy, performance, and acquiescence) to analyze how agender individuals navigate gendered space. I concluded with a discussion of theoretical and empirical contributions as well as implications for future research.

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.