Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Blacks Sociology'

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2001.
Available in film copy from University Microfilms International. Vita. Thesis advisor: Thomas E. Skidmore. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 279-290). Also available online.

In the wake of a steadily increasing diversity in ethnicity among Blacks in the United States, efforts need to be made to analyze and understand the dynamics of the relations among the various Black ethnic groups in the United States. This thesis explores the present state of relations among these groups by utilizing an extensive literature review on the topic in conjunction with in-depth interviews. What is of particular interest here are the differing and similar intergroup perspectives on self-identity, as well as any cultural similarities and dissimilarities that exist. We find that the cultural dissimilarities create barriers to harmonious relations among the groups, while particular ideologies such as Pan-Africanism and Black nationalism provide the basis for strong unified fronts and partnerships for those who embrace them.

The politics of Blacks are stereotypically assumed to be the same and share the same race-based root, be it disenfranchisement or solidarity. Given the recent jump in Black political participation and the seemingly race-based and partisan nature "the Black vote" holds, it is essential to investigate what factors drive Black voter turnout as well as what factors contribute to the partisan nature of Black voters. Most other studies of political opinion, turnout, and party preference only consider comparable demographic groups such as men versus women or Blacks versus Whites. This study examines partisan preference and participation only among Black Americans. The data used here come from the American National Election Survey (ANES) 1984, 1996, and 2008 Pre- and Post-Election Survey, election years that coincided with peaks and lows of Black voter turnout since the Civil Rights Movement. Findings indicate that Black Democrats report higher voter turnout than Black non-Democrats, and younger Blacks and those who opposed abortion were less likely to vote. Also, results suggest that although Black partisanship can be predicted by gender, abortion stance, and age, partisanship is largely not a product of demographics or political stances based on how little variance these models account; rather, Black partisanship may be explained by aspects that go beyond these usual determinants, measures, and proxies. Implications of this study show that non-Democratic Blacks were political available to other parties, and it warrants a further investigation into Black partisanship.

Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work
Dana M. Britton
Historically, relationships between police and residents in minority communities have often been contentious. However most of the literature on race, place, and policing has focused on the policing of Blacks and their interactions with the police in urban settings. Building on this work, this study aims to capture similar processes of racialized policing as they occur in the suburbs. This project expands our understanding by exploring policing as it is carried out in a marginalized Black enclave located in a predominately white middle class suburb. Specifically, I focus on Meacham Park, which is a segregated enclave annexed to the nearby white community of Kirkwood, Missouri. Drawing on interviews with thirty African-American residents of Meacham Park, I explore how residents experience policing and their attitudes toward the police. The interviews reveal a contentious history of relations between residents and the police, and I discuss respondents’ accounts of specific experiences with police surveillance, harassment, and (in some cases) misconduct. However, though many respondents reported extremely negative attitudes toward the police, the great majority also reported at least some positive interactions and experiences. This study extends research on the policing of minority communities into a segregated suburban context and offers implications for improving relations between the police and minority communities.

This study investigated the social organization of a predominately black nursing home in the city of Atlanta and the care of severely ill residents. Five hypotheses were tested in this study: (l) The higher the status of staff in the nursing home, the more negative the attitudes towards the severely impaired patient. Stated another way, there will be an inverse relationship between staff status and attitudes toward severely impaired patients; (2) Staff members who exhibit high levels of religiosity are more likely than their low religious counterparts to experience positive attitudes toward death and dying; (3) The higher the external locus of control, the more positive the attitudes toward dying; (4) Negative attitudes toward the severely impaired patient will increase as the educational level increases; (5) Positive attitudes toward aging will increase as the age of the staff member increases. Three out of these five hypotheses were partially confirmed (hypotheses 1, 3, and 5) and two (hypotheses 2 and 4) were rejected. The qualitative data obtained through informal interviews with each of the two directors of Sadie G. Mays indicated that the severely impaired patients were assigned to an exclusive ward (Ward D) in order to improve the efficiency of the treatment program. Although these findings are quite applicable to Sadie G. Mays Nursing Home, caution is required before generalizing them to the entire minority nursing home staff population, due to the small sample size (N=25).

In this study I examine the effects of two organizational mechanisms on the race gap in promotions and authority attainment. Previous work in the area has treated promotions as a means to obtaining authority invested positions, while the present research examines promotions and authority simultaneously, and as conceptually distinct. This research also examines the effects of both social closure and homosocial reproduction on promotions and authority, something previous research has failed to accomplish. Using the North Carolina Employment and Health Survey (NCEHS), I examine the effect that social closure through training time may have on Black?s relative chances of having authority, and the influence of homosocial reproduction by linking the racial composition of jobs with the likelihood of receiving a promotion and having authority. Results from these analyses indicate that Blacks are more likely to receive promotions and authority positions in jobs with a higher percentage of Black employees. The results also indicate that Black employees with increased education also increase their likelihood of being promoted, and Blacks have less authority in private sector jobs, both conclusions showing support for the particularistic mobility thesis. This analysis provides empirical support for homosocial reproduction.

This dissertation explores the Rastafari movement and the Nation of Islam as institutions that provide a group-identity for their adherents. The study seeks to determine the characteristics of the identity that is institutionalized by each movement, and the nature of the institutionalization process. The research was conducted primarily in South Florida where both movements exist. An extensive literature review in conjunction with in-depth field interviews were used as the primary research methodologies. What was of particular interest were the reasons that the members of the movements chose one movement over the other, also the similarities and dissimilarities between the movements in their role as institutions for group-identity formation. The research showed that both movements imbued their members with a sense of pride, high self-esteem and a strong sense of race consciousness. In addition, it showed that there was significant variation in identity orientation within the Rastafari Movement, which contrasted with the Nation of Islam where the identity variations within the movement were negligible. This was due largely to the difference in structure between the movements, the Nation of Islam being a centrally organized movement with one leader while the Rastafari movement is a decentralized polycephalous one. Both movements were found to be millenarian in nature, essentially because of the significant utility of the concept that their members would rise to prominence through God's grace. Additionally, both movements were identified as expressive social movements, since they were determined as being primarily concerned with changing the attitudes of their members rather than effecting structural social change.

This dissertation seeks to explain why large segments of the Jewish community, after working with blacks for decades, often quite radically towards expanding the boundaries of citizenship at City College, rejected the legitimacy of the 1970 Open Admissions policy? While succeeding in radically transforming the structure of City College and CUNY more broadly, the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community's late 1960’s political mobilization failed as an act of citizenship because its claims went broadly unrecognized. Rather than being remembered as political action that expanded the structure and content of citizenship, the Open Admissions crisis and policy are remembered as having destroyed a once great college. The black and Puerto Rican students who claimed an equal right to higher education were seen as unworthy of the forms of inclusion they demanded, and the radical democracy of Open Admissions was short lived, being decisively reformed in the mid 70’s in spite of what subsequent research has shown to be remarkable success in educating thousands who previously had no hope of pursuing a college degree. This dissertation places this question in historical context in three ways.

First, it historicizes the political culture at City College showing it to be an important incubator and index of the changing political imaginaries of the long civil rights movement by analyzing the shifting and evolving publics on the college’s campus, tracing the rise and fall of different political imaginaries. Significantly, the shifting political imaginaries across time at City College sustained different kinds of ethical claims. For instance, in the period from the 1930 to 1950, Jewish and black City College students tended to recognize each other as suffering from parallel forms of systemic racism within U.S. society. Understanding each other to be similarly excluded from a social system that benefitted a largely white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant elite, enabled Jewish and black City College students to position themselves and each other as the normative subjects of American democracy. However, in the 1960’s, political imaginaries at City College had come to be anchored in more individualistic idioms, and ethical claims tended to be made within individualistic terms. Within such a context, when the BPRSC revived radically democratic idioms of political claims making, they tended to be understood by many whites as pathologically illiberal.

Second, it historicizes the ways in which City College constructed “the meritorious student” by analyzing the social, political and institutional forces that drove the college to continuously reformulate its admissions practices across its entire history. It shows that while many actors during the Open Admissions crisis invested City College’s definitions of merit with sacred academic legitimacy, they were in fact rarely crafted for academic reasons or according to a purely academic logic. Regardless, many ignored the fact the admissions standards were arbitrarily based, instead believing such standards were the legitimate marker of academic ability and worthiness. By examining the institutional construction of the “meritorious” student the dissertation shows the production of educational citizenship from above while also revealing how different actors and their standpoints were simultaneously constructed by how they were positioned by this institutional process.

Finally, the dissertation examines two significant historical events of student protest, the Knickerbocker-Davis Affair of the late 1940's and the Open Admissions Crisis of the late 1960's. In these events, City College students challenged the content of “educational citizenship.” These events were embedded in the shifting political culture at City College and were affected by the historically changing ways different groups, especially Jews and blacks, were positioned by the structure of educational citizenship.

While Jews had passed into whiteness by the late 1960’s in the U.S, there was no objective reason for many to claim the privileges of whiteness by rejecting a universal policy such as Open Admissions. Yet, many Jews interpreted Open Admissions as against their personal and group interests, and rejected the ethical claim to equality made by the BPRSC. By placing the Open Admissions crisis in deep historical and institutional context, and comparing the 1969 student mobilization to earlier student actions, the dissertation shows how actors sorted different political, institutional and symbolic currents to interpret their interests and construct their identities and lines of action.

In two separate studies, I examine the relationship between skin tone and important psychological well-being, delinquency, and social integration outcomes for Blacks, testing not only if skin tone is important in determining these outcomes but attempting to disentangle the mechanism by which the inequality is produced. More specifically, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), in study one I draw on important propositions of Agnew’s (1992) General Strain Theory to investigate the extent to which darker skin impacts youths’ feelings of strain, psychological well-being, and delinquency. The study found skin tone to be significantly associated with certain facets of well-being but surprisingly there were no direct effects on various types of strain. Skin tone is a strong predictor of one’s involvement in serious weapon violence, controlling for prior delinquency. Results also show that skin tone matters more for female adolescents’ odds of being suspended compared to their male counterparts, while certain forms of strain significantly impact the effect of skin tone on one’s involvement in delinquent activity. In study two, I continue my investigation of skin tone as an external or interracial source of discrimination using the National Survey of American Life (NSAL). In this study I am concerned with whether Blacks with darker skin tones are more likely than their lighter-skinned counter parts to live in neighborhoods that they perceive as more segregated and with fewer amenities and community resources. Although these data did not allow me to directly test how the respondents came to reside in their present community (i.e. racial steering or neighborhood choice), I examine skin tone discrimination as well as major types of everyday discrimination (e.g. being denied a bank loan or housing opportunity) experiences reported by Blacks. Overall, findings suggest that darker-skinned Blacks fare worse in regard to frequent experiences of skin tone discrimination from Whites. Skin tone is significantly related to respondent’s perceived seriousness of drug activity in their current neighborhood, suggesting that skin tone may have some impact on one’s perceived neighborhood quality. Further results, implications, and conclusions are discussed.

African American Studies
Ph.D.
While the marriage prospects of educated African American women are of particular interest to the media and scholars alike, very rarely do these two groups examine the ways in which African American men understand and perceive marriage. In particular, though they have successfully provided socio-cultural and historically specific examinations of the topic, scholars of African American Studies have not conducted in-depth empirical analyses of African American dating and marriage practices. Simultaneously, social scientists, while providing significant empirical data, have not supported their work with a cultural analysis specific to African American people. In an effort to merge these two areas of scholarship, this dissertation investigated the dating and relationship ideals of college-educated Black men and women. The purpose of this study was to: (1) discover what traits and criteria males and females consider most important in a potential mate, (2) understand the role that the current social and marriage market conditions such as sex ratio, socioeconomic status and education level play in mate selection among college educated Black men and women and (3) develop a culturally specific theory of Black marriage. Through the use of surveys administered online and in face-to-face sessions, this dissertation sought to explore how predictor variables such as age, sex, family economic status and education level influence how 123 college-educated Black males and females ages 18 and over view their dating and marriage prospects and the types of characteristics they assign to the ideal mate. Preliminary findings showed that participants placed a high level of importance on getting married, had positive attitudes toward marriage and were optimistic about their marriage prospects. Additionally, factors such as mate availability, educational attainment and economic ability were of particular importance to participants and play a role in their choices about if, when and who they would marry. Lastly, the author articulated a theory of marriage, the Preliminary Intersectional Factor Theory of Marriage Attitudes and Marital Behavior. Based on the findings, it was argued that the proposed preliminary theory of marriage takes into account the structural, economic and cultural factors that intersect to shape the lives, marital attitudes and marital behavior of Black men and women in America.
Temple University--Theses

The contemporary experience of race in America demands that blacks become astute observers of their surroundings, required to read subtle social, interactional and environmental cues to determine how to appropriately engage others in order to gain respect and social acceptance. Consumption objects, whether physical or material goods or services and experiences, are symbolic tools that blacks mobilize in order to define and assert themselves wherever they may be. Market research reveals that divergent patterns of consumption exist along racial lines. Blacks outspend whites in three central categories: apparel, personal care, and electronics and technology. Sociological research on consumption, however, has inadequately addressed how race influences blacks' consumption. Claims that blacks are conspicuous consumers are pervasive in both popular and academic works, and research indicates that blacks' consumption is, at least partially explained by status considerations, yet no comprehensive, empirically grounded theory exists to account for the contextually determined, symbolic and strategic use of goods by middle and working-class blacks. In my dissertation entitled “Race, Social Context, and Consumption: How Race Structures the Consumption Preferences and Practices of Middle and Working-class Blacks,” I offer an account of blacks' consumption that addresses this gap in the literature. I analyze qualitative interview data collected from 55 blacks residing in the New York City area, focusing on blacks' consumption preferences and practices in three social arenas: where they live, where they work, and where they play. Through examining middle and working-class blacks' consumption I show the ways that race remains salient in blacks' everyday lives; affecting their routine practices and marketplace interactions. Blacks differ as consumers as a consequence of a history of racial alienation, segregation, and discrimination in public settings, which has resulted in their use of goods to mitigate racial stigma, but distinct patterns of consumption emerge as blacks mobilize consumption objects to express and affirm their racial identities. This dissertation demonstrates that whether consumption goods are used to contest racial stigma or to express feelings of racial affinity, in both instances blacks' consumption preferences and practices reflect their reactions to the settings in which their consumption is enacted.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2008.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 7, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-07, Section: A, page: 2521. Adviser: Carolyn Calloway-Thomas.

This study examined the relationship between social structures and crime among rural white and urban black males in North Carolina through the theoretical framework of Merton's Anomie. Using demographic information on the state's inmate population provided by the North Carolina Department of Corrections, the subjects' individual characteristics were studied alongside community level conditions to establish whether anomic conditions did coincide with specific types of crimes and whether individuals from each group would commit the same types of crimes. The study population came from the rural counties of Graham, Alleghany, Swain, and Mitchell and the urban communities within Charlotte of Mecklenburg County. Univariate and Bivariate analysis were used to establish the significance and strength of any relationships between the variables. The findings indicated that while the category of offense was different for each group, the implied intent was the same. Both committed crimes that would benefit them in a pecuniary manner.

College enrollment has improved among Black and Latino students during the last several decades due partly to the influence of formal and informal mentors and increasing parental support of higher education. However, college completion for these underrepresented minority groups continues to lag behind graduation rates for White students. This research sought to examine whether pre-college relationships influence college completion. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen, this study tested the direct and indirect effects of social capital from pre-college networks, including parental capital and mentor capital, race and gender on college completion utilizing logistic regression. The results indicated that one form of parental capital, parental education, is positively associated with college completion for all students. Three forms of parental capital, however, were positively associated with completion for Black students. Contrary to hypothesis, mentor capital was not a significant predictor of graduation for any group. Furthermore, Black and Latina women graduated at higher rates and received more parental support for academic performance than their male counterparts. Implications for future research are discussed.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2002.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Migration is the (usually free) movement of individuals from one place to another. Migration is formally conceptualized as the movement of households from relatively poorer regions - the sending areas -- to relatively better-off regions -- the receiving areas -- thereby enhancing the households' chances of improved access to resources. The migrant can be defined as a person that has gone out of his/her own free will from one place to another. In this sample and study, a distinction will be made between household heads born in the CMA, household heads that arrived before 1994, and household heads that arrived in the CMA in 1994 and thereafter. These migrants will be called "Household Head Born CMA", "Household Head older migrants", and "Household Head recent migrants" respectively. Informal squatter settlements are mushrooming at the outskirts of the CMA and very little is known about the motivation of migrants to leave their rural areas. In explaining the occurrence of migration and of why people migrate, one has to consider the push-pull theory. In the sending areas there are certain push factors, pushing the migrant out of the area. In the receiving area, there are pull factors, pulling the migrant towards the area. Migrants are also not a random selection of people. They have specific traits and differ from non-migrants in certain respects (age, life-cycle stage, marital status, education, occupation and status, cultural attributes and traditionalist vs. innovator). It was found in this study that the CMA as opposed to the Eastern Cape has certain differences, thereby pulling and pushing the migrant into and out of the areas respectively. Also, migrants seem to have different characteristics than that of the nonmigrant.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Swart In-Migrasie vanaf die Oos Kaap tot die Kaapse Metropolitaanse Area (KMA): Profiel van die Migrant en Migrasie Redes Oorsig Migrasie is die (gewoonlik vrye) beweging van indiwidue van een plek na 'n ander. Migrasie word formeel gedefinieer as die beweging van huishoudings vanaf afsend-areas tot ontvangs-areas. Die huishouding se kanse op beter toegang tot hulpbronne word verbeter. 'n Migrant is 'n persoon wat uit vrye wil van een area na die volgende trek. Onderskeid word gemaak tussen die huishouding-hoof wat gebore is in die KMA, die huishouding-hoof wat die KMA binne-getrek het voor 1994, en die huishouding-hoof wat die KMA binnegetrek het tydens 1994 en daarna. Informele nedersettings, oftewel plakkerskampe, is besig om vinnig toe te neem aan die buitwyke van die KMA en baie min inligting is beskikbaar oor wat potensiële migrante motiveer om die landelike gebiede te verlaat. Wanneer daar na die beweegredes gekyk word, is dit noodsaaklik om die "stoot en trek" teorie te oorweeg as 'n moontlike verduideliking. Migrante is ook nie 'n lukrake versameling van mense nie. Hulle het baie spesifieke eienskappe wat verskil van nie-migrante In sekere opsigte (ouderdom, lewens-siklus fase, huwelikstatus, opvoeding, beroep en status, kulturele eienskappe en so meer). In hierdie studie is gevind dat die Ooskaap en die KMA so verskil dat migrante na die KMA aangetrek word.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007.
Title from file title page. Charles Jaret , committee chair; Robert Adelman, Donald Reitzes, committee members. Electronic text (96 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 1, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-94).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006.
Title from title screen. Charles A. Gallagher, committee chair; Robert Adelman, Charles L. Jaret, committee members. Electronic text (355 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed July 26, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-350).

Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera hur Black Lives Matter i Sverige diskuteras av svensk nyhetsmedia år 2020. Följande frågeställning undersöks: -Hur skildras “Black Lives Matter”-rörelsen i Sverige av svensk nyhetsmedia? Tidigare internationell forskning har bland annat visat på att nyhetsmedia oftast betonar demonstranternas kriminella beteende och specifika händelser istället för deras mål. Dock finns det begränsad svensk forskning kring detta. Om det ska kunna ge förändringar mot ett svenskt samhälle utan strukturell rasism och polisbrutalitet, som rörelsen kämpar för, måste flera ta del av debatten. Detta kan endast göras om det finns fler studier som kan få en påläst och intresserad att ta del av diskussionen. Om man inte uppmärksammar det, inser befolkningen förmodligen inte att det finns problem, därför behövs vår uppsats. Undersökningens resultat grundas på en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av nyhetsartiklar från Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet samt Expressen. Den analyseras sedan utifrån teorierna diskursteori och andrafiering men det sker även en jämförelse med tidigare forskning. Fokuset är på artiklar som beskriver Black Lives Matter-demonstrationerna som skett i Sverige år 2020. Resultatet visar på det som involveras i skildringen i svensk nyhetsmedia. Bakgrunden tas med i en obetydlig grad. Endast rörelsens budskap uppmärksammas men det skiljer sig mellan artiklarna vilken som presenteras. Vissa speglar inte det riktiga motivet bakom rörelsens handlingar. Säkerhetstjänstens personal och demonstranterna lyfts också fram. Polisen och ordningsvakter porträtteras mestadels positivt medan det är tvärtom för rörelsens anhängare. Vidare skildras kritikernas syn på demonstrationerna i sig då det både uttrycks positiv respektive negativ kritik. Dessutom finns det diskussion om Sverige i frågan om rasism och polisbrutalitet där det finns olika åsikter. Antingen anses det som ett importerat problem från USA, att det inte finns, eller upplevs det som att det finns. Resultatet visar vidare på en ”andrafiering” och kan kopplas till diskursteorin. Det har även funnits likheter mellan den och tidigare forskning.

Rap is an extremely popular form of modern music that is notorious for incorporating themes of guns and violence into the lyrics. Early rap was mainly party or dance music until the mid-80s when structural shifts in social conditions brought feelings of hopelessness and frustration into black inner city communities and youth culture. These feelings now find expression in rap lyrics. This thesis uses rap lyrics as qualitative data to understand the plight of urban black youth. Rap music can be seen as a form of resistance for young African Americans who have historically never had such a medium to express their lived experiences and frustrations with society. The rap performance becomes a stage where the powerless become powerful by using the microphone as a symbolic AK-47 and words as weapons in the form of symbolic hollow point cartridges. This Thesis examines the contemporary African American experience, its reflection in the lyrics of rap music, and its fascination with guns, violence and death. A key theme is while rap lyrics sometimes seem radical and frightening to the mainstream, they often express lines of analysis and understanding that have been widely discussed in conventional sociological literature.
ID: 030646183; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-66).
M.A.
Masters
Sociology
Sciences
Applied Sociology

Denna uppsats undersöker diskursen kring Black Lives Matter-rörelsen och rasism i svensk nyhetsmedia. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur Black Lives Matter rörelsen i samband med George Floyds död har framställs i nyhetsartiklar i Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet under det senaste året. Uppsatsen syftar även till att undersöka hur artiklarna kan skapa ett narrativ om rasism. Undersökningen har använt sig av textanalysen ur Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys för att analysera vårt material och utforska våra frågeställningar. Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys har använts som både metod och teori, och tillsammans med Stuart Halls teori om the other har undersökningen analyserat artiklarnas språk. Den tidigare forskning undersökningen lyft fram fastslår att press och media kan reproducera rasistiska narrativ, samt systematiskt tillskriva antirasism negativa egenskaper förknippade med bland annat brott, konflikt och intolerans. Genom att undersöka hur nyhetsmedia framställer Black Lives Matter-rörelsen och de narrativ om rasism som kan skapas så vill vi öppna upp för diskussion kring hur media kan påverka hur vi som konsumerar texterna därefter tolkar och skapar förståelse kring dessa ämnen.

Black radical politics are comprehensively defined and the aim is to understand how such a political ideology can be used to overcome racial inequalities in contemporary Britain. A Black radical challenge to mainstream racial theory within the academy is outlined, along with an interrogation of the principle limitation of Black radical thought, that of essentialism and cultural authenticity. To illustrate how a Black radical approach can be understood, the position was applied to inequalities in schooling. Black radicalism argues for a Black independent education. Black supplementary schools are spaces organised by concerned members of the Black community and offer extra teaching of mainstream curricula and also Black studies. These are presented as potential spaces for Black radical independent education. A Black supplementary school was selected as a case study, where a critical participatory ethnography was undertaken. The researcher spent 7 months working as a teacher in the supplementary school, collecting extensive fieldnotes. Experiences in the programme revealed strengths in the relationships, diverse curriculum and empowering nature of the environment for students. A number of challenges also arose including structure, coordination and decline in attendance. Overall, the potential for a Black radical independent education exists within Black supplementary school movement.

The purpose of this research was to find the differences in the use of medical care between black males and white males and between young black males and older black males. A combination of the conflict perspective, formal-rationality, sick roles, and social learning perspective was used to understand what black males think about using medical care. Secondary analysis was performed on data from the 1992 National Health Interview Survey. ANOVA, t tests, correlation analyses, and multiple regressions were performed to determine the differences in the use of medical care and what factors influenced visiting a doctor. Results indicate no difference in the number of doctor visits per year for black and white males. Differences in the number of doctor visits were found to be associated with place of residency and age. Education, employment, and number of conditions were the three factors that had the most influence on the number of doctor visits.

This thesis makes a theoretical and a methodological contribution. Theoretically, it tests certain predictions of procedural justice policing, which posits that neutral, fair, and respectful treatment by the police is the cornerstone of fruitful police-public relations, in that procedural justice leads to increased police legitimacy, and that legitimacy engenders societally desirable outcomes, such as citizens’ willingness to cooperate with the police and compliance with the law. Methodologically, it identifies and assesses causal mechanisms using a family of methods developed mostly in the field of epidemiology: causal mediation analysis. The theoretical and methodological aspects of this thesis converge in the investigation of (1) the extent to which procedural justice mediates the impact of contact with the police on police legitimacy and psychological processes (Paper 1), (2) the mediating role of police legitimacy on willingness to cooperate with the police and compliance with the law (Paper 3, Paper 4), and (3) the psychological drivers that channel the impact of procedural justice on police and legal legitimacy (Paper 2). This thesis makes use of a randomised controlled trial (Scottish Community Engagement Trial), four randomised experiments, and one experiment with parallel (encouragement) design on crowdsourced samples from the US and the UK (recruited through Amazon Turk and Prolific Academic). The causal evidence attests to the centrality of procedural justice, which mediates the impact of an encounter with the police on police legitimacy, and influences psychological processes and police legitimacy. Personal sense of power, not social identity, is the causal mediator of the effect of procedural justice on police and legal legitimacy. Finally, different aspects of legitimacy transmit the influence of procedural justice on distinct outcomes, with duty to obey affecting legal compliance and normative alignment affecting willingness to cooperate. In sum, most of the causal evidence is congruent with the theory of procedural justice.

Sociology
Ph.D.
In 2012, President Barack Obama was elected to a second term amidst concerns that his support of same-sex marriage would deter conservative African American voters. Rather, for the first time on record, the share of Black voters surpassed the share of White voters in the general electorate (File 2012). This seemingly paradoxical relationship, for conservative Black voters to support Obama while denouncing gay marriage, has yet to lead to any serious scholarly investigation. Instead, past research on religion and party alignment has focused primarily on the White Christian Right. Political sociologists, therefore, possess a better understanding of the correlation between White Christian conservatism and political conservatism. Meanwhile, not only are explorations into how Christian conservatism affects Black voter alignment scarce, but also, these investigations rarely isolate Black Christian conservatives from the general Black electorate. The current political climate complicates the relationship between race, religion, and politics considerably. The election of Barack Obama has symbolized to some that the American electorate exists within a post-racial environment. Accusations to the contrary have focused on supporters of the Tea Party, a movement that formed on the premise of anti-government interventionism. This highly conservative coalition has dictated the Republican Party's shift to the right, much like the "Moral Majority" in decades past. Similar to its religious predecessor, the Tea Party advocates conservative stances on abortion and gay rights. However, just as the White Christian Right consists almost entirely of White members, so too does the Tea Party. The current study examines Black Christian conservatives' political decision-making. The focus of this research is on Black Christian conservatives. However, in order to explain the environment in which Black voters must operate, I also study White Christian conservatives' political motivations. Thus, I ask, what motivates Black Christian conservatives to align with the Democratic Party despite their conservative political and religious ideologies? I explore three well-known explanations for why Black conservative voters may align with Democrats over Republicans. The first is redistributive policy support, which considers the longstanding espousal of fiscal liberalism among Black voters. Next, racial resentment investigates whether conservative Whites are antagonistic to Black voters' concerns. Finally, religious philosophy examines how Black Christian conservatives apply their religion to their political viewpoints. Each analysis chapter employs data that can directly address the following questions. First, how does Christian conservatism affect White and Black voters' support for various government initiatives? Second, does racial resentment contribute more to Whites' support of the Tea Party, or rather, does that support stem from fiscal and/or Christian conservatism? Finally, given that roughly 90 percent of the Black electorate aligns with the Democratic Party, how do Black Christian conservatives explain their conservatism on gay marriage and abortion alongside their Democratic alignment? To answer these questions, I employed a mixed-methodology consisting of: (1) datasets collected by the American National Elections Survey and the New York Times and CBS News; (2) a content analysis examining Black Christian conservative responses to an opinion editorial featured on four Christian websites and (3) ten in-depth interviews conducted with Black Christian voters. My findings show support for all three explanations. First, I find that Biblical literalism is problematic, since White and Black Christian conservatives diverge on a number of religious issues. While White Christian conservatives place an emphasis on abortion and homosexuality, I find that Black Christian conservatives possess greater concern for economic and racial issues. The White framework in which most scholars operate restricts the religious-political issues to family values. Therefore, when Black Christian conservatives consider poverty and racism as their biggest political issues, many miss the religious weight attached to their liberal stances. In other words, while Christian conservatism has a conservatizing effect on Whites' economic and racial views, it has a liberalizing effect for Blacks. Therefore, to frame Black Christian conservatives' Democratic allegiance as paradoxical misses that political and religious ideologies are contextualized through a White lens. Second, my findings show that the American electorate is still entrenched in racial politics. Whites who exhibit greater racial resentment are more likely to support either the Republican Party or the Tea Party. Moreover, racial resentment is the strongest predictor of White opposition to racial policies, demonstrating that an overall fiscal conservative ideology has very little to do with these stances. I argue that this hostile environment continues to block any hope for political alliance between Black and White Christian conservatives. Third, Black Christian conservatives, while often skeptical of welfare programs, still view redistributive policies in a positive light. Their greater support for economic redistribution is interwoven with a shared history of racial discrimination. Even those among the upper-middle class whom I interviewed had a greater appreciation for government services that helped the unfortunate. Their close proximity to poverty affected this outlook. In fact, all of my interviewees had either received government benefits personally or knew a family member who had. The implications of this research reveal the ramifications of the GOP's fiscal and racial conservatism. By completely ignoring economic concerns, or failing to address the long-standing effects of racial discrimination, Republicans have attracted racially intolerant Whites and pushed away nearly all Black voters. Black Christian conservatives view homosexuality and abortion as sins that are no greater than greed. Due to the economic circumstances of Black voters, it is often the case that economic issues are discussed more frequently than are abortion or homosexuality. Furthermore, Black Christian non-conservatives are much more supportive of gay marriage and abortion than their Christian conservative counterparts are. Therefore, conservative family values will do little to attract Black voters to the Republican Party. To make matters worse, the Tea Party's political prowess during the 2010 midterms pushed the Republican Party far to the right on particular fiscal issues. While opposing social programs that largely affected the poor and racial minorities, the Tea Party sought to appease its base by protecting Medicare. The Republican Party has effectively disapproved of programs benefiting the less fortunate by applying fiscal conservatism only to segments of the population deemed undeserving. In addition, the Tea Party attracts Whites who have high levels of racial resentment regardless of their political ideologies. Indeed, politically liberal and moderate Whites in the Tea Party were even more likely than White conservatives to be motivated by racial resentment. If any Republican effort to attract Black conservatives were to succeed, it would mean diminishing the Tea Party's political power. Anything less than this will convey the GOP's endorsement of a faction deeply entrenched in White interests.
Temple University--Theses

Includes bibliographical references.
This study contributes to our understanding of the trajectories of South Africa’s historical black middle class - a class which is defined by access to education, and resulting occupational opportunities, as well as access to land. The middle class under study is a particular black middle class that established itself in Mthatha in the former Transkei Bantustan from 1908 onwards, when the Mthatha municipality needed a new and safe source of fresh drinking water and sold land to both black and white buyers in order to finance the so-called Umtata Water Scheme. This allowed the accumulation of land in the hands of a hitherto largely occupationally-based, mission-educated black middle class. The way in which this particular landed middle class has reproduced and transformed itself from the around 1900 to the present is the focus of the analysis.

This study examines the development of first-generation African American and Latino college students' sociopolitical consciousness in the context of their learning of sociology as a component of their liberal education studies. Given the paucity of research on how college students develop sociopolitical consciousness, this study addresses: (1) the nature of first-generation undergraduate African American and Latino students' sociopolitical consciousness at point of entry to college-level study of introductory sociology, (2) college students' sociopolitical consciousness prior to (or early in) their interaction with sociological ideas, (3) changes that may occur in these students' sociopolitical consciousness as they interact with sociological ideas, (4) classroom activities that may be related to changes experienced by the students, and (5) acts, reflective of sociopolitical consciousness, in which the students engage.

Conducted at an urban university with high racial and ethnic diversity, the study featured documentation and analysis of 18 focal students' learning in two sections of a sociology class. The study relies on interviews with the focal students about their learning and thinking in and out of class, interviews with instructors and administrators, class observations, analysis of students' written work and other class materials including textbooks, and review of institutional and curricular documents.

Study findings portray undergraduates' sociopolitical consciousness as comprised of awareness and understanding of sociopolitical forces. Students' awareness and understanding may vary by degree (amount of) and topic. College students enter the classroom already in possession of some sociopolitical consciousness which may be viewed as part of their prior knowledge. Study findings indicate that students' sociopolitical consciousness intensifies and at times is transformed as students encounter sociological subject matter. Two aspects of the classroom may contribute to developing undergraduates' sociopolitical consciousness: (1) in-class discussions and (2) professors offering examples during their teaching relevant to students' interests. The study suggests that students' acts of analysis and/or critique, and their acts of involvement, can contribute to their sociopolitical capacity—an amalgamation of consciousness and acts. Implications and ideas for future research follow.

This thesis investigates what Black undergraduate women understand and take away from Hip-Hop music. Highlighting their matrix of domination and recognizing their intersecting identities, this thesis shows how identity and music work together in the listening experience of Black women, thus emphasizing how they invest this music with social value. The following questions are answered in this research: What does Hip-Hop mean to Black female students at an elite university? How do these Black female students experience and perceive Hip-Hop music? A basic interpretive design with focus groups was used to execute this study. Three focus groups consisting of six to seven participants per group, totaling 19 participants, were conducted. Findings included that the background of each participant influenced what Hip-Hop means to them. Overall, Hip-Hop music was valued by participants and listened to for many reasons of sociological relevance, including its influence of political consciousness and colorism. Future studies should explore the how different demographic groups experience and perceive Hip-Hop, including how diverse educational backgrounds may influence perception.

The goal of this study is to examine racial residential segregation in U.S. metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The study uses 1990-2010 decennial census data to answer a broad theoretical question: is the historical black-white color line being replaced by a black-nonblack or white-nonwhite color line? The results show that black-white segregation is higher than black-nonblack and white-nonwhite segregation in metropolitan areas, nonmetropolitan areas, and the United States as a whole. A multivariate analysis reveals that population size tends to be associated with higher segregation in metropolitan areas and lower segregation in nonmetropolitan areas. As a control variable, diversity seems to play an important role in segregation by U.S. region. The study concludes that further research is needed to examine how the color line might change, especially in nonmetropolitan areas, which experienced rapid minority population growth during the 2000s.

This paper examines the association between race blame attitudes with support for policies aimed at improving the nation’s large cities among White and Black Americans. Although legislative safeguards protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, Blacks trail Whites on nearly all quality of life indicators. By extension, the quality of life within cities with disproportionate and segregated Black populations is decidedly worse than in other cities. That said, the current study largely finds that black and white Americans maintain different motivations for supporting increased or decreased funding for large urban American cities, which often serves as a code word for Black cities. According to the General Social Survey (2014), among whites, individuals that believe that racial inequality result from a lack of Black effort are more likely than others to believe that that the government does not need to offer any additional help to large American cities. This relationship, however, does not hold up for Blacks, suggesting perhaps that the word “city” operates as a code word for Whites that spurs racial resentment.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between a Black-owned radio station's organizational culture and its social impact. Although these constructs have been researched in isolation, there are no known studies that have considered whether a relationship exists between the two constructs. Furthermore, there is no evidence that either construct has been studied within the context of a Black-owned business. Businesses owned by Black Americans represent an important and fast-growing segment in the American economy and, therefore, warrant further investigation in order to contribute diverse perspectives to research and theory building in organizational science.

The primary research question guiding this study was, "what is the relationship between a Black-owned radio station's organizational culture and its social impact?" Secondary research questions examined social impact in relation to specific elements of organizational culture and how listeners experience the radio station's social impact. The study was conducted using case study methodology. The site of this study was WHUR-FM (WHUR), the commercial radio station owned by Howard University. Interview participants included 10 purposefully selected Black Americans: 8 current and former employees and 2 listeners of WHUR. Other sources of evidence analyzed for the study included observations, documentation, archival records, and physical artifacts.

This study found evidence of a synergistic relationship between the organizational culture and social impact of WHUR. The findings were based on consistencies observed between the radio station's values-based organizational culture and its impact on internal and external communities.

Emotional intimacy and support are deemed vital to most individuals’ sense of relationship quality and satisfaction. Although relationship outcomes are more closely tied with partners’ sense of emotional well-being in their partnerships, most sociological inquiry focuses on how couples navigate instrumental tasks of family work (e.g. household work, childcare, etc.). Examinations of emotional facets of couple relationship remain rare. This dissertation addresses this dearth by presenting an inductively derived analysis of how black heterosexual spouses in enduring relationships (10-40 years) sustain emotional connection. It draws on 75 semi-structured interviews - with relationship professionals (n=12) and 42 black spouses (21 couples) interviewed jointly and individually (n=63) from New York, Cleveland, and Chicago. Using a sociology of emotion lens, it extends Arlie Hochschild’s conceptual framework of emotion management by examining emotion work along four dimensions. First, challenging gender essentialism in extant research, it examines partners’ desires for, perceptions of and approaches to intimacy going beyond a discussion of gender differences to also shed light on overlap between and variation within gender groups. Secondly, it shows how the co-creation of joint emotion strategies to avoid or confront recurrent interpersonal tensions helped couples solidify a shared sense of couple identity marked by different degrees of we-ness. Third, contrary to previous studies suggesting it’s mainly women who do emotion work on themselves to manage dissatisfaction with intimacy, I reveal how both spouses engage in emotion work when connection breaks down. Often, such emotion work often arises due to tensions between the carework of intimacy and pre-existing norms and beliefs around emotional engagement. Finally, probing particularities in black women’s socialization around resilience, I disturb the monolithic portrait of women as intimacy experts in extant research, underlining challenges they face beyond dissatisfaction with male emotionality. By focusing on black couples, the study expands the demographic terrain of qualitative sociological inquiry on emotion work and couple relationships writ large. Finally, by theorizing from the experience of black couples, I disturb trends of taking educated, white, middle class couples as the normative American family, revealing how our conceptualization of emotion work could benefit from better accounting of social positionality.
Sociology

This dissertation uses Black Feminist Theory as a theory-methods package to examine the lived experience of terminal illness for Black women with advanced cancer. I developed and implemented a Black Feminist Methodology, which seeks to center the voices and experiences of Black women in order to challenge positivist constructions of knowledge production and increase research on, by and for Black women. This dissertation explores the intersections of race, gender, class, spirituality and health within the lives of Black women. Analysis of multiple in-depth interviews with Black women and observations of clinical interactions with their providers reveal new insights into the way these intersections co-constitute and shape the patienthood experience, the patient-provider relationship, prognostic conversations, and treatment and end-of-life decision-making for Black women. First, I examine the impact of financial security or insecurity on the way Black women approach and understand their disease and treatment. I go beyond questions of income and insurance status to illuminate the ways in which class intersects with race and gender for women undergoing treatment for advanced cancer and the implications those intersections hold for how the women view and understand their disease. Next, I expand upon previous research on the role of religion in oncology care to explore how Black women’s faith impacts not only medical-decision making but also their view of self and illness. Finally, I trouble the notion of what counts as an intersectional identity. I posit that cancer patienthood, one’s identity as a cancer patient post-diagnosis, is itself an important identity in studying the experience of health and illness. I describe the way the intersections of race, gender and patient identity impact experiences of patienthood, relationships with providers and understanding of disease and prognosis.

College degree attainment for Black Americans has significantly fallen their majority counterparts. While educational attainment for this minority demographic has been less than average, a secondary trend emerges. Despite the rises in graduation rates, Black males consistently earn a smaller percentage of the degrees garnered by Black students. Furthermore, policies throughout sectors of American society produce segregation that manifests as genocidal realities in the lives of Black men—including college graduation. Thus, the purpose of this research was to determine the effect of neighborhood segregation on Black men and women’s 4 and 6-year graduation probability and determine if Black men reduce the gap when given 6 years to graduate. The theoretical framework of African American Male Theory guided this study. Utilizing the Princeton Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF), the research utilized binary logistic regression to analyze the effect of 3 independent variables (household income, maternal education level, and neighborhood segregation) on dependent variables (4-year graduation and 6-year graduation).

A purposeful sample 1051 Black students (368 men and 683 women) from the NLSF were used in the analysis. The majority of study participants (55%) had a mother that had at least a bachelor’s degree; 45% of the students came from neighborhoods that were majority Black (having at least 70% Black people in their neighborhood), and 15% came from poverty, 25% were low income, and 58% had incomes greater than low income. The logistic regression analysis found that for Black men, the odds of graduating and coming from a majority Black community are .506, and from a more diverse community, they are .661. For Black women, the odds of graduating in 4 years when growing up in a majority Black neighborhood were .937 and 1.6369 when growing up in a more diverse area.

The study determined racial segregation more adversely impacts Black men’s ability to graduate with a bachelor’s degree than it does for Black women. Even in desegregated (diverse) neighborhoods, Black men were unable to reduce the degree attainment gap given 4 or 6 years to graduate. The regression analyses yielded results that support the initial hypothesis that segregation is a significant predictor of bachelor degree attainment apart from academic preparation. Based on the indicators, predictors, and factors correlated with college degree attainment from the review of the literature, the results suggest that larger societal factors could potentially be significant predictors of college degree attainment outside of academic preparation. The findings argue for targeted interventions at the local, state, and federal levels to life course barriers imposed on Black males.

This study’s purpose is, through content analysis, to interpret the portrayal of the human-rights movement Black Lives Matter during the spring and summer of 2020. Further intentions include examining and explaining the portrayals of the Swedish and the American movements. Theories of Framing and Moral-Panic are used for understanding expressions and consequences of portraiture. Using a hermeneutic approach, 53 articles from four of Sweden's leading newspapers were interpreted. Main findings were that Swedish news media tend to portray the movement in Sweden in more opinion-based terms compared to the movement in the USA. The opinions were mainly expressed when reporting on the movement during demonstrations in Sweden while reports of the USA, mainly portrayed the movement in police- violence but balanced terms. Previous research contributed to an increased understanding of the research field and to problematizing the study's results in relation to its theoretical framework. Our conclusion is that Swedish news media tend to portray Black Lives Matter in more polarized terms if current affairs are taking place in a geographical vicinity. The movement in relation to violence is also portrayed differently depending on the country- specific history of the movement. Although patterns could be discerned, the relationship is complex based on the scope of the essay and empirical material.
Syftet med denna studie är att genom innehållsanalys tolka svenska nyhetsmediers porträttering av människorättsrörelsen Black Lives Matter under våren och sommaren 2020. Studien undersöker också potentiella skillnader i porträttering av rörelsen i Sverige och rörelsen i USA samt hur porträtteringen kan förklaras. Gestaltningsteori och teorin om moralpanik användes för att skapa förståelse för porträtteringens uttryck och konsekvenser. Med ett hermeneutiskt angreppssätt tolkades 53 artiklar från fyra av Sveriges ledande nyhetstidningar. Studiens främsta resultat visade att svenska nyhetsmedier tenderar att porträttera rörelsen i Sverige i mer åsiktsbaserade termer i förhållande till rörelsen i USA. Åsikterna tog sig främst i uttryck vid rapportering om rörelsen under demonstrationer i Sverige jämfört med rapporteringen i USA som främst porträtterade rörelsen balanserat och neutralt, men i termer av polisvåld mot svarta afroamerikaner. Tidigare forskning bidrog till ökad förståelse för forskningsfältet och till att granska studiens resultat i förhållande till det teoretiska ramverket. Studiens slutsats är att svenska nyhetsmedier tenderar att porträttera Black Lives Matter i mer polariserade termer om rörelse-aktuella händelser pågår i en geografisk närhet. Rörelsen i förhållande till våldsutövning porträtteras dessutom på olika sätt beroende på vilken historia rörelsen har i respektive land. Trots att mönster kunnat urskiljas är relationen dock komplex baserat på uppsatsens omfång och empiriska material.