Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / W. Richard Goe / This study examined three of the prominent theories of juvenile delinquency to determine principle juvenile firearm carrying behaviors. The theories investigated were Differential Association/Social Learning, Social Control, and Anomie/Strain. The data set used for this research was the “National Survey of Weapons-Related Experiences, Behaviors, and Concerns of High School Youth in the United States, 1996” from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. This national-level survey of youth was conducted by Joseph F. Sheley and James D. Wright to assemble detailed behavioral and attitudinal data concerning weapons and violence, and was completed by 733 10th and 11th grade male high school students. Comparison logistic regression model analyses were utilized to examine the study’s hypotheses. Findings indicated that juvenile firearms carrying is most influenced by delinquent peers, delinquent friends, and gang membership within the theoretical framework of Differential Association/Social Learning. Social Control Theory has the least explanatory power, while the analysis of Anomie/Strain suggests that vicarious strains (those strains experienced by people close to the juvenile) have even more influence on juvenile firearms carrying than experienced strain. Theoretical integration is recommended for future research attempting to provide greater explanatory and predictive power for serious forms of delinquency like juvenile firearms carrying.

En croisant divers événements socio-historiques depuis la moitié du XXe siècle dans l’histoire en ce qui concerne la modernisation des sociétés, il est clair qu’une part importante de l’industrialisation avait pu contribuer l’émergence d’une éducation de masse. Certes, l’individu doit fréquenter un milieu académique, afin de pouvoir vivre convenablement dans une société moderne industrialisée. Le développement des écoles primaires, des écoles secondaires et des milieux académiques aux études supérieures avaient permis à l’individu de s’orienter sur le marché du travail. Ainsi, face à la modernisation des sociétés occidentales, la science et des développements scientifiques avaient eu des impacts majeurs sur l’éducation des enfants. Sur l’aspect de la science, l’enseignement de la religion à l’école devient une interrogation aux chercheurs comme Émile Durkheim, le père fondateur de la sociologie; le projet de la laïcisation scolaire en France est le résultat de l’adaptation d’une institution publique aux valeurs d’une société moderne. En analysant les institutions scolaires de deux sociétés, il s’agit d’appréhender comment elles sont en contrastes en ce qui a trait la place de la religion dans la pédagogie : l’Iran et le Québec. La tradition sociologique oblige aux écrivains d’orienter leurs idées par la construction d’une question de recherche, qui repose sur la conjonction de différents paradigmes. / By crossing various socio-historical events since the mid-twentieth century in history through the modernization of societies, it is clear that an important part of industrialization could have contributed to the emergence of mass education. Admittedly, the individual must attend an academic environment in order to be able to live adequately in a modern industrialized society. Thus, faced with the modernization of Western societies, science and scientific developments had major impacts on the education of children. On the aspect of science, the teaching of religion at school becomes an interrogation to researchers like Émile Durkheim, the ''father of sociology''; The project of secularization in France is the result of the adaptation of a public institution to the values ​​of a modern society. In analyzing the educational institutions of two societies, it is a question of apprehending how they are in contrasts concerning the place of religion in the pedagogy: Iran and Quebec. The sociological tradition obliges writers to orient their ideas by constructing a question of research, which is based on the conjunction of different paradigms.

Mon mémoire porte sur le développement personnel. Par le biais de la sociologie des religions mise de l’avant par Thomas Luckmann dans The Invisible Religion (1970 [1967]), je l’appréhende comme une « “nouvelle” forme sociale de religion » (“new” social form of religion). Dans cet ouvrage, le sociologue avance que la religion est devenue, dans les sociétés modernes, une quête de sens existentiel animée par le thème de la réalisation personnelle (self-realization). Définissant la religion comme un système de significations et liant sa forme contemporaine au thème de la réalisation personnelle, l’approche de Luckmann me sert de cadre théorique pour entrevoir le développement personnel comme une manifestation de la religion invisible. N’étant pas rattachée à aucune institution religieuse officielle et se manifestant dans la sphère privée des individus, la religion contemporaine ne serait pas perçue comme telle par les individus et deviendrait — selon Luckmann — invisible. Dans le cadre de mon mémoire, j’interroge l’omniprésence du développement personnel dans le monde contemporain sous l’angle de son « [in]visibilité ». L’enjeu du mémoire est de mener une étude empirique sur le développement personnel afin de rendre visible une manifestation de la religion invisible dans nos vies. À cette fin, j’élabore une méthode permettant d’en discerner la présence dans le monde contemporain. Après une revue de littérature sur le développement personnel, je présente dans le premier chapitre l’ouvrage de Luckmann ainsi que les questions qui se trouvent au cœur de ma recherche. Dans le second chapitre, j’expose la méthode retenue pour saisir une manifestation contemporaine de la religion, c’est-à-dire une analyse de discours de type analytique. Dans le troisième chapitre, je m’attarde à découvrir le ou les modèles de connaissances de cette manifestation souvent associée au domaine du non religieux à partir de lectures des livres de développement personnel sélectionnés pour mon corpus : Le chemin le moins fréquenté (1987 [1978]), Écoute ton corps (1991 [1987]), Les quatre accords Toltèques (1999 [1997]) et Le secret (2007 [2006]). Une fois un « schéma du développement personnel » délinéé, je me consacre, dans le quatrième chapitre, à mettre en exergue la religion invisible dans une religion visible, c’est-à-dire un regroupement qui se considère « religion ». Prenant pour cas d’étude le Mouvement raëlien, je procède à une seconde analyse de discours de trois de ses livres : La méditation sensuelle (1980), Le Message donné par les Extra-Terrestres (1997) et Le Maitraya : extraits de son enseignement (2003). Ce faisant, j’évalue la place de la religion invisible dans des contextes qui se veulent expressément non religieux et religieux. Je conclus mon mémoire en abordant les enjeux liés à la visibilité de la religion et suggère, sur la base de mes résultats, de nouvelles perspectives de recherche pour la sociologie des religions. / My master thesis focuses on personal development. Drawing on the sociology of religion put forward by Thomas Luckmann in his book The Invisible Religion (1970 [1967]), I understand personal development as a “new” social form of religion. In this book, the sociologist argues that religion has become, in modern societies, a quest for existential meaning driven by the theme of self-realization. Defining religion as a system of meanings and linking its contemporary form to self-realization, Luckmann’s approach allows for the development of a theoretical framework that apprehends personal development as one manifestation of the “invisible religion.” Because it is not be perceived as religion, contemporary religion would be—according to Luckmann—be invisible. Not being tied to any official religious institution, the new form of religion would manifest itself in the private sphere. In my thesis, I question the ubiquity of personal development in the contemporary world in terms of its visibility/invisibility. The present thesis is an empirical study on personal development; it aims to make visible one invisible manifestation of religion in our lives. To this end, I develop a method that enables to identify its presence in the contemporary world. After a review of the literature on personal development in the first chapter, I present in my second chapter Luckmann’s book and the questions at the heart of the thesis. In the third chapter, I discuss the method used to capture a contemporary manifestation of religion, a discourse analysis. In the fourth chapter, I seek to uncover the knowledge paradigms of the personal development, often associated with the field of non-religious, by reading a selection of books from this literature : Le chemin le moins fréquenté (1987 [1978]), Écoute ton corps (1991 [1987]), Les quatre accords Toltèques (1999 [1997]) et Le secret (2007 [2006]). After delineating their “meaning system of personal development”, I dedicate myself, in the fifth chapter, to highlight the invisible religion in a “visible” one; a group whose members consider religious, the Raelian Movement. For this purpose, I undertake to a second discourse analysis with sources published by the Movement: La méditation sensuelle (1980), Le Message donné par les Extra-Terrestres (1997) et Le Maitraya: extraits de son enseignement (2003). In doing so, I assess the place of the invisible religion in contexts that are specifically perceived as non-religious and religious. I conclude my thesis by addressing issues related to the visibility of religion and, based on my results, suggest new research perspectives for the sociology of religion.

Déclenchée par une expérience personnelle – la recherche d’une « robe d’architecte » –, la présente étude gravite autour de l’architecture en Roumanie et se concentre sur le style de vie de ses professionnels. Si les modalités de distinction qui opèrent dans ce champ – encadrées par la théorie de Pierre Bourdieu – sont initialement apparues comme pistes à explorer, ce sont les écrits de Siegfried Kracauer qui m’ont permis de traiter le sujet de façon satisfaisante. En traçant les contours de l’image d’architecte qui, sur son chemin vers une meilleure vie, s’abandonne au souci de s’élever socialement, j’ai découvert avec étonnement les architectes réservés de T. – la ville moyenne de Transylvanie qui a constitué le terrain de mon enquête. Ce qui s’est présenté au début de ma démarche comme obstacle est devenu, au fil de l’analyse, son aspect le plus fécond : dans les hésitations des architectes de T. (les ellipses et rectifications de leur discours), j’ai pu discerner plus de traits de leur réalité quotidienne que je l’avais d’abord anticipé. Grâce aux leçons de Siegfried Kracauer – son œil attentif, son intérêt pour les détails, ses capacités d’étonnement tout comme sa sensibilité aux idéologies et grandes directions de la société et son ouverture aux matériaux offerts à la sociologie – et à son style d’écriture, j’ai pu déceler des indices qui m’ont permis de plonger dans la réalité des architectes de T., une réalité mêlée d’une gloire rêvée et d’incertitudes vécues. C’est cette exploration minutieuse du quotidien et du discours des architectes de T, mis en balance avec leur représentation dans des œuvres littéraires et cinématographiques, qui se reflète dans le présent mémoire et le structure. / Triggered by a personal experience – the search for an “architect’s dress” – the present study revolves around architecture in Romania and focuses on the lifestyle of its professionals. If the modes of distinction operating in this field – formulated in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory – initially appeared as a path to be explored, it is the writings of Siegfried Kracauer that allowed me to capture the subject more aptly. By drawing the contours of the image of an architect who, on his way to a better life, abandons himself to the thirst to raise socially, I discovered the reserved architects of T. – the average-sized city of Transylvania, which was at the heart of my investigation. What emerged at the beginning of the process as an obstacle, soon became its most fruitful aspect: in the architects’ hesitations (the gaps and rectifications in their discourse), I could discern more aspects of their daily reality that I had initially anticipated. Thanks to Siegfried Kracauer’s lessons – his keen eye, his interest in details, his capacities of astonishment as well as his sensitivity to the ideologies and major directions of society and his openness to the various materials offered to sociology – as well as his style of writing, I was able to detect clues, which allowed me to plunge into the reality of architects in T., a reality combining dreams of glory and experienced uncertainties. It is this meticulous exploration of the everyday life and discourse of architects in T, weighed against their representation in literary and cinematographic works, which is reflected in the present memoire and lends it its structure.

Pitirim A. Sorokin est l'un des plus importants sociologues américains du XXe siècle. Ses contributions à la sociologie sont non seulement nombreuses, mais surtout diversifiées. La majorité de ses ouvrages furent traduits et toutes les grandes langues du monde ont accès à au moins un de ses livres. Cependant, en Occident, sa carrière précédant son émigration aux États-Unis fut longtemps négligée, les critiques s'intéressant plutôt à ses écrits post-Russie. Par ailleurs, très peu d'écrits francophones existent sur cette grande figure de la sociologie américaine. Remédiant à cette situation, ce mémoire revisite la vie et l'oeuvre de Sorokin en Russie et présente aux lecteurs contemporains la partie éclipsée de sa carrière. Plus précisément, la recherche porte sur la carrière russe de Pitirim A. Sorokin d'un point de vue biographique et sociologique. La question au coeur du travail est la suivante : Comment expliquer la production sociologique de Pitirim A. Sorokin en Russie? Dans une première partie est présentée sa biographie entre 1889 et 1923. L'objectif est de décrire la formation de son habitus et les diverses positions qu'il occupa. La seconde partie, quant à elle, résume les recherches produites par le sociologue avant son exil et montre en quoi ses prises de positions scientifiques furent déterminées par son parcours. / Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin is one of the greatest American sociologists of the XXth century. His contributions to sociology are not only numerous but, more importantly, diversified. The majority of his writings have been translated and most of the languages of the world have at least access to one of his books. Nonetheless, in the Western world, his career before his emigration to the United-States has been neglected for a long time, because his critics were mostly interested in his writings post-Russia. Furthermore, very few French writings exist on this classic of American sociology. Solving this situation, this memoir revisit the life and work of Sorokin in Russia and presents to contemporary readers the eclipsed part of his career. More to the point, this research focuses on the Russian career of Pitirim A. Sorokin from a biographical and sociological point of view. The question at the center of it is as follow : How can one explain the sociological production of Pitirim A. Sorokin in Russia? In the first part, his biography from 1889 to 1923 will be presented. The objective is to describe the development of his ''habitus'' and the diverse positions that he occupied. The second part summarizes the researches produced by the sociologist before his exile and explain his scientific positions.

Master of Science / Department of Landscape Architecture, Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie Rolley / The City of Emerado, North Dakota, population 414, located in northeast North Dakota is the subject of a Social Network Analysis (SNA), conducted prior to it being the subject of a University of North Dakota Center for Community Engagement, Community Connect Forum. The SNA was developed based on the results of 25 interviews conducted with local residents, elected officials and business owners, using snowball sampling and following grounded theory methods. The interview results were coded and memos were written to aid in the analysis. Social Network data was entered into the Sentinel Visualizer software (FMS Advanced Systems Group) to develop a visual image of the network, including nodes (people, organizations or businesses) and links to illustrate the relationships between nodes. The SNA helps to frame the relationships in terms of bridging and bonding social capital. The SNA provides the ability to mathematically determine the most important nodes to the community social network, using calculations to determine levels of degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, Eigenvalue, and network density. After calculating these elements, categorical descriptions of the top ten individuals for each category are provided. The networks of five individuals are reviewed in depth to aid in comprehending the process of incrementally expanding networks.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / Sandra M. Stith / Adoption trends have shifted in the past two decades and as a result, could impact established assumptions about behavior problems among adopted children. A comprehensive meta-analysis was published in 2005 attempting to come to more definitive conclusions regarding adoption behavior and moderators of adoption behavior. However, the study used a sample from over a dozen countries over a 44 year span. This study is a meta-analysis that has replicated many of the questions investigated by the previous analysis with a much more recent 15 year sample of adoptees placed only within the United States. The results show that combined international and domestic adoptee samples, as well as separate international and domestic adoptee samples are more likely to have total, externalizing, and internalizing behavior problems than their non-adopted counterparts. In addition, age at time of assessment, gender of adoptees, and length of time spent with adoptive family may moderate some of the behavior problems experienced by adoptees. Pre-adoptive adversity, age at time of assessment, and study quality were not shown to have moderating influence on behavior of adoptees.

This study explores of how university students understand the relationship between a liberal arts undergraduate degree and becoming employment-ready. The study employs a phenomenological approach. Surveys and interviews of students were conducted on the Faculty of Arts and Science students at the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto. Supplementary data were obtained from National Survey of Student Engagement. By employing Bourdieu‟s theory of practice (especially with regard to capital, habitus and field), the study reveals how students went about preparing for the labour market differed by their social class, immigration status and race. Students‟ abilities to secure skill-enhancing extracurricular activities and maintaining high GPA scores appeared related to their cultural capital. Most racialized first generation students experienced levels of difficulties in securing skill-enhancing extracurricular skill activities and maintaining high GPAs, which affected their employment readiness, clarity about occupational direction and their entry to graduate studies. New immigrant students were least aware of the extracurricular activities needed to prepare for employment. The study concludes that most liberal arts undergraduate students are not ready for employment at the completion of their studies and that social class and race may be related to their ability to make themselves employment-ready

Contributing to the literature on the Muslim experience post-9/11, the purpose of this study was to engage with a group that is often talked about, but not with: Muslim youth. Using an integrative anti-racist and anti-colonial approach with an emphasis on a spiritual way of knowing, this study gives voice to young Muslim activists in Toronto who have made the choice to “do something”. The study aims to understand what motivates these young activists, particularly in the context of post-9/11 Islamophobia, with the goal being to challenge stereotypical perceptions of Muslims, while contributing to the body of knowledge that aims to disrupt dominant notions of what “Canadian” identity is. The following analysis helps answer this question, which includes the role of spirituality, the attachment to Canadian identity and the desire to educate. Key challenges and what these youth prescribe for Canada’s future are also discussed.

Contributing to the literature on the Muslim experience post-9/11, the purpose of this study was to engage with a group that is often talked about, but not with: Muslim youth. Using an integrative anti-racist and anti-colonial approach with an emphasis on a spiritual way of knowing, this study gives voice to young Muslim activists in Toronto who have made the choice to “do something”. The study aims to understand what motivates these young activists, particularly in the context of post-9/11 Islamophobia, with the goal being to challenge stereotypical perceptions of Muslims, while contributing to the body of knowledge that aims to disrupt dominant notions of what “Canadian” identity is. The following analysis helps answer this question, which includes the role of spirituality, the attachment to Canadian identity and the desire to educate. Key challenges and what these youth prescribe for Canada’s future are also discussed.