Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-146).

The underrepresentation of Black males in college and university campuses has continued to raise alarming questions for parents, teachers, and policy makers. In this study I utilized Intersectionality theory to examine Black males’ experiences in high schools in order to gain an understanding of the factors that impact their educational attainment and subsequent development of college aspiration. Based on 30 qualitative interviews with 10th, 11th, and 12th graders and 30 interviews with their parents, this study examined familial and social contexts in relations to Black male students’ educational attainment. Four key findings revealed that, 1) young Black men had to deal with gender-specific racial discrimination on a daily basis by counteracting the prevalent negative images against Black males in mainstream American society, 2) peer pressure exerted positive influence in middle to high SES neighborhoods and schools; but showed negative impact on their educational attainment and college aspiration in low SES neighborhoods and substandard schools, 3) female headed households in particular did not necessarily have negative effects on Black male students’ educational attainment, and 4) private schools appeared to have better climates than public schools in inspiring Black males to higher levels of academic achievement and college aspiration. Policy recommendations were proposed to stimulate Black male students’ greater interest in college attendance and educational achievement.

The decision of whether to enter higher education or not is strongly structured by social background, i.e. parents’ social class. This paper examines if and to what extent enrolment in tertiary education also is related to social capital, and furthermore, if social capital can account for differences in social background. Two aspects of social capital are examined: extended network resources, operationalized as family acquaintances holding different occupations, and peer influences, assessed as the number of friends already engaged in higher educational studies. The sample consists of two subsequent surveys of Swedish adolescents, divided in three stratums based on parents’ country of birth: Iran, former Yugoslavia and Sweden. The findings suggest that resources and returns of extended social networks enhance the probability of enrolment to university studies. The results concerning peer influences seem to indicate an impact on the probability of university admission, however, there might be causal and analytical problems of measurement involved.

Background: Research on how rising human capital affects the consequences of population ageing rarely considers the fact that the human capital of the elderly population is composed in a specific way that is shaped by their earlier schooling and work experience. For an elderly population of a fixed size and age-sex composition, this entails that the higher its human capital, the greater the total amount of public pensions to be paid. Objective: The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the link between human capital and retiree benefits and its effect on population ageing from a demographic viewpoint. Methods: We construct an old age dependency ratio (OADR), in which each person, whether in the numerator or the denominator, is assigned the number of units corresponding to his/her level of human capital. Based on data for Italy, we study the dynamics of this human-capital-specific OADR with the help of multistate population projections to 2107. Results: Our results show that under specific conditions a constant or moderately growing human capital may aggravate the consequences of population ageing rather than alleviate them. Conclusions: With those findings, the authors would like to stimulate the debate on the search for demographic and/or socio-economic solutions to the challenges posed by population ageing.

China's rapid economic growth and social transitions have drawn substantial recent attention. However, there is still limited understanding of these phenomena and the mechanisms behind them. This dissertation investigates three aspects of China's development: education, female labor supply and responses to natural shocks. Chapter 1 sheds light on the option value of education by studying the impact of China's college enrollment expansion on educational attainment at the high school level. Standard human capital models without uncertainty rarely address the importance of the option value of education -- the opportunity that a certain level of education provides to obtain a higher level of education. Therefore, changes in option values can affect human capital investment decisions. Combining survey data with provincial statistics and applying a difference-in-differences method, I find that China's college expansion significantly increased the probabilities of enrolling in and completing high school. The probability of completing high school increased more than that of enrolling in high school. Female students benefited more, as did children whose mother had a high school degree. Chapter 2 studies the relationship between fertility and female labor supply. Many empirical studies find a negative correlation between the two, however the evidence on causal effects is weaker because fertility is endogenous. This paper studies the effects of childbearing on women's labor supply and earnings using a plausibly exogenous change, the relaxation of China's One Child Policy, as an instrument for family size. The main findings are that total fertility has no significant impact on time of working as a wage earner, but children under six have a negative effect. Neither total fertility nor children under six affect women's farming time or annual income. Chapter 3 explores the long-term consequences of China's Great Famine from 1959 to 1961. Several studies have investigated the causes of the famine, yet little empirical work examined its consequences. This paper examines a set of health and socioeconomic outcomes that have not been studied. I find a significant positive selection in the height of survivors born during the famine. Individuals born during the famine received less education than those born before or after the famine, were more likely to work in agriculture when starting to work and transferred less money to their parents.

Despite a constant rise in the attainment of Sats results year on year, the perception remains that British primary school children are underachieving and that they are reluctant readers and writers. In order to motivate their students, some teachers use films as a visual stimulus to provide students with ideas and create a personal and emotion connection with the written text. In the school years of 2013/14 I followed 21 primary classes which were taking part in a ‘film literacy’ scheme run by Bradford UNESCO City of Film. This initiative saw the training of teachers in the use of film as a tool in literacy lesson with the hope to raise attainment and motivation. Students and teachers completed questionnaires and interviews which were analysed in conjunction with observations and the students’ literacy grades. The research showed that both students and teachers recorded an increase in motivation. Further, significant progress in attainment also became evident: film literacy students raised their grades by 23.3% beyond the expected year-on-year increase. Improvements in inference, comprehension and vocabulary were especially praised. Students from schools with a low-income environment benefitted in particular. The research discusses six potential reasons for these changes, two of which are based on the belief that film is a particularly suitable medium for teaching as it engages students emotionally. Although the thesis acknowledges that Bradford involved a unique group of schools in the film literacy training and research, it nevertheless argues that film could be useful addition to primary classrooms due to its potential ability to raise standards and engage reluctant young writers.

abstract: Research on the consequences of gang membership is limited mainly to the study of crime and victimization. This gives the narrow impression that the effects of gang membership do not cascade into other life domains. This dissertation conceptualized gang membership as a snare in the life-course that disrupts progression in conventional life domains. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Cohort of 1997 (NLSY97) data were used to examine the effects of adolescent gang membership on the nature and patterns of educational attainment and employment over a 12-year period in the life-course. Variants of propensity score weighting were used to assess the effects of gang joining on a range of outcomes pertaining to educational attainment and employment. The key findings in this dissertation include: (1) selection adjustments partially or fully confounded the effects of gang joining; despite this (2) gang joiners had 70 percent the odds of earning a high school diploma and 42 percent the odds of earning a 4-year college degree than matched individuals who avoided gangs; (3) at the 11-year mark, the effect of gang joining on educational attainment exceeded one-half year; (4) gang joiners made up for proximate deficits in high school graduation and college matriculation, but gaps in 4-year college degree and overall educational attainment gained throughout the study; (5) gang joiners were less likely to be employed and more likely to not participate in the labor force, and these differences accelerated toward the end of the study; (6) gang joiners spent an additional one-third of a year jobless relative to their matched counterparts; and (7) the cumulative effect of gang joining on annual income exceeded $14,000, which was explained by the patterning of joblessness rather than the quality of jobs. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings, as well as directions for future research, are addressed in the concluding chapter of this dissertation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Criminology and Criminal Justice 2012

Good communication is an important factor for a firm to think about when wanting to engage their consumers. Recently there has been an interest over the concept of consumer engagement within the context of social media by business practitioners. Social media today is used in most aspects of life and it is important to understand how to use it in order to enhance business strategies when approaching consumers. Consumer engagement has been defined through existing research in different ways, having no clear model for practitioners to follow when attempting to engage consumers. This is one of the main problems within existing research, as well as each focusing on different social media triggers. It is important to understand which triggers are more relevant when trying to attain consumer engagement. As well as bringing up the benefits that comes from utilizing such a concept. Research regarding consumer engagement within social media is required within a different context, in order to determine the triggers relevancy to the concept of engagement. Therefore, the purpose of this study is about attaining consumer engagement through the use of social media in the luxury fashion segment, which was done through the use of Brodie et al conceptual model of consumer engagement. The research that was conducted was of a quantitative nature, utilizing a cross-section research design. To gather primary data a questionnaire was created and distributed through social media, where 101 respondents out of a desired 90 were used for the analysis. The data gathered through the questionnaire was then analysed through the statistical program of SPSS, where descriptive statistics, a correlation analysis and a regression analysis were conducted. This was done in order to ensure the validity and reliability, as well as getting results to accept or rejected the presented hypotheses. The findings of this paper show that each of the five independent variables has a significant effect on the dependent variable of consumer engagement when tested on their own. However, when all the variables were tested together three out of the five hypotheses presented were rejected, these being the independent variables of co-developing, advocating and socializing. This does not mean that the variables for which hypotheses got rejected should be disregarded according to the results obtained from the regression analysis, according to the data gathered these triggers are still individually relevant to the attainment of consumer engagement within the luxury fashion segment via social media.

Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyze intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences; changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence over time; and the role of gender in determining educational persistence across generations. We find that persistence is highest in the Southern and Eastern European countries, and lowest in the Nordic countries. While persistence in the Nordic and Southern countries has declined over time, it has remained relatively steady in the rest of Europe. Our analysis highlights the importance of a detailed gender analysis in studying intergenerational persistence, finding that mothers education is a stronger determinant of daughters (instead of sons) education and fathers education a stronger determinant of the education of their sons. For most clusters, declines in intergenerational persistence over time are largely driven by increasing mobility for younger women.

Objectives This study aimed to assess the association between perceived social support and induced abortion among young women in Lima, Peru. In addition, prevalence and incidence of induced abortion was estimated. Methods/Principal findings A cross-sectional study enrolling women aged 18–25 years from maternal health centers in Southern Lima, Peru, was conducted. Induced abortion was defined as the difference between the total number of pregnancies ended in abortion and the number of spontaneous abortions; whereas perceived social support was assessed using the DUKE-UNC scale. Prevalence and incidence of induced abortion (per 100 person-years risk) was estimated, and the association of interest was evaluated using Poisson regression models with robust variance. A total of 298 women were enrolled, mean age 21.7 (± 2.2) years. Low levels of social support were found in 43.6% (95%CI 38.0%–49.3%), and 17.4% (95%CI: 13.1%–21.8%) women reported at least one induced abortion. The incidence of induced abortion was 2.37 (95%CI: 1.81–3.11) per 100 person-years risk. The multivariable model showed evidence of the association between low perceived social support and induced abortion (RR = 1.94; 95%CI: 1.14–3.30) after controlling for confounders. Conclusions There was evidence of an association between low perceived social support and induced abortion among women aged 18 to 25 years. Incidence of induced abortion was similar or even greater than rates of countries where abortion is legal. Strategies to increase social support and reduce induced abortion rates are needed.