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The lack of a consistent theoretical framework for understanding the social context in which terrorist organizations emerge and operate stifles the systematic study of terrorism and inhibits the ability of the social sciences to influence international policy. To address this limitation, the present study begins by defining terrorism, and the related phenomena of terror, terrorist, and terrorist organization. As classification is necessary for any scientific investigation, typologies of terrorism currently found in the academic literature are reviewed next. Finally, a criminological framework is applied to the study of terrorist organizations and the environments in which they operate. The primary purpose of the present investigation is to determine whether a classic criminological theory, social disorganization theory, can be applied to the study of terrorist organizations. Drawing from several cross-national data sources, this study operationalizes Shaw and McKay's (1942; 1969) original measures of social disorganization, residential stability, ethnic heterogeneity, and socioeconomic status, at the macro-level of the nation-state. A curvilinear relationship between measures of social disorganization and the hosting of terrorist organizations in each nation-state is predicted. That is, terrorist organizations are expected to require some degree of social organization to operate but, beyond a certain point, social organization is predicted to have an inhibitive effect on the functioning of these organizations, as strong institutions emerge to control this and other forms of collective violence. / Master of Science

The neighbourhood is an essential arena for adolescents’ health development and research suggests that perceived neighbourhood insecurity (PNI) is associated with socio-economic status and self-rated health. The present study explored the distribution of adolescents’ PNI and its association with psychosomatic health complaints across districts. It also examined gender differences and whether family socio-economic position, foreign background and previous exposure to crime could explain part of the association. Data came from classroom-surveys within Stockholm municipality’s 14 districts in 2010, 2012 and 2014 (n=10,291). Linear and logistic multilevel regression models were applied. Results showed that the average level of PNI varied considerably between districts and were strongly connected to its socio-demographic composition. However, individual characteristics in terms of family background and previous exposure to crime only explained a minor part of the variation in PNI across districts. Girls reported more insecurity than boys in all districts. Gender differences in PNI decreased in absolute numbers, but increased in relative numbers, as the overall ‘neighbourhood safety’ increased. Between-district differences in health were minor, but PNI was still a strong predictor of individual-level health, especially for boys. Furthermore, the predictive power of PNI on health was stronger in districts perceived as safer.

This paper investigates whether a new conceptual framework, Neighborhood Ritual Integrity (NRI), addresses the concepts of social capital, collective efficacy, and rituals in a manner which makes it applicable to sociological research. Neighborhood Ritual Integrity (NRI) is a conceptual framework developed in response to various studies, which have established a relationship between neighborhood demographics, structural neighborhood features, crime and adolescent behaviors. Kiser et al., (2007) identified six dimensions that influence short and long term community functioning: Ritual Integrity, Daily Routines, Role Clarity, People and Organizational Resources, Deliberate Planning, and Meaning Making as aspects of NRI. Each dimension describes either a structural or cultural component of community level processes that could affect positive features of neighborhood life. Results from focus group data are examined for the existence of responses consistent with the conceptual definitions of NRI as well as social capital, collective efficacy, and rituals in hopes that this investigation will develop a more comprehensive sociological approach to the study of neighborhoods.

As escolas de hoje possuem ainda forte herança da revolução industrial, com um viés assistencialista, visando “guardar” as crianças e prepará-las para o mercado de trabalho. No entanto, há escolas que buscam fugir deste modelo, encontrando em seu caminho fortes pressões homogeneizantes, seja de parâmetros curriculares de órgãos governamentais, de pressões mercadológicas e, até mesmo, dos pais de seus alunos. Mesmo existindo tais pressões, algumas escolas ainda desenvolvem a sua autonomia, encontrando práticas de gestão e educação próprias. Essa pesquisa busca olhar estas práticas – que demonstram aspectos de unicidade das escolas –, propondo-se a observar como emerge o novo em um ambiente marcado predominantemente por um pensamento tradicional, burocrático e empresarial. Para embasar esta análise, trazemos alguns elementos teóricos. Em primeiro lugar, discute-se o momento da educação no Brasil, questionando a lógica instrumental predominante a partir das visões de autores como Guerreiro Ramos, Tragtenberg e Prestes Motta. Em seguida, para analisar o surgimento de novas ações e práticas de gestão e educação, nos fizemos valer de autores que se pautam em uma abordagem processual, utilizando, portanto, o conceito de Campo Aberto de Robert Cooper (1976). O autor nos oferece a possibilidade de observar as organizações de forma mais compreensiva, em seus momentos de estrutura e processo, permitindo perceber como se dá a criação do novo. Como se resgatam coisas que estão em sua não forma, no latente, abstratas para o universo concreto, real, a circunstância literal. Isso se dá a partir das crises, rupturas, acasos, modelos abertos de mudança, como crescem e se desenvolvem os projetos de forma natural – da projeção à construção –, ou fazendo um caminho inverso Foi a partir desse subsídio teórico que esse estudo buscou três escolas brasileiras para conhecer e observar: Escola Waldorf Querência, em Porto Alegre – RS; Oga Mitá, no Rio de Janeiro – RJ; e Casa Escola, em Natal – RN. Para a análise de cada uma dessas escolas – que compuseram um estudo de casos múltiplos –, foram utilizados dados secundários a partir de pesquisa documental e dados primários coletados a partir de observação participante, diários de campo, entrevistas abertas e entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas em três períodos: novembro e dezembro de 2016 na Escola Waldorf Querência; fevereiro e março de 2017 na Oga Mitá; e maio de 2017 na Casa Escola. Através da análise dos dados coletados, com o auxílio do software Nvivo, observou-se que as escolas estudadas valorizam o aspecto humano da educação, respeitando a individualidade dos alunos, assim como o cuidado com os profissionais da escola e os familiares dos estudantes. As três escolas mostram-se bastante abertas ao diálogo e à participação – de diferentes formas e intensidades Observou-se, ainda, que as práticas desenvolvidas nestas escolas repercutem na comunidade escolar fazendo com que haja, muitas vezes, uma ressignificação de sua compreensão do que é escola, que passa a ser visto como algo mais amplo e prazeroso. Por fim, ao se analisarem como surgem as práticas inovadoras, percebeu-se que estas escolas não se prendem tanto às imagens prévias e aos padrões, mostrando abertura para a emergência de novas práticas através de momentos de ruptura, crises, acasos, mudanças abertas, dentre outros, em uma clara alternância entre períodos de maior propensão à estrutura e outros que se inclinam ao processo. Ao analisarmos os casos da Querência, Casa Escola e Oga Mitá, percebemos que os novos elementos, práticas e ações que caracterizam estas escolas e as tornam diferentes das instituições que seguem linhas tradicionais, emergem dada sua capacidade de abrir-se à mudança, mantendo espaços de resistência ao mesmo tempo em que equilibram pressões diversas para conformarem-se. / Schools today still possess a great heritage from the industrial revolution, with an assistentialist bias, aiming to “keep” the children and preparing them to the workplace. However, there are schools that aim to escape from such model, finding in their path a great deal of homogenizing pressure, from obligatory curriculums issued by the state, education market and even from parents of students. Even with such pressures, a few schools manage to develop some autonomy, creating their own personal practices of management and education. This research aims to investigate such practices – which demonstrate unique aspects of the schools –, observing how new practices emerge in an environment marked predominantly by a traditional, bureaucratic and business mindset. To base our analysis, we bring different theoretical elements. First, we discuss the moment of education in Brazil, questioning the predominant instrumental logic from the point of view of authors such as Guerreiro Ramos, Maurício Tragtenberg and Prestes Motta. Second, to analyze the emergence of new actions and practices in management and education, we make use of authors that use an approach based on process philosophy, mainly the Open Field concept from Robert Cooper (1976). Cooper offers us the possibility to observe organizations in a more comprehensive manner, in its moments of structure and process, allowing us to perceive the emergence of novel actions and practices; how to rescue things that are still potential, latent, abstract to the concrete, real universe. This happens through crisis, ruptures, chance, open models of change, which grow and develop the projects naturally – from projection to construction –, or making the inverse path. develop the projects naturally – from projection to construction –, or making the inverse path. It was from this theoretical subsidy that this study looked for three Brazilian schools to visit and observe: Querência Waldorf School, in Porto Alegre (RS), Oga Mitá, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), and Casa Escola, in Natal (RN). To analyze each school – as a multiple case study – secondary data was used from documental research and primary data was collected from participant observation, research diaries, and open and semi-structured interviews in the following periods: November and December 2016 at Waldorf Querência; February and March 2017 at Oga Mitá and May of 2017 at Casa Escola. Through analysis of collected data using Nvivo software, it was observed that these schools value the human aspect of education, respecting students’ individuality, and caring for their professionals and the family of the students. The three schools were shown to be very open to dialogue and participation – in different ways and intensities. It was observed, also, that the practices developed in these schools reverberate through the school community creating in many cases a change in the comprehension of what a school is, becoming something broader and more positive Finally, while analyzing how innovative practices emerge, it was perceived that this schools do not fixate excessively in past images and patterns, showing an opening to the emergence of new practices through moments of rupture, crisis, chances, planned open changes, among others, in a clear interchange between moments closer to a structure and others closer to process. When analyzing the cases of Querência, Casa Escola and Oga Mitá, we perceive that new elements, practices and actions that characterize these schools and make them different from more traditional institutions emerge from their capacity to remain open to change, keeping spaces of resistance at the same time in which they balance many pressures to conform.

O município de Chimoio tem registrado nos últimos anos um crescimento demográfico assinalável, resultante do processo de industrialização crescente. Na sequência deste crescimento demográfico, assiste-se, por um lado, uma rápida expansão urbana, caracterizada pelo surgimento brusco de novos bairros residenciais como forma de atender à demanda. Em contrapartida, verifica-se a presença quase constante de comportamentos violentos adversos ao tempo anterior a este crescimento, sobretudo nos seus bairros periféricos. A prática reiterada de casos criminais violentos com recurso a armas brancas (facão) e de fogo nestes municípios torna apreensiva aos poderes governativos e a sociedade civil pelo seu impacto na vida social e econômica, sugerindo debates em nível acadêmico e político no intuito de procurar conter a sua ocorrência. Neste contexto, propusemo-nos entender a distribuição social e espacial da violência criminal, suas motivações e sua relação com os processos de controle social formal e informal fazendo uma análise comparativa com o Brasil. Para analisar a evolução da criminalidade violenta neste município, optou-se pela pesquisa descritiva baseada nas abordagens qualitativa e quantitativa, bem como análise documental, entrevistas semiestruturadas e observação direta. / The municipality of Chimoio has registered in recent years a remarkable demographic growth, resulting from the growing industrialization process. On the one hand, as a result of this demographic growth, there is a rapid urban expansion characterized by the emergence of new residential neighborhoods as a way to meet the demand. On the other hand, there is an almost constant presence of violent behavior adverse to the time before this growth, especially in its peripheral neighborhoods. The repeated practice of violent criminal cases involving the use of firearms in these municipalities makes the government and civil society apprehensive, suggesting debates at academic and political levels in an attempt to contain their occurrence. In this context, we intend to understand the social and spatial distribution of criminal violence, its motivations, as well as its relation with the processes of formal and informal social control. In order to analyze the evolution of violent crime in these municipalities, a descriptive research oriented by qualitative and quantitative approaches was used, based on documentary analysis, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and direct observation.

There is a growing recognition that to more fully understand the complex dynamics of neighborhoods and communities, we must effectively link the micro- and macro-level dimensions of community processes. As important as collective efficacy at the macro level has been shown to be, literature looking at factors shaping the individual-level experience is relatively scarce. Since the latent community attribute of collective efficacy is largely measured as a function of individual perceptions, understanding what affects the individual is vital, especially in light of within-neighborhood heterogeneity. In this study, I use insights from social disorganization theory, the systemic model to community attachment, and a life-course perspective in order to examine why age is associated with perceptions of collective efficacy. Utilizing Wave 1 L.A.FANS data (N=2,619), results show that age is positively associated with perceptions of collective efficacy, but that this relationship is indirect, with plans to move as the key mediator between age and perceptions of collective efficacy. Surprisingly, other factors linked to social disorganization theory and the systemic model of community attachment are not important for explaining the age relationship. Overall, this study takes the next step at identifying significant predictors of individual perceptions of collective efficacy both from the structural macro-level perspective and the individual micro-level perspective. Additionally, this analysis adds another urban context to the literature by analyzing Los Angeles County, a distinct area from those most looked at in previous studies.

Research suggests evidence of an association between sociodemographic determinants and illicit drug use. However, these data do not take into consideration the effect an economic obstacle, such as a recession, could have on an individual's urge to cope with this stressful period with illicit drugs. Furthermore, there is no research to suggest how clinicians and/or treatment institutions can forecast whether the use of monetary resources will be sustainable due to private and/or governmental fund reductions during an economic recession. Based on theories of social learning and social disorganization within an ecological framework, this study employed a quantitative trend analysis to explore the impact the 2007-2009 economic recession had on illicit drug use throughout the United States. A sample of respondents from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive from 2006 to 2010 surveys was used to run the statistical analysis. Based on the analyses, age and gender (covariates) and all variables (social disorganization and Gross Domestic Product) were found to be significant predictors of illicit drug use. Although methamphetamine was not significant for prevalence over time, total drug use, cocaine, and heroin were prevalent over time based on predictors. These findings suggest local, state, and federal policies regarding the prosecution and imprisonment of nonviolent and minor drug offenders should be reprioritized towards the rehabilitation of addicts while enforcing firmer laws upon the most disruptive and severe aspects of the drug trade in order to promote a genuine positive change towards social organization.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks exposed vulnerabilities to U.S. homeland security and defense, leading U.S. officials to analyze threats to domestic and international interests. Terrorist attacks against food and water supplies (agro-terrorism), were deemed a national security threat because of the assessed fear, economic instability, and social instability that could occur following a food shortage. Research indicated a comprehensive response plan does not exist across the federal, state, and local levels of government to mitigate the public's possible responses to a perceived threat to food security and food shortages following an agro-terrorist attack. This ethnographic case study analyzed the perceived threats to food security and the possible responses to food shortages in Yuma, Arizona (the 'winter lettuce capitol of the world'). Coleman and Putnam's theories of social capital served as the theoretical framework for this study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews of nine residents and six experts from Yuma's departments of government to examine the relative atmospherics between the citizens and government officials. Findings indicated that a comprehensive plan does not exist, and perceived fears and the lack of knowledge about emergency preparedness in a society with high social capital and community resilience can still create the conditions for chaos and anomie. Recommendations include improving communication, education, and expectation management of citizens. Implications for social change include improving public awareness and individual responsibility for preparedness, as well as assisting policymakers in maintaining social capital to deter social disorganization and anomie during disasters.

Social learning theory (Akers, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1998; Burgess & Akers, 1966) is an established general theory of criminal, deviant, and conforming behavior that finds substantial empirical support (e.g., Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce & Radosevich, 1979; Akers, La Greca, Cochran & Sellers, 1989; Alarid, Burton & Cullen, 2000; Krohn, Skinner, Massey & Akers, 1985). Although the theory provides insight into the processes that influence criminal behavior, the theory does not speak to the environments that produce such behavior--the domain of structural theories. Akers (1998) has suggested that social learning theory accounts for differences in crime rates through its mediation of structural effects on individual criminal behavior. He postulated that social structure acts as the distal cause of crime, affecting an individual's exposure to norm and norm-violating contingencies through the social learning process. Although the integrated cross level social structure-social learning theory (Akers, 1998) has received empirical attention, criminologists have not adequately tested the model (Akers, 1998; Bellair, Roscigno, & Vélez, 2003; Lanza-Kaduce & Capece, 2003; Lee, 1998; Lee, Akers & Borg, 2004). Akers (1999) and colleagues (Lee et al., 2004) have suggested that future research should test models that incorporate broader social structural measures, especially those derived theoretically. The present research contributes to the theoretical body of literature through its more complete measurement of the macrosocial correlates and theoretically defined structural causes dimensions posited by Akers (1998). Secondly, the study introduces possible linkages between social structure and the social learning process in an attempt to address the concerns of Krohn (1999), who suggested that the theory does not adequately do so, and Sampson (1999), who suggested that the theory is incapable of producing a priori, refutable macrosocial propositions. Although finding a relationship between social structure and social learning, the study finds no support for Akers' (1998) use of the mediation descriptor. Instead, the present research finds support for several moderator hypotheses, concluding that the social structure-social learning statement requires modification.