In this thesis, I examine an ASO in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in order to explore how case managers interpret the complex needs that HIV-positive clients present while trying to encourage them to become responsible citizens. The data are drawn from participant observation, structured interviews with case managers, and a content analysis of case managers notes in clients files. I find that clients do not regularly ask for services related to health maintenance, case managers negotiate surveillance and empowerment strategies in four ways, and external factors complicate case managers ability to carry out their jobs in a climate of surveillance and empowerment. I conclude that responsible citizenship, in the sense of describing how case managers encourage clients to become more self-sufficient, is present in the language that case managers use to depict their approach to case management with clients.

This study delves into the evolution of social networks incorporating both elements of Rational Choice Theory and Feminist Theory inside a Social Network analysis. Simulated data was generated by modeling American female adolescents as an instantiation of a more general set of theoretical ideas about the formation of gendered relational patterns. This study uses the methodology of Computer Simulation to explore micro to macro mechanisms and account for how individual social actions aggregate to generate macro-level network structures. This research examines generative mechanisms and explores under what conditions some characteristics of gendered network structures emerge and are maintained through time. Three AVI files (movies of simulation demos) and a JAR (Java ARchive) of the JAVA code are also included.

Agnews (1992) general strain theory (GST) has gained increasing attention and empirical support for the effects of strain on negative emotions and deviant coping. However, previous research provides inconsistent results about (1) the effects of negative emotions on deviant coping, (2) the significance of social support in GST, and (3) gender differences and GST. This paper addresses these issues by testing hypotheses generated from GST and analyzing data collected from a nationally representative sample of African American adults. Results from ordinary least squares regression analyses generally support the hypotheses. First, the effects of strain on deviant coping are fully mediated by negative emotions. In addition, the same-directed effects of negative emotions on deviance (outer-directed negative emotions on outer-directed deviance) are larger than opposite-directed effects (inner-directed negative emotions on outer-directed deviance) as hypothesized. Second, social support was found to have significant direct effects on both negative emotions and deviant coping, while buffering effects of social support on strain and negative emotions as well as negative emotions and deviance were not observed. Finally, this study found no gender differences in emotional reactions to strain and the buffering effects of social support. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as the future development of GST.

The purpose of this study focuses on Hispanics and violent crime. Previous studies (Krivo and Peterson, 1993, Shihadeh and Flynn, 1996) analyze crime rates among blacks; however, the research on Hispanics is very limited (Massey and Denton, 1992). The majority of sociological studies analyze racial residential segregation in order to explain higher rates of violent crime among blacks. (Peterson and Krivo, 1993; Frey and Farley, 1996.) Most researchers employ the Index of Dissimilarity (D), which measures evenness (distribution of the population), in order to measure segregation. (Fischer and Massey, 2000). In this study, I plan to fill the gap in previous literature by employing the segregation measure of evenness (D), along with several other variables, in order to see if it has a positive effect on Hispanic violent crime, specifically homicide.

The field of organizational ecology has been reduced to studies of population dynamics. Ecology, however, is a much broader field, that includes relational, spatial, and temporal dimensions. It allows us to combine existing theories of organizations to study their distribution across space. I combine insights from the new institutionalism, population ecology, and resource-dependence theory, to investigate the factors that influence the location of NGO activities in the state of San Luis Potosí­, Mexico. I conducted interviews and participant observation in 51 rural NGOs. The uneven distribution of NGOs in the state is not the result of their strategy to reach the people who need them most, but a consequence of the different opportunities and constraints that they encounter in each part of the state. San Luis Potosí is composed of four administrative regions with contrasting natural, social, economic, and political characteristics. The population of NGOs in each region also exhibits different characteristics, depending on the regional potential for social conflict, the economic opportunities available to the residents, and the openness of the political system. In the Altiplano, few NGOs exist. Their pragmatic orientation meets the approval of state organizations. On the contrary, the Huasteca, a tropical region with a long history of political repression and socio-economic inequality, forms a niche where many NGOs are active. Because they are more involved in public policy debates, state agencies mistrust them. They are actually undergoing a process of differentiation, according to their political involvement. As the use of the ecological model points out, spatial factors play an important role in the life of organizations. Rural NGOs in San Luis Potosí­ adapt to the different social opportunities and constraints they encounter in different places. Space, however, is not a given, permanent characteristic. It is socially created by actors who occupy it. NGOs are influenced by the context they encounter at first, which is usually defined by the state, but their actions also serve to refine the existing definitions. To include space in social investigation, we have to pay attention to how it is constructed.

This thesis analyzes the relationship between immigration and mental health. I used data from a health and migration study of Mexican immigrant women in a Houston community. I found a statistically significant negative relationship between family social support and feelings of depression. Thus, family social support may have buffered some harmful effects of immigrating to the United States. However, I found inconsistent results with labor market variables that may be due to a measurement problem. Both employment variables were statistically significant (p<.05) for models (predictor, predictor and control) including loss of interest and these variables remained significant after control variables were added. Unfortunately, only one of the work variables--the number of months the respondent worked--was in the predicted direction. Contrary to expectations, the other employment variable (ever worked) was negatively related to a loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities.

Social capital-resources embedded in social structures that can be accessed or mobilized by individuals in pursuit of some goal- is the most prominent in a long line of concepts developed by social scientists who wish to incorporate social and cultural elements into models of economic behavior. The research presented here is a qualitative exploration of social capital, its forms and functions, and its relationship to the occupational decision-making of current and former oyster harvesters in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Within this close-knit Croatian-American community, oyster harvesting has a long and rich history. As a result, extensive social capital through which individuals can access the equipment, financing, and knowledge necessary to enter the industry has been readily available to most young men who chose to take up the work. While families in this community have historically encouraged their children to pursue oyster harvesting as an occupation, conditions in the industry have changed in recent decades leading many Croatian oystermen to question their future in the industry. For those who decide to leave harvesting, successful transition into a new occupation is often facilitated through relationships with individuals outside the oystering community. Whether acquaintances made during earlier work experiences, friends met while attending college, or family members in other lines of work, these individuals provide needed information, reference, and job opportunities. Finally, neither current nor former oyster harvesters interviewed for this study state that they would encourage their children to enter the oyster business, rather they report advising their children to focus on high school completion and college attendance. In several cases they even describe actively discouraging their childrens involvement in the family oyster business. As a result, the occupational goals of the next generation, and thus the types of social capital they will need and have access to, are likely to be quite different than their parents or grandparents before them. This study demonstrates the importance of exploring each of these pieces- the formation of occupational goals and the availability and accessibility of social capital- if we are to understand how social capital operates within particular social contexts.

Since the introduction of Internet technology in public schools, teachers who are enthusiastic about computer and Internet training have responded to school districts offers of off-site training and take part in grant-based programs to promote the use of technology. The first phase of promotion by attraction has been completed. The remaining teachers are not as enthusiastic and look to the school district to provide them with the type of training they require in order to incorporate Internet technology. Access to the Internet is just one of many elements involved in the overall problems that public high school teachers face using Internet technology in the classroom. Differences in the definition of access between teachers, schools, and districts, as well as teachers perception of students, of school district support, and of self-ability can create barriers to actual use even with Internet access. Using the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory to guide this qualitative research, forty-six interviews allow the perceptions of English teachers to be categorized under a descriptive framework that permits the identification of three different groups of Internet users, or relevant social groups: Refusers, Trained Non-users, and Internet Users. Several key findings emerge from this study: (1) Virtually all teachers feel it is the school districts responsibility to teach them to use Internet and computer technology; (2) Teachers do not consider it appropriate to bother on-campus support staff with questions about implementing the Internet into classroom activities; (3) The presence of a printer in the classroom provides an important link to Internet use; (4) Teachers who report frequent use in the classroom are less impressed with the Internet as a research tool than teachers who have received training, but do not use the Internet; and (5) More experienced teachers are not as apt to claim expertise even though their use of the Internet would indicate this to be so, a fact that implies probable underreporting of expertise on previous surveys.

Recent studies have documented (1) the direct effects of social network context on perceived adequacy of social support and (2) the indirect effects of social network context, through social support, on psychological well-being. This thesis extends that research by asking how religious homophily in social networks affects individual perceptions of support and, through that, psychological well-being (depression). Results indicate that being embedded in a network with greater religious homophily increases perceived support, but this relationship holds only for instrumental support. Additionally, both instrumental and expressive support exert significant affects on psychological well-being: greater perceived adequacy of support (both instrumental and expressive) decreases reports of depression. These findings suggest that future research in this area should explore more fully how specific types of homophily affect social support and depression.

This dissertation is designed to extend prior research on the structural correlates of homicide victimization among demographic subgroups in large U.S. cities. The present study draws on two broad theoretical traditions - the concentrated disadvantage perspective and gender inequality perspectives. Using Supplementary Homicide Reports data for 1990, race- and sex-specific homicide victimization measures were constructed for 120 U.S. cities. Due to the extremely rare prevalence of homicide victimization among some demographic subgroups, Poisson and Negative Binomial Regression techniques are used to test a series of hypotheses regarding the effects of concentrated disadvantage and gender inequality on homicide victimization for four groups: white women, white men, black women, and black men. The results from these analyses yield several significant findings. First, concentrated disadvantage has a strong positive effect on rates of homicide victimization for all four demographic groups, although the effects are generally more pronounced for males than for females, and for whites than for blacks. Second, the effects of gender inequality on homicide victimization are generally very modest, but are more pronounced for blacks than for whites. Further, the results indicate that, contrary to the inequality hypothesis, lower levels of gender inequality appear to be associated with higher levels of female homicide victimization. This finding is consistent with a growing body of research that has found that in communities where women experience greater inequality, their rates of victimization are lower. However, it should be noted that the effects of gender inequality on rates of homicide victimization are generally diminished by the effects of concentrated socioeconomic disadvantage. Theoretical implications and suggestions for future macro-level research on group-specific homicide victimization are discussed.