Over the past several decades there has been a wellspring of political debate in Europe regarding the rights of linguistic minorities in education. Perhaps nowhere has this transnational debate sparked more controversy than in France where the notion of linguistic rights has been negatively construed by many political authorities as antithetical to the republican model of universal public education. Despite such enmity a host of ethnolinguistic activists in France have been laboring for decades to transform education from a site of exclusion into a vehicle of empowerment. In this dissertation I explore the mobilization dynamics that characterized a minority language schooling initiative within the French Basque Country from 1969 to 1994. Drawing on qualitative case study data, I pay particular attention to the struggles, strategies and successes of Basque language activists affiliated with a community-based schooling association known as 'Seaska'. Building on social movement theory, I argue that Seaska gradually accrued the support of reluctant policy-makers by mobilizing an influential repertoire of discursive, organizational and performative strategies. Throughout my discussion I show how these strategic practices allowed Seaska to cope with an enduring tide of political opposition, seize upon several windows of political opportunity and gain increasing levels of recognition within the political arena. By way of conclusion I consider future avenues for conducting comparative research on minority language activism in educational settings beyond the French Basque context.

This study is a comparative analysis of the theories of secularism by three influential contemporary scholars: Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Talal Asad. Jürgen Habermas proposes a new concept—post-secularism—to address "the continued existence of religious communities in a continually secularizing environment." In this new context, Habermas suggests that religion and the secular have to learn from each other rather than subordinating religion to the authority of secular reason, like modern secularism. Yet Habermas insists that religion has to be "translated" by neutralizing its general dangerous components beforehand in order to contribute to the secular sphere. Broadly agreeing with Habermas, Charles Taylor argues that secularism is a way of managing the diversity of religious, non-religious, or anti-religious views without privileging one over another. However, for Taylor, since religious language is not understandable by all, a neutral "official" language has to be developed in a secular society. Whereas Talal Asad finds the essentialization of religion by modern secularists and continued by both Habermas and Taylor problematic; Asad instead suggests both religion and the secular are spatio-temporal constructions that have no universal essence. Therefore, for Asad, the increasing fear of a general religious revivalism, the rise of religious extremism, especially Islamic fundamentalism, could be addressed only by recognizing its construction in the particular socio-political circumstances instead of mystifying religion as essentially dangerous.

In the 1960s and 1970s, a womens movement thrived in the United States. Current explanations of the movement either privilege the equality strand, focusing on national networks and professional organizations, or they concentrate on the radical liberation strand in the largest urban settings in the United States. Explanations also historically locate the womens movement as a Second Wave of feminism and a product of the New Left, a reaction to gender and racial discrimination and earlier authoritarian practices. However, these explanations ignore local variations in the womens movement throughout the country, painting an unrepresentative picture of the movement as a whole. This study examines the womens liberation movement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the 1970s to challenge some dominant explanations of the movement and add another case to the literature. It compares and contrasts the complex local variations of the movement and explores the movements origins to investigate an underlying theoretical connection to earlier movements for liberation. This study also examines narratives by movement participants, demonstrating the importance of analyzing subjectivities, and the intersection of biography and history, for a more holistic understanding of collective action.

Womens movements both domestic and international have made enormous political gains just in the past century. Gender inequality persists, however, in institutionalized politics around the world. The proportion of women in national legislatures or parliaments serves as a useful indicator and basis for cross-national comparison of political, as well as social, (in)equality; numerous scholars have offered explanations for the relative lack of womens political representation in parliaments and for the global differences in that representation. This field, however, has not fully analyzed womens social movements as factor increasing womens legislative presence. Likewise, social movement theory, although it has often grappled with operationalizing movement outcomes, has not fully addressed outcomes that are both political and cultural, as is womens political representation. Using data from womens organizations that are registered with the United Nations, this paper employs OLS multiple regression to analyze the effect of womens social movement organizing on the percentage of women in parliament, using a sample of countries from around the world. Location in Scandinavia and national quota threshold are consistently significant factors, which supports previous research. Although organizations are not initially a strong explanatory factor for the proportion of women in politics, interactions between organizations and civil liberties, GDP, and the regions of sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe are significant variables. This study finds that the presence of womens organizations lessens and can even reverse the negative relationship between civil liberties and percent female legislators. GDP and womens political representation are positively related, but the presence of womens organizations increases the strength of the relationship, where even a small increase in GDP leads to substantial gains in womens political representation. Past research has found that countries in sub-Saharan Africa often have higher proportions of female legislators, and that finding is borne out here; womens organizations, however, actually moderate that relationship, such that African womens organizing is negatively associated with political representation. Finally, this paper finds that, although Eastern Europe is negatively associated with womens political representation, the presence of womens organizations attenuates that relationship.

Since Indias independence in 1947, economists, scholars, and practitioners coming from various development paradigms have implemented numerous programs to mitigate female poverty and gender inequality in India. However, gender disparities in education, health care, and the overall female/male sex ratio persist. Whether these development programs designed for women truly promote large-scale gender equality is still open to debate. In my research, I use longitudinal quantitative methods to analyze district-level data from six Indian states for the period 1961-2001 that I have gathered from various sources, such as the Census of India, directories of womens organizations and NGOs, and womens development web sites. I examine whether economic growth and urbanization (associated with modernization theory), womens rights programs, womens market-based programs, and womens microfinance programs lead to increases in female/male literacy ratios and female/male child sex ratios. I also analyze how region and various womens programs interact to affect gender equality over time. I find that economic growth is associated with a decrease in female/male child sex ratios and female/male literacy ratios. Urbanization leads to a small increase in female/male literacy ratios, but has no impact on female/male child sex ratios. I also find that there is no relationship between the presence of womens rights programs, market programs, or microfinance programs with variation in either female/male child sex ratios or female/male literacy ratios over time. The passage of time accounts for most of the variation in both female/male child sex ratios and female/male literacy ratios. This suggests that there are other factors that lead to changes in female/male child sex ratios and female/male literacy ratios that I do not account for in this study.

Every year, there are a growing number of private organizations and citizens contributing to charities. In this thesis, I analyze what social factors cause higher individual charitable donation in Chinaâs single-child generation, and for what reasons these people engage in philanthropy. It was hypothesized that four social factors: belief, education, income and wealth, and parental participation posively affect individual donation, while gender has no significant influence on individual donation. It was also hypothesized that the motivations for charitable donation vary among this group. A total of 181 survey questionnaires were collected and 20 interviews were conducted. Results confirmed the hypothesized model. The results yielded practical implications for understanding Chinaâs single-child generationâs donation behavior. The study also contributed in bridging over the study on philanthropic behavior research and on Chinaâs single-child generation research.

Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing through today, emerging Latino destinations such as Knoxville, Tennessee experienced tremendous growth in their population of Latina/o immigrants. Given that our traditional theories of immigrant adjustment address the formation of social networks exclusively in established immigrant gateways, and primarily based on observations of men, there is no reason to assume that Latina/o immigrants in emerging destinations build networks in similar ways as those in established destinations. This thesis first explores why some immigrants choose to migrate to Knoxville, Tennessee. Second, this thesis explores the extent to which the dominant theoretical frameworks of immigrant adjustment – specifically bounded solidarity and enforceable trust – speak to the behaviors of immigrants in one emerging Latino destination as they develop new networks of support. Third, by incorporating the voices of female immigrants alongside those of male immigrants, this thesis presents a gendered perspective on the creation of social networks. This thesis builds on previous research of immigrant support networks by examining how two largely understudied groups of immigrants – women and those in non-traditional gateways – adjust to life in the United States.

The deteriorating societal conditions that have accompanied the implementation of the neoliberal model in Latin America have been well documented. This analysis draws heavily on this work to identify the emergence of de-industrialization, displacement of food production, exclusion of basic human services, and excessive unemployment following the application of neoliberal reform. Such ill effects have ushered in a strong anti-neoliberal current that has opened up new spaces for discussion and debate about alternative development models for the region. Perhaps the most radical alternative to emerge is the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). ALBA’s architects have been explicit in their denunciation of neoliberalism and insist that ALBA is an alternative that has been designed to rectify the ills associated with neoliberal reform. The following analysis examines ALBA as an alternative idea and practice of development. The following analysis examines the ways in which ALBA is formulated as an abstract alternative to neoliberalism and highlights the concrete policies and projects that distinguish it from the defining aspects of the neoliberal model.

Using the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case as an example, this thesis attempts to understand how the media, specifically The Chicago Tribune, maintain the consistency of a certain representation given changing or new information. A full analysis of all 274 news articles found in The Chicago Tribune from June 30, 2003 (the date the alleged sexual assault took place) through August 31, 2004 (the day before the charges were dismissed), revealed five devices by which journalists managed Bryant’s image. These devices are: (1) case is not paramount, (2) case is hindering basketball, (3) external lures are to blame, (4) silver lining in the allegations, and (5) “court-to-the-court.” The Tribune writers used these devices in order to maintain the newspaper’s credibility as a consistent news source. The newspaper’s credibility was salvaged through reconstruction efforts to reconcile Bryant’s prior, positive persona with the current reality of the sexual assault allegations.

Using growth machine theory, this study examines the newly built "lifestyle center" of the suburban Turkey Creek development and the redevelopment of the Gay Street corridor in downtown Knoxville, TN. Growth machine theory is one of sociology's predominant theories used to understand development and growth projects in metropolitan areas, and although not specifically defined in current literature, I suggest there are many differences in suburban and urban growth machines. This study examines the local dependency and organization of pro-growth coalitions; the tactics, ideology, and culture used to promote development projects; and community reactions. Upon completion of this project, I found that urban and suburban growth machines differed in local dependency and level of community opposition, but utilized similar tactics, ideology, and culture. Furthermore, several themes emerged at the conclusion of this project- the attempts to structure social life around retail centers, suburbanization, and the increasing influence of growth language in everyday life- the further impact increasing pro-growth coalition influence.