A growing body of research suggests that religious involvement may be protective with respect to a wide variety of health outcomes. In this dissertation, I investigate the conditions under which this might apply to the likelihood of risky drinking associated with disability. I use an ethnically diverse sample of 559 community-dwelling adults confirmed as having physical disabilities, and an otherwise similar comparison sample of 1,086 non-disabled respondents, from Miami-Dade County, Florida. These stratified random samples include a roughly equal representation of Cubans, other Hispanics, African Americans, and non-Hispanic whites, and of men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 93. I first examine past-year prevalence of risky drinking, defined according to NIAAA recommended limits, by disability status, levels of religious involvement (variously measured), and race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and age. Next, I map out mean levels of religious involvement by disability status and by race/ethnicity, gender, SES, and age. I find that, in general, physical disability raises, whereas religiosity lowers, the prevalence of risky drinking. Differences in both regards are most acute among African Americans, who display the lowest rates of risky drinking among non-disabled but the highest among disabled respondents. Women and older respondents generally exhibit lower rates of risky drinking despite the more stringent NIAAA standards applied to them. Women, African Americans, and older respondents tend to report the highest religious involvement regardless of disability status. Not surprisingly, most differences in religious involvement across disability status involve service attendance. Logistic regression models predict log odds of risky drinking (versus no risky drinking) in the previous year by disability status (disabled or not), religious involvement, and controls for race/ethnicity, gender, SES, and age. Religious involvement independently predicts lower log odds in Cubans and African Americans. Disability, though, predicts higher log odds—but only among African Americans. Higher service attendance reduces log odds of risky drinking more among non-disabled than among disabled African Americans. Otherwise, these results provide no evidence that religiosity influences the link between disability and risky drinking. Additional research is needed to explicate how specific types of socioenvironmental stressors and psychosocial resources might elucidate these findings. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: July 3, 2006. / Activity Limitations, Religion, Health Disparity, Substance Use, Social Epidemiology / Includes bibliographical references. / R. Jay Turner, Professor Directing Dissertation; Clarence C. Gravlee, Outside Committee Member; Donald A. Lloyd, Committee Member; John Taylor, Committee Member.

Using a cohort of poor and near poor families captured in the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this dissertation investigates the factors that explain different outcomes for these families that were being challenged to reduce their reliance on public sources of income through increased work participation and to utilize more private income sources for their basic needs. Under PRWORA poor families were also given incentives to get married and to refrain from having children outside of marriage. This provision ignored the fact that many of the poor families were doing just that and still had difficulties in making ends meet without public assistance. By looking at changes in the degree to which families rely on a combination of income from public assistance programs, work and assistance from their family and friends just before PRWORA was enacted and four years later, this study also demonstrates the need for a different prioritization for policy development and funding allocation to deal with barriers that families will continue to face as they attempt to become self-sufficient, working members of society who are responsible for their children. This study recognizes that the true challenge to any social policy in a country as diverse as the U.S. is recognizing that the way(s) its citizens experience social problems, such as poverty, are as varied and challenging as any puzzle. PRWORA faced many of the same challenges as previous welfare reform efforts. One challenge was clearly trying to define and, in this case, limit the role of the federal government in supporting poor women and their families. The challenge that I address in my dissertation, however, focuses more on how the characteristics of poor adults, (e.g. race/ethnicity, age, region of the country, education level, marital status, and the age and number of children they are raising) influences the way that families experience poverty and how their lives may have changed as a result of PRWORA's implementation in 1996. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: November 2, 2006. / Social Welfare Policy, Poverty / Includes bibliographical references. / Jill Quadagno, Professor Directing Dissertation; M. Sharon Maxwell, Outside Committee Member; Karin Brewster, Committee Member; Graham Kinloch, Committee Member.

Latinx immigrants view college attendance as a vehicle for upward mobility and a primary means for achieving the American Dream. Despite ongoing debates over the rightful place of immigrants in U.S. society and periods of anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia in the Brexit/Trump era, immigrants still believe in education as a vehicle for upward mobility. This dissertation explores the social psychological and cultural mechanisms that underlie Latinx college student narratives of persistence in seeking a college degree, and the resources used by students who seek a college degree but whose status is “suspect” due to their ethnicity. These mechanisms include the influence of parental immigrant narratives on self-efficacy, motivation, and the use of academic career narratives to make sense of their own college experiences. Academic career narratives are individual student stories that are created in an effort to make sense of their academic journey and future. The data come from thirty in-depth interviews with currently enrolled first and second-generation Latinx college students at public and private universities in the Southeast who have been in college at least two years. All students in the sample are of traditional college age (19-22 years old). The sample is stratified by gender, legal status- whether they are documented or undocumented, and generational status (1st or 2nd generation). Students who are undocumented, are attending college through the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Data analysis suggests that Latinx students fortify their college aspirations in the face of negative experiences (discrimination, economic stress, etc.) by adopting their parent’s narratives of achieving mobility through hard work. This interpretive frame and narrative allows Latinx students to recast negative experiences as challenges they successfully endure, even badges of honor, and the resolution of which reinforces their self-efficacy and motivation to persist. Narrative construction is also a means by which Latinx students make sense of the difficult process associated with matriculating to college as first generation college students- preserving their self-efficacy, particularly for undocumented students. In this way Latinx college students construct their own narratives of immigrant mobility as experienced in specific events related to preparing for, applying to, and attending college. Another major finding is how familial ties affect how Latinx women talk about their college experiences very differently than Latinx men. While close family ties are generally beneficial to academic success, there is one downside to strong parental connections: the stress that accompanies high family expectations and present and future family responsibilities. How Latinx college students manage family-related expectations varies significantly by gender. I frame these gender differences through Machismo and Marianismo- two broad cultural conceptions that define gender roles and obligations in Latinx families. The women I interviewed reported feelings of homesickness as a result of wanting to care for family members. These women also described their beliefs and behaviors using language associated with selflessness, sacrifice and chastity. The men, on the other hand expressed a duty to provide financially for their parents, but not to provide care. These men reported feelings of irritation toward maternal requests for constant communication, as well as a desire for greater independence. Obtaining a better understanding of Latinx college students’ collegiate experiences is important for the social scientific research on college persistence, transition to adulthood, sociology of education literature on motivation and self-efficacy, and for colleges and universities seeking to increase the relatively low college completion rate of Latinx students. This dissertation extends our understanding of Latinx college students by identifying narratives that redefine negative life experiences as positive, and by providing a more nuanced portrayal of family ties in the Latinx student population. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / May 24, 2018. / College, Family, Gender, Immigration, Latinx, Narratives / Includes bibliographical references. / John Reynolds, Professor Directing Dissertation; Melissa Radey, University Representative; Kathryn Harker Tillman, Committee Member; Koji Ueno, Committee Member.

Since the mid-20th century, we have seen a rise in the percentage of women who work in the paid labor force, including women with children. Over the course of that time, much research has focused on the challenges that women have faced in finding ways to balance these “new” employment roles with the domestic labor traditionally considered women’s work, particularly childrearing and care of the home (e.g. Hoschschild 1989; Hays 1996; Christopher 2012). Increasingly research has suggested a shifting of domestic labor, such that men are beginning to share more (although not yet an equal share) of the burden for childcare and housework (Fillo et al. 2015; Pew Research Center 2017). At the same time, though, changing ideas about appropriate parenting practices, particularly for mothers of young children, have led to generally more intensive and focused parenting behavior than ever (Faircloth 2014). Thus, for many people, especially young working women, parenting may be more stressful than ever, as they are more likely than women in the past to combine multiple work and family roles and hold higher expectations for their engagement as a mother. There still is inadequate research, however, about the factors that predict the specific combinations of employment and childrearing roles in which women will engage, particularly during their early adult years, and little is known about how women in the various combinations of activity are faring in terms of their mental health outcomes. This dissertation contributes meaningfully to the existing literature on young women’s involvement in employment and childrearing activities and their relation to mental health outcomes within two distinct analytical chapters, both of which draw on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The first paper examines the distinct employment-childrearing combinations of activity that are common among women in their mid-late 20s and early 30s in the United States today, and, relying upon a lifecourse perspective as a theoretical guide, uses multinomial logistic regression to determine the socio-demographic characteristics and childhood/adolescent family factors that significantly predict particular employment-childrearing combinations. The analyses examine the long-term influence of the mother-daughter relationship during adolescence, maternal work and education status, maternal religious background and general childhood SES, and whether any relationships between these variables and adult employment-childrearing roles is conditioned by race/ethnicity or other status characteristics. The second paper focuses specifically upon women in their mid-late 20s and early 30s who are mothers, to determine whether there is a relationship between specific employment-childrearing combinations and negative mental health outcomes. Specifically, this paper relies on a stress process model and OLS regression to examine both measures of internalized mental health outcomes, such as self-reported stress and depressive symptoms, and externalized mental health outcomes, such as problematic drinking-related outcomes. In addition to direct effects, analyses examine potential mediating and moderating influences on the relationship between employment-childrearing combinations and mental health outcomes. Results of this dissertation suggest that the experiences that young girls have within their families of origin, particularly their experiences with and observations of their own mothers, have enduring consequences, influencing their adult outcomes, including the specific employment-childrearing situations in which they find themselves during the early stages of their motherhood. In general, it appears that childhood/adolescent factors may be more predictive of young women’s decisions to have children, at least by their early 30s, than they are of the particular types of employment arrangements women who do have children will hold. Among women who are mothers, maternal presence during adolescence appears a particularly important predictor of engagement in different employment situations, suggesting an important and enduring role-modeling effect. While the employment-childrearing combinations have little direct association with self-reported stress levels of young mothers, employment-childrearing combinations are significantly associated with changes in levels of problematic drinking-related outcomes and depressive symptoms over time. In particular, stay at home mothers tend to experience significantly lower levels of increase in these negative outcomes than do their full-time working mother peers. Interestingly, despite common notions that part-time working mothers are able to have the “best of both worlds,” no significant differences emerge between full-time working mothers and part-time working mothers in terms of stress, drinking-related problems or depressive symptoms. Overall, these findings increase our understanding of the factors that predict the employment-childrearing situations of women in their mid-late 20s and early 30s, and have important implications for our ability to identify the groups of young mothers who may be at most risk for declining mental health outcomes. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / June 28, 2018. / Employment, Mental Health, Motherhood / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathryn Harker Tillman, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lenore McWey, University Representative; Karin Brewster, Committee Member; Miranda Waggoner, Committee Member.

In 2013, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 1720 which included provisions to overhaul the state’s post-secondary developmental education curriculum. Central to this reform was the notion of increased choice for students. Notably, the law made placement testing and remedial coursework optional for recent Florida high school graduates and active duty military, giving eligible students significantly more options in the course-selection process. The law also called on colleges to offer redesigned remedial courses taught in a variety of new and innovative ways. This emphasis on student choice points to an ideological move in education policy towards neoliberal ideals, especially the shifting of risk from institutions to individuals. As such, the research questions guiding this dissertation were: (1) Is “risk shift” an appropriate and useful concept to invoke to understand policies like SB 1720? (2) If so, what unintended consequences and risks result from presenting community-college students with increased choices related to their academic pathway? To answer these questions, qualitative data was gathered from 670 individuals; including college presidents, administrators, faculty members, advisors, and students; throughout the Florida College System (formerly known as the Florida Community College System). Findings indicate that the concept of “risk shift” can successfully be extended to the arena of higher education. The provisions of SB 1720 generated some benefits for students and campus personnel. It also generated substantial disadvantages. Students’ ability to engage in genuine choice has been constrained by non-academic influences on course-taking decisions, like financial constraints, the opinions of family and friends, and the institution’s capacity for change. As a result, respondents highlighted how SB 1720 negatively impacted the educational experiences of students and the work environment of campus personnel. It is important to also note that variations in college characteristics, especially institution size, shaped how the reform played out throughout the state. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / March 29, 2018. / Community College, Developmental Education, Education Reform, Neoliberalism, Personal Choice / Includes bibliographical references. / John Reynolds, Professor Directing Dissertation; Shouping Hu, University Representative; Irene Padavic, Committee Member; Koji Ueno, Committee Member.

Based on interviews with 30 southern rock musicians, a content analysis of their lyrics and web pages, and observations of their performances over a two year period, I analyze the construction of rebel manhood used by a group of under-educated, under-employed, marginalized, white, working-class men to empower their otherwise disempowered selves. My analysis shows how the musicians empower the self by glorifying a lifestyle of "drifting," which involves traveling from city to city performing and overcoming the challenges of the open road. In their struggle to compete with a culture industry that produces popular music for mass audiences, southern rock musicians construct themselves as authentic and legitimate musical artists who exemplify and express the experience of a poor, rural, white American culture and rebel masculine identity. Southern rockers construct and signify this rebel masculinity using a variety of identity work strategies. They signify the self as both strong and independent through their ability to negotiate rural poverty with their hunting, fishing and faming skills—while at the same time they chastise the middle class virtues of family, education, work and religion as metaphorical prisons to which only the weak succumb. Rebelliousness is exemplified by southern rockers as they embrace and even celebrate the disgrace of rural poverty by revaluing labels used by the larger society to stigmatize the rural poor such as "hillbilly," "redneck," and "white trash." They flaunt whiteness through display of the confederate battle flag. Another identity work strategy engaged by southern rockers to construct the rebel masculine self is through celebrating "sinning," or drinking alcohol, using drugs, and having casual sex. However, these rebel masculine behaviors can also perpetuate the increasingly marginal status that white, working class men find themselves by reinforcing stereotypes that they are sexist, racist, homophobic, unskilled, uneducated, uncivilized drunks. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2007. / Date of Defense: June 13, 2007. / Identity Work, Masculinity, Culture Industry, South, White Trash / Includes bibliographical references. / Douglas Schrock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Andrew Opel, Outside Committee Member; Patricia Yancey Martin, Committee Member; Irene Padavic, Committee Member.

Does engagement impact depression? Five aspects of engagement (an index of social engagement (SEI) "activity time," "identification with past roles," "reduced engagement," and "contact with family and friends") were used to determine if theories of engagement explain depression in the nursing home. Activity theory suggests high levels of engagement should be related to lower levels of depression. In contrast, as engagement theory suggests high levels of engagement should be related to higher levels of depression. Data from U.S. nursing home residents (n=6,468) were utilized to examine the relationship between engagement and depression to show that neither theory is fully supported across all aspects of engagement. Rather, support was found for exploring a new theory of "stressful aging" in explaining depression in the nursing home. Specifically, results show that stress in the form of negative interactions ("conflict") and "pain" frequency are better explanations for depression in the nursing home. In addition, the distribution of depression was explored. There has been a notable lack of research on the distribution of depression among the nursing home elderly. Rather, we often assume it is the same in the nursing home as it is in the community. My results show that this is not a safe assumption. Findings suggest that that the nursing home is a unique setting and that it is important to test the relationship between variables of interest rather than assume that it is the same as in the community. Finally, results also show that it is important to consider gender in understanding how engagement impacts depression in the nursing home. Gender differences would have obscured the relationship between engagement and depression if not included. The results confirm that rather than assume that research on the community dwelling aged is transferable to the nursing home setting, research should be conducted on the nursing home elderly as a separate and unique population. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: May 21, 2004. / Depression, Engagement, Aging / Includes bibliographical references. / Jill Quadagno, Professor Directing Dissertation; Marie Cowart, Outside Committee Member; John Reynolds, Committee Member; James Orcutt, Committee Member.

Stalking became defined as a social problem in the U.S. in 1990, after several celebrities and extensive media attention revealed that the targets of stalking are not merely harassed, but are victimized similarly to other victims of violent crimes. Scholarly and legal definitions of stalking rest on three criteria: a) a pattern of harassing behavior by the stalker; b) use of force or threat of force and/or intimidation; and c) the target's admission to feeling fearful. Targets are not defined as having been stalked unless they were afraid, making this crime unique among crimes of interpersonal violence. This study, using a national random sample of 8,000 adult women (between the ages of 18 and 65+), analyzes who is stalked, relations between target and stalker, and the effects of being stalked on targets. Seventeen percent of women said they had been stalked (N=1,336), 83 percent had not (N=6,665), suggesting that the problem is perhaps more widespread than generally thought. Native American women, younger women, divorced/separated women, slightly more educated women, and unemployed women or students were stalked more than other women. My analysis focused on four dependent concepts: (1) who was stalked versus not; (2) whether the target felt fearful; (3) the amount of personal distress caused by the stalking; and (4) the level of "institutional" response by the targeted woman (e.g., calling the police, seeking restraining orders, or filing criminal charges). The predictor concepts included: (1) the number of stalking experiences endured; (2) the relationship between the stalker and the target (spouse/partner or ex- or other family member, boyfriend, acquaintance, and stranger); (3) the content of the stalking practices (physical monitoring, communicative monitoring, and other); (4) the experience of fear; and (5) women's sociodemographic characteristics. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2003. / Date of Defense: July 25, 2003. / Stalking, Violence, Gender / Includes bibliographical references. / Patricia Yancey Martin, Professor Directing Dissertation; Marie Cowart, Outside Committee Member; Irene Padavic, Committee Member; Lori Reid, Committee Member.

Researchers employing the stress process model have long identified the importance of social and psychosocial resources in understanding how health disparities arise and are reproduced. However, most previous sociological investigations employing this theoretical framework have considered these resources as antecedents of mental health, rather than as consequences of mental health problems. Using panel data from a community sample of Miami-Dade youths transitioning into adulthood (N = 1,174), the current investigation assesses the potential for the history and the timing of onset of psychiatric disorders and substance dependence to impact the acquisition of social contact and a wide range of psychosocial resources. Results indicate that the consequences of the history – and timing of onset – of psychiatric and substance use disorders for the availability of coping resources vary by both gender and race-ethnicity. These group variations suggest that the translation of a particular disorder to a particular resource may be culturally driven. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: January 11, 2008. / Social Contact, Timing of Onset, Substance Disorders, Psychiatric Disorders, Psychosocial Resources / Includes bibliographical references. / Donald A. Lloyd, Professor Directing Dissertation; Rebecca Miles, Outside Committee Member; R. Jay Turner, Committee Member; Koji Ueno, Committee Member.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston University.