Thesis advisor: Susan Michalczyk / Bono, the lead singer of U2, has built a reputation as a champion of political issues, such as publicly taking a pacifist stance against the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and as a prominent social activist, especially known for working with Amnesty International. However, Bono’s lobbying to save the continent of Africa from its economic downward spiral bridged social justice with politics. Bono headed the American branch of the Drop the Debt/Jubilee 2000 campaign, co-founded his own non-profit group DATA, and is responsible for the success of the ONE campaign in the United States. As a celebrity, Bono uses his connections to influence his fanbase using U2 lyrics and performances. He also politicks with government officials and impresses them with his expert knowledge, tuning his argument to suit his audience. These tactics, combined with ceaseless passion and a grassroots movement, have made Bono the most effective social and political activist of the 21st century. Bono inspires others to take up a crusade and defend it using all of their power. If the rest of humanity were to follow his example, social justice would be a realized necessity in this new millennium. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Housing discrimination raises the costs housing searches for minority groups, creates barriers to homeownership and housing choice, and contributes to the perpetuation of racial and ethnic segregation. Segregation, in turn, is linked with the perpetuation of a host of racial and ethnic inequalities, from unequal access to jobs, to healthcare, to educational facilities. Thus, the problem of housing discrimination is not simply that it is unfair or illegal, but also that it contributes to larger social inequalities. This analysis of coastal Mississippi pre and post Hurricane Katrina provides an unusual opportunity to examine housing outcomes in an area that has experienced drastic changes in housing availability alongside a rapid influx of Latino migrants. I investigate whether some Latinos are more vulnerable to housing discrimination than others, where and when housing discrimination is more or less likely to occur, and how Latinos living in Mississippi post-Katrina interpret their own experiences with housing agents. Audit methods and interviews reveal that discrimination, often thought to be determined solely by agent prejudices, is also affected by social and economic factors external to the agent. The audits point instructively to patterns of discrimination as well as to methodological difficulties associated with detecting discrimination in tight housing markets, a finding that has implications for studying discrimination in other tight markets throughout the country. The findings also support theories of 'racial tipping', in that discrimination appears highest in moderately integrated neighborhoods as opposed to 'whiter' and 61 more integrated' neighborhoods. Finally, in-depth interviews reveal (1) a link between labor and housing market exploitation that leaves many Latino labor migrants homeless, (2) a relationship between housing discrimination and exploitation in the housing market, (3) reasons why many Latinos may be unlikely to file housing discrimination complaints, and (4) ways in which Latinos are forced to modify their behavior in everyday interactions simply to increase their odds of being treated fairly. In sum, this study points to a need to develop new methods for studying discrimination in tight housing markets, and to a dire need for broader institutional support of housing rights education and anti-discrimination enforcement initiatives in areas recovering from a disaster / acase@tulane.edu

This study examines the lived experiences of 51 low-income, former and current public housing residents from New Orleans, LA in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Using a mixed-methodology, I assess women's capacity to evacuate, survive displacement and recover following the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Primary findings include that women were able to evacuate, despite their poverty. For those who did not, this was most commonly a choice, based on their assessment of the risk. There was not sufficient evidence to support the claim that their poverty prevented evacuation, since most women were able to pool resources with others in their social network to overcome their individual monetary barriers to evacuation Once evacuated, women's regular poverty survival mechanisms of aid-based, kin-based and work-based assistance were partially dismantled in the disaster context, with kin assistance helping for short durations, and aid-based assistance being the most utilized in the longer term. This pattern occurred, in part, because work-based survival was dismantled by split labor markets and labor discrimination in communities receiving the evacuees in this sample Lastly, the assessment of disaster recovery finds that women were living in more precarious poverty circumstances than before the storm, largely dependent on time-delimited disaster relief programs to pay their bills. In sum, short-term recovery was not available to these women and long-term recovery remained questionable at best / acase@tulane.edu

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The persisting high level of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing in South Africa is a major concern for national public health and social policies. Accordingly, reducing the incidence of teen pregnancy and childbearing is one the priorities of the South African national adolescent reproductive health program. To inform teen pregnancy prevention program managers and policy makers about their needs, research on the risk and protective factors associated with teenage childbearing is necessary. Based on a framework that places adolescent childbearing under the influence of contextual factors (e.g., peers, sexual partners, family, and community), this study investigates the influence of individual-, family-, and community-level characteristics on teenage childbearing among adolescents in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using a representative cross-sectional sample of African young women from the Transitions to Adulthood Study (2001), the study found that the individual-level factors associated with higher risk of childbirth among the sexually initiated respondents were comparatively earlier age at sexual debut, being single compared to being married or cohabiting with a boyfriend, comparatively low education, and not using contraceptives during first sex. Among the household-level factors, larger household size was associated with higher risk of childbirth. Among the community-level factors, comparatively socio-economically well-off neighbourhoods were associated with lower risk of childbirth among respondents from wealthier households. Additionally, higher level of participation by community members in local social activities, which indicates higher level of social capital, was associated with lower risk of childbirth; this effect is also limited to respondents from wealthier households. Contrary to expectations, however, comparatively high level of support and trustworthiness among adults in the community was associated with higher risk of childbirth. The individual-level factors explained the major portion of the explainable variances in reported childbearing among the study sample, while the rest of the variances were explained with equal contribution by the household- and community-level factors. No significant unobserved household- or community-level influence on adolescent childbearing was detected. The results of the study have implications for the teen pregnancy prevention program and social policy, as well as future research needs / acase@tulane.edu

Between the 1960s and early 1990s, unprecedented numbers of unwed teenage women gave birth and then used public assistance to support themselves and their children. To outraged conservatives, this trend proved that teenagers were abusing the welfare system by having children outside marriage and then using welfare money to support their indolent lifestyles. The liberals counter-argued that since an overwhelming majority of single teenage mothers were poor and socially disadvantaged, they would have received welfare irrespective of whether they had postponed childbirth. The liberals therefore believed that poverty and lack of opportunity for upward social and economic mobility were the underlying causes of single teenage births and welfare use. Set against the backdrop of this debate and using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths data, in this study I follow the life experiences of 225 single teenage parents between 1979 and 1993 in order to examine how parenthood affected their educational or welfare status. I also examine how their experiences differed from their peers, who were of the same age but had children either after they were married or after they were relatively older. Furthermore. I study the influence of childhood socio-economic status on men and women's later life chances, regardless of their marital and fertility status. Lastly, I compare the educational attainment of single teenage mothers with that of single teenage fathers. My findings show that irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds, having children as teenagers increased single women's chances of receiving welfare for longer periods. However, their childhood socio-economic status had a much larger impact on men and women's later educational status than their age and marital status at childbirth. Finally, even though single teenage mothers experienced greater day to day child-care responsibilities, their educational attainment was at par with that of single teenage fathers / acase@tulane.edu

Guatemala's record on implementation of education reforms does not encourage optimism. After more than a century of being proclaimed an urgent priority, something approaching universal access to primary school has only been achieved within the past decade. Universal access to secondary school remains a distant goal, while reforms mandated by the 1985 Constitution and 1996 Peace Accords have not resulted in necessary increases in budget allocations, decentralization, or implementation of linguistically and culturally appropriate pedagogical materials and methods This study explores barriers to implementation of education reforms in Guatemala. Following presentation of secondary data to describe the gravity of Guatemala's 'education problem,' legal underpinnings of important reform initiatives of recent decades are analyzed. Qualitative primary data explores barriers to effective administration and reform implementation in the large rural municipality of Chichicastenango. The intent of this case study is to reveal how participants in municipal-level school administration -- parents, teachers, and district supervisory staff -- collectively perceive each other, and how their perceptions affect education delivery. The study notes several ways that underfunding limits effective administration and reform A central conclusion is that all parties involved in local level school administration are most favorably inclined to aspects of the educational system over which they exercise the most control. For parents who prioritize education, this usually includes passive support and acceptance of educators, curricula, and pedagogical methods used at the school their children attend, but a negative view of teachers in general; for teachers, it means reluctance to change civil service rules that protect employment security but impede effective education, and may also include a desire not to subject themselves to greater supervisory control by local communities; frustrated district supervisors take a rather fatalistic and nonchalant attitude toward reform policies, while routinely cutting administrative corners to avoid conflicts with teachers and directors over whom they have only weak protocols for control. In general, the three sectors have diverse agendas that are sometimes incompatible, and provide little or no incentive to collectively embrace the most recent underfunded education policies, few of which have much chance of surviving beyond each new presidential administration / acase@tulane.edu

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This study is intended to ascertain the potential impact of a market-driven mechanism on changing MBL participants' social behavior. A qualitative case study investigation of whether values sought by participants and organizers are derived and the affect on social behavior after receiving these values. The methodology is to observe MBL participants' behaviors and activities during and when the MBL mechanism is available. Multiple in-depth, semi-structured long interviews are conducted with participants and organizers to understand the value demands they seek. Pertinent documentation is reviewed about the previous and current behaviors and activities of this cohort. Finally, I will participate in the MBL to understand their behaviors and their relationship to the value demands sought. This is a study deemed successful if the research technique allows me to identify participant and organizer value demands, whether they realized these demands in the MBL, whether participants' behaviors were modified to socially desired ones as a result of their involvement in the mechanism and whether participants' realized value demands from alternative and competing mechanisms during the intervention. I expect to find that participants and organizers become involved with the MBL to derive values that are different from those actually derived. Participants seek to improve their community position by enhancing their feelings of self-worth. They will realize this goal in a basketball environment with friends and an arena to compete for community social-esteem (social network circle). Organizers seek to improve participants' community by in increasing the proximity between participants and their potential involvement in illicit activities / acase@tulane.edu

'Ordem e Civilizacao: The Modernization of Brazilian Naval Yards in the Nineteenth Century,' is a socio-economic history of modernization. The revolution in the art of naval warfare changed centuries-old, construction techniques forever as modern warships utilized iron-siding and steam engines after mid-century. This dissertation analyzes the consequences associated with the adaptation of new technologies to nineteenth-century shipbuilding in the state-run naval yards Constructing modern warships forced the state to educate lower-class youths who subsequently built and maintained them. Established throughout the empire, various schools taught sailors, gunners, artisans, and mechanics their trade. Naval yard workers and sailors who obtained a vocational education eventually forced the imperial government to improve their social status in the navy or lose them to private industry. After mid-century, the state reformed the naval penal code, lessening the number of offenses that received corporal punishment. By 1857, mechanics received direct commissions after ten years of service, and by 1872, the imperial government set up a retirement and disability pension for most of its 4,000 naval yard workers In Brazil's slave-based society, the 'place' for a working class, apart from slave labor, always had been ill-defined. Prior to improving the lot of the working class, the imperial government attempted to define their separate status by differentiating slave labor from free labor and unskilled from skilled labor. After this attempt failed, the imperial government initially relied upon foreign workers, but soon realized that it could not afford their high salary demands. Consequently, the imperial government sought to educate underprivileged youths, turning them into a more productive working class that benefitted the state as well as themselves. The naval yards offer the best example of the Brazilian Empire's concept of 'order and civilization' as education brought discipline, respectability, and limited social mobility to the Brazilian lower classes / acase@tulane.edu