Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / In this study, I explore recidivism, an ‘uncontrollable phenomenon’ in South Africa, within the context of rising crime and repeat offenders. Research has shown that the political economy of South Africa, inequality, persistent poverty within previously marginalised communities, high school drop-out rates among other factors, creates a breeding ground for criminal activity amongst adolescents, resulting in high convictions and prison sentences in the Western Cape. It is within this context that this study investigated recidivism and reasons for recurring trends, where first time offenders are more likely to return to prison after being released. Specifically, the study investigates why young men from Hanover Park are more likely to be repeat offenders and continuously incarcerated.

Student Number : 0506739P - MA research report - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / In this study, the positive correlation between social capital and economic performance as well as between social capital and political engagement, documented in the vibrant social capital literature, is revisited with focus on the experience of Congolese immigrants in Central Johannesburg. The core research question aims at establishing whether Congolese immigrants with higher stock of social capital turn out to be better economic performers and more politically engaged agents. The investigation has used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The major data collection instrument has been a survey questionnaire that has reached a relatively representative sample of 100 Congolese immigrants living in Yeoville, Berea, Hillbrow, Parktown, and Braamfontein. Informal interviews, direct observation, and previous literature has provided more qualitative information that has helped to account for statistical trends. While the Congolese immigrant community displays vibrant associational life and intensive social interactions, the predominance of religious associations, the scarcity of socio-economic organisations and the prevalence of bonding ties affect Congolese immigrants’ ability to benefit from their general high capacity to interact with others. The study has also found that voluntary associations may just have symbolic value as they do not represent support structures on which members rely to handle their daily challenges. Instead, family members and fellow Congolese friends constitute the most important social support. As for the correlation between social capital and economic performance, the model has been found valid but its explanatory power weak. Social capital can only partly account for Congolese immigrants’ economic performance. Its impact on their level of political engagement is equally weak. Social capital’s weak influence on Congolese level of political engagement has to do with the apolitical tendency of most religious associations, individuals’ lack of English proficiency, and poverty. South Africa institutional constraints to immigrants’ socio-economic integration, disempowering features of Congolese associations, individuals’ marginal position within networks and the general absence of resources have also been singled out as major justification of Congolese immigrants’ social capital powerlessness. This study contributes to the existing social capital debate at least in three respects. Firstly, it shows that measuring individuals’ social capital on the basis of associational life can be misleading. In some communities, voluntary associations may not be the most important source of social capital. Secondly, Congolese immigrants’ social capital powerlessness illustrates that social capital productivity is function not only of social interactions but also of broad institutional context. Thirdly, political engagement does not just follow from associations’ attendance. An apolitical association such as Jehovah witness church or an association attended mainly by undereducated people may still build organisational skills, but insulate participants from the political community.

Prescription stimulant abuse is a recent drug abuse trend that is becoming a major problem across the United States. Previous research has mainly examined the amount of individuals that are abusing prescription stimulants and has ignored using sociological theory to explain why individuals are abusing these drugs. To address this gap in the literature, this thesis applies the theory of social capital to explain how an adolescents’ family structure can affect the likelihood they will abuse prescription stimulants. Examining survey data from the 2008 The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, it was found that adolescents from single parent households, with minimal parental involvement, are more likely to report abusing prescription stimulants. These findings highlight the influence of family structure and parental involvement in an adolescent’s life, as well as the need for additional research in this area to fully understand prescription stimulant abuse.

Thesis advisor: Gustavo Morello / Given the endless times I have heard “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, the value of social networks became the forefront of this sociological study. Throughout this study I investigate the relationship between social capital and self efficacy. I interviewed ten undergraduate, low income students at medium sized school in the Northeast on their social connections throughout high school and college experience. These same respondents then took a General Self Efficacy scale to measure their perceived self efficacy. The study finds that those with higher measures of social capital also demonstrate higher perceived self efficacy. More importantly, social capital seemed to be more effective in providing resources and building self efficacy when there was a shared identity or experience between the student and the resource. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

This study called into question the rationale and methods used by researchers used to measure levels of social capital, particularly Putnam (1995), Paxton (1999), and Park (2006). A central purpose to this study was to partially replicate and extend the work of Park, who theoretically derived four dimensions of social capital. I develop measures of each dimension and then regress each on the variables of age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, education, income, and religiosity. This created four sets of outcomes from which I drew conclusions about the dimensionality of the social capital concept. Based on the low percentage of variance explained by the models and the fact that many coefficients reverse signs from one model to the next, I conclude that these dimensions do not represent four parts of a single, underlying construct. This was counter to both Paxton and Park’s conclusions. The results of this study also offer a way to examine the effects of subgroups on each dimension. In addition, Park’s hypothesis of “coffeeing together” was tested and found to be inconsistent with the descriptive results. Recommendations were made for future applications of social capital research and an alternative hypothesis was cited as a promising way to conduct subsequent studies.

This study examines the role of religion in promoting the success of Mexican immigrants, as measured by typical U.S. standards of success, including income, education, assets (such as homeownership), and health, including access to health insurance, controlling for age, education, gender, and ability to speak English. These measures are analyzed against various indicators of religiosity. The hypothesis driving the research is: religiosity increases an immigrant's success in the United States. This hypothesis was informed by social capital theory, and a distinction is made between bridging and bonding forms of social capital. The results show only a very weak correlation between religion and success, as measured by the data. Also, immigrants attending churches where Spanish is spoken, and those with mainly Mexican immigrant populations are less likely to enjoy success, implying that bonding forms of social capital actually work against them.

This study investigates the connections between the experiences of participants and a facilitator in an intergenerational community music ensemble, including how participants make personal sense of their individual identities and positions within the field of the Intergenerational Community Cello Ensemble (ICCE), how participants map their musical and pedagogical interactions in the field of the ICCE, and how my experiences as a facilitator impact and evidence the construction of my own identities both within and beyond the field of the ICCE. I applied a lens of habitus based on Pierre Bourdieu’s social capital theory to examine how participants constructed a sense of self in their fields and to explore how participants shaped and were shaped by their social worlds. Thirteen cellists, including me, participated in this study. These cellists represented differing socio-demographics of age, race, gender, and religion. I collected data from multiple interviews with seven of the participants, recorded observations of the ensemble rehearsals, and facilitated two focus group surveys. The focus group surveys were open to all participants, but attendance varied based on availability. Research questions included: How does the experience of participating in the ICCE impact individual identities and positions within the field of the intergenerational community music ensemble? How are these identities and positions impacted within the field of the ICCE? How are these identities and positions impacted within fields beyond the ICCE? Is there any transfer between the ICCE and fields beyond the ICCE? How do participants map their musical and pedagogical interactions in the field of the ICCE? How does my experience as a facilitator impact and evidence the construction of my own identities both within and beyond the field of the ICCE? My data analysis suggested that participants experienced an overall sense of connection and increased musical proficiency in various areas: musical reading, instrumental proficiency and performance, and musical and pedagogic authority. I also considered how my identity was shaped by the reciprocal relationships developed through facilitation and participation in the ICCE. Findings suggest that participants advanced their musical and social skills as forms of personal development thus enhancing their perceptions of community music’s social and performative experiences. This study explores ways that trust, mutual respect, and shared capital were exchanged between participants and the participant-facilitator, including how these relationships enhanced confidence and connections reciprocally between those musicking and extending into broader communities in which they operate.

This dissertation contains three essays on the political economy and economic development in Iran. In the first paper, I investigate the political resource curse. The comprehensive literature on the relationship between democracy and income counts oil-rich countries in Middle East as outliers: the abundance of funds for the states and the absence of effective tax systems hold back the formation of democracy. But democracy is more than a purely political system. Sustainable democracy requires a set of social norms and intra-citizen relationships that is called social capital. Emphasizing the importance of the formation of social capital on the democratization of a society, I use female labor force participation as a proxy for social capital. Using survival analysis, I show that oil revenue delays the formation of the social capital required for the democracy. In the second paper, I inspect the trend and patterns of group-based inequality in Iran. Inequality among groups can be a source of conflict and instability. Iran is a habitat of ethnic diversity and experiences stable peaceful relationships among its ethnicities, while its neighbors experience many ethnic conflicts. In this study, we compute three measures of group-based inequality for the following outcomes: education, assets, income, and expenditure per capita. The groups are defined based on gender, ethnicity/language (Persian, Azeri, and other ethnic minorities), and region (urban versus rural and capital city versus other places). The data are 23 years of annual Household Expenditure and Income Surveys (HEIS) from 1990 through 2012. Inequality between groups based on religion (Muslim, non-Muslim) and citizenship (Iranian, Non-Iranian) is also studied, using the 2006 census. The analysis of the trend of horizontal inequality reveals substantial reduction in between-group inequalities over the 1990–2012 period. On the other hand, gender based income inequality remains high. The implications and underlying reasons for these results are discussed. The third paper studies one the most serious recent problems facing Iran’s economy: the economic cost of the recent US and UN sanctions. This paper measures the economic cost of the U.N. trade and financial sanctions on Iran’s economy. While there is a substantial literature studying how sanctions impact the economies of target states, the aggregate economic cost of sanctions remains underexplored. This study provides a new measure of the cost of sanctions at the aggregate level, defined as the gap between Iran’s actual GDP and what it would have been without sanctions. Using the synthetic control method of analysis, I replicate Iran’s GDP without sanctions. I demonstrate that, while previous sanctions had a negligible impact, Iran’s GDP fell markedly following the financial sanctions of 2010. / PHD

Contemporary United States has witnessed a gradual shift of political responsibilities to local communities. This shift creates opportunities for a greater sense of democracy among individuals in local communities. This dissertation explores how elements of social capital and civic engagement support participatory democratic processes, and ultimately improve the quality of democracy for individuals. The central premise of this research is that democracy satisfaction includes the ability to influence decisions for individual and community benefits. Thus individuals who possess social capital and actively participate in civic life are likely to experience democracy satisfaction. Trust is specified as a primary social capital measure. Thus, the extent to which ?generalized trust? and ?particularized trust? account for differences in the levels of individual satisfaction with democracy is examined. A parsimonious typology is developed in which four categories of trusters (total trusters, general trusters, particular trusters, and skeptics) are delineated and empirically tested. Three categories of civic engagement; local political, representative and altruistic civic engagement are also differentiated and tested for their explanatory value for democracy satisfaction. To achieve this, data from the 2000 American National Election Study were used in logistics regression models. The study confirms the notion that while trust is important when it comes to democracy satisfaction, it is generalized trust (total and general trusters), rather than particularized trust (particular trusters, and skeptics) that is more important in predicting democracy satisfaction. The results also show that not all forms of civic engagement predict democracy satisfaction. While representative civic engagement and giving to charity have positive effects on democracy satisfaction, local political civic engagement and volunteering time do not significantly predict satisfaction with democracy. With reference to altruistic civic engagement, results show that giving to charity has a positive effect on democracy satisfaction, but not volunteering time. It is concluded that participatory democracy is impeded in communities with strong particularized trust and limited generalized trust. The study points to futures research opportunities to ascertain the extent to which types of trust and civic engagement are pertinent factors in explaining development efforts in local communities that are deficient in civic culture and participatory democracy.

Previous research has examined certainty and severity of punishment as serving a deterrent function. This research examines the effects of economic, cultural, and social capital, as well as the effects of certainty, severity, and prior punishment on likelihood of re-offending. Data collected at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility suggest that traditional deterrence indicators are insufficient for predicting likelihood of re-offending. This research finds that prior punishment increases likelihood of re-offending, a finding completely counter to that of traditional deterrence. Re-offending may be best understood by considering the effects of punishment on increasing prison capital and decreasing real world capital. The argument is that inmates consider their potential in the real world as compared to that in a prison when reporting likelihood of re-offending. Such considerations should better explain likelihood of re-offending as compared to traditional deterrence indicators, such as certainty, severity, and prior punishment.