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The purpose of this study was to examine and describe transition services vis a vis the community integration of an adult-age special education student with a developmental disability. An additional goal was to provide the reader with a detailed portrait of the experiences of this student, especially with respect to the relationships and networks that influenced this student's integration into a community setting. Transition, according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004), is a results-oriented process that requires special education program leaders to focus on the specific needs of each student in order to successfully integrate them in communities. This case study was significant in that it contributed to understanding how an individual with disabilities copes in educational programs and in communities. Data collection involved interviews with an adult age student who received special education transition services, her parent, her case manager, document review of the Individualized Education Program of the selected student, and review of relevant transition program and policy documents. Social capital theory was used as the conceptual framework for this study and guided the data analysis. Three distinctive themes were revealed through the analysis of the data: Community Opportunities, Development and Implementation of the IEP, and Employment. The overall findings of this case study revealed that through implementation of the IEP and the transition service in a community based setting, a multitude of social relationships and networks were activated by the student. The IEP specifically generated relationships and networks through opportunities for the student to have a peer mentor, have structured social time with her peers, have access to community venues, and through employment. The following conclusions were drawn: Community opportunities provide access to resources that influence integration: I EP transition services are a mechanism to facilitate community integration; and, e mployment is a primary outcome of transition service and a means to integrate into the community. The overall findings of this case study confirmed that vital social relationships and networks were activated by the student through conscientious implementation of her IEP and particularly as a result of the recommended transition services that afforded her community-based employment. / Ph. D.

This dissertation examined the relationships among adoptive status, social capital, and academic achievement. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) had 609 adopted and 11, 940 non-adopted adolescents. I used OLS regression models to help explain why adopted adolescents have significantly lower grade point averages (GPA) than non-adopted adolescents. Potential mediators were family social capital, closeness to family, mother and father, mothers' and fathers' involvement in their children's education, self-esteem, academic expectations, and in-school behavioral difficulties. Only closeness to fathers and in-school behavioral difficulties differed by adoptive status. Compared to non-adopted adolescents, adopted adolescents were closer to their fathers and had more in-school behavioral difficulties. Adopted adolescents also had lower GPA's, even when all other predictors were in the model. However, were it not for greater closeness to their fathers, adopted adolescents' would have had even more in-school behavioral difficulties and consequently, lower academic achievement. The results have implications for social capital theory and theory and research concerning adoptive families. / Ph. D.

Both cultural and social capital have been used in the existing literature to understand the differences in student persistence. Bourdieu's theories (1986, 1993, 1973), through their various applications, have provided evidence that the influence of social and cultural capital on student achievement varies based on the context of the study (Sternberg et al. 2011; Farruggia et al. 2018; Grodsky 2007). This research will build on the existing research and expand the focus of the research to a broader application of both cultural and social capital together. Through this method, this dissertation examines differences in college readiness students possess when they enter Urban Center University. This research also examines differences in the type and level of social capital students report activating in their first semester of college, primarily measured through students' sense of belonging. Finally, it will examine differences in support for students' cultural communities as measured by academic/social support for their cultural community and strain with family and friends from home. A binary logistic regression operationalizes all three components of cultural and social capital to investigate the likelihood of the following: persistence to year two and year three, on-time graduation, and attainment of satisfactory academic performance (SAP) toward degree completion. Finally, high degrees of belonging for Latino/a students, men, and first-generation students are compared to overall persistence rates for these populations to examine how belonging impacts persistence for students who identify as members of these groups. / Doctor of Philosophy / Many students choose to attend a college or university and never graduate. This dissertation examines the ways that their high school experience, family and friends, and relationships forged at Urban Center impact their persistence and likelihood of graduating in four years. The research will combine several forms of relationships and academic measures in one model to understand the ways they interact to impact persistence. The research will help colleges and universities understand the way that both pre-college behaviors and academic effort, relationships forged in college, and maintaining home relationships impact the likelihood of persistence. The context for Urban Center was selected because it offers insight into a campus with a very diverse student body based on race, gender, sexual orientation, Pell Grant utilization, and status as the first in their immediate family to attend college.

Using the perspectives of social capital theory (Coleman, 1988) and life course theory (Elder et al., 2003), this study examined how economic capital and particular dimensions of the parent-adolescent relationship predicted educational outcomes. The economic capital variables were family income, parent education, and parent occupational prestige. Relationship capital variables included: closeness to parents, expectations for schooling, parental values, and parent trust. The three economic capital variables, expectations for schooling, and parent trust all significantly predicted final GPA and educational attainment. However, parent-adolescent closeness and parental values did not predict educational outcomes in the overall model. This study extended research in the field by examining both final GPA and educational attainment as educational outcomes. By using a nationally representative sample and four time points of data collection, this research was able to explore how various forms of capital predict early adulthood educational outcomes. / Master of Science

What consciousness (awareness) do Northern Fair Trade coffee consumers have of Southern coffee producers and how do networks and social capital among consumers and Fair Trade promoters shape this consciousness? This study sought to answer these questions, based on a data analysis of semi-structured interviews of 20 coffee consumers, roasters, distributors, café owners, and baristas in Long Island, New York, augmented with documents from some key organizations in the Fair Trade (FT) coffee supply chain. This study is important because a conscious (aware) consumer of Fair Trade coffee products has the potential to make a substantial difference in the quality of life of the Global Southern coffee producer. Additionally, social capital concepts can help us better understand how this consciousness of FT coffee operates. Analyzing this data has shed light on the conscious coffee consumers' attitudes towards FT products, and FT coffee in Long Island specifically. Finally, this study has led me to a new and important research question that future research might address: how does the process of active participation in a FT-related social movement enable a coffee consumer to become more conscious of their connection to Global South's coffee producers? To explore this link further, an analysis of interviewees with a sample restricted to such movement participants -perhaps in a larger city - would be needed. / Ph. D.

This thesis is concerned with the social impacts of urban design. It responds to the extensive history of race-based and class-based exclusion in American cities and offers a critique of postmodern planning strategies that seek to encourage social diversity but often undermine it. The Braddock Metro Neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, encompasses the historic community of Uptown, at one time the largest African-American community in Alexandria. Uptown, like most African-American urban neighborhoods in the United States, has been shaped by the forces of racism, segregation, displacement, public housing, white flight, economic disinvestment, crime, historic districting, and - recently - redevelopment and gentrification. The Braddock Metro Neighborhood Plan, a small-area master plan for accommodating transit-oriented redevelopment while affirming neighborhood character and connecting diverse residents, serves as the foundational document for neighborhood redevelopment. Central to the Neighborhood Plan is the replacement of public housing projects with mixed-income communities. These communities, which accommodate an influx of middle-income residents while retaining a percentage of low-income residents, are expressing a new type of residential diversity in the neighborhood, particularly in terms of the spatial proximity of different social groups. Proponents of mixed-income communities cite the potential for the formation of Bridging Social Capital (i.e., benefits, such as improved educational or employment opportunities, shared via casual ties among residents of different social groups). However, researchers have observed self-segregation occurring among residents of mixed-income communities, suggesting that spatial proximity alone does not guarantee the mixture of different social groups. This thesis posits that social mixing in diverse neighborhoods depends upon the presence of carefully designed social spaces, and it offers a set of streetscape interventions intended to support the formation of Bridging Social Capital in the Braddock Metro Neighborhood. The selected site consists of two historic street segments that are not yet fully redeveloped or gentrified. Design decisions are grounded in a careful assessment of site conditions, including existing social conditions, and supported by academic research in history, sociology, urban planning, and social-space design theory. Precise, small-scale interventions engage edges, affirm site character, and encourage residents to linger, sense one another, and tolerate challenging conditions of diversity. Design elements also accommodate the City of Alexandria's guidelines for street safety, mobility, accessibility, stormwater management, and historic preservation. / Master of Landscape Architecture / This thesis is concerned with the social impacts of urban design. It responds to the extensive history of race-based and class-based exclusion in American cities and offers a critique of postmodern planning strategies that seek to encourage social diversity but often undermine it. The Braddock Metro Neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, encompasses the historic community of Uptown, at one time the largest African-American community in Alexandria. Uptown, like most African-American urban neighborhoods in the United States, has been shaped by the forces of racism, segregation, displacement, public housing, white flight, economic disinvestment, crime, historic districting, and - recently - redevelopment and gentrification. The Braddock Metro Neighborhood Plan, a small-area master plan for accommodating transit-oriented redevelopment while affirming neighborhood character and connecting diverse residents, serves as the foundational document for neighborhood redevelopment. Central to the Neighborhood Plan is the replacement of public housing projects with mixed-income communities. These communities, which accommodate an influx of middle-income residents while retaining a percentage of low-income residents, are expressing a new type of residential diversity in the neighborhood, particularly in terms of the spatial proximity of different social groups. Proponents of mixed-income communities cite the potential for the formation of Bridging Social Capital (i.e., benefits, such as improved educational or employment opportunities, shared via casual ties among residents of different social groups). However, researchers have observed self-segregation occurring among residents of mixed-income communities, suggesting that spatial proximity alone does not guarantee the mixture of different social groups. This thesis posits that social mixing in diverse neighborhoods depends upon the presence of carefully designed social spaces, and it offers a set of streetscape interventions intended to support the formation of Bridging Social Capital in the Braddock Metro Neighborhood. The selected site consists of two historic street segments that are not yet fully redeveloped or gentrified. Design decisions are grounded in a careful assessment of site conditions, including existing social conditions, and supported by academic research in history, sociology, urban planning, and social-space design theory. Precise, small-scale interventions engage edges, affirm site character, and encourage residents to linger, sense one another, and tolerate challenging conditions of diversity. Design elements also accommodate the City of Alexandria's guidelines for street safety, mobility, accessibility, stormwater management, and historic preservation.

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 / This dissertation contains three essays on the political economy and economic development. The first paper studies the negative relationship between democracy and oil-income. Formation of democracy requires strong role of citizens in governing the society which is called social capital. I show that oil revenue delays the formation of the social capital, and therefore delays democratization. In the second paper, I inspect the trend and patterns of group-based inequality in Iran. Inequality among groups is counted as a source of conflict and instability. Iran is a habitat of ethnic diversity which experiences stability and almost peaceful relationships among its ethnicities, while its neighbors experience many ethnic conflicts. This study shows substantial reduction in between-group inequalities over the 1990–2012 period. On the other hand, gender based income inequality remains high. The third paper measures the economic cost of the U.N. trade and financial sanctions on Iran’s economy. I estimate the amount by which Iran’s GDP decreased following the financial sanctions of 2010.