After successfully organizing around preserving Cabrillo Park in Upland and feeling a lack of local political representation, Irmalinda Osuna ran for Upland City Council in the 2018 midterm elections. As one of the many female candidates in the 2018 elections, Irmalinda led a grassroots, community-led political campaign in which she advocated for environmental justice and the preservation of parks, a more inclusive community, increased civic participation, a more efficient use of technology in politics, and support for small businesses.

This study examines experiences of utilizing government assistance in the United States. It focuses on the ways in which persons participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) communicatively managed their lives in relation to their role in the program. Specifically, the research reveals that SNAP recipients are master managers. After synthesizing the pre-existing body of research concerning social assistance in the U.S. and its effects on those who utilize it, the author argues that sharing the stories of marginalized groups can serve to reduce stigma surrounding government assistance participation. Employing a Feminist Standpoint Theory sensibility to elicit such stories, the author drew out narratives gathered through qualitative interviews with current SNAP participants. Findings indicate that communicative management of SNAP participation was experienced as multi-layered and complex. Positioned to navigate the carceral environment of the SNAP program, participants adopted various disciplined communicative actions as they managed program membership, stigmatized identity, and behavioral surveillance.

With respect to its troubled past Northern Ireland has constantly been a field of interest, academic research and discourse. Certain periods in this past, like for example the “Troubles” (a time of violent struggle that began in 1969/70), sooner or later tend to create a particular approach towards language usage. As research has already been carried out on the “Troubles” and its language usage the question now remains in how far the application of lexical items would be changing through the impact of the so called peace process. Examining the language use surrounding this process a wide range of phenomena in the field of politics and social affairs but also in society could be analysed and discussed, assuming that change for some reason developed here. Investigating such circumstances further this empirical interdisciplinary study in the shape of a corpus analysis addresses the presumed language change in Northern Ireland by employing news texts (Belfast Telegraph, BBC Northern Ireland and An Phoblacht) of the period from 1995 to 2009 (i.e. before and after the Good Friday Agreement a negotiated settlement between Catholics and Protestants in 1998) for the analysis to attempt to establish a link between changing semantic and lexical units, and to some extend to even find a relation to alleged gradual social change. The evaluation is based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of thematically pre-selected keywords in the areas of politics, social affairs, and society. Generally it could therefore be concluded that change – though marginal in numbers – appears perceivable. Despite a detailed examination and evaluation (qualitative and quantitative) it needs to be pointed out, however, that the findings of correlating social and linguistic variables could in the end only imply a kind of relation – contrary to the expectations in the beginning. Perhaps, in some cases, gradual change could be illustrated like for example with the name change of the police (RUC to PSNI) or changed social terminology. Nevertheless this study created an important contribution of research on post-“Troubles” Northern Ireland as it brings this statelet back into focus on the one hand and in addition prompts questions on the challenges of future language usage in societies that experienced violent conflict on the other. Corpus and Appendix on CD-Rom for printed copy available at University Library Chemnitz and German National Library

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI / Charter schools are a major movement in American education and increasingly used as a city strategy for neighborhood rehabilitation. Indianapolis is one of a growing number of urban areas to promote charter schools as catalysts for neighborhood revitalization. Previous studies find mixed results about the causes of neighborhood change or how residents make mobility decisions. The present study seeks to create an empirical model that discovers the impact of charter schools as a neighborhood amenity. This is based on two measures of well-being: change in percentage poverty and change in percentage school-aged residents. Data indicate a negative relationship between charter schools in a census tract and the school-aged resident population. However, statistical analysis did not support a significant relationship between either measure and charter schools in the ten year time frame.

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<p>Muslim women’s efforts to attain religious leadership roles have been central, critical, and controversial topics discussed in American mosques and in academia. Women’s lack of access and leadership in religious institutions is due to the patriarchal interpretations of <em>Qurʾānic</em>scripture, the <em>Hadīth</em>, and Islamic laws leading women to engage in collective action to attain their rights while still affirming their religion (Barlas, 2002). When controversial topics challenge religious traditions and norms, such as women’s roles as <em>khateebahs</em>and Friday prayer <em>imāms</em>(women sermon givers and leading Friday prayers), the discussions often are theological and political, but rarely from a communicative perspective in which the trajectory of change and co-oriented action is authored by participants through considerations of text and interaction. Muslim women in America are opening spaces for dialogue and initiating organizations that empower their Muslim sisters to take on religious roles and other positions that adhere to and broaden understandings of what it means to be Muslim.</p> <p>The communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) (Belliger & Krieger, 2016; Brummans, Cooren, Robichaud, & Taylor, 2014; Bruscella & Bisel, 2018) has not yet delved into organizing within Muslim institutions. This study contributes to both CCO and to Muslim women’s organizing by showing how the CCO framework is applicable to a unique context that has not previously been investigated. Specifically, this dissertation explains how women’s authoring of process and structure through communication operates as a productive force constituted through linguistic choices, discursive formations, and materialities, as well as how Muslim women constitute agency within a traditional religious space situated in the United States. Consistent with CCO perspectives and especially the Four Flows model (McPhee, 2015; McPhee & Zaug, 2000, 2008), agency is conceptualized as action through or enactment of rules, resources, and routines in the duality of structure, based on Giddens (1984) structuration theory. In examining The Women’s Mosque of America (WMOA), an in-depth case study approach helped to illuminate how women’s empowerment is constructed and legitimized through women’s interactions, engagement, and advocacy. Studying women’s agency and structuring of empowerment through the constitutive approach of communication in organization (CCO) using McPhee’s four flows (McPhee, 2015; McPhee & Zaug, 2000, 2008) links communication, feminist studies, and Muslim religious organizations.</p> <p>Data for this case study were gathered through site observations and interviews; analyses were conducted through constructivist grounded theory that incorporates personal knowledge about Muslim women to assist interpretation grounded in data (Charmaz, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2017). Throughout the study, attention was paid not only to what the women said but also to their reported and observed social and ritual interactions.</p> <p>In conclusion, this project not only sheds light on a segment of the Muslim American community that is marginalized but shows that McPhee’s four flows can be used to study how organizations are structured along particular Islamic values and interpretations of text, while also affording agency to individuals as actors within each and across all four flows. In the case of The WMOA, the four flows communicative processes help identify relationships between Islam and organizational members, staff, and other institutional stakeholders within the material conditions of religious observances. Studies such as this project provide insight into how diverse members organize paradoxically for both social change and continuation of sacred traditions.</p>

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A theoretical understanding of stratification and inequality is necessary to understand social phenomena in general. Unfortunately, professional sociology in the United States has historically promoted a limited theoretical understanding of stratification that tends to ignore economic realities, social structures, institutional mechanisms, power relations, and other important factors such as racial discrimination in reproducing social class. In fact, mainstream sociology has replaced class-based theories altogether with the concept of socio-economic status (SES) and, at the same time, all too often embraces problematic theories that justify inequality. This critical literature review of social class in American sociology attempts to: 1) provide a more comprehensive history of sociological theory in the United States regarding stratification and social class, 2) expose the sociological factors affecting these social theories and concepts, and 3) deconstruct and critique mainstream social theories that offer weak explanations of stratification.

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