This research explored the fathering experience of 44 divorced and remarried fathers with legal joint custody and at least one child under the age of 16. The fathers filled out a questionnaire and were interviewed about the frequency of their participation in various child care activities, their satisfaction during their participation in these activities, and their perceived influence on their child's growth and development. Three fathering measures were derived from the questionnaire. The father's perception of the relationship with the mother (coparenting relationship) was correlated with the fathering measures to determine if the amount of interaction between coparents and the amount of support or conflict in their relationship was associated with high or low scores on the fathering measures. Results indicate that the sample fathers have maintained an active and involved relationship with their children which did not diminish upon remarriage. They are satisfied with the time spent with their child, and feel influential in their child's growth and development. The quality of the relationship between coparents varied from highly supportive relationships to highly conflictual and antagonistic ones. In general, the amount of support or conflict within the coparental relationship, and the frequency of the coparental interaction, was not associated with any of the indicators of a father's involvement with his child. Fathers were able to sustain an involvement with their children without support from their former wives and within conflictual circumstances. Joint custody was considered to be the context within which fathers were able to negotiate a positive relationship with their child. Most fathers were strongly in favor of using the legal supports that are part of a joint custody agreement as a means of insuring both parents' attachment to their child after divorce. Joint custody appears to be an appropriate and desirable child care alternative in more kinds of divorced families than is currently accepted or encouraged. However, far more support from the legal and social systems is needed to help fathers continue to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations as parents after separation, divorce and remarriage.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Discourse about the human world has, since Socrates, been structured around the assumption that one view of a given matter is better than competing views, and that argumentation, if carried out correctly and systematically, will favour the view which has the preponderance of reasons and evidence on its side. If this supposition were dropped, the nature of social scientific inquiry would change significantly. For many commentators in the social sciences the ineliminable interpretative dimension of social inquiry and the standpoint-bound character of interpretation lead to the conclusion that we have to abandon any notion of objective truth in the social sciences. The central question raised in this thesis is whether this abandonment is inevitable or even plausible. Is it plausible to conflate objectivity and truth? Is objectivity a possible characteristic of the individual researcher or a characteristic of the scientific research process? Does the cultural environment of the researcher impact on the validity of research findings? If science is a social phenomenon, are scientific beliefs different from other beliefs? How do the interests of the individual researcher or the formal organisation of scientific practice impact on the validity of findings? What role does power play in the shaping of knowledge? These are the questions that will be addressed in the following thesis. The methodology of Max Weber serves as a point of departure and divergences and similarities to the work of Weber are explored in the writings of Kuhn, the Edinburgh School, Latour, Foucault, Habermas, as well as contemporary postmodernist and feminist writers. The analysis of these various concepts and approaches is not presented chronologically, but rather as an exposition of the contributors of various commentators in the fields of both the sociology of science and knowledge, and the philosophy of science. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Diskoers oor die menslike wêreld is, sedert Socrates, gestuktureer rondom die aanname dat een siening van 'n gegewe saak beter is as mededingende sienings, en dat argumentasie, indien korrek en sistematies uitgevoer, ten voordeel sal wees van die siening wat gesteun word deur die oormaat van redes en bewyse. As ons hierdie aanname sou laat vaar, sal die stand van sosiaal wetenskaplike ondersoek ingrypend verander. Vir menige kommentator in die sosiale wetenskappe lei die onafwendbare interpretatiewe dimensie van maatskaplike ondersoek, en die standpunt-gebonde aard van interpretasie, tot die gevolgtrekking dat ons enige opvatting van objektiwiteit in die sosiale wetenskappe moet laat vaar. Die kernvraag in hierdie tesis is of hierdie verskuiwing onvermydelik of selfs aanneemlik is. Is dit geldig om objektiwiteit en waarheid saam te snoer? Is objektiwiteit 'n moontlike eienskap van die individuele navorser, of 'n eienskap van die navorsingsproses? Watter impak het die kulturele omgewing van die navorser op die geldigheid van die navorsingsbevindinge? As wetenskap 'n sosiale fenomeen is, is wetenskaplike oortuigings enigsins anders as ander oortuigings? Watter impak het die belange van 'n individuele navorser, of die formele organsiasie van wetenskaplike praktyk, op die geldigheid van bevindings? Watter rol speel mag in die vorming en skepping van kennis? Hierdie is die vrae wat aangespreek word in dié tesis. Die metodologie van Max Weber dien as vertrekpunt, en ooreenkomste tot en afwykings van die sienings van Weber word ondersoek in die werk van Kuhn, die "Edinburgh School", Latour, Foucault, Habermas, sowel as kontemporêre postmoderne en feministiese skrywers. Die analise van hierdie verskeie konsepte en benaderings word nie kronologies aangebied nie, maar eerder as 'n uiteensetting van die bydraes van verskeie kommentators op die gebied van die sosiologie van die wetenskap en van kennis, sowel as die filosofie van wetenskap.

The cross-race identification effect is a phenomenon anecdotally experienced by many people in viewing, perceiving, and recalling human faces when the perceiver and target individual are not of the same race. In popular vernacular, the idea that ‘they all look alike’ when referring to people from other racial groups has been studied extensively with results providing evidence that “people of other races appear more similar to each other than people of [ones] own race” (Maclin & Malpass, 2001, p. 99). While the cross-race identification effect (or the greater ability to accurately recall same-race than other-race faces and the poorer ability to correctly recall other-race compared to same-race faces) has been found across all racial groups with Whites or Caucasians exhibiting the strongest effect, scholars continue to be challenged with understanding what factors contribute to the effect. An aspect of the cross-race effect that has received minimal attention is the notion of race as a construct in and of itself. Utilization of White racial identity (Helms, 1990) as a psychological variable in social science research is posited to provide a more precise evaluation of White individuals’ social attitudes with respect to race and racial group membership, as compared to the racial socio-demographic categories commonly used in research studies. Based on this contention, the current study sought to empirically explore whether White perceiver’s racial identity status attitudes were associated with Black (or other-race) facial recognition. The sample included 269 White adults from across the U.S. Through an online survey platform, participants viewed a series of White and Black facial images. After completing an intermediary task, they were shown the old in addition to new White and Black facial images and were asked to determine which faces they had and had not seen before in the study. Respondents also completed the White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (Helms & Carter, 1990) and a demographic questionnaire. Results indicated that the cross-race identification effect was present in the current study, with White participants demonstrating greater overall accuracy, fewer inaccurate identifications, and a more cautious decision strategy (that generally leads for fewer false identifications) when responding to White (same-race) faces as compared to Black faces. Additionally, Black (cross-racial) facial recognition was significantly related to White racial identity with participants who endorsed an absence of racist views and internal conflict in reaction to race-salient information displaying high rates of correct Black identifications. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

This dissertation poses a set of questions about the political impacts of the rapid and large-scale deployment of HIV programs (HIV "scale-up") in Lesotho. As HIV and global health initiatives have expanded over the past decade, they have had sociopolitical, as well as epidemiological, impacts. In particular, HIV scale-up elicited and demanded new political processes that continue to change how policy is crafted, how citizens are represented, and which values drive new health initiatives. More fundamentally, HIV initiatives have altered the ways that citizens, patients, and communities perceive themselves, the state, and their political worlds. Utilizing multi-sited ethnographic methods, this project observes how citizens in Lesotho are coping with these dramatic changes in their political worlds. The research reveals HIV scale-up's considerable and far-reaching impacts on citizen faith in democracy, perceptions of rights, access to key social protections, and feelings of belonging. In contrast to work on the impacts of social movements, activism, and political will on HIV policies, this dissertation inverts the causal direction of inquiry regarding health and politics. In doing so, it recognizes new global health movements as drivers of political change, mobilizing actors and resources in deploying programs in ways that are altering political worlds and subjectivities. A rich recent literature on biological and therapeutic citizenship in the time of AIDS has begun recognizing these trends and their impacts on patient subjectivity. This research expands the frame of inquiry to examine how public health interventions can also alter citizen subjectivity, expectations of democracy, and the structures of associational life. The dissertation also contributes data towards better understandings of recipient populations' perspectives on accountability, good governance, public-private partnerships, transparency, and participation—approaches currently touted as solutions to poor project outcomes. For citizens in Lesotho, these initiatives still look very much like anti-democratic enterprises. Field research was undertaken in two sites surrounding different clinical care models: the first was a government-run primary care clinic, and the second was a factory-based clinic in the country's garment industry, where a public-private partnership provided HIV services to workers. In both sites, research extended far beyond the clinic. In the former site, this meant working with: peri-urban communities served by the clinic; two support groups struggling to build partnerships with NGOs; local government institutions tasked with managing the HIV response; and traditional healers, community health workers, and patients giving and seeking care outside the clinic. In the second site, this meant exploring dynamics of discipline, productivity and "ethical" production in a transnationally-linked industry, as well as the social lives of workers outside their work. Though largely unforeseen by most global health actors, HIV policy has become an extremely effective delivery mechanism for specific political ideologies and ways of practicing politics in poor countries. Research conducted in these sites demonstrates that the expansive, far-reaching scale-up of HIV programs has fundamentally changed ideas about what citizens deserve, who is deserving, how decisions will be made about services, and who takes responsibility for services, and ultimately, the survival of citizens. The predominant experience of politics for most citizens in post-scale-up Lesotho is a feeling of abandonment, of not being heard. The research thus raises significant normative as well as pragmatic questions about the role and responsibility of global health projects in already fragile political systems, and the potential impacts of the political changes described here on patterns of health seeking and ill health in countries like Lesotho.

Conflict between psittacines (birds within the parrot family) and agriculture is a growing, unstudied threat to psittacine conservation throughout the Caribbean. The intensification of conflict as an apparent outcome of successful conservation interventions is of particular concern on the island of Dominica. Here, conflict between the island's globally threatened parrots and citrus farmers is a potential roadblock to advancing the gains of threatened species recovery programs. This dissertation provides empirical data on the extent and severity of the losses experienced by farmers due to parrots, and the degree to which the resulting conflict has provoked a parrot conservation backlash. This dissertation analyzes the causes of citrus fruit loss including the role of parrot frugivory in these losses and the predictors of parrot frugivory at multiple scales. It also highlights parrot frugivory as a source of a poorly understood commensal relationship with small passerine birds and suggests that the role of psittacines as top-down modifiers of canopy community dynamics is underappreciated. Using social science research methods I illustrate the importance of investigating the meanings and value-oriented attitudes that stakeholders hold towards parrots. I show that it is possible for popular conservation tools such as the flagship concept to inadvertently marginalize other closely related species within a local culture, and that this may be particularly important when human-wildlife conflicts are present. Finally the dissertation illustrates that, overall, crop loss attributed to parrots on Dominica has become a surrogate issue and focal point within a much larger public dispute about the state of agriculture and the security of farmers on Dominica. The findings therefore illustrate the inherent complexity of conflicts involving wild animals and underscore that efforts to understand and mitigate such conflicts in a traditional reductionist manner as purely wildlife-crop loss issues may be misguided. I therefore advocate that multidisciplinary systems perspectives are essential for both the study and management of this and similar conflicts.

Status and stigma are fundamental to understanding the organization of social groups, including the forces that create and perpetuate inequality along multiple axes - race, ethnicity, and class, among others. One of the challenges in the discipline of sociology is that these deeply enmeshed processes are studied separately, rather than in relation to each other. This dissertation bridges the study of status and stigma through ethnographic examination of the affective, situational, and contextual interplay of status and stigma processes in urban spaces that are both exceptional and ubiquitous: the neighborhood funeral home. To study these processes, I observed and participated in the day-to-day activities of three New York City funeral homes over four years. The project contributes to three areas: ethnographic design, the literature on status and stigma processes, and to urban and cultural sociology. Whereas most ethnographic projects focus on a single subject – a community, a workplace, a profession - in isolation or a multi-sited framework, this project has different approach. The three focal funeral homes were selected based on a process rather than a population – all are located in neighborhoods in the midst of dramatic demographic transitions. To better understand and contextualize these micro interactions, I collected data and participated in activities at other levels of the funeral industry: national, state, and local. I attended funeral directors trainings and conventions, including with the largest national association, the historically black funeral directors association, and New York State’s convention. For other perspectives on New York City, I interviewed over forty funeral directors and allied professionals throughout the five boroughs. This project strives to avoid static and categorical explanations for status and stigma processes, the binaries of black and white, elite and poor, and explores life both in the middle and at the intersection. Using this multi-site design, it contributes to the research on neighborhood change and demographic transition as I distinguish between experiences common to the general process of neighborhood change while isolating those that emerge from the variation in changes specific to particular processes. This project is not only one of the most in-depth studies of the funeral industry, it also more broadly contributes to our understanding of the dynamic relationship of status and stigma, and the process and business of the monetization of cultural practices.

What do American people talk about, with whom, and when? What people talk about influences and is influenced by who they talk with, and when they talk structures the interdependency between discussion topics and relationships. This context-alter-topic interdependency provides an opportunity to identify contextual mechanisms by which social and political networks are activated and deactivated in response to salient social events and polarized contexts. Do people talk about important matters with fewer people than ever before? Do people organize their political belief systems in ideological ways using the single liberal-conservative dimension? Do people discuss politics with more people who are more politically diverse in contested elections? This dissertation answers these and related questions by revisiting the same survey data that others have found useful in the past, but with a new and fresh lens. Do people talk about important matters with fewer people than ever before? The 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) reported significant increases in social isolation and significant decreases in ego-network size relative to previous periods. These results have been repeatedly challenged, though none precisely identify the cause of decreased ego-network size. The second chapter shows that it matters that the 2004 GSS -- unlike other GSS surveys -- was fielded during a highly polarized election period. I show that political priming induced by presidential election events makes people frame "important matters" as political matters, and political polarization further suppresses network size especially for non-partisans. Do people organize their political belief system in ideological ways using the single liberal-conservative dimension? By considering a set of interrelated political beliefs as a network of belief systems, the third chapter seeks to resolve theoretical puzzles concerning the organization of political belief systems, and address competing accounts of the role of political ideology and core values. I compare results from the American National Election Studies and General Social Surveys, and show the strong contextual influence on belief systems. I find that belief systems, often thought to be relatively stable, need to be "activated" by certain social cues. Do people discuss politics with more people who are more politically diverse during contested elections? The fourth chapter focuses on battleground states to investigate the mutual interrelationship between political discussion partners and topics: who people discuss politics with depends on which issues they discuss and vice versa. I propose that increases in the salience of politics and exposure to opposing views contribute to the activation of interpersonal political echo chambers. I present evidence to support this claim based on statistical analysis of the 1992, 2000, and 2008 National Election Studies. My dissertation shows, throughout three empirical chapters, why we need to seriously consider socio-temporal context in studies of social and political networks. I use survey timing, exogenous events, and battleground states to show how political situations induced by political events activate ideological thinking, which in turn deactivates our core discussion networks, and ultimately activates interpersonal political echo chambers. In sum, I discover situational activation of network processes.

According to the National Psoriasis Foundation (1976), psoriasis is a little known and poorly understood skin disease afflicting an estimated eight million victims in the United States. About fifteen thousand new cases of psoriasis are diagnosed each year. It affects men and women in equal numbers at any age, most often between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five.

The main purpose of this study is to analyze a measurement instrument developed by Frost & Stahelski (1988) to measure French & Raven's (1959) bases of social power. The measurement instrument of a competing typology of social influence tactics (Kipnis, Schmidt, & Wilkinson, 1980) was also administered to the same managerial population (N=108). Confirmatory factor analyses using LISREL (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1986) were performed on each scale. Possible relationships between the two typologies were explored. Results include confirming a modified Frost & Stahelski scale and no confirmation of the Kipnis et al. scale. Canonical correlation yielded two dimensions where Coercive Power and Expert Power relate to Assertiveness and Rationality respectively. Exploratory factor analysis of the composite scores from both typologies yielded two factors called Positive Power and Negative Power. Implications and future research are briefly discussed.

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