This study explores the effect of acute in utero exposure to homicides on a range of birth outcomes by testing theories of stress response and critical periods of fetal development. Specifically, this study examines the effect of in utero exposure to homicide on the birth outcomes of infants whose mothers were in close proximity to the homicide compared to infants whose mothers were unexposed to homicide during gestation. This study further investigates how the effect of exposure varies by gestational age at the time of exposure. The data utilized in this analysis are drawn from New Jersey birth records from 1998-2002 and homicide records used in a spatial and ethnographic investigation conducted by the New Jersey Star-Ledger newspaper. The overall analysis in the standard regression model showed that there are quite small, but highly significant positive effects on birth weights. Under a sibling fixed effects rubric these effects go away entirely, indicating that perhaps unobserved familial factors were driving results. Furthermore, the closer a woman and her fetus were to a homicide did not linearly affect the birth outcomes of the fetus. There was also little difference between birth outcomes of mothers residing in low crime and high crime areas. While, mothers in low-crime areas had slightly better birth outcomes, the different was marginal. Falsification tests disproved most significant findings. The questions under investigation would benefit from exploration in locales with greater variation in exposure levels.

This dissertation uses the case of autism to examine the changing contours of disability, personhood and civil society in contemporary Turkey. Drawing on qualitative data collected through fieldwork and interviews, I show that despite the arguments proposed by parents groups and the scientific literature, the dissemination of autism diagnoses globally does not indicate a universalization of the experience, interpretation and moral understanding of the disease category. Instead, the translation of autism to the Turkish context was contingent upon the specific institutional conditions determined by professional struggles, the organization of civil society and the transformation of the welfare state. My findings suggest that there is a split moral career of the child presenting with developmental problems in Turkey with divergent paths to referral, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. In the absence of high quality, state subsidized special education services, middle class parents have allied with Western educated experts to disassemble the autism spectrum resulting in the formation of what I call a "disorder without a diagnosis". These findings are significant in understanding the changing relations of expertise in a non-Western context.

This research was undertaken to analyze and to describe the social support networks of a non-random sample of 55 legally blind and visually impaired young adults, 20 to 50 years, inclusive. Modified versions of the Arizona Social Support Inventory Scale (Barrera, 1981, 1983), and the Network Analysis Profile (Cohen and Sokolovsky, 1978) were used to examine key aspects of network structure and to evaluate the attributes of network links. Results from this study indicate that with the exception of network size, the level of visual impairment may have less impact on network structure than such factors as age of onset of blindness, type of school attended, acceptance of blindness, marital status, gender, and mastery. Study findings also contribute some support for optimism with regard to the level of social integration achieved by study subjects. The majority of men and women in the sample showed evidence of access to all essential varieties of social support including: companionship, advice, material assistance, physical assistance, affirmation, and emotional support. A relatively small percentage of the total sample lacked access to all six of the above listed dimensions of social support. Only two of fifty-five subjects had networks that contained fewer than five persons. The average network contained ten persons. Subjects with the smallest networks were prone to be less educated, unmarried/formerly married, and unemployed. Stepwise multiple regression procedures identified employment status, mastery, level of functional vision, and gender as significant predictors of expanded networks. Young adult subjects clearly considered kin as their first line of social support. Kin supporters outnumbered nonkin supporters by close to two to one, however, nonkin proved to contribute a larger proportion of total support than did kin. Degree of visual impairment did not influence the observed pattern of support provision, nor did age. Subjects also demonstrated heavy reliance upon friends, spouses and siblings in the form of a high percentage of multi-dimensional ties. Subjects identified their immediate social surroundings as the context most frequently associated with the origination of new friendships. However, organized programs sponsored and operated by agencies that serve blind and visually impaired persons were frequently associated with the origination of new nonkin ties. Significant relationships also linked residential school attendance to a number of psychosocial measures that indicate successful adjustment to blindness.

Effective familial communication regarding adolescent sexual health is recurrently identified as an important protective factor against high-risk sexual behavior, and is considered a valuable and necessary component of prevention. This is especially true for Latino adolescents who are disproportionately affected by unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, and for whom family-based interventions are the most efficacious. Unfortunately, sexual risk prevention research has generally excluded the role of culture in the design and implementation of sexual health interventions. This critical omission has generated interventions that conceivably lack cultural sensitivity, and run the risk of failure if their design contradicts the cultural beliefs and values of the targeted population. The purpose of this study was to investigate, among demographically comparable samples of Mexican-American parents, potential barriers to sexual health and safety communication that may be associated with cultural norms, beliefs and values. Its first objective was to examine the extent to which commonly held cultural values and beliefs influenced sexual health predictors and dialogue between Latino parents and their children. This study's second objective was to explore the mediating role of acculturation across each of the sexual communication outcomes. The third and final objective was to examine how these outcomes were distinctly affected by parent and child gender. Seventy-seven women and twenty men of Mexican-origin (total N = 97), parenting a child between 5 and 14 years of age and living in Boulder, Colorado, participated in the present study. They represented three generational levels of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans from varying socioeconomic statuses and representing both sexes. Key findings indicated that the endorsement of four traditional Latino cultural beliefs and values were moderately associated with factors that predict sexual health communication among Mexican-origin families. General family communication emerged as the heart of the model, denoting the most significantly influenced sexual communication predictive variable for both the mothers and fathers in the sample. The traditional Latino gender roles ascribed to men and women of Latino-origin (machismo and marianismo), were both negatively associated with effectual family communication, as was respeto, which embodies the expectation that children are respectful, obedient, and loyal to their family. Also, the findings suggest that parents who endorse fatalism hold more negative views of potential outcomes associated with familial discussions about sexual health and safety. The influence of Latino cultural beliefs and attitudes on factors that predict sexual communication was not mediated by acculturative status, as hypothesized in the present study, although the findings demonstrated that acculturation independently predicted sexual communication frequency between mothers and their adolescents. Factors that influence familial sexual communication are malleable and can be modified with the support of an effective intervention strategy. Understanding empirically how culture influences factors that predict adolescent sexual risk, as demonstrated in this research, will contribute to the development of strategies that are culturally relevant.

This dissertation examined savings attitudes and financial asset accumulation of poor and vulnerable school-going AIDS-orphaned adolescents involved in a subsidized matched child savings program in Uganda and being cared for by a living parent (adolescents who have lost one parent) or by an adult guardian within an extended family (for adolescents who have lost both parents). More specifically, the study tested (1) whether participation in a subsidized matched savings program had an independent effect above and beyond the effect of individual and family characteristics on adolescents' saving attitudes and self-reported financial asset accumulation; (2) whether family characteristics (i.e. family relations, family financial socialization, and household demographics) moderated the effect of participation in a subsidized matched child savings program on adolescents' saving attitudes and self-reported financial asset accumulation; and (3) whether the adolescents' future orientation and family financial socialization served as mechanisms to transmit the effect of the participation in a subsidized matched child savings program on adolescents' self-reported financial asset accumulation. Grounded in an integrated theoretical framework of classical and behavioral economics, family financial socialization theory, and the institutional theory of saving, this study used longitudinal analyses of data on 346 dyads (adolescents and their guardians) collected in a experimental cluster-randomized controlled trial. The study found that adolescents' saving attitudes (both reported willingness to save and reported confidence in saving), although not affected by participation in a subsidized matched child savings program, were significantly associated with family relations, family financial socialization, caregiver's gender, and adolescent's gender and educational aspirations. Adolescents' self-reported saving was significantly affected by participation in a subsidized matched child savings program; this effect was direct, and neither moderated nor mediated by any of the family characteristics, nor by adolescent's future orientation. The adolescents' self-reported amount saved is significantly affected by participation in a subsidized matched child savings program. This effect is weakened by the number of children in the household: the more children in the household, the weaker the effect. In addition, the effect is potentially mediated by the guardian saving for the adolescent. The findings contribute to the institutional perspective on saving arguing that saving is not only a function of individual characteristics, but also institutional opportunities. Findings may help inform programs and policies facilitating asset-building initiatives for youth in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

This study explores the dialectic between the older, linear-mechanistic approach of the clinical-normative-individual-system model, and the newer, ecological-systems approach of the life model. Theoretical issues are outlined as they have unfolded during several decades. The principal independent variable is clinical-orientation of clinician-subjects with regard to degree of adherence to linear-mechanistic and/or ecological-systems approaches. Secondary independent variables are duration-severity and interpersonal-context of client problem/situations, described in four situational vignettes. Hypotheses predict positive correlations between measures of each independent variable, and degree of linear versus ecological weighting to clinicians' assessments and intervention plans for each vignette. Data were collected in 1980 from 152 second-year graduate students in casework and direct practice, who represented an initial pool of 1,007 students from fourteen CSWE-approved schools which provided unrestricted cooperation, through lists of eligible students. Three instruments were utilized: (a) An informational questionnaire inquired about students' willingness to participate, and characteristics which would enable the researcher to determine eligibility, and identify extraneous effects. (b) The second sought graded measures of subjects' adherence to specific theoretical principles of linear or ecological approaches. (c) The final instrument sought repeated measures of type of assessment and intervention plan (linear or ecological), formulated in response to systematically varied vignette conditions. Findings include several positive correlations between self-rated clinical-orientation and assessment measures, and fewer positive correlations between clinical-orientation and intervention measures. The interpersonally isolated client whose problem/situation is chronic tends to pull judgments in the direction of linear-mechanistically weighted assessments and intervention plans, regardless of clinician's orientation. Implications for teaching the ecological approach are explored. Use of the clinical-orientation instrument for student self-observation is suggested. Research implications include refining of instrumentation, and comparison of seasoned and student clinicians, to test empirical applicability of the ecological approach.

The Bamileke in contemporary Cameroon are known by the services of the General Delegation for National Security as one of the approximately 200 ethnic groups that have been assigned a registration number, and they must like all citizens formally identify their ethnic group at the time of national identification. Unlike most Cameroonians who identify with a primary language, the Bamileke usually identify with a chieftaincy or a village of origin, which may not always correspond with a distinctive language. This situation has led the police to hold a map of chieftaincies during registration in order to assist the self-identification of those whose declared place of origin is located in the former Bamileke Region. While this operation reveals the extent to which the Bamileke ethnonym corresponds to a linguistic umbrella term and sets apart the Bamileke as an ethnic group in state records, it also highlights the general assumption that one can match every registered ethnic group with a discrete region of the country’s territory. The structure that grounds this assumption is referred to as ethnic territorialization in this dissertation and is critically examined from the vantage point of ethnographic exhibition, identification with homelands, political competition, and colonial history. The legibility and traceability of both ethnic identity and putative home villages that come with national identification in Cameroon contrast distinctly with the generally repressed character of ethnicity in national politics and state institutions that have the representation of the nation as one of their main objectives. This was the case in the early 1990s when the newly created National Museum of Yaoundé had to confront the imbalances and contradictions that would result from an effort to put the “synthesis of Cameroonian cultures” on display. It was also the case in 1996 when the newly amended constitution included a provision for the rights of indigenous populations and limited candidacy for each of its ten regional council presidencies to “an indigenous person”. In both cases, the Bamileke have been described in the literature as the major concern for lawmakers. In the first case, the predominance of ethnographic materials from the West Region was perceived as a threat to both the visibility of other ethnic groups and the cherished principle of regional balance which ensures the enrollment of state representatives on the basis of ethnic quotas. In the second case, the protection of indigenous people was understood as a means developed by the ruling party, identified as the Beti, to undermine Bamileke interests in regions other than their own. Given the ambiguous character of ethnicity in Cameroon, this dissertation resists the temptation to reduce the apparently recent institutionalization of indigenous rights in Cameroon to a matter of the current international increase in claims to “belonging” or autochthony, or to a strategy developed by the ruling party in order to fragment the current political opposition. Rather, this dissertation draws lessons from an ethnography of the failure of the government in Yaoundé to give an ethnic description of the nation at the National Museum and the relative success of a non-governmental institution, known as The Road to Chiefdoms, that created a museum in the former Bamileke Region with the same goal. Accordingly, this dissertation suggests that the apparently contradictory outcome of these two initiatives both results from a political fiction that territorializes identity ethnically and makes use of chieftainship and land tenure as its cornerstone. More importantly, this dissertation examines the ways in which the Bamileke actively engage, partake in, and question state politics as both indigenous people or autochthons and gradual opponents of the principle of autochthony. It further highlights the reasons why any debate on either regional balance or autochthony in Cameroon must include the matters of chieftainship and land tenure as institutions whereby the Cameroonian state seeks to portray itself as a supra-ethnic political entity that incarnates a non-ethnic Nation to come and avoids being reduced to only one of the many ethnic groups officially assumed to be at its foundation.

This thesis has provided the detailed description of the methodological fieldwork undertaken by the author on the island of Java, Indonesia. Included are the steps involved in the formulation of the multi-stage stratified area probability sample, the sampling procedures, the establishment of the methods for gathering the data, the preparation of an interview schedule in four languages, and the techniques of interviewing for both the rural and urban respondents.The importance of this description lies in the practical application of traditional Western sociological survey research methods in a non-Western environment, and the solutions provided to problems encountered in such an application.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306

The current study examined some key factors that have the potential to impact non governmental organizations' (NGOs) effectiveness operating in war and conflict settings. Previous research suggested that integrative complexity (Streufert, 1970; Suedfeld, Tetlock, & Streufert, 1992), behavioral complexity (Lawrence, Lenk, & Quinn, 2009), emotional complexity (Kang & Shaver, 2004), job adaptability (Pulakos, Arad, & Plamondon, 2000) and resilience (Masten, 2001) are linked to positive individual outcomes. However, no systematic studies have been conducted to examine the potential impact of these variables on perceived work effectiveness in the context of volatile and violent environments. Therefore, I investigated the relationship between individual integrative complexity, perceived behavioral and emotional complexities of Top Management Teams (TMTs), perceived job adaptability of TMTs, perceived resilience of TMTs and their relationship to perceived internal and external effectiveness of their respective NGOs working in the Palestinian Territories. A total of 133 participants participated in the study, representing TMTs from 26 local NGOs based in Ramallah, West Bank working in various fields such as community development, children and youth, human rights, women empowerment, agriculture, health and psychological counseling, advocacy, education, and culture. Participants were asked to fill out a battery of questionnaires assessing these variables. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were utilized to analyze the data. The overall results indicated that integrative complexity was negatively associated with leader's perceptions of the external effectiveness of their NGO, and was not found to be related to perceived internal effectiveness. Both perceived behavioral complexity and emotional complexity of TMTs' were positively associated with perceptions of internal and external effectiveness. An exploratory analysis revealed an interaction effect between behavioral and emotional complexity in terms of their combined impact on perceived internal and external effectiveness. In addition, perceived job adaptability of TMTs was significantly related to perceived external effectiveness, but not with perceived internal effectiveness. Finally, perceived resilience of TMTs was not found to be associated with any outcome variables. The theoretical, practical and future research implications of the results are discussed.

Social support networks have been shown to be related to the health status of various groups of people, when measured in different ways and under different circumstances. Yet, there have been few comparisons of this relationship across population groups. Therefore the purpose of this study was to compare the ways that social support networks relate to the health status of different population groups. The study used data that was collected in Wave I of the National Survey of Personal Health Practices and Consequences in 1979, in telephone interviews with 3025 persons aged 20-64 residing in households with telephones. Ten target groups were selected for study--those with high stress jobs, the unemployed, the aged, the widowed, the bereaved, the disabled, those who had recently experienced serious illness or injury, the poor, those with negative status inconsistency, and single parents. It was found that there was no uniform pattern in the way that social networks relate to health status, but rather different elements of social networks related to the health status of members of different target groups. These relationships were fairly consistent regardless of which of two health status measures were employed--self-rated health status and composite health status. And social networks were more strongly related to the health status of target group members than they were to the health of the general population. Existing theories regarding the ability of social networks to predict health status are explored, in an attempt to explain the findings of this study. As they prove inadequate, a new model is proposed, in which the needs of various groups are seen as determining which social network elements will be able to modify health status. That is to say, the success of social networks in maintaining health is contingent upon a proper fit between social networks, individual needs and health status. The implications of the study for social work practice and policy center around the importance of specificity in relating networks to health. In addition, avenues for future research are explored, especially in designing studies to specifically test the proposed model.