Recent research in the sociology of culture has placed significant focus on musical taste and practices. This research agenda has ushered an understanding of the relationship between social class and cultural consumption, and particularly, the implications that patterns of cultural preferences and practices have on social inequality. A frontrunner in this line of work is Bourdieu (1984), who offers a sophisticated and useful theoretical framework—the Cultural Capital Theory—to illuminate the role of culture and its consumption in society. Written as three publishable papers, the chapters use empirical evidence to explore three issues surrounding highbrow musical practices that enrich Bourdieu (1984)’s framework. The first paper (Chapter 2) examines the role of structural and personal barriers in blocking attendance to highbrow concerts. It takes as a starting point Bourdieu (1984)’s argument that upper class individuals are more likely to attend classical music and opera concerts than their lower class counterparts, and questions whether these distinct patterns of participation are attributable to the different barriers that each class faces. The second paper (Chapter 3) offers a sophisticated analysis of the impact of socialization on highbrow concert attendance. By innovatively integrating the concepts of timing and duration, hallmarks the Life Course Perspective, I map out the potentially dynamic nature of the socialization process. In doing so, I illustrate the varying implications that different timing and duration of exposure has on later life highbrow concert participation. The last paper (Chapter 4) investigates the process of socialization to understand what conditions present during this crucial period in time encourage persistence in highbrow musical practices. I find that engaging in interactions that allow one to experience positive emotional resonance, develop a musical identity, and feel a sense of autonomy over musical decisions lead to the propensity to remain engaged in musical activities throughout life.

This dissertation explores the factors which contributed to a change in the paradigm that framed Canadian refugee policy over the course of the 1990s. This change is characterized in the dissertation as a shift from a refugee protection paradigm that dominated policy-makers’ thinking in the 1970s and 1980s, to a security-control paradigm by at the end of the 1990s. This change is puzzling because it occurred prior to the events of 9/11 rather than in response to them and because domestic motivations for change do not provide a complete explanation of the shift. The dissertation argues that although factors in the domestic and international environments may have enabled paradigm change, a more complete explanation of shift needs to consider the process through which Canadian policy-makers were socialized into a developing international norm. This process of international socialization occurred through bureaucrats’ international interaction in bilateral and Regional Consultative Processes akin to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s global government networks. Using data generated from primary document analysis and a series of interviews of key policy-makers this dissertation maps paradigm change over the two periods. This data is then used to provide evidence of the importance of bureaucratic socialization through a global government network for migration in explaining this change.

Research on the socialization of emotion has examined the role of parents’ behavioural responses to children’s negative emotions in the development of a number of psychosocial outcomes for children. Parents’ unsupportive socialization practices have predicted poorer social and emotional functioning both in childhood and later in adulthood. The current study aimed to broaden existing knowledge of the nature and impact of parent emotion socialization practices on emotion regulation. This was done through an exploration of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of mothers’ responses to their children’s anger and sadness; by examining the impact of factors such as child gender and age as well as contextual factors on mothers’ responses; and by examining the impact of socialization practices on the development of emotion regulation. An online community sample of 114 mothers of 6- to 10-year-old children read a series of hypothetical situations in which they were asked to imagine their child responding with either anger or sadness. Mothers reported on their emotional responses, their acceptance of their child’s reaction, their causal attributions, and their socialization responses. Mothers also completed measures that assessed perceived social support, recent stressful life events, and the emotion regulation abilities of their child. Mothers were generally positive and supportive in their responses. Mothers were more likely to endorse negative responses to anger than sadness Responses did not differ according to the gender or age of the child. There was general consistency in the tendency to react positively or negatively. High levels of stressful life events predicted anger and punishment responses to child anger. Minimization of sadness was predicted by lower educational status. No other contextual factors were significant. As expected, minimization of sadness and anger both emerged as significant predictors of poorer emotion regulation in children; problem-focused responses predicted better emotion regulation for anger not sadness; unexpectedly emotion-focused responses to anger predicted poorer emotion regulation. Results are discussed in relation to the existing literature on the socialization of emotion and child outcomes. Limitations of this study and future directions for the research are discussed.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the relationship between second language (L2) writing development and the ways we can help growing populations of L2 writers successfully integrate within academic communities. Much of this interest stems from increasingly diverse local populations and the continued internationalization of higher education. This dissertation explored the implications for curriculum resulting from this growing presence of L2 writers in academic content areas. To achieve this goal, this research reports on an eight-month longitudinal ethnographic case study of five international Japanese undergraduate students at a large Canadian university. Focusing on the central role of writing in university courses as the dominant mode of knowledge construction and dissemination, as well as student assessment, the study documents focal students’ and focal instructors’ perspectives of the various factors affecting their writing in ‘regular’ content courses, with particular attention paid to the impact of feedback practices and their role in both the short-term and long-term development of students’ skills and their investments in different types of writing. Drawing on a language socialization framework, data analysis focused on expectations and practices with respect to feedback, and explored the impact of these practices on conveying both explicit and implicit norms linked to students’ access to, and successful participation in, their chosen content areas. Drawing on both students’ and instructors’ perspectives of this literacy event and discourse analysis of relevant documents, findings offer unique insights into the role of feedback practices not only for students’ writing development but also in indexing complex negotiations of positions, identities, and institutional forces. The dissertation concludes by highlighting the need to play closer attention to the multidimensional functions of feedback practices in order to understand their power to shape the socialization trajectories of L2 writers and universities’ responses to multilingual students who no longer fit traditional profiles.

Aim: The aim is to identify the institutional pressures affecting audit firms in different local contexts. Theoretical approach: We develop a model by using institutional theory, socialization theory and other relevant literature. We use this model to identify differences in the socialization process in different audit firms and different local contexts. We also identify the strength of some institutional pressures in the local context. Empirical methodology: We conduct qualitative interviews with eight auditors working in large and small firms in three different local contexts Conclusions: We find that the socialization process in audit firms is dependent on both the size of the audit firm and on the local context in which it is located. We also identify that mimetic pressure between firms of different sizes is stronger in a local context with low client diversity than in a local context with high client diversity.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Irish people on a rural location practice their faith in everyday life. The intention is also to find out what strategies my interviewees use to negotiate the abuse scandal and what their thoughts on the Catholic Church are. The material mainly consists of interviews with seven people part of a rural parish in Ireland. My research also entails smaller observations and conversations in the homes of the participants. The results indicate that they all consider themselves religious, however not all Catholic. All of the participants integrate their religion in everyday life. It also showed that almost all of them used a certain strategy when negotiating the knowledge of the abuse scandal leaving just one participant saying it negatively affected his faith. My results show that all of them are asking for changes within the Catholic Church when it comes to celibacy, ordaining women and same sex marriages. The results of my study are analyzed with Meredith McGuire’s theory on lived religion and Peter Berger’s theory on socialization and secularization. Religious activity is occurring in my participants’ everyday life and church-based practices such as Mass or Confessions are not as important for them as for instance prayer and humility. It also shows that my participants are socialized into Catholicism but that the Church no longer can serve as a sole legitimating power and is being severely questioned. I would also argue that today’s modern society with different religions and expressions has led to my participants questioning of the Church. In the location I have studied the results show that individuals let religion into their everyday lives and create their own version of it. With these results I would argue that my participants allow religion to influence their everyday tasks and create their own religious practice. The results suggest that my participants are indeed part of a secularization process, the objective secularization which separates the Church and state. However, religion is still alive within the subjectivity of my participants.

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The purpose of our thesis was to examine how children think about violence on TV news. We also wanted to find out what children think about violence, both in other TV programmes and in reality. Adults often speak for children, we wanted to hear the children’s own opinions. This study was based on theories of socialization and reception research. We showed violent news clips for 12 eleven and twelve year olds. In the meantime, we recorded the children’s reactions on film. Afterward, we interviewed them about their thoughts and feelings related to the clips. Our study is based on interviews and observations. We came to the conclusion that the children in our study think violence are very unnecessary. Most of the children did not find the clips particularly scary, but many mentioned that they think blood is disgusting to watch.

<p>This dissertation examines racial socialization in Afro-Brazilian families in order to understand how phenotypically diverse families negotiate racial hierarchies and ideologies of white supremacy. As an inductive, qualitative project, this research is based on over fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in fifteen poor and working-class Bahian families and 116 semi-structured interviews with family members and informants. Findings suggest that one of the most prominent features of racial socialization is the pervasive devaluation of black/African influences, which is conveyed through implicit and explicit messages as well as concrete practices (including rituals) that promote the stigmatization of negatively valued racialized physical features. The study reveals a pattern of unequal distribution of affection based on racial appearance (phenotype), which is evident in parent-child, sibling, extended family, and romantic relationships. Findings suggest that negative appraisals of racial phenotype may significantly compromise affective bonds in families and have social psychological consequences impacting self-esteem and sense of belonging, while also eliciting suicidal ideations and anxieties. These outcomes are most pronounced for Afro-Brazilian females. Racial socialization also conveys the "strategically ambiguous" logic of color and racial classification, uncritically exposes family members to racist messages, jokes, and stereotypical images of Afro-Brazilians, and encourages cultural participation that superficially valorizes Afro-Brazilian culture and fosters nationalism, rather than racial identity. In contrast to traditional findings of racial socialization in the U.S., messages valorizing racial heritage are rare and efforts to prepare family members for bias rely on universal terms. Families do employ counter-discourses and creative strategies of resistance; and so, racial socialization is characterized by practices that reflect both resistance and accommodation to racial hierarchies. I conclude that racial socialization in families is influenced by and sustains racialization processes that maintain the broader system of white supremacy. Contrary to how racial socialization has been framed as having a purely protective role in families, this study illustrates how it may disadvantage blacks vis-à-vis whites and uniquely stigmatizes the most "black-looking" family members vis-à-vis those who more closely approximate an idealized (whiter) somatic norm. Future studies should triangulate data on racial socialization from other regions of the Americas.</p> / Dissertation

The development of the global luxury market, nearly showing a decade growth of high degree, primarily refering the consumers of luxury market.It expanded not only high status but also general status and it¡¦s different from our past cognitive. Consumption is not a bad thing, but recently consumers change their shopping motives and want to show their status and obtain the identity of others by pursuiting the consumption patterns of higher classu, it will cause the disequilibrium between consumption and status. Therefore, this study explores the relationship between the socialization of status consumption and luxury attitude, and then extended to understand the impact of various media in the consumer socialization process, to identify the major cause of the disequilibrium. This object of the study expandes to the general consumers, it refers to widely understand the consumers actual cognition¡Bemotions and behavior whether he bought luxury goods or not. And exploring the relationship of luxury attitude and status consumption,in which you can understand the role of government in the consumer market and effect. After the questionnaire analysis, we found it is positive relationship between the luxury attitude and the status consumption,and it also has significant relationship between the attitude the consumer socialization process of media¡Gage¡Bthe school pattern in high school ¡B the cognition of government policy and luxury attitude. In conclusion, the luxury¡§cognition¡¨ and¡§emotion¡¨"are major causes to influence status consumption,it said the consumer to do the consupmtion behavior is depending the inherent performance.If consumers do not face their own wrong consumption mode, the overall social climate of the country will not upgrade.