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Over the past two decades, economic change in sub-Saharan Africa has been characterized by the persistent importance of small and informal activities. Unlike South East Asia, economic growth has not been accompanied by an expansion of the formal manufacturing sector. Chapters 1 and 2 of this dissertation examine social factors with the potential to dampen labor supply to the formal sector. Chapter 1 demonstrates the presence of strong complementarities in labor supply among social networks, driven by the value of commuting together with friends and neighbors to work. Chapter 2 shows that informal redistributive arrangements act as a tax on earned income, thereby dampening incentives to exert effort at work. Both of these chapters are based on field experiments, implemented in urban Cote d'Ivoire in partnership with private companies. The third chapter of this dissertation focuses on environmental factors. It demonstrates that a large-scale forestation program in the 1930s across the US Midwest changed the climate, both locally and downwind. This policy-induced change in the climate is then used to the effects of climate change on the agricultural sector, with a specific focus on the role of adaptation. Taken together, these three chapters pave the way for future research on the green transition in lower-income countries.

Research Objectives: Every day in the United States 110 people are killed with firearms, and more than 230 are shot and survive. Survivors of community-based gun violence encounter complex challenges, including increased mental health risks and re-victimization, amidst societal stigma and weakened trust in support systems. The fear of community-based gun violence substantially distorts the way that millions of people live their lives producing detrimental mental repercussions not only for survivors but for their family members as well. Research shows that parents and other family members of child and adolescent gunshot survivors experience an increase in mental health disorders. Typically, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a concept used to understand the traumatic aftermath and symptomatology of this type of violence. However, it overlooks the anticipatory threat of community-based gun violence, which continually influences future decisions and behaviors while lacking the historical context that accounts for the disproportionate nature of community-based gun violence (e.g. race and socioeconomic status). Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS) focuses on the ongoing anticipation of future threats and traumas, rather than those from the past. CTS has mainly been utilized within the international literature in war-torn countries and highlights how persistent poverty, racial and gender-based violence, as well as violence committed by institutional actors (e.g. law enforcement), continuously traumatizes vulnerable populations. Understanding community-based gun violence through CTS may provide a new perspective of its psychological and social impact. As a result, a CTS pilot scale was developed to focus on how often participants have experienced community violence and the frequency in which it consumed their thought process. Moreover, little research has investigated the impact of gun violence on the family system. This study seeks to help fill these gaps by applying CTS and family systems theory (FST) to understand the continuous traumatic stressors that community-based gun violence and their families experience post injury and how is this violence perceived to impact on the family system. Methods: This qualitative study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to conduct 21 separate qualitative interviews between November 2022 and March 2024 with survivors of gun violence and their chosen family members from Brooklyn, NY. Participants were first asked questions pertaining to CTS and were then administered the CTS pilot scale. The pilot scale gathered lifetime data about their exposure to direct and indirect violence as context for the present and future based threats that have been highlighted within the CTS literature. They were then asked questions pertaining to FST. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then analyzed by a team of three researchers. Given that the hermeneutic phenomenology is not restricted to a set of analytical techniques, a deductive thematic analysis approach was first used to utilize a predefined set of codes, rooted in the foundational components of family systems theory and CTS to begin the analysis. Then an inductive thematic analysis approach was then used to analyze the data to derive concepts and themes that were not apparent in the FST or CTS literature. Results: Qualitative analysis from interviews with gunshot survivors and their chosen family members yielded three key thematic findings pertaining to FST. 1) Alterations in Communication 2) Reconstructing Masculinity and 3) Identity and Support Changes. Qualitative analysis pertaining to CTS with gunshot survivors and their chosen family members yielded three key thematic findings: 4) Absence of protection 5) Present and Anticipated Trauma and 6) Post Traumatic Growth. Conclusion: Specific implications for the field of social work, including those who work with survivors of community violence are outlined. Additionally, this chapter details modifications to social work practices and policies aimed to reduce gun violence that may improve outcomes for social workers and participants. The chapter closing by addressing the theoretical implications for CTS and FST, implications for future research, and finally, disclosing limitations.

Perennial concern about racial inequities in US K-12 schooling has intensified since the pandemic and racial reckoning of 2020. In suburban school districts, which have become more racially diverse (Chen et al., 2021), school board members play a pivotal role as policymakers whose choices affect the education of minoritized students. Drawing on the sensemaking perspective from sociology (Weick, 1995) and social construction of policy targets from political science (Schneider et al., 2014), this multiple case study explores how school board members in three suburban New York districts make sense of changing student demographics and develop related policy. I find suburban school board members’ expressed support for equity, aligned with institutional expectations, coexists in tension with negative ideas about minoritized students and limited understanding of racism. Combined with institutional ideas about the narrow role of the board and heightened attention to actual and potential feedback from white groups, this results in limited benefits to the education of minoritized students. The state’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework (2019a), intended as a guide, has little impact in these settings.

The present field experiment investigated the effect of Greenberg's procedural justice model on a performance appraisal system. Greenberg's justice elements were implemented in an appraisal system which previously did not contain these factors. Including these elements increased employee satisfaction with the appraisal system. The model proposed to account for this increase in satisfaction did not appropriately fit the data. Further methods for assessing possible causal paths were investigated. Several methodological considerations are proposed for future research. / Master of Science

Background: Longitudinal studies suggest that socioeconomic status (SES) and mental health have a bidirectional relationship, such that declines in SES lead to a deterioration of mental health (social causation), while worsening mental health leads to declines in SES (social drift). Nevertheless, existing research has important substantive and methodological gaps. Most notably, studies often employ one from a diverse range of SES indicators and arrive at different conclusions, with labor market indicators (e.g., earnings) providing more consistent evidence of bidirectional effects and non-labor market indicators (e.g., family income) generally offering only support for social causation dynamics. Studies frequently estimate “average effects” failing to examine differences in social causation and social drift effects across populations. From a methodological standpoint, studies often have limited ability to draw causal inferences. For instance, studies examine either social causation or social drift effects independently without controlling for reverse causation. Other studies fail to control for time-invariant differences across individuals that could significantly bias estimates. Furthermore, studies on the association between material hardship and mental health often rely on measures of material hardship with unknown validity and reliability. This three-paper dissertation seeks to tackle several shortcomings in existing research, with the goal of improving and advancing our understanding how SES and mental health affect each other over time and how these dynamics vary across populations. Methods: This dissertation employs data from a five-wave representative panel (n=3,103) of working-age (18-64) New York City adults with yearly measures of individual earnings, family income (income-to-needs), material hardship, and psychological distress. Paper 1 examines bidirectional effects between income types (individual earnings and family income) and distress by relying on cross-lagged panel models with unit fixed effects (FE-CLPM). Subgroup analyses are conducted by examining effects by age, gender, education, and racial/ethnic identification. Paper 2 develops measurement models for material hardship and examines the relationships longitudinal trajectories of income, material hardship, and distress. To identify dimensions underlying the seven observed material hardship indicators, Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) were performed on a randomly selected training sample (n=1,542). Subsequently, cross-sectional Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) and longitudinal invariance tests were conducted on the holdout sample (n=1,561) to further examine the factor structure extracted via EFA and test its measurement equivalence across time. A latent state-trait model examined the extent to which indicators vary or persist over time. Additional CFA models were specified to examine the association between material hardship and income types and psychological distress. Lastly, utilizing factor scores calculated based on CFA models, parallel linear growth curve models were estimated to examine the association between the longitudinal trajectories of income types, material hardship, and psychological distress. Paper 3 examines the bidirectional effects between material hardship, psychological distress, earnings, and family income. Material hardship is measured via a single scale and two subscales for unmet needs (e.g., food insufficiency, housing instability, medical needs, cash hardship) and billpaying hardship (e.g., difficulty paying for rent/mortgage and utilities, utilities disconnection). Factor scores for material hardship measures were estimated based on measurement models developed in paper 2 of this dissertation. I utilize FE-CLPMs to examine social causation and social drift effects between material hardship and psychological distress. An initial model examines effects between material hardship and distress only controlling for partnership status and number of children as time-varying covariates. Subsequently, three-variable FE-CLPMs examine effects between income (earnings or family income), material hardship, and distress. Total, direct, and indirect effects are estimated to examine the effect of income on distress via material hardship, and the effect of distress on material hardship through income. Follow-up models examine the simultaneous effects of unmet needs and billpaying hardship. Finally, subgroup analyses examine bidirectional effects between the material hardship subscales and distress by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and permanent family income. Conclusions: The findings of this dissertation provide new evidence about the bidirectional effects between SES and psychological distress. Nonetheless, this study also reveals important differences in the magnitude and direction of effects depending on the SES indicator employed and the population studied. Across income types, individual earnings may be stronger determinants of mental health than family income. Additionally, social causation and social drift effects between income and distress vary by age, education, gender, and racial/ethnic identities. In paper 2, two distinct, although highly correlated, dimensions of material hardship were identified, namely, unmet needs and billpaying hardship. Consistent with prior research, the rate of change in material hardship mediated the association between the rates of change in income and distress. However, the mediating role of material hardship seems to be driven by the unmet needs factor and not billpaying hardship. Unmet needs (e.g., food, housing, medical care) may be more important social determinants of mental health than difficulties paying for bills (e.g., rent, utilities). The findings of paper 3 offer evidence supporting the reciprocal relationship between material hardship and psychological distress, particularly highlighting the significance of unmet needs as a social determinant of mental health. Difficulties in paying bills seem to be especially important among individuals facing economic disadvantage and those nearing retirement age. From a methodological perspective, the findings of this three-paper dissertation make a case for employing rigorous methods to improve the causal inference of studies about the relationship between SES and mental health. Particularly, this study underscores the importance of methods that can control for unobserved differences between individuals and examining social causation and social drift effects simultaneously. From a substantive perspective, this dissertation also underscores the importance of moving beyond ‘average effects’ and examining potential disparities in the way that subpopulations experience the effects of SES and mental health. From a social policy standpoint, this study highlights the importance of providing support to mitigate the impact of material hardship and income shocks, particularly earnings losses, as these factors have independent effects on distress. Moreover, future research ought to prioritize the development of interventions aimed at alleviating the economic and mental health consequences arising from bidirectional effects between SES and psychological distress.

A sociological approach is used to analyze incidences of extreme opportunism in financial markets. Through an analysis of arguably the most widely publicized "rogue" trader events in recent history, a determination is made of the validity of explaining these events as aberrations, attributable to the actions of "rogues". The primary focus is the role of structural factors underlying these incidences of extreme opportunism in financial markets. A diverse range of documentary and other sources is used to avoid any form of bias as far as possible. It was found that structural factors act as countervailing forces to inhibit such behavior or as motivators and facilitators acting as catalysts for extreme opportunism. The balance between these factors largely determines the level of opportunistic behavior in a particular environment. Extreme opportunism is therefore not an aberration or "rogue" occurrence but a manageable phenomenon intrinsic to the social structural context within which it occurs. By conceptualizing these factors as countervailing forces one is forced to view structural factors, like compensation structures and formal and informal restraints, relative to one another and no longer in isolation. This realization translates into the conclusion that restraints and oversight systems for example, should be designed relative to the relevant motivators and facilitators in its area of application. In an environment where traders of highly geared financial products are motivated with multimillion USD incentive packages, a low budget oversight system and inexperienced regulatory staff, is clearly not the appropriate tools to control and manage extreme opportunism. / Criminology / D.Phil. (Sociology)

Leung Tsan-wing. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the needs of parents and teachers to identify factors that contributed to academic achievement among elementary grade students. Data was collected from a total of 65 parents and teachers of elementary grade students from Rowland Elementary School in Rowland Heights.