<p> The availability of the Internet has become increasingly easier to adolescents due to technological advancements. Children are not only susceptible to predators in parks, shopping malls, and playgrounds but cyberspace as well. An increasing number of adolescents have access to smartphones and tablets allowing their susceptibility to become a cyber victim to increase as parental control may not be present. The purpose of this research was to examine the role of the Internet in the sexual exploitation of children. What are the methods predators use to prey on children? How does the child&rsquo;s behavior play in their susceptibility to being seduced? What is the role of the education system to protect children? The Internet provides unlimited opportunities for educators to expand on their teaching methods and provide additional knowledge to students. However, security measures are lacking as well as knowledge on the potential dangers of the Internet. Education systems are not mandated to implement Internet safety courses into their curriculum as many educators themselves have a lack of knowledge on the subject. Many parents also have a lack of knowledge on Internet safety and feel that their children may be more tech-savvy, making Internet safety conversations more difficult. This allows a child the opportunity to utilize the Internet unsupervised, as many parental controls can be bypassed. A lack of Internet safety knowledge by authority figures, leaves many children susceptible to predator&rsquo;s manipulation skills. The manipulative behavior a predator has on a child may even go unnoticed by educators and parents unless steps are taken to communicate with the child and the role of the education system to protect children should be to keep children safe while online. Implementing parental controls, mandatory policies and guidelines in school system&rsquo;s and taking a lead role in the child&rsquo;s life is imperative on whether a child is preyed upon by predators: Keywords: Education system, Professor Chris Riddell, Educators, Predators, Online, Internet Safety.</p>

Within the disaster literature, few studies have been devoted to the role of incarcerated populations as a source of labor within the context of emergency operations. When faced with a lack of resources, emergency management rely on inmate labor forces to prepare for and respond to hazards and disasters. In the U.S., inmates from the Louisiana State Penitentiary helped with sandbagging the facilities in preparing for the potentially flooding of the Mississippi River and Hurricane Katrina (Gaillard, 2012). The state of California has long maintained inmate firefighting forces to combat destructive wildfires statewide (Goodman, 2012). However, there has never been a comprehensive analysis of how inmate labor forces are utilized as resources for emergency management activities across the U.S. In order to address this gap within the literature, I analyze state Emergency Operations Plans and the various tasks in which inmates are described as responsible for. In addition to the analysis of inmate labor forces, the various prescribed identities of inmate populations within the EOPs are examined. Not only are inmate populations described as a labor resource, but also as a vulnerable population deserving of special protections and yet also a hazardous population, requiring extensive measures to protect the greater public from potentially dangerous situations which they might incite such as riots or hostage situations. Within the state EOPs, differences in how emergency management identifies inmate populations as well as the type of labor activities in which they participate in are examined.

The purposes of this dissertation are to provide research that will further facilitate an understanding of two matters of sociological interest: public sociology and video ethnography. In order to achieve this overall objective, a video ethnographic case study was conducted with eight undergraduates at an elite southern university. The students in the study self-filmed week-to week thoughts, feelings, and experiences to provide a methodical comparison of past and current literature of the lifestyles students construct while on campus. A qualitative approach, such as the video diary protocol established for this dissertation, is unlike most research protocols because informants (in this case university students) led themselves through the ethnography rather than being directed by a researcher. As such, one intention of the case study was to observe the phenomenon of student life through the lens of those experiencing it. Recognizing the importance of the interview process in qualitative social science research, after the audiovisual diary footage was thoroughly analyzed, audiovisually recorded interviews were also conducted with the students. As a qualitative method, audiovisual portrayals accentuate the subjective quality of various human experiences and the interactive production of social processes. Audiovisual data offers a multi-modal means of communication, which should be embraced by sociologists, in general, and by ethnographers, in particular. To appreciate the potential of communicating sociology through audiovisual data, researchers need to recognize the characteristics that envelop its existence. Beyond the fundamental understanding of mainstream sociological theoretical and methodological paradigms, technical film expertise is, of course, necessary - specifically using fitting visuals and sounds to convey both the subject and sociological message. Taken together, the combined methods allow presentation of findings both visually and in print in a more comprehensive and comprehensible way than would have not been possible with just one method in isolation.

The following paper examines the relationship between race, ethnicity, class, and Superfund sites in Tennessee using distance based modeling and census tract level data from 2000 and 2010. This project is novel for two reasons. First, the longitudinal nature of this project and the advanced methodology will bring us closer to an understanding of the spatial relationship between these variables over time. Second, this study takes a state based approach in order to examine the importance of place when assessing proximity to toxic waste. National level environmental justice studies may disguise regional or state level patterns of injustice, which can ultimately be detrimental in crafting policy to combat discrimination. The final results show differing patterns of environmental injustice between the years 2000 and 2010. For 2000, percent black, mean household income, and percent employed in manufacturing all play significant roles in determining where Superfund sites are located in Tennessee. However, for the year 2010, the only significant predictor of proximity to a Superfund site is percent black. These results may indicate that indirect racism is playing a large role in determining proximity to toxic waste.

Much of the sociological research on Black communities focuses on deficiencies while ignoring assets. Consequently, we do not know much about how Black communitiesamong the most historically disadvantaged of all racial and ethnic minority communities in the U.Sremain resilient in the face of assaultsboth figuratively and literallyon their bodies and indigenous institutions, such as the family, the Black church, and schools. My research addresses this gap in the literature by focusing on a historical community-based model that was successful during some of the most overt manifestations of racism during the twentieth centurythe Jim Crow era. Jim Crow laws enacted from the 1880s to 1960s were intended to marginalize certain groups of society and privilege others (Litwack, 1998). The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was monumental in empowering Blacks during the Civil Rights Era, to combat the academic, social, and political exclusion produced by Jim Crow (Irons, 2002). Through the creation of Freedom Schools in 1964, Black youth were able to challenge and find legislative victories by using this model of mentoring (McAdam, 1988). Over half a century later, many contend that mass incarceration and the educational achievement gap, alone, constitute a new era of Jim Crow (Alexander, 2010). This research examined the way in which the Childrens Defense Fund Freedom Schools and the mentoring programs that utilize similar models to SNCCs 1964 Freedom Schools capacitate the youth to overcome a system, which is structured to alienate them from participating in it (Green, 2014). Through ethnographic study and qualitative approaches, I draw theoretical insight from the theory of community cultural wealth to counter the dominant narrative of a deficit ideology within these communities (Yosso, 2005). In light of the current social climate, and the contention that a present-day Civil Rights Movement is underway, this research is not only timely in the public sphere, but also in the academic world as contemporary theories are much needed to extend the knowledge base.

The United States Peace Corps' recruitment offices actively seek a qualified volunteer base from its applicant pool for positions in over 60 countries. The state of Vermont, and colleges and universities within the state, have provided the agency with an unprecedented number of volunteers accounting for their consistently high ranking for the number of volunteers currently serving overseas. This research considers the culture of civic engagement in Vermont and how this can, in part, explain the successful recruitment efforts within the state. Drawing on research done on the topic of civic engagement and how it is manifest in different states, this paper presents evidence provided by semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Vermonters that served in the Peace Corps. The motivation for this thesis is twofold; to better understand the civic culture of Vermont, and to explain the success of recruitment efforts within the state potentially providing the opportunity for more targeted recruitment efforts in the future for the Peace Corps and similarly oriented organizations.

Near the Boston Marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013, an innocent looking backpack disguising a pressure-cooker bomb full of shrapnel detonated. Seconds later, another explosion happened amidst crowds of marathon spectators. Despite being one of the worst attacks on United States soil, an outpouring of positive and pro-social behavior occurred. Communities come together after disasters. Solidarity was felt between victims, first responders, and the community but with varying experiences. Through a content analysis of 12 oral histories collected by the WBUR Our Marathon Collection, three distinct kinds of solidarity experiences were uncovered: visceral, care-work, and virtual. This case study of the Boston Marathon Bombing discusses the experiences of solidarity and implications for future research.

The United states has been plagued with the problem of illicit drug use for many years. Drug abuse has continued to increase and is prevalent among all races and social classes of people. The question is what efforts have been or are being made in order to deter the influx of drugs into the country along with stopping the suppliers of these drugs and what has hindered the effectiveness of these efforts. The theory of deterrence was applied to this problem because the model presumes that the punishment of criminal acts could deter potential offenders by making the negative consequences of crime greater than the rewards. The theory also assumes that people act, behave, or respond only after careful and rational consideration of the consequences of their actions. The Drug Enforcement Administration provided the data for the research. Statistics revealed that during the years 1975 through 1986, the arrests of drug offenders steadily increased. The Data showed increased efforts in arrests; however, inconsistency was shown when it came to the conviction of the offender. Prison sentences were imposed in many cases, but showed no impact on deterring the drug offender. It was determined that if punishment was certain the deterrent effect should work.

This thesis seeks to better understand the trend toward mature women college students as impacted by the gender division of labor. It is based on qualitative research involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten African-American and eleven white mature women students age 30 and over enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University. The interview questions focus on two main decision points in the lives of mature women students. The first is defined as the point at which they chose a course of action, other than attending college, after high school, or when they left college. The second is defined as the point at which these women decided to (re)enter college. The gender division of labor is explored as it exists in capital patriarchal society and emphasis is placed on the processes by which it is created and maintained at both macro and micro levels. The focus of the research is on the connection between the structure of the gender division of labor and the processes through which it affects individual lives in everyday, personal ways. The focus on the two decision points leads the analysis of the trend toward mature women students in a direction not taken by other researchers and helps to uncover aspects of the trend which had been neglected. The findings suggest that the designation of domestic and childcare tasks to women in the gender division of labor greatly affects the trend toward mature women students at both decision points. The gender division of labor becomes a lived reality in individual women's lives and influences their decisions concerning work, family and education. The findings suggest further that the explanations for the trend toward mature women students are much more complex than current literature reflects. For the women who participated in this research, the gender division of labor creates power differentials between women and men which affect women's decisions concerning college which have not been explicitly addressed in other research.

The purpose of this research was to determine how much of the variance in birthweight can be explained by socio-economic status and utilization of prenatal care in Blacks and Whites. Rather than defining race in genetic terms, race was understood here as a social construction. The methodological approach was an analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth Cycle IV, 1988. The first, singleton, live birth for each interviewed woman was included, resulting in a sample of 911 women, of whom 313 were Black women and 598 White women. Consistent with previous research, Black mothers were twice as likely to have a low birthweight infant (11.8%) compared to White women (6%). In the total sample race, marital status, and income were correlated with birthweight. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine how much of the variance in birthweight is explained by socioeconomic factors and utilization of prenatal care. The model explained 5% of the variance in birthweight. Race and education were the only two factors that significantly explained variance in birthweight in this model. The findings failed to support the hypothesis that socioeconomic status and utilization of prenatal care would explain a significant amount of the variance in birthweight. The variables included in the model did not explain variance in birthweight for either Black women, or White women.