<p> Over the past few decades US businesses have increasingly turned toward flexible employment relationships made up of temporary workers who do not receive the benefits and rights of standard full-time employment. Temporary labor agencies, which operate by leasing workers out to client businesses, form one component of this shift toward flexible labor and previous researchers have called for more study on this group of formalized employment. My research thesis explores the employment relationships between temporary labor agencies and temporary laborers in order to understand the ways in which this type of labor arrangement affects workers' lives. I performed my research in Flagstaff, Arizona and my study population is primarily comprised of temporary laborers. I conducted participant observation, questionnaires, interviews, time budgets, and archival research to perform my research. I interpret my data through a combination of political economy, performance theory, and anthropology of the body approaches. My findings reveal how people end up working temporary labor, the daily challenges they face, their strategies to increase their job security, and the effects temporary labor has on their lives and bodies. </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 3123. Adviser: Paul F. Diehl. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-198) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thèse (M.Serv.Soc.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 2008. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 1 février 2007). In ProQuest dissertations and theses. Publié aussi en version papier.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 12, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4860. Adviser: Elizabeth A. Armstrong.

The appeal of moral panic studies, a once very popular sociological subfield, dropped precipitously around the turn of the century due in large part to debates about disproportionality, the notion a panicked group's concern about a perceived threat exceeds that warranted by its objective harmfulness. Classic theorists claim disproportionality is a panic's essential criterion and that it can be demonstrated by comparing a group's concerned reaction to the available facts. Critics argue it is a value-laden, ideologically tainted construct and often claim it cannot be demonstrated because there are no authoritative facts. These debates were and still are fraught with confusion. Perplexingly, both sides assume a shared definition despite clearly assessing the proportionality of different aspects of the relevant reaction. A typology differentiating the potential types of disproportionality either does not exist in the moral panic literature or remains shrouded in obscurity. In this paper, I review the classic theories, their critiques, and a new postmodern moral panic theory. By juxtaposing the different foci of the orthodox and contemporary theories, I derive a much-needed disproportionality typology. I also develop a new framework through which to assess moral panics predicated on this typology. My hope is these developments will stimulate a more sophisticated debate about disproportionality and encourage theorists to refine rather than simply reject classic approaches to the disproportionality problem.

No description available.

The notion of social space or field is a central but under-studied category in the philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. The present study of social space is introduced with a contextual account of spatial models in the social sciences prior to Bourdieu that highlights the aptitude for relational spatial models to capture complex social phenomena. It then demonstrates how social space, as an empirically robust and epistemologically intuitive social-scientific model, facilitates the objective representation as well as the subjective understanding of social phenomena. The central thesis is that Bourdieu's reflexive sociology operates in large part by a multiform engagement with the (intuitive or conceptual, but always constructed) apprehension of space, an interpretation that suggests the integration of both physical and social spaces in a unified explanatory framework. A dialectical understanding of the relations between social space and physical space, drawn from the logic of Bourdieu's social theory, is argued for. This philosophical extension of Bourdieu's work is then applied to phenomena in which the reproduction of structures in social space is carried out in and through physical space, and vice versa. Two case studies, the first of office tower districts in contemporary cities and the second of deconstructionist architecture, reveal interactions between social organization and the built environment. The case studies, taken together, also demonstrate the virtue, inherent to a Bourdieuian approach, of explaining both the trends of relative stability and the instances of radical change that are observed in social phenomena. / Philosophy

The thesis examines the impact of diplomatic initiatives and military conflicts on Palestinian support for armed engagement. It found a negative correlation between support for armed strategies and diplomatic events, suggesting diplomatic efforts mitigate conflict likelihood. However, there was no significant increase in public support for armed engagement during military conflict. The study suggests that diplomatic initiatives are more effective in reducing support for violence and suggests prioritizing diplomatic engagements for peacebuilding. Future research should explore psychological, social, and economic factors influencing Palestinian public opinion.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / W. Richard Goe / Criminologists have traditionally studied criminal offending and violent victimization separately. Extant studies, however, demonstrates that criminals and victims overlap to some degree, hinting that a common underlying trait explains both criminal offending and violent victimization. This study tests whether Gottfredson and Hirschi’s self-control theory explains the overlap in criminal offending and violent victimization exposure among gang members. Using cross-sectional survey data from the Evaluation of the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) Program in the United States, 1995-1999, results from the regression models show that low self-control is to some degree correlated with criminal offending and violent victimization. Gang members were more likely than non-gang members to participate in some forms of criminal activities, but they were not more likely to be victimized. When variables stemming from social learning and social bonding are included in the regression models, results show that associating with delinquent peers had the strongest effect in predicting criminal offending, contradicting Gottfredson and Hirschi’s claim that self-control is the only cause of criminal behavior. In concert with previous studies that have found a link between low self-control and violent victimization, results show that youths with low self-control were somewhat more likely than youths with higher self-control to report being victimized. The results of the study, as well as venues for future research, are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to generate substantive theory on the bereavement process. A qualitative research design, grounded theory, was used to analyze the experience of bereavement for Mexican American widows. Research questions addressed were: What is the process of bereavement for Mexican American widows? What factors are associated with the bereavement process for Mexican American widows? Theory discovery was accomplished using the grounded theory methodology. Interviews were conducted with nineteen Mexican American widows who had been bereaved for approximately 18 months. Theoretical sampling involved the use of interviews and observations triangulated with scientific and popular literature. The constant comparative method of analytic induction was used for the analysis of data, in order to identify the elements and structure of the theory. A basic social process, Reorganizing a New Me, was identified as the core category of the theory. Reorganizing a New Me is the continuous process used by Mexican American widows in order to adjust and adapt to widowhood. The process includes four subcategories: (a) Feeling the Void is defined as the efforts of monitoring or becoming aware of the loss and highlighted the uncertainty that accompanied the experience, (b) My Mind and Body explains the Mexican American widow's work of resolving her grief in the form of culturally sanctioned idioms and emotional expressions, (c) Confronting the Paradox is defined as the centralization of the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that represented the concerns and compensations of being a widow, and (d) Tempering explains the work of adapting to the process of becoming a widow. Coping strategies that Mexican American widows utilized during this process were also identified. The significance of the study for nursing is that it (a) sensitizes nurses and other health professionals to the bereavement process and coping strategies for Mexican American widows, (b) provides a map which can guide the assessment of the bereaved Mexican American widow, and (c) identifies a substantive theory on the bereavement process, which, through further study, can be raised to a formal theory on this transitional phase for women.