Master of Arts / Department of Sociology / Robert K. Schaeffer / The intention of this thesis was to understand why and how women organized or participated in peaceful movements aimed at stopping collective, organized male violence in the public sphere. Historical archives were used to examine four social movements – Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Greenham Common Peace Camp, Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, and the Antimafia Movement – that attempted to end violence from male organizations. The findings from this thesis discovered that through the process of framing, which was permitted by increased power obtained in society through the workforce, women took a peaceful, self-invested, but overall altruistic, role in social movements.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology / Laszlo Kulcsar / “Family” is a sacred concept to the Kansas State football team. Calling a group of 100 plus players from across the nation and ten coaches a family is a unique concept when it is viewed from the outside. However, if you have been a part of the rituals involved in it, you understand. This research project examines the role of ritual in the “family” environment of Kansas State football and how that affects young men from different sociological backgrounds by interviewing 20 current and past players in the program. Though the findings showed that this culture affected all respondents in a positive way, it was also discovered that 4 particular young men who grew up with less family support were affected more than those who felt supported by their family from a young age.

Doctor of Philosophy / Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Don L. Kurtz / How and why individuals choose to become gun owners is a complicated issue. Historically, in America, firearms have been associated with patriotism, citizenship, and freedom. Also, historically, much of the research on gun owners has primarily focused on males. Despite the fact that many women do, indeed, own firearms; women, even today, are still often considered an anomaly when it comes to owning guns and participating in the shooting sports. This research utilized an historical analysis, direct interviews with female gun owners, and participation-observation at National Rifle Association (NRA) sponsored Women on Target events, to explore and examine how and why women become owners; as well as how they negotiate the often masculine world of the shooting sports. The data is analyzed through a gender lens, primarily focusing on doing gender, othering, and boundary maintenance. Findings show that firearms ownership is a complex issue and that stereotypical gender believes strongly influences the interaction and images of men and women shooters alike.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Laszlo Kulcsar / This dissertation examines the discourse of biofuels development in Kansas as promoted by rural growth machines. Corn-based ethanol production capacity and use in the United States has grown exponentially between 2000 and 2009, culminating with the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act’s 36 billion gallon Renewable Fuels Standard 2. At the national level, biofuels development is promoted by the media as important to national goals such as energy/national security, economic growth, and environmental improvement. Examination of the biofuels discourse employed content analysis of newspaper articles as well as in-depth individual interviews and focus groups. The analysis revealed that rural growth machines created an ethanol discourse similar to the one promoted at national level, but with an almost exclusive emphasis on the economic development frame. The rural growth machine’s ideological hegemony promoting ethanol development in the region was maintained through their power of creating and disseminating information. For the issue of biofuels development in Kansas, the analyzed newspapers played both conduit and contributor roles, as newspaper coverage strongly supported the interests of growth machines when the subject was local economic growth opportunities. Members of the rural growth machines set an exclusive and one-sided discourse to legitimate their pro-growth activities and to portray the ethanol development projects as corresponding with the wider good of these communities. Because of dwindling demographic and economic bases as well as scarce natural resources, local political and economic elites approached the issue of growth form a standpoint of hegemony. They promoted growth to carry out their own political and economic agenda while there was a strong desire among the residents for almost any type of economic development. This might explain the weak opposition to the actions of the growth machine in these rural settings.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Dana M. Britton / Historically, relationships between police and residents in minority communities have often been contentious. However most of the literature on race, place, and policing has focused on the policing of Blacks and their interactions with the police in urban settings. Building on this work, this study aims to capture similar processes of racialized policing as they occur in the suburbs. This project expands our understanding by exploring policing as it is carried out in a marginalized Black enclave located in a predominately white middle class suburb. Specifically, I focus on Meacham Park, which is a segregated enclave annexed to the nearby white community of Kirkwood, Missouri. Drawing on interviews with thirty African-American residents of Meacham Park, I explore how residents experience policing and their attitudes toward the police. The interviews reveal a contentious history of relations between residents and the police, and I discuss respondents’ accounts of specific experiences with police surveillance, harassment, and (in some cases) misconduct. However, though many respondents reported extremely negative attitudes toward the police, the great majority also reported at least some positive interactions and experiences. This study extends research on the policing of minority communities into a segregated suburban context and offers implications for improving relations between the police and minority communities.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Chardie Baird / Dana Britton / Racial profiling by the police on the nation’s streets and highways has attracted much attention over the past two decades from scholars, media figures, politicians and police administrators. Several highly publicized cases propelled the issue into national consciousness in the early and mid 1990s, bringing a new public awareness to an undoubtedly old problem. Despite the proliferation of research and political attention, many questions remain unanswered. Among the most common criticisms facing racial profiling research today is the literature's lack of theoretical development. Grounded in focal concerns theory and the concept of symbolic assailants, the present research draws upon both crime control and discriminatory frameworks of racial disparity in traffic stop outcomes. The findings suggest that, while police concerns of crime and safety diminish the effect of race/ethnicity and gender on stop outcomes, race and gender remain important predictors of police decisions. The implications are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / L. Susan Williams / Since the early 1970s, the United States has grown increasingly reliant on the criminal justice system to manage a wide array of social problems. Aggressive drug control policies and an over-reliance on imprisonment helped produce the world’s largest prison and correctional population, often described as mass imprisonment. Within this context, the study provides an explanatory account of the political, cultural, and social conditions that encourage states like Kansas to pursue methamphetamine as a major public concern, and to a greater degree than other states with relatively higher meth problems. Ultimately, and most important, the study makes a theoretical contribution by demonstrating how meth control efforts, analogous to previous drug control campaigns, extends punitive drug control rationalities to new cultural contexts and social terrains beyond the so-called ghetto of the inner city, thereby reinforcing and extending the logics of mass imprisonment.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / W. Richard Goe / This case-study focuses on the desegregation processes that occurred in USD 501 in Topeka, Kan. USD 501 is the Topeka public school district addressed by the Supreme Court in the infamous Brown v. Board of Education, which is the case credited with ending the legal racial segregation of children in public schools. The Supreme Court ordered the subsequent disbandment of all racial segregation in public school districts in1955. However, USD 501 did not successfully carry out this order for nearly forty years. Therefore, the primary question of this thesis is, "Why was there a forty year delay in the creation of desegregation plan in USD 501?" This research question is, however, a multipart question and therefore required answering the following associated questions: 1) what is the definition of desegregation?; 2) What does desegregation look like?; and 3) did desegregation occur in USD 501? Through the use of sociological theories and court records, I was able to answer each of the associated questions, as well as discern the answer the main thesis question. The reason for the forty year delay in the development and implementation had a two part answer: 1) socially reproductive action was often used to reinforce social and spatial inequalities in Topeka itself, which maintained the racial segregation of USD 501 schools; and 2) the expectations of the desegregation process changed over time. This led to the second of the main thesis questions which was, " How was desegregation originally defined in the Brown case, how is it understood currently, and how did its definition change over time?" I found that the new expectations of desegregation were tied to a 1968 Supreme Court case, which established the Green Codes for the desegregation process. The Green Codes structured the court's assessment of desegregating districts, which made identifying informal actions that promote segregation more identifiable. Then I examined the effect of the desegregation plan's inception in USD 501. A correlation was found between the desegregation plan's inception and declining white enrollment, which lasts approximately thirteen years. I then summarize the research findings, and use sociological theory to support the conclusions.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Gerad D. Middendorf / The label “fair-trade” might seem to be a definitive designation: either a product is or isn’t. In fact, a continuum exists, resultant mostly from the participation in fair-trade by diverse groups of producer organizations, buyers, certifying organizations, and consumers. Therefore, the way fair-trade is perceived and practiced cannot be presumed to be homogenous. In order to better understand the complexities of fair-trade, a qualitative study was carried out to examine one fair-trade product and its producers. Two Nepalese handmade paper companies, Bhaktapur Craft Paper (BCP) and Get Paper Industry (GPI), were studied to gain insight into the producers’ perceptions, interpretations, and practices of fair-trade. This study also assesses the impact of fair-trade affiliation on the socio-economic conditions of producers and workers. To provide the opportunity for comparison, the cases of BCP and GPI were also compared, where possible, to those of a non-fair-trade company, Bagmati Paper Industries (BPI). The study finds that the fair-trade producer organizations were affiliated with fair-trade networks primarily to promote their business by way of the multiple and committed trading partners involved in fair-trade. Also, affiliation seemed to have positive impacts on the overall business of the paper companies, contributing to growth in sales over the years. Likewise, different training programs sponsored by fair-trade organizations, such as Fair Trade Group Nepal and World Fair Trade Organization-Asia, and fair-trade buyers also contributed to the capacity enhancement of producer organizations. The producers in the paper companies lacked an understanding of fair-trade due to a lack of participation in decision making, a high level of illiteracy among producers, and because management did not consider producer awareness of fair-trade as significant. The study finds positive impacts of fair-trade involvement on the producers’ socio-economic position: a company’s participation in and practice of fair-trade is positively related to improvement in the socio-economic conditions of producers. Considering wages, work-hours, working conditions, and job satisfaction of workers, the fair-trade companies were determined to more favorably affect workers’ lives than the non-fair-trade company.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Gerad D. Middendorf / Although rural communities have great diversity, each rural community has resources that can be invested to develop community capital resources. Every rural community not only has resources that are held by local community members, each rural community is also embedded in a larger social network that has the power to exchange resources for its own benefit. Therefore, the holders of a rural community’s resources also have the power to influence the distribution of these resources. As a way to determine who holds the community’s capital resources and begin the community development process, Flora et al. (2006) encouraged rural community development practitioners to perform an assessment of their community’s built, financial, political, social, human, cultural, and natural capitals. The case study method was utilized for the research conducted in this study because of its ability to aid in determining the success or failure of Norton County Economic Development’s Downtown Program, which focused on the revitalization of Norton County’s downtown areas. It was revealed that many of the Downtown Development programs were successfully implemented because the resources that were controlled by local and outside power structures, which also constituted the dynamic and interactive power structure within that system, were identified, mobilized, and utilized in this rural economic development program. This study contributed to sociological knowledge because it looked at the ability of dynamic and interactive power structures to control capital resources in rural community development. As well, this study extended the literature on the importance of participation, solidarity, and the exchange of resources in rural community development, and added to the research on the use of community capitals in identifying and utilizing capital resources in planning rural community development programs that are successful.