State level data from fifty states for 1983, a period of severe economic recession and 1987, a period of relative economic recovery, are incorporated into separate multivariate analyses to determine if variations in the economy and other social structural factors, controlling for crime, exert significant influence on the application of social controls in 1983 and 1987. Particular attention is given to the relevance of labor market marginality, race, alternate controls and fiscal constraints for the various forms of punishment. Previous empirical research on formal social control has primarily focused on dependent variables which represent only a fraction of those under control--prison population and/or prison admissions. This study expands the study of social control beyond prison population and admissions by incorporating separate analyses of jail, probation, parole, and juvenile imprisonment as dependent variables. This research provides evidence to support the thesis that social structure exerts direct influence on various forms of punishment, controlling for crime effects. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0953. / Major Professor: Theodore Chiricos. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The role of the state as a potentially significant force in shaping the outcomes of education has been largely ignored in the literature on educational development. Using South Korea as a test case, this study examines the extent to which the state affected the outcomes of education in its interaction with the economy and classes. / The structure of Korean education system is different from those scrutinized by other studies (especially, U.S. and European systems). The Korean state exercised a great degree of control over schooling and actively created a mixture of mass (at the primary and secondary level) and elite schooling (at the tertiary level) and minimized class-based tracking and curricula at each level. This study conducts both historical and quantitative analyses to explain the divergent outcomes of Korean education produced under political economic conditions of active state involvement, lack of class coalitions, and economic constraints. / The historical analysis compares changes of the state educational policies across three regime periods (Rhee, Park, and Chun) differing in state strength and structure, the state-class relationship, chosen political and economic goals of the state, and its industrial policies. The quantitative analysis examines to what extent educational expansion was affected by political, economic, and class forces, by using time-series data from 1961 to 1988. I conclude that the organization of Korean schooling arose out of a web of a strong state involvement, weak class forces, and economic growth. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-12, Section: A, page: 4485. / Major Professor: J. Michael Armer. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Among high poverty regions in the United States, Central Appalachia is unique in two major respects: (1) its population consists of predominantly early, European immigrants to the United States and, (2) its mountains contain vast natural resources. The contrast between the vast natural resources of the region and the poverty of the Appalachian people has intrigued many scholars. Central Appalachian poverty has long been an enigma for modernization theory which has tended to blame the poverty on the culture of the region. According to such arguments, the Appalachian culture has precluded the region from being integrated into the world economy and from developing economically. / This dissertation provides an alternative explanation for Central Appalachian poverty which relates it to other economic factors, chiefly economic exploitation. A history of economic exploitation within the region is presented which contends that Central Appalachian poverty is not due to a lack of integration into the world economy, but rather to the conditions under which the region was integrated into the world economy. / This history is complemented with a comparison of rates of manufacturing surplus value for Central Appalachia, the South, the Northeast, and the United States as a whole. This comparative analysis indicates that Central Appalachia has a rate of exploitation well above the U.S. average. In general, the rates of surplus value for manufacturing for all regions converge upward during this time period, indicating an "Appalachianizing of America." / Finally, a model of economic exploitation, as measured by the rate of surplus value for manufacturing, is developed for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Models are also produced for both high and low development areas. These models indicate a link between labor market characteristics (i.e. poverty, surplus labor, urbanization, education, and geographical location) and the rate of surplus value for manufacturing. Through these models, a direct link is drawn between poverty and exploitation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2551. / Major Professor: Charles M. Tolbert, II. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

A content analysis of crime news, appearing in Time magazine in selected years during the post-World War II period, explores the ideological nature of reports about crime within a random sample of articles. Examination of the content of articles about crime, criminals and criminal justice, appearing in Time at different junctures during the post-war period, makes possible an analysis of popular ideologies of crime within the context of changes and developments in the political economy of the United States. / The types of crime, characteristics of offenders, causal factors, and commands of what to do about crime within the articles are described. In addition, comparisons are made, within each of these areas, between articles appearing in years with low levels of unemployment and years with high unemployment rates. Comparisons are also made between crime news appearing in the immediate post-war period of economic expansion and reports about crime appearing during the more recent period of stagnation and decline, beginning at the onset of the 1970s. / Defining ideology as discourse which gives a distorted picture of contradictions, misrepresenting the basic contradictions of capitalism in ways which support the interests of the dominant economic class, this research provides evidence that the portrayal of crime within Time magazine during the post-World War II period is ideological. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-06, Section: A, page: 2278. / Major Professor: Theodore G. Chiricos. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Georg Rusche observed in the 1930s that the political economy contributed significantly to the development of penal systems in various countries. This research project explores Rusche's contention that the political economy significantly shapes the formation of criminal justice institutions and their operation. Specifically, this study examines federal criminal justice legislation between 1948 and 1987 in relation to the long cycles of world capitalist development, the economic conditions of capital, the economic conditions of labor, and the index crime rates. The findings support the hypothesis that a significant relationship exists between the political economy and criminal justice policy. A multivariate time-series analysis reveals that the economic conditions of capital and the long cycles remain significantly correlated with federal criminal justice legislation when controlling for the effects of the crime rate. The findings do not support the theory that the criminal justice system develops a blatantly more coercive or "hard" approach to the crime problem during the period of economic contraction. The implications of these findings for criminal justice theory development are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1903. / Major Professor: Theodore G. Chiricos. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This study was designed to investigate and compare attitudes toward the elderly of African American freshman college students at a historically black college and white freshman college students at a predominantly white college. In addition, the students' spiritual well-being, gender, and knowledge about aging were integrated to predict college students' attitudes toward the elderly. The original sample consisted of 299 individuals who filled out the survey questionnaire during class time with 149 students at the predominantly African American college and 150 at the white college. All 299 questionnaires were returned. Delimitation factors caused the final sample to consist of 234 subjects. / The students completed the Aging Semantic Differential Scale (ASD), the Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ), and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWB). The ASD Scale is an attitude assessment instrument consisting of a list of 32 bipolar adjective pairs in Likert scale format. The FAQ consists of 25 true-false statements and is designed to cover the basic physical, mental, and social aspects of aging. The SWB Scale is a 20-item self report scale consisting of religious well-being and existential subscales. / Results showed that freshman college students overall maintained positive attitudes toward the elderly with white students reporting more positive attitudes. Also, both African American and white college students showed a consistent lack of knowledge about aging with whites having a slightly higher score. Both groups of college students possessed a strong sense of spiritual well-being with white college students scoring higher than African American college students. Answers to the religious demographic questions indicated that over half of the college students surveyed are presently active with a religious group. When using regression to predict attitudes toward the elderly, gender was not significant for either race; however, spiritual well-being and knowledge were for the white students, and spiritual well-being was significant for the African-American students. Recommendations for teaching about aging were made. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1271. / Major Professor: Ruth Pestle. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This study is an attempt to test the hypothesis that outward orientation is favorable for income distribution in labor abundant country. The hypothesis is examined by using data from a cross-section of 34 developing countries. A positive relationship is found between outward orientation and income distribution. The share of lower income classes tends to increase with increased degree of openness, while the share of higher income classes tend to decrease with it. Income inequality drops when countries shift their trade strategy from an inward-oriented to an outward-oriented one. This equalizing effect of outward orientation is statistically significant. In addition to trade policy variable, this study also examines how income per capita, investment ratio, and educational variables influence income distribution. The relationship between income per capita and inequality is found to give weak support to Kuznets' inverted U relationship. Higher investment ratio is found to be favorable for higher income classes. An increase in the secondary education enrollment ratio is positively associated with lower income inequality, while mean years of schooling is positively associated with higher income inequality. / Indonesia is one of many developing countries which experienced a shift in trade policy from an inward-oriented strategy to an outward oriented strategy. Income inequality is observed to decline after the shift in trade policy. Export expansion as a proxy for the degree of outward orientation is positively associated with equality. The positive association between export expansion and equality tends to be stronger in the period after the shift in trade orientation. The effect of non-oil export expansion on equality is greater and stronger than the effect of total export expansion. The effect of export expansion on inequality in labor income distribution is greater and stronger than the effect of export expansion on inequality in expenditure distribution. The labor force participation rate and secondary school enrollment ratio have a positive association with equality. There is no significant relationship between income per capita and inequality found in the Indonesia data. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1452. / Major Professor: James H. Cobbe. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This dissertation studies computer-mediated communication (CMC), in which interpersonal communication content between library users and reference librarians who engaged in service encounters is evaluated. The computer-mediated form of reference services, called virtual reference (VR), was the context for this research. In the CMC research, the analysis of naturally occurring interactions, analysis of face-work, face threat and friction, and impacts of identity on and in face threatening situations are not well represented. This study applied face-work (Goffman, 1967), Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson, 1978; 1987) and social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) (Lea & Spears, 1992) to virtual interactions to analyze transcripts that contained friction. The term friction was used to frame interactions that contain real or inferred elements of discord, incivility, impoliteness, or other factors that may detract from a positive working relationship between VR users and VR librarians. / Findings indicate that in transcripts that contained friction, users and librarians did not exhibit concern for either party's negative or positive face wants. Friction between participants included reprimands, abrupt endings without closing rituals by librarians and users, as well as refusals to attend to face threats issued. When librarians issued refusals to users' initial requests, the frequency of users enacting a second face threat dropped dramatically. Findings also indicate that librarians were more likely to instigate friction in the service encounters than users. Moreover, when instances of friction were present, one instance of friction was likely to spark additional instances of friction. / CMC service encounters, such as VR, in the public and private sectors are proliferating. At one point in time, customer service interactions were a face-to-face modality, then they moved to telephone interactions, but increasingly organizations are providing customer service via CMC, such as online banking and shopping. This dissertation research is significant to any organizations or individuals that utilize CMC as a means of customer interface, such as VR, or any other mediated transaction that bridges communication between organizations and the individuals that are served.

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