This thesis explores how social networking sites are changing the way individuals socialize in everyday life, and how users mediate this social media. The hypothesis explored is that Facebook user's perception of risk, when using the site, is related to how they frame the technology. Drawing on conceptual and theoretical tools from science studies and the sociologies of friendship, risk and surveillance, interview data is collected and analysed in order to identify the dynamics that structure Facebook use. It is concluded not only that, as hypothesized, participant's awareness and perception of risk is based upon their framing of the social networking technology, but also that the framing processes arise from the technosocial hybrid nature of Facebook. That is to say, it is not exclusively based on technological possibility or on existing social practices but instead by a constant balance between the two.

The purpose of this doctoral research is to demonstrate that translation, as a form of representation, is present in the elaboration of a discourse on the nation in colonial Mexico, or New Spain. To this end, a catalogue of 712 translational products is explored by means of a classification based on a conceptual framework provided by nationalism studies. This approach leads to see how, individually and collectively, one group of translations weave the canvass of an "imagined community" of faithful, on which three other groups intertwine narratives of foundational myths, instill a sense of belonging to a continuum of classical civilizations, and, lastly, incorporate New Spain to the concert of modern nations. Historiography is part of this evolution, and the presence of translation and subsequent rewritings are traced in the fixing of a national history.

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<p> The dynamics of expanding polities and relationships between cultural core groups, peripheral populations and sites in semi-peripheral areas between the two groups are important topics in studies of complex societies. One area where these distinctions are clearly identified within the settlement pattern formed by the relationship between the cultural and the natural landscape is the Tequila Valleys of Western Mexico. The Teuchitl&aacute;n culture of the Late Formative and Early Classic periods formed distinctive settlements around the edges of the valleys, which were also marginally bound to most complex social developments within the cultural core region near the center of the valleys. Semi-peripheral sites between cultural traditions are of particular interest as focal points for economic, political, and social relationships. This thesis focuses on two sites which occupied very different environments, namely Llano Grande and Las Navajas. I ask whether these sites show different degrees of emphasis on two basic economic strategies in ways which capitalized on the advantages of each site's respective environment. Specifically, did Llano Grande's relative physical isolation from the cultural core area, more distant location and differences in available resources reflect a greater reliance on trade via exported obsidian? Alternatively, did Navajas' closer relation to the core allow a continuance of the core's degree of emphasis on the staple-oriented economy, with less emphasis on obsidian production and trade than Llano Grande? This thesis draws upon the work of Earle (1991) to structure the analysis, particularly his contrast between wealth and staple finance. Past research is reviewed to develop expectations for each model, which are tested using the analysis of obsidian debitage and products within the ritual centers of each site.</p>

This study examines the relationship of sexual abuse and eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa) in a non-clinical population. Questionnaires were completed by 553 women belonging to 13 sororities at a large southwestern state university and were evaluated with respect to the prevalence of eating disorders and their relationship to sexual abuse. The Bulimia Test (BULIT), Eating Disorders Inventory-2 (EDI-2), and questions from the Women's Life Experiences Longitudinal Interview were used. Women who report severe abuse were found to score significantly higher on the BULIT than those not reporting such abuse. X²(1) = 5.54, p =.019. Women reporting severe abuse also scored higher on the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) and questions related to alcohol consumption.

This dissertation is a qualitative inquiry into the politics and practice of feminist teaching. While much literature exists which discusses feminist teaching, the majority of the literature is written from a personal perspective, or lacks empirical data. This study addresses that absence by weaving together theoretical feminist writings with empirical data on the lives of feminist women teachers. Taking a grounded theory approach, nine feminist women teachers were interviewed intensively about their lives, education, work, and feminist beliefs and practices. Of the nine teachers, five are high school teachers and four are university teachers, enabling comparative work across these two structures. The study reveals a complex interplay among feminist identity and practice and the social structures and social organizational features of both the high school and the university. A key dimension is the interplay of power between teachers and administrators and teachers and students, a politic which varies by location and by structure. Feminist practice for these women is more clearly a content than a process issue, and feminist teaching is location--as well as person-specific. In high schools, these teachers overtly and deliberately add feminist content, while carefully maintaining a balance between multiple viewpoints and their own, which I have termed the dilemma of disclosure and disaster. In universities, where content is more flexible, teachers' feminist practices extend to non-classroom locations and to both content and process issues within their classrooms. Connections are drawn to mentoring, the school as a workplace, feminist theory, censorship, and pedagogical practice. Additionally, feminist identity is problematized and located specifically within institutions and with individuals. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2269. / Major Professor: Catherine Emihovich. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Since the time of Aristotle, scholars of politics have contemplated the betterment of the welfare of human kind. Building on the traditional and often conflicting views of human welfare attainment, this dissertation seeks to expand understanding of how the human condition is determined and might be improved. Specifically, it examines how overlapping political, economic, social, and international factors affect the economic status of the population, the success of state policies, and society-based groups that attempt to alter the relative position of one or more groups. / In order to test the theoretical model, a pooled, cross-sectional time series design is utilized. Seven equations are generated to account for welfare, growth, the level of development, state penetration, state extraction, state economic policy, and inequality. Two Stage Least Squares(2SLS) serves as the method of analysis for the nonrecursive, simultaneous equation model. / The 27 provinces of Indonesia from 1975 to 1990 serve as the cases for examination. The high growth rate due to the oil boom, the rigor of state adjustment programs, and the regional inequalities serve as important circumstances to test the model. Moreover, the diversity of Indonesia permits the inclusion of variety of differing regions into the analysis, while remaining within the context of a single country. / Theoretically, the model attempts to produce a synthesis of the more diverse opinions from the welfare literature. Empirically, the analysis finds that some of the major assumptions of the basic needs school are supported, specifically those pertaining to the negative effect of growth on welfare and the positive effect of welfare on growth. The positive relationship between inequality and welfare highlights the inequalitarian effect attempts at welfare enhancement in developing countries. Furthermore, the high degree of variation in welfare over time within the provinces dispels some of the additive assumptions related to welfare attainment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1304. / Major Professor: Patrick James. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

My dissertation deploys a recent case-study--the legislative struggle to enact the 1989 Fair Labor Standards Act Amendments--to elucidate the explanatory power of class-centered theories of the U.S. state. My variant of class-centered theory emphasizes the intrinsic relations between the commodity-form, capitalist wage-relation, and political class struggles. / In Part I (chapters one through three), I establish a theoretical and historical foundation for interpreting minimum wage politics. Chapter one illustrates the origins and consequences of Theda Skocpol's ahistorical, functionalist-grounded state-centered theory. I develop an outline for an alternative class-centered approach; one that interrogates the relations of commodity-form, capitalist wage-relation, and political class struggle. In chapter two I unfold a concise summary of Marx's critique of capitalism; emphasizing his analysis of the commodity-form of labor and wage-relation as foundational to the capitalist system. In chapter three, I investigate the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act as a product of uneven and contradictory capitalist development. In the context of discussing general changes in its scope and magnitude 1939-1988, two basic tendencies are evident: (1) industry-specific application of its provisions and (2) the historic, post-1960s/1970s retreat from its previous inflation-adjusted value and scope. / In Part II, I provide an in-depth, historical case study of political class struggles to enact the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1989. I demonstrate how organized labor and organized capital, through official representative agencies and class organs, substantially impacted on the form and content of minimum wage politics. The data strongly support class-centered theory, especially variants that assert the relevance of class-fractions for shaping capitalist state activity. Workers and capitalists from industries with relatively low average wage rates unquestionably dominated the political class struggle to enact a minimum wage bill. I conclude (chapter six) by summarily evaluating the strengths of class-centered theory and the political implications drawn from the political class struggles of 1989. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4291. / Major Professor: Larry W. Isaac. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

During the decade of the 1980s, the health sector of the United States underwent major political reordering. This political transformation followed on the heels of economic changes both within the health sector itself and the United States economy as a whole. The research investigates changes in the pattern of structural arrangements within the individual states during the period 1981 through 1987, within the context of national economic and political events. The central thesis is that alterations in the structural arrangements governing health care, as well as other societal sectors, emerge as a consequence of divergence of material interests within and among key elites having an economic interest in the operation of the sector. This divergence is seen to produce a fragmenting of prior political relations, the formation of new political alliances, and an opening of the public policy agenda to proposals for structural changes. The resulting policy outputs are expected to legitimate structural arrangements which more fully accommodate the interests of cohesive elites at the expense of those elites whose material interests are internally divided. / Through a combination of quantitative cross sectional analysis of all fifty states and case studies of selected states, the research demonstrates the extent to which varying conditions of political fragmentation or cohesion exhibited among health and non-health elites has led to the adoption of policies conducive to the transformation of market relations. The particular focus is upon policies affecting market relations between providers and purchasers of acute care hospital services. The three policies examined are: certificate of need regulation, hospital rate setting regulation, and mandatory hospital financial disclosure. / The results support the study's theoretic model. Where the interests of health elites appear to remain cohesive there is a strong bias toward the retention of market relations based primarily upon regulation. Conversely, where health elite interests appear to have fragmented there is a strong thrust toward market relations based primarily upon competition. Political cohesion among non health elites pushes market relations toward control over the flow of resources into the health sector either via price regulation or price negotiation depending respectively, upon whether health elite interests are cohesive or fragmented. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4297. / Major Professor: Allen W. Imershein. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.