Project Descriptions
Author: Sophia
Presentation Session 1
4:10PM – 4:50PM
Session Moderator: Working on This
Dispensational Eschatology and the Environment
Joshua Tom, Sociology
Mentor: Associate Professor Steven Pfaff, Sociology
Historically, religious beliefs have been largely marginalized in favor of demographic explanations for the environmental attitudes of individuals. However, research in the mid-1990’s showed that eschatology—religious beliefs concerning the end of the world—was a significant predictor of environmental attitudes. This ignited renewed interest in the study of religious beliefs in regards to environmental perspectives. Previous research has established the role of eschatology in the shaping of environmental attitudes, specifically the Christian eschatology of dispensationalism. Aspects of this eschatology, such as the belief in the rapture of believers and the decay of the world before its eventual end, motivated the original research establishing the connection between these religious beliefs and environmental attitudes. However, this research was done with information from groups of religious leaders, and research has not tried to establish the role of religious belief in influencing environmental perspectives of the general population. My project hypothesizes that the effect of religious belief exists among laity as well as clergy.
Additionally, no research has attempted to pinpoint the particular facets of these beliefs that contribute to those attitudes. My research seeks to bridge that conceptual gap, thereby contributing to the growing literature on how the content of religious belief motivates individuals. I hypothesize that the key variable in these beliefs involves the relative imminence of the eschatological events; a more imminent eschatological timeline makes it more likely that the individual holding these beliefs will have negative or apathetic attitudes toward environmental issues. I look to support these hypotheses through statistical analysis of the 2006 Religion and Public Life Survey, first by confirming the effect of dispensational eschatology on environmental attitudes, and secondly by isolating the imminence variable as a relevant feature of these religious beliefs.
Scientology: An Ecological Study
Sameul Stabler, Sociology
Mentor: Associate Professor Steven Pfaff, Sociology
A plethora of literature has sought to understand social characteristics of members of New Religious Movements. Most of this literature has surrounded previous “demand side” descriptions of members. For the past 20 years, religious plurality or “supply side” arguments have become an important addition to the sociology of religion. My work seeks to understand the communities that surround the churches, missions, or centers of one of the most controversial NRM’s in the market, Scientology. Through publicly available data from the official Scientology website, the 2000 Census, and the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study which was conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), I will construct a data set that takes into account previous “demand side” explanations, as well as more recent “supply side” explanations. Through a logistic regression analysis I hope to begin the work of identifying the types of communities in which this NRM thrives.
Exploring Trends in Labor and Politics
Kyle Albert, Sociology
Mentor: Assistant Professor Jake Rosenfeld, Sociology
This paper examines the persistence of labor in politics as represented in testimony before the US Congress and in congressional campaign contributions, despite severely diminishing union density rates and budgets in recent decades. To explore this topic, I am assembling a dataset composed of a large sample of congressional hearings (obtained through the LexisNexis Congressional database) covering selected years since the early 1970s that are being coded based on whether persons affiliated with the labor movement provide testimony (and, if so, information about the affiliation of the person providing testimony). I am also collecting data on labor’s donations to political campaigns to document the extent to which their contributions correlate with their representation in congressional testimony (and their falling membership rates). I hypothesize that the major unions are redoubling their efforts to influence congressional policymaking as a response to their diminishing membership rolls and loss of power in other areas of society; consequently, I expect my project to document the entrenched position that interest groups can take on Capitol Hill even as their constituency base shrinks dramatically.
Poster Session
4:50PM – 5:30PM
Posters will be on display until the end of the event.
Note: the descriptions are listed by the participants’ last names.
Socioeconomic Status, Race, and College Major Selection
Sophia Chang, Sociology
Mentor: Senior Lecturer Susan Pitchford, Sociology
Selecting a college major is a crucial point and influences what profession or which graduate program the student will enter upon graduation. While scholars maintain that academic ability is the top factor of college major choice, socioeconomic status correlates with college major choice. Working-class students who have already reached college are more likely than middle-class students to perceive college as a means of social mobility and are more likely to enter lucrative fields that are more technical, such as engineering or business. In contrast, middle-class students of similar academic ability perceive their undergraduate experience with a longer-term plan, enrolling in less lucrative fields that allow them to attend professional or graduate programs. Does the association of socioeconomic status with college major choice vary within different races? Although community colleges provide opportunities for students to continue their education in a postsecondary institution, it channels working-class, minority, and female students to the bottom of an “unofficial status hierarchy.” Additionally, general arts programs within colleges are “dumping grounds” for minority and working-class students. Throughout minority students’ lives, teachers lack the cultural context and understanding to properly teach and discipline students, and the teachers have given up on teaching students and are hoping just to maintain some semblance of order in the classroom. I propose to use a nationally representative sample from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988 to 2000. In 1988, eighth graders were initially surveyed and surveyed again with four follow-ups. I will do a regression analysis of the data from NELS to describe the association between a person’s socioeconomic status and their college major choice, controlling for race. With this knowledge, we can find ways to better serve the college population, provide the necessary encouragement to certain students, and anticipate future needs.
Prostitution and HIV/AIDS in American Society
Vanessa Cramer, Sociology
Mentor: Professor Stewart Tolnay and Professor Pepper Schwartz, Sociology
HIV/AIDS transmission is social, predicated on human contact through behaviors traditionally deemed deviant by American society. Its emergence transformed American society in every regard; it gave way to a whole new body of legislation, created a new field of medicine, and transformed social interactions. The physiology of HIV/AIDS is inherently of sociological interest, as its epidemiological survival depends on generally non-normative social interactions and behaviors (characteristic of specific populations within society) and has greatly affected the dictates, perceptions, and consequences of those interactions.
The HIV associated risk behavior of interest in my project is prostitution. In the United States, federal laws broadly limit prostitution, but specific stipulations and penalties vary dramatically across states. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between the severity of state prostitution laws and the corresponding prevalence of HIV/AIDS transmission. I use the following question to frame my research: Do states that impose more severe prostitution sanctions have lower AIDS rates? Using states as the unit of analysis and employing multivariate regression analysis, I will test the effects of the severity of state laws upon state incidence of HIV/AIDS. My analysis will show the degree to which severe anti-prostitution laws suppress HIV/AIDS transmission.
This research more broadly assesses the efficacy of using the law as a means to control private behaviors and, thereby, to collectively maintain societal order. This logic implicitly underlies the United States’ punitive approach to non-normative behaviors.
“Business Sense”: An Ethnographic Exploration of the Wine and Sex Trades in Northern Sierra Leone
Melissa Garrison, Sociology
Mentor: Professor Clarke Speed, Anthropology
In Kagbere–a rural village in the Northern Protectorate of Sierra Leone, West Africa–poyo, or palm wine, functions as both an economic provision and a cloak to an immense network of covert sociocultural exchange. Using poyo as an ethnographic foil, I set out to probe this diagrammatic regime of socio-sexual relationships in Kagbere: which types of relationships form between wine tappers and wine vendors, between wine vendors and wine consumers, and the consumers themselves, and how these relationships translate into social and sexual power within both Kagbere village and Sierra Leone at large. Through a series of in-depth, qualitative interviews with participants on all levels of the wine trade, I have been able to explore in greater depth the commodities truly at stake in this economy: labor, women’s bodies, and sexual exchange. Yet, despite their subjugated economic position within Kagberian society, many of these women are revered for their “business sense”–their ability to sell wine through sex and sex through wine, thereby maintaining control of both trades–and take a degree of pride in their work, rather than assuming the demeanor of the marginalized and the oppressed. These women profit in two currencies, both fiscal and sexual. They support their families, male members included, with dignity and ingenuity. The network of relationships they create–economic, sexual, and familial–form the social foundation of Kagbere village: a foundation within which women are both celebrated and oppressed, slaves to those who use them and ruler of those who depend upon them. Their stories provide us with a vital and vibrant portrait of the Kagberian woman, and a fresh new perspective on feminist theory.
Sociology Practicum in Law: ACLU Study on Race Discrimination in Marijuana Arrests
Marianne Goldin, Albert Kang, Jaclyn Kaul, Ekaterina Lavochina, and Kathleen Niffenegger, Sociology
Mentor: Doctoral Instructor Nika Kabiri, Sociology
Over the 2008-09 academic year, the UW Sociology Department and Washington ACLU have partnered in organizing a Sociology Practicum in Law in order to allow undergraduates a hands-on opportunity to study race and its effect on marijuana arrests. Sociology students working on this project seek to answer the research question, “In what ways are white and non-white marijuana offenders being treated differently by law enforcement?” To answer this question they are performing content analysis of police incident reports. The research team first drafted a content analysis codebook, tested the codebook by coding random reports, refined the codebook, performed inter-rater reliability analysis on the various iterations of coding, and made plans for data analyses of the final coding. As they did in the Fall, at the end of the Winter quarter, these students will make a series of recommendations to the ACLU for continuing research on race disparity in drug arrests. In the coming Spring quarter, a formal coding and data analysis will be performed of the approximately 350 Seattle Police Department incident reports of marijuana-related arrests.
Five students participating in each quarter of this yearlong series will collaborate in presenting their Practicum experiences. In addition to summarizing the research project, societal/theoretical questions raised by their work will be identified.
Influences on Military Liberalization
Adam Henry, Sociology
Mentor: Professor Gary Hamilton, Sociology
Since the Vietnam War, our military has undergone dramatic changes. Due to the unpopular nature of the draft, President Richard Nixon created an all-volunteer army in 1973. It was certain that this new policy would create a different type of soldier, but there were differences of opinion over what that soldier would be like. The purpose of my research is to examine how this all-volunteer army has changed over time in regards to its soldiers’ and veterans’ political views. The military has increasingly incorporated women into its ranks. Since 1964 their proportion has risen from two percent to fourteen percent across all branches. Considering the increasing involvement of women in the military, I would like to measure changes in veteran political stance via indicator variables that focus on feminist issues such as female leadership roles, females in the military, and abortion. The rate of change in veteran political stance will be compared to the rate of change for their civilian counterparts. I will also control for race, income, and age. I will use the General Social Survey for my data set using veteran status and time as my key independent variables and the responses to feminist political questions as my central dependent variables. Although I do expect veterans to become more supportive of women’s rights over time, I am undertaking this research as an exploration into the changing military landscape.
Labeling Theory and the Impact on Children in School
Aimee Neuser, Sociology
Mentor: Doctoral Instructor Katie Corcoran, Sociology & Tracy Nomensen, Madrona K-8
When students are in schools, being placed in a specific group to receive extra attention is usually seen as helping them in the long run, however this may simply be placing the student in a situation that leads to negative labeling by others. When the student is given this label often they will identify with it, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Attention will be given to who labels and how labels are applied to students, the importance of social standing, and the overall effect labels have upon students. The methods that are being used to label children in school deter many students from succeeding and may falsify any level of achievement, due to improper “track placement” which can supply an overall negative affect on their education.
The idea for my project came from participating in a practicum sociology class this fall. It was SOC 494: B, which involved not only learning about sociological aspects of education, but allowing us to reach out to the community by volunteering at local schools. I volunteered at Madrona K-8, and worked with a class of fourth graders (I am independently volunteering again this quarter). I was lucky enough to work with students of all ability levels. I wrote a paper and researched both the methods that separated children into different “labels” and the overall effect it had on a student’s school career. After researching this, I see myself taking different approaches at Madrona, to guarantee that every student I help does not internalize a sense of inferiority, which could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Presentation Session 2
5:30PM – 6:20PM
Session Moderator: Working on This
Seattle’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Way: A Reflection on a Dream
Tim Thomas, Sociology
Mentor: Professor Stewart Tolnay, Sociology
Since 1968, cities around America have memorialized Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through the renaming of public spaces in his honor. The renaming of streets, in particular, stimulates dialogue, controversy, and stigma, as well as honor. Road names are significant, even more so than commemorative buildings and parks, due to their influence in everyday lives as locations where people live, conduct business, and demonstrate for causes.
My project focuses on profiling the area around Seattle’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Way before, during, and after the name change from Empire Way in 1983. I will compare and contrast the characteristics of block-groups around MLK Way to the characteristics of block-groups in the greater city of Seattle from 1980 to 2000 using GIS and statistical analysis of Census data. These characteristics include educational attainment, family structure, unemployment, racial composition, total population, per capita income, and poverty. I will also compile a historical biography of the area derived from interviews and literature reviews to understand the events that took place during the name change, as well as investigate the iconology of designating a road in honor of Dr. King.
My hypothesis is that the area around MLK Way will show evidence of socioeconomic decline through time, contrasted with an era of prosperity for the rest of the city of Seattle. The MLK Way area will also have a higher concentration of African Americans as well as historical indications of controversy associated with the name change. This area might even include a common stigma that is found with other MLK streets across America as a locus of high poverty and crime rates.
The Carceral State: Racial Bias in Alternatives to Incarceration
James Nickerson, Sociology
Mentor: Lecturer Jonathan Wender, Sociology
Trends of mass incarceration in America have disproportionately affected minorities for the greater part of the 20th and 21st centuries. In efforts to reduce burgeoning state deficits and introduce “harm-reduction” into the prison system, the first drug court was created in 1989 in Dade county Miami. This study hopes to look at the non-white composition of state prisons and find any relation to the number of drug courts in that state. This exploratory thesis project hopes to illuminate modes of racial bias in alternatives to incarceration on a state level.
Situating Family Planning: The Socio-Demographic Predictors of the Locations of West-Coast Planned Parenthood Clinics.
Alice Shieh, Sociology
Mentor: Professor Lowell Hargens, Sociology
My research addresses the allegations of minority pro-life organizations that claim that Planned Parenthood specifically targets minority communities by placing the majority of clinics in areas of high minority concentration. Using data from the U.S. Census Report and the General Social Survey, I evaluate both the socio-demographic characteristics that predict the locations of Planned Parenthood clinics in five major metropolitan areas along the West Coast, as well as minority attitudes toward the issue of abortion itself. Since the claim that Planned Parenthood targets minority communities is the premise used to support further claims of “black genocide” and “modern eugenics,” the goal of this research is to examine the validity of this premise, as well as provide an analysis of demographic characteristics that are associated with the placement of Planned Parenthood clinics.
Blame Attribution, Religiosity, and Abortion Attitudes: A Study in Sociodemographic Differences
Autumn Cutter, Sociology
Mentor: Associate Professor Julie Brines, Sociology
How attitudes about abortion vary across demographic and social characteristics has been a popular course of study in sociological research, though few studies have attempted to delve into the causes of such variation. My study takes an interest in the traditional demographic controls for abortion attitudes, but a new depth of analysis is added through the inclusion of ideas about personal responsibility (blame attribution) and interactions between religious affiliation and religious intensity. My thesis tests the hypothesis that statistically significant sociodemographic variations in abortion attitudes can be explained away through the application of controls for blame attribution and through the aforementioned interaction terms. The sociodemographic factors being examined in this thesis include race, age, sex, education, religious affiliation, and political party, all of which have been shown in past scholarly work to be strong predictors of abortion attitudes.
My thesis is formed from a series of important questions about the potential causes of abortion attitudes. When one subscribes to individualist ideals mandating that everyone is responsible for their own fate, how are attitudes about abortion affected? Does being a member of a community-oriented religion, like Catholicism, affect abortion attitudes differently than being a member of an individual-oriented religion, like Protestantism? Can the persistent black-white race difference in abortion views be explained away through a tendency for blame attribution? By performing logistic regression analyses on data gathered from the General Social Survey between 1976 and 2006, my hope is to find answers to such questions while inspiring others to explore the underlying causes of their own convictions. Furthermore, I believe that the knowledge that informed abortion research can provide is necessary for policymakers to consider when navigating the socio-political landscape and making public policy decisions. My thesis, then, has very real and practical implications for the current abortion debate.