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Informal Social Control in Action: Neighborhood Context, Social Differentiation, and Selective Efficacy

Henderson-Ross, Jodi A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1395755045

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Sociology.
This dissertation addresses the practice of informal social control in neighborhood settings by integrating extant theory with constructs from outside the mainstream of criminology. Empirical support comes from an ethnographic project conducted over a period of five years in an urban neighborhood setting. Detailed knowledge of this local context is used to frame informal social control as produced and enacted by residents in ways that both reflect and create the larger neighborhood social and cultural dynamics. Specifically, three ethnographic accounts are offered as separate papers to provide different lenses on the neighborhood dynamics. Each account can also be read as demonstrating the variability of ethnographic methodology. Taken together, these empirical papers not only report findings, but also illustrate various aspects of the unfolding process of constructivist grounded theory-building. For example, the first paper highlights how a serendipitous finding gave shape to further data analysis, illustrating the nature of “emergent” findings in grounded theory analysis. The second paper reports findings from more advanced stages of analysis and demonstrates the preliminary stages of theory construction. Finally, the last paper emphasizes the reflexive nature of ethnographic (re)presentation by presenting “findings” in the form of an evocative autoethnography. The dissertation contributes to the criminology scholarship by introducing theoretical constructs that have heretofore not been connected directly to practices of informal social control. Moreover, this dissertation is also a statement in support of the integration of more “first-person ethnography” (Venkatesh 2013) into the core of criminology. Future work will continue to build on current scholarship to provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between individuals and communities.
Kathryn Feltey, Dr. (Advisor)
Matthew Lee, Dr. (Committee Member)
William Lyons, Dr. (Committee Member)
Tiffany Taylor, Dr. (Committee Member)
Brent Teasdale, Dr. (Committee Member)
John Zipp, Dr. (Committee Member)
158 p.
Criminology; Sociology
informal social control; collective efficacy; social differentiation; nieghborhood context; criminology; ethnography; autoethnography; first-person ethnography

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Henderson-Ross, J. A. (2014). Informal Social Control in Action: Neighborhood Context, Social Differentiation, and Selective Efficacy [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1395755045

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Henderson-Ross, Jodi. Informal Social Control in Action: Neighborhood Context, Social Differentiation, and Selective Efficacy. 2014. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1395755045.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Henderson-Ross, Jodi. "Informal Social Control in Action: Neighborhood Context, Social Differentiation, and Selective Efficacy." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1395755045

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

akron1395755045
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© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Akron and OhioLINK.