Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2014, 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.

Committee: 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) Subjects: Criminology; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology

Early social interactions can shape future reproductive behavior, which has been well studied in organisms with parental care (e.g., sexual imprinting in birds). Evidence suggests that socially mediated behavioral development can occur also in species without parental care or during stages following independence from parents. I discuss implications of “developmental ecology,” a new conceptual framework that extends the classic imprinting paradigm to incorporate interactions among group members as being potentially important for individual behavioral ontogeny (Chapter 1). I conducted three laboratory experiments to determine whether social group composition could produce different behavioral trajectories in male guppies, Poecilia reticulata, and whether these behaviors persist with new social experience. For each experiment, males were tested in novel social environments following maturation under different rearing conditions. Maturation in all-male groups induced male-male courtship, which continued in mixed-sex groups (Chapter 2). Further, males that had already developed typical heterosexual behavior tended to increase male-directed courtship after experience in all-male groups. In order to determine whether socially inducible same-sex courtship affected reproductive competence, males reared in all-male or mixed-sex groups were given the opportunity to breed (Chapter 3). This experiment did not detect any difference between numbers of offspring produced by males that exhibited same-sex courtship in early environments compared to males that had always courted females. Thus, data did not support the hypothesis that socially mediated preference for the sex to which males direct courtship reduces mating competence later in life. More realistic, yet still biased, sex ratios promoted differences in behavioral patterns in males, which disappeared following new experience in even sex ratios (Chapter 4). This experiment suggested that maturation with other males might be b (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Waite (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science

Research documents high rates of behavioral health needs among youth experiencing homelessness (YEH); however, recent evidence indicates that behavioral health evidence-based practices (EBPs) may not be widely used by organizations serving YEH. Implementation and organizational theory describe the importance of the external organizational environment on EBP adoption, including the influence of external social pressures such as policy mandates, professional norms, funder expectations, and competition and collaboration with peer organizations. This cross-sectional multiple case study explored the influence of external pressures on EBP adoption among organizations serving YEH. Theory-based sampling was used by combining expert opinion and stakeholder involvement to obtain nominations of organizations for study inclusion. Thirteen organizations were recruited for focus groups/interviews, surveys, and collection of EBP funding documents. Qualitative content analysis described the type of external pressures experienced by organizations and organizational responses to those pressures. Convergent mixed-method analysis was used to classify organizational-level adopter behavior using a modified version the Fidelity, Attitudes, and Influence Typology (FAIT) and specify the most common external pressures associated with each FAIT category. Results showed that organizations adopted a high number of EBPs (median = 7) and the most significant pressure for EBPs is federal and state/county funders; however, expectations for EBP adherence/oversight varied across funding sources. Organizations learn about EBPs through their government funders, a variety of external professional support groups, and peer organizations who help appraise EBPs prior to adoption. Positive reactions to external pressures included the mission alignment of adopted EBPs, the ability of EBPs to provide concrete skills and structure to novice staff, an increase in organizational data informed decision making, an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Natasha Slesnick (Advisor); Alicia Bunger (Committee Member); Keeley Pratt (Committee Member) Subjects: Mental Health; Organization Theory; Social Research

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Geography

The rise in rates of opioid overdose is a public health crisis in the United States. Retrospective studies show that the opioid overdose crisis is not homogeneously distributed across space and time, and there is increasing recognition that its etiology is rooted in part by social determinants such as poverty, environmental disadvantage, isolation, and social upheaval. It's important to understand the spatiotemporal variation in opioid overdose emergencies and its possible social and environmental determinants to guide public policy responses to the crisis as the obtained knowledge can benefit health care administration and epidemiological purposes, coupled with the need for generating reliable risk assessment for small geographical areas. This dissertation aims to develop new spatial-temporal methods and utilize new geospatial data for understanding the space-time pattern of opioid overdose events (OOEs) and associated socio-environmental factors for OOEs. This dissertation consists of three major parts: 1) Understand how OOEs evolved over space and time using a regionalized sequence alignment method; 2) Understand the social and physical environmental determinants in OOEs at high spatial-temporal resolution using found geospatial data; and 3) Use city municipal 311 service requests as indicators of neighborhood distress and predicting the trends of OOE hotspots when OOEs data is not available. The outcome of this dissertation helps us understand the critical spatiotemporal characteristics of the opioid overdose crisis and provides valuable information to identify the potential socio-economic and environmental drivers of the crisis as well as geographic areas where vulnerable populations are located, and where interventions should be implemented.

Committee: Harvey Miller (Advisor); Ayaz Hyder (Committee Member); Elisabeth Root (Committee Member); Desheng Liu (Committee Member) Subjects: Geographic Information Science; Geography; Public Health

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Sociology/Applied Demography

Mental illness has become increasingly prevalent among adolescents in the United States, with anxiety and depression occurring the most commonly. A growing literature has established that adolescents with more adverse childhood experiences (or ACEs) tend to have more disadvantaged mental health outcomes. Although there is significant state variation in the prevalence of both adolescent mental illness and childhood adversities, research has not yet investigated how state context (e.g., social policies, economic conditions) may modify the relationship between ACEs and adolescent mental health. Because of the functional support families receive from various state policies and economic features, adolescents residing in states with more generous social welfare policies and stronger economic conditions may be less likely to experience mental health problems, net of individual and family characteristics. This study investigates these relationships from a social-ecological perspective using the 2017/2018 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), merged with state policy and economic data obtained from multiple sources (n=21,068 adolescents). Using multilevel logistic regression, a significant relationship was found between one state contextual indicator and the mental health of adolescent girls. Contrary to expectations, girls living in states with low levels of income inequality had higher odds of mental health problems than their counterparts in high-inequality states. Other measures of state context were not found to have significant effects on mental health for girls or boys. Finally, there was no evidence that state economic and policy context moderates the dose-response relationship between cumulative ACEs and adolescent mental health.

Committee: Kelly Balistreri PhD (Advisor); I-Fen Lin PhD (Committee Member); Wendy Manning PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Demography; Sociology

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2019, Biological Sciences (Arts and Sciences)

The role of behavior in the success of invasive species has been widely studied, however the influence of behavioral plasticity on invasive success has not. In the first chapter of this thesis, two morphs of pet-trade hybrid swordtails (X. helleri x maculatus) underwent a treatment regimen consisting of differing levels of food availability to measure the responses of aggression, feeding rate, and boldness behaviors when facing changes in this important environmental factor. There was significant variation across the food availability treatments in feeding rate, as well as differences influenced by sex, which suggests behavioral plasticity for this behavior. The difference by sex is possibly due to differential reproductive strategies involving prioritization of time and resources. Boldness and aggression behaviors were not plastic in response to food availability, and morph and size did not significantly influence any behavioral variation across the treatments. These findings suggest that while plasticity may be present in one of the behavioral traits that are vital to a potential invasive species, it does not appear to be a primary factor influencing the success of this hybrid species. Social context is often not considered in laboratory-based fish behavioral research, although it has been shown to have significant effects on behavior. In the second chapter of this thesis, swordtail hybrids underwent one of two different social housing treatments to determine if socialization influences exploration behavior: half of the hybrids were housed alone, and the other half were housed with conspecifics. All individuals were then tested for exploratory behavior in two tests: the first being a solitary exploration test and the second being a test with conspecifics. Solitarily housed hybrids were significantly more exploratory than those housed with conspecifics in the solitary test environment. Additionally, swordtail hybrids were more exploratory overall when in a group (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Molly Morris PhD (Advisor); Viorel Popescu PhD (Committee Member); Susan Williams PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Animal Sciences; Aquatic Sciences; Biology; Conservation; Ecology; Freshwater Ecology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Communication

Loneliness is a negative emotional experience that occurs due to perceived deficiency in social relationships (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Self-disclosure of lonely feelings can facilitate coping. However, disclosing loneliness contains potential risks, especially in the contexts of social networking sites (SNSs). This dissertation aims to investigate how people perceive and interpret loneliness disclosure on SNSs, using the path model of blame as a framework (Malle, Guglielmo, & Monroe, 2014). An online experiment (n = 117) was conducted to look at: 1) the ways in which context collapse and relational closeness could predict perceived appropriateness of disclosing loneliness on SNSs, 2) how the perceived appropriateness of disclosing loneliness on SNSs impacts blame judgment, 3) the moderating effect of reason justification on the relationship between appropriateness and blame judgment, and 4) the effect of blameworthiness on subsequent support provision. Findings suggested that context collapse and relational closeness did not predict perceived appropriateness of disclosing loneliness on SNSs. The moderating effect of reason justification on the relationship between appropriateness and blame judgment did not work out. However, results showed that the perceived appropriateness of disclosing loneliness on SNSs was negatively associated with blame judgment. More blame attributed to people who disclosed loneliness on SNSs, the less willing recipients were to provide emotional, informational , and tangible support. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Committee: Jesse Fox (Advisor); David DeAndrea (Committee Member); April Li (Committee Member); Teresa Lynch (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Arts and Sciences: Communication

This study explores how adjunct faculty and staff use social media among a converged mixed audience. With social networking sites (SNSs) serving as digital spaces where various social spheres often converge, the result can dramatically impact how an individual presents oneself and can even negatively impact one's behavior culminating in self-withdrawal. Specifically, through in-depth interviews, the present research seeks to understand how adjunct faculty and staff self-present among a collapsed audience, or “context collapse” (Marwick & boyd, 2011); the different concerns and challenges they face; and how a collapsing of audiences can lead to self-withdrawal. Results of the present study suggest that context collapse is occurring frequently on adjunct faculty and staff members' social media accounts—particularly the blurring of personal and professional boundaries. However, SNS platforms are found to not only serve as sites of context collapse but also afford tools to restore context by allowing users to segment audiences. This study finds support for audience segmentation strategies covered in existing literature, but also expands overall methods to include Facebook groups and lists. In addition, participants were classified along a continuum into four different behavioral categories, including: Strict Separators, Savvy Segmenters, Positive PG Posters, and Reluctant Participants. Future avenues for further research around adjunct faculty and staff, the blurring of personal and professional boundaries, and self-withdrawal are also discussed.

Committee: Nancy Jennings Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Pamara Chang Ph.D. (Committee Member); Eric Jenkins Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2018, Journalism (Communication)

For a long time habit has been a blind spot of research on media attendance generally and Internet usage particularly. Especially uses and gratifications approaches have mainly focused on intentional and conscious motives. Psychological research and recent studies on media attendance, however, suggest that habit is an important determinant of media behavior, too. This study set out to examine the role of habit in the use of online news, a medium traditionally associated with instrumentality and information needs. The study draws on social cognitive theory as theoretical framework. Two hundred fifty-nine usable datasets were gathered through an open online survey. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed habit strength as an independent factor. Habit strength had a significant influence on overall usage of online news. It was further correlated to deficient self-regulation, pass time and other self-reactive incentives, and context stability. An exploratory factor analysis tentatively confirmed hypothesized dimensions of online news behavior such as searching, elaboration, use of visual elements, follow-up actions, and distraction. These dimensions, however, lacked internal reliability.

Committee: Michael S. Sweeney (Committee Chair); Benjamin Bigl (Committee Member); Hans-Jo¨rg Stiehler (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Multimedia Communications; Psychology; Web Studies

BA, Oberlin College, 2017, Sociology

This research project aims to interrogate the rationale behind Black men's disproportionate engagement in crime and violent behaviors. To do this, I aim to debunk hypermasculinity as the media and Police's predominate rationale for Black men's participation in violence and crime. Although narratives of hypermasculinity have become more insidious across time and space since the slavery era, they still contribute to the pervasive perception of Black men as savage hoodlums who are undeserving of success outcomes. The concept of hypermasculinity asserts that Black men have a biological, innate disposition to incite harm. To deracialize and demystify current stigmas of hypermasculinity that plague Black men, I conducted fifteen in-depth interviews of Black-identifying, young men from the Southside of Chicago who have participated in illicit behaviors. Due to the proliferation of gun violence that is negatively impacting Black men's life chances, Chicago emerges as an important sociological site. In addition, the Southside of Chicago is a case study for understanding larger social phenomena such as the systematic killing of marginalized people and urban violence and inequity. From my interviews, I discovered how these men's efforts to combat the war enacted against them by racist structures and institutions were circumscribed by the racialized pigeonhole of the label `hypermasculine'.By exposing Black men's rationale for engaging in illicit behaviors, contemporary race scholars will have a new avenue for examining the social context as a production site for their uneven engagement. Moreover, Black men's motivations for engaging in illicit behaviors will provide a nuanced lens to understanding the multifactorial and contingent nature of criminality. I argue that Black men's disproportionate engagement in gun violence and crime is out of necessity and not desire. The hypotheses that ground this argument are threefold: (1) The labeling process associated with hypermasculinit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clovis L. White (Advisor); Greggor Mattson (Advisor); Daphne John (Advisor) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Education and Human Services

Concerns regarding teacher recruitment and teacher retention among African American teachers continue to illustrate the difficulty in diversifying the teacher population. At the same time, African American teachers currently working in urban schools must successfully find strategies to engage urban youth, who face inequitable educational opportunities. Such realities can be challenging to African American teachers, who have also experienced structural oppression, as they are expected to conform to the educational ideologies and strategies of dominant, white society. As such, the personal and professional experiences of African American teachers working within urban schools will not only influence their on-going identity, but will also influence his or her beliefs and teacher pedagogy. To this end, research must be employed that explores how specific experiences, context, and one's racial/ethnic identity influences the on-going development of African American teacher identity. This study explored the different experiences of African American teachers; specifically how biographical and professional experiences influenced the ongoing identity development, beliefs, and pedagogy of the African American teacher. To understand the experiences of African American teachers within this study, a narrative approach will be employed. Through narrative methodology, the various ways in which people context, and history influenced the development of identity, beliefs, and pedagogy are examined. Findings revealed that participant's experiences with navigating through oppressive educational institutions, is the material used to counter and disrupt institutional racism in the schools where they now teach. Additionally, participants utilized personal experiences and knowledge of their student's culture and community, to influence their social and academic development. The identity, pedagogy, and beliefs of participants reflect ongoing development, as (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brian Harper Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anne Galletta Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Tachelle Banks Ph.D. (Committee Member); Frederick Hampton Ph.D. (Committee Member); Huey-Li Li Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Education; Gender

Master of Science, University of Toledo, 2017, Biology (Ecology)

Environmental perspectives influence how people view the world and so evaluating the influence of knowledge and social context on perspectives may lead to more effective environmental education. I assessed the influence of social context and knowledge on the perspectives of college students by utilizing the New Ecological Paradigm Survey in a University environmental science course. Over four semesters and two years, students completed 1030 paired NEP surveys at the start and end of the course. An overall significant change in score was identified due to the course. Significant relationships also existed between change in NEP and initial score, college of study, and course attendance, suggesting an influence of social context on perspective. Although few studies have identified overall significant influences on perspective due to a course, no study has used course grades as a representation of knowledge to evaluate the influence of knowledge on perspective. No relationship was found between change in NEP and any course achievement or service learning, suggesting no connection between course content and perspective. Additional analysis found possible contradictions in ecocentric and anthropocentric question responses as shown by differences in mean scores greater than could be explained by question phrasing or confidence intervals. Contradictions may exist because of the conflicting influence of social context and knowledge. Thus, social context may be a more important factor influencing perspective than knowledge, consistent with explanations for many of the partisan divides on scientific issues such as climate change.

Committee: Daryl Moorhead (Committee Chair); Michael Weintraub (Committee Member); Christine Mayer (Committee Member) Subjects: Climate Change; Environmental Education; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Science Education; Sustainability

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2016, Computer Science and Engineering PhD

Web 2.0 and social media enable people to create, share and discover information instantly anywhere, anytime. A great amount of this information is subjective information -- the information about people's subjective experiences, ranging from feelings of what is happening in our daily lives to opinions on a wide variety of topics. Subjective information is useful to individuals, businesses, and government agencies to support decision making in areas such as product purchase, marketing strategy, and policy making. However, much useful subjective information is buried in ever-growing user generated data on social media platforms, it is still difficult to extract high quality subjective information and make full use of it with current technologies. Current subjectivity and sentiment analysis research has largely focused on classifying the text polarity -- whether the expressed opinion regarding a specific topic in a given text is positive, negative, or neutral. This narrow definition does not take into account the other types of subjective information such as emotion, intent, and preference, which may prevent their exploitation from reaching their full potential. This dissertation extends the definition and introduces a unified framework for mining and analyzing diverse types of subjective information. We have identified four components of a subjective experience: an individual who holds it, a target that elicits it (e.g., a movie, or an event), a set of expressions that describe it (e.g., "excellent", "exciting"), and a classification or assessment that characterize it (e.g., positive vs. negative). Accordingly, this dissertation makes contributions in developing novel and general techniques for the tasks of identifying and extracting these components. We first explore the task of extracting sentiment expressions from social media posts. We propose an optimization-based approach that extracts a diverse set of sentiment-bearing expressions, including formal and sl (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amit Sheth Ph.D. (Advisor); Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan Ph.D. (Committee Member); Keke Chen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Ingmar Weber Ph.D. (Committee Member); Justin Martineau Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Information Science; Information Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2014, Psychology

The purpose of this project was to describe the juvenile offender in context to highlight areas for intervention with this vulnerable population. Youth offenders are a population that face challenges above and beyond the typical challenges of adolescence because many of the factors related to youth offending are intertwined with typical developmental processes shaped by the values and expectations that make up the youth's cultural context. Because the issue of recidivism is key to designing and delivering effective interventions, it is important to understand the contextual factors that influence amenability to intervention, as well as the sustainability of interventions that are received. In this study, I interviewed five male offenders remanded to a juvenile corrections rehabilitation program for youth with felony offenses. Using youth perspectives, I sought to provide answers to the following questions: What are some of the life experiences among male juvenile offenders that contribute to antisocial behavior? How do developmental and contextual influences affect how youth perceive the events throughout their lives? How might these experiences account for youth responses to intervention and other system expectations while in a juvenile corrections rehabilitation facility? Each participant provided detailed accounts of his experiences. Those experiences often were described as a function of the interactions between each youth and those in his social context—his family, peer, school, and juvenile justice environments. Depending on the unique factors present in his background, each youth interpreted even similar experiences differently. Those differences in perspective strongly influenced each individual's ability to comment on his self-image, relationships, criminal behavior, and intervention efforts. I present several implications and recommendations for intervention with the adolescent offender based on these youth perspectives. I contend that the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Larry Leitner PhD (Committee Chair); Amy Garbrecht PsyD (Committee Member); Glenn Muschert PhD (Committee Member); Vaishali Raval PhD (Committee Member); Virgina Wickline PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Developmental Psychology; Rehabilitation; Social Research

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2011, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

This dissertation examines the origin, evolution, facility, and effectiveness of Anti-racism and Whiteness Theory to eradicate racism in the United States during the last decade, 2000 - 2010. During the founding of the country, a sense of civic responsibility, and moralized manifest destiny sanctioned land conquest and enslavement of Africans for the achievement of personal gain. Society justified subjugating Africans into chattel slavery, considering color and cultural difference as confirmation and rationale to discriminate. Today, the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination and society at-large disapproves racist acts and behavior. Nonetheless, racist incidents continue. While undeniably, the issue of race in America is still a serious concern, many suggest civil rights and affirmative action redresses divide society, advancing one group, over others. Today, as civil rights, and affirmative action recipients, African Americans make up a significant number of the middle class, whereas whites, in contrast, comprise a considerable number of a middle class that is shrinking, from an economic recession, caused in part by globalization and the country's transformation from industry to service. Conversely, the black underclass increases, as a result, of loss of unskilled work sent to overseas countries paying lower salaries, deficient labor laws, and environmental protections. Obfuscating the dialectical relationship existing between race and class, special interest groups incite and infuse racist rhetoric, to augment their own self-serving interest. Consequently, race baiting occurs to keep racism alive, preventing empowerment of a unified bi-racial group's capacity to pressure political leaders to address the needs of the working and middle classes, over the interest of the wealthy. It is in this way that the capacities of anti-racist systems to eradicate racism are negated.

Committee: Marvin Berlowitz PhD (Committee Chair); Vanessa Allen-Brown PhD (Committee Member); Eric Jackson EdD (Committee Member); Stephen Sunderland PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education History

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Education : Criminal Justice

Researchers investigating the relationship between the defendant's race and pretrial release decisions have not produced consistent findings. This inconsistency in findings on racial discrimination in pretrial release practices suggests that previous studies have important limitations. One significant limitation is that previous studies typically overlook important regional differences in the administration of pretrial release practices that may contribute to racial disparity. The current research may overcome this previous research limitation and focused on how relations between race and pretrial release decisions vary with different social contextual environments. The primary research question is, to what extents do race and contextual factors influence pretrial release decisions and outcome? Further, we are interested in determining whether race differences are conditioned by the characteristics of where those decisions occur.By adopting Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and Hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) with a sample of 14,835 cases, this study found that black and Hispanic defendants are significantly more likely to be detained than white defendants in pretrial release outcome. It would appear that the racial disparity found in pretrial detention is more a function of class than of racial discrimination. This study also demonstrates the importance of the jurisdiction in pretrial release process. Especially, even after controlling for characteristics of the offender and case, the odds of other release options, financial release options, and detention and the mean bail amount vary across counties characteristics. The main effects were more pervasive as significant predictors of pretrial release severity. However, this study also found that the effect of race on pretrial release varied by various social characteristics as a cross level interaction.

Committee: Lawrence Travis III PhD (Committee Chair); Michael Benson PhD (Committee Member); John Wooldredge PhD (Committee Member); Chul-Hyun Park PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Education : Criminal Justice

Most research regarding intimate partner violence has focused on the individual- and couple-level predictors of violence between partners. Recent research endeavors, however, indicate that neighborhood characteristics may also influence intimate partner violence and may best be explored under the social disorganization tradition. Largely due to data limitations, previous analyses assessing potential neighborhood effects on partner violence have not used hierarchical statistical modeling, nor have they assessed the effects of social intervening mechanisms postulated under social disorganization to affect neighborhood crime. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this dissertation addresses these shortcomings by using hierarchical statistical modeling to examine the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics as well as the intervening social mechanisms of collective efficacy, social ties, culture, and disorder on intimate partner violence victimization among females.Results indicate that partner violence is not solely an individual-level phenomenon, and that the mechanisms identified by social disorganization theory appear to explain neighborhood influences on intimate partner violence. In particular, neighborhood concentrated immigration, collective efficacy, social ties and satisfaction with police reduced violence between partners while concentrated disadvantage, legal cynicism, and physical disorder increased such violence. In all, this study demonstrates that social disorganization theory can be applied to non-street forms of violence, such as intimate partner violence.

Committee: Michael Benson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Francis T. Cullen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Pamela Wilcox Ph.D. (Committee Member); D. Wayne Osgood Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Sociology

In recent decades, the transformation of school disciplinary climates with the passage of zero tolerance policies led to the expansion of punishment in schools in recent decades (Hirschfield 2008; Kupchik 2006). Mirroring the ideology of mandatory sentencing in the criminal justice system, zero tolerance policies mandate automatic suspension or expulsion for specific, pre-determined offenses. However, the impact of crime control tactics in school settings has not been felt equally by all students. Minority students, particularly black males are increasingly overrepresented in exclusionary forms of school discipline (Gregory and Weinstein 2008). Although black students' make-up only 17 percent of those enrolled in public schools, they account for 32 percent of all students suspended (Skiba 2002). Though researchers have consistently documented and described persistent racial gaps in school suspension, the examination of school context and its role in shaping individual punishment outcomes, has been nearly absent from the literature. To remedy that shortcoming, the present study investigates if school contexts, particularly school disciplinary climate and school composition matter for shaping individual likelihood of suspension and if the effects of school characteristics are moderated by student attributes. In other words, which aspects of school organization are associated with the likelihood of punishment? The school effects tradition contends that aspects of school organization are important for predicting student educational outcomes (Bryk and Lee 1992). Furthermore, racial threat theory argues that use of social control is intensified in places with larger black populations. Drawing from an intersection of sociological and criminological perspectives I examined several theoretically derived hypotheses to test relationships between school context, race and punishment. The results from the multi-level analyses demonstrate that students who attend schools that e (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Claudia Buchmann PhD (Advisor); Ruth D. Peterson PhD (Committee Member); Dana Haynie PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology; Educational Sociology; Sociology

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2012, Environmental Studies (Arts and Sciences)

Growth rate, which is influenced by genetics and environmental stimuli, is an important factor in determining when and at what body size animals reach sexual maturity. Examining mechanisms that produce variation in growth rate make it possible to determine the extent to which variation in growth rate may be adaptive. Offspring of Xiphophorus multilineatus females raised on high and low quality diets were measured at five points in ontogeny: exposure to large courter males and sexual maturity, to determine growth rate differences between treatment type and maternal diet. Before exposure, mother size, juvenile size at 14 days, and juvenile sex influenced growth rate. After exposure, the interactive effect of maternal diet, treatment type, and offspring sex was responsible for differences in growth rate. My results suggest that small mothers may invest more in male offspring, and that both maternal effects and social environment may influence growth rate to sexual maturity.

Committee: Molly Morris PhD (Advisor); Donald Miles PhD (Committee Member); Nancy Manring PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2011, Sociology

In 1979, McKinley called for “re-focusing upstream” to address social contexts responsible for manufacturing illness, rather than “downstream” approaches initiated after disease onset. Multiple social/contextual factors are linked to children's mental health problems, including socioeconomic status; neighborhood, school, and family factors; and victimization. Moreover, mental health problems are stratified by race, ethnicity, and gender. This dissertation examines the disjuncture between the need to “focus upstream” and the apparent lack of attention to contextual factors in the domain of children's mental health. Examining how intervention research is funded could provide insight into this phenomenon. Intervention research is constrained and directed by funding, and by the content of funders' announcements, including federal Requests for Applications (RFAs). Using a sociology of science framework, this dissertation investigates three interrelated questions. First, what are the implicit or explicit explanatory foci and/or intervention strategies of child mental health-related RFAs? Second, to what extent do they recognize the importance of upstream factors? Third, what factors might account for their intellectual and analytical foci? Content analysis of 39 RFAs released between 1992 and 2009 reveals that RFAs focused on individual explanations and solutions for children's mental health problems vastly outnumber those examining social factors; upstream social factors are virtually absent. Biological causes and solutions are particularly pervasive: Reductionist approaches dominate federal funding announcements relevant to children's mental health. Interviews were conducted with five National Institutes of Health (NIH) program officers, who concurred that social interventions were few. Program officers embraced a biomedical model of mental health, providing one possible reason for the focus on individual explanations and solutions for children's mental health prob (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dale Dannefer PhD (Committee Chair); Brian Gran PhD (Committee Member); Jessica Kelley-Moore PhD (Committee Member); David Hussey PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology