Sociology

Literature on Housing First indicates much success of the program in terms of financial savings and tenant positive outcome evaluations; however, there is limited explanation of how these successful outcomes are produced. Within this dissertation, interactions between tenants and case managers are revealed to be the primary intervening variable in a process of transition for tenants. These interactions connect Housing First policy (independent variable) to successful outcomes for tenants experienced during continued housing tenure (dependent variable). The measurement methods in the study are triangulated to reflect the fluidity of real life processes and both qualitative and quantitative data types are collected. From March 2008 until January 2011, twenty tenant case studies were interviewed three times in six month intervals. Nine case managers were also interviewed once and two tenants who discontinued permanent housing tenure were interviewed for an overall total of 71 interviews. Overall, symbolic interactionism is found to be a reasonable framework for explaining the successes of Housing First. Through highly focused intention in interactions case managers facilitate three social processes for tenants that lead to their successful continued housing tenure. These beneficial processes can be more specifically described as `socially healing processes' or `social healing' as they heal the social dimensions of identity, affective home creation, and wellness networks to various degrees for tenants.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

ABSTRACT Casino Development and the Right to the City: Conflict and Community Place-Making in Philadelphia John E. Balzarini Temple University, 2013 Doctoral Advisory Committee Chair: Dr. Anne Shlay This dissertation focuses on the right to the city and community conflict over casino development in Philadelphia. Community outrage erupted in 2006 following the selection of two casinos to be built in Philadelphia. Sugarhouse Casino was planned for construction in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood and Foxwoods Casino was planned for South Philadelphia neighboring the Society Hill, Queen Village and Pennsport communities. For a brief time between 2008 and 2009, plans to develop the Foxwoods Casino moved downtown to Philadelphia's Chinatown community. This dissertation explores the framing of community needs, vulnerabilities and conflict over casino development in each of these three communities and how these framing strategies were used as a foundation for expressing community power. I use a variety of data in this dissertation including in-depth content analysis of the local Philadelphia media, sight observations of casinos, anti-casino actions and town hall meetings. The most important data for this research comes from twenty-nine, one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with a variety of people involved with or knowledgeable about casino development in Philadelphia including anti-casino activists and community members, pro-casino community members, local political officials and their aides, and casino advisors and representatives. A number of ideas and themes are explored in this dissertation dealing with casino development, neighborhood power and the different ways in which community members framed casino development. In chapter three I analyze the debate between casino supporters and casino opponents over the outcomes of casino development for urban regions and residents. If, as many casino supporters claim, casinos attract people from outside a region to spend their money, then I argue the casino has succeeded in attracting revenue to the region in a pattern of neoliberal revitalization. If, on the other hand, casino development fails to attract many visitors from outside a region and relies primarily on local consumers, I argue the casino operates as a form of accumulation by dispossession where wealth is diverted from the locality to the casino and the state. I argue that as more casinos are developed in Pennsylvania, and indeed across the country, the likelihood that a casino is reliant on a localized population increases. If casinos fail to attract consumers from outside a region then no new economic stimulation is achieved. Instead, consumer spending is diverted from other local businesses and directed to the casino. This coupled with increases in gambling addiction have the net effect of harming a regional economy. These new problems created by development of convenience casinos will create new social and economic crises that states and municipalities will need to deal with in the future.…

Sociology

In 2012, President Barack Obama was elected to a second term amidst concerns that his support of same-sex marriage would deter conservative African American voters. Rather, for the first time on record, the share of Black voters surpassed the share of White voters in the general electorate (File 2012). This seemingly paradoxical relationship, for conservative Black voters to support Obama while denouncing gay marriage, has yet to lead to any serious scholarly investigation. Instead, past research on religion and party alignment has focused primarily on the White Christian Right. Political sociologists, therefore, possess a better understanding of the correlation between White Christian conservatism and political conservatism. Meanwhile, not only are explorations into how Christian conservatism affects Black voter alignment scarce, but also, these investigations rarely isolate Black Christian conservatives from the general Black electorate. The current political climate complicates the relationship between race, religion, and politics considerably. The election of Barack Obama has symbolized to some that the American electorate exists within a post-racial environment. Accusations to the contrary have focused on supporters of the Tea Party, a movement that formed on the premise of anti-government interventionism. This highly conservative coalition has dictated the Republican Party's shift to the right, much like the "Moral Majority" in decades past. Similar to its religious predecessor, the Tea Party advocates conservative stances on abortion and gay rights. However, just as the White Christian Right consists almost entirely of White members, so too does the Tea Party. The current study examines Black Christian conservatives' political decision-making. The focus of this research is on Black Christian conservatives. However, in order to explain the environment in which Black voters must operate, I also study White Christian conservatives' political motivations. Thus, I ask, what motivates Black Christian conservatives to align with the Democratic Party despite their conservative political and religious ideologies? I explore three well-known explanations for why Black conservative voters may align with Democrats over Republicans. The first is redistributive policy support, which considers the longstanding espousal of fiscal liberalism among Black voters. Next, racial resentment investigates whether conservative Whites are antagonistic to Black voters' concerns. Finally, religious philosophy examines how Black Christian conservatives apply their religion to their political viewpoints. Each analysis chapter employs data that can directly address the following questions. First, how does Christian conservatism affect White and Black voters' support for various government initiatives? Second, does racial resentment contribute more to Whites' support of the Tea Party, or rather, does that support stem from fiscal and/or Christian conservatism? Finally, given that roughly 90 percent of the Black…

Sociology

Studying social movements is one way to understand social change. The historical timing of their appearance and the ways they are similar and different from previous social movements is an excellent method for capturing localized salient concerns and the course of societal responses to systems of inequality over time. Another social arena, often undervalued in traditional sociological studies on systems of inequality and their related societal responses, also exists built for the emergence of social confrontations with the status quo. Whether as a psychological release valve, as a method to strengthen positions of dominance, or as a social position to voice criticisms too hot for everyday interaction, the mutability of comedy serves to encourage the emergence of relegated perspectives. There is a great deal of truth to saying a joke is never just a joke. Of course not without consequences, the significance of comedic instances is tempered by its temporal nature and the inherent ambiguity of interpretation. Incidentally, both of these qualities are also what gives comedy freedom from operating social norms of decorum and also allows for opportunities to confront these social norms. It should not be surprising that totalitarian regimes outlaw any practice of comedy, while the most democratic of nations, still riddled with racism, can claim a rich history of comedic challenges to race ideology. It is most likely for this reason that recurring characters like Luther, President Obama¡¦s ¡§anger translator¡¨ on Key and Peele even exist. Luther is the President¡¦s alter ego who performs and personifies all of the emotions the first non-white president must presumably feel, but is prevented from expressing, especially in relation to the trappings of contemporary racial logic. The main point here is to take a closer look at these seemingly strange bedfellows ¡V comedy and race ¡V and to consider these humorous proclamations against race and racism as types of momentary, but constant, social protest. Using popular commentary as a measure of controversy that is widely known, the most controversial sketch comedy shows in each decade from the 1960s to the 2000s were selected and analyzed. Additionally, all other sketch comedy shows that aired at the same time for each show were analyzed, leading to a more complex depiction of racial politics in the U.S. over five decades. Examining race through comedy lends itself to seeing racial dynamics from the edge and through the lens of social critics who possess wider degrees of discursive and performative acceptability. The story they tell confirms their critical social importance and their unique encounter with prevailing issues of race and racism. This study examines contemporary "fools" and how they resist, challenge, and transform race ideology. In order to capture the landscape of each show and to identify variations across the show, basic demographic characteristics will be collected through pre-established categorical determinations. As the primary level of…

Sociology

My dissertation examines couples’ transition to first-time parenthood, and how this experience varies by social class. More specifically, the design of this project is a qualitative comparison of two data collection points, which examines how couples of two different social class groups divide and manage housework before the birth of their first child, and how they manage the same housework (as well as the additional work of childrearing) six to nine months post-birth. With these concerns in mind, the primary question driving this research project is: do marriages become more gendered after the birth of a couple's first child, and if so, how does this experience differ by social class? The specific aims of the research are to identify if and how marriages become gendered after the birth of a couple’s first child. This study also seeks to identify and understand the disjuncture between what participants say versus what they do with regard to the completing of housework and parenting approaches. Research findings demonstrate how some couples’ marriages became more or less gendered, and how some marriages remained more gender-neutral, largely depended on the intersection of their gender repertoires and their social class position. Specifically, every household’s configuration of their access to social resources, availability of social support, their occupational (in)flexibility, and the pre-existing, gendered dynamics between husbands and wives directly and indirectly influenced their transitions to parenthood. Many middle and upper-middle class participants had the material and social resources which interacted with their gender repertoires and assisted them in achieving their desired post-birth outcomes. For most of these households, their new lives as parents involved a more gender-neutral distribution of housework and childrearing, and nearly all middle and upper-middle class mothers returned to paid employment after maternity leave. For most lower-middle class participants, however, the limitations in their educational attainment levels, annual household incomes, and social networks interacted with their gender repertoires in ways that posed constraints to their transition to parenthood, and their ability to achieve their desired post-birth, work-family balance. Financial restrictions and the unaffordability of childcare affected some lower-middle-class mothers’ abilities to return to paid employment, despite their initial intention of doing so. For some lower-middle class fathers, their occupational inflexibility constrained their abilities to spend more time with their families. The variation in gender repertoires between lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle class participants, resulted in differentials in how couples were able to respond to the changes and challenges of becoming parents.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

This dissertation traces the formation of powerful urban discourses in the context of rapid economic transformation in Macau to understand different levels of symbolic production as they are situated within the larger symbolic structure of power. The research is motivated by my attempt to assess the Neo-Marxist utopian proposition about local culture being a possible counter-hegemonic space where revolutionary politics will develop. Exploratory in nature, my research questions are: Can local culture in the forms of personal and localized practices actually generate oppositional politics? Or do they merely serve as marketing tools for the expansion of economic development? What is the role of local culture in the context of Macau’s urban restructuring? To answer these questions, I view the ongoing cultural production of discourse as indications of local culture. Employing the extended case method, I apply reflexive science to ethnography as an ongoing process that looks continually for patterns of situations and elements to inform me about the relationship between local culture and social change. My research adopts a variety of qualitative methods  – I conducted 7 focus groups, 50 in-depth interviews which included life stories and photo-elicitation, critical discourse analysis, as well as extended ethnographic participation. Three types of discourses were identified during fieldwork to understand the formation of local culture with relation to power and social change: authorized, everyday, and mobilizing discourses. Drawing from the theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu such as symbolic power, field, and misrecognition, I connect and map the production of discourses and argue that they represent the macro-, micro-, and meso-levels of a symbolic system whereby authorized discourse (such as political rhetoric and global neoliberal ideology), everyday discourse (such as local narratives and emotions), and mobilizing discourse (such as protest slogans and grassroots campaigns) interact with one another in multiple fields where the struggle over meanings reinforces and creates social relations linked to power positions. My overall argument asserts that discourses should be conceptualized as a symbolic structure—one that provides the organization and transformation of power relations. Since the struggles over symbolic power via the construction and maintenance of effective discourses involve the production, transmission, and transfusion of cultural meanings that provide appropriate frames and positions for social agents who occupy multiple and sometimes overlapping sub-fields (e.g. fields of social activism, politics, everyday life) structured by the larger field of power relations, social change does not transpire in the field of local culture separate from or innocent of hegemonic power relations. In Macau, local culture simultaneously contains both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic frames and arguments. Social change occurs dialectically when agents negotiate their specific sets of economic, political, and…

Sociology

My research looks at the way that changing neighborhood racial composition impacts property values. Housing market reactions to changing neighborhood racial composition may be one of the primary reasons for persistently high levels of black-white residential segregation. Most of the previous research on this topic was done in the 1960's and 1970's, and there is reason to expect that the patterns may have shifted since then. By focusing on the 1990-2005 time period, my research significantly updates the age-old question of "Do property values drop when blacks move in?" The geographical focus of this project is the greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area, however, the patterns observed are likely similar to other US post-industrial cities, particularly of the Northeast and Midwest. Recent home sales transactions are used to estimate property values by tract, which in turn is used to calculate home value appreciation. Decennial census data is used to quantify the shift in neighborhood racial composition, and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data is used to examine whether or not school district racial composition has a separate impact more significant than neighborhood racial composition. The major finding is that neighborhoods which experienced substantial racial transition had lower levels of home value appreciation than comparable predominately white neighborhoods. My results suggest that the dynamics of the housing market further exacerbate the racial inequality that is already present in the labor market and in educational attainment, which subsequently contributes to a large and persistent racial wealth gap.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

I examined the extent to which Bourdieu's field theory applied to the fitness industry through analysis of magazine content and interviews with a variety of field participants. I found that the processes through which people come to understand and define fitness in different ways, and, at times, develop contradictory positions on the importance and benefits of fitness are in concert with Bourdieu's theory. I argue that in addition to the historical macro forces identified by other scholars as shaping the fitness industry, endogenous field dynamics propel the field in new directions. Four broad conceptions of fitness emerged: (1) fitness as health; (2) fitness as functionality; (3) fitness as obligation; and (4) fitness as appearance. Key findings include that fitness magazines' and experts' constructions of fitness relied on gendered biological understandings of the body that promote healthism. Fitness magazines' and experts' discourse equated fitness with gendered versions of personal responsibility, discipline, and moral character and often characterized fitness as a panacea. Magazines (re)produced gendered body ideals and perpetuated the gender binary. Women's magazines' incorporation of feminist empowerment discourse promoted individual-level empowerment while simultaneously perpetuating gender inequality. I identified a few alternative perspectives on fitness that critiqued the mainstream focus on fitness as a weight loss strategy and drew attention to social inequalities that result from idealizing particular body forms. I identified competition within the fitness field among various actors striving to establish legitimacy and secure resources such as social and economic capital. Competition occurred at three levels: the macro (field) level in which the fitness field competed with and against other fields, the mezzo (organizations) level in which institutions competed with each other, and the micro level in which individual experts and practitioners contended for recognition. Magazines and respondents identified various types of "fitness experts" whom I classified into five categories: producing, disseminating, practicing, alternative, and exemplary. I identified seven strategies used by fitness experts to claim expertise and establish legitimacy within the fitness field. These included: (1) social capital; (2) credentialing; (3) name-dropping; (4) using science and referring to scientific research studies; (5) referencing commercial success; (6) referencing personal fitness goal success; and (7) discrediting others. These strategies represent the logic of the fitness field and the struggle to establish associated forms of capital, such as social capital and bodily capital. I observed that because fitness is a commercial field – the industry generates billions of dollars in economic activity annually – many of these forms of capital can be converted into economic capital. Thus, an appreciation of the economics of fitness provides an important perspective on the competition within the field. I found…

Sociology

The Marcellus Shale is a sedimentary rock formation that lies beneath most of Pennsylvania as well as portions of Ohio, West Virginia, New York, and Maryland, and holds one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves. It has been known that the Marcellus is a sizeable gas reservoir, but until the recent development of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, it had not been economically feasible to exploit it. These unconventional drilling methods currently used in Pennsylvania and other Marcellus regions are deeply controversial, with both experts and laypersons disagreeing over their threat to the environment and public health. The result has been great scientific and public uncertainty over the risks and rewards of Marcellus Shale development. This dissertation explores how Marcellus Shale development in Western Pennsylvania impacts the social lives of residents, and the ways in which residents respond to these impacts. In particular, I emphasize the social and cultural challenges of communities and how place-based meanings influence resident behavior. The data come from a comparative case study of two rural areas in Western Pennsylvania with differing intensity and duration of local shale gas development, Washington and Lawrence Counties. Washington County had its first unconventional shale well in 2004 and had 709 shale wells at the start of my fieldwork in October 2013. In contrast, Lawrence County had its first shale well in 2011, and had 20 shale wells when I began my research. Through multi-sited ethnography—which included field observations, participant observation at various public events, and open-ended interviews with residents and community stakeholders—I examine how variations in the duration and intensity of development may influence resident experiences and response with local shale development. This research finds that the main social and cultural challenges for Washington County residents were conflicts between old-timers and newcomers. Specifically, old-timers and newcomers experienced discord over the differences or perceived differences of opinion on local shale gas development. In Lawrence County, there was less conflict between old-timers and newcomers, and the conflicts that arose were often in response to the actions of outspoken anti-drilling activists. In both study counties, residents with primary ties to the physical aspects of place were dissatisfied with landscape changes brought about by local shale development and engaged in collective action in the attempt to change the way shale development was occurring, or to stop it altogether. While residents in Washington and Lawrence Counties had similar motivations for engaging in collective action—the protection of family, others, and home—they differed in their actions and strategies. Resident experiences with and actions toward local shale development varied between the two counties, which may be due to the differing intensities and duration of development. Washington County residents focused their collective strategies…

Sociology

This dissertation focuses on the relationship between sustainability and growth as it plays out through sustainable development projects in Philadelphia. Cities are interested in adopting policies and practices that will make them greener. In 2009, Philadelphia adopted its first sustainability plan, Greenworks, and throughout the past decade, many other cities have adopted similar plans. This has happened at the same time that cities have attempted to address their shrinking populations and coffers by aggressively pursuing pro-growth strategies. This dissertation explores the tension between growth and sustainability and, given this tension, how the process of sustainable development plays out in Philadelphia. This research focuses on green building and urban greening projects using a single-case embedded case study design. Projects of varying scales are examined - including large- and small-scale sustainable development projects. Data comes primarily from in-depth interviews, which were conducted over the course of one year with project managers, sustainability professionals, government bureaucrats, and community members, among others. The data from these interviews are supplemented with historical archival records, open government records, and other primary and secondary sources. This research highlights two tensions in the sustainable development process. First, the politics of development give rise to a tension between exchange value and use value. On one hand are powerful urban actors who believe that development of urban space should be value-free, or guided by the free market. On the other are community members who may value the space for another purpose. The second tension is between different approaches to resource use in urban development. Most measures of economic success are tied to growth, or the extent to which we collectively produce and consume goods. However, the production of goods is fueled by natural resources, which are dwindling. There is a tension between how pro-growth and pro-sustainability actors view resource use. This research contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between these tensions, or how the value-free politics of development are reconciled with the crisis of natural resource consumption. The results of this analysis show that sustainability initiatives are treated by powerful urban actors as means to a growth-oriented end, rather than as ends in themselves. This is true even when these actors frame their discussions of sustainability in ideological terms. They believe that sustainability is a worthy endeavor, insofar as it also coincides with a growth-oriented agenda. The production of green buildings and green open places supports green place making, which is an important component of commodifying - and growing - the green city. The tension between sustainability and growth, however, are a point of weakness where traditional growth-oriented politics of development may be challenged.

Temple University – Theses