Theses/Dissertations - Sociology
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Browsing Theses/Dissertations - Sociology by Author "Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology."
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Item Bad behavior? Understanding the correlation of racial mismatch and teachers' perceptions of student behavior.(2012-08-08) Martinez, Matthew James.; Tolbert, Charles M.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Research shows that teachers’ treatment and perceptions of students will vary based upon the race of the teacher and student. When teachers share the same race as the student, the student will benefit in the way of higher expectations, evaluations, and treatment from teachers. This study examines teachers’ perceptions of students’ behavior at varying levels of racial mismatch. Hierarchical OLS models are used to test for contextual affects in schools with varying percentages of minority composition. This study finds support for racial mismatch theory as white teachers perceive more student behavior problems in schools consisting of 50% or more minority students. The nonsymmetry hypothesis holds in this study as minority teachers do not think any more positively or negatively of student behavior at schools in which they are racially mismatched. The importance of these findings is discussed, reasons for the differences are theorized, and prescriptions for remedying these differences are presented and considered.Item Belonging and participation in mixed-race congregations.(2012-08-08) Martinez, Brandon C.; Dougherty, Kevin D.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.There has been a recent push towards racial diversity in congregations by many religious leaders. However, racially diverse congregations, which have been a popular subject amongst researchers, are both rare and seemingly difficult to sustain (Emerson, 2006). Testing an underlying assumption of organizational ecology theory, this study contributes to the discussion of race in congregations by examining belonging and participation in congregations with more than one racial group. Results of multilevel modeling using data from the 2001 U.S Congregational Life Survey indicate that those who are a part of the numerical racial majority in a congregation experience higher levels of belonging and participate at a deeper level than those who belong to a numerical minority racial group. Moreover, cross-level interactions between numerical majority status and the racial proportion of the congregation reveal that these differences increase as mixed-race congregations become more racially homogenous.Item Caste, class, and city : the shaping of religious social capital in contemporary India.(2010-06-23T12:33:31Z) Stroope, Samuel M.; Froese, Paul.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Building on the implications of qualitative work from India and urbanism theories, I aim to understand how religious bonding social capital in contemporary India varies along greater urbanization and whether social class or caste affects such differences. I use a multinomial logistic regression on 1,417 Hindu respondents in a nationally representative sample of India (World Values Survey-India 2001). Results indicate that religious social capital is fostered by urbanism and that this association is stronger for upper castes. Conversely, there is little evidence that social class similarly mediates the connection between urbanism and greater religious social capital. In light of these findings, religious bonding might be better understood as rooted in the interaction of caste dynamics and changes in the urban environment, rather than as a result of greater affluence. The data are also consistent with work underscoring the importance of disentangling social class and caste among Hindus in contemporary India.Item The characteristics of parent-child relationships and their effects on God images.(2011-05-12T15:45:47Z) Pagel, Andrew T.; Tolbert, Charles M.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.It has been proposed that an individual's attitudes and beliefs strongly reflect their concepts of what God is and what God represents. However, where do these attitudes and beliefs originate? I theorize that they come from child-rearing practices, as children are likely to view God as an authority figure with the same characteristics their parents have. To test this, I compared God's perceived love and anger to positive memories of a respondent's parents during childhood, and receiving corporal punishment as a child. The results showed that having positive memories of one's parents is positively correlated with viewing God as loving. However, receiving corporal punishment as a child proved to be positively associated with both viewing God as angry and loving. These effects were present despite multiple religious controls, suggesting that one's parents may have a great influence on the way God is conceptualized into adulthood.Item Community satisfaction : the solution for rural communities.(2013-09-24) Garland, Anna Nicole.; Driskell, Robyn Bateman.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Why do people like where they live? Why do people decide to stay at their current residence? Are residents satisfied with their community? All of these questions and more have been explored and investigated for decades and in many disciplines. Furthermore, this study examines community satisfaction. This study looks at the answers to all these questions and specifically studies the rural community, an anomaly in regards to migration and economic growth. Rural communities suffer from higher than average rates of poverty and high levels of out-migration, due to an influx of people to cities and suburban areas, which leads to decreased levels of community satisfaction. The predictors of community satisfaction can be applied to rural communities in order to increase resident satisfaction. Research has found that having friends as neighbors, feeling safe in your neighborhood and a positive perception of the state of the economy are all significant positive predictors of community satisfaction.Item Congregational growth, closure, identity, and diversity.(2010-06-23T12:32:57Z) Maier, Jared E.; Dougherty, Kevin D.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Despite stories of secularization in America, congregations still possess power as one of America's most prolific social organizations. Their power can be seen by the fact that congregations receive the highest proportion of philanthropic donations of any social institution (Hoge, Zech, McNamara, and Donahue 1996), and are the greatest outlet of voluntarism in the United States (Putnam 2000). This dissertation explores four central issues pertaining to congregations: growth, closure, identity, and diversity. Heterogeneity by age is related to growth in American congregations, while homogeneity by belief is related to congregational growth in Evangelical congregations. Age liabilities of newness and oldness are associated with closure in congregations that have a free-church tradition. Beliefs stand out above denominational affiliation and self-identification in terms of identifying who is Evangelical. Finally, there is potential of racially diverse congregations to assist in the changing of attitudes and actions toward people of a different race.Item Educational attainment in second generation immigrants : creating context for predicting college graduation.(2013-09-16) Halbesleben, Katie L., 1989-; Sherman, Martha G.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Educational attainment is a commonly used variable when looking at outcomes of immigration in the United States. This paper contributes to educational and immigrant research in three ways. First, this paper will account for several dimensions of influence when predicting educational attainment. Second, while college graduation will serve as a measure for educational attainment, high school grade point average will also be evaluated as a preceding variable to predicting college graduation. Lastly, a greater investigation of the influence of children’s friend groups will be investigated while still accounting for child, school, and parent influences. My hypothesis is that child expectations and efforts as well as parent and outside resources are all important factors in predicting educational attainment. My hypothesis is tested and overall supported using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS).Item The effects of negative peer and media influences on adolescent religiosity.(2011-05-12T15:24:25Z) Davignon, Philip P.; Bader, Christopher David.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Many researchers have demonstrated how peer influences can lead to increases in adolescent religiosity, but none have endeavored to examine the effects of media and peer influences that might lead to decreases in adolescent religiosity. Using the nationally representative and longitudinal National Studies of Youth and Religion, this research demonstrates that peer and media influences do indeed have significant effects that lead to decreases in the religiosity of religious adolescents, and often times these effects negate the peer influences that other researchers have found to increase religiosity. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for various theories and perspectives in religious transmission and adolescent religiosity.Item Effervescence and solidarity in religious organizations.(2012-08-08) Draper, Scott E.; Froese, Paul.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.This project is an effort to test and extend Randall Collins’ interaction ritual theory in the context of religious organizations. The theory proposes that optimal management of bodily copresence, intersubjectivity, and barriers to outsiders stimulates collective effervescence and social solidarity. I use mixed methods to test the theory. In the quantitative phase of research, I create measures of the ritual dynamics using data from the United States Congregational Life Survey (2001). I find strong support for several of the hypotheses, including the fundamental idea from Durkheim that effervescence stimulates solidarity. The quantitative findings also point to several extensions of the theory, such as the need to account for social density (an element of copresence) and service length (an element of intersubjectivity). In the qualitative phase of research, I observe rituals and talk with focus groups at six different types of religious organizations. Again, I find strong support for major propositions from the theory. For example, the two organizations (Promised Land Baptist and Congregation Shalom) who rally around a perceived need to defend themselves against specific outsiders exhibit the highest levels of effervescence in the sample. The qualitative findings reveal several additional extensions of the theory. As one example, I find that the content of solidarity symbols, whether collectivist (e.g., Promised Land Baptist) or individualist (e.g., First Baptist), conditions organizations’ ritual proficiency. As another example, qualitative analysis confirms the finding from the quantitative analysis that service length positively correlates with effervescence. The findings in this study are applicable to a wide range of research questions in sociology, as interaction ritual theory is a guide for understanding how groups and organizations arrive at shared identities, morals, and ideologies through micro-level interaction.Item Evangelical Democrats and role conflict.(2008-06-09T16:30:57Z) Rhodes, Jeremy R.; Dougherty, Kevin D.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Evangelical Protestants have increasingly aligned with the Republican Party in their voting patterns and opinions since the late 1970’s. As a result, this alignment of Evangelical Protestantism with the GOP could present a dilemma for Evangelical Democrats, whose religious and political identities are perceived by many to be in conflict with one another. The present study tests whether Evangelical Democrats seek to avoid role conflict by having lower levels of investment in either the religious or political components of their lives. Results find that Evangelical Democrats avoid role conflict by maintaining a lesser adherence to the religious component of their identity. In a final analysis, Evangelical Democrats are found to attend church significantly less than Democrats of other religious traditions while maintaining religious beliefs that are more conservative than these Democrats. Implications for role conflict among Evangelical Democrats are discussed.Item Expanding the new paradigm: winners and losers among exclusive and nonexclusive religious firms in the Chinese and Japanese communities in the United States, 1850-1945.(2006-07-24T20:54:54Z) Liu, Eric Y.; Stark, Rodney.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.From the perspective of a refined religious economy theory, the present paper is the first to empirically study the interplay between exclusive and nonexclusive religious bodies. Through reconstructing the historical facts of Chinese and Japanese immigration to the pre-1945 United States, I find that: 1) under certain social circumstances, an exclusive religious firm (e.g., the Christian mission church) with problematic styles of religious delivery give way to its nonexclusive competitors (e.g., the Chinese temple and the Japanese Buddhist church); 2) among nonexclusive religious groups those who adopt a congregational structure (e.g., the Japanese Shin Buddhist church) grow and thrive, while those otherwise tend to die out (e.g., the Chinese temple and the Shinto shrine) in face of social conflict. The implications of this study are discussed.Item Family values : the empirical impact of internet use.(2011-09-14) Ballew, Katherine Chelane.; Driskell, Robyn Bateman.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Family values are a set of ethical viewpoints pertaining to family matters that have the potential to have divisive effects for the private and public spheres. The formation of family values can be broken down into a spectrum ranging from two perspectives. Drawing from the perspectives highlighted in Hunter’s Culture Wars, this paper examines what predicts whether progressive, more secular, or traditional, more religious, family values will be held (1991). This paper looks at the effects of Internet use to see what leads to more progressive or more traditional family values. Taken from Wave 1 of the Baylor Religion Survey’s Moral Attitudes module, a scaled variable for family values is tested as a dependent variable in a variety of regressions. Internet use, educational attainment, religious beliefs, as well as sex of the respondent all emerge as important variables in predicting family values. Key findings of this study are that there is an association between family values and Internet use, and that males’ family values are highly influenced by Internet use, while females’ are more influenced by education.Item Federal employment concentration and regional process in nonmetropolitan America.(2008-10-15T13:42:26Z) Johnson, Jodien M.; Mencken, Frederick Carson, 1964-; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Nonmetropolitan America has undergone significant changes over the past quarter of a century. From the population turnaround in the 1970s, to population decline in the 1980s, to population rebound in the 1990s, nonmetro counties have seen fluctuations in population and economic growth. Historically, nonmetropolitan America has been dependent on single sustenance activities such as farming, mining, and manufacturing which increases the instability of these counties. Less diversified than metropolitan areas, nonmetro areas have more strongly felt the effects of deindustrialization and globalization. While population change and economic growth and decline related to farming, mining, manufacturing, and increased service sector employment has been addressed both in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, less research has addressed the role of government in regional processes in nonmetropolitan communities. This study intends to contribute to the study of regional processes in nonmetropolitan America by looking at the effects of public sustenance structures (such as federal employment concentration) on measures of economic growth and development in nonmetro counties between 1990 and 2000.Item Filled with purpose : the effects of deviant religious experiences on sense of purpose.(2012-08-08) Edwards, Kimberly D. (Kimberly Denise), 1987-; Mencken, Frederick Carson, 1964-; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.The discourse on religious compensators argues that people will pursue different religious experiences and activities based on the social class in which they belong because the rewards of religion are contingent upon one’s social and economic class (Stark & Bainbridge, 1987). To further examine religion and one’s feelings of purpose, I develop and test the hypothesis that the impact of a supernatural encounter with God will be much stronger for those who belong to the marginalized class of individuals who did not complete a high school education. Based on previous literature, the expectation of this study is that individuals without a high school degree will be more likely to seek out deviant religious experiences and will be significantly impacted by deviant experiences because the marginalized struggle to find a sense of purpose in other areas of their lives.Item The Gods must be making us crazy : the effect of a judgmental God concept on mental health.(2011-09-14) Morrow, Lindsay Nadine.; Froese, Paul.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Using Wave III of the Baylor Religion Survey, this research examines the relationship between mental health and religion in a unique way. Many studies have examined church attendance as the most significant way that religion ameliorates mental health concerns. However, the sociological study of God concepts is under-examined, and may provide a more detailed picture. In a social context where denominationalism, affiliation and even social participation in religious activities are less important than they were half a century ago, God concepts may help us to understand exactly how religiosity affects behavior. God concepts represent the underlying motivations and cognitive styles that motivate people to believe and behave in certain ways. This paper finds that the effects of religion on mental health depend on the type of religion people experience. People who have a Judgmental God concept have poorer mental health, even when controlling for church attendance, prayer, and other beliefs.Item Graduation rates, success and high school quality.(2013-09-24) Cooper, Cassidy J.; Mencken, Frederick Carson, 1964-; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.The efficacy of high school grades in retention modeling has been criticized as ineffective, owing to the diversity in both grading standards in high schools and competitiveness of high school curriculums. Informed by theories from status attainment, credentialism, and cultural capital, the present study aims to create a standard with which to test both the efficacy of G.P.A. as a predictive variable, and the relationship that individual student characteristics have to the institution from which they graduate. Using student retention data from Baylor University and high school level institutional data from the Texas Education Agency, I assess the individual and institutional level factors influencing student success in college. Student success is operationalized as college G.P.A., four year graduation, five year graduation and six year graduation. Ordinary least squares regression models, and hierarchical linear models are run to assess the relative effect of individual level variables and institutional level variables on students’ undergraduate G.P.A. Binary logistic models and multinomial models are run to predict the relative effect of individual and institutional level variables on students’ four year, five year, and six year graduation rates. The results of this research support the importance of individual level variables in predicting student success. In addition to individual and institutional level variables, interaction variables are included to assess the relationship between students’ high school G.P.A. and the quality of their high school. The institutional level variables were found to have random effects on predicting student success.Item Health disparities in India : the role of gender, family, and culture.(2013-09-16) Stroope, Samuel M.; Froese, Paul.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.This dissertation examines how cultural contexts play a role in gender differences in health in India. After an introductory chapter, chapter two asks whether the extent of dowry practice perception in local communities is linked to wider gender gaps in illness. Hierarchical regression models indicate that increases in community dowry practice are associated with increases in three morbidity outcomes for women and also greater gender gaps in health. Unexpectedly, two morbidity outcomes also increase for men in dowry communities. Chapter three focuses on the multidimensionality of gender and examines how different dimensions of gender at the community level are related to women’s self-rated health. Results show that marriage and gender segregation dimensions of gender are associated with poor health. The most variance is explained by a measure of gender segregation, male-first eating order. This finding suggests that cultural practices deeply embedded in the intimate relationships within families and day-to-day life are the ones which most accurately reveal the degree to which culture is ingrained. It also implies that such deep cultural practices of gender segregation are more important than other forms of gender segregation for women’s health. The fourth chapter analyzes gender differences in hypertension using individual-level and household-level variables and also focusing on the multidimensionality of gender (economic, segregation, and empowerment dimensions). The moderating roles of different dimensions of gender and differences in men’s and women’s hypertension are tested. Support is found in the case of gender segregation and empowerment. Specifically, gender differences in hypertension are exacerbated in households that seclude women and restrict women’s household decision making. These measures are associated with greater hypertension for women, but in the case of women’s seclusion, reduced hypertension for men. Chapter five, considers the utility of the theoretical approach taken in the dissertation, especially its utility in related areas of population health research. This chapter explores implications of the empirical chapters for research that extends beyond the Indian context and sets out potentially fruitful directions for future research.Item Hispanic assimilation: are we there yet?(2008-06-10T20:55:38Z) McMahon, Debbie Hardman.; Driskell, Robyn Bateman.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Hispanics made up 15% of the population in 2005 and the Census predicts that 25% of this country’s population will be Hispanic by 2050 (Sullivan, 2007). 70% of the nation’s growth during the last decade has been immigrants, the largest portion Hispanic. As the role of Hispanics in American society increases, the facts surrounding Hispanic assimilation become more important to everyone. Beginning in 2006, the General Social Survey was administered in Spanish or English, the primary language of the respondent. By including Hispanic respondents previously excluded from the survey, valuable information is obtained. Using this data, logistic regression is employed to examine factors that contribute to assimilation using primary language as a proxy. Comparing English-speaking Hispanics with Spanish-speaking Hispanics, distinctions in demographic variables and values are examined.Item The importance of economic surroundings on religious adherence.(2006-07-30T13:18:07Z) Smith, Buster G.; Bader, Christopher David.; Tolbert, Charles M.; North, Charles Mark, 1964-; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Sociological explanations of religious adherence tend to focus on characteristics of the individual. One exception is the largely discarded concept of relative deprivation. By its nature, relative deprivation is dependent upon the comparative nature of one's relationship with fellow members of a community. This study expands upon the premise of relative deprivation by exploring the role that the ecological economic characteristics of a community play in determining religious adherence. Independent analyses are performed at the county-level, with Evangelical and Mainline Protestant adherence rates as the dependent variable to test several associated hypotheses. A combination of U.S. census and RCMS data from 2000 suggest that economic surroundings are important determinants of religious selection. In particular, income inequality has diametrically opposed effects on the adherence rates of Protestant denominations, with Evangelicals benefiting and Mainline groups suffering. Explanations include the need for boundaries and doctrinal claims of the how the world functions.Item Individualism and religion : the impact of the individualist cultural tradition on religious beliefs and practices.(2011-05-12T15:32:13Z) Griebel, Jenna.; Park, Jerry Z.; Sociology.; Baylor University. Dept. of Sociology.Individualism and its effect on American society has received a great amount of scholarly research. Researchers have established that individualism plays a large role in all areas of society. Using the dual process model of culture developed by Stephen Vaisey (2009) and data from waves I and III of the National Survey of Youth and Religion, this study investigates the role that individualism plays on religion. In examining the effect that an individualist cultural tradition has on religious attitudes and behaviors this study reveals that the shift in authority that takes place within this cultural tradition has a large influence on the subsequent religious behaviors and attitudes of the person.
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