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- All Subjects: Sociology
- Creators: Romero, Mary
Description
The division of domestic labor has far-reaching implications for "private" life (e.g. relational satisfaction and conflict) and for "public" paid labor (e.g. time and dedication in the workplace and career advancement). Although several theories have been developed and tested, they do not sufficiently explain the consistent findings that women in mixed sex households perform a majority of the domestic labor. Without understanding the causes for differences in task performance, past research encouraging communicative solutions to ameliorate conflict was ineffective in changing task allocation and performance. Therefore, it is necessary to understand theoretical explanations that drive domestic labor behavior to develop effective solutions. The recent integrative theory of the division of domestic labor attempts to explain how individuals interact with household partners to allocate domestic tasks. Recognizing the complexity of the division of domestic labor, the integrative theory considers individual, dyadic, and societal factors that influence task allocation. Because clear differences in task performance have been found in mixed sex households, this study separates sex and gender as distinct variables by considering same-sex roommate relationships, essentially removing sex differences from the living arrangement. Furthermore, this study considers individual threshold levels as described by the integrative theory in order to test the theoretical underpinnings. Specifically, this study is designed to investigate the relationships between individual cleanliness threshold levels and gender, sex, perceptions of satisfaction, equity, and frequency of conflict in same-sex roommate relationships. Results indicate support of the integrative theory of the division of domestic labor. Regarding gender differences, partial support for the theory appeared in that feminine individuals have lower threshold levels than masculine individuals. Regarding sex differences, women possess lower individual threshold levels (i.e. more bothered when a task is undone) compared to men, which likely accounts for why existing research indicates that women spend more time performing domestic tasks. What is more, individuals with higher threshold levels report greater relational satisfaction. Further, individuals whose threshold levels differ from their living partner report lower relational satisfaction and greater conflict frequency. Finally, in terms of equity, both overbenefited and underbenefited individuals experience more conflict than those who feel their relationship is equitable. These results provide theoretical support for the integrative theory of the division of labor. Furthermore, the development and testing of a threshold measure scale can be used practically for future research and for better roommate pairings by universities. In addition, communication scholars, family practitioners and counselors, and universities can apply these theoretically grounded research findings to develop and test strategies to reduce conflict and increase relational satisfaction among roommates and couples.
ContributorsRiforgiate, Sarah (Author) / Alberts, Jess K. (Thesis advisor) / Mongeau, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Roberto, Anthony (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study explores how grantmakers conceptualize their work with respect to issues of social justice. It seeks to answer two primary questions: What role, if any, does the philanthropic community ascribe to itself in not just ameliorating but helping solve our greatest social challenges? And if philanthropy does see itself as an agent of change, what are the barriers that limit its potential? After painting a portrait of contemporary American philanthropy, this paper applies Iris Marion Young's critique of distributive justice to philanthropy's dilemma between downstream charitable aid and upstream structural change. The thesis then turns to analysis of semi-structured interviews with eighteen of Arizona's foundation leaders to assess whether and how state-level philanthropic leaders see their work vis-á -vis social justice, and understand how external factors limit philanthropy's ability to effect maximum social change. Participants express a desire to engage in genuinely meaningful philanthropy which does more than just maintain the status quo, but identify multiple constraints, including legal barriers to fully utilizing advocacy as a tool, governmental infringement on philanthropic autonomy, the channeling of philanthropic resources toward basic needs as a result of the recession, and a grantmaking orientation that prioritizes short term programs that yield swift, measurable results as opposed to longer term efforts.
ContributorsLester, Eva Lorraine (Author) / Zatz, Marjorie S (Thesis advisor) / Haglund, LaDawn (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of neoliberalism on the occurrence and intervention of genocide, particularly the ability to create othered groups through a process of dehumanization that desensitizes those in power to the human condition. I propose Social Externalization Theory as paradigm that explains how neoliberalism can be used as a means social control to create subjects vulnerable to political and collective violence that is justified as the externalized cost of economic growth, development, and national security. Finally, the conflict in Darfur (2003 - 2010) serves as a case study to analyze the influence of neoliberal policies on the resistance of the International community to recognize the violence as genocide. Analysis of the case study found that some tenets of neoliberalism produce results that fit within the ideologies of genocide and that some aspects of neoliberalism assume a genocidal mentality. In this case, those in positions power engage in daily activities that justify some suffering as acceptable, thus desensitizing them to the harm that their decisions generate.
ContributorsCalleja, Robert J (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth Blue (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This qualitative research study’s main objective is to explore how Latinas/os in South Phoenix, Arizona perceive the impact of the light rail construction. This phenomenological study utilizes three data sources: pláticas (individual interviews), intergenerational pláticas (focus groups), and a mapping exercise. The theoretical framework is composed of three theories—Ecological Systems Theory, Critical Race, Theory, and Latina/o Critical Theory—which serve as the basis for analyzing the co-collaborators’ lived experiences in relation to the light rail. They view this ongoing development project as symbolic of changes that have taken place in South Phoenix that do not take into account the will of the residents, but rather emphasize the ways that city officials disregard the opinions of residents. Co-collaborators’ experiences related their perceptions, decision-making, and the coping skills they have developed during the construction of the light rail, which I consolidated into five themes: 1) Conexión Emocional con el Sur de Phoenix/Emotional Connection to South Phoenix, 2) Conexión Histórica con el Sur de Phoenix/Historical Connection to South Phoenix, 3) Esperanza y Miedo/Hope and Fear, 4) Movilidad/Mobility (Movilidad Social/Social Mobility y/and Transportación/Transportation), and 5) El Derecho a Quedarse en un Vecindario Transformado/The Right to Remain in a Transformed Neighborhood. The study concludes with implications for social work praxis and recommendations for further study and strategies derived from these findings.
ContributorsGutierrez, Monica (Author) / Becerra, David (Thesis advisor) / Lechuga-Peña, Stephanie (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Background In the United States (US), first-year university students typically live on campus and purchase a meal plan. In general, meal plans allow the student a set number of meals per week or semester, or unlimited meals. Understanding how students’ use their meal plan, and barriers and facilitators to meal plan use, may help decrease nutrition-related issues.
Methods First-year students’ meal plan and residence information was provided by a large, public, southwestern university for the 2015-2016 academic year. A subset of students (n=619) self-reported their food security status. Logistic generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to determine if meal plan purchase and use were associated with food insecurity. Linear GEEs were used to examine several potential reasons for lower meal plan use. Logistic and Linear GEEs were used to determine similarities in meal plan purchase and use for a total of 599 roommate pairs (n=1186 students), and 557 floormates.
Results Students did not use all of the meals available to them; 7% of students did not use their meal plan for an entire month. After controlling for socioeconomic factors, compared to students on unlimited meal plans, students on the cheapest meal plan were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=2.2, 95% CI=1.2, 4.1). In Fall, 26% of students on unlimited meal plans reported food insecurity. Students on the 180 meals/semester meal plan who used fewer meals were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=0.9, 95% CI=0.8, 1.0); after gender stratification this was only evident for males. Students’ meal plan use was lower if the student worked a job (β=-1.3, 95% CI=-2.3, -0.3) and higher when their roommate used their meal plan frequently (β=0.09, 99% CI=0.04, 0.14). Roommates on the same meal plan (OR=1.56, 99% CI=1.28, 1.89) were more likely to use their meals together.
Discussion This study suggests that determining why students are not using their meal plan may be key to minimizing the prevalence of food insecurity on college campuses, and that strategic roommate assignments may result in students’ using their meal plan more frequently. Students’ meal plan information provides objective insights into students’ university transition.
Methods First-year students’ meal plan and residence information was provided by a large, public, southwestern university for the 2015-2016 academic year. A subset of students (n=619) self-reported their food security status. Logistic generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to determine if meal plan purchase and use were associated with food insecurity. Linear GEEs were used to examine several potential reasons for lower meal plan use. Logistic and Linear GEEs were used to determine similarities in meal plan purchase and use for a total of 599 roommate pairs (n=1186 students), and 557 floormates.
Results Students did not use all of the meals available to them; 7% of students did not use their meal plan for an entire month. After controlling for socioeconomic factors, compared to students on unlimited meal plans, students on the cheapest meal plan were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=2.2, 95% CI=1.2, 4.1). In Fall, 26% of students on unlimited meal plans reported food insecurity. Students on the 180 meals/semester meal plan who used fewer meals were more likely to report food insecurity (OR=0.9, 95% CI=0.8, 1.0); after gender stratification this was only evident for males. Students’ meal plan use was lower if the student worked a job (β=-1.3, 95% CI=-2.3, -0.3) and higher when their roommate used their meal plan frequently (β=0.09, 99% CI=0.04, 0.14). Roommates on the same meal plan (OR=1.56, 99% CI=1.28, 1.89) were more likely to use their meals together.
Discussion This study suggests that determining why students are not using their meal plan may be key to minimizing the prevalence of food insecurity on college campuses, and that strategic roommate assignments may result in students’ using their meal plan more frequently. Students’ meal plan information provides objective insights into students’ university transition.
Contributorsvan Woerden, Irene (Author) / Bruening, Meg (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Schaefer, David (Committee member) / Vega-Lopez, Sonia (Committee member) / Adams, Marc (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This dissertation examines contemporary issues that 18 (im)migrant university students faced during a time of highly militarized U.S.-Mexico border relations while living in Arizona during the time of this dissertation research. Utilizing critical race theory and public sphere theory as theoretical frameworks, the project addresses several related research questions. The first is how did (im)migrant university students describe their (im)migrant experience while they lived in the U.S. and studied at a large southwestern university? Second, what can (im)migrant university student experiences tell us about (im)migrant issues? Third, what do (im)migrant university students want people to know about (im)migration from reading their story?
Three conceptual constructs, each composed of three categories, that described the different (im)migrant experiences in this study emerged through data analysis. The first of these conceptual constructs was the racialized/ing (im)migrant experience that categorically was divided into systemic exclusions, liminal exclusions, and micro-social contextual exclusions. The second concept that emerged was the passed/ing (im)migrant experience where (im)migrant university students shared that they felt they had a systemic pathway to citizenship and/or that their immigration authorization gave them privilege. This concept was also categorically divided into systemic inclusions, liminal inclusions, and micro-social contextual inclusions. The last concept was the negotiated/ing (im)migrant experience, which described ways that (im)migrant university students negotiated their space/place in the public sphere while attending a large, public university in Arizona. As with the other two concepts, three categories emerged in relation to negotiated/ing (im)migrant experience: systemic negotiations, liminal negotiations, and micro-social contextual negotiations. It is (im)migrant university student experiences that give individuals a better understanding of the complexities that surround immigration. The (im)migrant narratives also highlight that inclusion and exclusion from the public sphere is a complex and dynamic process because all (im)migrant students, including U.S. citizens, experienced moments of inclusion and exclusion from the U.S. public sphere.
Three conceptual constructs, each composed of three categories, that described the different (im)migrant experiences in this study emerged through data analysis. The first of these conceptual constructs was the racialized/ing (im)migrant experience that categorically was divided into systemic exclusions, liminal exclusions, and micro-social contextual exclusions. The second concept that emerged was the passed/ing (im)migrant experience where (im)migrant university students shared that they felt they had a systemic pathway to citizenship and/or that their immigration authorization gave them privilege. This concept was also categorically divided into systemic inclusions, liminal inclusions, and micro-social contextual inclusions. The last concept was the negotiated/ing (im)migrant experience, which described ways that (im)migrant university students negotiated their space/place in the public sphere while attending a large, public university in Arizona. As with the other two concepts, three categories emerged in relation to negotiated/ing (im)migrant experience: systemic negotiations, liminal negotiations, and micro-social contextual negotiations. It is (im)migrant university student experiences that give individuals a better understanding of the complexities that surround immigration. The (im)migrant narratives also highlight that inclusion and exclusion from the public sphere is a complex and dynamic process because all (im)migrant students, including U.S. citizens, experienced moments of inclusion and exclusion from the U.S. public sphere.
ContributorsCantú, Elizabeth A (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This dissertation investigates how rural e-commerce survives and thrives in resource-scarce rural China in the contemporary era. Building upon literatures on developmental state, state capitalism, industrial policy, and platform economy, this dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework, termed Digital Developmental Village, to understand China’s rural e-commerce development against rural China’s broader socioeconomic and politico-institutional contexts and the evolution of China’s political economy by underscoring three levels of interactions between the central government, local governments, e-commerce platform giants, and rural entrepreneurs.
This dissertation draws upon the data from in-depth interviews with different kinds of participants involved with e-commerce at different places in which e-commerce-related activities occur through multi-site fieldwork across six East China provinces, together with data from secondary data gathering, to scrutinize interactions of four parties at each level. At the national level, this dissertation investigates the coevolution of the Digital Developmental Village model and finds that the bureaucratic evolution and emergence of new economic sector initially created and subsequently developed by private actors will be eventually subjected to the influence of China’s state capitalism. At the local level, in consideration of the factors of local governance approach, the pre-existing robust local economic sectors, and migration patterns, this dissertation creates a typological framework to explore the formation of e-commerce villages in varied settings of the combinations of three factors above. At the individual level, this dissertation finds that rural e-commerce entrepreneurs may achieve economic successes through some more intense forms of embeddedness, which are deemed commercially unwise in the extant literature, within differing local socioeconomic and politico-institutional contexts in China. Lastly, this dissertation analyzes the expansion of the Communist Party of China into rural e-commerce in the business incubator role and sees such organizational expansion as the efforts to implicitly exercise control over rural e-commerce. In sum, through top-down policy directives and bottom-up party organizational expansion, the Chinese state has been gradually transforming rural e-commerce to a new form of state capitalism with potential global impacts, which can empower resource-scarce villages and infuse two kinds of industrial policies to stimulate technological advances.
This dissertation draws upon the data from in-depth interviews with different kinds of participants involved with e-commerce at different places in which e-commerce-related activities occur through multi-site fieldwork across six East China provinces, together with data from secondary data gathering, to scrutinize interactions of four parties at each level. At the national level, this dissertation investigates the coevolution of the Digital Developmental Village model and finds that the bureaucratic evolution and emergence of new economic sector initially created and subsequently developed by private actors will be eventually subjected to the influence of China’s state capitalism. At the local level, in consideration of the factors of local governance approach, the pre-existing robust local economic sectors, and migration patterns, this dissertation creates a typological framework to explore the formation of e-commerce villages in varied settings of the combinations of three factors above. At the individual level, this dissertation finds that rural e-commerce entrepreneurs may achieve economic successes through some more intense forms of embeddedness, which are deemed commercially unwise in the extant literature, within differing local socioeconomic and politico-institutional contexts in China. Lastly, this dissertation analyzes the expansion of the Communist Party of China into rural e-commerce in the business incubator role and sees such organizational expansion as the efforts to implicitly exercise control over rural e-commerce. In sum, through top-down policy directives and bottom-up party organizational expansion, the Chinese state has been gradually transforming rural e-commerce to a new form of state capitalism with potential global impacts, which can empower resource-scarce villages and infuse two kinds of industrial policies to stimulate technological advances.
ContributorsYou, Tianlong (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Jurik, Nancy (Committee member) / Zhou, Min (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020