Matching Items (14)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Social Research
- Creators: Adelman, Madelaine
- Creators: Stancliff, Michael
Description
Wage theft is a national epidemic that only recently became the focus of increasing research, critical public questioning, and activism. Given the socio- political climate in Maricopa County, Arizona and the heightened national attention on the state, this study answers important questions about the work experiences of immigrant workers in the region. Through an analysis of interviews with 14 low-wage Mexican workers from a local worker rights center, I explore workers' access to traditional recourse, the effects of wage theft on workers and families, and the survival strategies they utilize to mitigate the effects of sudden income loss. By providing an historical overview of immigration and employment law, I show how a dehumanized and racialized labor force has been structurally maintained and exploited. Furthermore, I describe the implications of two simultaneous cultures on the state of labor: the culture of fear among immigrants to assert their rights and utilize recourse, and the culture of criminality and impunity among employers who face virtually no sanctions when they are non-compliant with labor law. The results indicate that unless the rights of immigrant workers are equally enforced and recourse is made equally accessible, not only will the standards for pay and working conditions continue to collapse, but the health of Latino communities will also deteriorate. I assert that in addition to structural change, a shift in national public discourse and ideology is critical to substantive socio-political transformation.
ContributorsSanidad, Cristina (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This paper is seeking to use exploratory factor analysis to construct a numeric representation of Hill Collin's matrix of domination. According to Hill Collins, the Current American matrix of domination, or the interlocking systems of oppression, includes race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status, disability, and age. The study uses exploratory factor analysis to construct a matrix of domination scale. The study launched an on-line survey (n=448) that was circulated through the social network Facebook to collect data. Factor analysis revealed that the constructed matrix of domination represents an accurate description of the current social hierarchy in the United States. Also, the constructed matrix of domination was an accurate predictor of the probability of experiencing domestic abuse according to the current available statistics.
ContributorsAzab, Marian (Author) / Quan, H. L. T. (Thesis advisor) / Keil, Thomas (Committee member) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Interviews of nine managers within the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division's Western Region were conducted by a researcher who also works as a Wage and Hour Investigator. The intention of this research was to survey the differences in trafficking-related training and experience throughout the region, to examine the role of the Wage and Hour Division in human trafficking casework, and to explore potential areas for growth. This thesis recommends that upper level agency management produces standards for training, interagency engagement, and procedures and also provides suggestions for best practices and effective enforcement.
ContributorsNorberg, Katherine Joanne (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In this study, the researcher develops a documentary-driven methodology to understand the ways four women in the United States use their involvement in the belly dance phenomenon to shape their ongoing individual identity development. The filmmaking process itself and its efficacy as a process to promote self-understanding and identity growth among the participating belly dancers, are also investigated phenomenologically. Methodological steps taken in the documentary-driven methodology include: initial filmed interviews, co-produced filmed dance performances, editorial interviews to review footage with each dancer, documentary film production, dancer-led focus groups to screen the film, and exit interviews with each dancer. The project generates new understandings about the ways women use belly dance to shape their individual identities to include: finding community with other women in private women's spaces, embodying the music through the dance movements, and finding liberation from their everyday "selves" through costume and performance.
ContributorsWatkins, Ramsi Kathryn (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Hegmon, Michelle (Committee member) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the discourse surrounding proposed solutions to the immigration phenomenon in the United States. I conducted two qualitative media analyses on the rhetoric and conceptual frames found in mass media newscasts reporting on the immigration debate. The first analysis covered the general immigration debate and the second covered the appearance of American southwest ranchers. Specifically the analyses contrasted the media's coverage of root economic causes to the immigration phenomenon in comparison to reactionary solutions as proposed by leading immigrant attrition organizations such as the immigration think tank, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Republican linguist, Frank Luntz. The main argument of this thesis is based on an analysis of how the media has used southwestern ranchers as expert witnesses for reactionary solutions on a national level. An acute qualitative media analysis was used to compare the rhetoric found in the media coverage of southwestern ranchers versus the rhetoric found in 12 in-depth interviews I conducted with ranchers in the American southwest. This thesis contends that the media has successfully turned southwestern ranchers into spokespersons for border security rhetoric, furthering the binary debates on border security and immigration reform and thus obscuring the conditions which force migrants to leave their home countries. The grounding theoretical framework for this thesis is based on David Altheide's qualitative media analysis which identifies how certain frames and common narratives ultimately construct a way of discussing the problem or the kind of discourse that will follow. This was structured on Atheide's qualitative media analysis protocols to dissect mass media newscasts covering the immigration debate and more specifically the mass media's coverage of southwestern ranchers. The qualitative media analyses were employed to determine whether the discourse found in nightly newscasts falls in line with root causes of immigration or FAIR's concern with reactionary solutions. To further assess the media's ability to shape discourse, and ultimately policy, these qualitative analyses were compared with in-depth interviews of the ranchers.
ContributorsFuente, Nicolás Antonio de la (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This dissertation explores vulnerability to extreme heat hazards in the Maricopa County, Arizona metropolitan region. By engaging an interdisciplinary approach, I uncover the epidemiological, historical-geographical, and mitigation dimensions of human vulnerability to extreme heat in a rapidly urbanizing region characterized by an intense urban heat island and summertime heat waves. I first frame the overall research within global climate change and hazards vulnerability research literature, and then present three case studies. I conclude with a synthesis of the findings and lessons learned from my interdisciplinary approach using an urban political ecology framework. In the first case study I construct and map a predictive index of sensitivity to heat health risks for neighborhoods, compare predicted neighborhood sensitivity to heat-related hospitalization rates, and estimate relative risk of hospitalizations for neighborhoods. In the second case study, I unpack the history and geography of land use/land cover change, urban development and marginalization of minorities that created the metropolitan region's urban heat island and consequently, the present conditions of extreme heat exposure and vulnerability in the urban core. The third study uses computational microclimate modeling to evaluate the potential of a vegetation-based intervention for mitigating extreme heat in an urban core neighborhood. Several findings relevant to extreme heat vulnerability emerge from the case studies. First, two main socio-demographic groups are found to be at higher risk for heat illness: low-income minorities in sparsely-vegetated neighborhoods in the urban core, and the elderly and socially-isolated in the expansive suburban fringe of Maricopa County. The second case study reveals that current conditions of heat exposure in the region's urban heat island are the legacy of historical marginalization of minorities and large-scale land-use/land cover transformations of natural desert land covers into heat-retaining urban surfaces of the built environment. Third, summertime air temperature reductions in the range 0.9-1.9 °C and of up to 8.4 °C in surface temperatures in the urban core can be achieved through desert-adapted canopied vegetation, suggesting that, at the microscale, the urban heat island can be mitigated by creating vegetated park cool islands. A synthesis of the three case studies using the urban political ecology framework argues that climate changed-induced heat hazards in cities must be problematized within the socio-ecological transformations that produce and reproduce urban landscapes of risk. The interdisciplinary approach to heat hazards in this dissertation advances understanding of the social and ecological drivers of extreme heat by drawing on multiple theories and methods from sociology, urban and Marxist geography, microclimatology, spatial epidemiology, environmental history, political economy and urban political ecology.
ContributorsDeclet-Barreto, Juan (Author) / Harlan, Sharon L (Thesis advisor) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Boone, Christopher (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In spite of numerous legal interventions and a fairly strong legal capacity compared to other neighboring countries, Zimbabwean law enforcement and judiciary have failed to overcome Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). This research examines the role of customary law in the continued prevalence of IPV among Zimbabwean women, particularly, the subtle ways in which customary law legitimates the ideals of patriarchal domination in the communal and legal handling of IPV cases. The study utilized qualitative methodology in the form of structured interviews as well as pre-interview questionnaires. Eighteen women who identified as IPV survivors or victims were recruited using snowball sampling method whereby each person interviewed was asked to suggest additional people who were either present victims or survivors of IPV. Five lawyers from Chinhoyi, ten lawyers from Harare, ten police officers from Chinhoyi and ten police officers from Harare were identified using judgement or purposive sampling where subjects are chosen due to availability. The research established that IPV is a way in which abusers exercise their assumed patriarchal rights over women. Likewise, police officers are also influenced by attitudes and mentalities acquired from customary law in the way they handle IPV cases which resultantly leads to secondary victimization of IPV victims. The research concluded that much work still needs to be done by the judiciary, law enforcement and the community to combat the prevalence of IPV in Zimbabwe.
ContributorsMarekera, Shantel (Author) / Durfee, Alesha (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Kittilson, Miki (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
ABSTRACT
This study focused on the experiences of biracial Asian/white young people in Arizona – specifically, their racial identity; the formation of that identity over time; their sense of belonging in their state and nation; their views on the common societal conceptions of what it means to be an American; and their own conceptions of Americanism. Prior research indicates that racial identity formation for biracial people is usually a process over time as they work through prevalent racism, mono-racism, and mono-centricity. Anti-Asian sentiment and legislation, miscegenation laws, and rules of hypodescent (one-drop rules) also have deep historical roots in the U.S.
This history has left a wake in which all Americans still live and operate today. However, there is also literature that suggests that current society may be headed in new directions. Multiracial people have been the fastest growing demographic in the last two Census polls, and research suggests (and my study corroborates) that the biracial experience often comes with not only challenges but also myriad benefits, to both self and others.
My research is qualitative in nature, and each of the eleven respondents in the study participated in a first interview, a second interview (two weeks later) and a focus group. Abductive coding of the resulting transcripts was around five main themes and twenty sub-themes. The findings both reflected some of this nation’s fraught history (reflected in “American = White” and “Whiteness as Default” subthemes) and provided a hope for the future (especially in the subthemes of “Protean as Strength,” “Dual Perspective,” “Dual Empathy,” and “Self as Quintessential American”). My conclusions indicate that as multiracial people become increasingly common in the U.S. population (as is predicted on a grand scale) and given some of their strengths and unique perspectives on race, their very existence might aid in eradicating racism in society as a whole. Multiracial people may indeed be the quintessential Americans of the future and that may bode well for race relations more generally.
ContributorsChoi, Suzanne Carroll (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth B (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Sexual harassment has emerged as a widespread problem facing women in public space in Egypt. Activism to combat sexual harassment began in 2005. However, just prior to and in the years following the January 25, 2011 Egyptian Revolution, which witnessed an increase in the collective sexual harassment, assault and rape of women, this activism has increased. Subsequently, scholarly attention to sexual harassment and public sexual violence has also expanded. Much of the attention in scholarly analyses has been directed toward politically motivated sexual violence, focused on understanding the state commissioning of sexual violence against female protestors to drive them from protest participation. There is an emerging critique of activist approaches that seems to ignore the politicalized nature of sexual harassment to focus instead on “cultural” targets. The early work of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) and current work of HarassMap have been criticized for depoliticizing sexual harassment by failing to include an analysis of state-commissioned sexual violence in their work. Similarly, both have been accused of expanding the scope of the security state by calling for increased policing of public space to protect women from “culturally-bad” men.
With data collected through one year of participant observation with HarassMap, interviews with activists from eleven anti-sexual harassment initiatives and advocacy NGOs, and community-level surveys with non-activist individuals, this dissertation argues that “cultural” work undertaken through the community-based approaches by entities like ECWR and HarassMap is, in fact, an inherently political process, in which political engagement represents both an attempt to change political culture and state practice and a negotiative process involving changing patriarchal gender norms that underpin sexual harassment at a society-wide level. New conceptualizations of sexual harassment promoted by anti-sexual harassment initiatives and NGOs in Egypt frame it as a form of violence against women, and attempt to make sexual harassment an offense that may be criminalized. Yet, this dissertation contends there is a tension between activist and widespread public understandings of sexual harassment, predicated on the incomplete framing of sexual harassment as a form of violence.
With data collected through one year of participant observation with HarassMap, interviews with activists from eleven anti-sexual harassment initiatives and advocacy NGOs, and community-level surveys with non-activist individuals, this dissertation argues that “cultural” work undertaken through the community-based approaches by entities like ECWR and HarassMap is, in fact, an inherently political process, in which political engagement represents both an attempt to change political culture and state practice and a negotiative process involving changing patriarchal gender norms that underpin sexual harassment at a society-wide level. New conceptualizations of sexual harassment promoted by anti-sexual harassment initiatives and NGOs in Egypt frame it as a form of violence against women, and attempt to make sexual harassment an offense that may be criminalized. Yet, this dissertation contends there is a tension between activist and widespread public understandings of sexual harassment, predicated on the incomplete framing of sexual harassment as a form of violence.
ContributorsAbdelmonem, Angie (Author) / Eder, James (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Thesis advisor) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Rizzo, Helen (Committee member) / El-Meehy, Asya (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Information concerning sexual minorities is conspicuously absent from secondary education curriculums. Student attitudes toward sexual diversity are impacted, and those entering higher educational environments are at a disadvantage when faced with diverse university populations. This study attempted to close the information gap among first year college students and to improve attitudes by teaching about sexual minorities, especially gays and lesbians. In addition to their standard coursework, 41 student participants (31 in the intervention group, and 10 in the control group) who were enrolled in required introductory college courses received six short lessons on sexual diversity. Mixed methods data collection and analysis included a pre and post intervention survey, the Riddle Homophobia Scale (1985), and qualitative electronic discussion boards throughout the intervention. Surveys revealed a significant decrease in negative attitudes but no increase in more affirming attitudes. Qualitative data showed somewhat inconsistent results with quantitative surveys, but allowed deeper analysis of the familial, social, religious and societal influences on student attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning (LGBQ) people. Discussion includes possible explanations for the findings, suggestions for future research, and suggests refinements of the Riddle Homophobia Scale.
ContributorsSpalding, Mark Donald (Author) / Rotheram-Fuller, Erin (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Artiles, Alfredo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016