Abstracts are under review and accepted submissions will be posted on the website. We look forward to you joining us, for our themed “Coming Together + Staying Apart: The Individual and Community During COVID-19” 16th annual conference!
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ABSTRACTS
Wyatt Bettis
Sociology and Mathematics, UF
A Theoretical Quantitative Approach to Understanding Suicide During the COVID-19Pandemic– Applying Concepts of Convolution and Entanglement to Durkheim’s Social Variables That Lead to Suicide
Charting suicide rates in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies the need for a reformed approach to understanding suicide. This new approach to suicide calls for not only expanding Durkheim’s modernist empirical analysis of suicide by recognizing the importance of postmodern analysis– the impact of media, information technology, evolving knowledge, perception, and social relativity on suicide, but also attempts to build on the Durkheimian suicide model by proposing for an advanced quantitative model that factors in the complex dynamics of entangled emerging and dissipating social variables. This development incorporates ideas from systems theory, compound probability distributions, functional analysis, feedback, convolution, and multivariate statistics to provide an explanation for why Durkheim’s curvilinear U-shaped curve model for suicide lacked robustness during the United States COVID-19 lockdown, which displayed extremely high social regulation and low social integration without a corresponding growth in the suicide rate.
Sofia Quinn
Sociology, UF
The paper researches and investigates the effects of racism on the mental health of minorities. The impacts that racism has on individuals are important in understanding ways to prevent it and stopping discrimination. It is investigated that racism and discrimination greatly affect minorities who hold less socioeconomic power in American society. Concepts such as the system of racial stratification, ethnicity, identity, and perceived discrimination are explored. Overall, the paper aims to answer the question, “how does racism and discrimination affect the mental health and psychological wellbeing of racial minorities in the United States?” Methods to answer this question include gaining data and statistical information on depression and stress rates of minorities in the United States, as well as using other sources to further support the findings. In the sources used, data was gathered from several studies, some including telephone surveys and face-to-face interviews. Data from these sources was used to determine the effects that racism has on the psychological wellbeing of people of color. The research found that perceived discrimination and racism causes an increase of stress levels, and an increase of the chance of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, the decline of mental health in these individuals can cause poor judgment. As a result, people of color are more likely to get involved in self-destructive behaviors such as crime and suicidal thoughts.
Unna Yared
Sociology, UF
In this study, I aim to answer what impact does support for United States (US) nationalism have on attitudes towards foreign policy in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region? The US has increasingly grown their presence in MENA nations, including aggressive and violent actions. Recently, scholars have called for more works examining the connection between the US and MENA beyond traditional models (Kaufman and Niner 2019). I plan to address the research question and issue through data collected in the 2016 Chicago Council Survey of American Public Opinion on US Foreign Policy to examine whether feelings of US nationalism is related to increases in support for US coalitions against Islamic extremist groups in MENA countries. The dataset asks participants a range of questions about American foreign policy, including groups in the Middle Eastern as well as other topics like North Korea. I focus on questions regarding terrorism, the MENA region,and nationalism. The final sample consisted of 2,061 participants. I conducted ordered logistic regression with Stata version 16.0 to assess the association between support for nationalism and a Likert-scale measure of attitudes towards US-led coalitions against extremist Islamic groups in the MENA region with adjustment for control variables. I find that all models are statistically significant, indicating that inclusion of the primary predictor variable –believing the US is the greatest nation –along with the three other categories of predictor variables contribute to explaining attitudes on how US-led coalitions affect the situation against violent Islamic groups in Syria and Iran more than chance alone.
Aubrey Mys
Psychology and Sociology, UF
There is a low percentage of voter turnout among eligible voters in the United States, especially given the disproportional voting rates among Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Latino voters compared to the voting rates of White Non-Hispanic voters. This legal research project analyzed the data of the voting restriction proposal and bills that have been proposed by Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and New Mexico since the 2020 election to gain a better understanding of what the proposed voting bills were in each state by utilizing a comparative analysis of the proposed bills and laws across the states, and summarizing the legal reaction to each proposed bill in terms of lawsuits to better understand this low percentage of voter turnout. The data was reviewed using a three-pronged approach.
First, comparability was established among the qualitative dataset to compare their approach and specific implications in the proposed bill, success in passing the proposed bills, and the legal reaction to the bills/laws in each state. Second, the voting accessibility laws were noted in each state and explore the links between the proposed bills and the voting accessibility laws in each state. Third, the impact the proposed voting bills would have in each state was reported. The qualitative comparative analysis among the states revealed that all the states proposed voting bills, only Florida and South Carlonia passing the proposed bills. The research report concludes with recommendations and a legal opinion piece to improve voter turnout in the United States.
Krysova Ekaterina
Economics, UF
The Effect of Government Spending on Economic Stimuli During COVID Lockdowns on Change in Unemployment Rate.
During the past two years, due to the COVID pandemic, our planet faced one of the biggest economic crises in its modern history. In this research paper, we investigated the correlation between government spending on economic stimuli in European countries and the effects on the unemployment rate increase caused by COVID-related restrictions and closures. The results of the study can be useful to see which economic policies worked efficiently in reducing the unemployment rate and which did not during COVID lockdowns. Moreover, this study helps to assess the effectiveness of these measures. The sample of this paper includes data from 23 European OECD member countries about the length of COVID-19 lockdowns, unemployment rates, excess deaths, and government spending on economic stimuli from January 2020 until September 2021, monthly. Our findings indicate that the government spending on debt contract relief for households during COVID lockdowns has a significant positive impact on the unemployment rate. Contrary to what was expected, the variables in the study that did not affect the unemployment rate are excess deaths, GDP per capita, fiscal measures, and income support. Providing economical support for other countries turned out to have a negative effect on the unemployment rate. Moreover, lockdown duration turned out to have a strong correlation with the unemployment rate. Keywords: Economics, COVID-19, Unemployment Rate, Economic Stimuli, Government Response. Themes: Economics, Public Policy.
Dominique Fairley
Sociology, UF
This qualitative study will examine experiences of colorism and other kinds of discrimination towards Queer and/or Transgender, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC) while navigating multiple intersecting, marginalized identities in different kinds of spaces. Data will consist of approximately 50 to 70 semi-structured interviews as well as two weeks’ worth of loosely prompted personal journal entries written by participants in this community. By applying a combination of thematic and narrative analytic methods, I will develop a more thorough understanding of how the phenomenon of colorism functions within and outside of social and physical spaces for queer and trans people of color. By utilizing Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory, this study will embrace an intersectional feminist approach to explore unique experiences across race, ethnicity, color, gender, sexuality, and class.
Muharrem (Mu) Bagriyanik
Political Science, UF
Social Movements and Social Media: Topic Modeling of 2013 the Gezi Movement in Turkey Using Twitter Data
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, scholars studying social movements started to focus more on the importance of social media as an essential tool for collective action in which people share their grievances around hashtags, memes, and personalized action frames. This paper examines how social media users interact by using the hashtag tweets posted on Twitter. Empirically, this paper analyzes 1,297,206 tweets posted during the Turkish Gezi movement from 28 May 2013 to 20 August 2013, collecting a dataset by using the two most used hashtags: #direngeziparki (resistgezipark) and #occupygezi. Tweets were collected using Twitter Application Programming Interface (API). I used Structural Topic Modeling (STM) to analyze how people reacted to social movements and shared their grievances and beliefs on Twitter. This paper shows that frames used during the protests changed through the protests, and people reacted instantly to events happening on the ground. This study also helps us to understand what critical events shaped social movement during the protests by using topic modeling.
Keywords: stm, NLP, Machine Learning, topic modeling, social movement, gezi movement, gezi protest, social media, twitter
Martina Speranza
Sociology, UF
Untangling processes of racialization in Argentina: An analysis of mediatic representations of indigenous assassinations
This study examines racialization processes through mediatic representations of two Mapuche activists’ deaths in Argentina. Racism is systematically entrenched in institutions and social structures and has persistently marginalized indigenous and mestizos since Spanish settlers throughout Argentinean history. I will use the concept of whiteness to analyze racialized perceptions and representations of the deaths of Maldonado’s, a white activist, and Nahuel’s, an indigenous activist, through newspaper articles. My research questions are how does whiteness as a system of domination persist through the Argentinean racialized social system?How does this system influence the media and through it shapes public views of white and non-white social activists? I argue that whiteness is prevalent and persistent in the Argentinean social structure, in that context the media becomes a racialized white space that reproduces racist discourses and racial inequalities. I will conduct an inductive and qualitative content analysis of28 national coverage newspaper articles to observe how the two deaths are portraited in the media. I expect to find that news media in Argentina is conformed as a white space and operates as an agent of whiteness by producing and communicating the logic of whiteness by portraying Maldonado’s death as more relevant and baffling than Nahuel’s.
Eunah Jung
International Relations and Comparative Politics, UF
Do women politicians represent minority ethnic group?: An experiment with Rwandan women legislators
Are women politicians more likely to represent women voters’ interests despite the absence of political incentives? This paper aims to examine the ingroup bias and political behavior of women politicians who receive requests for assistance from ethnic minority female voters in ethnically divided contexts. This article adapts the experimental research on racial ingroup bias in American politics to the African context, using the case of Rwanda. Although Rwanda has the highest proportion of female parliamentarians in the world, the country also has a history of ethnic-based conflict two ethnic groups that represent a large proportion of the population: Hutus and Tutsis. Therefore, the political incentives for female politicians to represent the interests of women of more marginalized ethnic groups may be weak. Specifically, the paper explores how Rwandan women politicians react to requests for help concerning domestic abuse from women voters from minority ethnic groups (such as the Twa who represent 1% of the population). The paper aims to examine the ingroup bias by Rwandan women politicians through a field experiment that gauges the e-mail response rate of the current Chamber of Deputies in the Parliament of Rwanda. This paper has implications for research on the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity for elite political behavior.
Alawode Oluwatobi
Sociology, UF
Association between educational assortative mating and child health care utilization in Nigeria: Findings from a National Survey
Child mortality and morbidity that can be averted by utilization of child healthcare is high in Nigeria. Literature is replete with determinants of child healthcare utilization with education identified as prominent, but little is known about how similarities and dissimilarities between couples’ education attainment relates to child health care utilization. This study thereby fills this gap in literature by investigating the association between educational assortative mating and child health care services utilization through the lens of the family systems theory. Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey with sample of 5727 children aged 12-23 months who received or did not receive full immunization and 3714 children 7-35 months who sought or did not seek treatment for fever/cough was analyzed using binary logistic regression. For child immunization, children of hypogamous women were more immunized (89%). Couple’s educational dissimilarity is associated with higher likelihood of child immunization, children of women in hypogamous [aOR=2.36; CI: 1.65-3.36] and hypergamous [aOR=1.63; CI: 1.30-2.04] relationship respectively are more likely to receive full vaccination compared to those in homogamous relationship. For fever/cough, 77% of the children of women in hypergamous relationship received treatment. Also, hypergamy are significantly more likely to seek treatment for fever/cough for their children [aOR=1.69; CI: 1.37-2.09]. The findings suggest an association between educational assortative mating and child healthcare utilization, and this could be explained recent reported rise in women education. Policy measures should continue promoting a policy like ‘education for all’ that could further close the dissimilarity in couple’s educational level.
Mai Frndjibachian
International Relations, UF
Covid-19 Pandemic in Vietnam: Response Policies and Increased State Capacity
The outbreak of Covid-19 was a defining moment that set into motion a series of change which has transformed multiple aspects of life across different sociopolitical and economic dimensions. Is Covid-19, and similar health crises, always an antithesis to national and international institutions? Or could the pandemic be an exogenous shock that enable states as institutionalized actors to reinforce and/or enhance their capacity? Building upon Lindvall and Teorell’s (2017) conceptual framework on state capacity, this paper examines the case of Vietnam and argues that Covid-19 presents an opportunity for states as institutionalized actors to ‘turn the tables,’ significantly increasing their base of resources towards improved short-term state capacity at a rate beyond the one set under ‘normal’ sociopolitical conditions. As the pandemic continues, there is a high chance that short-term increases would consolidate into institutionalized state capacity.
Key words: Vietnam, state capacity, resource pathways.
Barbara Sanchez
Sociology, UF
Cyberstalking continues to be a prominent online phenomenon, particularly among youth. Several obstacles are faced within research on cyberstalking, particularly related to inconsistent definitions and understandings of what it is. Within the context of social media, it is especially difficult to understand the boundaries that define behaviors as cyberstalking, considering several factors such as high levels of interactivity, sharing of personal information, and afforded anonymity—to name a few. Interviews from a previous study asked 17 college students various questions related to their understandings, concerns, and behaviors in relation to cyberstalking. This paper looks to understand how these participants rationalize their participation in what they define as cyberstalking through techniques of neutralization theory. Several examples within these interviews show that participants believe that on the one hand there is cyberstalking deemed as “unacceptable” and which almost unanimously they do not participate in; while on the other hand there are “less severe” and “quiet” forms of cyberstalking they find to be informally acceptable, and a form which almost all admit to participating in—one way or another. Techniques of neutralization can aid in understanding how these students rationalize these different extremes and their participation in the online surveillance of others.
Ayesha Anklesaria, Crystal Diaz, Nina Franklin, Joashilia Jeanmarie, Racheal Jones, Megan Meehan, Daniela Ordoñez, Sebastian Rioux, and Autumn McClellan
UF
Examining Racial Bias in Perceived Worthiness of Housing Aid Candidates
The decline of overt instances of racism and claims of a post-racial society defy the experiences of people of color, who continue to experience racial bias. Furthermore, recent disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to housing insecurity. While there are many studies which examine racial discrimination in housing, employment, and the criminal justice system, there are far fewer studies which examine racial discrimination in prosocial or helping behaviors. The present study seeks to understand the role of aversive racism in perceptions of worthiness of candidates for charitable housing assistance.
The research team developed a survey experiment based on two fictional biographies for housing assistance candidates (one biography intends to demonstrate a high level of need for housing assistance and the other to demonstrate a lower level of need); these biographies were either shown without a photo or were accompanied by an AI-generated photo of a white woman or a black woman, thus creating six experimental conditions (2 biographies x 3 photo options). Data was collected from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk from individuals who were at least 18-years-old and residing within the United States. After providing information about their attitudes and behaviors related to charitable organizations and giving, respondents were shown one of the experimental conditions and asked to evaluate the worthiness of that candidate to receive housing assistance.
The research team will analyze the data, looking for statistically significant differences in the perceptions of worthiness among the six experimental conditions as evidence of aversive racism.
Terri Bailey
Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies and Research, UF
The poem “Normally” from the anthology 2020: The Year That Changed America (2021) addresses issues and emotions that arose during the early days of the pandemic quarantine. The poem focuses on fears, social ills, and isolation experienced during the onset of the pandemic. Topics illuminated include politics, the economy, religion, and ableism. Though it is not the typical, research-based academic contribution, “Normally” offers relevant commentary on how COVID altered what was considered normal social behavior before the pandemic, infection paranoia, and how human interaction has changed in societies worldwide.