Sociology, 1954-2024

This thesis explores the emergence of the English-language call center industry in Mexico City. It explores the way in which the industry engages with the community of those forcibly returned from the United States. Often restricted by their lack of Spanish-speaking capability and/or enabled by their strength in the English-language, returnee employees significantly contribute to the industry as they can connect with American customers or business partners. While journalists and academics have explored this interaction between post-U.S. returnee migration and call center employment at large, this thesis asks: How do returnees use and shape call centers as places in which they can reinvent community, and how does this call center-returnee relationship impact Mexico City and the resettlement landscape of those forcibly returned at large? Through interviews with the forcibly returned community in Mexico City and their peers, I claim that call centers are a vital space within the resettlement process used by returnees to enter the global market, find and support one another, and reinvent community. They build these social networks both socio emotionally and materially, which emerge as integral in their own resettlement processes. These networks inspire institutional changes within the call center industry and distinctly situate returnee call center workers within the forcibly returned community at large in Mexico City.

Spoken language interpreting in U.S. educational settings remains a largely understudied area compared to sign language interpreting and other specialized fields. As a result, interpreters who serve language-minoritized families often navigate complex, underdefined roles. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with certified interpreters, bilingual staff, and ad-hoc language brokers, this qualitative study develops metaphorical descriptions that offer a deeper understanding of the roles educational interpreters perform. These role metaphors reflect interpreters’ dynamic role and alignment shifting, their negotiation of professional identity and collaboration with other members of the educational team, and the relational and linguistic work they do to build meaning across language and culture. Findings provide valuable insight into the plurality of actors who serve as interpreters, offer a foundation for developing professional standards and strengthening institutional support for interpreters in education, and calls attention to the importance of improving the quality of language access services in education.

Bolivia, with its enormous lithium reserves, has been earmarked as a potential global player in the lithium market, as the escalating demand for lithium worldwide has followed the renewables transition. However, despite this natural wealth and not much of a budding political momentum under Evo Morales' administration, Bolivia remains dismally absent from the global lithium market. This thesis posits that Bolivia's delayed entry to the "lithium race" does not stem solely from technical barriers or nationalist economic policies, but deeper structural, institutional, and socio-political failures that lie within the country's peripheral position in the global economy. The study-theoretically informed by world-systems theory, dependency theory, as well as the concept of embedded autonomy, critically examines how under Morales' government the lithium industrialization stirred historic Indigenous aspirations for sovereignty while replicating patterns of dependency and exclusion that have been experienced by communities in history. Based on eighteen semi-structured interviews with Indigenous leaders, local residents and municipal officials in the region surrounding the Salar de Uyuni, this research foregrounds the day-to-day existences and views of those most directly affected by lithium extraction. Early optimism toward a state-led model of lithium industrialization gradually disappeared into disillusionment when Indigenous communities began to realize that the same standard extractivist practice was being reproduced, along with environmental degradation, no local benefits, and decisions made without free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). This thesis combines historical analysis, sociological theory, and qualitative fieldwork to argue that meaningful lithium industrialization in Bolivia will need not only technical and financial resources but also a fundamental new thinking about models for resource governance. This study thus contributes to broader debates on post-extractivism, Indigenous resistance, and alternative pathways for development in peripheral states navigating global capitalist pressures.

Over the last nine years, California has come a long way in its efforts to expand state-sponsored Medi-Cal benefits through its Health for All campaign. The campaign aimed to expand full-scope healthcare coverage to ensure that all Californians, regardless of immigration status, would have access to healthcare through this state reform. For the first time, unauthorized Californians could seek full-scope coverage without worrying that being labeled as ‘ineligible immigrant’ would prevent them from being considered, including California’s farmworker population, of which three-fourths are unauthorized. Access to the healthcare coverage can create a much-needed health safety net for California’s unauthorized farmworker population who have been historically been excluded from healthcare reforms, living with disproportionately poor health outcomes and lack of quality care. With ths advent of the full-scope Medi-Cal expansions, I conducted ethnographic research in agricultural communities in California’s Central Valley, specifically the San Joaquin region, among 40 farmworkers seeking to secure access to specialized health care services provided by Medi-Cal. My objective was to learn how farmworkers are, most of them without solid legal standing, navigating the bureaucratic requirements needed to receive Medi-Cal assistance. This senior thesis is an investigation and documentation of their described reality experiencing the reverberating threads of exclusion encoded in the roadblocks they encountered at the application and renewal step.

While people with substance use issues make up only 8% of the U.S. population, they comprise nearly half of the nation’s prison population. Given the extremity with which incarceration is deployed as a response to addiction, this thesis asks: How does incarceration impact experiences of substance use and recovery, both during and after imprisonment? Criminologists have long examined the intersection of addiction and incarceration, often emphasizing crime as the central link. Meanwhile, critical addiction studies scholars have framed incarceration as a political response to addiction. This thesis seeks to broaden the conceptual foundations of this relationship by centering the lived experiences of those navigating both substance use and incarceration. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals who have struggled with addiction, this study explores how incarceration shapes the social, economic, mental, and physical dimensions of their lives. Using MaxQDA to conduct thematic coding and employing phenomenological analysis, this research traces how addiction and recovery are experienced across time and institutional space. In doing so, it presents how participants’ needs evolve through their contact with the prison system, the barriers they face in pursuing recovery, and the forms of resistance and agency they enact in response.

As Gen Z men trend more conservative and Gen Z women more liberal, scholars have identified social media as a key site of ideological polarization, especially around gender. While much cultural attention has been given to the “Alt-Right Pipeline” for exposing young men to misogynistic content, little empirical research has examined whether algorithms actually systematically promote Gender-Based Hate or whether similar patterns exist for women. This study addresses that gap through a sock puppet audit of Instagram’s recommendation algorithms. Eighteen sock puppet accounts, assigned to different content-preference treatments, were used to collect recommended posts over time. Posts were qualitatively coded using a deductive approach to assess three dimensions of diversity based on Michiels et al.'s (2022) definition of filter bubbles. To capture hostility toward any gender, this study introduces the concept of Gender-Based Hate (GBH). Findings offer insight into how algorithmic personalization may reinforce gender-hostile ideologies among young users.

Pittsburgh’s Strip District offers a look into how urban redevelopment disproportionately affects the communities within. Utilizing 20 semi-structured interviews, it was determined that individual experiences were dictated by certain characteristics that were investigated, like age or one’s social role in the neighborhood. These divergences in lifestyle and overall position in the Strip, therefore, complicate each individual’s perception of growth and their corresponding outcomes. Young residents, who occupy the new residential spaces introduced to the area, accept change as a positive, utilizing the refurbished environment and amenities to their advantage. However, business owners, belonging to an older demographic who better represent what the area once was, meet this change with apprehension. Concerns about fading identity, misguided policy, and displacement repeatedly expose the harmful effects of redevelopment in an urban context. Together, the findings demonstrate how growth presents itself unevenly, with any positive change benefiting only select groups.

This thesis examines how transnational entertainment brands shape identity and belonging through a case study of NCT, a modular K-pop group under SM Entertainment. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and the U.S., and 36 interviews with fans and industry professionals, the study explores how NCT’s decentralized structure, multilingual content, and visual branding enable regionally tailored fan engagement. Focusing on Korean and Asian American fans, it investigates how fans interpret NCT’s music, fashion, and subunits as tools for cultural connection, self-expression, and diasporic pride. Findings suggest that NCT operates not just as a musical act, but as a flexible platform through which fans emotionally engage, negotiate identity, and construct meaning. By centering fan perspectives, this thesis contributes to the sociology of music, diaspora studies, and media globalization, arguing that K-pop brands like NCT offer infrastructures for global fans to co-create cultural belonging across borders.

Students from wealthy backgrounds have long dominated elite universities in the United States. Still, in recent decades, institutions like Princeton have expanded financial aid to make college more accessible for low-income and first-generation college students. While these initiatives increase socioeconomic diversity, disparities in students' experiences persist, particularly in terms of social fit, access to resources, and institutional support. Existing research highlights the challenges low-income students face at elite institutions. Still, little attention has been given to the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in shaping these students’ pathways to and through college. This study examines how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) influence the experiences of low-income students at Princeton. Drawing on survey data from 55 undergraduates and semi-structured interviews with 25 of these students, this research explores their backgrounds, motivations, and challenges in navigating university life. These findings reveal that while Princeton provides financial support, it does not capture students’ struggles with resource navigation, social belonging, and emotional well-being, highlighting gaps in our understanding of adverse childhood experiences in the context of resilience. This study highlights two areas for growth: universities must extend their efforts beyond providing financial access to students to achieve true inclusivity. While acknowledging that early-life adversity continues to have lasting implications in adulthood, the ACE scale does not account for other childhood adversity that underlies their experiences.

While migration to more economically developed countries may be desirable for migrants settled outside their home countries (Bijwaard and Wahba 2023; Della Puppa, Montagna, and Kofman 2021; Mas Giralt 2017; Paul and Yeoh 2021), many migrants ultimately do not migrate, either by choice or due to constraints on their mobility. This thesis challenges the mobility bias in migration studies, particularly in the case of secondary migration. There are many reasons why people who have migrated to countries generally classified as belonging to the “global south” may be unwilling or unable to leave. In this thesis, I use the aspiration-capability framework proposed by Kerilyn Schewel (2020) to analyze three different forms of immobility among migrants. Analyzing thirty (30) semi-structured interviews with Haitian migrants in São Paulo, Brazil, I find that factors beyond individual economic maximization shape migrant immobility. More importantly, I show that immobility involves a complex interplay of pull, push, repel and retain factors, as well as specific capability profiles which together produce specific mobility outcomes. Thus, immobility should not be viewed as the default but rather as the result of elaborate decision-making processes.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is a substantial initiative that has had a tremendous impact on the housing market throughout the United States. The tax credit was created due to the privatization of the affordable housing industry. With this privatization, the United States government created the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with the intent of subsidizing private owners/operators who work to create affordable housing. This program has been a tremendous success overall, but this study looks at the disparity of LIHTC in rural versus urban areas, specifically in Texas. Privatization often leads to profit maximization, and this profit maximization can hinder rural affordable housing development and preservation. Through a comparative analysis of two rural cities and two urban cities, this study shows that the rural cities have a disproportionately lower amount of LIHTC-funded housing units per capita. This disparity is then understood through the 2025 Texas Qualified Allocation Plan, and how several factors of the plan, such as amenity-based scoring and rents calculated based on Area Median Income, inadvertently favor urban cities. Looking at this disparity and the causes involved, Karl Polanyi’s concepts of “embeddedness” and “double movement” and Viviana Zelizer's concept of “relational work” provide a useful framework to understand how policy and profit maximization have mixed to create the spatial disparity. This study recommends policy changes that can even out the incentives for the private sector to operate in rural cities to help close the LIHTC disparity in rural versus urban cities.

My thesis explores the transition of lacrosse from a sacred and spiritual Native American tradition to an upper class, predominantly white sport associated with high levels of class and wealth within the United States. Using sociological frameworks such as the sociology of religion, sport, schools, education, and markets, this study helps analyze how specific cultural, institutional, and economic factors reshaped the identity of the sport over time. As the sport progressed, the development of the game at the professional level through the National Lacrosse League (NLL), and Premier Lacrosse League (PLL), the study highlights how media advancements, marketing strategies, sponsorships, and iconic figures continued to push the game forward in the 21st century. The rapid progression of the game caused the original story of lacrosse to diminish, as institutional control began to take over and reshape the narrative of the sport. Many less fortunate Native American individuals that grew up in low-income communities and families were able to discover their own unique pathway that ultimately got them to the top of the sport today, many of them being some of the best players in the world. This shows that despite the sports shifting identity, Indigenous excellence and resilience still occurs. Through the lens of lacrosse, this thesis underscores how power dynamics and cultural shifts can cause communities and societies to adapt to new ways of living. However, the strong ties between lacrosse and the Indigenous heritage demonstrate that these cultural roots will always represent the history of the game, showing that social mobility has a strong connection within the world of lacrosse.

This research paper investigates the impact of “amenity migration” on the local populations in rural mountain towns during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as potential barriers to healthcare that arise when the infrastructure of these communities is strained by a large and sudden population boom. It aims to explore the distinct perspectives, challenges, and adaptations of local residents and healthcare providers by employing interviews as the primary method. The study delves into motivations to live in the mountains, housing limitations, remote work, community dynamics, and balance between full-time and part-time residents during the pandemic. Furthermore, this study takes an analytical approach to theories of social ambivalence as a means to understand the complex and contradictory emotions local populations may experience towards amenity migrants. The social determinants of health play a significant role in analyzing the needs of these communities as they continue to undergo change because of these in-migrants. This paper contributes to the existing literature by filling gaps in understanding the nuanced responses of locals, healthcare workers, ski patrollers, and mountain rescuers to the pandemic in rural settings, offering insights into their distinct coping strategies, perceptions, and contributions to community well-being. This paper aims to identify the existence of “amenity migrants'' in rural mountain towns proposed by previous literature, understand their impact on local populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the health landscape has been altered in the equitable distribution of healthcare. In bringing attention to this phenomenon, I aim to further inform policies and interventions that will support the diverse needs of both the locals and amenity migrants in the areas faced with the challenges posed by the pandemic.

My senior thesis research adapts the classic panoptic structure into a modern theoretical form, the “community panopticon,” based on social, economic, and physical capital. I contextualize each of these forms of capital as measurable indexes that alter the degree of Panoptic Perception in each neighborhood and residents’ subsequent responses to it. Quantitatively, I surveyed Chicagoland conducting multivariate and ordered logistic regression, and quadrant segmentation to measure how social, economic, and physical capital perceive panoptic surveillance and measure how residents respond to such. Qualitatively, I conducted semi-structured interviews to provide social and spatial context to the indices. Findings suggest that economic and social capital influence the extent of panoptic perception among Chicagoland residents, and the extent to which those capitals influence how neighborhoods respond. Additionally, qualitative results indicated that residents’ digital activity as social identifiers have indicative influences on the extent to which they feel watched.

This research explores how W.E.B. Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness takes new shape in the digital age, when identity is no longer seen through the eyes of others, but through the silent sorting of algorithms, feeds, and filtered metrics. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with primarily Black participants between the ages of 20 and 28, the study examines how race, class, gender, and geography intersect with platform design to shape experiences of visibility, fragmentation, and performance—particularly on Instagram and LinkedIn. While Du Bois’s double consciousness remains the central frame, the analysis expands to include theories of aesthetic labor, algorithmic bias, and platform capitalism, revealing how the demand to be legible online fractures the self into curated parts. Participants spoke of code-switching between platforms, silencing parts of themselves, withholding images, and crafting alternate accounts—not as acts of disappearance, but as quiet refusals to be flattened. These strategies suggest that resistance online is often not loud, but carefully rooted in a desire to remain whole within systems that reward polish over complexity, coherence over contradiction. By extending Du Bois’s vision into the realm of algorithmic life, this project reveals how the souls of Black folk are now rendered in code, optimized for visibility yet vulnerable to erasure. And yet, within the glitch, within the silence, something else endures: a blueprint for digital survival, a fragmented kind of sovereignty, and a demand not just to be seen, but to be free.

This thesis examines the ongoing influence of parental divorce during early years on how parent-child relationships develop as these children grow up and attend college. Most of the studies spotlight the immediate consequences of separation. However, this research delves deeper into how these dynamics shift after custody arrangements end and students step into autonomy. Drawing on twelve in-depth interviews with college students from divorced families, this study highlights four main themes: freedom from household alternation, uneven parental involvement, emotional stress during school breaks, and efforts to rebuild or redefine relationships in adulthood. Through qualitative analysis, the research shows how students reflect on their family past, set boundaries, and redefine love and support on their terms. This study explores how young adults manage parent–child relationships after divorce, highlighting resilience, growing independence, and shifts in self-awareness. It is beneficial to understand the long-term impact of divorce on identity and family connection.

The purpose of this research is to understand how social networks among Princeton University seniors influence job search strategies and employment outcomes across different socioeconomic backgrounds, and the role of informal connections. Specifically, I used different journals, articles, and novels that helped my understanding on the topic and influenced my conclusion. On top of that, I used statistics across different sources that gave me the evidence I needed in order to come to a conclusion. The sources and statistics were a huge help in allowing me to learn more about the topic of social networks and how informal connections come into play. Also, I was able to analyze over fifteen different Princeton seniors across different socioeconomic backgrounds through interviews in order to get real life experiences. The interviews were a crucial part in my research because they showed how Princeton seniors create social networks at Princeton, the impact of one’s socioeconomic background and informal connections, and the influence that social networks have in job search strategies and employment outcomes. Through all of this, I was able to find out that social networks influence Princeton seniors' job search strategies and employment outcomes by giving advice in the job search, connecting Princeton seniors with their network, job referrals, and job opportunities. The results suggest that social networks DO influence Princeton University seniors’ job search strategies and employment outcomes.

As technology is now regularly used in classroom environments, identifying its benefits and drawbacks has grown more important. Although research has studied its impact on young adults, it has not yet shown how a college setting can change social media’s influence. This study, based on interviews with twenty current Princeton students, aims to clarify the correlation between social media usage habits and the overall emotional responses that they can evoke. It finds that though students have an overall positive view of social media, which they use for communicating and networking, they cannot avoid its common side effects, such as lower quality relationships and skewed priorities. These factors, among others, are responsible for the presence and severity of their emotional responses.

In 2022 the United States Supreme Court eliminated the federal protection for abortion access in the landmark decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In the three years since, states have passed protective and restrictive abortion legislation, creating a patchwork of laws across the country. The recent 2024 election and the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidential term have created new political influences in healthcare, which are ongoing. This study aimed to understand how these political flashpoints have affected contraceptive decision-making and counseling. I interviewed medical professionals working in college health centers to gain valuable insight into how patients in the early stages of their reproductive lives are making contraceptive decisions and how providers are helping to navigate these uncertainties and anxiety-laden decisions. Legislation and politics affect healthcare decisions on the individual level, prompting providers to counsel with such considerations in mind—attempting to balance their patients’ concerns, best healthcare practices, state laws, and uncertainties about the future.