JEFFREY MONTEZ DE OCA
Ph.D. Sociology, University of Southern California, 2006
M.A. Cinema Studies, New York University,1999
B.A. Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley,1995
email: montezde@gmail.com
DISSERTATION TITLE: "All-American Sport for All Americans: Collegiate Football as Citizenship Practice During the Early Cold War"
Dissertation Chair: Michael Messner
Research and Teaching Areas: Social Theory, Cultural Sociology, Film and Media Studies, American Indian Boarding Schools, Sociology of Sport / Physical Cultural Studies, Social Inequalities (race, class, gender, sexuality, nationalism)
Research Interests
My dissertation takes a historical approach to problems of media, culture, and politics by looking at college football in the United States during the early Cold War (1947-1964) through the lens of cultural citizenship. This allows me to look at the simultaneity of race, class, gender, and sexuality within the US’s global imperialist strategies. I support my analysis with evidence from news media, trade journals, broadcast manuals, and communication policy from the time period. Ultimately, I argue that with the rise of television broadcasting and the proliferation of sport journalism (e.g. Sports Illustrated) college football created an ethical space that helped assimilate ethnic white men into the postwar political economy as workers and warriors with what I call “fortified masculinity.” I plan to continue this theoretical trajectory in my next research project that looks at how American Indian boarding schools used technologies of civilization such as sport and home economics to produce gendered citizens out of the children of sovereign nations. This project focuses on my tribe, the Seneca Nation of Indians, and uses personal history interviews as well as archival research. I expect the combination of critical race theory and native perspectives will push the existing literature on Indian boarding schools beyond simple description of boarding school life to theorize the coercive and gentle Americanization projects that characterize citizenship in the U.S. and add complexity to the idea of tribal identity.
Montez CV
Zoë Blumberg Corwin
Ph.D. Sociology, University of Southern California (expected in May 2008)
M.A. Sociology, University of Southern California, 2005
M.A. Spanish, Saint Louis University, 1999
B.A. Sociology, University of Southern California, 1993
email: zcorwin@usc.edu
DISSERTATION TITLE: "College, Connections and Foster Care: How Social Capital Affects Educational Attainment for Foster Youth"
DISSERTATION CHAIR: Michael Messner, William G. Tierney (co-chairs)
Research and Teaching Areas: Sociology of education, race, gender, qualitative methods
Research Interests
Of the over 500,000 youth currently in foster care in the United States, less than twenty percent enroll in college and less than five percent
graduate even though many voice college aspirations. The majority of students from foster care draw from unstable social networks when seeking support for college going due to the frequency these students tend to change residences and schools. Since valuable college-related information, skills and support tend to be accessed through social relationships, lack of sustained support can be particularly detrimental. My dissertation explores how the transient nature of foster care affects students’ abilities to gain and utilize social capital and navigate college-conducive social networks. Data from ethnographic interviews conducted with six foster youth as they prepared for and during their first year of college shed light on how foster youth evaluate and manage their resources given personal, institutional and social contexts that have the potential to hinder college going. This project developed in response to research I conducted on college access for under-served communities with the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at USC and reflects my commitment to working towards educational equity and the value I find in linking research with practice.
corwin CV
Nicole Willms
Ph.D. Sociology Candidate, University of Southern California, June 2009
M.A. Sociology, University of Southern California, 2006
B.A. Sociology/Anthropology and Spanish, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, 2000
email: willms@usc.edu
DISSERTATION TITLE: “Japanese-American Basketball: Constructing Ethnicity, Gender and Community”
Dissertation Chair: Michael Messner
Research and Teaching Areas: Sex and Gender, Race/Class Gender, Social Inequality, Sociology of Sport
Research Interests
My research centers on gender and sport and has been inspired by interests in studying the experiences of female athletes and in expanding ideas about the social construction of gender. A consistent theme that guides my research is exploring sites in sport that appear more progressive or egalitarian and that bring into question aspects of current theories on gender. My dissertation examines constructions of gender, race/ethnicity and community within the Japanese American basketball leagues. For many Japanese Americans in greater Los Angeles, basketball is a central activity. They have built a network of leagues and organizations that produce many local high school and college basketball talents. Despite similar opportunities for boys and girls, the majority of these talents are female, and these women have become the favored role models of the community. Given the traditional gender inequalities in sport, this situation makes for an intriguing case study. Through interviews, observations, and archival research, my dissertation project reveals the circumstances that facilitate this level of support for female athletes and illuminates how Japanese American men and women understand themselves as athletes, view their participation in the leagues, and relate to the successes of their female players.
Willms CV
Edward Flores
Ph.D. Sociology, University of Southern California, 2010
M.A.
Social Research Methods, University of Warwick (UK), 2003
B.A. Sociology, University of the Pacific, 2002
email: eoflores@usc.edu
DISSERTATION TITLE: "
“Faith and Community: Recovering Gang Members in Los Angeles”
Dissertation Chair:
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
Research and Teaching Areas:
Race/Class/Gender, Urban Sociology, Latina/o Sociology, International Migration, Religion
Research Interests
My dissertation examines how faith, through gendered interactions, shapes the experiences of recovering gang members from immigrant backgrounds. My dissertation draws upon participant observation and interview data at a Jesuit-based site and a Pentecostal church, to argue that adult, male Latino recovering gang members resist “downward acculturation” by reconstructing Latino masculinity. Urban, faith-based outreach is structured by broader forms of civic and religious participation in urban America; however, close mentorship, such as that in a patriarchal organization, provide recovering gang members with alternative models of performing masculinity. In order to most effectively re-construct masculinity and facilitate recovery, practices such as worship, testimonies, and informal social activities must transpose barrio practices and styles in a manner which does not inhibit cultural innovation. The body is one site where cultural practices and style are transposed in a symbolic way that facilitates recovery; although gang embodiment is habituated, elements of barrio masculinity can be transposed in ways that re-direct gang embodiment towards a reformed masculinity and facilitate recovery. Findings suggest that segmented assimilation theory should re-conceptualize acculturation as persisting through adulthood, and that Chicago-school inspired approaches to crime and deviance should account for the way in which faith-influenced gendered practices assist in recovery from gang life.
Flores CV
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