Department of Social Sciences & Historical Studies
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Item Review of Waite, Kevin, West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire(The Civil War Monitor, 0021-07) Zander, Cecily N.As an historian of the Civil War’s westernmost reaches, I have been eagerly anticipating the publication of Kevin Waite’s West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire. Waite’s book is a significant achievement of scholarship, building on older literatures of slavery, western expansion, and nineteenth-century imperialism while advancing a newer body of work grappling with alternative forms of coercive and unfree labor in the United States, the borderlands, the significance of the American West to the Civil War, and the interconnected relationship between the West and South during the Civil War era. Waite reveals not only the ways in which Southerners and slaveholders imagined the Southwest, but also examines the lasting consequences of those pro-slavery imperial visions for a region most Americans do not associate with slaveholding.Item Germany’s PDS: Between East and West(International Institute of Political Science, 2002) Olsen, JonathanAs with other communist successor parties, Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) enjoyed a political comeback in the mid-1990s. The PDS's success can be explained by many eastern German voters' disenchantment with the social, cultural, and economic effects of reunification as well as by the distinctive regional and fragmented character of the German Political Party System that allows the PDS, as the self-proclaimed defender of "eastern interests," disproportionate political influence. The PDS is faced with a dilemma, however. In the long-term it will have to become a true all-German party of the left if it wishes to survive electorally. Yet in becoming an all-German party the PDS risks losing the distinctive eastern identity that has been so essential to its success hitherto.Item Location choice patterns of computer use in the United States(Institute of Library and Information Science, National Taiwan Normal University, 2009) Yi, Zhixian; Yang, Philip Q.There is little research on the patterns of computer use outside home or work. This study examines who is more or less likely to use a computer at a location other than work or home by using the 2002–2004 General Social Survey data and logistic regression analysis. Demographic variables (such as age, race, marital status, and region), socioeconomic status (such as education and family income), self employment, and satisfaction with financial situation are significant predictors of computer use at locations other than home or work; but occupation and gender make no difference. The findings will help institutions to provide computer infrastructure support and services for customers in public places, and especially help schools and libraries to improve computer labs and services.Item Trends in black-white church integration(Association For Ethnic Studies, 2009) Yang, Philip Q.; Smith, StarlitaHistorically, the separation of blacks and whites in churches was well known (Gilbreath 1995; Schaefer 2005). Even in 1968, about four years after the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still said that “eleven o'clock on Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week” (Gilbreath 1995:1). His reference was to the entrenched practice of black and white Americans who worshiped separately in segregated congregations even though as Christians, their faith was supposed to bring them together to love each other as brothers and sisters. King's statement was not just a casual observation. One of the few places that civil rights workers failed to integrate was churches. Black ministers and their allies were at the forefront of the church integration movement, but their stiffest opposition often came from white ministers. The irony is that belonging to the same denomination could not prevent the racial separation of their congregations. In 1964, when a group of black women civil rights activists went to a white church in St. Augustine, Florida to attend a Sunday service, the women were met by a phalanx of white people with their arms linked to keep the activists out (Bryce 2004). King's classic “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was a response to white ministers who criticized him and the civil rights movement after a major civil rights demonstration (King [2002]).Item How student satisfaction factors affect perceived learning(Indiana University's Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET), 2010-01) Lo, Celia C.Data from students in two sections of a general education course offered at a research university in spring 2009 were used to explore whether student satisfaction factors are associated with perceived learning as rated by students. A list of 22 elements in the learning environment was explored. The 22 were used in creating 3 satisfaction factors related to the roles of student, instructor, and policy. The study showed all of these satisfaction factors to be associated with higher rates of perceived learning, measured via students’ expectations of academic success. The findings’ implications for practice are briefly discussed.Item Social distances of whites to racial or ethnic minorities(Association For Ethnic Studies, 2011) Michalikova, Nina; Yang, Philip Q.Prior research on social distance between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has focused mainly on attitudes of white Americans toward African Americans. Extending previous research, this study analyzes social distances of whites to racial or ethnic minority groups by investigating how whites feel about blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. The main hypothesis is that whites feel coolest toward blacks, warmest toward Asians, and somewhat in between toward Hispanics. The 2002 General Social Survey and ordinary least squares regression are used to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that contrary to our hypothesis, whites feel coolest toward Asians, warmest toward Hispanics, and somewhat in between toward blacks. Nativity, religious similarity/dissimilarity, racial hierarchy and tension, proximity of the country of origin, and group diversity may offer plausible explanations for the unexpected result. This study also examines which types of whites are more likely to maintain a greater or smaller social distance with the three minority groups. Implications of the findings for race and ethnic relations today are addressed.Item Promoting student learning by having college students participate in an online environment(Indiana University's Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET), 2011-04) Lo, Celia C.; Johnson, Ebony; Tenorio, KimberlyUsing data collected in spring 2009 from students at a southern research university enrolled in either of 2 sections of a general education course that fulfilled a social/behavioral sciences graduation requirement, the present study examined whether participating in online assignments enhanced students’ satisfaction with those assignments and with their learning. Online assignments included chapter exams, video questions, and survey questions; they were due weekly. Additional online assignments were 2 threaded discussions over the semester. The study used subjective and objective measures of student learning. Overall results confirmed that having students participate in online assignments can promote student satisfaction and foster critical thinking and deep learning. Practice implications are briefly discussedItem Trust in doctors: Are African Americans less likely to trust their doctors than white Americans?(Sage, 2012) Guiffey, Thomas; Yang, Philip Q.Prior research yields mixed results about black–white difference in trust in their doctors, and existing studies are often based on nonrepresentative, local, or cross-sectional samples. Using data from the 1998, 2002, and 2006 General Social Surveys—nationally representative samples—and ordinary least squares regression, this study reexamines this issue. It was expected that blacks are less likely to trust their doctors than whites either before or after controlling for other predictors of trust and that there was no significant change in this relationship over the time period under study. The results indicate that blacks were less likely to trust their doctors than whites only in 2002, but not in 1998 and 2006. This finding suggests that, even with the same source of data, empirical support for the claim about the less trust of blacks in doctors than whites is less robust than conventional belief, and it calls for additional, careful reexamination.Item Trends in whites’ perceived black-white residential integration, 1972-2008(Georgia Sociological Association, 2012) Yang, Philip Q.; Koshy, KavithaTrends and patterns in black-white residential segregation or integration in the United States have been studied extensively at an aggregate level (e.g., census tract or block-group) using census and survey data. This study examines trends in whites' perceived black-white residential integration using individual-level data from the 1972-2008 General Social Surveys. Our bivariate and logistic regression analyses show that, at the national level, the rate and likelihood of whites’ self-reports of sharing the same residential neighborhood with blacks had continuously increased from 1972 to 2008. Our regional analyses further confirm that the rates of whites’ self-reports of living with blacks in the same residential neighborhood had risen in the same period uniformly across regions with the South making the greatest strides and that, controlling for other variables, the likelihood of whites' perceived black-white residential integration had increased dramatically in the South since the late 1980s and relatively slowly in other regions. We also identify the profile of whites who are more or less likely to report living with blacks in the same neighborhood. The implications of the findings are addressed.Item Inclusive, interactive classroom as student-learning facilitator(The Faculty Center at Georgia Southern University, 2013-07) Lo, Celia C.; Monge, Allison N.Using principles underlying the social constructivist approach, we redesigned an undergraduate course on social problems, seeking to employ three learning activities (online assignments and small-group and class discussions) to facilitate knowledge construction by students and promote their intellectual capabilities and critical-thinking skills. We collected qualitative and quantitative data from students enrolled in the redesigned, hybrid course (it comprised class meetings on campus plus online work), two sections of which were taught. Students in both sections completed two feedback evaluation surveys about satisfaction and learning; this survey data comprised narrative comments completed across the fall and spring semesters of 2010–2011. We examined the data, seeking social processes linking the three learning activities to student satisfaction and to student learning. Results showed a link between student satisfaction and student learning generated from, notably, in-class small-group and class discussions. Some implications for pedagogy are outlined.Item The “Becoming White Thesis” revisited(Georgia Sociological Association, 2016) Yang, Philip Q.; Koshy, KavithaThe claim that some non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups such as the Irish, Italians, and Jews became white in historical America has largely been taken for granted these days, but we see a need for a qualified rectification of this thesis. Did these non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups really become white? We argue that the answer to this question depends on how “becoming white” is defined. We have found no evidence to support the “becoming white thesis” in terms of change in the official racial classification of these groups in the record of social institutions such as U.S. censuses, naturalization laws, and court cases. Changes in the meaning of race in U.S. racial and ethnic lexicon explain why there is a discourse on how these non-Anglo-Saxon European groups changed their “races” to white. If “becoming white” did happen to these groups, its real meaning was a change in their social status from a minority group to part of the majority group rather than in racial classification. Evidence lends credence to this argument. Our findings help settle a debate about if some non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups became white and have implications for race relations today and its pedagogy.Item Explaining immigrant health service utilization: A theoretical framework(Sage Open, 2016-05-16) Yang, Philip Q.; Hwang, Shann HwaAlthough there is no paucity of theoretical frameworks for explaining people’s health service utilization (HSU), theoretical frameworks designed to account for variations in immigrants’ HSU remain underdeveloped. Building on influential theories or models for explaining HSU and especially Andersen’s widely used health behavior model, this article proposes a theoretical framework for explaining disparities in immigrant HSU. The proposed framework explains disparities in immigrant HSU by the health care need, resources, and predisposing factors of immigrants, and macrostructural/contextual conditions at both the general and immigrant-specific levels, as well as the mediating relationships among some of these factors. It is believed that this new framework can offer a fuller understanding of the determination process of immigrant HSU.Item Review of Wittenberg, Eric J. & Scott L. Mingus, The Second Battle of Winchester: The Confederate Victory that Opened the Door to Gettysburg(The Civil War Monitor, 2016-11) Zander, CecilyThe famous bloodletting in Adams County, Pennsylvania, on the first three days of July 1863 came after weeks of hard campaigning by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac. The fighting in and around Winchester, Virginia, the third week of June resulted in one-tenth of the casualties sustained at Gettysburg, but served as a vital element of the maneuvering that brought the two most important Civil War armies to their grand collision. In The Second Battle of Winchester: The Confederate Victory that Opened the Door to Gettysburg, Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus, Sr., offer a new look at the engagement that eliminated the Union military presence in the Shenandoah Valley and cleared the way for Lee’s second invasion of the North.Item Changes in American attitudes toward immigrant-native job competition(Madridge, 2017) Yang, Philip Q.It is often perceived that the American public has been concerned about immigrantnative job competition for at least the last two to three decades. Less is known about the changing attitudes of Americans in this regard. This paper examines changes in American attitudes toward competition of immigrants with the native-born and changes in the determinants of such attitudes, using data from General Social Surveys 1996, 2004, and 2014. It is found that the percentage of Americans who rejected the statement that “Immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in America” had actually increased from 28.4% in 1996 to 34.6% in 2004 and to 42.8% in 2014. Results of multiple regression reveal that nativity, education, race, and region were consistent predictors of attitudes toward immigrant-native job competition across the three points in time, but subjective class standing and political party affiliation were significant predictors only in 2004 but not in the other years. The implications of findings are discussed.Item Review of Stanley, Matthew E., The Loyal West: Civil War and Reunion in Middle America(The Civil War Monitor, 2017-05) Zander, CecilyDuring the Grand Review of Union Armies at the close of the American Civil War, newspaper reports celebrated the achievements of the returning veterans. The Boys in Blue were lauded for their efforts in preserving the Union, but as Eastern and Western soldiers met for the first time in the nation’s capital, it became clear that little more than uniforms united the men. Soldiers of the Western armies often observed—after being in close proximity with their Eastern counterparts—that Western men held fundamentally different beliefs about the war and its meaning than their Eastern compatriots. Sectional division not only separated North and South, but they also marked the difference between East and West. It is this internal division that Matthew E. Stanley deftly examines in The Loyal West: Civil War and Reunion in Middle America.Item Skin deep: Enhanced variable may help explain racial disparities in type 2 diabetes and prediabetes(Springer, 2017-06) Lo, Celia C.; Lara, Joanna; Cheng, Tyrone C.Introduction: The study refined definitions of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes (Pre-/T2D) via its four-category outcome variable. Respondents were identified as Pre-/T2D on the basis of (a) doctor’s diagnosis only (i.e., managed Pre-/T2D); (b) biomarker only (i.e., undiagnosed Pre-/T2D); or (c) both diagnosis and biomarker (i.e., unmanaged Pre-/T2D). The reference was Pre-/T2D not indicated. We linked the outcome to social structural and social support factors, health care-related factors, mental disorder, and lifestyle variables, for each racial/ethnic group.Item Patterns of interracial and interethnic marriages among foreign-born Asians in the United States(MDPI, 2018) Yang, Philip Q.; Bohm-Jordan, MaggieThis study examines the patterns of interracial marriage and interethnic marriage among foreign-born Asians in the United States, using pooled data from the 2008–2012 American Community Surveys. Results show that the most dominant pattern of marriage among foreign-born Asians was still intra-ethnic marriage and that interracial marriage, especially with whites, rather than interethnic marriage among Asians, remained the dominant pattern of intermarriages. Out of all foreign-born Asian marriages, inter-Asian marriages stayed at only about 3%. Among all foreign-born Asian groups, Japanese were most likely to marry interracially and interethnically, while Asian Indians had the lowest rates of interracial marriage and interethnic marriage. Foreign-born Asian women were more likely to interracially marry, especially with whites, than foreign-born Asian men, but they were not much different from foreign-born Asian men in terms of their interethnic marriage rate. The findings have significant implications for intermarriage research, assimilation, and Asian American panethnicity.Item Review of Powell, David A., The Chickamaugua Campaign: Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle(The Civil War Monitor, 2018-01) Zander, CecilyThough the literature on the Chickamauga campaign takes up a respectable amount of space on Civil War bookshelves, room remains for useful studies like David A. Powell’s Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863. Powell’s volume is a companion to earlier monographs detailing the initial phase of the fighting in South Tennessee and North Georgia and an examination of the bulk of the battle proper: the only major Confederate victory ever achieved in the Western Theater. In this third volume, Powell examines how both the Army of Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland (and their respective commanders, Braxton Bragg and William S. Rosecrans) responded to the strategic situation following the fighting. Powell also provides several useful statistical appendices.Item Racial/ethnic differences in HIV testing: An application of the health services utilization model(SAGE, 2018-06) Lo, Celia C.; Runnels, Ratonia C.; Cheng, Tyrone C.This study applying the health services utilization model examined the importance of predisposing, enabling, and need variables to the social mechanisms explaining lifetime HIV testing across racial/ethnic groups. Data for the study were derived from the National Health Interview Survey (collected 2013–2014), our final sample numbering 18,574 adults. Four subsamples reflected race/ethnicity: 13,347 Whites, 2267 Blacks, 2074 Hispanics, and 886 Asians. Logistic regression established respondent odds of ever having received HIV testing. Further statistical testing evaluated race/ethnicity’s potential moderating role in HIV testing. The findings generally support a role for Aday’s predisposing, enabling, and need factors in explaining HIV testing. Across the four subsamples, female gender, older age, and sexual minority status consistently increased lifetime HIV testing. However, we found racial/ethnic differences in HIV testing’s associations with these factors and others. Our study made a beginning in the effort to specify mechanisms leading to HIV testing—and reliable diagnosis—among four racial/ethnic groups. Understanding these mechanisms might multiply opportunities to raise testing rates for all, in turn reducing racial/ ethnic disparities in HIV treatment.Item Food label literacy and use among US adults diagnosed with cancer: Results from a national representative study(Springer, 2018-07) Amuta-Jimenez, Ann Oyare; Lo, Celia C.; Talwar, Divya; Khan, Nicole; Barry, AdamFor those diagnosed with cancer, lifestyle factors including diet can be more important than ever. However, lack of nutrition-related knowledge can pose a significant barrier to healthy eating. Food labels guide consumers in selecting appropriate portion sizes—that is, caloric content—and ensuring adequate intake of nutrients. Data from the 2013-2014 HINTS were used to examine (a) differences in food label use and food label literacy between respondents ever had a cancer diagnosis and those never had a diagnosis; (b) sociodemographic correlates and health-related correlates of food label use and literacy, in a context of cancer diagnosis; and (c) potential association between food label use/literacy and each of two dietary choices, eating vegetables and fruits and limiting intake of sugary drinks, again, in a context of cancer diagnosis. Data was analyzed via SPSS version 24.0, and cross tabulations using Pearson's Chi-square test and logistic regressions. Income, gender and non-participation in support groups were associated with food label literacy (p<.05). Confidence to take care of self was associated with food label use (p<.05). Relationships were observed between using food labels and curtailing soda intake (b = -.368, p<.05), eating relatively more fruits (b = .558, p<.05), and eating relatively more vegetables (b = .558, p<.05). The overall models predicting consumption of soda [x2 (2) = 13.70, p = .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .059], of fruits [x2 (2) = 33.87, p < .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .136], and of vegetables [x2 (2) = 36.08, p < .001, Nagelkerke R-square = .144] was statistically significant. Implications for research and practice can be found in results linking food label use to better quality diets. They include the usefulness of nutrition education interventions targeting lower-income men with cancer diagnoses; one lesson should be the use of food labels. **This article was published with the assistance of the Texas Woman's University Libraries Open Access Fund.