M.A. - Sociology

Research has established that parenthood at a young age is associated with higher levels of psychological distress later in life. Less is known about the long-term mental health impact of early pregnancy and the potential intervening mechanisms that may help to explain why early pregnancy is distressing. In addition, though rates of early pregnancy remain higher among African Americans compared to Whites, research has yet to explore potential race differences in mental health consequences. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, this study not only shows that early pregnancy has a long-term negative effect on mental health among Whites but also reveals that unfulfilled educational expectations help explain this negative effect. The study also finds differences in the distressing effect of early pregnancy among African American and White females.

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Self-Esteem, Maternal Emotional Support, and Psychological Distress in Adolescence through the Transition to Adulthood: Black-White Differences in the United States

([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2016], 2016-05) Bird, Omar

Contradictory and paradoxical findings persist when examining racial differences between blacks and whites when examining self-esteem and psychological distress. For example, despite social disadvantage, blacks report higher levels of self-esteem compared to whites across all stages of the life course, but also report higher, lower or similar levels of psychological distress. Though research has found a reciprocal relationship between self-esteem and psychological distress, racial disparities in in these two areas require social researchers to inquire further. Thus, this study aims to fill some gaps in the literature on self-esteem and psychological distress in several areas: (1) the long-term effect of self-esteem in adolescence on psychological distress in young adulthood, (2) racial differences of the effects comparing black and white Americans, and (3) temporal ordering of psychological distress and self- esteem over a 13-15 year period. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, this study finds that though self-esteem in adolescence influences psychological distress in young adulthood among both groups, self-esteem explains more of the variation in distress among whites and multiple social factors in young adulthood (e.g., employment, household income and being easily stressed) mediates this relationship among blacks and not whites. Theoretical implications and future research are discussed.

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Mainstreaming of the Right and a New Right-Wing Movement in Japan

([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [August 2015], 2015-08) Asahina, Yuki

This thesis is a study of social change in contemporary Japan, which uses the success of a right-wing social movement as a case. My analysis focuses on the “Activist-Conservative” movement that had emerged in the late 2000’s and developed rapidly. Drawing on the analysis of original and secondary interview data with 46 right-wing activists, qualitative content analysis of right-wing magazines, and the review of various existing resources, I explore reasons people are motivated to take part in such activities and the reasons the movement was able to achieve a degree of success in contemporary Japanese society. The thesis argues that Japan’s new rightwing mobilization should be understood as a reaction to Japan’s economic, political, and symbolic power decline in East Asia. It was the macro-level economic and political changes in East Asia that enabled the success of the new right-wing movement.

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Reproducing and Subverting the Coming Out Storyline: A Case of the It Gets Better Project

([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2015], 2015-05) Rost-Banik, Margaret

The It Gets Better Project is a website that anyone in the general public can use to upload or view videos about experiences of living as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) individual. Using theories of discursive practice, socio-cultural learning, and cyberspace, I employ qualitative content analysis to examine the videos in the It Gets Better Project associated with colleges and universities to determine the common elements of participants’ coming out stories: adversity, declaring, affirmation, and encouragement. Many of the narrators follow this prototypical storyline, strongly connecting LGBT identity with adversity and emphasizing the possibility of overcoming the adversity. Other participants disrupt the dominant narrative by significantly altering or excluding one or two of the themes. As they tell their coming out stories to support viewers who are struggling with their own experiences of sexual or gender identity, participants both reinforce and subvert dominant discourses of sexuality and gender.

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([Honolulu] : [University of Hawaii at Manoa], [May 2015], 2015-05) Liu, Sizhe

Using the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study, this work examines how religious involvement and immigration-related stressors, such as age at immigration and English proficiency, independently and interactively affect depressive disorders and suicidal behaviors. The findings show U.S. born Asian Americans and Asian American immigrants who immigrated to the U.S. during childhood are at higher risk of lifetime depressive disorders and suicidal behaviors than those who arrived in the U.S. after childhood. Same patterns were found for the association between age at immigration and suicidal behaviors for Hispanics. Limited English proficiency increases the risk of having depressive disorders and planning for suicide for Asian Americans but shows no effect on both depressive disorders and suicidal behaviors for Hispanics. Most importantly, religious involvements buffer the detrimental effect of English barrier and immigration during childhood on suicidal plan for Asian Americans and Hispanics, respectively.

M.A. - Sociology

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