The Digital Persona: The Role of Strategic Self-Presentation Among Emerging Adults on Instagram

Young adults construct their identities on Instagram through strategic self-presentation and perceived audience reactions. Through interviews with college students, this study analyzes the platform’s significance and the motivations driving user engagement. Findings reveal a complex interplay between individual identity, societal norms, and digital presentation. Participants demonstrate a desire for authenticity while managing perceptions of their online personas. However, this duality indicates a need to understand if virtual presentations of the self can yield the same identity-affirming reactions as in-person audiences. Instagram serves as a stage for idealized self-performance, with users balancing authenticity and conformity. This study highlights evolving social norms and the need for ongoing research into Instagram\u27s impact on identity formation

Crossing Borders, Bridging Care: Examining Reproductive Healthcare Access and Health-seeking Behaviors among Migrant Women in Utica

By conducting interviews with providers in Utica, I analyze the social support systems and sociocultural context of reproductive health care. I discussed the impact these factors have made on the reproductive healthcare-seeking behaviors among resettled migrant women in Utica. Hence, my research question remains: How does the sociocultural context of migrant women’s home country affect their reproductive healthcare-seeking behaviors in Utica? This question guides my research and helps me better understand the needs, resources, and infrastructures of the healthcare system in place to facilitate a successful integration in Utica. By interviewing healthcare providers, community educators, doulas, and family planning representatives from the Utica community, I gained valuable insights into the current beliefs, practices, policies, and perceptions on reproductive healthcare among resettled migrant women. Then, I conceptualized the findings through the theoretical frameworks of acculturation processes, intersectionality, and transnational identity. This study advocates for providers to acknowledge the intersecting identities of migrant women by practicing transnational perspectives, community collaboration, culturally competent care, and working with community-based doulas

Decolonizing Spaces: A Comparative Study of Two Art Museums\u27 Initiatives Towards Inclusivity and Representation

The creation of art museums in the 19th century served to encapsulate Western culture, perspectives, and priorities. These institutions, originally conceived for enlightenment and the perpetuation of white cultural rituals, have since become focal points for examination within the field of sociology. This thesis aims to compare two small art museums serving different populations, investigating their efforts to decolonize museums and their effectiveness in reaching underrepresented visitor groups. Through in-depth interviews with museum educators and curators, as well as ethnographic observations of programming, data was collected to analyze their decolonization initiatives. The findings reveal that the Wellin and Munson museums are at different stages of decolonization, reflecting their structural and historical differences and the unique challenges they face. This comparison underscores broader issues of race, social class, and education within our society, highlighting the evolving role of museums in confronting their Euro-American histories and narratives

Trust Dynamics between the Unhoused and their Service Providers

Amid rising rates of homelessness across the United States, more than ever, we must interrogate why some unhoused individuals are unable or unwilling to seek out resources within their local service landscapes. Although quantitative studies have documented a positive relationship between feelings of trust and service utilization rates among the unhoused, qualitative research on this subject matter is severely lacking. My research addresses this scholarly gap. Through ethnographic observations of a low-barrier service along with formal interviews with the site\u27s staff members and patrons, I explore how trust is established, maintained, and strengthened between these two parties. I find that trust largely derives from the service provider\u27s ability to cultivate an environment conducive to low-stakes interactions. I also find that once unhoused patrons or staff members felt trusting of their counterparts, they advanced trust by engaging with one another in interactions that transcended the transactional nature of giving or receiving care. With these findings, I put my research in conversation with trust scholarship, highlighting how conventional theoretical frameworks cannot fully capture the nuanced context of homelessness

“Consuming Identity: The Intersection of Consumer Culture and Student Identity in Elite Academia”

While sociological research exists on the role of consumption in shaping identity formation of college students, there is limited work that examines the intersectional factors of the consumer culture at elite institutions. Over the course of my study, I seek to fill these gaps. In my study, I ask, why do students consume in patterned ways at an elite institution? Entering college is a transitional moment for students in which one\u27s sense of self is often reconstructed due to the influential environment around them (Kaufman and Feldman, 2004). Examining college students allows for a variety of variables to come into play such as the formation of subcultural identities as well as peer and social influence (Folomeeva, 2019). Furthermore, the class-based variation that exists on college campuses allows for a look at the impact that one’s financial status has on their decisions as a consumer. Ultimately, the examination of the consumer culture at an elite level will allow for a deeper understanding of the factors that influence students\u27 spending habits. In my paper, I explore how the consumer culture acts as a catalyst of behaviors for students at The College. I examine the ways in which purchasing habits affect individual identity construction as well as the formation of social networks. For this study, the setting of The College is crucial in understanding how students use the consumer culture to navigate their collegiate experience. This includes the people students interact with as well as their presentation of self. Through this research, it becomes apparent that the consumer culture is more than just an individual choice, but rather something influenced by the context of a student\u27s surroundings

Know Thyself? Network Creation in Postgraduate Urban Environments

Prior sociological research on social networks is exceedingly broad and far-reaching, and while much has been done to examine the social dynamics of the college campus itself, (Chambliss & Takis 2017) the transitory period of the postgraduate social network is largely unexplored. This study aims to compare the social landscape of a small liberal arts college campus with that of a city, specifically both Boston and San Francisco, to understand what the change in social networks looks like for college graduates from a small engineered social experience to the expansive world of adult responsibility. Through a series of in-depth interviews with Hamilton alumni from the classes of 2013-2020, this study seeks to understand the various ways in which young adults socialize in urban areas after leaving campus. This study’s findings present the transition from college to the working world as an overall positive experience and showcases the various techniques young adults use to build, establish, and grow their community in their everyday lives as professionals with established careers, routines, and social networks. Ultimately, while the current social environment has made it more difficult to form connections and bonds than in previous generations, the groundwork that the college experience laid for each of these alumni helped them understand their own social patterns, nuances, and preferences, and prepared them for success in the “real world”

Understanding the Achievement Gap: The Effects of Race and Gender on Educational Attainment and Income

This paper will look at what type of family structure is most conducive to children’s educational attainment. It will focus on the racial/ethnic variability in family formations. For example, when compared to White families, Black families are less likely to marry and more likely to have nonmarital births. This racial variability is important as the Pew Research Centers find that only about 40% of Black households are headed by a married couple, with female-headed households accounting for 31% (Moslimani et al. 2023). The smallest household type within the Black community is male-headed households which account for 5%. Comparing the outcomes of children in each of these three types of family structures by race should elicit some interesting findings. White single motherhood peaked at 19.7% in 2012 compared to the peak of 54% for Black single mothers in 1991 using data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The purpose of the research is to see if two-parent family households produce the best outcomes for Black children. While traditional scholarship from the likes of Sara McLanahan, Gary Sandefur, Paul Amato, and Isabel Sawhill all indicate that regardless of race, two-parent households provide the best outcomes. However, new research from Harvard’s Christina Cross has argued that living apart from a biological parent is less impactful for racial and ethnic minorities as opposed to White children. This raises the question if both parents are necessary for minority children to be successful. This paper follows a two-part hypothesis. Firstly, I believe that two-parent households will produce the best result for respondents regardless of race. Secondly, I believe the intersection of race and gender will be the site for any significant differences in educational attainment and future income

Back Cover

Back cover illustration: Rick Grunder photographing the key to William Morgan’s cell at St. Patrick’s Lodge, No. 4, Johnstown, New York, June 22, 2023. Photograph by Christian Goodwillie

Loud Cheers and Quiet Whispers: The Impact of Leadership and Gossip on a Collegiate Soccer Team’s Cohesion and Motivational Climate

From a young age, athletes are taught that there is no “I” in team. In other words, cohesion is the key to success. However, players struggle to foster a desirable team culture when the coach unfairly privileges certain players over others. On the women’s varsity soccer team at a small liberal arts college, athlete leaders counter the coach-initiated motivational climate to increase feelings of unity (task cohesion) and belonging (social cohesion) within the group. Past research indicates that subordinates use gossip as a tool to achieve power in an organizational context (Ellwardt, Wittek, and Wielers 2012; Bencsik and Juhasz 2020). This study adopts a similar framework by positing that the participation of athlete leaders in gossip with their teammates serves to cultivate a collaborative motivational climate. It also seeks to address the drawbacks of gossip and any negative impacts it may have on team cohesion. Overall, the research indicates that gossip valence in combination with the identity of gossip targets shape the development of a team’s motivational climate

The Rise of Anti-Masonry in Western New York and Its Connection to the Rise of Mormonism

The beginnings of anti-Masonry and Mormonism coincide both in time and geography—the 1820s and western New York. Both had enthusiastic “burned over district” underpinnings. Both attracted devoted but also frequently eccentric followers. Both were enflamed in controversy. As time went on, both anti-Masonry and Mormonism became deeply involved in partisan journalistic battles and political tensions