Sex offenders, sexuality, and social control: A case study in the social construction of a social problem

Legislation regarding sex offenses is often passed swiftly with little to no evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies on preventing recidivism and protecting the public. Further, little criticism is raised despite overwhelming evidence that sex offender registration and community notification is ineffective and has many negative consequences. The societal reaction is created through moral panics resulting in views that are not always reflective of the nature of the problem. In effect, the policies put into place in the name of declaring war on the deviant behavior reflect these views and do not target the specific problem. While the first two panics involved the identification of sexual offenses, offenders, and the causes of such deviance, the failure of these two time periods to eradicate the problem of sexual offending has caused an evolution in the third sex crime panic from focusing on the nature of sexual offending to a drive to control and contain the population of sexual offenders. Because U.S. society still has little understanding of the nature and cause of sexual offending, laws continue to be ineffective in the third panic and exacerbate the original problem

Politik, Medien und Jugend: Politikverständnisse und politische Identität im mediatisierten Alltag Jugendlicher

Jugendlichen wird in der Öffentlichkeit wie in der Wissenschaft gerne Politikverdrossenheit und Desinteresse an politischen Themen unterstellt. Die Autorin zeigt in ihrer Studie zu medienbezogenen Aushandlungen des Politischen dagegen auf, dass das den konkreten Sichtweisen junger Menschen nicht gerecht wird. Aus der Perspektive eines mediatisierten Alltags und eines erweiterten Politikverständnisses rekonstruiert sie anhand von Gruppendiskussionen, wie Jugendliche Politik begreifen, kommunikativ mit Bedeutung versehen und politische Identitäten aushandeln. Dabei zeigt ihre Analyse auch, welche Rolle populärkulturelle Medien für das Involvement mit Politischem spielen

Empirical Essays in Economics of Education and Labor

This thesis focuses on individuals’ educational achievements and labor market outcomes in a Danish context. Particularly, the thesis aims at determining the returns to specific tertiary educational decisions and understanding the mechanisms underlying such decisions. These related objectives are addressed using econometric methods applied on Danish micro data. All four chapters are empirical studies and combine data from different sources. The main source of data is an administrative data set obtained from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) that contains detailed educational information on students enrolled at CBS. I combine this data with register data obtained from Statistics Denmark. The educational data is the core of Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 4 and defines the sample in these chapters. Chapter 1 relies exclusively on data from Statistics Denmark. Chapter 1 (a joint work with Anders Sørensen from Copenhagen Business School) estimates the wage premium of those with a master’s degree in business economics and management when compared to the wages of those with master’s degrees in other fields in the social sciences. By means of an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach, we identify the returns to a business education by addressing the endogenous selection of master’s programs. Using season of birth as an exogenous determinant of master’s degree choice, we find that a master’s degree in business economics and management results in a wage premium of around 12% compared to other master’s degrees in the social sciences. Moreover, we find that the probability of private sector employment is significantly larger for individuals with a master’s degree in business economics and management. Finally, in contrast to the literature that finds significant reductions in the gender wage gap when controlling for educational fields, controlling for a master’s degree in business economics and management does not affect the large and robust gender wage gap prevalent in our sample

Occupy als Jugendbewegung für Generationengerechtigkeit? Mediatisierte Aushandlungen des 'Politischen' durch junge Menschen

Ausgehend von der Debatte um eine 'Politikverdrossenheit' der Jugend diskutiert der Artikel, welche Bedeutung Generationengerechtigkeit bei den Occupy-Protesten zukommt. Vor dem Hintergrund eines erweiterten Begriffs des 'Politischen' wird zum einen argumentiert, dass junge Menschen gegenwärtig in einen Bereich neuartiger Politikformen und Praktiken eingebunden sind, der eng mit der Omnipräsenz digitaler Medien verknüpft ist. Zum anderen wird herausgearbeitet, wie Medien bei den Occupy-Protesten genutzt werden, um Forderungen nach sozialer Gerechtigkeit zu artikulieren