2022 BA Thesis Symposium

Congratulations to the sociology majors of the Class of 2022 on completing their BA theses and on their impending graduations! We celebrated their accomplishments at the BA Thesis Symposium on Wednesday, May 25^th. Students presented their own, original research, which covered a wide range of topics. The quality was simply outstanding.

After hearing short presentations by nine students, the preceptors announced the winners of our annual BA thesis awards. Allegra Hatem won the top award for her thesis Defunding the (Alternatives to) Police: A Chicago Violence Prevention Program’s Barriers to State Funding. Honorable Mentions were awarded to Paige Brann for Seeing Like a Real Estate: Shifting Perceptions of Place in the San Antonio-Austin Corridor, to Christina Howard for Care Under Carcerality: Strategies of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones, and to Charlie Kolodziej for Taking Aim at Anti-LGBT Violence: Constructing Queer and Trans Vulnerability Through Firearm Ownership. Thesis presentation awards were given to Kwabene Kalumbula for Identity and Competition: Political and Partisan Socialization in 15 Young Adults and to Mari Mirasol for Deconstructing Stigma: Lessons from ConTextos Rehabilitation Program at the Salvadoran Juvenile Detention Center of Tonacatepeque.

We concluded the event with a festive reception, catered by Big Star Tacos. Thank you to everyone who helped make this event a huge success – BA thesis preceptors and faculty advisors, in particular. We are so proud of the achievements of our 4^th years and we wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

	The Class of 2022 Sociology Cohort
Andrew Bacotti	The Fair Wage Revisited
Vicky Berman	The Drive for Social Acceptance: How University Students Make Sense of Political Conversations
Paige Brann	Seeing Like a Real Estate: Shifting Perceptions of Place in the San Antonio-Austin Corridor
Alina Brennan	Mental Health Healing: How Adolescents and Young Adults Navigate Their Mental Healthcare Needs
Natalie Chapin	"They Always Want More”: The Untold Stories of the Gendered Campaign Trail
Dinah Clottey	The (R)evolution of Black Fashion: Black Dress at Predominantly White Institutions
Nate Culbert	Experts in the Room: Role Conflict and Ambiguity in School Social Work Around Chicago
Julia Du	Retail Workers and Nurses as “Pandemic Heroes”: Occupational Fulfillment and Work-Identity Paradigms
Sophia Egrari	Stopping the Steal: Belief in Election Fraud Conspiracy, 2012-2020
Ife Fariyike	Battle of the Boybands: An Exploration of Identity and Community in BTS and 1D Onling Fandom Spaces
Alexandra Fiorentino-Swinton	Participation vs. Exploitation: The Pop Cultural Border War
Cheryl Hao	The Effect of Incarceration on Identity-Making: How Nine Formerly Incarcerated Individuals Came to an Activist Identity
Quentin Harris	Prejudiced Broadcasting: How Implicit Bias and Racial Stereotypes are Found in TV Commentary of NBA Games
Allegra Hatem	Defunding the (Alternatives to) Police: A Chicago Violence Prevention Program’s Barriers to State Funding
Jon Hoerner	Policing the Invisible: Crisis Intervention Training and Community Effects During Mental Health Crisis Responses in Chicago
Christina Howard	Care Under Carcerality: Strategies of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones
Alicia Hurtado	The ‘Wayfinders’ of Abortion Access: Analyzing the Interstitial Affective Care of Volunteer Case Managers at the Chicago Abortion Fund
Mira Joseph	My Dress and My Chess Barbie Bag: The Social Resiliency of Women in Chess
Kwabene Kalumbula	Identity and Competition: Political and Partisan Socialization in 15 Young Adults
Charlie Kolodziej	Taking Aim at Anti-LGBT Violence: Constructing Queer and Trans Vulnerability Through Firearm Ownership
Maya Krasovsky	Digital Organizing and Mobilization by Russia’s Opposition: 2014 to 2017
John Kunzo	Stirring the Melting Pot: Biracial College Students’ Perspectives on Social Mobility in America
Chase Leito	Using the Master’s Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House: The Relationship between Lawyers, Organizers, and Social Movements Challenging the Carceral System
Charlotte Lewis	Summer’s No Longer as Fun as it was in June: Social Networks, Knowledge, and Conflict from Wildfire Disaster
Melody Li	Shaping Students’ Becomings: The Liberal Arts versus the Preprofessional at the University of Chicago College, 1920-1930
Anne Lim	Dude, Where’s My Seat?: How Teenagers Understand Their Places in Highbrow Art Spaces
Susy Liu	COVID Confusion: Exploring Anomie through Pandemic Mask Policy
Nika Lofton	“Indoctrination Isn’t New, But how far Back Does it Go?”: A Content Analysis of Fox News’s Reporting on Politics at American Colleges and Universities from 2009-2019
Amy Maldonado	Understanding Data Privacy: How Americans Conceptualize Privacy and Agency in the Digital Age
Hopie Melton	Emotional Labors: Organizing Long-term Care Workers in Chicago During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Mari Mirasol	Deconstructing Stigma: Lessons from the ConTextos Rehabilitation Program at the Salvadoran Juvenile Detention Center of Tonacatepeque
Mo Mitchell	Environmental Education: Empowering a Generation of Ethical Actors
Bianca Munguia	Belonging as a Process of Survival: 1.5 and Second-Generation Latines in Dalton, Georgia
Jalen Nichols	Divergent Pathways: The Effects of Gentrification on Racial Composition and Other Neighborhood Characteristics in Chicago
Jonah Norwitt	Fulfilling the Needs of Reentry: The Provision of Social Support in Social Service Environments
Hadessah O’Neal	More than Just Going the Distance: Body Image and Perceived Access to Food
Lauren Park	Perceptions of Mental Health Among Asian American Students
Alexandra Patzakis	Examining the Impact of Photography in the Era of Social Media Through the Case Study of Alan Kurdi on Twitter
Diego Quesada	Bleeding Laws: Violence, Queerness, and the Law in Mexican Society
Isabel Reyes	Black in Spite of Our Dominicanidad: Navigating and Translating Afro-Dominican Ethnic Options in New York City
Isabella Rivera Volquez	When the Law is Not on Your Side: Queerness, Safety, and Resistance in the Dominican Republic
Adrian Rucker	Accumulation through Abandonment: Demolition and the Uneven Production of Vacant Lots in Chicago Neighborhoods
Faith Sanchez	R/Group_therapy: The Function of Health-related Internet Resources in the Medical Encounter
Eseme Segbefia	The Identities of Nigerian and Ghanaian American College Students
Kevin Song	“Live Video at the Scene”: A Content Analysis of Citizen, A Public Safety App
Sunitha Vallinayagam	Health for Who?: Investigating LGBTQ+ Inclusivity on Chicago-Based Federally Qualified Community Health Centers Websites
Zoe Williams	All in God’s Hands: Exploring the Relationship between Young Adults and the Black Church
John Wu	Old Dogs, Old Tricks: Examining the Rationales and Effects of Elderly (Re)entrants into the Japanese Workforce
Mia Wu	Living Arrangements and Cognitive Health Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in the United States: What are Moderating Factors?