Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper offers a theory of aspirant opportunism that extends “ambition theory” and differentiates “the structure of political opportunities” from the opportunistic skills of presidential aspirants (Schlesinger 1966). It also details the political path that William McKinley traversed in the six years prior to his winning the presidency in 1896, exploring both his hard-earned achievements and his lucky breaks. One of McKinley’s presidential successors, William J. Clinton, used to quote an athlete who said: "the more I practice, the luckier I get" (Waldman 2000). This sentiment describes well McKinley's case study and offers insight into the dynamics operating during presidential elections. It concludes that while exogenous events and electoral conditions, such as a poor economy or the presence of a war, may help explain an aspirant’s success or failure, the ways in which a presidential aspirant responds to luck and contingency, or “adds craft to accident” (Hyde 1998) matters as well. Thus, understanding presidential elections necessitates a better understanding of the aspirants who succeeded and those who failed and their varying opportunistic skills.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: By using a social psychological approach, this research investigated whether occupational aspirations led to migration for rural youth. The research question this paper is: Are young to middle-aged adults in rural areas with higher occupational aspirations more likely to migrate out of rural areas than young to middle-aged adults with lower aspirations. The age group for this study is 14-35. Aspirations were measured using Duncan's socioeconomic index (SEI) with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth in 1979. Results show that youth with high occupational aspirations migrate more than youth with medium and low occupational aspirations. They are more likely to reside in an urban county of residence in their middle ages.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We study the effect of institutions in the labor market on workers’ choice of survival strategies in it. We assume that workers try to maximize their utilities under the constraints of institutions. The constraints function at two levels: Societal level and individual level. The economic structure, for example, is a constraint at the societal level. Meanwhile, the location of a worker in the labor market is a constraint at the individual level.
We focus on career aspirations for the future as a proxy for survival strategies. Thus we use career aspirations as the dependent variable in our model. Independent variables are variables that reflect workers’ location in the labor market such as age, gender, employment status, firm size, and industry. Then we compare the difference in the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable between Japan, Korea, and Taiwan in order to see the different effects of local institutions. Results of our data analysis show that the Japanese do not necessarily choose to work under the long-term employment system, while Taiwanese do not necessarily choose to be self-employed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The intergenerational transmission of educational attainment has been one of the strongest and most consistent findings in sociology for more than four decades. Explanations for this pattern have focused primarily on the effects of structural factors. Because parents’ educational attainment is generally completed before offspring are born, there has been little opportunity to study the ways in which children’s observation of their parents’ pursuit of education may serve to augment the effects of structural factors on intergenerational transmission processes. In the present paper, we use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected from 36 women across a decade following their return to school to examine the effects of their educational achievements on their children’s educational aspirations and achievements. The analyses revealed that mothers’ return to school affected her children’s educational aspirations and outcomes only under particular conditions. In families in which mothers completed their undergraduate degrees after returning, most or all of the children also completed college by early adulthood. Further, these mothers reported that their enrollment had positive effects on their children’s educational aspirations and outcomes. In contrast, when women left school without completing their degrees, few or none of their children completed college themselves, and almost none of these mothers reported that their enrollment had any effect on their children. Mothers’ completion of college appeared to be the most consequential for children’s educational outcomes in families in which fathers were less educated, opposed to mothers’ enrollment, and in which the mother’s return to school was fueled by personal and psychological, rather than career motivations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In summer 2006, Senator George Allen, a Republican from Virginia, was seeking reelection in November. But, with a double-digit lead over his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, Allen was less concerned with his reelection campaign than positioning himself for a likely 2008 presidential bid (Barnes, 2006). All of this changed dramatically on August 11, 2006 when Allen referred to a Webb campaign volunteer as macaca twice and welcomed him to America while giving a stump speech in rural Virginia. Macaca, a type of monkey, can be considered a racial slur (Whitley, 2006). The macaca gaffe became the most downloaded video on the popular Internet site Youtube.com (Lizza, 2006) and ignited a fire of criticism on popular blogs like Raising Kaine and in major mainstream media outlets (Sheer & Craig, 2006a). After the macaca incident, Allen’s opponent gained 10 percentage points in public opinion polls (Schapiro, 2006).
Unfortunately, the macaca incident was the first of several negative public relations incidents that haunted Allen’s reelection campaign. This study employs image repair discourse theory to analyze how Senator Allen responded to the three negative public relations events that received the most media and public scrutiny: macaca, Jewish ancestry, and the n-word. The study identifies Senator Allen’s image repair strategies through a content analysis of Allen’s media releases and interviews with Allen’s communication staffers. In addition, the study evaluates the effectiveness of Senator Allen’s image repair strategies through a content analysis of the media coverage of these incidents.