Sociology and Anthropology

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/55

Drawing on the expertise and commitment of our research-active faculty, the MSU Sociology and Anthropology provide excellent educational experiences to undergraduate majors, minors and MSU as a whole. The unifying theme of the department is the study of societies – past and present – embedded in the tradition of the liberal arts.

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Adult social roles and alcohol use among American Indians
(2014-09) Greene, Kaylin M.; Eitle, Tamela McNulty; Eitle, David
American Indians are disproportionately burdened by alcohol-related problems. Yet, research exploring predictors of alcohol use among American Indians has been limited by cross-sectional designs and reservation-based samples. Guided by a life course developmental perspective, the current study used a subsample of American Indians (n = 927) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to explore alcohol use (current drinking, usual number of drinks, and binge drinking) among this population. We examined whether adult social roles (i.e., cohabitation, marriage, parenthood, college enrollment, and full-time work) were linked to the rise and fall of alcohol use. Multi-level models demonstrated that adult social roles were linked to alcohol use at the within- and between-person levels. Becoming a parent was linked to a lower likelihood of being a current drinker, fewer alcoholic drinks, and less frequent binge drinking. Transitioning to full-time work was associated with a higher likelihood of being a current drinker and more frequent binge drinking. Results point to the importance of exploring within-group trajectories of alcohol use and highlight the protective and risky nature of adult social roles among American Indians.
Advancing a Model of Secondary Trauma: Consequences for Victim Service Providers
(2018-05) Ellis, Colter; Knight, Kelly E.
A burgeoning body of scholarship is attempting to understand, normalize, and ameliorate the emotional strain of victim service provision. The literature, however, has yet to fully theorize the hazardous process of empathetic engagement with victims. As a result, concepts, mechanisms, and outcomes are often conflated, making it difficult to understand the etiological path of this occupational risk. The goal of this article is to attend to this gap by accomplishing three objectives. The first is to engage with the perspective of symbolic interaction to theoretically ground a conceptual model of secondary trauma. The second objective is to propose a model of secondary trauma that acknowledges its inherently interactional, interpretive, and, thus, vicariously transmissible nature. The third objective is to begin the work of empirically supporting this model with data from a sample of victim service providers ( n = 94) collected using in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic participant observation, and community-based participatory research. Our findings suggest that victim service provision, in the form of empathetic engagement, can blur the boundary between self and other, and lead to a sense of damage in the self that manifests in unreliable self-agency, untrustworthy coherence of other, desensitized self-affectivity, and fractured self-history. This work has significant implications. We illustrate an important paradox by showing how victim service provision can be helpful to victims but harmful to providers. We also offer a pathway for reducing this harm. By specifying mechanisms of damage, the model can be used to inform policies and practices supportive of victim service providers' health and well-being.
Changing Settlement Organization in the Late Pleistocene of the Wadi al-Hasa, West-Central Jordan
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024-04) Neeley, Michael P.; Clark, Geoffrey A.
Since the 1980s, surveys in Jordan’s Wadi al-Hasa document dozens of Late Pleistocene hunter–gatherer sites, some of them tested or partly excavated. To track landscape-scale forager mobility and settlement patterns over time, we examine 26 levels from 13 sites dated to the Middle, Upper, and Epipaleolithic using aspects of Barton’s whole assemblage behavioral indicators research protocol, a collection of methods designed to extract patterns from archeological palimpsests. Because forager ethnographies document adaptive strategies that do not map onto the discrete site types employed by archeologists, we evaluate the utility of the latter so far as behavioral inferences are concerned. We show that discrete bimodal contrasts like “curated” and “expedient” and their archeological correlates fail to capture the much more complex reality. Only by using these methods in conjunction with these analytical contrasts can a realistic picture of forager mobility and land use approximating that known from ethnography be attained.
Determinants of Poor Health Among Workers in Criminal Justice, Community and Social Services, and Healthcare: Adverse Childhood Experiences, Workplace Trauma Exposure, and Gender Differences
(Informa UK Limited, 2021-12) Knight, Kelly E.; Ellis, Colter; Neu, Joshua; Miller, Tristan; Talcott, Amy K.
Adverse childhood experiences and workplace trauma exposure are associated with poor health. However, their differential impacts by gender are difficult to assess in studies of organizations with gender imbalances (e.g., law enforcement officers are more likely men whereas social workers are more likely women). Using a community-based participatory research framework, this study examines trauma exposure, mental and physical health, and substance use in an occupationally diverse sample (n = 391). Trauma exposure was high and associated with poor health. Even though women experienced more adversity, they were often more resilient than men. Implications for trauma-informed workplaces are discussed.
Developing a Response to Secondary Trauma for American Indian and Rural Service Providers
(The Ohio State University Libraries, 2022-05) Knight, Kelly E.; Ellis, Colter; Matt Salois, Emily
How can victim service providers, the organizations they work for, and the communities they serve help respond to the issue of occupation-based secondary trauma? Over the last few years, federal agencies in the United States have spent millions in research and programming to answer this important scientific and policy question. The current study builds on this work by describing and evaluating a community-based participatory research project focused on finding manageable, effective, sustainable, and ethical ways to respond to occupation-based secondary trauma in two separate communities: a rural American Indian community, Blackfeet Tribal Nation, and a predominantly white county in Montana, Gallatin County, United States. Findings from evaluation questionnaires (n=178; 80.10% women; 64.60% American Indian; 29.14% White) representing a wide range of occupations document that: (1) the implementation of the project was successful; (2) toolkits created for the project were useful to both individual participants and organizations; (3) training outcomes improved significantly; and (4) findings were consistent across the two different community contexts. Contributions, lessons learned, and future directions are discussed.
Disruptions, Dislocations, and Inequalities: Latino Families Surviving the Global Economy
(2010-06) Schmalzbauer, Leah
This Article draws on field research with Honduran and Mexican transnational families and the transnational family literature to explore how global inequality is influencing gender and class relations within poor migrant families. This Article begins with an overview of the relationship between globalization, Latinola migration, and transnational family formation. The Article then details and analyzes the intersections of transnational care arrangements and the gendered and classed experiences of individual transnational family members. This Article argues that global inequality, specifically the wage gap between the Global North and the Global South, has direct implications for inequalities within Latinola families. Finally, this Article suggests that transnational families are resilient, and yet gender expectations and the economic crisis have spawned new gender, generational, and class inequalities that could potentially threaten family well-being.
Does Where You Work and What You Do Matter? Testing the Role of Organizational Context and Job Type for Future Study of Occupation-Based Secondary Trauma Intervention Development
(Sage Journals, 2023-12) Knight, Kelly E.; Ellis, Colter; Miller, Tristan; Neu, Joshua; Helfrich, Leah
Organizational context (e.g., criminal justice, community-based, and healthcare) and job type (e.g., police, social workers, and healthcare providers) may impact the extent of occupation-based secondary trauma (OBST). Survey data collected from a multiphase community-based participatory research project were analyzed from a variety of professionals, who were likely to “encounter the consequences of traumatic events as part of their professional responsibilities” (n = 391, women = 55%, White = 92%). Results document high trauma exposure (adverse childhood experiences [ACEs] and workplace) and OBST-related outcomes (Maslach Burnout Inventory, Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, post-traumatic stress disorder symptom checklist for DSM-5) for the entire sample with important differences across organizational context and job type. Using multivariate regression, the strongest determinants of suffering, however, were not related to a provider’s specific profession but to their number of years on the job and their ACEs (e.g., adjusted R2 = 0.23, b = 2.01, p < .001). Likewise, the most protective factors were not profession specific but rather the provider’s age and perceived effectiveness of OBST-related training (e.g., b = 2.26, p < .001). These findings inform intervention development and have implications for rural and other often under-resourced areas, where the same OBST-related intervention could potentially serve many different types of providers and organizations.
Drivelines, hunting blinds, effigies and intercept hunting strategies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, USA
(Liverpool University Press, 2022) Lee, Craig M; Neeley, Michael; Horton, Elizabeth; McWethy, David B.
This paper shares a description of cairn lines and hunting blinds in association with an ice patch in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Until now no definitive stone features, including drivelines and hunting blinds, have been reported in association with Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem ice patches; however, such features are known from ice patches in northern North America, eg Yukon Territory. In the system reported here, the ice patch is presumed to be an animal attractant with the drivelines and blinds positioned to serve as intercepts. The paper also shares a brief report of a stone effigy of a probable bighorn sheep that appears to be associated with an ice patch. Such features are emblematic of spiritual provisioning in the alpine.
Explaining the Association between Gender and Substance Use among American Indian Adolescents: An Application of Power-control Theory
(2015-12) Eitle, Tamela McNulty; Eitle, David
This study evaluates the utility of Hagan's power-control theory for explaining substance use behaviors for a sample of American Indian (AI) adolescent males and females. Consistent with the theory, we found that patriarchal family form and the affective bond between father and daughter were significant predictors of female substance use behaviors. Compared with results from an analysis of non-Hispanic (NH) whites, these results reveal the importance of testing generalist explanations of deviant behavior across racial and ethnic groups. Our findings encourage a more in-depth consideration of the gendered nature of work, its association with socialization and control in AI families, and its impact on gender differences in substance use and delinquent behaviors.
Hydraulic fracturing: Assessing self-reported familiarity and the contributions of selected sources to self-reported knowledge
(2017-01) Theodori, Gene L.; Ellis, Colter
Data collected from a random sample of individuals in two counties in the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas to examine (a) respondentsâ€™ self-reported familiarity with the process of hydraulic fracturing and (b) the associations between the contributions of information sources to self-reported knowledge about hydraulic fracturing and self-reported levels of familiarity with the process of hydraulic fracturing. The results of this study revealed that survey respondents in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas are more familiar with the process of hydraulic fracturing than has been reported in other studies. Moreover, the findings indicated that self-reported levels of familiarity with the process of hydraulic fracturing were positively associated with certain sources of information. Among those sources that reached statistical significance, the strongest contributor to respondentsâ€™ self-reported familiarity with hydraulic fracturing was information from the oil/natural gas industry.
Local rental market dynamics and homelessness rates among unaccompanied youths, single adults, and people in families
(Informa UK Limited, 2024-03) Tamla Rai, Vijaya
This study examines how local rental market factors differentially influence community-level homelessness rates among unaccompanied youths, single adults, and people in families with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s point-in-time estimates in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. The results from seemingly unrelated regressions for 270 metropolitan Continua of Care suggest that higher community-level rental vacancy rates were associated with lower homelessness rates among people in families but not among single adults and unaccompanied youths. Further, higher community-level crowded rates in rental units were associated with higher homelessness rates among single adults and unaccompanied youths but not among people in families. These findings suggest the differential association between rental market dynamics and homelessness among the homeless subgroups should inform subgroup-specific policy interventions and investment strategies.
Microcores and microliths in Northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountain front lithic assemblages
(2016-07) Lee, Craig M.; Neeley, Michael; Mitchell, Mark D.; Kornfeld, Marcel; O'Connor, Crae
Microcores and microliths have been identified in archaeological sites in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota. While clearly the product of patterned reduction yielding flakes with roughly parallel sides, the cores seldom produced regular flake removals, suggesting a high degree of variability in the resulting microliths. This irregular pattern of reduction contrasts with classic microblade cores from higher latitudes, where uniformity of microblades was desired. When noted by field archaeologists, microcores are variously described as conical or circular scrapers as well as microcores or microblade cores. They occur in low frequencies in several time periods and are seldom identified with associated production debitage let alone microliths. This article examines microlith manufacture and microcore discard in the Northwestern Plains and adjacent regions and proposes that the technology fulfilled a specialized role in the organization of lithic technology linked to the infrequent manufacture of specialty items.
Operational efficiency, patient composition and regional context of U.S. health centers: Associations with access to early prenatal care and low birth weight
(2019-04) Thorsen, Maggie L.; Thorsen, Andreas H.; McGarvey, Ronald G.
Community health centers (CHCs) provide comprehensive medical services to medically under-served Americans, helping to reduce health disparities. This study aimed to identify the unique compositions and contexts of CHCs to better understand variation in access to early prenatal care and rates of low birth weights (LBW). Data include CHC-level data from the Uniform Data System, and regional-level data from the US Census American Community Survey and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. First, latent class analysis was conducted to identify unobserved subgroups of CHCs. Second, data envelopment analysis was performed to evaluate the operational efficiency of CHCs. Third, we used generalized linear models to examine the associations between the CHC subgroups, efficiency, and perinatal outcomes. Seven classes of CHCs were identified, including two rural classes, one suburban, one with large centers serving poor minorities in low poverty areas, and three urban classes. Many of these classes were characterized by the racial compositions of their patients. Findings indicate that CHCs serving white patients in rural areas have greater access to early prenatal care. Health centers with greater efficiency have lower rates of LBW, as do those who serve largely white patient populations in rural areas. CHCs serving poor racial minorities living in low-poverty areas had particularly low levels of access to early prenatal care and high rates of LBW. Findings highlight that significant diversity exists in the sociodemographic composition and regional context of US health centers, in ways that are associated with their operations, delivery of care, and health outcomes. Results from this study highlight that while the provision of early prenatal care and the efficiency with which a health center operates may improve the health of the women served by CHCs and their babies, the underlying social and economic conditions facing patients ultimately have a larger association with their health.
Race and Place Matter: Inequity in Prenatal Care for Reservation-Dwelling American Indian People
(SAGE Publications, 2024-03) Thorsen, Maggie L.; Palacios, Janelle F.
Early initiation and consistent use of prenatal care is linked with improved health outcomes. American Indian birthing people have higher rates of inadequate prenatal care (IPNC), but limited research has examined IPNC among people living on American Indian reservations. The current study uses birth certificate data from the state of Montana (n = 57,006) to examine predictors of IPNC. Data on the community context is integrated to examine the role of community health in mediating the associations between reservation status and IPNC. Results suggest that reservation-dwelling birthers are more likely to have IPNC, an association partially mediated by community health. Odds of IPNC are higher for reservation-dwelling American Indian people compared to reservation-dwelling White birthers, highlighting intersecting inequalities of race and place.
Revisiting the Time Trade-Off Hypothesis: Work, Organized Activities, and Academics During College
(2014-11) Greene, Kaylin M.; Maggs, Jennifer L.
How adolescents spend their time has long-term implications for their educational, health, and labor market outcomes, yet surprisingly little research has explored the time use of students across days and semesters. The current study used longitudinal daily diary data from a sample of college students attending a large public university in the Northeastern US (n = 726, Mage = 18.4) that was followed for 14 days within each of 7 semesters (for up to 98 diary days per student). The study had two primary aims. The first aim was to explore demographic correlates of employment time, organized activity time, and academic time. The second aim was to provide a rigorous test of the time trade-off hypothesis, which suggests that students will spend less time on academics when they spend more time on employment and extracurricular activities. The results demonstrated that time use varied by gender, parental education, and race/ethnicity. Furthermore, the results from multi-level models provided some support for the time trade-off hypothesis, although associations varied by the activity type and whether the day was a weekend. More time spent on employment was linked to less time spent on academics across days and semesters whereas organized activities were associated with less time on academics at the daily level only. The negative associations between employment and academics were most pronounced on weekdays. These results suggest that students may balance certain activities across days, whereas other activities may be in competition over longer time frames (i.e., semesters).
School Context and American Indian Substance Use
(2017-12) Eitle, David; Thorsen, Maggie L.; Eitle, Tamela McNulty
The present study extends prior research exploring the role of school contextual factors in predicting individual adolescent substance use by examining how a school's racial composition is associated with American Indian adolescent tobacco and marijuana use. Using a subsample of 523 American Indian students from the restricted use Add Health data, we consider both individual and school contextual factors across 99 schools. Our results suggest that a school's racial composition is associated with individual tobacco and marijuana use among American Indian youth, but in different ways depending upon the substance. Our findings illustrate the importance of extending research on the correlates of substance use for racial and ethnic minorities beyond studies examining African-Americans and/or Hispanics.
School modality, race and ethnicity, and mental health of U.S. adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024-07) Tamla, Vijaya; Laestadius, Linnea; Campos-Castillo, Celeste
Background. While minoritized ethnoracial groups were most likely to be in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of these ethnoracial disparities on adolescent mental health is unclear. Since past studies do not directly examine whether the association between school modality and self-reported mental health outcomes varied by race and ethnicity among U.S. adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study addresses the gap. Methods. Adolescents aged 13 to 17 years old (n = 510) were surveyed for self-reports of anxiety and depression symptoms using the 4-item Patient Health Questionnaire during Spring 2021. Seemingly unrelated regressions were used to estimate the differential association between school modality and mental health by respondents’ race and ethnicity. Results. Estimates without interaction between school modality and race and ethnicity suggested that Latino respondents reported a significantly higher frequency of depressive symptoms than their White counterparts (b = 0.459; p < 0.05). Similarly, the estimates without the interaction suggested respondents reporting hybrid learning had a higher frequency of depressive symptoms than in-person learning (b = 0.504; p < 0.05). Estimates with interaction between school modality and race and ethnicity suggested fully online learning was associated with poorer mental health only among White respondents and better mental health among Black respondents. Among adolescents attending school fully online, Black adolescents reported fewer mental health symptoms than their White counterparts (anxiety, b =– 1.364; p < 0.05, and depression, b =– 1.647; p < 0.05). Conclusions. Fully online learning may have benefitted the mental health of Black adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps because it buffered racial discrimination and social anxiety in schools. Additional interventions should be explored to promote in-person school environments that better support the mental health of Black adolescents. Moreover, prioritizing equitable access to broadband internet will provide better access to online learning and ensure positive mental health, particularly for adolescents from minoritized ethnoracial groups during instances of future pandemics. Future research should continue to consider the race and ethnicity of adolescents to promote mental well-being in schools across learning modalities.
School-Level Bureaucrats: How High School Counselors Inhabit the Conflicting Logics of Their Work
(SAGE Publications, 2023-10) Blake, Mary Kate
Through three years of training, school counselors build a professional identity based on providing social-emotional, academic, and postsecondary guidance to students. But school counselors face conflict in meeting these expectations in a bureaucratic environment that asks them to prioritize efficiency when meeting with students rather than building one-on-one relationships. I draw from interviews with high school counselors and school personnel and a year of observations to study the institutional logics that govern their work and use inhabited institutional theory to study how time scarcity shaped how counselors interpreted these conflicting macro-level logics in their micro-level interactions. The counselors in this study developed patterns of practice that helped them manage this conflict, negotiating but eventually settling with nonideal strategies in the best way they could with the resources made available to them. Efforts to reject the efficiency model were met with pushback from school leaders and unintended consequences for counselors and students alike. The conflict inherent in their work left little room for the mental health or postsecondary counseling they expect and are trained to provide.
Secondary Trauma in the Workplace: Tools for Awareness, Self-Care, and Organizational Responses in Montana
(Montana State University, 2018) Clements, Erin; Ellis, Colter; Knight, Kelly E.; McLane, Richard; Osterloth, Katharine; Powell, Christina; Saverud, Anna; Sherstad, Alanna; Talcotta, Amy Katherine; Young, Kelsen
This book is written for Montana’s victim service providers—the people who have chosen to dedicate their professional lives to helping the survivors of trauma. As providers, we are the ones working day in and day out with those who have endured some of the worst life has to offer, including sexual assault, child maltreatment, domestic violence, elder abuse, hate crimes, and other forms of violence, as well as traumas related to substance abuse, housing insecurity, accidents, natural disasters, and war. For those of us in this line of work, secondary trauma—an umbrella term for the trauma that results from repeated empathetic engagement with traumatized populations—is a very real and very serious issue. Secondary trauma can result in a whole assortment of physical and emotional issues, as well as contribute to staff turnover and shortages in providers. Like most providers working in Montana and across the nation, you may never have been taught that secondary trauma is a normal byproduct of your work, or been advised how you and the organization that employs you can effectively manage it. We want to change that.
Undergraduate Student Process Reflections on Utilizing Photovoice to Learn Principles of Feminist Research
(Elsevier, 2024-08) Rachel C. Ormsbee; Ashtyn Winchell; Jenny English; Allie Martian; Molly L. Craig; Nikki M. Michaels; Amanda Haab; Abigail Girardot; Lauren Winter; Penelope Reed; Clare J. Hendricks; Alison Gaarsland; Elizabeth H. D'Amico; Alysah K. Southworth; Lilyanna Blevins; Tricia Saam; Genevieve R. Cox
Photovoice is a participant-oriented research methodology applied in community-based participatory action research (PAR) (Schell et al., 2009). Wang and Burris (1997) developed Photovoice, grounded in “critical consciousness, feminist theory, and documentary photography,” to assist in recording and reflecting on community strengths and concerns (p. 370). This lays the groundwork for critical communication with policymakers. Among feminist research methodologies, Photovoice stands out for its allegiance to feminist research principles and capacity to invoke community-driven change (Budig et al., 2018). Because of its ability to challenge traditional power imbalances between researchers and participants, it is well-suited to employ in teaching feminist research principles (Wang et al., 2000).