Celebrating Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research at the Sociology Senior Capstone!
The Department of Sociology is proud to recognize two exceptional student projects from this semester’s (Spring) Senior Colloquium (SOC 43C9), awarded by the Baylor Sociology Undergraduate Committee. These students tackled some of today’s most pressing social issues, from political radicalization and family dynamics to media framing and racial bias, through thoughtful and innovative sociological research.
Jessica Eskew received the Best Poster Award for her project, Family, Friends, and Facebook: How Digital and Physical Communities Shape Radicalization. Jessica’s project examined how social embeddedness influences support for political violence. Drawing on data from Wave 7 of the Baylor Religion Survey (2025), her regression findings showed that individuals who felt more connected to their physical communities (family, friends, and neighbors) were less supportive of political violence, while those more embedded in digital communities were significantly more supportive. Although both physical and digital ties encouraged prosocial behavior, closeness to physical communities had a much stronger impact on reducing hostility toward others.
Emily Russo earned an Honorable Mention for her project, Back Home, But at What Cost? How Parent-Child Dynamics Shape Post-Return Well-Being. Emily’s research challenged common “boomerang kid” and “failure to launch” narratives by exploring how adult children experience returning to the parental home. Using measures of closeness, conflict, autonomy, and financial dependence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, she identified five distinct parent-child dynamic patterns that help explain why moving back home can be restorative for some individuals and stressful for others.
Christi Rodrigue also received an Honorable Mention for her project, Framing the Narrative: How News Outlets Frame Gun Violence Along Ideological and Racial Lines (2016–2025). Through an analysis of 148 news articles from left-leaning, neutral, and right-leaning media outlets, Christi examined how gun violence is framed across ideological perspectives. While race was rarely directly identified, her study revealed significant differences in how White and non-White perpetrators were portrayed. The project highlights how subtle framing choices, especially what news outlets emphasize or omit, can shape public understanding of crime and race in powerful ways.
Congratulations to Jessica, Emily, and Christi for their exceptional research and contributions to sociological inquiry!! We are very proud of you and wish you well in your next chapter of life!