Abstract

Minimal research has focused on how lynching was not purely an individual-level event but, at times, was a family-level process. Prior research has focused on the economic forces, social factors, and individual level attributes that changed the probability of being lynched. Research studying these topics has identified that marginalization, status, distinctiveness, and the racial threat hypothesis contribute to lynching. However, this research has not studied child victims and how parental level attributes may intersect differently with these theoretical perspectives. Using machine-learning tools, I created census linked data which identifies the families of child lynch victims and other non-victim families in the surrounding neighborhood. With this data, I find that marginalization, status, distinctiveness, and the racial threat hypothesis may play a different role for child victims than previous studies that studied different populations. My findings demonstrate that child victims are a unique population that have different liabilities and protections that are tied to family-level attributes.

Degree

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Sociology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/