Professor Rena Zito and Elon student Colleen Fitzpatrick '17 presented their research at the North Carolina Sociological Association conference
Rena Zito, assistant professor of sociology, and Colleen Fitzpatrick ’17 presented research at the North Carolina Sociological Association conference on Feb. 17, 2017, at High Point University.
Zito was invited to present a paper titled “Teenage Motherhood and Intimate Partner Victimization Risk: A Counterfactual Analysis” for a session on “Racialization and Gendering in Crime, Deviance, and Social Control.” The research uses a quasi-experimental statistical method to examine the causal impact of early motherhood on multiple forms of criminal risk exposure, including exposure to violent relationships.
Fitzpatrick presented her Elon College Fellows research titled “A Cross-National Analysis of Women’s Political Power and Norms Supporting Gendered Violence” in the student poster presentations. This research, mentored by Zito, uses data from the World Values Survey, the World Bank and the Interparliamentary Union to examine links between women’s political status, gender traditionalism, and global variation in support for violence against women. Fitzpatrick is majoring in international studies and Spanish with a minor in criminal justice studies. Her research was supported by the Elon College Fellows program.