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"A Narrative Is A Living Body”: Trans-Relations In Contemporary Transmasculine Fiction, Madison Rougier

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores how recent novels are able to expand representations of transgender experiences and promote identification with these characters and their experiences, even if the reader is not trans themself. It begins by delving into a brief history of transgender narrative and the problems associated with these narratives having been primarily in the form of memoir. It then examines how Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country, despite being one of the first instances of a fictional narrative focused on a transgender man, reflects similarly problematic narrative characteristics to those found in memoir. Proposing a concept of trans-relational reading, which promotes identifications …

Gender And United States Army Leadership Doctrine: Reserve Officer Training Corps Cadets’ Experiences With Leadership, Sarah M. Griffin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study provides a comparative analysis of female and male Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets' experiences with the United States Army leadership doctrine, given the hypermasculine Army culture with deeply engrained gender norms and expectations that have long privileged men and masculinity. Using Risman's (2004) theory of gender as social structure, I explore the historical, hyper-masculine cultural norms and expectations of Soldiers in the Army at the structural, interactional, and individual levels. In particular, I study the Army leadership doctrine (structural) as experienced by ROTC cadets, including their self-perceptions of leadership ability and attitudes about leadership (individual) and their perceptions …

Prudish Or Promiscuous? How The Nazis Policed Gender And Sex In The Hitler Youth, Elisabeth Champion

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines gender, sex, and sexuality in the Hitler Youth and how the Nazis policed and controlled adolescents and their sexuality. First, an examination of twentieth-century European youth movements shows how these organizations molded adolescents into obedient citizens and to fit national political agendas. The German Wandervogel, Boy Scouts, Fascist Italian youth movements, Young Pioneers, and Hitler Youth are explored. By the onset of World War Two, dictatorships like Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany educated and indoctrinated adolescents to help support and sustain racist and nationalistic regimes.Under National Socialism, officials monitored and controlled adolescents in the Hitler Youth and …

The Impact Of Child Gender On Parent Coping Suggestions And Suggestion Outcomes, Lyndsey Rachel Lawrence

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

The way a parent socializes their child to cope with stress is an important factor that influences how their child adjusts to stress later in life. However, how a parent’s coping suggestions may differ depending on their child’s gender is not well understood. This project examined (a) how parent coping suggestions differed depending on the gender of their child, and (b) if gender moderated the association between parent coping suggestions and their child’s internalizing and externalizing problems. I drew from two studies, one in middle childhood and one in emerging adulthood, which both contained measures of parent coping suggestions and …

Making Meaning Through Leadership: An Exploration Of College Men, Masculinity, And Motivation To Lead, Katharine Stango

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In my previous role as the Assistant Director for Campus Programs at the University of Vermont, (UVM) I noticed fewer and fewer college men pursing leadership opportunities during their time in college. Student affairs practitioners and scholars recognize the benefits and enhanced outcomes students gain by participating in meaningful activities in college (Astin, 1984; Dugan, 2006; Komives et al., 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Quaye et al., 2019; Tinto, 1987). When college men are responsible for higher numbers of conduct violations, sexual misconduct issues, and high risk drug and alcohol use in college (Harper & Harris, 2010; Young et al., …

Effects Of Gender, Physical Activity, Weight Status, And Mental Health Symptomatology On Primary Care Utilization, John W. Carew, Jaime Cotton, Hannah Shoshan, Alex Gevirtz, Thomas Delaney, Donna O'Malley

Master of Public Health Culminating Projects

Objectives. To determine the association between weight status, gender, physical activity, and mental health symptomatology on utilizing primary care in the last year.

Methods. We used data from the 2019 Vermont Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We used multivariate logistic regression and X² tests of association to assess factors associated with primary care utilization.

Results. Gender and obese or overweight status are significantly associated with one’s likelihood of utilizing healthcare in the past year. For those with 1-13 bad mental health days, the odds of having utilized healthcare in the past year are 1.65 times greater among women than …

A Case Of Sexual Misconduct: Gender Dynamics, Cultural Hegemony, And The United States Military In The Pacific 1945 - Present, Liam Thomas Edwards

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This research will focus on the sexual misconduct of the United States military following the end of the Second World War in the Korean peninsula, Japan, and the Philippines. In this research, I will argue that the United States military engaged in a system of widespread sexual misconduct in the Pacific following the conclusion of the Second World War. Its success in distancing the institution from this behavior in the historical record and historical memory has much to do with its place in the international system today. The hegemonic power that the United States represents on the world stage has …

Sexual Orientation, Gender, & Self-Styling: An Exploration Of Visual Identity-Signaling, Julian Ash Barritt

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

The focus of this investigation is the ways in which people in the West (primarily in the United States) visually signal their sexual orientation and gender identity through various forms of body modification—including tattooing, piercing, and hairstyling—and self-fashioning, e.g. selection of clothing and accessories. The purpose of this thesis is to help people comprehend the possible latent reasoning behind their choices of visual presentation and how even their conscious self-fashioning and body-modifying decisions may be influenced by historical choices of self-presentation. More broadly, this investigation aims to enhance the general (queer and non-queer) population’s understanding of the nuanced ways in …

Understanding The Impact Of Identity On Small Business Social Responsibility, Michael Jared Chan

Environmental Studies Electronic Thesis Collection

This paper examines how various identities intersect and shape how entrepreneurs think about and engage with social responsibility through small businesses and entrepreneurship. Through semi-structured interviews, their rationale for creating positive impact in their community was better understood and compared against each other. Nuance around the intersecting identities and experiences of entrepreneurs in their professional and personal life were found.

At first glance, it did not appear that identity influenced how social responsibility was thought about and practiced by respondents. But under closer inspection, there were certain nuances in lower level themes and sources of motivation that were driven by …

An Investigation Of The Relationships Between Callous-Unemotional Traits, Emotion Regulation, Antisocial Behavior, And Gender, Amanda Falcon

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Callous-Unemotional (CU) Traits, a subset of psychopathic traits often used to characterize youth, affect community wellbeing via associated antisocial behaviors such as aggression, substance use, and additional criminal acts. One possible mechanism of the association between CU traits and antisocial behavior is emotion regulation, impairment in which contributes to both internalizing and externalizing behavior. Further, emotion regulation, like CU traits, appears to manifest inconsistently across genders. Given this discrepancy in both the CU trait and emotion regulation literature, an examination of CU traits, emotion regulation, and antisocial behavior within the context of gender is warranted. The current study tested three …

The Culture Of College Wilderness Adventure Clubs: Exploring Leadership, Language, And Gender, Blair Shields

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

College is a time in many young adults’ lives when they are challenging their previous beliefs, learning new norms, and trying different activities. Once on campus, students are able to choose to participate in various clubs. At the University of Vermont (UVM), outdoor clubs are especially popular, but the culture of these types of groups has not been studied very extensively. In this study, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I examine the culture -- the goals, norms, and language -- of the clubs and how club membership is experienced by the member leaders. These clubs constitute a contested site …

Agency And Empowerment On Women-Owned Farms: A Vermont Agricultural Case Study, Caroline R. Putscher

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

When examining data from the most recent US Census of Agriculture (2012), I noticed a distinct imbalance between the percentages of male and female farmers, both in the country and in Vermont. Sales from women-owned farms represent only 3.3 percent of the total of U.S. agricultural sales, and in Vermont, women were the principal operators of 22.38 percent of farms. I wanted to examine the factors that led to these imbalances, and also understand from women farmers themselves what strategies they used to overcome these obstacles. The theories of agency and empowerment can be used in explaining women’s inequality in …

At Sea, Joshua D. Holz

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

At Sea is a short film about two people who think they're the same person. Crafting a dramatic narrative through a series of vignettes between two people, my film explores the tension of not knowing whether someone in one’s life is coming or going. Nora lets Lily stay in her apartment, and cares for her deeply, but doesn’t know if she’ll leave. I apply the three problematizations I analyze below—of the shot-reverse-shot, objects, and absent space—to convey this tension.

Thomas Elsaesser argues inherent to the classic Hollywood melodramas of the 1940s and 50s is a certain “myth-making function, insofar as …

Dying To Eat: Terror Management And Attitudes Toward Eating Plants, Erika J. Lewis

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Abstract

Terror management theory posits that the drive for self-preservation and the knowledge of our inevitable death create anxiety in people, which they manage in a variety of ways, including favoring those who are like them and distancing themselves from other animals. In studies on terror management theory, mortality salience has been shown to affect food preferences and liking of animals. Here, we test whether mortality salience and 2 other potential motivators, paragraphs about benefits of a plant-based diet on longevity and the environment, affect preferences for plant-based food and meat. We randomly assigned participants to think about their own …

Shaping Policy In The Anthropocene: Gender Justice As A Social, Economic And Ecological Challenge, Phoebe Spencer

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Environmental pressures such as natural disasters, resource scarcity, and conflict related to climate change have emphasized the importance of considering social justice within its ecological context. Gender inequality is one type of injustice that has traditionally been addressed as a social matter, yet gendered divisions in bargaining power, mobility, and access to resources are exacerbated by environmental instability. One barrier to gender equity in the face of a changing climate is the mainstream economic paradigm, which promotes growth and individualism, often at the cost of environmental and social wellbeing. The issue of gender inequality in the Anthropocene, the proposed geological …

Predicting Vulnerability To Math Stereotype Threat, Jane K. Strudwick

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Research suggests that stereotype threat—which occurs when a social group feels anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype about their group—may play a role in gender gaps in STEM, but it is important to identify individual differences in vulnerability to stereotype threat. Two-hundred and fourteen participants, ranging in age from 18 to 36 (53.3% female, 18.7% ethnic minority) were recruited from three sections of a university introductory calculus class. Participants completed measures of personality, math self-concept, math self-efficacy, anxiety sensitivity, assertiveness, neighborhood social capital, grades, and demographic questions. Stereotype vulnerability was measured as the primary outcome measure using the Stereotype Vulnerability …

Peer Victimization And The Development Of Anxiety And Depressive Symptoms: The Roles Of Stress Physiology And Gender, Leigh Ann Holterman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The overall goal of the current study was to determine whether experiences of relational and physical victimization were related to anxiety and depressive symptoms in a sample of emerging adults. This study also investigated whether these associations were moderated by gender, as well as by sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) reactivity to peer stress. Although work in this area has focused on children (e.g., Cullerton-Sen & Crick, 2005; Rudolph et al., 2009), it appears the presence and function of victimization changes with age, and the negative effects of victimization can last through early adulthood (e.g., Gros …

Gendering Fiction: A Mixed Methods Examination Of The Influence Of The "Boy" Book/ "Girl" Book Phenomenon On The Willingness To Read Of Young Adolescents, Megan Farley Munson-Warnken

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Well-meaning educators often recommend more "boy" books to increase reading motivation amongst boys. This experimental mixed-methods study investigated the influence of the "boy" book/ "girl" book phenomenon on willingness to read using a researcher-designed instrument called the Textual Features Sort (TFS). The TFS measured two attitudinal constructs—gendered beliefs about texts and willingness to read—in relation to individual textual features of selected young adult novels. Data came from 50 sixth and seventh grade students at a mid-sized public school in a rural New England state. Mean scores, frequencies, and percentages were analyzed using independent samples t-tests, paired t-tests, and Fisher's exact …

Feminized Asians And Masculinized Blacks: The Construction Of Gendered Races In The United States, Emy P. Takinami

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

This study attempts to clarify how race and gender are both socially constructed categories, and mutually constituted in ways that promote White, heterosexual, patriarchal standards of masculinity and femininity. I argue throughout this paper that Black women are deemed less marriageable due in part to the fact that they have been masculinized throughout the history of the United States. Similarly, Asian men are deemed less marriageable due in part to the fact they have been feminized throughout the history of the United States. Through my research I hope to clarify the role that certain historical events played in the dual …

Boys, Writing, And The Literacy Gender Gap: What We Know, What We Think We Know, Nancy Disenhaus

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The existence of a persistent gender gap in literacy achievement, and particularly in writing, is not in dispute: boys trail girls in every assessment at state, national, and international levels. Yet although this basic fact is not in dispute, nearly everything else concerning the gender gap in literacy achievement--its causes, consequences, and potential solutions--remains hotly contested, particularly in the public and professional discourse. Scholarly research offers insights that frequently challenge the prevailing public discourse, but this research has been conducted primarily in the U.K., Australia, and Canada, leaving the experiences of U.S. students largely unexplored. Herein lies the problem: an …

Susceptibility To Peer Influence For Engagement In Relational Aggression And Prosocial Behavior: The Roles Of Popular Peers, Stress Physiology, And Gender, Nicole Lin Lafko

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The overall goal of the current study was to determine if perceptions of popular peers' relationally aggressive (PPSRA) and prosocial behaviors (PPSP) were related to engagement in these behaviors in a sample of emerging adults. This study also investigated if these associations were moderated by sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) reactivity to peer stress and gender. Although a significant amount of research suggests that aggressive behaviors can be socialized by peers (e.g., Molano, Jones, Brown, & Aber, 2013), there is a dearth of work that has examined relational forms of aggression that tend to be more …

Gender Differences In Snowboarding: An Empirical Analysis, Hailey Ronconi

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

This study explores the market of female snowboarders, identifying common habits and preferences relating to the snowboard industry. In a sport where only 1/3 of the participants are female (SIA Intelligence Report 2014), it is crucial to identify ways for brands to better communicate with women and develop marketing strategies to meet their needs and preferences. This study fills a void in current research by studying behaviors, habits, and preferences that have yet to be studied in the snowboard industry. To explore these behaviors and better describe the female snowboard participant, a survey was conducted among University of Vermont …

Affinity Seeking In The Writing Center: An Analysis Of One-On-One Tutoring Sessions, Allie G. Brimlow, Sarah N. Heiss

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

This study applied the instructional communication concept of affinity seeking to one-on-one peer tutoring sessions. Using content analysis of video recorded tutoring sessions, this study found that tutors most frequently use five affinity seeking strategies: Self Concept Confirmation, Nonverbal Immediacy, Assume Control, Personal Autonomy, and Listening. These strategies differ from those used by teachers and graduate teaching assistants. Differences in tutor affinity-seeking strategies were identified based on gender, especially in sessions with male tutees. Addressing these contextual and gender differences will provide opportunities for improved tutor training and practice.

Campus Climate Perceptions Of Queer College Students Of Color: Disidentifying The Rainbow, Khristian Kemp-Delisser La'mount Kemp-Delisser

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation explored the experience lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer students of col-or. Influenced by the Queer of Color theoretical framework, this dissertation employed multiple methodological traditions (namely qualitative and Scholarly Personal Narrative), to deepen the exploration and unlock multiple dimensions of experience of queer college students of color.

Analysis of the student interviews produced 29 themes. The results are, framed by four categories of campus climate (behavioral, socio-historical, psychological, and structural or compo-sitional (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998).), and offer a glimpse into the inter-locking dynamics of racism and homophobia that the queer students of color navigate in …