Digital Commons Network^™

Inside Out: Masculinity From Delinquent Cinema To New Queer Cinema, 1983-1991, Blue Aslan Philip Profitt

Theses and Dissertations

With the rise of multiplexes, cable television, and video rental stores, the 1980s became a golden age for youth cinema in the U.S. While many scholars have researched this decade’s youth films, much of that attention is focused on the films of John Hughes and his collaborators, whose work mostly follows affluent teenagers enjoying high school traditions. This dissertation fills gaps in youth cinema scholarship by examining the period’s delinquent films. By studying six delinquent films released between 1983 and 1991, this project looks to the understudied connection between 1980s delinquent films and 1990s New Queer Cinema. In contrast to …

Intimate Partner Violence In The Rio Grande Valley: The Role Of Culture, Tania Diaz

Theses and Dissertations

Mexican culture along the border towns of the Rio Grande dominates views towards women and men experiencing violence in intimate relationships. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies relating to intimate partner violence in the Rio Grande Valley. This study addresses the dynamics of abusive relationship in a Hispanic community that can be influenced by cultural concepts such as familism and marianismo. The author utilized a mixed methods approach for this study that included a sample of (n = 513) surveys and (n = 13) interviews that were analyzed separately. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to assess …

Status Of Women’S Leadership In The Instructional Technology Field, 2014-2018, Kerrian A. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the leadership status of women in the instructional technology field during the period 2014-2018. Five areas of leadership were examined (a) faculty rank in instructional technology programs, (b) positions on editorial boards of leading instructional technology journals, (c) publications in leading instructional technology journals, (d) presentations at leading conferences in the instructional technology field, and (e) leadership of four leading professional organizations in the field.

The study utilized a quantitative content analysis research method. A code sheet was developed for the five areas of leadership. Research Question 1: What was the leadership …

Ethnicity And Punishment: A State-Level Investigation On Hispanic Representation In School Discipline, Candace Nicole Fowles

Theses and Dissertations

Racial disproportionality in exclusionary discipline measures among public school students has been well-established for African American youth in the United States. The research literature has included limited and inconsistent research findings providing information on the representation patterns among Hispanic students in school discipline. Previous studies on Hispanic representation in school discipline have established a need for data to be analyzed at the state level. Using a large dataset acquired from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights - Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for the 2013-2014 school year, this paper examines if Hispanic students are disproportionally represented in exclusionary …

Fostering Agency In Single-Gender, Middle Level Ela Classrooms: A Descriptive Multiple-Case Study, Jennifer V. Stowe

Theses and Dissertations

Students’ sense of agency or self-efficacy has been linked to student achievement levels (Goodman & Eren, 2013; Johnston, 2004; Skinner, Wellborne, & Connell, 1990). Research has also established that teachers position their students as having agency in the context of the classroom, frequently by the ways that they use language (Johnston, 2004; Paulson & Theado, 2014). However, little, if any, extant research describes teacher language as it relates to agency within the middle level English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. Additionally, studies concerning agency rarely address the ways in which gender may influence the ways in which teachers position their students …

Examining The Processes Of Social Construction On Decision-Making In Domestic Violence Probation Review Hearings, Danielle M. Romain

Theses and Dissertations

In domestic violence courts, judges and other court actors are often trained on one particular model of understanding domestic violence: the Duluth model of violence as power and control. There are, however, different theories and discourses about the causes and nature of domestic violence. Further, specialized domestic violence courts, which have become more prevalent since the 1990s, employ a problem-solving approach to domestic violence, focusing on offender accountability, rehabilitation, and victim safety. Whether these courts reduce violence and increase safety is less clear. Further, limited research exists on how offenders are processed through these courts, including post-sentencing decision-making. Given the …

Unpacking Empowerment Discourse Within A Women's Reentry Organization, Amanda Nicole Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Through ethnographic research with a small organization, Jareth, that helps women transition from prison to the community, this work unpacks discourses of empowerment within reentry organizations. I argue that Jareth’s empowerment discourse works on a pragmatic level to help women become employed but it does not work well to completely meet the needs of women offenders because businesses do not want to employ former prisoners and because the general public thinks that prison can meet all of women's needs. I also argue that empowerment defines 'power' and dependence' in particular ways - through appropriate and inappropriate forms of power and …

Finding Sanctuary In Sisterhood: A Middle School Literacy Group Critically Analyzes Race, Gender, And Size, Dywanna E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This critical qualitative study documented intersectionalities of race, gender, body image, and literacies as interpreted by five eighth grade Black female students during an eight-week after school literacy group. Ethnopoetic methodologies were used to represent findings and provide insights about how critical literacy engagements can be used to create discursive spaces where young Black girls describe and define these intersectionalities, how they are socialized into current beliefs, make meaning of beauty ideals portrayed in media, and interpret gender, obesity, and race. Through content analysis of field notes, audio recorded sessions, research partner interviews, researcher journals, and genre artifacts, this study …

Women Workin’ It In Gis: A Mixed Methods Study Of Underrepresentation And The Gendered Experience Among Female Gis Practitioners, Livia M. Betancourt Mazur

Theses and Dissertations

Through novel empirical research, this thesis explores the experience of women working in the professional field of geographic information systems (GIS), adding to GIS literature, as well as to academic geography and wider science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discourses, addressing gaps in these bodies of knowledge.

Gender And Representative Bureaucracy: The Career Progression Of Women Managers In Male-Dominated Occupations In State Government, Velma J. Ballard

Theses and Dissertations

The tenets of representative bureaucracy suggest that the composition of the bureaucracy should mirror the people it serves including women in order to influence the name, scope, and implementation of public policies. Women are still underrepresented in mid-to-upper management in male-dominated occupations. When women are under-represented in mid-to-upper levels of management in government, there are implications regarding representative bureaucracy.

This study examined the career progression experiences of women who were successful in reaching mid-to-upper levels of management in male-dominated occupations in state government. Specifically, the study explored how women perceive various occupational factors including their rates of participation, experiences, gender, …

"Murderous Mania": Gender And Homicide In Milwaukee Newspapers, 1840-1900, Kadie Kroening Seitz

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the ways in which Milwaukee's newspapers used gender norms to make sense of acts of murder during the nineteenth century. First, women victims of men's violence are examined, particularly through the lenses of ethnicity, class and race. Women victims who did not fit into middle class gender norms were less likely to be portrayed as "beautiful female murder victims." Then, women perpetrators of violence (not exclusively against men) are discussed, including a specific examination of women's use of an insanity defense. Newspaper tropes used to describe women's motivations for filicide are also examined, and found to vary …

The Impact Of Perpetrator Gender On Child Protective Services Sexual Abuse Cases: A National Picture, David Axlyn Mcleod

Theses and Dissertations

Child sexual assault is a problem of epidemic proportions in the United States with some research suggesting up to one fifth of our nations children being victimized before reaching adulthood. Research has suggested females could be responsible for up to 20% of child sexual abuse cases, and at the same time only represent only 1% of sexual offenders incarcerated the US. This creates a situation where a large group of relatively under-researched offenders are evading detection. Numerous calls for further research have been made, but relatively few studies have had the ability to shed significant light on this phenomenon on …

Gender And Programming: A Comparison Of Program Availability And Participation In U.S. Prisons For Men And Women, Courtney A. Crittenden

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines the state of prison programming across the U.S. and whether availability of and participation in prison programs varies by gender and other key factors such as the interaction effects of race and gender, self-identified needs, and facility-level characteristics. Using Morash, Rucker, and Haarr's (1994) study, the last major study comparing prison programming for men and women in U.S. prisons, as a guide, I explore the current state of prison programming using national-level survey data. The results indicate that gender does indeed matter for both prison programming availability and participation with women having more programs available to …

Unlawful Assembly And The Fredericksburg Mayor's Court Order Books, 1821-1834, Sarah K. Blunkosky

Theses and Dissertations

Unlawful assembly accounts extracted from the Fredericksburg Mayor’s Court Order Books from 1821-1834, reveal rare glimpses of unsupervised, alleged illegal interactions between free and enslaved individuals, many of whom do not appear in other records. Authorities enforced laws banning free blacks and persons of mixed race from interacting with enslaved persons and whites at unlawful assemblies to keep peace in the town, to prevent sexual relationships between white women and free and enslaved black men, and to prevent alliance building between individuals. The complex connections necessary to arrange unlawful assemblies threatened the town’s safety with insurrection if these individuals developed …

Understanding How African-American Middle School Students Cope With Peer Victimization: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Suzanne C. Linkroum

Theses and Dissertations

A mixed-methods approach was used to determine how African-American middle school students cope with peer victimization and to identify factors that inhibit and promote the use of prosocial coping strategies. In a previous study, participants had been categorized into four social clusters: well-adjusted, rejected, passively-victimized, or aggressively-victimized based on a cluster analysis of self-reported psychosocial variables. Interviews with a sub sample of 80 students focusing on identifying both how students thought they would respond and how they thought they should respond to hypothetical situations involving peer victimization were analyzed. Interviews also elicited factors that would support or impede the use …