Digital Commons Network^™

Individual Thought Patterns: Women In New York's Extreme Metal Music Scene, Joan M. Jocson-Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme metal music (EMM) is both an umbrella term and a sub-category of heavy metal. Although women have a small but steady presence in heavy metal, this number shrinks when applied to the EMM scene. Using ethnographic research, participant-observation and interviews, this study surveys women in New York's EMM scene to address participation, gender performativity and feminist musicology.

Private Conversation, Gahee Park

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis paper "Private Conversation" discusses the themes, contexts, and influences relevant to paintings and drawings I made during my MFA studies.

Being In Relationship: The Experience Of A Female Dance/Movement Therapy Intern On A Male Residential Unit For Sexually Problematic Behaviors, Krista Tyner

Creative Arts Therapies Theses

This study serves to explore the experience of a female dance/movement therapy intern working with males on a residential unit for sexually problematic behaviors. It enlightened me on how it was to be in relationship with them, through both a mind and body therapeutic lens. It addresses stereotypes and preconceived notions pertaining to this population. The questions attempted to be answered were as follows: How is it to be in relationship with males who are on a residential unit for sexually problematic behavior, as a female dance/movement therapy intern? How do I experience male/female relationships, gender, and sexuality on the …

Addressing The Gender Workforce Gap In The Scientific Journal Editorial Hierarchy, Nishelli Ishti Ahmed

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Shift In Gender Representations And Narratives In Super Bowl Commercials, Ashley M. Rockwell

Sociology Theses

Despite the wide, diverse, and captive Super Bowl television audience, there are only a few studies—none longitudinal—that have examined gender representations in Super Bowl commercials. Scholars have demonstrated that advertisements influence our behaviors and attitudes and can reinforce and reflect dominant ideologies (Garst and Bodenhausen 1997; Kilbourne 1999; Smeesters and Mandel 2006). This study examines how the gender narratives and representations in 665 Super Bowl advertisements that aired between 2005 and 2016 changed over time. Based on this content analysis, gender representations and narratives of Super Bowl commercials shifted to become more egalitarian. While there was a general trajectory toward …

Hegemonic Masculinity In Men With Schizophrenia: Complicity And Strategic Performance, Christopher Vidmar

Sociology Theses

Using secondary analysis of in-depth interviews of men with schizophrenia (N=59), in this thesis I explore the interplay between the performance of hegemonic masculinity and the treatment career of men with serious mental illness (SMI), and in doing so begin a conversation about how mental health providers can better address issues of masculinity. My findings are that significant barriers to masculinity performance are caused by the diagnosis and treatment of SMI, leading to roll loss, subsequent stress, and strategic modification of masculinity performance to attain hegemonic complicity. I identify six emergent themes and three masculinities within the data, and offer …

Cohesion And Factors Of Sport, Jordan T. Schofield

Sport Management Undergraduate

This research was done to see how player demographics and other factors of sport effect team cohesion of a soccer program at a Division III level. In this study different demographics such as year in college, transfer status, and how many years you have been playing were explored to see if they impacted the amount of cohesion on the team. Additionally, other factors of sport such as gender, coaching styles, effective student leaders, the wins and goals met as a team, and how athletes interact off the field were also taken into consideration and compared to the amount of cohesion …

The Public Consequences Of A Personal Choice: The Impact Of The Decision To Be Childfree In Family-Friendly America, Emily Ingalls

Dissertations

The topic of diversity and inclusion has garnered increased interest over the past decade, with 78% of executives listing the topics as critical initiatives (Forbes, 2011). One group that has received little attention but continues to be stigmatized is the childfree population, or those individuals who deliberately choose not to have children. Previous research has examined opinions of this group generally and in the workplace, specifically, but this research frequently considers childfree and childless people under the same umbrella. This study examined ratings of the childfree in the workplace compared to childless adults as well as to parents. The potential …

Teacher Sustainability Cultural Wealth Among Suburban Educators Of Color, Verna Wong

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how do teachers of color sustain themselves in a profession that struggles to retain teachers? It utilized bell hooks’s feminist theory to look at the challenges and strengths of teachers through gender, race and class intersections. Because retention is a concern, especially among teachers of color, the ndings describe how teachers utilized cultural wealth to strengthen their capacity to stay in their profession. Tara Yosso (2005) denes cultural wealth as “an array of knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts possessed and utilized by Communities of Color to survive and resist macro and micro …

The New Radicals: How Wage Labor, Physical Abuse And An Agrarian Crisis Shaped Women's Participation In The Zapatista Rebellion, Patrick E. Brady

Honors Capstones

My experiences in San Cristóbal de las Casas have been the primary motivation for my interest in female Zapatistas. Ever since I concluded my research project, I have had a question that has been largely unanswered by scholars. What are the separate economic and social factors that motivated indigenous Tetzel and Tzotzil men and women to volunteer in the Zapatista Rebellion, and how has feminism influenced indigenous women’s participation in the rebellion? Up to this point, few historians have studied the gendered nature of the causes for indigenous participation in the EZLN. Those who have were concerned with the impact …

Gender Reflections: A Reconsideration Of Pictish Mirror And Comb Symbols, Traci N. Billings

Theses and Dissertations

The interpretation of prehistoric iconography is complicated by the tendency to project

contemporary male/female gender dichotomies into the past. Pictish monumental stone sculpture

in Scotland has been studied over the last 100 years. Traditionally, mirror and comb symbols

found on some stones produced in Scotland between AD 400 and AD 900 have been interpreted

as being associated exclusively with women and/or the female gender. This thesis re-examines

this assumption in light of more recent work to offer a new interpretation of Pictish mirror and

comb symbols and to suggest a larger context for their possible meaning. Utilizing the Canmore

database, …

Teoria De La Mente Y Sociedad En La Narrativa Policiaca De Lorenzo Silva Y Francisco Garcia Pavon: Estereotipos, Roles De Genero Y Minorias, Jesus Castro Gorfti

Open Access Dissertations

Spanish:

The purpose of this study is to utilize certain aspects of cognitive psychology as a framework to analyze the police procedural novels of two Spanish authors: Francisco García Pavón and Lorenzo Silva. Specifically, we will focus on two main aspects of the mind studied by the cognitive sciences: Theory of Mind and metarepresentations. Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the capacity that human beings have to attribute mental states to other humans, as well as oneself, based on their bodily and facial gestures. The concept of metarepresentation refers to the ability of humans to keep track of who said …

Bad Girls In Corsets: Women And The Transgressive Body In The Nineteenth Century, Colleen Warwick Green

Open Access Dissertations

Women, and their bodies, posed an increasing anxiety for Victorian society. Culturally and outwardly, the Victorian era strove to maintain a level of decorum that, increasingly, the nineteenth-century woman were, rebelling against. The urge for women to break through social barriers and constraints binding them to the century created a divergence in thought from the traditional mores of the past, in turn affecting the ways in which womens’ bodies were portrayed, displayed and manipulated by the authors and artists of the century.

As women entered actively entered into spaces once closed to them, they furthered the rift of uncertainty and …

Gender Effects In Hedge Funds Performance, Karen Yoke Wah Gan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper shows that after controlling for total risks (as funds do not typically hold a completely large diversified portfolio) across different funds, female-managed funds appear to perform better in certain circumstances. For example, female-managed hedge funds perform better during post-crisis times, for investments using the Relative Value Style and also when investments are in the Asia excluding Japan region. However, there are still many conditions in which male-managed funds seem to perform better. Namely, male-managed funds performed significantly positive in the Relative Value, Security Selection, and Multiprocess Styles, notably during the pre-crisis period and also when investments are in …

‘How Yoga Are You?’: Exploring The Contemporary Practice Of Yoga In The United States, Olivia Mclaughlin

Masters Theses

In 2015, to the United States, 21 million Americans claimed to be regular practitioners of yoga. Yoga has long been studied by psychologists, therapists, and medical scientists for its ability to affect positive change in people’s lives, particularly in regards to mental and emotional health and well-being. Within the field of sociology, yoga has gained an increasing amount of attention for its ability to help treat chronic eating disorders among women, becoming extremely popular within the subfields of sociology of the body and gender. Additionally, the cultural impact of the transmission of yoga has fascinated social scientists interested in studying …

Gender And Collaborative Writing, Anna F. Hertzog

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

This action research report investigated whether all boy collaboration groups improve the writing skills and attitudes in primary aged boys. The study included an all male writing group, a mixed gender writing group, and an all female writing group in a small, rural Montessori Academy in a classroom with 21 students ranging in Grades 1 through 3. Students were instructed on how to collaborate and work appropriately with one another before beginning writing in their groups assigned by gender for six weeks. While students worked in their groups the researcher observed behaviors, scored entries, conferenced with students, and administered surveys …

Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that with the rise of the middle-class, Victorian England saw the development of a power model in which middle-class men, middle-class women and disenfranchised bodies of children and lower-class women suffered from the demands of bodily domination. Because the bodily health of middle-class men was believed to represent national health, it was imperative that he dominate his body, particularly with regard to sexual urges. Consequently, the bodies of women with whom he sought sexual release suffered from forms of bodily domination as well. Through an analysis of journals and private writings of those living in Victorian England, …

Consumer Likelihood To Complain In The U.S. Commercial Airline Industry, Xinpei Lu

Theses and Dissertations

Consumer emotions play an important role in the marketplace nowadays, which can either directly or indirectly affect the marketing outcomes. Consumer complaints are believed to occur if consumers begin to generate negative emotions due to an unfavorable service experience. However, there are also existing controversies. Moreover, males and females tended to show different attitudes towards complaining in different situations. There is a great significance of doing the research of consumer complaints in commercial airline industry because a majority of the predominant research concentrates on the consumer complaint behaviors in market places such as restaurant, hospital, hotel, and shopping mall. The …

"That's Empowering!": The Influence Of Community Activism Curriculum On Gifted Adolescents' Self-Concepts, Ashley D. Beason-Manes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first of the following manuscripts addresses the experiences of a group of gifted middle school students as they engaged in community action projects that provided them opportunity to become activists in their school, neighborhood, and larger community. This study pays special attention to participants’ self-concepts as measured by the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Children (2012) and through participant interviews. The study finds evidence of students’ co-cognitive components of giftedness when themes of courage, sensitivity to human concerns, and sense of destiny are applied. Main themes from Harter’s scale are also applied, and participant interviews reveal evidence of academic and …

Schoolgirls: Embodiment Practices Among Current And Former Sex Workers In Academia, Jennifer Heineman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation looks at how marginalized people experience embodiment in intellectual spaces. By looking at the experiences of twenty current and former sex workers in academia, I find that individual actors practice two kinds of embodiment, what I label 1) fragmented (consciously separating erotic and intellectual work) and 2) confluent embodiment (making erotic and intellectual work more confluent). I find that embodiment practices change depending on the social context in which they occur. My findings expand the literature on embodiment and sociologies of the body for a more robust and fluid definition of the ways individual actors practice and reflect …

The Effect Of Gender, Not Math Anxiety, On Working Memory Tasks, Amy J. Mcauley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Math anxiety is defined as “feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations.” (Richardson & Suinn, 1972). The effects math anxiety has on various tasks are overwhelming. Math anxiety has been shown to relate to poor educational attainment and avoidance of math courses (Hembree 1990). Research has shown that math anxiety can affect simple process like counting (Maloney, Risko, Ansari, & Fugelsang, 2010) to taxing working memory while solving a math problem (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001). Additionally, gender also plays …

Nothin' But A Good Time: Hair Metal, Conservatism, And The End Of The Cold War In The 1980s, Chelsea Anne Watts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a cultural history of the 1980s through an examination of one of the decade’s most memorable cultural forms – hair metal. The notion that hair metal musicians, and subsequently their fans, wanted “nothin’ but a good time,” shaped popular perceptions of the genre as shallow, hedonistic, and apolitical. Set against the backdrop of Reagan’s election and the rise of conservatism throughout the decade, hair metal’s transgressive nature embodied in the performers’ apparent obsession with partying and their absolute refusal to adopt the traditional values and trappings of “yuppies” or middle-class Americans, certainly appeared to be a strong …

Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos

Doctoral Dissertations

This project uses discursive, visual, and ethnographic approaches situated in a critical feminist methodology to understand how ways of knowing about youth sexuality and reproduction influence community health work. I understand the “problem” in this inquiry as the discursive contexts that limit critical ways of knowing about young people’s sexual subjectivities and practices and about the design of policies and programs. Although race, class, gender, and sexuality are understood in the public health literature as important social determinants of health, there is a lack of research that applies a critical, feminist lens to these constructs. I draw on three years …

Transnational Engagement And Immigrants’ Well-Being In Canada, Jonathan Anim Amoyaw

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

After migration, most immigrants do not dissociate themselves from their relational networks in their homeland. Instead, they nourish, reproduce, and maintain ties with their non-migrant relatives and friends by engaging in various forms of transnational activities. Within the transnational paradigm, remittances are central to maintaining transnational relationships. Immigrants’ demonstration of affection and solidarity in the absence of physical propinquity and intimacy is highly contingent on their remittance transfers. Over the years, the motives, determinants, benefits, and consequences of these financial flows on the well-being of recipients in origin communities have been extensively studied. However, the existing literature is mainly informed …

Women, Convergent Film Criticism, And The Cinephilia Of Feminist Interruptions, Rachel L. Thibault

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ways in which female film critics practice film criticism in the convergent age. In original research drawn from ethnographic interviews with eight female film critics and bloggers as well as textual, historical, and reception analyses of criticism, this dissertation argues that women who write film criticism in the convergent era are not only writing from a space of marginalization based on the patriarchal dominance of the film industry, but also face a series of obstacles through gendered and discursive conflicts that are unique to writing online and which do not exert the same impact on male …

Japanese Pronoun Adventure: A Japanese Language Learner's Exploration Of His Japanese Gender Pronoun, Takumi Nakano

Masters Theses

In Japanese, there are various kinds of first-person pronouns, and some of them express the referent’s gender identity. Gender-neutral pronouns are made in English- speaking world day by day, but there is not any common first-person pronoun which indicates the gender identity that positions the referent’s gender somewhere between masculine and feminine. The present paper conducted a life story research on the “Japanese life” of an advanced learner of Japanese at a university in the United States who has been exploring his gender identity by coining and using a new Japanese first- person pronoun 㛪 ore, which indicates “in the …

The Shattered Slipper Project: The Impact Of The Disney Princess Franchise On Girls Ages 6-12, Caila Leigh Cordwell

Selected Honors Theses

The Disney Princess franchise is arguably the largest and most popular franchise in the world, earning billions of dollars globally each year. Due to the prevalence and ease of access, the Disney princesses have a tremendous impact on today’s youth, namely young girls. This qualitative study investigated just how much of an impact the Disney Princess franchise has on American girls ages 6-12 through the production of a documentary film, entitled The Shattered Slipper Project. The research team selected girls from private schools in Lakeland, Florida and Sharpsburg, Georgia. The researcher conducted two interviews—one a roundtable-style group interview focusing on …

The Impact Of Gender-Biased Language In State Regulations Upon Judgments About Foster Children, Hannah R. J. Heinzel

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the impact of gender-biased language in the wording of state regulations governing the treatment of foster children in Illinois. Participants were given excerpts of legal language written with either gender-biased or gender-inclusive language and then asked to judge a hypothetical situation involving a male or a female child. It was hypothesized that gender-biased language would have differential effects on interpretation of the language for boys versus girls; we also proposed a moderated mediation model that hypothesized activation of gendered constructs would mediate the interpretation of gendered language. According to the hypothesized model, participant sexism and attitudes towards …

Experiences Of Credibility: Female Instructors Of Color At Faith Based Universities, Jamilah L. Spears

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research shows that the credibility of instructors of color is often questioned by White students, while other studies prove that male instructors are also perceived as more credible than female instructors (Hendrix, 1997; Perry, Moore, Edwards, Acosta, & Frey, 2009). When these two findings are coupled, it seems that there might be a significant barrier to overcome for female instructors of color in their everyday instruction. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore perceived credibility for female instructors of color at faith-based universities, namely, Evangelical Christian universities. Based on my analysis of the interview data, these six female …

Reconceptualizing Women's Stem Experiences: Building A Theory Of Positive Marginality, Valerie N. Streets

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since the 1980s, disciplines such as psychology and sociology have discussed the construct of positive marginality. Positive marginality describes the perception that belonging to a non-dominant cultural or demographic group can be advantageous rather than oppressing. To date, research on positive marginality has explored the construct in a qualitative manner across a number of demographic groups (e.g., Jewish women in social sciences, African American women in predominantly Caucasian workplaces). Because women are largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, the current research examined positive marginality in a STEM context. This research advances the existing understanding of positive …