Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Decolonizing Wash Practices Between National Policies & International Standards: A Case Study In Tanzania, Mary Thibodeau

Capstone Collection

The international community has developed guidelines and standards for the maintenance of water and sanitation (WASH) in states from the end of the 20th century to present and have often been criticized for their lack of contextual adaptations in the standards that states are expected to implement universally. The research explored how international standards on WASH have applied decolonized methods of interventions to guide the development of culturally relevant national policies. Tanzania was chosen as a case study to conduct a comprehensive review of the states’ integration of international standards within their policies through a decolonial perspective. The study included …

Responding To Disproportionate Skin Cancer Rates Affecting Adult Men Aged 18-60, Aaron Thompson

Capstone Collection

Skin cancer is a deadly disease that kills significantly more men than women every year. At the same time, women are more than twice as likely to apply daily sun protection factor (SPF) than men. This research study explores how key stakeholders within the skin care industry have responded to the data showing increasing disparities between male and female skin cancer rates. To fulfill the objectives of this research study, qualitative data was collected from six semi-structured interviews with adult males between the ages of 18 and 60. The interviews were intentionally designed to engage with the American, adult male’s …

Supporting Lgbtq International Students Through Resource Visibility: Examining Washington State Community Colleges, Abigail Fredrickson

Capstone Collection

College is a time when many students begin exploring their sexual orientation and gender identity. Washington State, and Seattle in particular rank high in support for the LGBTQ community, according to the Municipality Equality Index put out by the Human Rights Commission. The schools that are represented in this study serve approximately 2,000 international students annually.

LGBTQ international students are a demographic that inhabits two minority groups – international students and LGBTQ students, and there is a lack of ongoing support and access to resources to aid these students in their personal growth during their time in community college. This …

Feminism At The Borders: The Navigation Of Gender Issues By Mexican-American Women Along The U.S.-Mexico Border, Carolina Fuentes

Capstone Collection

Feminist movements have taken on various iterations since they first began, particularly as the movements expanded beyond predominantly Western and white spaces. This research study explores how gender equality is perceived and navigated along the U.S.-Mexico border area, taking into account the various Latin American and U.S. feminist developments that have shaped the current landscape of the border. 11 Mexican and Mexican-American women living in U.S.-Mexico border states were interviewed to gain an understanding of their definitions, perceptions, and opinions on feminism and gender-related issues given their bicultural contexts. These conversations revealed that ideas of rights and equality were central …

Critical Embodied Praxis For Social Justice And Peace Educators: A Story Of Personal Transformation Through Analysis Of My Jewish And Settler Identities, Cara Michelle Silverberg

Capstone Collection

In this paper, I examine definitions of and relationships between violence, oppression, peace, liberation, and embodiment in the context of critical pedagogy in order to construct a theory of critical embodied praxis for social justice and peace educators. Considering the body to be a tangible vessel through which narratives and mechanisms of violence are expressed and maintained, I explore the potential of the body to be a vessel through which liberatory narratives may be generated and shared. After constructing a theory of critical embodied praxis, I illustrate this framework in action through a personal narrative that explores the intersections …

The Effectiveness Of A Boys For Positive Change Program At Changing Attitudes And Behaviors Toward Gender Equality, Bethany Grupp

Capstone Collection

There has been tremendous research done regarding programs involving the empowerment of women, girls, and gender equality. Even Sustainable Development Goal number five focuses on gender equality. An analysis of the research reveals that most programs for girls and women address the inequalities and discrimination that they face, along with obstacles to girls’ access, completion, and retention in school. Increasingly, non-governmental organizations, the United Nations, and other international organizations have found that these programs are not changing the view of gender norms in society and that men and boys also need to be included in the discussion. This paper examines …

Student Engagement Curriculum For The Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus, Michael Angelo Caban

Capstone Collection

This paper is a guide for a student engagement curriculum for the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus(PGMC). Included are the theoretical frameworks for youth empowerment and development, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer/Questioning, and more (LGBTQ+) empowerment, and intercultural training design and facilitation that are at the center and the considerations an intercultural trainer and youth programmer and facilitator should constantly regard. The main purpose of this is to put forth a document that PGMC, as well as any group or organization, can use to empower LGBTQ+ young people, as well as their straight allies, and to develop leaders in their schools …

How Empowerment Processes Manifest For Afghan Women With Different Levels Of Education, Fatima Sabri

Capstone Collection

Afghanistan has undergone almost 40 years of war and instability and these different wars have had a huge impact on Afghan girls and women as each regime brought new rules for women’s opportunities, in particular, their access to education. This Independent Practitioner Inquiry Capstone (IPIC) paper explores the idea of female empowerment in the Afghanistan context in order to better understand the connection with education related to empowerment, education, gender, agency and mentorship. This small-scale qualitative study relies upon a combination of interviews and autoethnographical data and may provide additional insights into how education influences empowerment in the lives of …

Building Community In Refugee Youth Mentoring Programs At Partnership For The Advancement And Immersion Of Refugees, Shaina Holm

Capstone Collection

ABSTRACT

Building community in youth programs is a necessary and effective way to support the human developmental needs of refugee and immigrant youth by way of facilitating cultural integration. The intentional processes of building community in the after school mentoring programs for refugee and immigrant high school students at Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees (PAIR) in Houston, Texas are essential to the program’s overall success and mission fulfillment. Specific methodologies of building community include activities such as icebreakers, name games, teambuilders, and unstructured relationship building time. Crucial factors that a facilitator should be cognizant of when implementing …

Lessons For Legalizing Love: A Case Study Of The Naz Foundation's Campaign To Decriminalize Homosexuality In India, Preston G. Johnson

Capstone Collection

In 1860, British colonizers codified Section 377 into the Indian Penal Code. 377 is an anti-sodomy law based on Victorian/Judeo-Christian values which criminalizes homosexuality through judicial interpretation and the manipulation of ambiguous language. On August 15^th, 2017, India celebrated 70 years of independence from British control, yet 377 still exerts oppressive control over the safety and freedom of Indian LGBTQI communities. Defining queerness as perversion has caused LGBTQI individuals to become victims of false accusations, blackmail, harassment, housing and workplace discrimination, familial rejection, forced “conversion therapy”, assault, rape, torture, and even murder because of this power imbalance and …

Barriers To Empowerment: How Can Gender Equality Training Reduce The Barriers That Women Farmers Face In Nicaragua?, Krista Pelletier

Capstone Collection

Women farmers worldwide face difficulties, unrelated to men, in their control over and access to resources and participation within farming systems. In Nicaragua, women are legally allowed to own land and participate in cooperatives, however, due to social, political, and economic factors they face barriers in their equitable access to resources and participation. Feminist political ecology theorizes that gender plays a key role and determines access to knowledge and resources, additionally, gender motivates people to social and political activism differently, which in effect shapes human-environment interactions. Can women, women’s groups, and NGO’s find ways to reduce the barriers women face …

Tsirik - Fold The Leaves So That Others May Be Guided: A Study Of How The Bribri Women Are Preserving Their Culture To Ensure A Sustainable Future For Their Community, Emily R. Blau

Capstone Collection

Bananas are one of Costa Rica’s largest exports, along with coffee, palm oil, and cocoa. The banana plantations are large-scale, are most often run by multinational companies, and are considered to be run as enclave economies (Equal Exchange, 2016). This monoculture crop production has been globally accused of human rights abuses said to include, but not be limited to, violating the rights of indigenous people and loss in culture and tradition. For this paper, I studied the effects that large-scale agricultural corporations have on the BriBri, a matriarchal and indigenous group who live on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. …

More Women In Parliament: Advocacy Lessons Learned From The Georgian Women’S Task Force On Political Participation, Emma Shattuck

Capstone Collection

Emma Shattuck – PIM 75

MORE WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT: ADVOCACY LESSONS LEARNED

FROM THE GEORGIAN WOMEN’S TASK FORCE ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

May 2017

This Policy Advocacy Course-Linked Capstone is a case study of an on-going advocacy campaign to increase women’s political participation in the Republic of Georgia’s Parliament. It tells the story of a dedicated group of advocates who are determined to help Georgian women’s voices be heard in a primarily male-dominated political context. Drawing on my personal experience living and working in Tbilisi, Georgia, and based on comprehensive key informant interviews with leaders of the campaign, I analyze the …

Is Restorative Justice Doing Enough To Address The Power Imbalances Caused By Systems Of Privilege And Oppression, Matthew Furnell

Capstone Collection

Restorative justice is an ever growing philosophy which is causing a paradigm shift in the way society understands and responds to crime, punishment and victimization. The State of Vermont has become a pioneer and an example of how to implement restorative practices into the official criminal justice system, developing an alternative process to traditional punitive approaches. However, it is now more important than ever to ensure that there is not a false sense of success or a level of complacency in the further development of restorative practices. It is time to critically analyse the current restorative process and explore the …

Women’S Empowerment: Supporting Women’S Empowerment In Sukhbaatar, Mongolia: A Qualitative And Quantitative Study Of Women In Sukhbaatar Province, Mongolia To Understand The Need For And Opportunities For Women’S Empowerment, Tunga Hellstrom

Capstone Collection

Kofi Annan, 7th Secretary General of the United Nations has said, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.” There is growing research focused on women’s empowerment in the world representing many different cultures, but that literature does not include Mongolia or much of East Asia. Furthermore, there are many successful women’s empowerment centers around the world, but few collections of those centers’ best practices. This research hopes to change that.

This is the first women’s empowerment research focused on Mongolia using both qualitative and quantitative methods, combined with best practices from women’s empowerment centers …

Gëm Sa Bopp: A Case Study Of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps, Tesia A. Eisenberg

Capstone Collection

This research explores the design, curriculum, and monitoring & evaluation efforts of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps through the lens of Youth Program Leadership and Design theory. The literature review reveals a research gap in youth camp programming and hopes to draw attention to this fact to promote more literature on this subject in the future. Interviews were conducted to gain information on the design and monitoring & evaluation experiences of camp facilitators from the 2015 and 2016 PCS Girls’ Camps. This research draws upon data collected from literature, interviews, personal experience, and relevant documents from Peace Corps Senegal to …

Ease On Down The Road: From Diagnosis To Graduation And Beyond, An Auto-Ethnography, Amber M. Alford

Capstone Collection

This study was envisioned following a personal acknowledgement of perceived suppression of the author’s “unorthodox” approach to the research design process resulting in the desire to explore the role of the researcher’s experience in research design and ultimately in higher education. The author began feeling lost and overwhelmed in the pursuit of her Master of Arts degree. She felt that her particular values and methodology were not being validated or supported. Through the use of narrative, the author analyzes her own experience navigating higher education as one of the first in her entire family to do so, with the added …

Producing Knowledge: The Social Made Visible In The Division Of Environmental Biology Of The National Science Foundation, Patrick Southern

Capstone Collection

This inquiry explores how knowledge is produced in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) of the National Science Foundation. Beginning from a poststructuralist understanding of science as firmly embedded in the unequal relations of society, this study sought to examine how the policies and procedures of funding research proposals in DEB influence and are influenced by those relations. Using an institutional ethnography approach to analysis, data were collected from analyzing publicly available texts from the division, NSF, Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and the research community. The analysis demonstrates how the activities of DEB could maintain or exacerbate …

Motives And Methods Of Social Mobilization In Rural Senegal, Antonia Morzenti

Capstone Collection

Senegal, a predominantly Muslim West African country, has demonstrated political stability, sustained a constitutional democracy, and maintained a pluralistic society since independence in 1960. Amidst this, there are several small groups of social organizers who are engaging in effective social change. Tostan, a regional INGO focusing on community empowerment through nonformal education, has been working in Senegal for more than 25 years and has reached more than three million people in West Africa. After completing Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP), the social organizers have decided to travel from village to village educating and sensitizing others on what they have learned. …

Giving A Voice To The Powerless: Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation As A Tool For Inclusive Development Through Microfinance, Evan T. Burke

Capstone Collection

The greatest experts on the situation of the marginalized peoples of the world are the marginalized communities themselves. This paper explores how participatory monitoring & evaluation can be a powerful tool for giving voices to marginalized communities, ensuring that the voices of beneficiaries and local stakeholders are heard and inform sustainable project design. It analyzes a participatory monitoring and evaluation methodology implemented for women’s credit cooperatives in Gujarat, India by the Human Development & Research Centre, and examines lessons to be learned to design evaluations facilitating inclusive development.

Strategies for the monitoring and evaluation of microfinance have evolved along with …

Implementation Of A Participatory Approach To Monitoring And Evaluation: Literature Review & Case Study Application, Lucas Sokol-Oxman

Capstone Collection

A literature review is presented drawing from a variety of experts and practitioners who discuss their knowledge and experience with participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E). The findings suggest that the broader participation of stakeholders further enhances the quality and credibility of monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Collaboration and engagement between implementors and beneficiaries enhances the sustainability of program outcomes after the program’s involvement ends. Recommendations are made about how participation could be incorporated into the implementation of an M&E system for Women Thrive Worldwide. Additional resources to facilitate the development of a PM&E system are offered.

Keywords: participation, participatory monitoring and …

Women's Entrepreneurship Development In Ethiopia A Case Study Of Women In Self Employment (Wise), Melat Tekletsadik Haile Ms

Capstone Collection

The objective of the study is to assess the level of effectiveness and impact of a civil society organization in addressing challenges of women’s entrepreneurs in the informal sector in Ethiopia, particularly in the city of Addis Ababa in their efforts to grow their businesses.

A qualitative case study of a civil society organization named Women in Self Employment Organization (WISE) was used. Desk reviews of the organization’s strategic plans and reports including evaluation reports are made. Questionnaire was administered to the organization’s executive director as a context builder. This is critically examined against theories on gender and development particularly …

Social Identity-Based Threats To Human Security: Gender Practice In Sustainable Development And Conflict Transformation, Emma W. Buck

Capstone Collection

I seek to advocate for practitioners in conflict transformation and/or sustainable development to build awareness around the peoples who, according to the status afforded them by their identities within a social context, experience threats to their own sense of human security within situations of violent conflict and/or underdevelopment. This capstone does so by examining gender -- that is, the context-specific distinctions between men and women-- as a social context that influences an individual’s feelings of human security. The capstone then expands a practitioner’s means of addressing gender-based threats to human security in situ. I will first define and situate …

Promote Gender Equality And Empower Women: The Big Picture, Delylah Rasugu

Capstone Collection

This Capstone investigates the effectiveness of promoting gender and women’s empowerment policy. The Millennium Declaration adopted in the year 2000 by the United Nations member states lists the fundamental goals and objectives agreed in various international forums and summits. From this Declaration eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were born. The mandate was to provide standards to gauge the advancement towards global poverty and to achieve them by the year 2015. The third MDG aims to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment through political representation, employment and education. My capstone will use a macro perspective to analyse the impact of the …

Pushing Forward: The Climate For Lgbtq Student Advising In Study Abroad Of South Carolina, Alexandra Seay

Capstone Collection

This study uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine issues of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) minority undergraduate student inclusivity within the 32 study abroad programs offered within the 51 of the institutions of higher education in the state of South Carolina. Findings in this study suggest that study abroad programs are delivered to students in 1 of 3 ways: Direct Exchange, 3^rd Party Provider, and Faculty-Led. Findings in this study also indicate that faculty and study abroad advisers view study abroad as a useful and transformative experience for all students and that these programs should be …

Advocacy For Reproductive Justice In Miami-Dade County Schools: Planning A Campaign To Influence Sex Education Policies, Lisi Lau

Capstone Collection

This capstone paper is based on my professional practicum with Mi Lola, a women’s health justice organization based in Miami, Florida. The paper offers a conceptual framework in which Mi Lola approaches women’s health justice and where Mi Lola identifies within the broader women’s reproductive rights movement. It describes the organization’s emphasis on Latinas and women of color when addressing reproductive health concerns of Miami-Dade County through workshops, leadership trainings, advocacy, civic engagement and collective action. Those activities identified a great community concern: the current sex education policies (including the state of Florida’s “abstinence only” policy) appear to be one …

Eliminating Sexual Harassment Of Adolescent Girls In Bangladesh: A Comparative Analysis Of Multi-Level Strategies, Kristan Bakker

Capstone Collection

As a result of civil society and the government of Bangladesh’s commitment to reach universal education and gender equality, great strides have been made in secondary school enrollment with the number of girls attending now on par with that of boys. However, a consequence of the increased mobility of adolescent girls in public places is increased incidences of sexual harassment. In 2009 and 2010 there was a rash of suicides. Adolescent girls who had been victims of sexual harassment took their own lives to escape the pain and shame brought on by a culture that blames girls for men’s unwelcomed …

Power Of Play: Is Girls’ Empowerment Through Sport Social Justice?, Victoria M. Jones

Capstone Collection

Female youth empowerment is a leading theme amongst many youth programs. Organizations and theorists see it as the solution to end teen pregnancy, engage students in the classroom and lead them ultimately to better, successful lives. Furthermore, there has been incredible success for encouraging and achieving female empowerment through sports programs.

However, through my research and exploration of the topic of female empowerment through sports, my focus has changed to more of a focus on play. It is this element of sport that leads to the success of youth sports programs. Therefore, this paper not only examines the effectiveness of …

Not You/Like You, With You: Toward A Praxis Of Love, Learning, And Liberation In Teaching Efl Writing — On Zombies, De-Colonial Feminisms, And Freire In Efl Contact Zones, Jessmaya Morales

MA TESOL Collection

This paper explores EFL writing as a critical contact zone in which identity and subjectivity are found, denied, contested, de/constructed and occupied. The author opens with an account of a dream, utilized as a metaphor to examine EFL learning through the analytical lens of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The paper’s first section is a self-reflexive discussion of Freire’s pedagogy and why his unambiguous analyses of power, subjectivity, and the “banking system of education” are vital to the field of ELT. In the second section, the author discusses subjectivity, identity, and intersectionality as rooted in the work of …

In What Ways Does Research-Based Gender-Specific Youth Programming Affect Girls’ Development Post-Program?, Alaina Ennamorati

Capstone Collection

Current girls’ development research in the United States shows that female adolescents are experiencing an increase in depression rates, eating disorders, and lower self-esteem. Many feminists believe the societal culture in which girls are growing up in is hazardous, with the acceptance and perpetuation of oversexualization, objectification, and stereotyping by all different types of media. The following capstone research takes a case study real world flexible design approach at the high school leadership program at Hardy Girls Healthy Women (HGHW), a nonprofit in Waterville, Maine that works to create a world where women and girls feel equality, independence and safety. …