Education Commons^™

Interactions Of Sexuality Training, Sexual Awareness, And Comfort With Sexual Discourse In Counselors-In-Training, Katie Adeline Rodenkirch

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Since the initial call to action nearly half a century ago, sexuality training has not been made a core component of counselor education. Despite this, upon graduation counselors are expected to be able to handle diverse client needs, some of which are likely to be sexual in nature. Nevertheless, there is limited research regarding counselor sexuality education or factors influencing counselor-in-training comfort with sexual discourse. The purpose of this research study was to determine the relationship(s) and interaction(s) between counselor-in-training sexuality training experience, sexual awareness, and comfort with sexual discourse. The study also explored group differences based on gender and …

Deaf Lesbian Identity, Noël E. Cherasaro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deaf lesbians are a population that is underrepresented in the academic literature. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with a woman who self-identified as Deaf and lesbian. She shared her experiences growing up as a woman who is Deaf and later in her life, realized she is lesbian. The researcher juxtaposed her experiences as a hearing, lesbian woman and an ally to the Deaf community to better illuminate the Deaf lesbian experiences. The research delved into how these dual minority identities have affected the Deaf lesbian participant as she makes her way in the world …

Experiences Explored Through The Prism: Out Gay And Lesbian Pathways To University Presidency, Patrick Englert

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The profile of university presidents has changed very little in the past twenty-five years, with the majority being white males (Kim & Cook, 2013). The presence of the ‘lavender ceiling’ (Friskopp & Silverstein, 1995) in higher education is evidenced in there being less than one percent of university presidents who openly identify as lesbian and gay (L&G) (Rivard, 2014). Colleges and universities continue to be largely heteronormative and struggle to create safe, supportive, and just campuses; mirroring instead the bias and microaggressions that occur outside the insulated walls of academia (Bazarsky, Morrow, & Javier, 2015; Vaccaro, 2012).

This multi-case qualitative …

An Intersectional Examination Of Disability And Lgbtq+ Identities In Virtual Spaces, Justine E. Egner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a multi-methodological project that examines the experiences of being both LGBTQ+ and disabled from an intersectional perspective through narratives constructed in virtual spaces. In this project, I address the question ‘how do individuals who identify as both disabled/chronically ill and LGBTQ+ negotiate these often contradictory identities?’ I also complexify this intersectional analysis by examining how LGBTQ+/disabled identities are constructed in relation to race, class, and gender. Additionally, by conducting virtual ethnography as the primary method of data collection, I explore questions pertaining to how members of LBGTQ+ and disability online communities engage in virtual identity construction and …

Problematizing Reflexivity, Validity, And Disclosure: Research By People With Disabilities About Disability, James Sheldon

The Qualitative Report

In this article, I explore the potential for people with disabilities to conduct research about disability in education. Drawing upon Rasmussen (2006), I consider whether merely sharing one aspect of identity with participants is enough to gain an emic (insider) perspective when doing research. I argue that not only should we problematize our own identity, but that research should change the researcher’s own identity and that the degree to which research promotes this change is an essential aspect of formal validity of the research. Finally, I propose some practical implications and offer some advice for researchers conducting research on disability.

Self-Authoring Gender Performance: A Narrative Analysis Of Gay Undergraduate Men, Casey Shadix

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The perspectives of gay men on college and university campuses is informed by a rich gay social history and extensive roots of community politics. The experiences of gay undergraduate men have been illuminated in segmented ways in scholarly literature to date. This narrative inquiry develops and advances those efforts by exploring how gay undergraduate men construct, experience, and make meaning of their gender as a population ascribing to both liberationist and assimilationist viewpoints. Data for this qualitative study were collected at one public, four-year research university in the southeastern United States in the fall 2015 semester using recorded personal interviews …

Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how teaching an English literature curriculum centered on the stories, experiences, cultures, histories, and politics of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people constitutes a meaningful site for teaching and learning in a high school classroom. The dissertation offers insights on how the teaching of LGBTQI-themed texts in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to critical literacies teaching. The project follows principles of critical qualitative research and employs an ethnographic case study approach with the purpose of transforming educational …