Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Roles Of Identity And Beliefs About Social Change In Decision Making Processes For Identity-Laden Social Change Efforts, Joel Ginn

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three investigations into distinct processes that attempt to explain people’s decision making around social change action in three identity-laden domains. Chapter 1 reviews existing literature and theory on how social identity and social change beliefs can impact social change action. Chapter 2 examines identity-based motivated cognition by showing how identification as a meat-eater leads to biased estimates of meat reduction’s climate change impacts. Chapter 3 examines cisgender student reactions to faculty who use gender pronouns as an inclusion strategy for transgender and gender nonconforming students to examine if this action leads to stereotyping and judgement. Chapter 4 …

Native America Speaks: Blackfeet Communication And Culture In Glacier National Park, Eean Grimshaw

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is a description and interpretation of a Blackfeet (Amskapi Piikuni) discourse of identity as expressed by Blackfeet presenters as part of the Native America Speaks (NAS) program in Glacier National Park, the longest-running Indigenous speaker series in the National Park Service. The study is based on what Blackfeet identify as being important parts of Blackfeet identity within this particular scene, as well as how they participate in that scene. Primary data include a corpus of 30 Blackfeet programs recorded during the summers of 2018 and 2019. Data were analyzed in response to an overarching research question which guides …

An Archaeological Study Of Pit Cellars And Ethnic Identity In Tennessee, Daniel Whitaker Howard Brock

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines pit cellars in Tennessee. Pit cellars are pits excavated into the ground typically underneath historic structures and are often referred to as subfloor pits, root cellars, or hidey holes. Archaeologists believe these pits were generally used for the storage of food or personal items and can provide valuable household-level information normally not obtained from other features. These pits were usually filled quickly after their use and often contain artifacts which provide data on diet, personal space, kinship, gender, race, ethnicity, class, spiritual beliefs, and the conditions of slavery. Pit cellars were also regularly constructed by their users …

A Minority Within A Minority: Exploring Identity Development In Relation To Mental Health Outcomes Within The Black Deaf Community, Nekolas Milton

Doctoral Dissertations

Black Deaf people are a double minority group that faces discrimination on multiple fronts. There is little literature on the relationship of cultural identity development and mental health concerns of this marginalized group. This study employs a mixed method approach to examine this relationship and explore the extant culturally tailored interventions targeted towards Black Deaf adults in a clinical setting. There were two phases of this project. Phase 1 included qualitative interviews with service providers of black deaf people to ascertain the type of culturally tailored interventions that are in place for this population. 5 themes emerged: systemic issues, mental …

Essays On Women And Work In India And On Other-Regarding Preferences, Sai Madhurika Mamunuru

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of three essays. In Essay I, I explore declining female workforce participation in India and propose the following explanation: Traditionally, Brahmin (upper caste) women were more secluded and did not work outside the house, while non-Brahmin, often poorer, women did. With increased income, non-Brahmin families withdraw women from the workforce in order to signal their enhanced social status. This is a part of a larger process of cultural emulation referred to as the Sanskritization of non-Brahmin families. Using a nationally representative panel dataset, I show, in favor of this hypothesis, that while Brahmin women’s participation …

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …

“You Can Be A Good Romanian, But Not A Romanian”: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Romanian History Textbook Narrative, Razvan Sibii

Doctoral Dissertations

Employing a version of the Critical Discourse Analysis methodology that privileges close textual readings, I examine in this dissertation the manner in which contemporary Romanian history textbooks put forward an essentialist view of ethnonational identity by tracing through history the development of a putatively homogenous “proto-Romanian” entity. I seek to show how the “Getae-Dacian” and “Daco-Roman” identity categories acquired their thing-ness and their boundaries as a result of deliberate rhetorical work performed by Romanian historiographers with the help of such heuristics as “Romanization,” “ethnogenesis” and the nation-as-family metaphor. I also scrutinize how the textbooks treat the two ancient texts that …

Athletic Identity And Mental Health: The Experiences Of Black Male Former Student-Athletes, Miguel Frank

Doctoral Dissertations

On college campus across the nation, student-athletes represents a unique group among the student population. Black male student-athletes are an overrepresented group among the student-athlete population, representing more than a quarter of all student-athletes. Previous research has explored the impact of athletic identity on student-athletes, as well as the academic success of Black male student-athletes. Due to the high number of Black males participating in intercollegiate athletics and the lack of research related to their mental health experiences, the goal of this study was to examine the impact of athletic identity on the experiences of Black male student-athletes and the …

An Examination Of Music Majors' Perceived Barriers To Complying With An Exercise Program, Matthew William Seitz

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focused on a mixed-methods exploration of the barriers and motivation to exercise in a sample of music majors at a large southeastern university. Due to dietary concerns and other obstacles to engaging in regular exercise, musicians are at a greater dietary and cardiovascular risk than the general population. Previous research has revealed music majors, in general, do not identify as exercisers. This comes with its obvious health risks. Self-determination theory and exercise identity literature posits individuals who more strongly identify as exercisers and who are more intrinsically motivated to exercise will workout more often and more consistently than …

Folklórico Testimonios: Identity, Community, And Agency As Social Justice Cultural Performance For Dancers Of Mexican Folklórico, Manuel Alejandro Perez

Doctoral Dissertations

Mexican students in higher education have few opportunities to learn about their heritage and history outside of Ethnic Studies courses. Some students seek alternative opportunities to learn about their identity and to build community with other Mexican students through folklórico. In Mexican folklórico, dancers learn the techniques and skills to communicate stories about their history, culture, and heritage through movement, song, and dance. This study is the story of Mexican students and folkloristas on their journey to (re)discover identity, community, and agency as they move through higher education.

This study uses testimonio to capture the voice, the struggle, and the …

The Role Of Adoptive Identity In Career Development Of College And Non-College Individuals, Yesel Yoon

Doctoral Dissertations

Identity development is a particularly salient developmental task that begins to take form during adolescence, and consolidation of multiple domains of identity is necessary for achieving successful outcomes in adulthood (Erikson, 1968). The purpose of this study was to examine the role of an ascribed adoptive identity on the individualization of one’s chosen career identity. Adoptive identity was examined using both individual and family-level factors, and career identity was measured across adolescence, emerging adulthood, and adulthood. The present study used a sub-sample of adoptees, adoptive mothers, and adoptive fathers from an ongoing longitudinal research study, the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Program …

“Race Talk” In Organizational Discourse: A Comparative Study Of Two Texas Chambers Of Commerce, Natasha Shrikant

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation takes an interpretive, discursive approach to understanding how organizational members create meanings about race, and other identities, through their everyday communication practices in the workplace. This dissertation also explores how these everyday discourses about race might reproduce, negotiate, or challenge ideologies that maintain the dominant position of Whiteness in United States racial hierarchies. I draw from data collected during eight months of ethnographic fieldwork (from Jan-Aug 2014) with two chambers of commerce in a large Texas city: an Asian American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and what I call the “North City” Chamber of Commerce (NCC). The AACC explicitly …

Contested Notions Of Irishness: Social Integration And The Multiple Intersections Of Ethno-Racial, Religious, And National Identities In Dublin, Ireland, Neil Conner

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates the contested notions of identity (e.g. ethno-racial, religious, and national) and the growing tensions between native-born Irish citizens and recently arrived immigrants living in the Republic of Ireland. Examining these political and cultural intersections broadens our geographic understandings by contributing to larger geographic literatures consisting of: the geographies of inclusion and exclusion; collective identity construction; sense of belonging; community – both real and imagined; small-scale human territoriality; (social) integration; religiosity; and, of course, notions of Irishness. Despite the significance of these geographic issues in contemporary society, there exists a considerable lacuna within the discipline of Geography as …

How Technology Interacts With Emerging Adulthood Psychosocial Developmental Tasks: An Examination Of Online Self-Presentation And Cell Phone Usage, Samantha Lynn Gray

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation outlines three distinct, yet interrelated, projects aimed at understanding the role of technology in relation to emerging adulthood developmental tasks: individuation & identity development. The first paper provides a context for understanding the developmental tasks of emerging adulthood, and the role that technology may serve in relation to those developmental tasks. This brief review of the literature on emerging adulthood developmental tasks provides a solid theoretical background and history for the theoretical premises proposed for the respective studies included in this dissertation. The second project is an empirical investigation that seeks to understand how the task of identity …

"Game Time Is My Time. I Get To Define That:" Gender, Identity, And The National Football League's Female Fans, Traci Yates

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on existing literature relatively little is known about the female football fan in America. Previous research has acknowledged that these women exist, often in startling proportions. It has also identified some of the reasons why they attend the game and some of the perceived benefits of their participation as fans (Clark, Apostolopoulou, & Gladden, 2009; Dietz-Uhler, Harrick, End, & Jacquemotte, 2000). Yet we do not know the value they place on their fan identities, nor how they manage to negotiate being both women and fans in a sport environment that both subtly and not-so-subtly continues to reinforce the model …

Examining The Process Of Identification In The Mathematics Classroom And The Role Of Students’ Academic Communities, Richard J. Robinson

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this research was to provide insight into the identities students develop as they interact in a high school mathematics classroom. A normative divide developed which eventually split the classroom into two distinct academic factions: those who resisted the emerging local definition of what it meant to do mathematics and those who did not resist (i.e. complied or identified). A secondary purpose of this research was to understand the role of students’ academic communities in mathematics identity development. Student narratives helped uncover mathematical spaces outside the classroom that each developed their own unique definition of what it …

Intimacy Uncertainty And Identity In Gay Male Couples Dealing With A Serodiscordant Hiv Status, Scott Allen Eldredge

Doctoral Dissertations

When individuals are diagnosed with a chronic illness, their lives instantly change. Daily routines are interrupted and attendance to the symptoms and side effects of illness and medication becomes a daily chore. However, the patient is not the only one that feels the disruptive effects of illness and the partner of the chronically ill patient must also contend with the daily effects of an illness that they themselves do not have. In the case of HIV, the infectious nature of the disease, along with the stigma associated with the disease, serve to be additional sources of stress in an already-stressful …

Self, Society, And Environment In The 21st Century: The Development And Assessment Of An Ecological Identity Scale, Tobin N. Walton

Doctoral Dissertations

Through a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation develops and assesses a multi-item scale measure of ecological identity (EI). Although recent decades have seen increased attention devoted to research on identity in relation to nature and the bio-physical environment, a valid and reliable scale capable of encompassing the complexities of this construct has yet to be developed. This dissertation uses an integral approach to build upon and extend recent attempts to develop measures of similar constructs. Key facets of multiple theories and perspectives on identity are integrated into a unified framework capable of multi-level identity analysis. A rigorous statistical approach that combines …

Interstitial Copresence: Experiencing Self With And Within Everyday Forms Of Electronically Mediated Communication, Steven J. Seiler

Doctoral Dissertations

Cell phones and the Internet have become cornerstones in the daily lives of most Americans. Researchers have rigorously studied numerous dimensions of electronically mediated communication (EMC). Yet, very little research has explored the context and consequences of negotiating multiple forms of EMC within everyday life. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of everyday forms of electronically mediated communication (EvEMC) – cell phone talk, text messages, instant messages, and email – on self-work, particularly within personal relationships. Results of OLS regression analyses of survey data collected from 617 college students and qualitative data analysis of three subsequent …

"Rapping About Authenticity": Exploring The Differences In Perceptions Of "Authenticity" In Rap Music By Consumers.", James L. Wright

Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, social scientists have not only marginalized rap music as a viable unit of scholarly analysis, but failed at attempts to understand the thoughts and actions of rap music consumers. This study analyzes the connection between rap music’s (and the artists’) authenticity and how those perceptions of authenticity affect music consumers’ decision making process, thus providing a possible explanation as to why music fans purchase rap music. The goal of this research was to see if the reasons rap music fans provide explaining the rationale behind their purchases match the images and perceptions presumably held by the general public about …

A Participatory Study Of The Self-Identity Of Kibei Nisei Men: A Sub Group Of Second Generation Japanese American Men, William T. Masuda

Doctoral Dissertations

At one time, the Kibei were perceived as "a minority within a minority" (Me Williams, 1944: 322) who were "distrusted in both America and Japan" (1944:321). But today, the Kibei are hardly distinguishable from the Nisei as they both enter the evening of their lives. Raised in both America and Japan, but strongly influenced in their formative years by Japanese cultural values and beliefs, they were often perceived differently by their own family, by the Japanese American community, and by the American community at large. The apparent marginality of this group, living on the fringes of or in the space …