Digital Commons Network^™

Selling White Masculinity: An Analysis Of Cultural Intermediaries In The Craft Beverage Industry, Erik Tyler Withers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to use the craft beverage industry as a case study in which to investigate how white masculinity is reproduced within consumer spaces. This study explores the roles that cultural intermediaries in the craft beverage industry play in the reproduction and contestation of white masculinity. Cultural intermediaries can be understood as tastemakers who play a large role in assigning value and legitimacy to products, practices and people within consumer industries. Intermediaries such as marketing and advertising firms, industry writers, and critics have been widely studied in the past. However, the day to day interactional work …

American Converts To Islam: Identity, Racialization, And Authenticity, Patrick M. Casey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Working within a social identity theory model, which posits that identities gain or lose salience depending on the situation and the actors, this study brings into focus the identity management of Americans who have converted to Islam. More specifically, this study of American Muslim converts seeks to understand how the authenticity of their religious identities is challenged and affirmed by others and themselves. Thirty-nine in-depth interviews were examined and interpreted using the insights of narrative analysis and racialization theory. The first finding is that although converts may tell a variety of different stories about how and why they converted to …

Black Girl Magic?: Negotiating Emotions And Success In College Bridge Programs, Olivia Ann Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews, this project explores the extent to which race, class, and gender shape the socialization that Black women receive about their emotions and attitudes in a college bridge program. It unpacks the ways that dominant emotion cultures can inform the emotional socialization practices of a college bridge program in ways that resist and reproduce larger cultural narratives about Black women. To operationalize this emotional socialization, I introduce a concept called emotional respectability, which suggests that emotional reactions and demeanor must always align with the larger emotion cultures and goals of institutions such as family and …

“Have A Seat At Our Table: Uncovering The Experiences Of Black Students Attending A ‘Racially Diverse’ University”, Diamond Briggs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, the diversity rates at universities in the United States have been increasing (Ortiz-Frontera 2013). With more minorities enrolling into predominantly white institutions (PWIs), one might infer that this signals a major step of progression for the United States. However, it is essential to understand the experiences and challenges that minorities may face when attending these institutions. Understanding these challenges are important because they are often minimized and ignored due to the ambiguity of microaggressions. This can be harmful for Black students psychologically and may impact their self confidence in many ways. In many instances, Black students face many forms …

"What Are We Doing Here? This Is Not Us": A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Last Of Us Remastered, Toria Kwan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Video games are often written off as juvenile or frivolous, but they are actually vehicles of socialization and hegemonic ideologies. Because of this, video games are deserving of research and critique. In video games, women are often underrepresented or hypersexualized, while men can be hypermasculinized. Many times, racial and ethnic portrayals in video games paint the person of color as victims of violence, villains, or sports athletes, while white characters take the role of hero or protagonist. Heterosexuality typically goes unmarked and is considered the default sexuality, and homophobic sentiments and slurs are prevalent in the gaming community. Because game …

From The Panels To The Margins: Identity, Marginalization, And Subversion In Cosplay, Manuel Andres Ramirez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In investigating the ways social actors experience and interact with mass media texts, I examine how cosplay, as a performative practice of identity in relation to popular culture, enables social actors to subvert and reproduce marginalization towards minority status groups. Theoretical arguments apply a constructionist framework in order to examine the participants’ meaning making processes. The study addresses the following research questions: (1) what social function does cosplay serve for participants; (2) how do cosplayers perform race and gender; (3) how do cosplayers resist, negotiate, or reinforce race and gender-based marginalization? Drawing upon qualitative data gathered from observing two large …

Negotiating Muslim Womanhood: The Adaptation Strategies Of International Students At Two American Public Colleges, Amber Michelle Gregory

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From a Western perspective, North Americans and Western Europeans perceive Muslim women as being oppressed (Andrea 2009; Lutz 1997, 96; Ozyurt 2013). Led by this assumption, some view studying abroad as an international student as an experience that allows Muslim women the opportunity to "escape" this supposed oppression and to know "freedom" in the U.S. However, Muslim women's experiences are more dynamic and complex than this dualism suggests. In this thesis, I explore adaptation strategies of Muslim women international students, and how gender, race, and religion affect their experiences while abroad. Furthermore, I explore the women's use of emotion management …

"All Blacks Vote The Same?": Assessing Predictors Of Black American Political Participation And Partisanship, Antoine Lennell Jackson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The politics of Blacks are stereotypically assumed to be the same and share the same race-based root, be it disenfranchisement or solidarity. Given the recent jump in Black political participation and the seemingly race-based and partisan nature "the Black vote" holds, it is essential to investigate what factors drive Black voter turnout as well as what factors contribute to the partisan nature of Black voters. Most other studies of political opinion, turnout, and party preference only consider comparable demographic groups such as men versus women or Blacks versus Whites. This study examines partisan preference and participation only among Black Americans. …

The Relationship Between The Social Construction Of Race And The Black/White Test Score Gap In, Toriano M. Dempsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research is an investigation into the relationship between the resegregation of American

public schools and the social creation of race. This research is based on the popular notion that

American public schools are failing to produce students capable of competing in today's global society.

The proof most often used to assert the failure of American public schools is the Black/White Test Score

Gap. For the purposes of this research the Black/White Test Score Gap is defined as the gap between

the scores on academic standardized tests between Black public school students and White public school

students regardless of …