Digital Commons Network^™

Online Graduate Students’ Preferences Of Discussion Modality: Does Gender Matter?, Yu-Hui Ching, Yu-Chang Hsu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Audio/video discussion has been used increasingly in online courses due to its affordances in enhancing online communication. However, whether learners of different characteristics can benefit from this discussion modality has not been investigated extensively. This study examined whether gender plays a role in learners’ preferences and perceptions of audio/video discussion as compared to text discussion. The survey data of thirty-six participants’ perceptions were collected and studied after they participated in an audio/video discussion activity. The findings show that females preferred audio/video discussion more than males did, and more females reported that audio/video discussion strengthened their connection with peers. The top …

Racial And Gender Differences In College Completion Among Minority Students: A Social Network Approach, Daneka Natlay Souberbielle

Theses and Dissertations

College enrollment has improved among Black and Latino students during the last several decades due partly to the influence of formal and informal mentors and increasing parental support of higher education. However, college completion for these underrepresented minority groups continues to lag behind graduation rates for White students. This research sought to examine whether pre-college relationships influence college completion. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen, this study tested the direct and indirect effects of social capital from pre-college networks, including parental capital and mentor capital, race and gender on college completion utilizing logistic regression. The results indicated …

Interactions Between Race, Gender, And Income In Relationship Education Outcomes, Andrew K. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers and policymakers have become interested in the use of relationship education programs as a means to remedy the effects of family instability. Research suggests that relationship education produces positive outcomes with some groups. However, whether populations who are socially and economically more at-risk of relationship problems and relationship dissolution are gaining from relationship education remains an open question. Ecocultural Theory is used to conceptualize the research question and to illustrate the importance of studying diverse populations. The purpose of this study is to assess relationship education outcomes for select at-risk groups. The sample for this study (n=1,907) comes from …

Megan Burke, Charlie Schlenker

Interviews for WGLT

Illinois Wesleyan University Sociologist Meghan Burke studies the way people talk and think about race. She has always been interested in how that shapes their desire to get involved in their communities. Her first book looked at that question among people in liberal diverse communities in the Chicago area. She has now focused on TEA party people in Illinois and neighboring states.

The book is "Race, Gender, and Class in the TEA Party." She tells GLT's Charlie Schlenker that the movement reflects much of America on these issues.

Best Practices For Facilitating Diversity In The Online Classroom, Michelle Anne Rog

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This project, Facilitating Diversity in the Online Classroom – Best Practices, explores four best practices for facilitating diversity in the online classroom. The philosophical and ethical framework for this study is built on Martin Buber’s belief that people must be open to dialogue and interested in participating in it and that they stay attentive to another’s uniqueness and how it matters. Grounded in the theory of Critical Pedagogy, this study urges teachers to be open-minded to change and to affect and shape he environment around them. The eLearning course is designed to offer teachers a foundational set of best practices …

The Impact Of A Cartoon Character’S Gender On Egyptian Girls’ Knowledge Of And Intentions Toward Pneumonia Prevention, Farah Hafez El-Shiaty

Theses and Dissertations

Pneumonia kills 11% of children under the age of five in Egypt yearly. Studies suggest that health educational cartoons are effective ways to educate children about healthy practices to prevent diseases. The literature suggests that children tend to learn better from and imitate same-gender models more than opposite-gender models. Healthy Egyptians, a non-governmental organization, developed a health educational cartoon to educate young children on the preventative practices of pneumonia through a boy called Montasser as the main character. It was hypothesized that having a female character as the main character in this cartoon would increase the girls’ knowledge of and …

Veiling And Blogging: Social Media As Sites Of Identity Negotiation And Expression Among Saudi Women, Hala Guta, Magdalena Karolak

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper aims at assessing how Saudi Arab young women use social media for negotiating and expressing their identity. Through in-depth interviews with a sample of seven Saudi females aged 20-26, the research revealed that the internet, with its protection of individual privacy, provided the participants a space to negotiate the boundaries imposed on them by cultural and societal rules. Participants employed several tactics of negotiation such as using nicknames, concealing their personal images and using first names only in order not to be identified by their family names. Using multiple accounts is also popular among participants. Without gatekeepers, the …

Understanding The Gender And Ethnicity Attainment Gap In Uk Higher Education, Dre Cotton, M Joyner, R George, Pa Cotton

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

In recent years the success rates of different groups of students in higher education (HE), have come under considerable scrutiny, with gender and ethnicity identified as key attributes predicting differential achievement of ‘good degrees’. A review of previous studies highlights the need for research which looks beyond ‘the deficit model’ to explain the attainment gap. This research used a mixed-methods approach to explore the academic and social experiences of students, as well as lecturers’ views on student achievement, in one UK University. Findings suggest that there are significant differences in motivation and confidence speaking English for different ethnic groups in …

Are There Gender Differences In Perceived Sexual Self-Efficacy Among African-American Adolescents?, Michelle L. Redmond, Rhonda K. Lewis

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Background: African American adolescents accounted for more than half of all HIV/AIDS cases in 2009. Behavioral Strategies are needed to help lessen the incidence of HIV/AIDS among this population.

Purpose: The aim of his study was to examine sexual self-efficacy practices and beliefs among African American adolescents. We also examined gender differences between African American adolescents to better understand their perceptions of sexual self-efficacy, condom use intention, and other safer sex practices and beliefs.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 214 African American adolescents using survey instruments to examine their beliefs, perception and intentions on the use of condoms, …

Facebook Face-Ism: Perception Of Competency In Social Media Profile Images And Its Relationship To Gender, Marissa Pixley

Theses

This study investigated the impact of facial prominence in Facebook profile images on perceived competency. It also considered the gender of the subject in the profile image and the gender of the respondent. A survey was administered to 177 undergraduate students asking them to rate the level of perceived competency for four Facebook profile images. Results indicated that Facebook profile images with high face-ism levels were rated significantly higher than that of images with low face-ism levels. Contrary to predictions, profile images of females were rated significantly more competent than images of males. Gender of the respondent played a significant …

The Diversity Challenge: Exploring The "Invisible College" Of International Arbitration, Susan D. Franck

Scholarly Articles

As diversity can affect the perceived legitimacy of a state’s dispute resolution system and the quality of judicial decisions, diversity levels in the national bench and bar have been an area of transnational concern. By contrast, little is known about diversity of adjudicators and counsel in international arbitration. With a lack of accurate, complete, and publicly available data about international arbitrators and practitioners, speculation about membership in the “invisible college” of international arbitration abounds. Using data from a survey of attendees at the prestigious and elite biennial Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration permitted one glimpse into the …

Influences Of Resident Camp Experiences On Career Choice: A Case Study Of Female Alumnae, Barry A. Garst, Sarah Baughman, Anja Whittington, Ryan J. Gagnon

Research in Outdoor Education

Few studies have explored the long-term impacts of camp experiences on career choice, although there is a need to better understand how camp experiences may influence this decision to guide staff recruitment and retention efforts. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of camp experiences on future career paths for women. Twenty-two camp alumnae who attended an all-girls camp completed a retrospective online survey. Salient themes related to career impacts included human service career interest, outdoor career interest, leadership and interpersonal skill development, and social-emotional skill development. Considerations for future research include a national study of a …

The Role Of Professionalization Regarding Female Exploitation In The Nonhuman Animal Rights Movement, Corey Lee Wrenn

Animal Rights Movement Collection

Adams (2004, The pornography of meat. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd), Deckha (2008, Disturbing images: PETA and the feminist ethics of animal advocacy. Ethics and the environment, 13(2), 35–76), Gaarder (2011, Women and the animal rights movement. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press), Glasser (2011, Tied oppressions: an analysis of how sexist imagery reinforces speciesist sentiment. The Brock review, 12(1), 51–68), and others have criticized People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for sexually exploiting young women in outreach and fundraising efforts. This article extends these critiques in addressing the problematic relationship between objectified volunteer female activists and …

Breastfeeding And Subsistence Work: Connecting Theory And Experience, Olivia M. Mclaughlin

The Hilltop Review

No abstract provided.

Sex, Labor, And The American Way: Detroit Aesthetic In Mid-Twentieth-Century Literature, Jenna F. Gerds

Wayne State University Dissertations

The essay analyzes Sinclair Lewis short fiction in If I Were Boss, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans, and Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr. The primary literature is juxtaposed with a study of visual texts and historic research with a locational and thematic basis in Detroit. Ford Times and early automobile advertisements, Diego Rivera's mural Detroit Industry, photographs of the Sojourner Truth housing project riots, and the accounts of gay union workers comprise a framework for each of the central texts. Detroit aesthetic is gritty, realist, …

Self-Compassion In Lgbtqia+ Individuals, Constantine Dhonau

Theses & ETDs

Self-compassion is a growing area of study which has yet to be applied to LGBTQIA+ individuals. The current study seeks to fill this gap in knowledge by examining the relationships between LGBTQIA+ individuals’ levels of self-compassion, how they write about negative experiences based on their sexual and/or gender identity, and their level of involvement in supportive communities. Participants wrote narrative responses about their first and most recent negative experiences disclosing their LGBTQIA+ identities to others, followed by the Self-Compassion Scale, which is centered on being kind to oneself in instances of failure, perceiving one’s experiences as part of the larger …

Human Nature And Intuition: Woman’S Detection In Christie And Rinehart, Olive O'Meara

Theses & ETDs

This thesis focuses on women detective in the works of British Agatha Christie and American Mary Roberts Rinehart. I look at Christie’s first Miss Jane Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage, and the two Nurse Hilda Adams novels by Rinehart: Miss Pinkerton and The Haunted Lady. This work examines the way in which the works of these two authors change the genre of detective fiction, making it more feminized compared to their earlier male counterparts. Utilizing research on the genre of detective fiction itself, Miss Marple if looked at first to understand the ways Marple functioned within the novel …

Boys Don’T Cry: Relationship Between Gender Stereotype Classification, Emotion Regulation, And Internalizing Problems, Arianne M. Kopacz

Theses & ETDs

Emotion regulation has been found to be predictive of a variety of psychological outcomes, including internalizing problems. Pre-adolescents, a group particularly susceptible to these problems, have been relatively understudied in terms of how emotion regulation affects these outcomes. Additionally, the issue of gender has been found to influence internalizing problems such that girls report more depression than boys. The current study used a measure of emotion regulation as well as the Children’s Sex Role Inventory to examine the relationship between one’s sex-role type, emotion regulation style, and reports of subclinical depression and anxiety. Participants classified as androgynous endorsed higher levels …

Creatures Of The Night: The Emergence And Complication Of The Femme Fatale In Erotic Lowbrow Art, Rachael Zucker

Theses & ETDs

In contemporary erotic lowbrow art, there exists a problematic depiction of the femme fatale. I examine the problematic contemporary femme fatale in various ways in “Creatures of the Night: The Emergence and Complication of the Femme Fatale in Erotic Lowbrow Art.” In contemporary paintings and photographs of the femme fatale in erotic lowbrow art, the female figure lacks sexual control. These women are devoid of the capacity for pleasure as the male gaze exerts the full extent of his authority over her body. Although these female figures embody characteristics of the historical femme fatale model, contemporary artists such as Mark …

Why Do We Help?: Empathy And Helping In Communal And Exchange Relationships, Christine Bisch

Theses & ETDs

The act of helping another has been shown to provide both short and long-term benefits to the person providing the help, including mood boosts (Gleason, Iida, Bolger, & Shrout, 2013), increased self-esteem, and even lower morbidity (Heisler, Choi, Piette, Rosland, Langa, & Brown, 2012). Within communal and exchange relationships, which are relationships that differ based on giving and receiving of benefits within them, communal orientation has been correlated with increased helping, as well as with empathy (Clark, Powell, Ouelette & Millberg, 1987). My thesis seeks to explore this relationship further- to establish if individuals with communal orientation or exchange orientation …

Deconstruction At The Foot Of The Mountain: Second And Third Wave Feminist Theater As Collective And Solo Peformance, Amy Bartolotta

Theses & ETDs

This thesis examines the notion of feminist theater in two chapters. The first chapter looks at the theater collective At the Foot of the Mountain as representative of second wave or cultural feminist theater in the United States. Through a collaborative working method and aesthetic vision informed by feminism, At the Foot of the Mountain strove to create theater as part of a uniquely “female culture.” The second chapter presents an understanding of feminist theater in response to the essentializing tendencies of cultural feminism. That is, if a collective structure represents the universalized sisterhood of cultural feminist theater, solo performance …

The Erotic, Exotic Other: The Female Nonwhite Dancing Body And The White Male Gaze, Alexis J. Allen

Theses & ETDs

This thesis critically examines the representation of the female nonwhite dancing body through and in relation to the white male gaze, specifically the white male colonial gaze. Drawing upon numerous theorists such as Laura Mulvey, Michel Foucault, and dance scholars Judith Lynne Hanna and Stavros Stavrou Karayanni, this thesis analyzes the colonial origins of sexually-charged tropes of the nonwhite female body - such as the Latina mulatta, the Eastern odalisque, and the African/Black jezebel - and how contemporary music media functions as a site of neo colonial reinforcements, and a method of subversion and erotic empowerment for the nonwhite female …

Gender Stability And Change: The Differential Characterization Of Men And Women In Popular Country Music From 1944 Through 2012, Clayton Cory Lowe

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This research is a longitudinal study of differential depictions of men and women in top country music from 1944 through 2012. The study attempts to understand the gender system as theorized by Ridgeway using the analytic heuristics of cognitive sociologists and the methods of ethnographic content analysts. Findings include the various axes upon which women and men are differentially characterized over time including men and women's behaviors within romantic relationships, involvement in deviance and crime, work and the use of economic capital, their bodies, and differences in cultural capital such as education.

Microbuses And Mobile Homemaking In Exile: Sudanese Visiting Strategies In Cairo, Anita Fábos

Sustainability and Social Justice

Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain networks is an established cultural pattern in Arab countries.Northern Sudanese displaced in Cairo in the 1990s made significant efforts to continue visiting each other in their temporary homes, despite having to travel long distances to members of their widely scattered networks.The deterioration of the legal and political status of Sudanese living in Egypt during the 1990s contributed to longer-term uncertainty for those who sought safety and security in Cairo.In this article, I argue that this long-term uncertainty constitutes a protracted refugee situation, and that Sudanese visiting practices constituted a mobile homemaking …

Gender And The Popular Heroines (And Heroes) Of The Young Adult Dystopia, Kara E. Hemphill

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For the past few years, dystopian stories have ruled the young adult fiction aisles and the box office. Taking the reins from similarly popular predecessors like Harry Potter and Twilight, the genre has set itself apart by telling stories of action, war, and heroism that are often led by a young female protagonist. This project examines a variety of gender-related themes in six young adult dystopian novels, chosen for their popularity and subject matter. While it is not a comprehensive look at the genre, it is meant to analyze some of the most widely known works, which is important because …

The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data To Identify And Reach The Most Vulnerable Young People—Belize 2011, Population Council, Unicef Belize

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

“The Adolescent Experience In-Depth: Using Data to Identify and Reach the Most Vulnerable Young People: Belize 2011” is part of a series of Population Council guides that draw principally on data from the Demographic and Health Surveys to provide decisionmakers at all levels—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and advocacy groups—with evidence on the situation of adolescent girls and boys and young women aged 10–24 years. The data are presented in graphs, tables, and maps (wherever possible), providing multiple formats to make the information accessible to a range of audiences. Section I is the Foreword. Section II offers brief technical notes specific …

Gender, Instructional Method, And Graduate Social Science Students' Motivation And Learning Strategies, Mae Lynn Spahr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of the current study was to learn how gender and learning method affect motivation and learning strategies in psychology, counseling, and social work graduate students. The variables of gender, learning method, motivation, and learning strategies are used by the self-regulation model to learning and the theory of independent learning to measure a student's academic success. Increasing the knowledge of these variables will be of interest to academic institutions and to the field of educational psychology because little is known about their interaction. The study's design was factorial quasi-experimental; it used a cross sectional survey consisting of a 2 …

The Glass Closet: Perceptions Of Homosexuality In Intercollegiate Sport, Jordan Bass, Robin Hardin, Elizabeth A. Taylor

Journal of Applied Sport Management

A mixed-methods approach was used to examine the perceptions and prevalence of open homosexuality in intercollegiate sport in the United States. Universityhosted biographies of NCAA Bowl Championship Series (BCS) head coaches were coded to determine the frequency of head coaches listing a wife, husband, and same-sex partner (Calhoun, LaVoi, & Johnson, 2011). These findings were paired with interviews of five college coaches exploring their feelings toward the culture surrounding homosexuality, by players, coaches, and administrators, at their university. Only one coach of more than 1,000 was identified as having a same-sex partner in university-sponsored coaching biographies. Interview findings revealed collegiate …

The “Social Magic” Of Merit: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In The English And Welsh Legal Profession, Hilary Sommerlad

Fordham Law Review

The discourse of merit is central to the “boundary” practices deployed by the white male elite of the English legal profession to exclude outsiders. The official discourse of government and regulatory body reports presents merit as an objectively verifiable and quantifiable property, synonymous with “excellence,” the salience of which in the recruitment process is indicative of the modernization of the profession. In this form it is mobilized to deflect criticism of the slow progress toward diversity. Critical interrogation of the discourse of merit reveals that it operates rather differently as a key structuring principle of the profession. The alternative meaning …

Bridging The Divide: Using Utaut To Predict Multigenerational Tablet Adoption Practices, Kate Magsamen-Conrad

School of Media and Communication Faculty Publications

This study examined the “Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology” (UTAUT) in the context of tablet devices across multiple generations. We tested the four UTAUT determinants, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions, to determine their contributions for predicting behavioral intention to use tablets with age, gender, and user experience as moderators. 899 respondents aged 19-99 completed the survey. We found consistent generational differences in UTAUT determinants, most frequently between the oldest and youngest generations. Effort expectancy and facilitating conditions were the only determinants that positively predicted tablet use intentions after controlling for age, gender, and …