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Wellness & Mindfulness For Black Women: A Transformative Four-Day Retreat, Kimberly Peavler

Mindfulness Studies Theses

In a world fraught with systemic injustices, where the intersecting forces of racism and misogyny

weigh heavily on the lives of Black women, there is a growing need for spaces of empowerment,

healing, and self-discovery. This thesis embarks on a profound journey into the transformative

potential of a culturally grounded four-day mindfulness and well-being retreat by creating and

presenting an experience explicitly tailored for Black women. The retreat is meticulously

designed to resonate with Black women's cultural and spiritual backgrounds. It uniquely fuses

Kemetic Yoga™ practices, mindfulness techniques, and candid discussions to dismantle

systemic oppression. The retreat provides a sanctuary …

Exploring Dress, Gender, And Bodily Capital Through Pre- And Protohistoric Funerary Contexts: Case Studies From Southwestern Europe, Francisco B. Gomes, Catarina Costeira, Anna Maria Desiderio, Arianna Esposito, Giacomo Bardelli

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

While uneven in their scope and reach, studies of dress and dress complements (fibulae, belt buckles, buttons, etc.) have a significant tradition within the broader study of the pre- and protohistory of Mediterranean Europe. Many of these studies, however, have had a strong focus on the typology of the dress complements and ornaments themselves, either as chronological indicators, ethnic markers, or both. In more recent years, however, a shift in research agendas has ushered in the introduction of new perspectives and new ways of thinking about dress and bodily adornment.

This contribution explores one such perspective in particular — namely, …

Women Senior Pastors In The Black Baptist Church: A Study Of Pathways To Access And Model For Sustainability, Wendy Vanhosen

Doctor of Ministry

The thesis of this research is that the continued survival and influence of the Black Church hinges on the level of access and sustainability of women in senior leadership roles, emphasizing the historically protected position of senior pastor. It has become urgently necessary to move the needle beyond engaging in the perpetual debate about the role of women in ministry, and towards solutions that address the unique issues of this contemporary era. This era is characterized by a collision of the rise in women occupying senior leadership roles, increases in social justice concerns, and the unanticipated post-pandemic ramifications that have …

Divorcing Values: A Quantitative Study Of Religious K-12 Leaders In The Public Sphere, Christine Collins-Otto

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional quantitative study examined the relationship between public K-12 leaders’ levels of religiosity, job satisfaction, intention to leave, and perceived organizational fit when required to implement policies incongruent with their personal values. This study also explored whether experiences of values incongruence were related to job satisfaction, intention to leave, and perceived organizational fit. The leaders’ level of religiosity and experiences with values incongruence served as the independent variables to compare with the three dependent variables: job satisfaction, intention to leave, and perceived organizational fit. The person-environment fit theory provided the overarching conceptual framework (Kristof, 1996). Participants were recruited from …

Embody The Cause: Subaltern Body Protests As Resistance Tactics, Dipakshi Sarma

Political Science Honors Projects

Gendered, classed, and racialized bodies differentially experience state-sanctioned violence and societal norms. Body protests — when the body manifests the political messages by drawing attention to itself — manifest in these intersections. Women engaging in body protests garner more attention; a body that is sexualized, controlled, and subjugated draws attention to itself as a political act. To understand this, I ask, what explains the specific tactics that women employ in acts of political resistance? By employing subaltern agency and feminist social movement theories, I use process tracing and comparative analysis of three body protest cases: the incarcerated Armagh women in …

The Retention And Promotion Of Female Auditors At Big-4 Accounting Firms, Jade Huayu Chen, Nicholas Hallman, Jayanthi Sunder

Accounting Faculty Works

Each of the “Big 4” accounting firms has established an explicit goal of reaching gender parity among their employees - particularly among employees in senior positions. Using a dataset consisting of the career histories of more than 91 thousand unique auditors spanning several decades, we examine the firms’ progress towards this goal by tracking gender differences in auditor retention and promotion. Consistent with concerns expressed both in the press and in prior academic research, we find that women were historically more likely than men to leave the Big 4 firms. We also find that, conditional on staying in the Big …

An Investigation Into Academic Clustering Among Division Ii Student Athletes, Michael Monahan, Amit Shah

Journal of Business, Industry, and Economics

Academic clustering occurs when at least 25% of the student athletes on any given team have the same academic major. In and of itself, academic clustering is neither good nor bad, however there is the temptation for students to gravitate toward a major which is perceived to be easier, to seek to associate only with team members, or to enlist in majors which do not align with their career ambitions. Is it for flexibility and scheduling to choose an academic major to have the least impact on their sport? This study examined the athletic program at a Division II four-year …

Surveying The Policy Landscape Concerning Tgd Youth In Schools, Dustin Ward

Social Work Theses - Archive

Recently, there has been a precipitous rise in anti-TGD legislation across state legislatures, growing from 143 proposed bills in 2021 to 604 in 2023. This pronounced increase in TGD-restrictive legislation may exacerbate existing stressors experienced by TGD youth. This study uses Ecological Systems Theory as a framework to conceptualize how this legislation might worsen the emotional strain and related risks experienced by TGD youth. All proposed and enacted state policies from January 1st, 2023, to December 31st, 2023, impacting the school environments of TGD youth were collected, and the characteristics were categorized according to domain, policy instruments, consequences specified, and …

Human Rights, Informed Consent, And The Influence Of Gender In Compulsory Vaccination: A Qualitative Analysis To Mediate Public Policy In A Protracted Social Conflict, Shannon Christine Rowles-Mcgighan

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This research study sought to understand the perspectives and experiences related to theCompulsory Vaccination Policy and the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The research objective was to mediate the conflict between the public and the medical community by presenting what William Ury called the “third side.” Uri (1999) studied conflict and found another way to perceive conflict from a larger perspective that emphasizes a fair solution that meets both sides’ needs and the surrounding communities. This study involved qualitative analysis to triangulate the concerns in the conflict through an evaluation of vaccine injury cases, vaccine injury data collection methods, the influence …

Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies: Social Media Archive, Cameron Domnick

Feminist & Queer Praxis

The Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Social Media Archive is a compiled list of social media posts from the WGSS social media from 2012 to 2024. This capstone project documents the history and progression of the WGSS Program.

Gender Associations Of American Band Instruments: Exploring And Comparing The Perceptions Of Three Age Groups, Kevin R. Merkel

Music Theses - Archive

This collection of three related studies explored the current gender-related perceptions of American band instruments. The first study investigated adults’ perceptions, as they were asked to rank instrument preferences for their hypothetical son and daughter. The second study examined the perceptions of seventh- and eighth-grade band students by allowing them to rate band instruments based on their gender perceptions. The third study investigated the perceptions and experiences of university band students related to gender norms and instruments utilizing a survey and interview process. The results provided evidence that instrument gender perceptions and stereotypes can change, and they suggest that intentional …

Unveiling Gender In Competency-Based Formative Assessment: A Focus On Homework Assignments As A Tool Of Assessment For Learning In A Public Junior Secondary School In Taita-Taveta County, Kenya, John Habwe

Master of Education

This qualitative case study explored how gender influences competency-based formative assessment, specifically focusing on the use of homework assignments. The research was conducted at a public junior secondary school in Kenya using interviews, a focus group discussion, document analysis, and observations. 20 students, 4 teachers, and 4 parents obtained through purposive sampling technique participated in data collection. Data that was obtained from the interviews and FGD audiotaped files were transcribed in the field concurrently with data collection, hence continuous and timely analysis allowed the researcher to carefully do a word-for-word transcription of the audiotaped data after which transcripts were critically …

Functional Explanations Link Gender Essentialism And Normativity, Emily Foster-Hanson, T. Lombrozo

Psychology Faculty Works

Why do beliefs that gender differences are innate (i.e., gender essentialism) sometimes lead to normative judgments about how individual people ought to be? In the current study, we propose that a missing premise linking gender essentialism and normativity rests on the common folk-biological assumption that biological features serve a biological function. When participants (N = 289) learned that a novel feature of the gender category "mothers" was common and innate, they overwhelmingly assumed that it must have served some function across human history. When they learned that it served a historical function, they assumed that it must still be beneficial …

Assessing American Attitudes: Welfare And Redistribution Preferences Over Time By Race, Gender, And Education, Liliana Silver

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Income and wealth inequality in the United States have skyrocketed since the 1970s, making the country increasingly unequal (Ashok et al. 2015; Hout 2021; Lee 2023). Researchers disagree on whether overall support for redistribution in the United States has changed in the last several decades (Ashok et al. 2015; Lee 2023; Pittau et al. 2016) but recent studies suggest the country has seen a significant political realignment based on race and education, influencing support for redistribution (Kitschelt and Rehm 2019). Much of the literature on redistributive attitudes exists in political science or economics and/or explores fewer dependent variables of race, …

Of Mind And Men: Replications And Rejections Of Hegemonic Masculinity At Colby And Beyond, Florence O. Kane

Honors Theses

This thesis examines what is at stake in the highly-racialized, -sexualized, and -gendered systems in which male Colby students craft self-concepts and how the college culture both rejects and replicates broader social notions of masculinity. I also analyze the theoretical threads that gave way to the field of masculinity studies and how such a discipline responds to contemporary claims of a “crisis of masculinity.” I then shift my focus to conduct a discourse analysis of “Sex Ed for Guys,” a TikTok account created by a group of male Colby students that offers a direct commentary on young men’s social and …

Navigating Campus Climate: Microaggressions And Microaffirmations Impacting Trans* College Students On College Campuses, Chas Figueroa

Masters Theses

This study explored the microaggressions and microaffirmations that transgender college students experienced on their campus. The study looked at the impact those experiences had on transgender student perspectives regarding inclusivity on campus. With the population of out college age trans* students growing there is a need to look at the importance of inclusive practices in colligate environments. This narrative approach takes the stories of two trans* college students and interprets their experiences with themes of misgendering, university action, university community, and signs of support. The study indicated that trans* college student’s perspectives on inclusivity was impacted by the microaggressions and …

Autism Clinicians' Bias In Detecting Female-Typical Rrbi In Young Children, Megan Young

Scripps Senior Theses

With four times as many boys than girls diagnosed with autism, psychologists must investigate whether this is due to an intrinsic difference or gender bias. This proposed study aims to evaluate autism clinicians’ bias in detecting restrictive and repetitive behaviors and interests (RRBI) in young children by presenting autism specialists with a vignette depicting one of four children, depicting either the male or female autism phenotype, and a masculine or feminine name. Gender of child and phenotypic presentation is expected to have a significant effect on detection and identification such that feminine names presenting with the Female Autism Phenotype (FAP) …

The Role Of Sexual Scandal In Politics & Policy, David Siracuse

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study aims to further our understanding of political scandal more broadly, as well as the classification of sexual scandal cases more specifically. With regards to sexual political scandal, the research looks to answer (1) How candidate evaluations of a politician under sexual political scandal are impacted based on aspects of their identity (gender and family values) and (2) How candidate evaluations of a politician under sexual political scandal impacted by an ever-shifting public-private divide (the exposure process). The dissertation begins with an interdisciplinary overview of the literature, which is organized into five distinct facets to create a new and …

Dancing Between Worlds: Afrofuturism, Hybridity, Transculturalism, And The Orixás, Alicia Nascimento Castro

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research uses a multicultural lens to analyze the intersections of race and geography. It aims to acknowledge the corporeality of spiritual practices to investigate creative movement. Afrofuturism becomes a theoretical framework utilized as a space for liberation into the past, present, and future. Hybridity is adapted to examine identitdade dupla regarding national, racial, cultural, and lingual identities. The research explores Transculturalism by centering Blackness and interrogating the political powers of race in both the United States and Brazil. The physical manifestation utilizes the Black imaginary with choreography, set design, costuming, and musical composition as ideological frames for time travel …

Holy Body/Monstrous Body: The Life And Practices Of Saint Catherine Of Siena., Melissa B. Miller

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research examines the violent misogyny and contempt for the female body in, but not limited to, Western Christian environments using as a lens the life and practices of Catherine Benincasa, a mystic and tertiary Dominican sainted in 1461 as Saint Catherine of Siena. Further, the research looks at the use of the abject and grotesque in performance, as well as transformative storytelling, as a means of making lived experience visible, and is explored as a liberatory response to such systems of domination and violence. Though this research is framed in a religious context, contempt towards female-presenting bodies is not …

Women And Trade In Africa: A Case For Mainstreaming Gender In The Implementation Of The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (Afcfta), Tsotang Tsietsi

Indian Journal of International Economic Law

This article seeks to determine the extent to which the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and its protocols accord attention to the barriers and opportunities that African women face in intra-African trade. It discusses the considerable role of African women traders, for example, in agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises, and in informal cross border trade. It questions whether, in support of their contributions in these sectors, gender has been adequately mainstreamed in the AfCFTA legal framework. Through its analysis of the contents of the instruments, it argues that there was little prioritization of women in the agreement and …

‘Poetry Is Not A Luxury’, Rage Should Not Be A Privilege: The Potential Power Of The ‘Racial Imaginary’, Georgia Mcgovern

CMC Senior Theses

Female rage exists outside of the constructed masculine ideal of anger. To examine female rage, one must analyze the intersections between gender and race. I examine white women's privilege and access to female rage in reality and the fictional world. I explore Black Feminist poetry as a form of storage for rage at gender-based prejudice, racial injustice, and their intersection. Using Myisha Cherry’s term “Lordean Rage”, I recognize this specialized manifestation of female rage as an artistic, intergenerational source of energy for change.

I examine Claudia Rankine’s term “racial imaginary” as an imaginative space in which white people draw lines …

Measuring Positive Lgbtq+ Identity: Psychometric Properties Of The Turkish Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Positive Identity Measure, Yusuf Barburoğlu, Eda Çürükvelioğlu-Köksal, S. Burcu Özgülük Üçok, Yuvamathi Gandhi, Pamela J. Lannutti, Ashley K. Randall

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Previous research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and various sexually and gender diverse (LGBTQ+) people has largely highlighted how experiences of discrimination and marginalization, and mental health outcomes are related. However, it is important that researchers operate from a strength-based approach to identify how aspects of one's identity may foster resilience. It is crucial that people working with LGBTQ+ individuals have empirically supported and culturally verified measures to assess such constructs. In this regard, the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Positive Identity Measure (LGB-PIM) developed by Riggle et al. (2014) was aimed to be translated into Turkish, examining its psychometric …

Developing A Gender Diverse Stimulus Set For Emotion Expressions, Amir Robertson

Honors Theses and Capstones

Much past research has demonstrated that gender plays an important role in emotion perception, such that gendered stereotypes about emotion seem to shape how we perceive and interpret the emotion expressions of men and women. However, the stimulus sets that are typically used in the vast majority of this research have been based on binary ideas of gender, and purposefully limit common elements of gender presentation, with models posing with limited accessories or personal aesthetic choices. In everyday life, however, individuals’ gender and gender presentation are not limited in these ways and likely contribute in important ways to how we …

Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, And The Discursive Production And Policing Of Gender, Alan J. Bandyk, Alan J. Bandyk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis utilizes the works of Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Frederic Jameson, and Edward Said in a discourse analysis of influencers and writers in the right wing "manosphere." The figures analyzed herein are Andrew Tate and Matt Walsh. Their rhetoric aims to create a discursive woman who embodies traditional notions of gender and sex that de Beauvoir critiqued in 1949. The constant adherence and reference to a mythical past exhibits ways of thinking that coincide perfectly with Jameson's own theoretical work with the term and its inherent false nostalgia. Tate's and Walsh's efforts also fall into discursive attempts at …

Beauvoir, “French” Feminisms, And “Translation Work:” A Roundtable Conversation, Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This conversation featuring four scholars—Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin, Lorraine Delavaud, Marine Vaslin—took place on zoom on December 1, 2023. It was organized, transcribed, and edited by Sandrine Sanos who also wrote the introduction to contextualize the conversation. The roundtable reflects on the making of the translation of Judith Coffin’s book on Beauvoir; and how it became a collective object, and the challenges and productive limitations that it involved, showing how such a project helped forge and relied upon transnational, transdisciplinary, and transgenerational feminist solidarities. The ways Beauvoir became a transatlantic object sheds light on the ways that the book …

Gendered Labor Division In The Evangelical Lutheran Church Of Latvia Through The Lens Of Gifts And Reciprocity, Māra Neikena, Gareth E. Hamilton

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article explores the concepts of 'gift's and 'reciprocity' within anthropological literature and applies them to ethnographic fieldwork conducted within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. In interviews, pastors and members of parishes used the word 'gift' to rationalize gender differences in performed tasks and assumed inherent abilities of men and women. The article aims to investigate the variety of reciprocity that takes place when informants refer to the idea of the 'gift' in various social contexts. Through qualitative interviews, analysis highlights that the gendered labor division in managing the 'household' of a parish is tied to a sense of …

Gendered Violence And Sexualized Representations In Video Games: (Lack Of) Effect On Gender-Related Attitudes, Liam Cross, Linda K. Kaye, Juris Savostijanovs, Neil Mclatchie, Matthew Johnston, Liam Whiteman, Robyn Mooney, Gray Atherton

School of Psychology

This research explored how gender portrayals in video games affect gender-related attitudes. Two hundred participants from the United Kingdom and Malaysia participated across three experiments, where the appearance and behaviour of video game characters were manipulated with regard to target (enemy) gender (Study 1), sexually explicit attire (Study 2) and level of character agency (Study 3). We found minimal evidence that exposure to gender-stereotyped content resulted in differential gender-related attitudes (implicit associations, hostile and benevolent sexism, or rape myth acceptance). However, Study 1 findings showed that individuals who played a first-person shooter with male enemies showed lower endorsement of some …

Home, Sweet Home: Gender The Civil War And Reunion Through Popular Music, Nathanial E. Bock

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

“Home, Sweet Home” is widely considered the most popular tune of the American Civil War, but its enduring popularity before, during, and after the war has never been fully explored. This thesis combines classic and modern histories of the music of the Civil War with some of the latest work in gender studies and the post-war era to explore the continued popularity of this song throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It begins by examining the life of the song’s unusual author, John Howard Payne, and why Americans were predisposed to find both Payne and his song so compelling. It …

Serving With Pride: Analyzing Lgbtq+ Personnel Policy In The U.S. Military, Sonja Woolley

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the evolution of LGBTQ+ personnel policies in the U.S. military, analyzing how these changes reflect broader social transformations and the military’s role as both a mirror and catalyst in societal shifts. It traces the historical roots of discriminatory practices against queer and transgender servicemembers, identifying key periods of reform and resistance. Using institutional theory to dissect the mechanisms of policy adaptation, this paper focuses on coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism, which illustrate the complex interplay between external societal pressures, internal demands for legitimacy, and the professionalization of the military. Through detailed case studies, the thesis highlights how …