Digital Commons Network^™

Spirituality And Masculinity: Discovering If Faith Influences The Social Construction Of Masculinity, Justin Heth

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand if spirituality influenced the social construction of masculinity in the lived experiences of college men. A phenomenological study was conducted using a social constructivist worldview by conducting 13 semistructured interviews at a four-year public university in the Midwest. The interviews were digitally recorded and analyzed revealing the emergence of six themes: (a) fathers shape their sons' understanding of masculinity, (b) emotions are acceptable to embrace, (c) spiritual men experience unique tensions with their peers, (d) spirituality sets men apart from their peers, (e) a spiritual guy code exists, and (f) spirituality influences …

Adult Learning And The Effect Of Education And Gender Interaction On Type 2 Diabetics, Abdi H. Nur

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to investigate whether the relationships between Education and medication and healthy exercise adherence were the same among female and male Type 2 diabetic adult learners. The purpose included also exploring whether registered nurses would alter their approach to diabetic adult learners Education on medication and healthy exercise adherence considering patients gender and Education levels. The study also investigated the correlation between diabetes duration and medication and healthy exercise adherence. The research investigation employed mixed methods sequential explanatory design using qualitative data to help explain the quantitative findings. The quantitative study was …

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 …

Attitudes About Women, Sexuality, And Abortion, Phoebe Xoxakos, Kathryn R. Klement, Brad J. Sagarin

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Abortion currently and throughout history, has been a wide-spread, controversial topic, though one in three women will obtain abortion services by the time they are 45 (Guttmacher Institute, 2014). Even after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a woman’s right to undergo an abortion in the famous Roe vs. Wade (1973) case, state-wide laws and restrictions continue to be placed on abortion practices (Begun & Walls, 2014). Many Americans support and/or oppose the act of having an abortion based on their personal beliefs and attitudes on how women should conduct themselves in different situations, and Wolf (1991) points out that advocates …

Aspirants And Interlopers: First-Generation, Underrepresented, Low-Income Master's Students, Jennifer Miles

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis is based on eleven interviews with seven students enrolled in a social science master’s degree program at a small public university in the Western United States (University of the Northwest - UNW). My analysis details the differences in pathways and educational experiences between first- and continuing-generation students in this program. I found that first-generation, underrepresented, low-income (FGULI) students expressed greater difficulty fitting into graduate school, greater doubt about their ability to ‘do’ graduate school, less comfort interacting with faculty, and less ease with the concept of graduate school and with conceptualizing themselves as graduate students than continuing-generation students …

Gender Beyond Birth: Gender Non-Conforming Students Lived Experiences Residing On-Campus In The Southeast, Tiffany Marlene Shierling

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, using a qualitative approach, gender non-conforming students lived experience living on campus in the south is being investigated. “Trans* students remain largely invisible through college records as no data is collected consistently on their enrollment” (Nicolazzo, 2016 p. 539). Although this is true of all gender non-conforming students, it is even more relevant to those that attend universities in the Southeast. Gender non-conforming students are attending universities in higher numbers than every reported before and yet, student affairs still does not have a theory that relates to these students when teaching their graduate students. The psychological literature …

Multiracial Individuals, Gender Dynamics, And Dating, Kayla Mildred Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the role gender and race play in multiracial men and women’s experiences with dating. With the use of interviews, fourteen men and women shared their experiences with dating. There were two main themes that emerged. The first was the development of a multiracial identity. Participants labelled four factors that impact the development of their multiracial identity: family, friends, school, and religion. The other theme was dating approaches which included: finding a partner, family acceptance and non-acceptance, and challenges with dating. Influenced by the theoretical frames of intersectionality and colorism, I demonstrate how race and gender are intersecting …

Engineering Professors’ Perspectives On Gender And Assessment Of Teamwork, Kacey Beddoes, Grace Panther

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Teamwork is an important component of engineering education programs; however, when not facilitated well, it can be a site of gender biases. The aim of this article is to thematically explore what and how engineering professors think about gender in the assessment of teamwork. In 2014 and 2015, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 engineering professors in the United States. Interviews covered a wide range of topics, with one section of the interviews devoted to teamwork specifically. For this article, the parts of the interviews about assessment of teamwork are analyzed. It was found that most participants were unaware of …

Revolutionary Fathers: Republican Fatherhood And The American Revolution And Early Republic 1763-1814, Travis Jaquess Jaquess

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American fathers in the eighteenth century and argues that the American Revolution, both the war itself and the ideology it created, affected attitudes towards and practices of fatherhood. Historians have characterized the father/son relationship in the Revolutionary period as one of filial rebellion against their patriarchal fathers. My work finds, conversely, that because of their experience in the Revolution, ideas such as liberty and equality which spread throughout the colonies, and additional opportunities available to industrious young men due to national independence, fathers actively prepared their sons for an independent life free from patronage, massive inheritances, and …

A Labor Of Love: Women's Perspectives On Gender And Identity In Informal Caregiving, Kirby O'Hara Hurd

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The elderly population (adults 65 and over) is larger than at any time in history, thanks to improved access to healthcare, advances in medical technology, and health services focused on addressing the needs of aging adults. However, support for this growing population remains insufficient; the costs of in-home and residential care are high, and consequently, family members often become providers of informal, unpaid care. Presently, there is inadequate literature regarding the academic study of family members providing informal caregiving, especially from a perspective that emphasizes sociological principles and theories. Existing studies of the family caregiver phenomenon show that middle-aged adult …

Cultivating Social Capital In Undergraduate Research: Key Sources And Distinctions By Gender, Heather Ann Daniels

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Women are outpacing men in overall educational attainment, however this is not the case in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields when women fall behind men. Establishing strong social connections is important to retention in STEM fields and persistence in the STEM pipeline. This study qualitatively examines what serves as social capital in STEM-focused undergraduate research and how social capital is accrued and deployed differently by men and women in ways that could be contributing to the gender gap in STEM. 17 students participating in external summer research programs at 12 different universities were interviewed at 3 points in …

Influence Of Gender And Cultural Values On Savoring In Korean Undergraduates, Soyeon Kim, Fred B. Bryant

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The present study investigated antecedents of savoring beliefs and responses in a sample of South Korean college students. Historically, Korea has been strongly influenced by Chinese Confucianism, which emphasizes not only gender-role differentiation and patriarchal norms, but also the dampening of emotions as a culturally appropriate style of positive emotional regulation. We hypothesized that Korean females, relative to males, would reject traditional Asian cultural values in order to gain more empowerment, and would, as a result, report a greater capacity to savor positive experience. Confirming the hypotheses, Korean women, compared to men, reported stronger disagreement with traditional Asian values, greater …

The Perceptions Of Students On A Cooperative, Gamebased Learning Latin Curriculum: An Action Research Study, Jason Dean Blackburn

Theses and Dissertations

This action research study describes the impact of Operation LAPIS, a cooperative gamebased Latin 1 curriculum, upon student perceptions in a large suburban high school in South Carolina. The game served as an introduction to Latin grammar, vocabulary, and the daily life of a Roman teenager for 15 Latin 1 students who participated in the study. Syntax, vocabulary acquisition, and cultural studies are essential standards-based elements of learning Latin. Students were surveyed regarding their opinions on the game’s approach to grammar, vocabulary, Roman daily life, and game-based learning in general. These surveys produced a quantitative data set that allowed the …

Learning To Question The World: Navigating Critical Discourse Around Gender And Racial Inequities And Injustices In A Second And Third Grade Classroom, Christopher L. Hass

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study, situated within a critical theory frame (Friere, 1970; Grant, Brown, & Brown, 2016; hooks, 1994; Kincheloe, 2008), explored the ways elementary students engaged in and constructed meaning from critical classroom discussions exploring inequities and injustices as related to gender and race. The questions guiding the study were: (1) How do my students construct meaning during class discussions regarding issues of equity and injustice around gender and race?, (2) What role do I play in constructing, shaping, and maintaining opportunities for students to create meaning during these discussions?, and (3) What tensions do my students encounter when engaging …

Laughing Against White Supremacy: Marginalized Performance Of Resistance Comedy, Caren Holmes

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study examines the political influence of charged standup comedy as a form of protest in resistance movements against white supremacy. It examines the experiences of seven marginalized comics who confront oppression through this non-traditional and humor based form of protest. Over the course of two months I conducted and filmed eight in-depth, semi-formal interviews with seven comics of color; six women and one trans-non-binary person, as well as an academic who specializes in studying the production of “charged humor.” I attended more than 30 standup shows and filmed several performances. In my analysis I explore four major themes, (1) …

The Noteworthy Absence Of Women Advocates At The United States Supreme Court, Jennifer Crystal Mika

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Gender And Perception Of Community Safety On Happiness, Jennifer K. Daffon

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Income-based indicators of happiness have been shown to be limited in their ability to predict happiness. Alternative measures of happiness have been gaining prominence in happiness research, and two predictors of happiness were investigated in the current study. The extent to which happiness (measured by affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being) could be predicted by gender and perception of community safety was investigated with 19,644 participant responses to The Happiness Alliance Survey. Multiple linear regression models indicated that gender and community safety are significant predictors of affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being. The effect of the predictor variables was similar …

Homosexuality As Haram: An Examination Of The Effects Of Gender, Contact, And Religiosity On Sexual Prejudice In Muslim College Students, Amanda T. Yeck

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined how gender, contact, and religiosity influence sexual prejudice in Muslims. Given that the preponderance of research examining attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women has been conducted with Judeo-Christian populations, research exploring sexual prejudice in Muslim individuals is warranted. Social Identity Theory was used as a theoretical framework to explore these factors, as sexual prejudice has been linked with both gender role and moral transgressions. The final sample consisted of 166 heterosexual Muslims, and 12 non-heterosexual Muslims collected through a snowball sample. Participants completed the Multidimensional Scale of Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men, the Santa …

The Role Of Diagnostic Criteria: Changes In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Prevalence, Ruth Viehoff

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined differences in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) prevalence rates using the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000) and DSM-5 (APA, 2013) diagnostic criteria, while also examining the influence of gender, trauma type, and number of traumas. PTSD may occur following exposure to trauma, and is characterized by symptoms of re-experiencing the trauma, avoidance, negative cognitions and mood, and changes in reactivity (APA, 2013). Women have shown higher PTSD prevalence rates than men, and both interpersonal trauma and multiple trauma exposure have been associated with higher rates of PTSD development (Kilpatrick et al., 2013). The DSM-5 PTSD criteria were …

Science Possible Selves And The Desire To Be A Scientist: Mindsets, Gender Bias, And Confidence During Early Adolescence, Patricia Wonch Hill, Julia Mcquillan, Eli Talbert, Amy N. Spiegel, G. Robin Gauthier, Judy Diamond

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In the United States, gender gaps in science interest widen during the middle school years. Recent research on adults shows that gender gaps in some academic fields are associated with mindsets about ability and gender-science biases. In a sample of 529 students in a U.S. middle school, we assess how explicit boy-science bias, science confidence, science possible self (belief in being able to become a scientist), and desire to be a scientist vary by gender. Guided by theories and prior research, we use a series of multivariate logistic regression models to examine the relationships between mindsets about ability and these …

Lgbtq+ Young Adults On The Street And On Campus: Identity As A Product Of Social Context, Rachel M. Schmitz, Kimberly A. Tyler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) young adults face unique identity-related experiences based on their immersion in distinctive social contexts. The predominant framework of performing separate analyses on samples of LGBTQ+ young people by their primary social status obfuscates more holistic understandings of the role of social context. Using 46 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ college students and LGBTQ+ homeless young adults, we ask: How are LGBTQ+ young adults’ capacities for “doing” their gender and sexual identities shaped by their distinctive social contexts? In developing their identities, both groups of LGBTQ+ young adults navigated their social …

Gender And Sexuality (First Edition), Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, Tami Blumenfield, Susan Harper, Abby Gondak

Anthropology Publications

Learning Objectives:

• Identify ways in which culture shapes sex/gender and sexuality.
• Describe ways in which gender and sexuality organize and structure the societies in which we live.
• Assess the range of possible ways of constructing gender and sexuality by sharing examples from different cultures, including small-scale societies.
• Analyze how anthropology as a discipline is affected by gender ideology and gender norms.
• Evaluate cultural “origin” stories that are not supported by anthropological data.

Identity Politics, State Standards, And On The Ground Realities: A Critical Policy Analysis Of Teaching/Learning Gender/Sexuality In A Virginia Elementary School, Stefanie Hudson

Theses and Dissertations

Even though America has seen an increase in the level of acceptance for people who identify as LGBTQ and/or gender non-conforming, certain aspects within society continue to hinder their rights, especially within public education. Specifically, there are insufficiencies regarding content of and attitudes toward including LGBTQ issues in teaching and leadership training programs. Add to that, the deficits in most Family Life Education (FLE) programs in elementary schools as they lack adequate coverage of developmentally appropriate teaching and learning about gender and sexuality. Taken together, it remains questionable whether the needs of LGBTQ and/or gender non-conforming children can truly be …

Women Self Actualization: A Narrative Of A Performative Gender Constitution, Hala A. Gabr

Theses and Dissertations

In a traditional Middle Eastern society, men and women have been confined within society’s gender definitions. Those imposed social constructs condition men differently from women by dictating expected behaviors, establishing a hierarchy of gender positioning and enforcing definitions that limit abilities and potential.

Based on postmodernist philosopher, feminist and social theorist, Simone de Beauvoir and postmodernist American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, gender is not an inborn role, but rather created through stylized repetition of acts informed by society, named performative acts. For de Beauvoir and Butler, gender can never be a stable identity (Butler 1988).

Informed by Butler’s …

Quality Of Life And Depression Among Patients With Type I Diabetes: A Study Of Gender Differences, Eisha Gohil, Ruby Charak, Haroon Rashid, Priyanka Sharma

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Diabetes is a progressive chronic condition which places a significant burden of self management on the individual, such as daily monitoring and medications management, worry about the future and distress about the impact of diabetes on various aspects of life. It is a group of metabolic diseases characterized by elevated blood glucose levels (hyperglycemia) resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action or both. The present study aimed to assess gender differences in quality of life and depression in patients suffering from type I diabetes. A sample of 70 participants (44 male and 26 female) in the age range of …

The Effects Of Parenthood, Gender, And Gender Ideology On The Support For Paid Parental Leave, Amira Allen

Theses and Dissertations

In 2015, 61.4 percent of women and 94.5 percent of men with children three and under were in the labor force. Both working mothers and fathers report higher levels of stress balancing work and family life than they did twenty-five years ago, and many mothers and fathers would like to cut back on their work hours. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives eligible employees of covered employers the option to take unpaid job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons, such as parental leave. Though FMLA applies to both parents, it is more common for maternity leave to occur …

The Effects Of Gender-Aware Leadership-Development Training On The Leadership- Behavioral Competencies Of Women Software Engineers In California’S Silicon Valley, Leann Pereira

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a leadership-development training workshop on leadership behaviors among women software engineers in a California Silicon Valley engineering community with a two-phase, mixed-methods research design. The training workshop was developed using a framework for developing leadership-behavioral competencies among women (LBCW), which was congruent with theoretical principles for women’s leadership development.

LBCW was comprised of four competencies: self-advocacy, social networking, psychological capital, and goal orientation. A pretest–posttest comparison-group design was used to assess the effects of the training on LCBW among 70 participants with four instruments: the Leadership Development and Activities Instrument, the …

Social-Pragmatic Communication In Women With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Multiple Case Study, Lacey W. Ryder

Honors Theses and Capstones

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is identified much later and less often in females than in males. Some researchers suspect that a different set of characteristics of ASD in females may not be consistent with the more established and widely recognized characteristics of ASD, leading to under-identification in women. In the present study, four women and one non-binary feminine-presenting person with ASD were interviewed. The five participants conveyed their experiences with social-pragmatic communication, and their views on gender, ASD, and gender differences in ASD. The results are discussed in relationship to the limited amount of past research on women with ASD.

Tolling For The Aching Ones Whose Wounds Cannot Be Nursed’: The Marginalization Of Racial Minorities And Women In Institutional Mental Disability Law, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo

Articles & Chapters

Individuals with mental disabilities have traditionally been and continue to be subjected to rights violations and pervasive discrimination because of their mental disabilities. Seen as “the other,” individuals who are racial minorities and/or are women are marginalized to an even greater extent than other persons with mental disabilities in matters related to civil commitment and institutional treatment (especially involving theright to refuse medication).

It is impossible to examine these questions critically without coming to grips with the ways that expert testimony — testimony that is essential and necessary in all these cases — is infected with bias that leads to …

Foreign And U.S Educated Faculty Members’ Views On What Constitutes Excellent Teaching: Effects Of Gender And Discipline, Emad A. Ismail, James E. Groccia

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study identifies views of foreign-educated faculty who teach in American universities on what constitutes excellence in teaching based on different demographics using the online version of the Teacher Behavior Checklist. Faculty from 14 institutions within the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB) were asked to rank the top 10 of 28 teacher qualities of excellent teaching. The final faculty sample consisted of 448 participants, of which 309 were United States-educated (US-educated), and 139 were foreign-educated. The majority of the foreign-educated faculty were from Asia and Europe. Results showed that both US- and foreign-educated faculty agreed on eight qualities as the …