Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Adult Attachment And Testosterone Reactivity: Fathers' Avoidance Predicts Changes In Testosterone During The Strange Situation Procedure, Robin S. Edelstein, Kristi Chin, Ekjyot K. Saini, Patty X. Kuo, Oliver C. Schultheiss, Brenda L. Volling

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

We assessed parents' testosterone reactivity to the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), a moderately stressful parent-infant interaction task that pulls for parental nurturance and caregiving behavior. Parents (146 mothers, 154 fathers) interacted with their 1-year-old infants, and saliva samples were obtained pre- and post-task to assess changes in testosterone. We examined whether testosterone reactivity differed between mothers and fathers, the extent to which parents' characteristic approaches to closeness (i.e., adult attachment orientation) contributed to testosterone changes, and whether any influences of adult attachment orientation were independent of more general personality characteristics (i.e., the Big Five personality dimensions). Results revealed that mothers …

Gender Negotiation Among People In Poly/Consensual Non-Monogamous Relationships, Vanessa Rijo - Sánchez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the United States, people are encouraged and even coerced by social forces to behave and interact according to rigid social mores that tend to privilege individuals from a specific gender, racial, and class backgrounds. As many theorists have stated, sexual, gender, and racial minorities navigate their lives experiencing oppression at different levels and at the intersections of different systems of inequality. The marginal social location of these identities often results in people re-defining the social meanings through which they construct their social lives. Although much research has been devoted to investigating the different ways in which people resist the …

Urban Congolese Refugees’ Social Capital And Community Resilience During A Period Of Political Violence In Kenya: A Qualitative Study, Julie A. Tippens

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Community resilience has been used as a conceptual framework to promote urban refugee protection, integration, and well-being. In the context of this focus on “refugee communities,” it is critical to gain a deeper understanding of the ways urban refugee “communities” function. This study explored urban Congolese refugees’ use of social capital to promote resilience during a period of political violence in Nairobi, Kenya. Findings illustrate how refugees used social capital across different contexts to access and distribute resilience-promoting resources. Women primarily relied on informal bonding forms of capital while men exhibited greater degrees of access to formal bridging and linking …

Gender And Age Of Migration Differences In Mortality Among Older Mexican Americans, Adriana M. Reyes, Marc A. Garcia

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Using a gendered life course perspective, we examine whether the relationship between age of migration and mortality is moderated by gender among a cohort of older Mexican-Americans.

Methods: Data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiological Study of the Elderly and recently matched mortality data are used to estimate Cox proportional hazard models.

Results: Our findings indicate the relationship between age of migration and mortality is moderated by gender suggesting a more nuanced perspective of the immigrant mortality paradox. Among men, midlife migrants exhibit an 18 percent lower risk of mortality compared to their U.S.-born …

Give Us A Twirl: Male Baton Twirlers’ Embodied Resistance In A Feminized Terrain, Trenton M. Haltom

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

There is a persistent perception that baton twirling is only for girls. This insight is not unwarranted because more often than not, audiences only see girls twirling. Baton twirling, however, is not exclusive to girls; boys twirl too.

In this chapter, I explore how the participation of men and boys in the sport of baton twirling exemplifies forms of embodied resistance. In defiance of more masculine and male-dominated sports, men and boys who twirl exhibit embodied resistance in three key ways: through their participation in this feminized sport, by redefining components of twirling to downplay gender, and through choreography involving …

Partner Congruence On Fertility Intentions And Values: Implications For Birth Outcomes, Karina M. Shreffler, Stacy Tiemeyer, Julia Mcquillan, Arthur L. Greil, Tiffany Spierling

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In heterosexual couples, both partners’ intentions to have a baby (or not) are associated with the likelihood of a subsequent birth, yet most studies only measure women’s intentions. Therefore, little is known about the potential association of couple agreement or disagreement on intentions or on such values as importance of parenthood, career, and leisure and the implications for childbearing. The goal of this article is to assess whether couple-level agreement or disagreement in fertility intentions and values are associated with the likelihood of a subsequent birth. Guided by the Theory of Conjunctural Action, we use couple data from two waves …

A Qualitative Study Of Changes In The Traditional Roles Of Housewives In Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, Rowland Edet, Julianah Babajide, Oluwayimika Ekundina

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although hinged on the principles of patriarchy, the Nigerian society has witnessed appreciable changes in the roles of women. This change is noticed in marriage particularly among married women or housewives. Thus, the phenomenon of full housewife is gradually fading away due to the joint influence of westernization, globalization, and modernization. Thus, this study delved into interrogating the various changes that have taken place in the traditional roles of housewives in selected locations in Ibadan. This study utilized a purely qualitative method of research because the subject matter focuses on making sense of meanings people attach to gender, gender roles, …

A Public Health Perspective Of The Higher Education Experiences Of Women Studying Nursing: A Hermeneutic Inquiry Into Commencement And Progression, Lesley Jane Andrew

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

While student retention is a central goal across higher education, the projected shortage in the Australian health workforce has intensified its importance to undergraduate nursing.

Nursing degrees attract a higher proportion of mature-age women students than ever before. More are therefore beginning university at life stage characterised by marriage (or co-habitation) and traditional family structures. Nursing retention strategies require an understanding of the unique university experiences of these women, however, this is missing in the nursing literature. This study is the first to explore the experiences of these women students, doing so from the perspective of Bachelor of Science (Nursing) …

“Your Biological Clock Is Ticking”: Examining Stigma Of Childless Men And Women, Kayla Tamas

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

Prior research reveals that all childless individuals are negatively stigmatized, but voluntary and involuntary childless individuals are stigmatized to differing degrees. There is a little research investigating the differences in stigma associated with childless men and women. The current study examines the differences in stigma for voluntary and involuntary childless men and women by using a series of vignettes and having participants rate the childless individuals on fourteen general characteristics. Participants were recruited from psychology and sociology courses at the University of South Carolina Aiken as well as Psychological Research on the Net through Hanover College. It was hypothesized that …

Mujeres, Identidad Indígena Y Educación Superior: Un Análisis De Caso De Las Estudiantes Del Instituto Superior Pedagógico “Pukllasunchis” Del Cusco / Women, Indigenous Identity And Higher Education: A Case Study Of The Students Of The "Pukllasunchis" Higher Pedagogical Institute Of Cusco, Alyssa Snyder

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación explora cómo afecta a la identidad de mujeres indígenas el acceder a estudios de educación superior en el Instituto de Educación Superior Pedagógico Pukllasunchis (IESPP) en Cusco. Este informe analiza las experiencias de las mujeres en el sistema educativo y cómo cambian sus identidades cuando vienen a la ciudad para estudiar. Para obtener una perspectiva sobre sus vidas y experiencias, realicé entrevistas semi-estructurada con cinco estudiantes mujeres y una entrevista con la directora. Además, asistí a cinco clases. Los resultados del estudio indican que cuando ellas vienen de las comunidades a la ciudad, muchas veces se sienten discriminadas …

Gender And Food Access In Adams County: Food Provisioning, Identity Formation, And Survival, Emma E. Korowotny

Student Publications

This project analyzes food access issues in Adams County, specifically within the setting of South Central Community Action Programs and the Gleaning Project through the collection of individual testimonies. Budget, time, transportation, health, and household composition emerged as common themes that affect food access within this rural community and limit choice and agency, and also serve as a major influence in the process of food provisioning and identity formation, especially in terms of motherhood, parenting, and caregiving. In most cases, due to these systemic shortcomings, individuals and families navigated multiple solutions to these challenges in order to sustain themselves and …

A Content-Analytic Meta-Analysis Of Gender Stereotyping In Screen Media, Lee Whitney Essig

Theses and Dissertations

Thousands of studies have investigated the gendered portrayals in various forms of media. Researchers believe that considering gendered media content is important, as gender stereotypes have been found to influence development, often with adverse outcomes. Although a vast body of research on gender stereotypes has accumulated, little effort has been made to synthesize this literature. The purpose of this paper is to collect and analyze the results of content-analytic studies of gender portrayals across several forms of media including television, television commercials, movies, video games, music videos, and various forms of print media into a comprehensive paper on gender stereotypes …

Risk Factors For Forced, Incapacitated, And Coercive Sexual Victimization Among Sexual Minority And Heterosexual Male And Female College Students, Colleen M. Ray, Kimberly A. Tyler, Leslie Gordon Simons

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although college students are at high risk for sexual victimization, the majority of research has focused on heterosexual students and often does not differentiate by victimization type. Thus, little is known about prevalence rates and risk factors for sexual victimization among sexual minority college students and whether the interaction between gender and sexual orientation differs by victimization type. To address these gaps, we examine whether risk factors for three types of sexual victimization (i.e., forced, incapacitated, and coerced) differ by gender (n = 681 males; n = 732 females) and sexual orientation (n = 1,294 heterosexual; n = …

Discovery Orientation, Cognitive Schemas, And Disparities In Science Identity In Early Adolescence, Patricia Wonch Hill, Julia Mcquillan, Amy Spiegel, Judy Diamond

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Why are some youth more likely to think of themselves as a science kind of person than others? In this paper, we use a cognitive social-theoretical framework to assess disparities in science identity among middle school–age youth in the United States. We investigate how discovery orientation is associated with science interest, perceived ability, importance, and reflected appraisal, and how they are related to whether youth see themselves, and perceive that others see them, as a science kind of person. We surveyed 441 students in an ethnically diverse, low-income middle school. Gender and race/ethnicity are associated with science identity but not …

Embody: The Transformation Of Intimate Knowledges Through Generations In Liberal Societies, Lisa Kronberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis project aims to examine how intimate knowledges[1] are transferred and communicated between generations in Western, liberal societies. By ‘Intimate knowledges’ I mean to encompass diverse knowledge of emotional intelligence, sexual identity, and gender.

Intimate knowledges evolve with human life circle everywhere and at all times, but in Western popular discourse of today, are treated with confusion and repression; they thus emerge as a “loud display of simultaneously silent sexual desire.” (Fine and McClelland, 2006) I explore this tension through a critical, feminist lens that sheds light on the ways in which political economy creates cultural norms that …

Delivering Impact For Adolescent Girls: Emerging Findings From Population Council Research, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Despite numerous global commitments to invest in improving the lives of adolescent girls, questions remain as to what package of interventions can deliver the best outcomes. This report synthesizes findings from nine recent Population Council impact evaluations, conducted around the world, which indicate that empowerment and asset-building interventions for adolescent girls can improve education, health, economic, social capital, gender-equitable attitude, and violence outcomes for girls. The report includes implications for programs and investment, and identifies open questions for further research and evaluation.

Girlsread! Girls’ Rights: An Empowerment Curriculum, Natalie Jackson Hachonda, Nicole Haberland, Barbara Mensch, Pamela Nyirenda, Diana Bulanda-Shalala

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This curriculum guide is designed to help female mentors in the GirlsRead! program in Zambia to directly engage girls in critical thinking about gender inequalities and discrimination, and help them build the assets and confidence needed to act on their own behalf and as progressive voices in their communities. GirlsRead! participants are girls in grade 7—the last year of primary school—when they are at high risk of leaving school. The curriculum includes 19 sessions that cover a range of topics from gender equality to sexuality to rights, in meetings that provide a space and opportunity for girls to regularly interact …

Forced Child Unions: From Legal Reform To Social Disruption—Formative Research In Five Communities In Chisec, Alta Verapaz, Paola Broll, Cecilia Garcés

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Evidence has shown that child early and forced marriage/unions (CEFM/U) are harmful to the rights and development of girls and adolescents. It has also shown that increasing the minimum marriage age is not enough to eradicate this phenomenon because of the underlying practices of social institutions at the community level. This report details an investigation undertaken when a modification to the Civil Code was approved, then modified, in order to increase the minimum age of marriage in Guatemala. The investigation aimed to identify the norms, practices, and attitudes prevailing in the school, family, religion, government, and economy with regard to …

Girlsread! E-Reader Curriculum, Natalie Jackson Hachonda, Nicole Haberland, Abdul-Kahad Alhassan, Beatrice Ani-Asamoah, Pamela Nyirenda, Barbara Mensch

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Zambian adolescent girls are at risk for premature school leaving and HIV infection due to a host of contextual factors including child marriage, early childbearing, harmful gender norms, and intimate partner violence. This report describes the GirlsRead! program, whose overall goal is to enhance learning and increase progression to secondary school among Zambian adolescent girls in grade 7, the last year of primary school. Through GirlsRead!, the Population Council, together with FAWEZA and Worldreader are aiming to improve school retention by bolstering girls’ learning outcomes, furthering social connections, improving critical thinking skills, increasing agency, and fostering community norms supportive of …

Risk Factors For Forced, Incapacitated, And Coercive Sexual Victimization Among Sexual Minority And Heterosexual Male And Female College Students, Colleen M. Ray, Kimberly Tyler, Leslie Gordon Simons

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Although college students are at high risk for sexual victimization, the majority of research has focused on heterosexual students and often does not differentiate by victimization type. Thus, little is known about prevalence rates and risk factors for sexual victimization among sexual minority college students and whether the interaction between gender and sexual orientation differs by victimization type. To address these gaps, we examine whether risk factors for three types of sexual victimization (i.e., forced, incapacitated, and coerced) differ by gender (n = 681 males; n = 732 females) and sexual orientation (n = 1,294 heterosexual; n = …

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

Persuasive Kinship: Human–Plant Relations In Southwest Amazonia, Fabiana Maizza

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Based on my ethnographic research with the Jarawara people, an indigenous society in the Southwest Amazonia, the article explores the idea of thinking kinship as persuasion. Among the Jarawara, children can have more than one father, which is well known in Americanist literature, but there would exist as well an original practice what we could call "multi-maternity". I also observe that the Jarawara can have diverse parental relations - some of their children are human, while others are plants. This occurs in a system of raising (nayana) in which children and plants are raised by a father and/or a mother …

Shaped By Changing Space: Exploring Gender And The Discourse Of Empowerment In Sikles, Nepal, Rachel Yanover

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Development work as it relates to women in Nepal is an ongoing topic of debate and discussion that may never have a concrete end. In the late 1970’s Indian women took a stand in defending their livelihood against commercial logging operations with authorities. This event was known as the Chipko movement and is often cited within the history of women and development as it caused people to “engage the question of gender and gendered livelihoods in the Himalayas” (Gurarani and Berry, 2015). It was women who served as the backbone of this movement in organizing nonviolent demonstrations against commercial deforestation. …

Sex Roles And Social Change In Amazonian Ecuador, William T. Vickers

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

William Vickers And Gender Studies Of The 1970s, E. Jean Langdon

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

Measuring Gender Equality In Education: Lessons From 43 Countries, Stephanie Psaki, Katharine Mccarthy, Barbara Mensch

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Through the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), governments committed to achieving universal secondary school completion, including eliminating gender disparities, by 2030. The period from 1997 to 2014 saw considerable progress in closing gender gaps in school enrollment and attainment in many, but not all, low- and middle-income countries. However, as this research brief explains, claims that gender parity in primary education now exists are premature, especially in the poorest countries and new gender gaps, or gender-related challenges, may emerge as attainment increases. Moreover, the extremely low levels of secondary school enrollment—and even moreso completion—demonstrate that the SDG target of universal …

The Effects Of School Violence On Education In Malawi, Stephanie Psaki, Barbara Mensch, Erica Soler-Hampejsek

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In response to a global policy effort to increase school enrollment, in 1994 Malawi became one of the first low-income countries to eliminate primary school fees. Since then, Malawi has achieved nearly universal primary enrollment, however enrolling young Malawians in school has not translated into keeping them in school. This policy brief describes the nature and consequences of school violence in rural Malawi—a common experience for both girls and boys. There is little evidence that school violence disrupts schooling as expected, with the exception of sexual violence experienced at school by boys. Violence at home is also common, and may …

The Reinforcement Of Hegemonic Masculinity Through Gender Frames During The 2016 Election, Kevin Gordon, Ryanne E. Gordon, Anthony Nabor

Global Tides

Gender and its perception by the media played a big role in the election of 2016. The media simplifies the roles of women candidates and redistributes information to the public using gender frames. Though framing based on gender had varying effects on the election, it is still prominent among the media and usually negatively affects women in the public sphere.

Modifying Behaviours And Notions Of Masculinity: Effect Of A Programme Led By Locally Elected Representatives, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, A.J. Francis Zavier, K.G. Santhya, Rajib Acharya, Neelanjana Pandey, Santosh Kumar Singh, Komal Saxena, Aparajita Gogoi, Madhu Joshi, Sandeep Ojha

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Population Council, together with the Centre for Catalyzing Change and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and with support from UKaid, implemented the Do Kadam Barabari Ki Ore (Two Steps Towards Equality) program. The project, situated in Patna district, India aimed to orient and engage locally elected leaders—namely, members of Gram Panchayats and Gram Kachehris—in changing community norms relating to the acceptability of violence against women, and preventing violence against women as well as one factor closely associated with the perpetration of such violence, namely alcohol abuse. Specifically, it assessed: 1) the feasibility of sensitizing and training …

The Potential Scientist’S Dilemma: How The Masculine Framing Of Science Shapes Friendships And Science Job Aspirations, G. Robin Gauthier, Patricia Wonch Hill, Julia Mcquillan, Amy N. Spiegel, Judy Diamond

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data from a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: (1) boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; (2) consistent with gender-based norms, both middle …