The literature on desistance and crime-prevention finds that paternal engagement is correlated with increased self-esteem, and decreased delinquency, criminality and recidivism for both fathers and children (Holmes et al., 2012; James, 2015; Makariev & Shaker, 2010; Martinez, DeGarmo, & Eddy, 2004; Visher et al., 2011). While there is a breadth of research examining the collateral consequences of justice-involvement, such as employer discrimination and housing insecurity, there remains a dearth of literature exploring how these consequences specifically impact fathering. Because paternal engagement has implications for public safety, it is imperative to identify the personal and environmental factors that facilitate or challenge paternal engagement and the ways that paternal identity construction influences how fathers engage with their children. The current study employs a strengths-based perspective that acknowledges broader contextual forces that can impact marginalized fathers and explores the process of paternal identity construction and enactment within a novel framework that integrates perspectives from bioecological theory and identity theory. In particular, it investigates the ways young Black fathers navigate and adapt to different barriers to fathering, with a specific focus on police encounters and hypersurveillance. The research design comprises a qualitative approach that begins with a narrative inquiry interview followed by a subsequent interview that expands on themes discovered during the narrative inquiry. The study draws from interviews with 50 Black fathers between the ages of 25-34, with at least one biological child, living in the 19143 zip code of Philadelphia. Guided by the Dynamic Identity Construction and Enactment (DICE) model, the current study finds that social interactions with family, community, and criminal justice agents; internalized images of fathers and police in the media; and historical phenomena, such as mass incarceration and the crack epidemic cumulatively impact both paternal identity construction and fathering behavior for young Black men living in Southwest Philadelphia. This study suggests the use of the DICE model in research with marginalized communities, as it engenders a strengths-based lens by exploring both individual and contextual influences on individuals and communities. Findings also suggest (a) a reframing of deviance, (b) the use of person-first language in order to lessen the stigma of a criminal record (i.e. using terms such as “incarcerated individuals” instead of “inmates”), (c) increased non-law related interactions between police and community members in order to enhance familiarity and assuage fear on both ends, (d) a shift towards community corrections in order for fathers to remain active in their children’s lives, and (e) a greater focus on community-based coparenting programs in order to ensure that fathers maintain access to their children. / Criminal Justice

American music education is focused primarily on music written by White men (Baker, 2003). However, women are more likely to believe they can find success in a career in the arts when they have positive female role models (Quimby & DeSantis, 2006). Similarly, college students are more likely to name career role models who match their own ethnicity (Karunanayake & Nuata, 2004). If young women and students of color do not get to see composers who remind them of themselves, then they will be less likely to feel confident as potential composers. The purpose of this study is to determine undergraduate music education students’ commitment to promoting the music of diverse composers in their future classrooms. A pilot study conducted in 2017 supported the need for this research. Participants in that study expressed the belief that composer diversity is important, but that their undergraduate program is not adequately preparing them to incorporate diverse composers in their teaching. The research addresses the following questions: 1) To what extent do preservice music teachers believe that composer diversity is important? 2) To what extent do preservice music teachers feel prepared to teach their students about diverse composers? 3) Are women preservice teachers and/or preservice teachers of color more likely to believe composer diversity is important than teachers who are men and/or White? All participants (n=34) were junior and senior undergraduate students studying music education at a university in the mid-Atlantic states. These preservice music teachers completed an online survey, answering Likert-style questions about how they value composer diversity, and if they feel prepared to teach music written by composers of all genders and composers of color. They were also asked to name women composers, composers of color, and women composers of color they have studied in their undergraduate program. The participants’ responses were analyzed by gender and race, and the data was analyzed with a series of Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance tests. The results of the study suggest that while preservice music teachers believe that teaching their students about diverse composers is important, they are not enthusiastic about how prepared they are to teach about these composers. They are especially unprepared to teach their students about women of color, suggesting a need for a more intersectional approach to diverse learning (Matsuda, 2013). No differences were found between participants of different races. There were no significant differences between gender nonbinary participants (n=2) and participants of other genders. There were four significant differences between men (n=19) and women (n=13). Men responded with higher levels of agreement to the statements “I look forward to incorporating music by composers of color into my classroom” and “I look forward to incorporating music by composers of all genders into my classroom.” When asked about what factors influence their repertoire selection, women placed more importance on “The audience will enjoy the music” and “Composers of all genders are featured equally.” The median number of composers of color participants named was 5. The median number of female composers was 2.5, and the median number of female composers of color was 0. / Music Education

This dissertation brings together an archive of texts that both reflect and challenge the construction of a contemporary crisis of social mobility and working-class decline as a racial problem. British news media, political rhetoric, and creative work such as literature and film have increasingly represented the expansion of multicultural Britain, particularly after postwar decolonization, as responsible for the loss of the good life for the white working classes. In response to this causatively intertwined narrative of migrant mobilities and class stagnation, this doctoral project has developed an alternate dialogue between the present day and the postwar by examining social mobility as an affective genre in representations of race and class. By exploring literary and cinematic representations of urban mobilities, the home, and the school, my thesis demonstrates the ways in which social mobility materializes as an affective structure that shapes the connections between white working-class and migrant communities in more nuanced ways than has been portrayed by British media and politicians. My analysis of literature and film reveals that the affective genre of social mobility since the postwar era has tended to shore up the continuation and preservation of white nationalism through the marginalization and continued exploitation of racialized subjects. And yet, although the contemporary rhetorical construct of social mobility and its apparently racially-caused endangerment utilizes the white working class as its litmus test and ultimate victim, what the narrative of the good (white) life obfuscates is its inaccessibility for not just the racialized other, but for the white working classes as well. Thus, while my project teases out the colonial structuring of relationships between white working class and migrant and minority ethnic subjects within narratives of class desire, it also ultimately understands classed and racialized communities as jointly — if unevenly — impacted by capitalism. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project critically examines the common portrayal of the decline of white working-class social mobility as caused by immigration and multiculturalism in British media, politics, and culture. In particular, this narrative of racially-caused social “immobility” cultivates a comparison between the postwar era, which was supposedly a time of working-class affluence, and the twenty-first century present, which is characterized through economic austerity and lack of opportunity for lower income communities. My dissertation counters this popular and politically motivated narrative by bringing together an archive of cultural material — literature, film, political speeches, and news media coverage — that provides a more nuanced description of interactions between the white working class and migrant communities in Britain from the postwar and contemporary eras. This thesis ultimately examines social mobility as a desire that mediates relationships between classed and racialized people under capitalism, rather than a pre-existing economic and social privilege that has been “taken away” by immigrants and the expansion of multiculturalism in Britain.

This dissertation responds to the notion that the economic success and social integration of one imaginary figure, the “model minority,” can explain the downward mobility of another, the “white working class” in post-Brexit Britain. Through intersectional readings of Black and Asian British fiction written during and after Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership, I examine the model minority myth as providing a racist explanation for rising inequality, but also as a burdensome imperative of neoliberal aspiration to which racialized British subjects are increasingly subject. I trace the origins of this exclusionary account of racialized belonging to the account in Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses of the political possibilities resulting from the collapse of anti-racist solidarities under the sign of Black British identity in the 1980s. I show that the author’s non-fictional responses to the subsequent controversy known as the Rushdie Affair work to close off these possibilities, serving instead to justify Islamophobia one specific means by which racial neoliberalism functions as what David Theo Goldberg calls “racism without racism.” I develop this analysis of Islamophobia as form of racial neoliberalism by turning to two novels that depict coming of age for diasporic Muslim British women, contrasting Monica Ali’s Brick Lane as a normative narrative of feminist becoming through assimilation with Leila Aboulela’s Minaret, which complicates the agency assumed to be conferred on “Third World Women” who migrate to the Global North. In my third and final chapter, I trace the model minority trope across differences in Black and Asian British communities as evidence of the empty aspiration of “post-racial” Britain, contrasting the attempt in Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani to posit the figure of the “rudeboy” as an alternative “outsider” figure of aspiration, with Zadie Smith’s “insider” depiction of the social alienation that results from approaching the embodiment of this racialized ideal in NW. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation discusses the influence of neoliberalism—the idea that capitalism represents the ideal model of organization for every aspect of human life—on Black and Asian British writing from the 1980s to the present. In the context of mainstream analysis of the June 2016 Brexit vote as an expression of “white working class” disaffection with rising inequality, I focus on how coming-of-age narratives by Black and Asian writers complicate an unspoken implication of this popular explanation: that neoliberal reforms have unduly advantaged so-called “model” racial minorities. Through readings that emphasize how the Muslim and/as racialized protagonists of these texts experience the recoding of racism either in the covert guise of Islamophobia or through the aspirational idea that Britain is “post-racial,” I demonstrate the highly tenuous nature of what social and political belonging racialized subjects can find amid the increasing individualism of contemporary British society.

This research examines how disability is conceptualized, responded to and experienced by prisoners within the federal prison system of canada , by attending to the constructs of disability and criminality as they relate to racial and colonial hierarchies. Drawing on anti-colonial theory and the concept of subalternity, this research aims to resist essentializing identity in a way that would limit ‘disability’ or ‘race’ to a particular spatial/temporal context. The constructs of race and disability will be attended to simultaneously, while engaging with how these identity categories have been co-constructed in relation to ‘criminality’, for the furthering of colonialism. Accordingly, this research contextualizes the mass-incarceration of racialized/disabled individuals within a broader, historic, colonial project of confinement and removal. I draw on 4 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted for this study, with individuals who are living with disabilities and have been incarcerated in canadian federal prisons. Throughout this thesis, I couple my analysis of the ‘problem’ in question with attention to ‘how’ the problem is often discussed in dominant critical research and discourse, particularly attending to eurocentric articulations of race, disability and incarceration. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Adaptability is crucial in the engineering workplace, particularly for Black engineers. Job postings use different terms such as resiliency, agility, or flexibility to denote the importance of adaptability for a role. However, there is a lack of exploration into what adaptability means for individuals from racially marginalized backgrounds. For Black engineers, navigating work responsibilities is complicated by the social ramifications of their racial identity. Simply framing their efforts as adaptability overlooks the impact of racialization and the complex interplay of working conditions on career decisions. This study aimed to understand how being racialized as Black influences how Black engineers respond to changing working conditions. Working conditions encompass the tools used for work, the workplace environment, and the workforce composition. The central question for this study was: How do Black engineers respond to various working conditions encountered during the early stages of their engineering career? A multiple case study approach was employed, focusing on the experiences of eight early-career Black engineers. The participants were selected based on their self-identification as Black, regardless of ethnicity, considering the commonplace of racialization in the United States. Interviews and resumes were utilized to comprehensively capture their work experiences. Analysis revealed ten key characteristics of working conditions and five adaptability responses. These responses exhibited a temporal nature, leading to the development of sub-adaptability responses. Vignettes were crafted to contextualize participants' responses to salient working conditions. Participants sought to achieve work-life balance, derive meaning from their work, and have a sense of belonging in their careers. The perception of their ability to achieve these goals influenced the turnover intention of Black engineers within their organization. This study expands our understanding of factors influencing Black engineers' retention and informs prospective engineers of prioritized outcomes other Black engineers have used to navigate their careers. These findings can be used by organizations to inform the strategies they use to foster the retention and advancement of Black engineers in the engineering workforce. / Doctor of Philosophy / Adaptability is important for Blac engineers in the engineering workplace. Adaptability is denoted within job postings with different terms such as resiliency, agility, or flexibility. Even though adaptability is generally deemed to be important, there is a lack of exploration into what adaptability means for individuals from racially marginalized backgrounds. For Black engineers, navigating work responsibilities includes navigating and understanding the social ramifications of their racial identity. Therefore, simply framing the efforts of racially marginalized engineers as adaptability overlooks the impact of racialization and the complex interplay of working conditions on career decisions. This study aimed to understand how being racialized as Black influences how Black engineers respond to changing working conditions. Working conditions encompass the tools used for work, the workplace environment, and the workforce composition. The central question for this study was: How do Black engineers respond to various working conditions encountered during the early stages of their engineering career? A multiple case study approach was employed, focusing on the experiences of eight early-career Black engineers. Participants sought to achieve work-life balance, derive meaning from their work, and have a sense of belonging in their careers. The perception of their ability to achieve these goals influenced the turnover intention of Black engineers within their organization. Analysis revealed ten key characteristics of working conditions and five adaptability responses. This study expands our understanding of factors influencing Black engineers' retention and informs prospective engineers of prioritized outcomes other Black engineers have used to navigate their careers. These findings can be used by organizations to inform the strategies they use to foster the retention and advancement of Black engineers in the engineering workforce.

This paper explores white American masculinity within the “ginger” phenomenon. To guide this study, I asked: How is racism conceptualized and understood within popular culture, as seen through discussions of whether or not gingerism constitutes racism? How do commenters respond or interact when their understandings of racism or explanations for gingerism are challenged by other commenters? And finally, what does the creation of and prejudice against/making fun of a “hyperwhite” masculine identity at this social/historical moment suggest about the current stability of the dominant white masculine identity? Through discourse analysis of online comments, I explored discussions of race, gender, and gingerism. The analysis covered 6,413 comments on 102 articles. I found that within discussions of race and gingerism, readers made use of varying definitions of race and racism. Different definitions led to conflations of racism, oppression, and bullying. Simplified and individualized definitions of race and racism also led to arguments that supported frameworks of reverse racism and post-racism. So-called discrimination against redheaded men was overall considered to be more serious than for women. These arguments were bound up in questions of the specificity of cultural contexts, and ethnic and national identities, particularly with regard to Irish and Scottish immigrant heritage in the United States and United Kingdom. Future work should continue to untangle ideas of race and physical appearance and ask how whiteness is understood and works within this context.

Police officer use of force in the United States is a growing concern to the American people. Although not based on solid empirical evidence, President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing proposed several policies that address violent policing and the use of excessive force. In this study, I examine the relationship between policy recommendations and variations across police departments in their reported use of force. This study draws on measures of use of force, community policing, education, and officer demographics from the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, combined with county-level demographic information from the American Community Survey, and information on local crime rates from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. Cross-sectional findings reveal that more college-educated officers are associated with lower counts of use of force, that officer diversity is not strongly related to use of force, and that most community policing indicators are associated with higher counts in use of force.

This dissertation examines the deracialization concept through a case study of Governor Deval Patrick's first administration and reelection campaign. The study use critical discourse analysis to explore how race as a discursive social construct was present in the speeches made by Governor Deval Patrick from June 2007 through June 2010. The discursive presence of race is also explored during Governor Patrick's reelection campaign in the reporting of the Boston Globe and the Bay State Banner newspapers, a mainstream newspaper and an African American newspaper, respectively, that both endorsed Patrick's campaign for the unprecedented reelection of a black governor. This study finds that Governor Patrick used strategic faming and racial signifiers in his public discourse; Patrick symbolically affirmed his blackness and politically advocated issues, especially in education, sensitive to black and underprivileged communities.This case study proves problematic for the deracialization concept. Important to Patrick's discourse is his framing of issues through explicit appeals to the American dream and a message of inclusivity for all Massachusetts residents that includes racially marginalized groups. There were differences in representation of Patrick in both newspapers, but in regards to race the Bay State Banner emphasized specific issues of importance to the black community whereas the Boston Globe portrayed Deval Patrick as the more likable candidate amongst his political opponents without any emphasis to Patrick's race. / Ph. D.

I conducted a mixed method study to explore how gender and diversity are being taught and defined at accredited marriage and family therapy programs. This research approach was explored through a feminist lens and within a systems theory framework, using both qualitative and content analysis methods. I examined course syllabi and interviewed faculty members that taught gender and diversity topics in their courses. I examined findings by program (masters and doctoral) and type of training (those that taught specific gender and culture courses and those that attempted to infuse gender and culture throughout the curriculum). The sample population consisted of syllabi from 21 masters and 18 doctoral training programs (ten each that taught specific courses in gender and diversity and eleven masters and eight doctoral courses that stated that they infuse gender and diversity throughout the curriculum). That is that there was variation in the topic areas that were explored when the specific courses content and infused course content were compared. There was a significant difference in the degree to which these topics were taught between the two program levels (Masters vs. Doctoral). However, the qualitative data reflected similarities in the teaching methods of both types of programs. Additionally, Twenty faculty members were interviewed, ten from a master's and ten from doctoral programs. These faculty members were equally split between those representing infusion and specific courses. I constructed course summary tables of books, articles, course objectives and illustrative learning activities from each syllabus. The major implications of this study were that the experiences of the professors were explored and the student's perspectives had been excluded. There was also little variation in the racial and gender characteristics of the professors / Ph. D.