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Poster exhibited at GPSC Student Showcase, February 24th, 2016, University of Arizona.

<p> Since the women&rsquo;s liberation movement in the 1970s, the number of women in the American workforce has increased dramatically; however, the percentage of women in the C-Suite&mdash;those who reach the status of chief officer&mdash;remains below 10 percent nationally (Soares et al., 2013). This disparity, sometimes called the &ldquo;glass ceiling,&rdquo; remains, even though many companies have adopted important initiatives to promote women&rsquo;s advancement. Although research has identified a complex set of factors involved in women&rsquo;s achievement of the highest levels of success in contemporary corporate settings, including measurable achievements, such as education, experience, and technical proficiency and intangibles, such as emotional intelligence, leadership styles, and communication skill, a significance difference in women&rsquo;s ability to break through the glass ceiling has still not been made. </p><p> Aimed at bridging that gap, this qualitative study gathers, through personal interviews, the experiences and perspectives of seventeen individuals, both men and women, of different races, cultures, and backgrounds, all of whom have reached the level of chief officer. Respondents were queried about their perception of the factors necessary to reach the C-Suite, as well as any factors required especially for women to arrive at that destination. The data gathered in the interviews included the subjects&rsquo; experiences from the process of their own advancement to the C-Suite and their observations of others&rsquo; experiences. The data were coded and analyzed according to recurring themes and patterns in the interviewees&rsquo; answers. The results point to a complex, nuanced, dynamic set of factors in the life of an otherwise qualified individual. Namely, four (4) such factors play a primary role in propelling aspiring women into the C-Suite: 1) executive traits; 2) preparation; 3) networking; and 4) engaging organizational culture. The findings offer an empowering promise that women can not only identify and gain the tools they need to accomplish their C-Suite goals, but also actively pursue and cultivate these assets in a way that offers success in both life and career. </p>

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<p> This study investigated relationships between gender, mentoring, and leader self-efficacy in a sample of n = 188 managers working in the United States. Differences in self-reports of leader efficacy were examined based on manager gender, the presence of a mentor, mentor gender, mentor organizational level, type of mentoring (formal vs. informal), mentoring function (career support, psychosocial support, role modeling), the quality of the mentoring relationship, and the gender composition of the mentoring dyad. Counter to earlier research, women in the sample reported higher levels of leader self-efficacy when compared to men, though all but one of these mean differences were non-significant. Among managers with mentors at the top levels of the organization, women reported significantly higher levels of leader self-efficacy than men did. Mentored managers reported slightly higher, but non-significant, differences in mean leader self-efficacy compared to non-mentored managers. Among mentored managers significant differences in mean leader self-efficacy were found based on the organizational level of the mentor, primary mentoring function, and the quality of the mentoring relationship. A hierarchical multiple regression to predict leader self-efficacy from mentoring function was significant and predicted 34% of the variance in scores on leader self-efficacy. A hierarchical multiple regression to predict leader self-efficacy from mentoring function, mentor organizational level, type of mentoring, and the gender composition of the mentoring dyad, was significant and predicted 45% of the variance in scores of leader self-efficacy. Career support mentoring and mentor organizational level were the most significant predictors in the model.</p>

The research for this thesis lies within the field of speaker characterisation through the acoustic-phonetic analysis of speech. The thesis consists of two parts: 1. An investigation of the acoustic-phonetic differences between the speech of women and men; 2. An examination of the practicalities of automating the investigation to analyse a large speech database. The acoustic-phonetic markers of speaker sex examined here are the fundamental frequency, the formant frequencies, and the relative amplitude of the first harmonic. The aims of the investigation were, firstly, to establish to what extent these markers differentiate between the sexes, and secondly, to examine the extent of between- and within-speaker deviation from the female and male norms, or average values for each sex. These points were investigated by an automated acoustic-phonetic analysis of the TIMIT database, involving a data set of almost 16,000 segments of speech. An automated method was developed to enable the signal processing and statistical analysis of a data set of this size. The problems to be encountered in the analysis of a highly variable data source (i.e. the acoustic speech waveform) are addressed.

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This study focuses on pupils’ work division in sexes, in both sloyd subjects. The subject sloyd is a compulsory school subject and consist of textile craft- and wood and metal craft education. Historically the sloyd subject was created to educate sexes to become men and women or boys and girls. Today the sloyd subjects is divided by its material, but the pupils continue to do a division in sex. The thesis will analyze how and when pupils do this division in the sexes. This study researches the pupils through the eyes of their teachers. The research consists of eight interviews which were carried out in five schools. The study takes into account Gayle Rubin and Yvonne Hirdman thoughts of gender perspective. In Hirdman’s theory the analytical tools was found for the study. These tools are gender divided which give work division by sex. The results show that the pupils constantly try to find ways to accomplish gender division. The pupils also have different strategies to reproduce different sexes in the sloyd area. These areas can be simplified as the choice of sloyd type, environmental and the crafted products. In the study’s last chapter it is discussed how this study can be of service to craft teachers and my own didactic reflection. The method will also be discussed and ides for future research areas will be presented.   Keywords: Gender, Sloyd, Education.

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts