Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-46). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-43). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Sandra Westervelt; submitted to the Dept. of Sociology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 6, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-193).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-65)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2005. / Vita. Thesis advisor: Duncan Smith. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 282-298). Also available online.

Chapter One introduces the field of evolutionary psychology as well as provides a review of factors influencing facial attractiveness. Chapter Two presents empirical evidence that online studies may provide a distorted perspective on cross-cultural face preferences since online samples are not representative of the populations in developing countries. In El Salvador, participants without internet access preferred more feminine men as well as heavier and more masculine women when compared to participants with internet access. One possible explanation for such findings is that the level of harshness in the environment may be influencing preferences. One individual difference that is influenced by environmental harshness is age of menarche. Chapter Three thus provides exploratory evidence that age of menarche also influences masculinity preferences. Chapter Four further examines this environmental harshness hypothesis by repeatedly testing students undergoing intensive training at an army camp. Increases in the harshness of the environment led to an increased male attraction to cues of higher weight in female faces. Such changes in preferences may be adaptive because they allow for more opportunities to form partnerships with individuals who are better equipped to survive. An alternative explanation for the empirical findings in Chapters Two and Four is that familiarity may also influence preferences. Chapter Five tests this familiarity hypothesis by examining the faces of participants in different areas of El Salvador and Malaysia. Rural participants preferred heavier female faces than urban participants. Additionally, the faces of female participants from rural areas were rated as looking heavier. This finding suggests that familiarity may indeed influence attractiveness perceptions. Lastly, Chapter Six draws conclusions from the empirical findings reported in Chapters Two-Five and lists proposals of future research that could further enhance our understanding of what we find attractive.

This research explores boys’ perspectives on peer ‘bullying’ in one Ghanaian secondary school. Since the 1970s, empirical studies on bullying in the UK (and other global north countries where the term bullying is commonly used) have received increasing attention (Sondergaard, 2012). This extensive body of work, which is often multidisciplinary, has examined bullying in schools and focused particularly on harassment and aggression amongst peers (Sercombe and Donnelly, 2012). To date however, no empirical studies on understanding bullying in schools in Ghana have been conducted. This exploratory qualitative study is positioned within a constructivist paradigm using a case study design. Twenty boys from one secondary school in Ghana were interviewed using one-to-one semi-structured interviews, which were supplemented by using a vignette (hypothetical scenario) in order to stimulate discussion among boys. In addition, group interviews, observations, school mapping exercises, and interviews with adults were conducted. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. The key findings of this research include the observation that while the boys engaged in interactions and competitive behaviours that have been readily associated with ‘bullying’ in other national settings such as the UK, boys who participated in this study did not use the term bullying (or any similar word) to describe such behaviour. Many of ‘bullying-like’ behaviours amongst the boys were not construed as negative; rather, they tended to be normalised and viewed as a ‘natural’ way in which children mature and grow up. They were also interpreted by boys as a way of gaining status which warranted little or no adult intervention. This study suggests that ‘bullying’ acts were not named or labelled as such because they happened in a friendly and generally supportive atmosphere, where the boys related to each other as members of a cohesive community. The boys coped with such ‘bullying’ behaviours by acting in ways defined as masculine, as expected in their socio-cultural (as well as institutional) context. It followed that those boys who did not play out the expected and quintessential masculine roles were disadvantaged in such interactions. The informal socio-cultural conventions of the current case study school dictated a hierarchical environment where boys (men) were placed on a socially advantageous platform that also expected them to be tough and to hide their vulnerabilities. The current study emphasizes the need to thoroughly examine the socio cultural setting when understanding the phenomenon of ‘bullying’ and related behaviours. This study’s approach, informed by symbolic interactionism (Goffman, 1959), has unveiled an alternative understanding of ‘bullying’ behaviours in the case study school which has some implications for understanding the phenomenon of bullying behaviour more generally in other national settings.

Although menstruation is typically regarded as an indication of health (Kissling, 1996), strong cultural messages about menstruation perpetuate the belief that it is dirty, disgusting and a state that must be managed (Ussher, 2006). Many women internalize this belief and go to great lengths to hide their menstrual status (Chrisler, 2007). Negative attitudes toward menstruation have been linked to decreased body satisfaction (Schooler, Ward, Meriwether, & Caruthers, 2005), perceptions of decreased competence and likability (Roberts, Goldenberg, Power, & Pyszynski, 2002), and the belief that menstruating women are more emotional, less attractive, and more irritable than non-menstruating women (Forbes, Adams-Curtis, White, & Holmgren, 2003). Whereas there is a relatively large body of literature regarding the significance of women and girls' experiences of menstruation, comparatively little is known about the development of men's attitudes towards menstruation. The lack of focus on how men learn and think about menstruation may have important implications on their attitudes toward women, particularly in their gendered relationships. Therefore, a grounded theory approach using semi-structured group interviews was used in this qualitative investigation. The purpose of the study was to better understand how perceive menstruation, where these ideas come from, and how their perceptions about menstruation may inform their view of women. Two group-interviews were performed and comprised of men in two different student-interest groups. During the interview process, participants described their childhood and present-day experiences with menstruation, including how they learned about menstruation, the messages they received, and how they think about menstruation in the present day. In addition, participants were each asked to create and describe an image depicting the way that they think about menstruation. A Grounded Theory approach was used to analyze the data. The emergent themes from this study were characterized by participant's feelings that they were too young to learn about menstruation in early adolescence and the internalization of dominant cultural messages that menstruation is not something that men should know or talk about. Participants were found to still hold these beliefs as adults, and also revealed they perceive menstruation to be associated with the display of heightened emotions and physical pain. Thus, menstruation was perceived as an overall negative event. Their negative associations with and feelings of disgust toward the presence of blood led to the development of means of avoiding menstruation (e.g. not talking about it and avoiding sexual encounters with menstruating partners). Overall, the participants indicated that they internalized three main beliefs about menstruation: (a) menstruation is associated with affective changes in women, (b) menstruation is irrelevant to men's lives, and (c), menstruation is disgusting because of its association with blood. The implications of the internalization of these beliefs for women, men and practitioners were discussed, and future directions were identified.

This dissertation is a postcolonial analysis of four films: The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), Dances with Wolves (1990), The Last Samurai (2003), and Avatar (2009). While previous scholarship has identified the Eurocentric worldview of early 20th-century ethnographic film, no book-length work has analyzed the time consciousness of turn-of-the-21st century films that feature portrayals of the colonial encounter. By harmonizing film theory with postcolonial theory, this dissertation explores how contemporary films reiterate colonial models of time in ways which validate colonial aggression. This dissertation concludes that the aesthetics of contemporary popular cinema collude with colonial models of time in such a way as to privilege whiteness vis-à-vis constructions of a primitive other. Contemporary primitivism works through the legacy of classical Hollywood style, nostalgia for the western film, the omnipotence of the white male gaze, and a reverence for technology.

Mid-nineteenth-century England saw great social transformation in the face of industrialisation, changing working and living conditions, and voting reforms, and with these changes came new conceptions of masculinity and what it meant to be a man and a gentleman. Though much critical attention has been given to Elizabeth Gaskell's representation of women—not surprisingly, given titles such as Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton, Cousin Phillis, and Ruth—her works span class, region, time, and genre to grapple with ideas of masculinity. This thesis aims to explore her understanding of masculine identity as a social construct, to examine the representation of manliness in her novels, and to consider how her writing engages with Victorian ideologies of masculinity. The introduction provides context on Gaskell's background and Unitarian faith, discourses of sympathy, Victorian manliness, and masculinity studies. The thesis is presented in three sections, each comprising two chapters. The first examines working-class masculinity and the gentleman in her industrial fiction; the second explores intertextuality, examining the ways in which she borrows and transforms notions of masculinity from contemporaries' works; and the third examines her representation of previous models of manhood in her historical fiction. Together, these sections reveal that Gaskell views masculinity not as monolithic but rather as relational and shaped by many contexts, from regional identity and historic change to intertextuality and sympathy, which echo throughout her entire oeuvre; in examining her longer fiction in juxtaposition, this thesis makes it clear that just as Gaskell views masculinity as a category that cannot be neatly contained, she systematically excludes male characters from her resolutions, struggling to contain her models of masculinity within the form of the novel. The appendix, based on archival research, presents a list of the books that Elizabeth and/or William Gaskell borrowed between 1850 and 1865 from Manchester's Portico Library.