Miss America Pageant contestants (MAPCs) have been negatively stereotyped socially for their perceived lack of intelligence and nonconformance to feminist gender stereotypes of women. Stereotypes could affect an individual's social psyche and establish stigma, which could prevent a group from achieving their full potential. Stereotypes could also result in women having mental health disorders, low self-esteem, a decrease in self-efficacy, body image dissatisfaction, and eating disorders. The problem this study addressed was that women who participate in the Miss America Organization (MAO) preliminary pageants risk social stigma for taking part in a seemingly nonfeminist activity. Intercultural communication research (ICR) was the theoretical framework utilized to understand the role of cultural stereotypes, prejudice in communication, and self-perception among MAPCs. The main research question examined how local preliminary MAPC's decide to participate in pageantry in relation to their beliefs about stereotypes of MAPCs. For this multiple case study, a sample of MAPCs (n =5) from a Southeastern state was recruited to participate in interviews and provided narrative data that was coded and analyzed for themes of stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. The key findings from this study revealed that the participants believed that societal stereotypes of MAPCs still exist, but the stereotypes did not influence participants' self-esteem, self-efficacy, and their decisions to compete and represent their social platform. The results also revealed a need for societal education about MAO pageant system's mission. Positive social change can come from understanding the MAPC subculture to dispel societal stereotypes and through presenting MAPCs' goals as social change agents.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until September 1, 2014. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-99)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, 2004. / Title from PDF title page (viewed May 23, 2005). Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-130).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2008. / Adviser: Grace I. L. Caskie.

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Despite the recent proliferation of work around the subject of residential schools, few analyses have deconstructed the concept of "civilizing the Indian" which animated the schools' agendas. This thesis examines the discourse of "civilization" as it was expressed and enacted in two missions in late nineteenth-century British Columbia. Archival primary sources and published secondary sources are drawn on to provide an understanding of what "civilization" meant to Euro-Canadians, specifically missionaries, and how it was to be "taught" to the indigenous peoples they encountered. Colonial images and photographs, in particular, reveal how missionaries constructed a vivid and compelling contrast between "civilization" and "savagery." An intersectional framework is employed to highlight the ways in which ideas about "race," class, gender and sexuality were essential elements of the "civilizing" project. The goal of the thesis is to show how "civilizing the Indian" was premised not only on a specifically hierarchical construction of Whites versus Natives, but also intersecting binaries of men versus women, normal productive heterosexuality versus deviant degenerate sexuality, bourgeois domesticity versus lower class depravity, and others. Ultimately, it is argued, the discourse of "civilization" regulated both the "colonized" and the "colonizers" as it secured the hierarchical foundations of empire and nation.

The depletion of a great many conventional fish stocks is urgent testimony for fisheries management to evaluate risk and uncertainty in an interpretable manner. We propose a novel decision based approach to time-series analysis that explores the spectrum of alternative population trajectories, each of which can be formulated as hypotheses about the state of the fishery. In the first chapter, we evaluate the ability of different regions of the surplus production state space to describe the true state of three North American fisheries: Pacific cod, porbeagle shark and yellowtail flounder. We consider how environmental variability and life history traits may alter our assumptions about population productivity, and we lay the foundation for a decision based age-structured analysis. In the second chapter, the approach is extended further into the ecological realm by considering how community interactions between Atlantic cod and harp seals can be represented in state space. Our results indicate that since the fishing moratorium in 1992, harp seals have potentially lowered cod productivity, preventing their recovery.