This dissertation investigates how masculinities are understood and practiced through the body and how such practices are shaped and limited by modernist theories about gender. The research argues that postmodern theory allows for a greater inclusivity of genders and bodies otherwise marginalised by modernity. A qualitative postmodern and poststructural methodology, combined with a research method involving the collection of all data via an on-line questionnaire, disrupts modernist, dualistic thinking about the body and gender. By distancing the physical body from the research method, and thus separating, temporarily, discourses of gender which inhabit the body, this research creates counter-hegemonic spaces to re-articulate masculine identities and practices within the postmodern condition. Furthermore, the postmodern theory and methodology informing this work unsettles the belief that physical bodies can be counted on to reveal consistent truths. The contextualisation of this work includes a chapter that recounts various historical moments where technological advancements made way for the re-consideration and re-negotiation of gender and bodies. The intersections of technology and modernity are examined along with the rise of the postmodern condition and the advancement of computer technologies. Shifts in understanding, influenced by postmodern theory and human-computer interaction, are discussed in relation to their challenges to modernist boundaries of ?the real? and, in turn, the possibilities of gender articulations. Additionally, a chapter containing critical researcher reflexivity through an autobiographical account of masculinities and schooling acts to illustrate some of the complexities, contradictions, privileges and counter-hegemonic possibilities of masculinities and bodies. Although the majority of the research participants identified as ?male?, some identified as ?female? and others identified as ?intersex?. The geographic identities of the respondents included Australia, The United Kingdom, Ireland, The United States, and Japan. The data were analysed using postmodern and poststructural theory. The subjectivity and the role of the researcher in the analysis of data were interrogated alongside the words of the participants. The responses were grouped into four areas: Being and Knowing; The Body Engendered; Bodies On-Line and On the Line, and New Articulations. In all four areas the participants? words demonstrate tensions between modern and postmodern understandings of bodies and genders. Computer technologies often replicate modernist images of gender and bodies, yet at the same time they provide a postmodern space of multiplicity, fluidity, and hybridity, where rigid modernist configurations cannot hold. The analysis illuminates, diffracts, disrupts, and highlights disjunctures and new possibilities for gender and bodies mediated by contemporary computer and Internet technologies. Lastly, Benjaminian dialectical images were used to transform fixed modernist beliefs about gender and bodies and to move the reader toward alternative ways of understanding gender which are not body dependent. / thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisors: Wendy Bellion and Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Traditional psychotherapy with transgender clients has focused on helping gender dysphoric individuals assume an "opposite" gender role. However, recently, there have been calls for trans-positive therapy focusing on the exploration and affirmation of alternative gender identifications. The majority of the research on transgender identity has been conducted with male-to-female (MTF) identified, or transfeminine, individuals. Comparatively little attention has been given to the experience of female-to-male (FTM) identified, or transmasculine, individuals. The primary goal of this study was to explore constructs and identify underlying themes that transmasculine people use in constructing their gender identities in order to develop a structural model of transmasculine identity. Broadly speaking, results showed that transmasculine identity may be conceptualized on a continuum from an essentialist binary perspective to a constructivist non-binary perspective. This is reflected in the language the individual uses to self-identify - including identity labels, proper names and pronouns. Individuals define, experience, and embody transmasculine identities differently depending on a number of inter-related constructs including: (1) current stage of identity development and past transmasculine identity development events, (2) conceptions of masculinity and femininity, (3) context, and (4) sexuality. Further, if one of these constructs shifts it usually influences the others. Implications for theory, practice, and future research directions are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-71)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-233).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-164).

Drawing on a Norwegian empirical study of girls’ and boys’ teacher-led classroom conversation participation, this paper focuses on how students attending an upper secondary school vocational programs, participate in classroom discussion when observed in homogenous groups. This quantitative study has shown that gender identities associated with heterogeneous conversational patterns as exaggerated when observing homogenous classroom participation. The discussion describes not only the influences of class and peer group pressure to explain this phenomenon, in addition clarifies the contextual difference in quality when girls take the floor in a homogenous classroom setting.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2002. / Bibliographical references: leaf 297-311.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005. / Includes bibliography (p. 448-471).