<p> The purpose of the study was to understand, analyze, and interpret the defining factors that attributed to the decision strategy of highly educated successful career women to stay home upon the birth of a child. As well, the study ascertained the impact on the women&rsquo;s lives once they stayed home full-time. This research study utilized the qualitative methodology based on a case study approach. The individual interview yielded complex dimensions according to the decision strategies the women employed. As a result of staying home, these women encountered internal and external changes. Additionally, their cultural upbringing influenced their style of mothering. The demographic questionnaire captured their individual profile. Discussion of the study and recommendations for future research were also explored.</p>

<p> The purpose of the current study was to understand if there are any longitudinal behavioral or academic effects for boys who are the youngest in their class, who have birthdays near or at the cutoff date for starting school and enter school at the beginning of the succeeding semester. The current study compares retention rates, behavioral records, and grade averages of boys who were born in the months of June, July, or August and are the youngest in their class in a state where the cutoff date for school enrollment is September first to those same variables in boys whose birthdates are in all other months of the year. The current study addresses whether boys who began school at a younger age ultimately struggle with academics or behavior once they are in high school, ninth through twelfth grade. The current study adds to the body of knowledge that currently exists regarding the practice of holding students back a year, known as academic redshirting. The current study employed non-experimental quantitative research methods using <i>ex post facto </i> analysis of existing data. The results of the current study show no significant longitudinal behavioral effects for boys who are the youngest in their class; however, there may be longitudinal academic effects for boys who are the youngest in their class. The results of the current study show non-summer born boys had a statistically significantly higher mean overall grade average than the summer born boys. Since the academic effects found in the current study were slight, the results of the current study support the argument that the phenomenon known as academic redshirting is not necessarily a useful practice when the decision to hold the child back is based solely on the student's summer birthdate.</p>

<p> The gender gap issue is a complex, systemic problem emerging from the interrelation of multiple variables. This study sought to identify the primary, interrelated, and mutually influential variables that contribute to the C-suite gender gap phenomenon using Moustakas' transcendental phenomenological research methodology. Seven female vice president level executives who work in a male-dominated private sector industries in a major metropolitan area were interviewed. Common themes emerged around the significant impact of culture and upbringing and experiences with subtle or overt second-generation gender bias. Five women had some experience of the double bind, although not all of them seemed to perceive the experience that way. All participants discounted the concept of the "glass ceiling." All except one credited strong mentors who provided advice, guidance, and support and who also acted as advocates in helping to advance their careers. All participants demonstrated strong self-confidence, although two noted their confidence was low during their early career and grew through positive, reinforcing experiences. All participants discussed work-life balance and many tempered their career ambition with a similarly strong value for creating and maintaining work-life balance. Only one experienced career limitations by downgrading her work schedule to accommodate childcare needs. Each of their stories, though unique, illustrated how the variables of personality, leadership style, levels of ambition and confidence, upbringing, organizational culture, societal culture, how others interact with them, work-life balance, and mentors created a systemic "whole" that brought them to their current level of success in their careers. It is in the context of describing and seeing the systemic complexity of the issue that recommendations for a comprehensive strategy for action were presented.</p>

<p> Aspects of modernity in Western culture that act to limit conceptions of diversity, such as binary, hierarchical oppositions and the privileging of discursive, analytic knowledge over intuitive and receptive ways of knowing, have played a significant role in both the denigration and erasure of people who have transgender and gender nonconforming identities and experiences. As these elements of modernity are subjected to scrutiny by transgender and cisgender peoples, new knowledge is produced that allows for an increase in transgender visibility. This visibility then works back upon culture to further erode the constraining effects of modernity in the culture at large. Four myths from Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i> are discussed to illustrate gender diversity and this spiraling process.</p><p> Ovid's powerful and timely myths help to capture the present moment when the lives and voices of transgender and gender nonconforming peoples are destabilizing old stories and creating new gender myths, new lenses through which to view and understand gender. "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus" is a vehicle for reflecting on modernity, its limitations, and the gender transformation currently taking place in culture. "Iphis and Ianthe" offers an opportunity to consider issues of embodiment and the importance of family and community support for people who are gender diverse. "Caenis/Caenus" is the brave warrior without and within. He faces the challenging confrontations with the cultural status quo and the deep intrapsychic movement that gender diversity can initiate. Finally, "Tiresias" ushers in a meditation on ways of knowing, healing, and the privileged positions gender diverse peoples have held in cultures with more inclusive gender systems. </p><p> The production portion of this dissertation was a public dialogue event for transgender and gender diverse community members and allies in Los Angeles entitled TranSolidarity World Caf&eacute;. Through an organic process of emergence and with the help of public dialogue experts and many volunteers, a gathering for 160 people was hosted. A record of the event was captured in the drawings and graphic recordings of those who participated.</p>

<p><i>Bone Garden</i> is a collection of poetry that inspects interpersonal communication and an often misguided sense of connection with others. Through investigations of memory, disaster, aging, and gender, the collection depicts a world in which many of us fruitlessly search for empathy and a sense of solidarity. Leading this investigation is a narrator whose frustrations with isolation often result in passive aggressive behavior or violence that furthers her separation from others. <i>Bone Garden</i> proposes solidarity as a salted plot and despair as the bitter fruit harvested by those who believe in it. </p>

<p> An essential aspect of discerning how men can become effective partners in reaching gender equity in the U.S., is to understand how men perceive their own masculinity. In consensus with Wanger (2011), I believe that promoting men's' healthy masculinity development is a feminist act and an act of social justice. Within the scope of social science research it is of extreme significance to study men as men as they were often "everybody" and effectually "nobody" (Kimmel &amp; Davis, 2011). This study adds to and highlights importance of research on men and masculinities. Selecting an often privileged and significant subculture of men, this case study surveyed 27 White evangelical college-aged men (WECM) of whom five participated in an in-depth semi-structure phenomenological-based interview at a single faith-based university. Based on the Subjective Masculine Experiences model (Wong et al., 2011) the researcher focused on how these men made "sense of their masculinity by connecting their life experiences [to dimensions] of masculine norms and ideology" (Wong et al., 2011, p. 238). The participants were asked to attribute levels of psychological stress to each dimension. Data gathered clustered into seven salient dimensions for this population: Responsibility, Family, Family- Provider, Faith and Religion, Emotional Toughness, Physical Body and Resistance. Analysis revealed that stress was associated with all of the dimensions, especially with Family-Provider. This paper provides the context for this study, its philosophical framework, and discussions on its limitations and implications for practice and future action.</p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> masculinity; White evangelical, college-aged, men (WECM); phenomenology; critical social constructivism; mindful inquiry </p>

<p> An ever increasing number of school districts realize the potential for online classes to allow students equal access to a high quality education. This study used quantitative methods to contribute to the body of literature pertaining to K-12 online learning and also the gender gap in mathematics, science, and English/language arts education. Research for this study focused on the extent to which the gender gap in mathematics, science, and English/language arts performance is the result of differences in the level of teacher-student interaction through analyzing students' final course grades from a school district's 6^th-12^th grade traditional courses and online courses where there is no teacher-student interaction. Student achievement was further analyzed by controlling for prior achievement, socio-economic status (S.E.S.) and ethnicity. This study intends to contribute to the body of research on the gender gap and the benefits of online education at the K-12 level.</p>

<p> This dissertation examines the way gender is created and articulated in selected stories from Peyo's <i>bandes dessin&eacute;es</i> [comics], <i> Les Schtroumpfs</i> [<i>The Smurfs</i>]. I pay special attention to his story, "La Schtroumpfette" ["The Smurfette"]. I use an interdisciplinary approach from theorists in the fields of gender and transgender studies: Judith Butler, Susan Stryker, Suzanne J. Kessler and Wendy McKenna, and Julia Serano; and comics studies: Scott McCloud, Thierry Groensteen, Will Eisner and Rodolphe T&ouml;pffer.</p><p> Judith Butler's theory of performativity informs my argument that certain panels from "La Schtroumpfette" function as performatives. They reiterate feminine types and give the illusion of a norm, which in turn hides the fact that their "truth" lies only on its reiteration through time and not on original gender types. Along with Butler's theory, I use Kessler and McKenna's study on gender attribution, Thierry Groensteen's theory that a comics' meaning can by analyzed through the structuration on its pages (<i>arthrologie </i>), and Scott McCloud's idea that the more abstract a comics character, the more a wider range of readers will be said to identify with such a character. </p><p> Using these theories, along with those of Serano, Eisner, T&ouml;pffer and others, I read Peyo's Smurf characters as androgynous before the publication of his story, "La Schtroumpfette." Then, I read "La Schtroumpfette" as a metaphor for transgender and transsexual identities. The first half of Peyo's comics story deals with the first Schtroumpfette, Gargamel's creation, and her problems in the Smurf village. Her primary problem sees her misidentified as a Smurf with long hair and a dress and not a feminine Smurf. I read this as evidence of a transgender identity whereby she expresses herself in the feminine but looks like a Smurf. The second half of his story deals with the second Schtroumpfette, the version of le Grand Schtroumpf [Papa Smurf], and the problems due to her feminine beauty. This beauty is attained through esthetic surgery, a detail that leads me to interpret her as transsexual.</p>

<p> To say that the masculinities are woven into the fabric of a pre-existing culture is not enough. One must go further and explore how culture itself is constituted by, or more precisely, constituted through the masculinities. As William Doty notes in his <i>Myths of Masculinity</i> (1993), culture not only produces but also is produced by stories. Ancient legends and sagas, like myths, are, to a large degree, perpetuated by the modern male dancer and athlete. However, as contemporary iterations of the masculinities, male athletes and dancers have evolved beyond the scope of myths and into new cultural forms. Their emergent story threads through this dissertation. </p><p> The masculinities represent a diverse array of possibilities and pluralities. What, then, holds them together as a coherent cultural force? This dissertation is, in large part, devoted to answering that question by way of a perspicuous inquiry conducted into a) the binarisms of gender, such as hetero-normativity and homophobia, b) the existential and archetypal nature of being, c) Cartesian mind-body dualities, and d) paradigms and practices of male athletes and dancers themselves. </p><p> In his <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i> (1962), Thomas Kuhn used "paradigm" to explain historical shifts in the practice of the hard sciences. Subsequently, Michel Foucault, in <i>The Order of Things</i> (1966), appropriated the word in a hermeneutical analysis of the human sciences. It is his unique exegesis of the history of knowledge that is used to track the historical arc of the masculinities. </p><p> This dissertation ultimately moves beyond the perspectives of Kuhn and Foucault to the work of feminist Judith Butler. In <i>Bodies That Matter </i> (1993), Butler maintains that one's gender is a cultural construct and that the process of gendering, though performative, is largely unconscious. If gender and sex are mere social constructs, where does that leave the nascent <i> logos</i> of an athlete or dancer's body? A counter-argument is made that in order to be coherent, the masculinities must possess, at minimum, a mindful body in addition to an embodied mind. </p><p> Keywords: Masculinities; Dancer; Athlete; Body; Discipline; Gender; Hero; Archetype; <i>Dasein.</i></p>

<p> This thesis explores the literary manifestation of patriarchal embodiment in several multicultural novels: Ama Ata Aidoo's <i>Changes: A Love Story, </i> Fadia Faqir's <i>Pillars of Salt,</i> and Jeanette Winterson's <i> Written on the Body.</i> Using theories of embodiment, gender, and power, I analyze how the female body is cast as a surface onto which gendered power structures can be inscribed, as well as the ways in which the body subverts cultural gender norms. The novels exemplify the relationship among literature, culture, and consciousness and offer visions of feminism outside of a Western paradigm. [Trigger Warning: This thesis features instances of sexual violence that may be triggering to some readers.]</p>