<p> Institutions of higher education have a glass ceiling: women are underrepresented in the college presidency with 30% of college presidents as women, 83% white and 17% women of color. By nature, the culture of higher education has been traditionally male centered, with female professors and researchers struggling to advance in their careers. Contributing factors that may lead to the lack of women college presidents may be linked to long-held systemic views of women and gender biases that create barriers in career advancement. The objective of this qualitative study is to explore the ways in which women, from their perceptions, navigated opportunities and managed obstacles as they advanced into the college presidency. For the women who did advance to the highest level of leadership in IHE&mdash;the college presidency&mdash;what did they experience as they advanced in their career, and what enabled them to navigate the system and transcend the barriers? Qualitative data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis process through convergent and divergent coding tools. Four key findings emerged from this study: (1) Women were intelligent, talented, successful, savvy, and brave; (2) Servant Leadership; (3) Gender Fluid Characteristics; and (4) Support and Well-Being for current college presidents. This study offers an increased awareness of barriers that are limiting women from progressing to the college presidency in institutions of higher education. It also offers an increased awareness of the phenomenology of women college presidents and the ways that they managed obstacles and took advantage of opportunities as they advanced in their careers.</p><p>

<p> Today, colleges and universities are tasked with understanding complex and sometimes conflicting data on female students. Until 2018 and the #METOO movement, media narratives proclaimed that Western women lived in a postfeminist world where &ldquo;sexism no longer exists&rdquo; (Pomerantz &amp; Raby, 2017, p. 11). Meanwhile, researchers have demonstrated in multiple studies that the experiences of undergraduate women differ from those of their male peers (Kim &amp; Sax, 2009; Wharton, 2012). </p><p> Looking at committees on the status of college women is a way to understand how the institutions preparing young people for the world metabolize conflicting data on female students and approach equity issues. The purpose of this study was to examine how three universities&mdash;Duke University, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology&mdash;researched and wrote about the status of female undergraduates and to assess the impact of each university&rsquo;s work. </p><p> Through analyses of reports and interviews with campus leaders and current students, I concluded that the work of the committees at Duke and Princeton was framed as &ldquo;women&rsquo;s work&rdquo; for administrators, faculty, staff, and students. This framing is consistent with neoliberal ideology: The committees saw the impact of cultural and institutional gender inequity but described it in a way that made it only the work of some&mdash;it was &ldquo;women&rsquo;s work,&rdquo; and female students should adapt, cope, or change. </p><p> At MIT, the report was &ldquo;women&rsquo;s work&rdquo; because two female students spearheaded and led it. Their approach to data collection could serve as a model for other campuses that want to understand the extent to which the undergraduate experience is gendered.</p><p>

<p> The nation&rsquo;s gender leadership gap, or the disproportionate number of men in top leadership positions versus women, has prevailed throughout the history of public education (Superville, 2016; Rosenberg, 2017). Despite the fact that 76% of America&rsquo;s educators were women, only 27% of the nation&rsquo;s school superintendents were female (U.S. Department of Education, 2016; Rosenberg, 2017). Thus, men have continued to dominate the top-level leadership positions within the educational arena (Superville, 2016). The purpose of this study was to investigate the gender leadership gap in the position of school district superintendent. Specifically, the researcher developed two research questions aimed to explore the following: a) to determine what demographic variables show the greatest impact on gender leadership and b) to research Missouri school superintendents perceptions of the variables (gender roles, stereotypes, and implicit biases) influencing the gender leadership gap in public education. The researcher utilized a mixed-method approach in the instrumentation with a Likert-scale survey and open-ended written-response items to collect current superintendents&rsquo; input on the topic. The researcher sent the six-part, 45-item online survey to all 561 Missouri school superintendents in 2018. Exactly 137 (24%) superintendents completed and submitted the <i> Missouri Superintendent Gender and Leadership Survey</i>. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher concluded some Missouri superintendents perceived issues related to gender roles, stereotypes, and biases as being obstacles to the female superintendency. The findings also showed more female superintendents believed gender roles, stereotypes, and biases adversely affected the gender leadership imbalance within the school superintendency. Though the majority of the Missouri superintendents surveyed believed in the existence of the gender leadership imbalance, most believed it was closing.</p><p>

This essay came into existence as a result of a collaboration between us, two students in gender studies working on our bachelor thesis, and an employee at Svenska skolidrottsförbundet. The paper explores diversity and gender equality work within this organization, and the main focus is how people holding leading positions within the organization express their view on equality and diversity work. To do this, we have completed interviews with 6 different people in leading positions, as well as participant observation during the association meeting (förbundsmötet), which is the highest decision-making authority within the organization. We have analyzed our data with inspiration from feminist theory, organization theory, as well as some earlier conducted studies from the field of sports, all with a primary focus on gender and diversity questions. The conclusion shows that there is a discrepancy between the self-image some members of the organization express in regard to their equality and diversity work, the work they actually do, and the views they hold in relation to increased equality within the organization. In other words, the actions do not match the description. The reasons behind this are complex, but some possible explanations we found is the reproduction of negative masculinity norms, the homogeneity within the decision-making bodies of the organization, and dissonance in approaches to diversity and equality work between members within the organization. In our opinion, one important element for the organization to regard in future work is to make sure that knowledge concerning gender and diversity is shared with all members involved in their day-to-day activities. Especially since Svenska skolidrottsförbundet is an arena for children and youths to develop, grow and play.

<p> Gun homicides are highly concentrated in African American communities and are widespread in urban neighborhoods. African American males are disproportionately victims and perpetrators of gun violence, have a higher propensity to use and carry weapons, and are more likely to die due to gun violence. Few studies, however, provide a detailed account of the history of gun carrying, the value of gun carrying, and the individual and situational factors that lead to or inhibit the use of guns among young African American males. </p><p> Based on semi-structured interviews of 11 African American males obtained via snowball sampling, this thesis explains the causes of African American male gun violence, and describes the patterns and decision-making processes around gun carrying and the use of guns (i.e. how gun were introduced, obtained, used or not used, loved, and despised) among African American males in Oakland, California. Based on the sample&rsquo;s insight, this thesis concludes that strengthening collective efficacy and community-police relationships, providing employment and educational opportunities and resources, implementing mentorship and restorative justice programs, and Crime Prevention Through Experimental Design (CPTED) strategies can reduce gun violence.</p><p>

In this dissertation I argue that despite the liberatory promises of mid-century American social justice movements, women's literature in the late 20th and early 21st centuries treats motherhood as a dystopic and economically marginalized subject position. In genres as disparate as science fiction and gang narrative, authors Octavia Butler, Yxta Maya Murray and Suzanne Collins engage problematic ideologies of maternal love, asserting, through their renderings of fictional maternal characters, that mothers are powerless in contemporary society. This pessimism contrasts with the view of woman of color (WOC) feminist writers of the 1980s, who participated in social justice movements by asserting their own politics and including mothers in their liberatory vision. Audre Lorde's biomythography Zami (1982) is emblematic of their optimism, which imagines a regenerative possibility for mothers. I begin this dissertation with an exploration of Zami in order to ask how and why later texts appear to unwrite this transformative potential of the maternal as envisioned by earlier WOC feminists. Thus, Lorde serves as a lens through which I examine the increasingly despairing attitude of women writers toward the maternal. I argue that the shared focus on the maternal among such dissimilar writers demonstrates that in American women's writing, mothers are a crucial literary subject across sexual, gendered, racial and ethnic lines. By drawing on critical race theory, WOC feminism, queer theory, and maternal theory to examine interlocking formal and thematic elements--unreliable narrators who sanctify motherhood, reworking of the sentimental, the ironic use of both saintly and devouring mothers--I expose writers' dystopic reworking of the meanings of motherhood. The breadth of texts I read prompts an interdisciplinary approach, with close attention to socio-historical context; thus reading Butler's ironic black superwoman in Lilith's Brood gains coherence when placed in the light of 1960s Black Nationalism, which traded on the trope of a Black Matriarch in order to blame women for black social ills. I argue that maternal oppression is essential to the nature of women's identity in contemporary American women's literature, wherein being human for women includes the expectation to be a mother, in often brutally oppressive contexts. / 10000-01-01

Why, despite evidence to the contrary, does the narrative of the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing persist? This book outlines a critical view of "teenage pregnancy" and abortion, arguing that the negativity surrounding early reproduction is underpinned by a particular understanding of adolescence. The book traces the invention of "adolescence" and the imaginary wall that the notion of "adolescence" constructs between young people and adults. It examines the entrenched status of "adolescence" within a colonialist discourse that equates development of the individual with the development of civilisation, and the consequent threat of degeneration that is implied in the very notion of "adolescence". Many important issues are explored, such as the ideologies and contradictions contained within the notion of "adolescence"; the invention of teenage pregnancy as a social problem; the construction of abortion as the new social problem; issues of race, culture and tradition in relation to teenage pregnancy; and health service provider practices, specifically in relation to managing risk. In the final chapter, an argument is made for a shift from the signifier "teenage pregnancy" to "unwanted pregnancy". Using data gathered from studies from four continents, this book highlights central issues in the global debate concerning teenage pregnancy. It is suitable for academics, postgraduate and undergraduate students of health psychology, women’s studies, nursing and sociology, as well as practitioners in the fields of youth and social work, medicine and counselling.

<p> This qualitative study measures the perceptions of gender equity in educational leadership among female superintendents in Kentucky. Education is dominated by females; however, superintendent positions are held by men in much greater numbers than women. Research questions are as follows: 1) What common experiences and traits do female superintendents share?, 2) What do female superintendents in Kentucky see as the rewards and challenges of the position?, and 3) To what reasons do female superintendents attribute the great disparity in the numbers between male and female superintendents? What are catalysts and barriers to career advancement? How can these numbers be improved? These questions are answered via surveys and personal interviews. While opportunities are increasing for women, the pace remains slow. Mentors play a key role in career advancement for women. On this basis, a key recommendation is that formal mentoring programs supporting aspiring female educational leaders be implemented in Kentucky.</p><p>

<p> An academic dialog concerning the intersectionality of national origin, economic class and gender, as mutually constitutive elements of migration, set the context for my inquiry into the experiences of wives who are barred from paid labor by their restricted visa status. Guided by grounded theory, I conducted seventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews to examine ways in which a move to Silicon Valley under a restricted visa class changes the self-image of women, and how they evaluate this change. I found that the ambiguous agency construct of women socialized in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras facilitated their choice to migrate despite the visa restrictions. After emigrating, the women tended to embrace values of individualism and self-reliance, which reinforced their professional ambitions. However, the absence of professional options created a split between the women&rsquo;s lived experiences and their self-representation. In addition, I found that a visa that prohibits employment creates a homogenizing effect on women&rsquo;s self-images, putting them on similar personal and professional tracks and making their legal and economic status less predictable. These findings suggest that structural strategies might be adopted to help these women reclaim their self-images and exert more control over the selection and pursuit of their goals.</p><p>

abstract: The goal of this study was to explore the multidimensionality of gender typicality and its relation to preadolescents’ psychological adjustment. With a sample of 378 6th grade students (52% male; M age = 11.44, SD = .56; 48% White), I examined how four specific dimensions of gender typicality (behavior, appearance, activities, and peer preference) predict children’s global sense of typicality; whether children’s global sense of gender typicality, behavior, appearance, activities, and peer preference are differentially predictive of self-esteem, social preference, and relationship efficacy; and whether examining typicality of the other gender is important to add to own-gender typicality. Regression analyses indicated that all four specific typicality dimensions contributed to preadolescents’ overall sense of own- and other-gender typicality (except appearance for own-gender typicality). Generally, all domains of gender typicality were related to the four adjustment outcomes. Own-gender typicality related more strongly to self-esteem, social preference, and own-gender relationship efficacy than did other-gender typicality; other-gender typicality was more strongly related to other-gender relationship efficacy. Relations between typicality and adjustment were stronger for gender-based relationship efficacy than for self-esteem or social preference. Although some differences existed, relations between typicality and adjustment were generally similar across typicality domains. Results implicate the need to measure other-gender typicality in addition to own-gender typicality. Additional contributions and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Family and Human Development 2015