Adolescent mental illness is a major concern in the Unites States. The adolescent stage is a critical developmental period of physical and mental changes, thus it is important to understand protective factors associated with positive wellbeing. The current study aimed to explore: (a) the associations among race, gender, ethnic identity, and depressive symptoms among eighth grade adolescents, (b) to what extent are there differences in degree of depressive symptoms among youth based on race and gender, and (c) to what extent a strong sense of ethnic identity serves as a protective factor against the development of depression among youth with different demographic characteristics. Data were collected from participants in the Maryland Adolescent In Context Study (MADICS) when they were in the 8th grade. Findings indicated that race and gender were not significantly associated with depression. Among the current sample identifying as a Black participant was not significantly predictive of symptoms of depression compared to students who identified as White. Girls and boys did not significantly experience depression symptoms differently based on items endorsed on the survey. Additionally, statistical significant interaction effects between race and gender with relation to symptoms of depression were not detected. Finally, youth in the sample who reported higher ethnic identity scores also reported more depression. Implications for school psychologist will be discussed.

Uneducated working-class individuals in the United States are dying from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholic-related liver disease at unprecedented rates; a phenomenon economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton describe as deaths of despair. This paper focuses on deaths of despair in the Appalachian region, where mortality rates from these types of deaths are disproportionately higher than the rest of the country. Marxism and intersectionality are two philosophical frameworks that I will apply to Appalachian despair to test the adequacy of their explanatory power. By placing Marxism and intersectionality in the context of the data surrounding deaths of despair, I can test their capability to accurately diagnose and understand this health issue.

African American Literature in the 20th century engaged many social and racial issues that mainstream white America marginalized during the pre-civil rights era through the use of rhetoric, setting, plot, narrative, and characterization. The use of passing fostered an outlet for many light-skinned men and women for inclusion. This trope also allowed for a closer investigation of the racial division in the United States during the 20th century. These issues included questions of the color line, or more specifically, how light-skinned men and women passed as white to obtain elevated economic and social status. Secondary issues in these earlier passing novels included gender and sexuality, raising questions as to whether these too existed as fixed identities in society. As such, the phenomenon of passing illustrates not just issues associated with the color line, but also social, economic, and gender structure within society. Human beings exist in a matrix, and as such, passing is not plausible if viewed solely as a process occurring within only one of these social constructs, but, rather, insists upon a viewpoint of an intersectional construct of social fluidity itself. This paper will re-theorize passing from a description solely concerning racial movements into a theory that explores passing as an intersectional understanding of gender, sexuality, race, and class. This paper will focus on contemporary cultural products (e.g., novels) of passing that challenge the traditional notion of passing and focus on an intersectional linkage between race, gender, sexuality, and class. / Ph. D.

This study examined the critical digital practices and pedagogies of two professors from two different Canadian provinces – Ontario and British Columbia. Employing a qualitative multi-site case study methodology and a tri-theoretical framework that I refer to as a Critical Intersectional Technological Integration framework (CITI), I investigated the meaning of digital and critical literacy within mandatory educational texts such as provincial curriculum documents and syllabus statements. I engage with how educators mobilized these texts to become critical digital literacy learners, producers, and communicators of knowledge. This study provides a detailed analysis of how two professors understand their pedagogical conceptualizations and enactments of critical digital pedagogies and lessons learned in regard to future pedagogy and practice. Several significant findings emerged from this research study. First, the two professors’ teaching and schooling experiences revealed how intertwined equity and diversity issues were, which influenced their pedagogies and practices as critical digital literacy teacher educators. Second, the critical digital literacy teacher educators modelled expansive definitions of literacy to include the consumption, critique, and creation of digital content. Third, deliberately exploring issues of diversity and equity was a strategy employed by the professors to support teacher candidates to appreciate the complexity of education and arrive at the understanding that schooling, pedagogy, and curriculum are not neutral practices. I argue that this work should not be left solely to teacher educators; rather, teacher preparation programs must play a larger role in preparing and supporting teacher educators with both the technical and pedagogical know-how of meaningfully designing and integrating critical digital practices into their courses.

Given the increasing evidence of the benefits of father involvement, this study examined the process of fathering and the contributions to supporting father involvement and father identity. Emerging research in fathering suggests a complex set of contextual factors as influences on father identity and behavior. Social location, identities, and life events provide an opportunity to study variation and change in fathering. Guided by an integrated framework of symbolic interactionism and intersectionality theories, this study examined fathers' needs and desires in parenting programs. To address these needs in the literature, grounded theory methods were employed to analyze data from semi-structured interviews of 50 fathers of infants residing in the Appalachian region of Virginia. Results revealed a process model of fathering consisting of interactions within and between themes of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional and sociocultural domains. The factors of these three domains relate to father identity, meaning making in fatherhood, and enactment of fathering. Within a model of vulnerabilities and resiliencies, two typologies of fathers emerged: the thriving father and the evolving father. Implications for family strengthening programs and future research are explored. / Ph. D.

The Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949 with the intention of creating a social utopia with equality between the sexes and China’s diverse ethnic groups. However, by portraying gender, ethnicity, and politics in propaganda along the lines of yin and yang, the Party perpetuated a situation of oppression for women and minorities.

By conducting both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data from interviews and game content, I examine representations of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary video-game narratives. I use data from interviews to show how they view their representations in this medium and to set categorical criteria for an interpretive content analysis. I analyze a sample of top-selling narrative-driven video games in the United States released from 2016-2019. My content coding incorporates aforementioned interview data as well as theoretical-based and intersectional concepts on video game characters and their narratives. The content analysis includes measures of narrative importance, narrative role, positivity of representation, and demographic categories of characters, though the scale of this study may not allow for a full test of intersectional theory of links between demographics and roles. Interview and content analysis results suggest an overrepresentation of white characters and extreme under-representation of non-white women. / I examine representations of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary video-game narratives. I use data from interviews to show how people view their representations in video games and to set a guide for analyzing the games themselves. I analyze a sample of top-selling narrativedriven video games in the United States released from 2016-2019. My content coding incorporates aforementioned interview data as well as theoretical-based and intersectional concepts on video game characters and their narratives. The content analysis includes measures of narrative importance, narrative role, positivity of representation, and demographic categories of characters, though the scale of this study may not allow for a full test of intersectional theory of links between demographics and roles. Interview and content analysis results suggest an overrepresentation of white characters and extreme under-representation of non-white women.

Many faculty enter the professoriate with high ideals. They have identity conceptions of themselves as potential change-agents, expanding human knowledge and contributing to the greater good. Over time, for many, this idealism fades and is replaced with job dissatisfaction and bitterness. This study uses intersectionality as a theoretical frame to explore faculty identity development by examining the ways academic socialization into a competitive, hierarchical system privileges certain aspects of an individual's identity while imperiling others. In presenting data based on hour-long qualitative interviews with six mid-career university faculty members in the social sciences or humanities, the specific mechanisms that trigger this change are revealed. These lost dimensions may be the very source of academic renewal, pluralistic integration, and personal gratification.

No description available.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2018 / The critical role of entrepreneurial learning in sustainable development has been discussed extensively in recent literature. However, little is known about the effect(s) of entrepreneurial learning on economic sustainability of microenterprises. This research seeks to answer the question of “How entrepreneurial learning facilitates the economic sustainability of microenterprises?” The study draws from social learning theory and intersectionality studies to contribute towards understanding the complexity of entrepreneurial learning and economic sustainability, focusing in particular on women with disabilities. The study contributes to literature on entrepreneurial learning by examining the rarely-researched social conditions of learning characteristic of entrepreneurial environments in emerging economies. Furthermore, unlike previous studies that adopted either a gender-or disability-only approach in explaining the entrepreneurial experiences of women with disabilities, this study considers the combined influence of gender and disability as interlocking social identities. A qualitative case study approach based on four mini-cases was adopted. These mini-cases included 36 semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs with disabilities operating established microenterprises in Uganda. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with seven key informants from two national disability associations in Uganda. These interviews acted as a pilot to obtain advice on how to conduct research in a sensitive and appropriate manner that would not further marginalise women with disabilities. Data from both the key informants and these women were analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicate that the intersecting social identities of gender and disability of women entrepreneurs with disabilities have both favourable and unfavourable outcomes for their entrepreneurial learning and economic sustainability. These consequences have a lasting and varying impact on these women’s actions, affecting their tendencies to adapt and ingeniously imitate entrepreneurial behaviours in uncertain and resource-constrained learning environments. Furthermore, for this group, learning influences economic sustainability through the acquisition of entrepreneurial capabilities that nurture ingenious imitation practices such as self-determination, self-restraint, and social embeddedness. By contrast, the capabilities emphasised in social learning theory literature are not generally rooted in individuals’ abilities to acclimatise and overcome their limitations, and only emerge from social interactions under stable learning conditions. Results also suggest that the socio-economic context influences how economic sustainability of an enterprise is conceptualised. Women with disabilities operating microenterprises in resource-constrained contexts perceive economic sustainability as a mutually-inclusive triadic relationship between enterprise growth, sufficient livelihood, and empowerment. The key contribution of this study is that the researcher introduces the metaphor “adaptive observational learning” to explain a new form of entrepreneurial learning that occurs in social settings, particularly for women with disabilities. It involves individuals acquiring new knowledge by observing, adapting, creatively imitating, and replicating the actions of others in a way that is well suited to their abilities, and enables them to overcome their impairment limitations. The study further questions the narrow conceptions of describing economic sustainability solely as financial viability and growth; and argues for the need to include social components when classifying economically sustainable enterprises in impoverished contexts. / MT 2018