Law, Helen. / "August 2010." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-84). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.v / LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background of Study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Problems and Objectives --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Layout of Thesis --- p.5 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- Explaining the Gender Gap in Math Achievement: A Brief Overview of Previous Studies --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Gender Stratification Hypothesis --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Role of Parents --- p.11 / Chapter 2.4 --- Role of Single-Sex Schooling --- p.12 / Chapter 2.5 --- Focus of this Study --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- ROLE OF FAMILY BACKGROUND AND SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLING IN THE GENDER GAP IN MATH TEST SCORES IN SIXTEEN COUNTRIES --- p.18 / Chapter 3.1 --- Hypotheses --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2 --- Data and Method --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- Results --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Discussion --- p.40 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- THE GENDER GAP IN MATH TEST SCORES IN ALL COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING IN PISA 2006 --- p.50 / Chapter 4.1 --- Data and Method --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2 --- Results --- p.57 / Chapter 4.3 --- Discussion --- p.63 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- CONCLUSION --- p.67 / Chapter 5.1 --- Summary of Findings --- p.67 / Chapter 5.2 --- Theoretical Implications --- p.69 / Chapter 5.3 --- Empirical Implications --- p.70 / Chapter 5.4 --- Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research --- p.71 / APPENDIX A: Description of dependent variables and student-level independent variables --- p.75 / APPENDIX B: Description of school-level independent variables --- p.76 / REFERENCES --- p.78

This study investigated cultural differences, U.S.A. and Japan, in the selection of compliance-gaining strategies by lower status people as differentiated from a group leader in a short-term, task-oriented relationship. The subjects for this study consisted of 114 (59 male and 55 female) U.S. college students and 165 (65 male and 100 female} Japanese college students. All subjects lived in Oregon. After the subjects read the hypothetical scenario which involved changing a task for a classroom project, a 21 item questionnaire was administered. The questions were taken from Kipnis, Schmidt, and Wilkinson's (1980} study, and a six-point scale was used. The 21 questions were categorized into four compliance-gaining strategies: rationalization, exchange of benefits, ingratiation, and assertion. Rationalization and exchange of benefits were used to test hypotheses regarding culture as a whole. Hypothesis one was "Japanese lower status people who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships will use more rationalization compliance-gaining strategies than U.S. people who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships," while hypothesis two was "U.S. lower status people who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships will use more exchange of benefits compliance-gaining strategies than Japanese lower status people who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships." Ingratiation and assertion were used to test the hypotheses regarding gender in different cultures. Hypothesis three was "U.S. lower status females who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships will use more ingratiation compliance-gaining strategies than Japanese lower status females who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships," and hypothesis four was "U.S. lower status males who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships use more assertion compliance-gaining strategies than Japanese lower status males who are in short-term, task-oriented relationships."

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Sex differences in bone mass and size are thought to contribute to the greater incidence of vertebral fractures in women. While these sex differences are widely recognized, the relative contributions of bone mass, bone density, and bone size to the differences in vertebral strength and fracture risk between men and women have not been fully delineated. Furthermore, it is unknown whether the roles of each of these factors in determining vertebral strength change differently with age in men and women. We studied the bone content, density and geometry as well as vertebral loading and the factor of risk of the L3 vertebra in a sample of prepubertal males and females. Our first aim was to assess differences in vertebral bone dimensions, bone density, vertebral loading patterns and fracture risk, as measured by the factor of risk, in prepubertal children. Our second aim was to determine whether pre-pubertal growth affects the geometry and density of L3 differently in boys and girls. We measured vertebral dimensions, cross-sectional area and volumetric BMD of the third lumbar vertebral body in 93 prepubertal children (54 boys and 39 girls), using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans obtained in the posterior-anterior and lateral projections. We also employed basic biomechanics to estimate vertebral loading during upright standing and forward bending. Bone strength and loading data were used to assess sex differences in the factor of risk in prepubertal children. Twenty children (11 boys and 9 girls) were assessed at baseline and seven months later to examine the effects of growth on bone size and vBMD. At baseline, boys and girls were similar for age, height, weight and calcium intake. L3 width and depth were 6.7% and 5.8% greater in boys than girls, respectively (P<0.001 and P=0.01, respectively). In contrast, vertebral height was 3.5% greater in girls than boys (P= 0.04). While vertebral loading was similar between sexes, stresses on the spine were 12.2% lower in boys during upright standing and 12.0% lower in boys during forward bending at both 50° and 90°, as compared to girls (P<0.001, P<0.01 and P<0.01, respectively). The factor of risk was similar between boys and girls under each loading condition. During growth, changes in vertebral size and density were not different between boys and girls. Our results indicate that even prior to puberty, sex differences in vertebral size contribute to differences in vertebral stress during standing and forward bending. Furthermore, before the onset of puberty, growth does not result in disparate changes between sexes. / Graduation date: 2004

There has long been discussion on whether or not there are gender differences in different academic areas, particularly mathematics. One fact that most researchers agree on is that fewer females than males take upper-level mathematics courses beginning in adolescence and continuing through college. As a result, many females severely restrict their career options by failing to take courses in this area. This study views the subjective task values in mathematics of 201 3rd and 5th grade students in a small community in the upper plains region of the United States, and how those subjective task values relate to students' indications of interest in taking advanced mathematics courses in the future. While it was believed that gender differences would be found at each grade level as well as overall, this was not the case. Small differences were found by gender, but not to a degree of statistical significance. The major findings of the current research were of vast differences between the grade levels themselves. Third grade students had much higher scores on the Eccles-Wigfield Task Value Questionnaire, which was developed to measure subjective task values in mathematics. Another interesting discovery was the reasons students gave for these subjective task values. In general, boys tended to blame factors outside of their control, while girls were more likely to blame themselves. Post-hoc factor analysis of the survey questions indicated groupings consistent with those previously identified by the survey's authors. / Graduation date: 2000

The purpose of this study was to analyze preservice teachers' talk about gender issues in education through a poststructural feminist theoretical framework. Eighteen Master of Arts in Teaching students volunteered to participate in a seminar. During the seminar the participants wrote about and discussed gender issues in teaching. Data collected from the seminar included transcripts of audio-taped conversations as well as response journals and autobiographical sketches written by the participants. Four themes, gender talk, teacher talk, confessional talk, and resistance talk, were explored in the data. The theme gender talk included the participants' observations of and discussions about the differences between females and males. Teacher talk included discussions of what it means to be a teacher and how gender, race, and class impact the teacher's role and the educational experience of children. The data illustrated the multiple and competing discourses these preservice teachers employed when discussing gender issues. The themes confessional talk and resistance talk focused on how the participants talked about gender. These themes raised questions about teacher education practices. They served to illustrate the power relationships inherent in teacher education and how these relations of power act to authorize some discourses and suppress others. Modifications of teacher education practices were recommended by the researcher. These recommendations included helping preservice teachers deconstruct the discourses of education and the role of the teacher as well as suggesting that preservice teachers could benefit from alternate and varied educational sites in which to explore issues of teaching. / Graduation date: 1998

This research was conducted to investigate perceptions of self esteem and the behavior of female science students in mixed gender cooperative learning groups. The research methodology used was qualitative in nature, which included a variety of data collection methods, including participant observation, student journals, interviews, video tapes of group interactions, cooperating teachers' journals, individual surveys, group surveys, and daily field notes. The data was analyzed by means of the constant comparative method. The analysis resulted in the following two hypotheses: 1. When male science students are allowed to dominate group activities female self-esteem and group interactions are affected negatively. 2. Female science students tend to be less openly critical of other students in their groups than male science students to maintain group relationships. / Graduation date: 1996

Exercise training has consistently been shown to increase fat utilization during exercise, while conflicting results have been reported on the effects of sex and age on fuel metabolism during exercise. PURPOSE: The primary objective of this investigation was to compare fat and carbohydrate utilization during exercise among males and females varying in age and training status. METHODS: 8 groups of 10 subjects each were formed based upon trained (T)/untrained (U), male (M)/female (F), and young (Y)/older (O): TYM, TYF, UYM, UYF, TOM, TOF, UOM, UOF. All female subjects were experiencing regular menstrual cycles, not using oral contraceptives, and were tested in the mid-follicular phase of their menstrual cycle. The young subjects averaged 21.3 ��1.7 yr and older subjects 40.1 ��1.9 yr. All subjects exercised for 35 minutes on a treadmill at an intensity just below their ventilatory threshold. Substrate utilization was indicated by the respiratory exchange ratio (RER), and a 2x2x2 factorial ANOVA was used to determine whether age, sex, and training status have independent or interacting effects on substrate-utilization variables, and t-tests were used for post-hoc comparisons. RESULTS: The average RER during exercise was lower in trained subjects (0.841��.023) compared to untrained subjects (0.884��.021) (P < .05). There was no difference in the average RER during exercise between the young (0.860��.026) and older (0.865��.034) groups of subjects. The average RER during exercise was lower for untrained females (0.860��.027) than untrained males (0.870��.032) (P < .05), but there was no difference in fat and carbohydrate utilization between trained males (0.843��.023) and trained females (0.838��.022). CONCLUSION: The major finding of this study was that untrained females utilized proportionately more fat during exercise compared to untrained males, but there was no difference in fat and carbohydrate utilization between trained females and trained males. Another finding was that a 20-year difference in age was not sufficient for an age effect to be evident in fat utilization during moderate exercise. / Graduation date: 2013

Drawing upon the research on gender in science (especially gender and publication and patent productivity), social network studies, and social studies of interdisciplinary research and nanotechnology, this dissertation develops and tests a series of hypotheses to advance the understanding of the gender difference in patenting in the U.S. Ridgeways theory of gender frame (Ridgeway, 2009, 2007; Ridgeway&England, 2004) is very powerful in explaining gender inequity at both micro- and macro-levels, and thus constitutes the foundation of this study. After laying out the theoretical foundation, I set out to focus on collaboration as one of critical mechanisms accounting for the gender difference in patenting. While social network scholars maintain that social capital resides in network structure and claim different structures provide different benefits (Borgatti, Jones,&Everett, 1998), I conceive of diversity as the most important structural feature of collaboration networks to predict patenting performance, and accordingly develop the concept boundary-spanning collaboration to refer to collaboration networks containing relationships to diverse others. Then, I rely on social studies of gender, network, and desired outcomes as well as research on interdisciplinary fields in general and nanotechnology in particular to propose several hypotheses regarding how gender would differ on boundary-spanning collaboration and how the differences matter the gender gap in patenting in the context of nanotechnology. Two sets of analyses, performed on large-scale patent data and individual-level survey data, generate novel and important findings. These results enhance our understanding of the distinct context of nanotechnology, especially with regard to collaboration and gender representation, and the interrelationships of gender, boundary-spanning collaboration, and patenting involvement in this context. In brief, there are three major findings. First, while nanotechnology and patenting activities present new areas for gendered studies in science, the influential gender stereotypes always predict the detection of a gender gap. Second, collaboration networks, especially those featured with diversity, are relevant to the gender gap in patenting nanotechnology in a complicated way, but the operationalization of diversity is the key to comprehend the complexity. Third, the returns from collaborative relationships are generally gendered, but the gender gap in returns varies upon the context where a relationship takes place. Relating these findings to previous research, I highlight the theoretical and methodological contributions of this study, point out its limitations for future research development, and draw pertinent policy implications.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [109]-111).