This thesis works towards deconstructing stereotypical images of Indigenous women that frequent the pages of popular literature. It calls attention to the ideological foundation of Euro-Canadian literature, which is informed by a White-christian-patriarchy. That literature, as an institution of the Euro-Canadian nation, propagates images of Indigenous women as Indian princesses, squaw drudges, suffering helpless victims, tawny temptresses, and loose squaws. Consequently, Euro-Canadian literature imprisons us in images that foster both racist and sexist stereotypes and that encourage violence against us. Margaret Laurence's short story "The Loons" and William Patrick Kinsella's "Linda Star" provide illuminating examples of some of those images. While these writers do not represent all non-Indigenous people who write about Indigenous women, both of these writers are extremely popular Canadian writers whose stories are often read in elementary schools, high schools, and universities. At the centre of this thesis is Maria Campbell's semi-autobiographical <u>Halfbreed</u>. Campbell's Halfbreed significantly challenges Euro-Canadian literature's White-christian-patriarchal ideology by contextualizing the narrative in an Indigenous-gynocratic ideology. Her book destabilized White-Euro-Canadian liberals' complacency when, as an indigenous woman, Campbell named Euro-Canadians oppressors and identified Euro-Canadian power structures that illegally, unjustly, and intolerably imposed on her people's way of life. This thesis concludes that Campbell's <u>Halfbreed</u> encouraged many Indigenous people to appropriate the White-Euro-Canadian colonizer's English language to write ourselves out of oppression by re-claiming our self--which is ideologically rooted in autochthonous and gynocratic cultures.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a postcolonial novel that, in this essay, is argued to challenge and question the colonial stereotypes which came into greater focus after 9/11 in America. The challenge is carried out via the narrator’s identity struggle by displaying the different stereotypes he is subjected to. The quiet listener to the narrator’s monologue, together with the reader’s part in creating and making sense of the novel also contributes towards challenging these stereotypes. The East and West are set against each other, displaying how both have harsh and generalizing views of the other.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 8, 2009). Advisor: Paul Haridakis. Keywords: cultivation theory; rural; geographic identity. Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-94).

Thesis PlanA (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 50 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-48).

Starting with Steele and Aronson (1995), research documents the performance decrements resulting from the activation of a negative task-relevant stereotype. I suggest that negative stereotypes can generate better performance, as they produce a prevention focus (Higgins, 2000; Seibt & Förster, 2004), because a prevention focus leads to greater cognitive flexibility in a task where points are lost (Maddox, Markman, & Baldwin, 2006). My prior work, Experiments 1 and 2, done in collaboration with Arthur B. Markman, W. Todd Maddox, and Grant C. Baldwin, used a category learning task that requires the participant test different explicit rules to correctly categorize stimuli. Half of the participants gained points for correct responses while half of the participants lost points for correct responses. We primed a positive or a negative gender stereotype. The negative prime matches the losses environment while the positive prime matches the gains environment. The match states are assumed to increase dopamine release into frontal brain areas leading to increased cognitive flexibility and better task performance whereas the mismatch states should not. Thus, we predict and obtain a 3-way interaction between Stereotype (Positive, Negative), Gender (Male, Female), and Reward structure (Gains, Losses) for accuracy and strategy. Experiments 3 and 4 used a category learning task, which requires the implicit learning system to govern participant responses. This task had an information-integration category structure and involves the striatum (e.g., Maddox & Ashby, 2004). Importantly, cognitive flexibility will hurt performance using this category structure. I therefore predicted that regulatory match states, created by manipulating Stereotype and Reward structure, will produce worse performance than mismatch states. I did not completely reverse the effects described in Experiments 1 and 2 as predicted. I found evidence supporting my predictions using computational models to test for task strategy in Experiment 3 and found results consistent with the flexibility hypothesis in Experiment 4. Importantly, I believe that stereotype threat effects should not be conceptualized as a main effect with negative stereotypes producing worse performance than positive stereotypes, but instead as an interaction between the motivational state of the individual, task environment, and type of task performed.

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Šio darbo tema pasirinkta siekiant pažinti socialinę realybę Lietuvoje, užimti tam tikrą, savo, kaip tyrėjo, poziciją, t.y. praplėsti nuomonę apie gana komplikuotą reiškinį, įvairių kultūrų tarpusavio sąveiką, jų santykius, kylančius konfliktus ir sprendimo būdus, t.y. išsiaiškinti ar šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje egzistuoja tolerancija. / A tolerance is a universal moral principal with its terms used in such areas as social, cultural and religious. It helps to find out more about our attitude towards discrimination. The term named “tolerance” is very applicable for the acceptance and respect. Using tolerance as a term in our lives help us to show how we appreciate other people. Mostly, that means our acceptance and respect. The tolerance presumes comprehensible and respectful treatment towards other people. If we are talking about the situation in Lithuania, so the tolerance level is not high enough, because the majority does not tolerate other people unless they are their friends or relatives. On the other hand, the history of Lithuania speaks a lot about the whole situation which is in our country at this moment. Russian and polish people had been occupied Lithuania in past, that is why Lithuanian people do not want to respect or to tolerate them at all unless, as it was mentioned already, they would be their relatives or friends. The only one solution would be just to get some experience from the past, but do not take it with you at the present moment. Think of the past, but learn something from it, do not think of the bad things happened to you or to your relatives in the past, this is how we could be more tolerance to each other. This is how all Lithuanian people, does not matter are they Lithuanians or Russians or Polish or Belorussians, could achieve harmony of their relationship in our native country... [to full text]

El desbarrancadero, published in 2001 by Colombian author Fernando Vallejo is foremost a moving story about brotherly love, but it is also a highly critical novel that lashes out on a number of phenomena such as the catholic church, the Pope and the very idea of religion. It also addresses the poverty of Colombia, its corrupt politicians, the drug trade, viral diseases and animal abuse to mention a few more subjects. This essay however, does not aim to explore any of the above mentioned matters but rather examine how women are portrayed in this novel. The objective of this investigation, based on feminist theories, is to establish the very clear presence of misogyny attitudes.

Today there are several generations who have grown up watching Disney’s films. Disney has become a central storyteller in our society with children and their families as their main audience. Disney's storytelling is often with the children from an early age and they get to learn about right and wrong, good and evil through the films. A picture of how the world looks and how you should and should not behave is presented in Disney's films. Our aim with this study is to analyze the villains in Disney's animated films, how the female and male villains are presented in relation to each other from a gender perspective. The study's goal is to understand if the gender roles and stereotypes are enhanced or weakened by how male and female villains communicates through Disney’s films. With support from the theories of Giddens, Foucault and Jung, as well as theories of gender and stereotypes we have through a qualitative narrative and semiotic analysis studied twelve animated Disney-films. This has led to the discovery that female and male villains are produced in a gender-stereotypical way, the female villains are presented as more passive, emotional and nurturing, and that the male villains are presented as more active, ambitious and confident. We also found that there were similarities between the two genders, especially when it comes to how the antagonists exert his or her power and the atmosphere that is presented around the antagonists.