Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

The subject of young fatherhood has not been widely addressed in academic research, and until recently most studies on young parenthood have concentrated mainly on teenage mothers. This thesis explores how men who became fathers at a young age narrate their experiences of fathering and their perceptions of fatherhood. The focus is thus both on the practical experience of being a father as well as in the values the young men hold in relation to fatherhood and fathering. Such exploration is done in relation to being a man, being young and coming from what is typically considered a socially excluded background. The findings are based on individual qualitative interviews with 22 young men from ethnic minority backgrounds who were living in London, mainly in areas of social deprivation. This study adds to the growing body of research on young fatherhood generally and to research on the father-child relationship specifically. Drawing on structuration theory, discourse and social capital as the theoretical basis, this thesis explores how young men build, practice and understand their role as fathers and their one to one relationship with their child or children. The specific focus on the father-child relationship springs from the limited research on this aspect of young fatherhood. This study found that when it comes the practice of fathering there are little differences between young and older fathers: their worries, their hopes and their future projections can be considered similar. The research highlighted that fathers aimed to make a positive contribution to their children’s lives by caring for them in the early days and also later on, by playing and educating them. The relationship with the mother appeared to be an essential part of the experience of fatherhood, both in relation to quality and quantity of contact. This thesis found that young men emphasised the influence of family and community background in shaping their experiences of fatherhood. The findings of this study shed light into the practice of fathering amongst young men and contribute to understanding young parents’ relationship dynamics from the male perspective. Finally, it helps understand the influence of background on young fathers’ life chances and future prospects. Overall, the young men in this research were able to fulfill their desire to be there for their children, sometimes in adverse circumstances and against a variety of hurdles. And despite the problems encountered, the young men offered a positive view on the experience of fatherhood, focusing not only on the tensions but also on the rewards of being a father.

This thesis sought to provide new insight into the lives and experiences of mothers of children with disabilities in the rural (Kaoma) and urban (Lusaka) settings of Zambia. A detailed literature review revealed that there is a dearth of research that has focused on the views of mothers parenting children with disabilities within the Zambian social and cultural context. Qualitative, biographical interviews were undertaken with thirty mothers whose child had a disability significant enough to qualify for intervention services at the time of the interviews. This study drew on a framework using insights from the social model of disability, feminist intersectionality and the social empowerment model. The methodology was informed by interpretivism, social constructionist grounded theory, feminist intersectionality theories, and data analysis was carried out concurrently with data collection. Findings revealed that disability is still surrounded by stigma and prejudice. It was associated with punishment and bad omen. The diagnosis of a child’s disability had an impact on mothers as it resulted in a liminal (suspended) state and a biographical disruption as they had to reorient their lives. Mother-blame was common and they were often ostracised by their significant others and the communities. Divorce was common especially among first-time mothers whose child had cerebral palsy. Divorce was an unexpected disruptive event that had socioeconomic impact on mothers. They had to bear the burden of caregiving in the absence of support from their partners. Some gave up their employment because of the demands associated with caregiving resulting in financial deprivation. Mothers also experienced loss of agency over their future and that of their child. More power was allotted to husbands than mothers with regard to decision making at home. The study makes a deeper, and more nuanced, contribution to the scarce literature on mothering children with disabilities in Zambia and globally.

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Despite there being enormous amounts of research on disability, and how disability is experienced, when parameters such as higher education, race and gender are considered alongside disability, the research documented becomes limited; and even more so when each of these parameters are in combination with each other. The aim of this study is to use Critical Disability Theory, Feminist Theory, and Intersectionality to better understand how I have experienced accommodation as a Black woman with a disability within an academic environment. I use Autoethnography to detail my own lived experience to investigate if the institutional response (of providing accommodations and its practices along with it) aligns with my lived experience as the student on the receiving end. The findings from this study suggest that there is misalignment between the institutional response and the student experience thus causing a struggle of identity outside of the medicalized identity recognized by Accessibility Services. It is my hope that those who read this thesis adopt a ‘nothing about us, without us’ attitude towards Accessibility Services. I hope readers will see that students with disabilities need to be included in the conversation of accommodations with Accessibility Services offices in post-secondary institutions because stories like mine (as a Black woman with a disability and a life-long service user of this school provided service) demand to be acknowledged and be felt as the “supposed” benefactors of this service. Because without us, this service would not exist. And yet, without our voices heard this service continues to exist as it does. Our voices, bodies and lived experiences should be validated as appropriate “measures” to determine accessibility, accommodation and learning needs. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

This novel is a work of historical fiction that explores the aftermath of the execution of a local doctor who became infamous after preserving the corpse of his beloved. The two protagonists journey to Key West from Miami during the summer of 1952 to investigate the disappearance of the girl's missing bones, but soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that plumbs the most terrifying depths of love and its disquieting entanglements. The tale follows the protagonists, Lens Burnside and Iris Elliot, as they navigate the island's darkest corridors and expose a few of its most unusual secrets on a journey of love, mayhem and madness as they fall under the spell of the island and fall in love with each other. / by Courtney Watson. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation fills a conspicuous gap in the literature on the U.S. woman suffrage movement by developing and testing a model of state woman suffrage success. This model is based on a version of the resource mobilization perspective on social movements which emphasizes the importance of social movement organizations (such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association) as resource-gathering agencies which can exploit the structure of organized politics by mobilizing their own resources and neutralizing those of opponents. Accordingly, this model taps four alternative types of variables used by woman suffrage scholars to explain state success: state political structure, NAWSA mobilization, and liquor and allied interests (opponents of woman suffrage) as well as demographic characteristics.

In 1951 British Columbia public schools opened their doors to First Nations children furthering federal government goals of assimilation. First Nations learners entered provincial public schools as a "billable commodity" while newcomers flooded British Columbia seeking opportunities in a province rich in natural resources in forests, mines, fisheries and land. Sadly the public schools' curricula contained colonization history but no curriculum to describe First Nations existence and history. Locally, there was no recognition of the existence of the Coast Salish people as distinct and prosperous Saltwater People. The indifference to the history of indigenous peoples left newcomers with gaps in their understanding of First Peoples Hostilities and resentments grew as immigration multiplied the numbers and pressure of homesteaders encroaching on traditional indigenous homelands paired with increasing intrusion and restrictions under the Indian Act and shrinking of traditional territories to small contained reserves. / Graduate

This thesis explores the causes and consequences of growing flexibility in gender divisions of labour in Kitwe, Zambia. It examines the relationship between four contemporary trends (1990-2011): worsening economic security, growing flexibility in gender divisions of labour in the form of increasing female labour force participation and occupational desegregation, and the weakening of gender stereotypes. The evidence for these trends comes from census data, earlier ethnographies and my own qualitative research (April 2010 − March 2011). The analysis draws upon a theoretical framework that interprets sex-differentiated practices as resulting from internalised gender stereotypes, cultural expectations and patterns of resource access. The substantive chapters of the thesis consider alternative hypotheses. Did worsening economic security trigger flexibility in gender divisions of labour, which then weakened gender stereotypes (Chapter 4)? Alternatively, was such flexibility actually contingent upon a prior rejection of gender stereotypes, due to particular formative experiences (Chapter 5) or gender sensitisation (Chapter 6)? This thesis argues that worsening economic security led many families to sacrifice the social gains accrued by complying with cultural expectations of gender divisions of labour in exchange for the financial benefits of female labour force participation. But occupational desegregation is partly attributed to a prior rejection of gender stereotypes. Flexibility in gender divisions of labour seems to undermine gender stereotypes and related status inequalities, by enabling exposure to a critical mass of women performing roles that they were previously presumed to be incapable and that are valorised because they were historically performed by men. Common forms of gender sensitisation in Zambia were rarely said to be independently persuasive; impact generally appears contingent upon exposure to a critical mass of women in socially valued domains. Sensitisation also seems more effective when it enables participants to see that others also endorse gender equality. This can increase confidence in the objective validity of one’s own egalitarian beliefs and also shift cultural expectations.