Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-98). Also available on the Internet.

The goal of this study was to learn how Mississippi’s society, culture, and politics influenced college choice for college bound African American women in Mississippi from 1962 to 2002. In this context, the researcher elected to interview mother and daughter pairs who attended college in Mississippi after James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1962. To achieve its goals, this study traced the political history of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, the enrollment patterns of African American women in Mississippi colleges, and captured, through individual interviews, the mothers’ and daughters’ motivating factors in choosing a college. This qualitative research design study compares and analyzes the differences in the mothers’ and daughters’ choices and illustrates how outside influences affect college choice. The researcher used archival records, focus groups, and individual interviews to capture the data. The common themes that emerged from this study for the mothers’ generation were the power of community capital, strong family ties, extreme poverty, and personal sacrifice. The common themes that emerged from this study for the daughters’ generation were the power of family capital and individual ambition, fueled by a desire for a comfortable life. Because of the intense nature of the individual interviews the researcher captured a glimpse into the participants’ thought process in choosing to go to college as well as choosing which college to attend. / text

Given the percentage of African American women in the general U.S. population, the number of African American women with functional limitations and disabilities is disproportionate; although chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis may contribute to these disparities it is unclear what environmental factors may affect these outcomes in the women. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine biological factors (age, body mass index, and waist circumference), psychosocial intra-individual factors (health care utilization, trust in health care providers, pain, pain beliefs, and depression), and cumulative extra-individual environmental factors (racial discrimination, stress from racial discrimination, and health care access) that may influence function and disability outcomes in African American women with osteoarthritis 50-80 years of age. The disablement process model combined with the cumulative inequality theory served as theoretical guides used for this study. This study was a non-experimental, descriptive correlational study. The study included a sample of 120 African American women with OA from Texas and New Mexico. Surveys were mailed to participants or distributed in person. The statistical analysis consisted of correlations, linear regressions, multiple regressions and hierarchical regressions. The significant predictors of function were BMI, pain severity and pain beliefs. Pain severity and pain beliefs predicted disability. Depression mediated the relationship between racial discrimination and disability. It was demonstrated that biological risk factors, intra-individual and extra-individual factors are related to disablement outcomes in this sample of African American women. This study can inform the development of future interventions designed to decrease the risk of functional limitations and disabilities in middle-aged and older African American women with osteoarthritis. / text

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the complexities of body satisfaction and maladaptive relationships with food as it related to ethnic identity for college-aged African American women. I explored how maladaptive relationships with food may be moderated by ethnic identity (Rogers-Wood & Petrie, 2010), and associated with concerns for body image ideals (Capodilupo & Kim, 2013; Cheney, 2011;) or concerns related to health (Di Noia et al., 2009; Rich & Thomas, 2008). The sample consisted of 189 undergraduate and graduate African American women at a southeastern university in the United States, with a mean age of 22.87. Analyses of correlations suggested that maladaptive eating was associated with low body satisfaction and high concerns for appearance. Findings also suggested that higher levels of ethnic identity were associated with lower levels of body satisfaction. Body satisfaction was inversely related to body mass index. There was no significant relationship between ethnic identity and maladaptive eating. Higher levels of ethnic identity were associated with lower levels of health consciousness. Body image satisfaction and concerns for appearance were positively correlated with health consciousness. Multiple regression analyses indicated significant moderating effects of ethnic identity only for the relationship between maladaptive eating and health consciousness. Ethnic identity moderated the relationship between maladaptive eating and health consciousness particularly for women with low levels of ethnic identity, while accounting for body mass index and body image concerns. Clinical implications for addressing body image concerns, maladaptive eating, and concerns about health with African American women are discussed.

This is an exploratory study of growing up in a single parent, impoverished environment and the impact it has on the success of African-American women in the state of Georgia. The practical significance of this study is to explore the underlying contributing factors of low academic and career success rates, and dependency on government support of young African-American women. A cross-sectional survey design was used to evaluate the effects of the independent variables on African-American women. The research design allowed for the use of a descriptive analysis of the demographic profile of the research participants and for the explanation of the negative effect of growing up in a single parent, impoverished home on the success of African-American women. The results of this study showed that there is no negative effect of growing up in a single parent, impoverished environment on the success of African-American women in the state of Georgia.

This dissertation considers how American women writers responded to the changing perceptions about feminine nature, to an increasingly modern society, and to the shifting religious landscape in nineteenth-century America. The complex relationship between nineteenth-century women and religion is firmly illustrated in the works of three writers who were widely read during their time and yet have a very limited readership today: Mary Hallock Foote, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Gertrude Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Ša. Each figure held a prominent position in the high-literary establishment of the late nineteenth century, and I show how each experimented with regional and sentimental literary conventions in order to entertain and appeal to a readership largely dominated by urban, upper-middle-class women. I argue that each of these writers constructed shared regional spaces and articulated spiritual values of place in order to dramatize differences between rural and urban cultures, to reflect concerns about America’s increasingly industrial, materialistic, and cosmopolitan mainstream society, and to create an anti-modern argument for a society grounded in Christian beliefs and practices. Despite the variety of their religious backgrounds and experiences, these writers all depict nuanced versions of Protestant tradition that both reflect the malleability of cultural religious constructions and re-assert Christian values of love, equality, family, and community. Moreover, through their descriptions of place—of the beauty, grandeur, isolation, and inherent risk of the natural world—these writers reveal phenomenological experiences and illuminate intricate connections between religion, place, and culture that contemporary scholars of religion and geography have only recently begun to explore.

Thesis (MIntStud)--University of South Australia, 2001

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Toledo, 2007. / Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Health Education." Bibliography: leaves 126-144.