Spelling suggestions: "subject:"black women"" "subject:"slack women""
121 |
Salvaging Children's Lives: Understanding the Experiences of Black Aunts Who Serve as Kinship Care Providers within Black FamiliesDavis-Sowers, Regina Louise 02 August 2006 (has links)
Previous research on grandparents as kinship care providers demonstrated that grandparents are confronted with both challenges and rewards. Using qualitative research methods, I examined the lives of 35 black aunts who served as kinship care providers for nieces and nephews. I found that grandparents and aunts experienced increased time demands, financial burdens, and family stress. However, this study demonstrated that aunts’ experiences differ from grandparents’, due to the younger age of aunts and the fact that aunts are of the same generation as the biological parents. Moreover, I found that aunting, or the care and nurture of children by aunts and great-aunts, is gendered and invisible work that, at the most basic level, salvages children’s lives. Salvaging children’s lives involved three non-linear stages: making the decision to become a kinship care provider, transitioning from aunting to parenting, and parenting nieces and nephews. I utilized a synthesis of symbolic interactionism and black feminist thought as a theoretical framework that examines how the meanings that black women attach to family influence their definitions of self and affect their decisions to act on behalf of family members. These findings extend the research on black women’s lives and on kinship care within black families. I used a narrative style that allows the respondents’ voices to be heard, as these are their stories. I offer suggestions for future research, as well as outline a number of policy and theoretical implications. This research is important because black children are disproportionately represented within the child welfare system. If interventions and policies are to influence other black women or black men to accept responsibility for many of the most at-risk children in their families and neighborhoods, research must explore and report the challenges, sacrifices, costs, and rewards of becoming kinship care providers within black families.
|
122 |
Trios and Sexual Health: The Relation between a Cultural Specific Theory of Resiliency and Sexual Health Outcomes among Black WomenMualuko, Mwende K. 07 May 2011 (has links)
The purpose of the current study was to explore the relation between a culture specific theory of resiliency (TRIOS: Time, Rhythm, Improvisation, Oratory & Spirituality) and sexual health outcomes (Sexual Risk History, HIV Testing & Attitudes and Beliefs, Partner Information & Condom Self-Efficacy) among Black women. Participants were 124 Black women recruited from a larger sexual health intervention study. TRIOS was hypothesized to be correlated with outcomes and predict unique variance in outcomes beyond measures of Self-Esteem & Racial Identity. Time, Improvisation and Spirituality were hypothesized to uniquely predict limited sexual risk history, healthy HIV testing attitudes and beliefs, fewer risk indicators among sex partners, & higher condom self efficacy. The psychometric structure of TRIOS within the sample was examined. Tests included a Correlation Matrix, two sets of four Hierarchical Regressions and an Exploratory Factor Analysis. Correlations were found between TRIOS components and Sexual Risk History and Condom Self-Efficacy. Time and Improvisation uniquely predicted declines in Risky Sexual History. Rhythm uniquely predicted declines in Condom Self-Efficacy. Effects of Oratory were mixed. Methodological limitations and implications for interventions and future research were discussed.
|
123 |
Deep Frames, White Men's Discourse, and Black Female BodiesSlatton, Brittany C. 2009 August 1900 (has links)
In this qualitative study, I examine the persistent trend of black women as an
excluded relationship partner for white men. Integral to understanding the exclusion of
black women as relationship partners is the construction of black female bodies, by
influential white men historically and contemporarily, as the abject opposite of
hegemonic femininity, which holds "middle-class, heterosexual, [w]hite femininity" as
the norm (Collins 2005:193). This construction essentially places black women outside
the bounds of hegemonic femininity, beauty, sexuality, and womanhood. Using the
theoretical concept deep frame, which is the "conceptual infrastructure of the mind"
(Lakoff 2006a:12) and representative of one's commonsense world view, I argue that the
ways in which influential white men have constructed black female bodies is a critical
component of the raced, gendered, and classed deep frame of white men. This deep
frame undergirds how many white men perceive, interpret, understand, emote, and
engage in actions where black women are concerned. Hence in this study, I qualitatively
examine, through analyzing and interpreting the in-depth online questionnaires of 134 white male respondents, how the deep frame of white men affects how they perceive
black women and ultimately the relationships they seek with black women.
The results of the study show that many white male respondents, despite most
having very limited or no personal interactions with black women, viewed black women
through the one-dimensional lens of the raced, gendered, and classed deep frame. Many
respondents perceived black women as unattractive unless capable of a white normative
standard, as possessing a negative "black" culture, and as possessing negative and
"unfeminine" attributes that make them complicit in their own rejection. These findings
show how the deep frame disciplines white men to view black women as "out of
bounds" as legitimate relationship partners, and disciplines the types of relationships
they seek with black women. The results of this study also reveal that the conceptual
approach of deep frame rooted in an understanding of the power of influential white men
to control and construct society provides a theoretical alternative to the outmoded
interracial marriage theories of caste and exchange.
|
124 |
'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and HomeMathis, Rondrea Danielle 01 January 2015 (has links)
‘She Shall Not Be Moved’: Black Women’s Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home argues that from The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s debut novel, to her 2012 novel, Home, Morrison brings her female characters to voice, autonomy, and personal divinity through unconventional spiritual work. The project addresses the history of Black women’s activist and spiritual work, Toni Morrison’s engagement with unconventional spiritual practice, and closes with a personal interrogation of the author’s connection to Black women’s spiritual practice.
|
125 |
Recipes Run in Our Families Not Illnesses: Older Black Women on Race, Health Disparities and the Health Care SystemSims, Colette Marie January 2006 (has links)
Reducing racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare are ongoing concerns. A paucity of data on healthcare seeking behavior among older Black women has hampered efforts to make culturally responsive healthcare services available to this population. Little is known about how older Black women's expectations and perceptions of care affect their patterns of health behavior.This study explored sociocultural contexts of health behavior with fifty Black women, aged 40 and older, in Tucson, Arizona by examining what prompts these women to seek services, identifying key factors affecting their access to and utilization of healthcare, documenting their experiences in healthcare settings and how these interactions influence their healthcare-seeking behavior. If effective healthcare service access and utilization are to be encouraged among older Black women, an informed understanding of the role cultural difference plays is essential.This research has three purposes: to provide a forum for discussion of culturally relevant strategies and models for prevention of disease and promotion of wellness in Black communities; to provide perspectives on older Black women's health issues for policymakers and administrators in public health sciences; and to gain insight and document reasons for selected health behaviors among this population. Research funding from the NIH/ NIA has helped to establish this small multi-disciplinary data set on a specific race, gender and age sub-population group for future research and development of community resource partnerships; including public health education and effective healthcare service delivery with intervention / promotion efforts targeting older Black women.Findings: Older Black women's poorer health status reflects the cumulative effects of inadequate health care due to various discriminatory experiences and their mistrust of the health care system. Mistrust, expectations of racial bias, perceived cultural insensitivity, and lack of effective communication within healthcare settings were found to be barriers to their healthcare-seeking behavior. Neither healthcare providers nor older Black women can address these issues alone. Working towards more trusting relationships within healthcare settings is critical in beginning to address avoidable inequities in health status experienced by older Black women.This research is applicable to such disciplines as Sociocultural/Medical Anthropology, Health Education, Public Health, and Africana/Ethnic Studies.
|
126 |
The relationship between traditional cardiovascular risk factors, body composition and C-reactive protein amongst 19 to 60 year old black women / Sonja SlabbertSlabbert, Sonja January 2004 (has links)
The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in the past decade. This
foreshadows an increase in the rates of morbidity and mortality from obesity related
diseases. The high prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) is a problem throughout
the world as well as in South Africa The process of urbanisation of Africans from rural
to urban areas is exposing the African population to Western lifestyles, with an increase
in the incidence of CHD being reported. Research is more frequently proposing that
obesity may be seen as a factor linking elevated C-reactive protein (CRP)
concentrations and atherosclerosis. CRP is an acute phase reactant and a sensitive
marker for acute and chronic inflammation of diverse causes. This poses the question
of whether the increased risk of diabetes, CHD and many other chronic diseases in the
obese might be explained by a state of chronic systemic inflammation.
The purpose of this study was, therefore, firstly to determine whether there is an
association between CRP concentrations and body composition in 19 to 60 year old
black women. Partial Pearson correlations coefficients were used to determine
associations between CRP and several body composition variables. Body mass index
(BMI), waist circumference, percentage body fat and waist-hip-ratio (WHR) were all
significantly correlated with CRP throughout the anthropometric spectrum. An analysis
of variance (ANOVA) with a Games-Howell post hoc test was done to determine
statistically significant differences among the different categories within each of the
body composition variables. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were found within the
categories of all the measured body composition variables, except for the various WHR
categories. During a signal detection analysis, BMI was identified as the best predictor
of increased CRP concentrations at a cut-off point of 27.68 kg/m2.
The second purpose of this study was to assess the relationship of CRP to traditional
cardiovascular risk factors in the study's population sample of 19 to 60 year old black
women. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to analyse log-normalized CRP
concentrations as the dependent variable in relation to several variables which form part
of the traditional risk factors for CHD. All of the variables were significantly correlated
with CRP at the level of p ≤ 0.05, except for total cholesterol and low-density
lipoprotein cholesterol. BMI, percentage body fat and fibrinogen levels were associated
with InCRP at a practically significant level of r ≥ 0.5. BMI and fibrinogen were also
found to be independently associated with InCRP with p ≤ 0.05 during a forward
stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. Within this study's population sample, it
was found that those women who presented with six traditional risk factors had a three
to five-fold increase in CRF' concentrations compared to women with three or less risk
factors. Further research is required to determine appropriate intervention programmes
which could prevent or reduce the incidence of CHD among the obese by means of
weight-loss, therefore, potentially lowering elevated CRP concentrations. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Human Movement Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.
|
127 |
AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP SOCIALIZATION AMONG BLACK COLLEGIATE WOMENShipley, Ahlishia J'Nae 01 January 2011 (has links)
The pathways through which individuals learn to appraise and behave in intimate relationships greatly influence the quality and stability of their relationships. Research on intimate relationships among college students guided by a socialization framework focusing on learning and ways of viewing relationships is limited. The purpose of the present exploratory study was to examine the experiences and processes wherein young Black collegiate women learn to approach, maintain, and reflect on their intimate relationships. This topic is particularly salient to Black collegiate women who find themselves navigating unbalanced dating scenes and negotiating love relationships while balancing academic achievement and career aspirations. Ten Black, heterosexual women attending a four-year institution of higher education participated in three in-depth interviews where they shared life experiences which contributed to their understanding of intimate relationships. Using symbolic interactionism as a guiding framework allowed me to discover the multiple descriptions and meanings the participants assign to the interactions in their families, with their peers, and in their symbolic environments. The narratives shared by the women in this study revealed a number of experiences which prompted them to engage in self-reflection, critique, and learning with respect to self-identity and intimate relationships. Hearing messages, observing others, and experiencing relationships for themselves provided these women with a foundation for knowing the importance of preserving self-worth and self-identity, establishing expectations, and communicating thoughts and feelings. Implications for practice include the importance of developing specialized relationship education culturally and socially relevant to Black collegiate women, training campus professionals on the unique needs and concerns of this population, and educating parents on communicating with daughters about intimate relationship development. Future research should devote specific attention to social context, paternal-daughter relationship communication, and parental relationship modeling.
|
128 |
Unbearable Fruit: Black Women's Experiences with Uterine FibroidsMyles, Ranell L 19 August 2013 (has links)
Uterine Fibroids, medically termed uterine leiomyoma, are benign tumors of smooth muscle cells that grow in the uterus. While they are the most common pelvic neoplasm in women and fewer than 1 percent of fibroids develop into cancer, uterine fibroids can cause infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and greatly affect one’s quality of life. Black women have been disproportionately affected by fibroids; when compared to white women, Black women are: 2-3 times more likely to have fibroids, diagnosed at a younger age, more likely to have 7 or more fibroids, more likely to have more severe and more troublesome symptoms (anemia, severe pelvic pain, constipation, and stomach aches), and have twice as many hysterectomies due to fibroids. Black women’s disproportionate affliction with uterine fibroids is particularly concerning given the historical medical injustices associated with Black women’s bodies and reproductive rights from slavery to present day. By placing Black women at the center of analysis and using a Black feminist epistemological framework, this study aims to make a unique contribution to medical sociology as well as literature on the theoretical and practical management of sickness and wellness among Black women in the United States. Using qualitative interviews and grounded theory methodology, the study examined how Black women frame the condition of having uterine fibroids. Specifically, the study investigated a) how Black women conceptualize having fibroids, b) how Black women’s conceptualizations of fibroids affect their feelings about selves or their lifestyles, c) the mechanisms, if any, by which Black women deal with uterine fibroids, d) how their multiple race, class, and gender identities affect their illness experiences and types of treatment that they seek, and e) how conventional and complementary/alternative medicine shapes Black women’s experiences with fibroids. Conceptualizations about fibroids are rooted in the race-gendered histories of Black women and the unique stressors that they face. Through interactions with doctors and among peers, Black women resist the unbearable burden of uterine fibroids through various coping strategies, but generally “keep it moving”. They avoid invasive surgeries through patient agency by being advocates for their medical treatment, self-researching, dialoguing with others, and directing doctor-patient interactions.
|
129 |
The relationship between traditional cardiovascular risk factors, body composition and C-reactive protein amongst 19 to 60 year old black women / Sonja SlabbertSlabbert, Sonja January 2004 (has links)
The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in the past decade. This
foreshadows an increase in the rates of morbidity and mortality from obesity related
diseases. The high prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) is a problem throughout
the world as well as in South Africa The process of urbanisation of Africans from rural
to urban areas is exposing the African population to Western lifestyles, with an increase
in the incidence of CHD being reported. Research is more frequently proposing that
obesity may be seen as a factor linking elevated C-reactive protein (CRP)
concentrations and atherosclerosis. CRP is an acute phase reactant and a sensitive
marker for acute and chronic inflammation of diverse causes. This poses the question
of whether the increased risk of diabetes, CHD and many other chronic diseases in the
obese might be explained by a state of chronic systemic inflammation.
The purpose of this study was, therefore, firstly to determine whether there is an
association between CRP concentrations and body composition in 19 to 60 year old
black women. Partial Pearson correlations coefficients were used to determine
associations between CRP and several body composition variables. Body mass index
(BMI), waist circumference, percentage body fat and waist-hip-ratio (WHR) were all
significantly correlated with CRP throughout the anthropometric spectrum. An analysis
of variance (ANOVA) with a Games-Howell post hoc test was done to determine
statistically significant differences among the different categories within each of the
body composition variables. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were found within the
categories of all the measured body composition variables, except for the various WHR
categories. During a signal detection analysis, BMI was identified as the best predictor
of increased CRP concentrations at a cut-off point of 27.68 kg/m2.
The second purpose of this study was to assess the relationship of CRP to traditional
cardiovascular risk factors in the study's population sample of 19 to 60 year old black
women. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to analyse log-normalized CRP
concentrations as the dependent variable in relation to several variables which form part
of the traditional risk factors for CHD. All of the variables were significantly correlated
with CRP at the level of p ≤ 0.05, except for total cholesterol and low-density
lipoprotein cholesterol. BMI, percentage body fat and fibrinogen levels were associated
with InCRP at a practically significant level of r ≥ 0.5. BMI and fibrinogen were also
found to be independently associated with InCRP with p ≤ 0.05 during a forward
stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. Within this study's population sample, it
was found that those women who presented with six traditional risk factors had a three
to five-fold increase in CRF' concentrations compared to women with three or less risk
factors. Further research is required to determine appropriate intervention programmes
which could prevent or reduce the incidence of CHD among the obese by means of
weight-loss, therefore, potentially lowering elevated CRP concentrations. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Human Movement Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.
|
130 |
An exploration of the relationship experiences of older black women : applying the Mmogo–methodTM / M.V. MabundaMabunda, Mavhayisi Victor January 2010 (has links)
Relationships are important for older black people in their endeavours to understand the
world. The relationships of older black people have, however, undergone many changes. This
article attempts to explore the relational experiences of older black women using the MmogomethodTM
as a projective technique to obtain insight into the meanings they attach to the
changed relations. The Mmogo–methodTM (Roos, 2008; 2011) is a culturally sensitive
research tool. Eight Swazi–speaking women from eMalahleni in Mpumalanga, South Africa,
with ages ranging from 68 to 88, participated in the research. The research participants were
asked to create visual representations using malleable clay, beads and dry grass stalks to
illustrate aspects of their experiences of relationships with those around them. They then took
part in focus group discussions. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data.
The findings revealed that the older women in the study contributed to relationships by
providing financial support and by taking care of their families and extended families. They
provided financial support by using their government grants to look after their households. In
turn, they received selective physical, emotional and spiritual support. The research revealed
that the older women generally identified one particular person with whom they established a
close relationship. They felt understood in this relationship, which they described as
comforting because their needs were perceived and met by the particular person. The older
women also emphasised the emotional support they received from the community, which
came mainly from people of the same age thus giving them the opportunity to share
information and experiences with their peers while taking part in various activities and while
relaxing. Spiritual support was also a key factor in the relationships among the older people -
they could, for example, share their experiences of life with fellow church members, and
church members also looked after and supported each other in times of illness.
The relational challenges experienced by the older black women were a lack of protection, a
lack of help and support in taking care of their houses, the absence of men, changed norms
and values, and the loss of relationships. The older women said that they felt overwhelmed
and stressed by these challenges. They also felt estranged from intergenerational relationships, which were traditionally regarded as a potential sources of support and care for
older persons. They also did not know how to approach the relationships differently because
the familiar norms and values that had guided intergenerational relationships had changed.
The older women in the study said that they had felt cared for and safe in previous
intergenerational relationships. They longed for the past when, in their view, clear norms and
values guided relational interactions. They felt stressed and overwhelmed by the absence of
men in their traditional roles as providers. Contemporary men also did not fulfil their duties
when compared with men in the old days.
The Mmogo–methodTM which was applied as a projective technique, revealed the meanings
the older black women attached to relationships in their lives. As part of a cross–cultural,
intergenerational research project, this method gave valuable insight into how older black
women perceive their contributions and the challenges related to their relationships. / Thesis (M.A. (Research Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.
|
Page generated in 0.0503 seconds