This study co-investigated with students with hidden disabilities the phenomenon of disability identity. This qualitative study utilized phenomenology and strategies proposed by Paulo Freire in an effort to understand identity development specific to individuals with hidden disabilities. There were seven students from a medium-sized, public university who participated in the study. The participants shared their experiences with having a hidden disability in three one-hour individual conversations and three two-hour group conversations. The conversations were tape recorded and transcribed. The concepts and themes that appeared to emerge from the initial conversation guided subsequent conversations. Findings revealed that the use of traditional identity development literature was not useful to understanding students with hidden disabilities. Relying on social constructivist concepts findings revealed the following themes: 1) Identity Confusion they tended to be neither able-bodied nor disabled; 2) Identity Refinement they depended on perceptions of the other to varying degrees; and 3) Identity Reconciliation they were using accommodations to varying degrees. A potential area for action and further study revolves around students with hidden disabilities, disability services practitioners, faculty and college student services administrators understanding the issues of normalcy and American individualism and their influence on both individuals with and without disabilities. Furthermore, fostering the development of a support system where students with hidden disabilities can interact with each other and discuss disability-related issues may help them cope with a fundamentally hostile collegiate environment. The institution may need to educate students, staff and faculty about the social construction of disability and the need to create a learning environment inclusive of diverse learners. / Graduation date: 2003

In this thesis, I explore experiences with my identity, looking at the identity people have seen me as, who I've thought I was, and the identities my mother's and father's different family backgrounds suggest I should be. I have divided this discussion into three main areas: my complexion, the first time I became aware of racial differences while living on Stats Street in Las Vegas, and my stay at Fort Dix, New Jersey during Army Basic Training. I explore my complexion first because it has been the biggest factor in my own understanding of my identity. Because of my darker complexion. I've been mistaken as Mexican, Cuban, Filipino, and African-American, and judged (misjudged) accordingly. It has often branded me as a "trouble maker" and made me feel ugly and inferior to my white friends. In the thesis' middle section, I look specifically at my stay on Stats Street, in a lower income housing "project." During my stay there, all of my neighbors, except one, were African American. I felt a constant barrier between me and my neighbors because of skin color and the different ideologies and lifestyles I came in contact with there. Finally, I look at a period of my life when I was forced to live among a very diverse group of people. In the Army, I was seen as a kind of anomaly because I didn't fit into the naturally occurring groups that formed. Through my entire discussion, I attempt to present a metaphor for the ever-changing and ever-creating process of identity that I've seen myself go through and continue to go through: mending walls and tearing walls down. I present a notion of identity, and ethnicity, that is in flux for everyone, one that is constantly being constructed and deconstructed. I do not attempt to enter into the discussions on ethnicity in order to offer a way to approach ethnicity or multiculturalism, but I do offer my discussion here as a process of one Japanese-Hawaiian, Cherokee Indian man who is still searching for his identity yet has begun to understand, at least, his own process of identity. / Graduation date: 1996

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. [131]-142)

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Theses (Faculty of Education) / Simon Fraser University. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-251).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-266).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 193-200).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 52 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-41).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-196).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-61).