Black girls continue to suffer from inequitable treatment in schools resulting in disparate academic and social outcomes. While deficit ideologists have continued to attribute outcomes to cultural deficiencies within the Black community, research has found various systemic issues of racism and sexism seriously affecting Black girls in schools. However, the experiences of this population remain under or uninvestigated. When Black girls’ experiences in school are investigated, they are commonly framed as a group in need of saving and their perspectives and voices eliminated from the work. Further, this group is often homogenized and all their experiences limited to those of the inner-city or urban environments. Using a critical raced-gendered epistemology, grounded in critical race theory and Black feminism/womanism, this qualitative interview study explores Black high school girls’ experiences in a predominately White suburban public school in the southeast. Through the method of storytelling that includes constructing counter narratives, five girls (ages 14-16) relay their experiences in this predominately White suburban educational space. Parent reflections as well as document review augment these girls’ stories to further illuminate their experience. A grounded theory analysis of these data uses my own cultural intuition. This analytic approach foregrounds the intersectionality of Black girls’ understanding of their racial and gendered educational experiences in a predominantly White suburban environment, the systemic barriers that serve to inhibit their success, and the methods of resistance girls use to persist in these spaces. This study is significant in both its methodology as well as results, offering critical insight into how to conduct equitable and liberatory research and create education policies to improve outcomes for this underserved group.

By taking the experiences and narratives of Indonesian women in Malaysia as the empirical material, this dissertation offers an analysis on spatialised power practices in the context of paid domestic workers. Family survival prompts these women to work abroad, but patriarchal norms shift their economic contribution as supplementary to the men’s role as the breadwinner. The interviews reveal that these women chose Malaysia as their destination country after having listened to oral stories, but despite the transnational mobility involved in their decisions, they are rendered immobile in the employers’ house. Furthermore, the analysis shows an intricate ensemble of power relations in which gender, class and nationality/ethnicity interact with each other, inform and reproduce spatialised domination and labour exploitation practices by the employers. Immigration status of the workers, meanwhile, puts them in a subordinated position in relation to the employers, citizens of the host country. Without the recognition from the state on this particular form of embodied labour, the employers are responsible for defining the working conditions of the workers, leading to precarious conditions. Findings on several resistance practices by the workers complete the analysis of power practices, where resistance is treated as an entangled part of power. Contributing to the study of gendered geographies of exploitation, the study identifies the home and the body as the main levels of analysis; meanwhile, practices at the national level by the state, media and recruitment/placement agencies and globalisation processes are identified as interrelated factors that legitimate the employers’ practices of exploitation. Finally, the dissertation contributes to feminist geography analysis on gender, space, and power through South-South migration empirics.

Women’s lived experiences of abuse and depression are examined within the context of gendered and racialized pathways to incarceration among 403 women randomly selected from a diagnostic unit in a state prison. This study utilizes feminist action research and community psychological methods to understand what factors predict incarcerated women’s placement on the mental health caseload and provides quantitative support for the pathways theoretical framework. Findings indicate that, among the sample, the prevalence of abuse experiences prior to incarceration exceeded 90%, prevalence of mental health problems exceeded 70%, and less than 35% were receiving mental health care. Being Caucasian, experiencing depression and suicidal ideation, and serving time for certain types of (non-violent, non-property, and non-drug related) crime (e.g., cruelty to children, prostitution, public order, “technicals,” and others) predicted the placement of women on the mental health caseload. Implications for trauma-informed, anti-racist, gender-responsive policies and interventions are discussed.

Research indicates that female athletes have long occupied marginal and sometimes invisible positions in sport settings and mainstream media. The focus of this study is on understanding and analyzing how race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression shape women’s professional sport using as the focal point, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the type of mainstream media coverage it receives. The researcher believes that a better understanding of these varied experiences would add depth and knowledge to research on CSR in sport, women and sport research, as well as allow professional leagues and teams to move forward with a more informed perspective regarding design, delivery, and overall purpose of CSR in women’s professional sport. The purposefully selected sample includes six semi-structured interviews with league and team executives from the Women’s Tennis Association, Ladies Professional Golf, Women’s National Basketball Association, and Women’s Professional Soccer. Additionally, this study includes content analysis of 218 public organizational documents and a content analysis of the New York Times Sports sections. The data was coded and organized according to the research questions. Analysis and interpretation of findings were organized by way of two analytic categories that were based on the study’s conceptual framework: (a) Intersectionality and sport, and (b) How and why women’s professional sport leagues and teams engage in CSR. Ultimately, this study is important because CSR initiatives often serve as a way to connect with the community, bring attention to socially relevant issues, and highlight athletes who serve as positive role models for youth. Race, class, and gender discrimination by the sporting public negatively impacts the level of interest in women’s sport, which, in turn affects the ability of women’s professional sport leagues and teams to effectively engage in CSR. As a result of discriminatory practices, opportunities to conduct meaningful outreach to young women and girls are weakened. Recommendations are offered for future research possibilities. Given that there are multiple factors that affect CSR in women’s professional sport and the type of mainstream media coverage leagues and teams receive, the recommendations generated by this research should be considered for their appropriateness on an individual basis.

Master of Arts / Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work / Robert Schaeffer / This thesis examines Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A), one of the oldest organizations of the Chicano movement. History shows that M.E.Ch.A has been able to reflect on itself and change accordingly; thus, it has been able to stay alive due to internal debates from the 1960s to the 1990s. In the 1960s, male, heterosexual Mexicans dominated the Chicano movement. In the 1980s, Xicanas challenged them to look past their privileges into more intersectional, inclusive identities. My research question is: in 2013, how do Californian MEChistAs view themselves, their political consciousness, and their social justice work? MEChistAs view themselves as an inclusive, diverse, and progressive organization. Chican@/Xican@ is a political identity and ideology that includes women, queers, and non-Mexicans. Women and queers took leadership of the organization, which shows that the revised historical documents made a difference. However, M.E.Ch.A continues a Mexican-centric organization that isolates Central Americans, South Americans, and Afro-Latin@s. M.E.Ch.A has changed since the 1960s in many ways, but the work continues. M.E.Ch.A still needs to address several internal debates as an organization, such as: Aztlán’s meanings, community versus campus organizing, generational gaps, and working with social organizations. Despite these debates, M.E.Ch.A has survived. Using 22 in-depth interviews with contemporary MEChistAs in California from 10 different universities, I examined the identities and politics of M.E.Ch.A activists. I enact Dorothy Smith and Patricia Hill Collin’s standpoint theory to guide the research and apply third world feminism and ideology/utopia theories to analyze the ideas and concepts of the MEChistAs.

This is a theoretical and exploratory study of the social construction of the lived experience I am calling "ableness."  Through the repetition of behaviors and practices performed by able-bodied people, the representation of the able body has come to appear natural and unconsciously taken for granted, as they do not have to think about their bodies in interaction with everyday objects. I argue that this able-bodied solipsism is heightened in advanced industrial societies where discourses and practices created by Human-Factors Engineering compile knowledge based on the assumption that the able body is the norm. This knowledge is then employed in the fabrication of everyday items. Through an examination of theoretical perspectives on impaired bodies, a history of human-factors engineering, and an ethnography of how able bodies interact with their everyday surroundings, I intend to uncover the assumptions underlying the social construction of "ableness" and able-bodied solipsism.

The small island of St Barthélemy was a Swedish colony 1784–1878 and saw its greatest population growth and trade during the turn of the nineteenth century. This was because of Gustavia, the Swedish founded free port, which attracted mariners from the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Their goal was to become Swedish subjects, as Swedish neutrality provided a benefit during the various wars at this time between France, Great Britain and the United States. As these mariners changed their national allegiance from their country of origin to Sweden, questions about their political rights emerged. The makeup, as well as the role, of the local council became a contested issue between native and naturalized Swedes. This conflict, as well as many other local and global issues, was discussed in various mediums. I have examined petitions, the newspaper The Report of Saint Bartholomew and discussions within the council, to create an understanding of how political expression was formed by the population, as well as controlled by Swedish administrators. This analysis has been performed through an intersectional framework considering gender, race and ethnicity. My study shows that while most native and naturalized Swedes believed in input from the population, they had different perceptions of what the purpose of this input was. The Swedish administration saw the political participation of the naturalized population as purely advisory, without any obligation to perform its wishes, which the population resented and protested. Gender played a significant role in the formation of political expression, as masculinity was essential to the identity of white men and free men of colour as political subjects. Yet ethnicity, in terms of place of birth, had no significant impact among the free population’s political identity, although it did render them politically unreliable in the eye of native Swedish administration.

Bakgrunden till denna studie var att det fanns ett behov av att se över hur den svenska arbetsmarknaden behandlar kvinnor med slöja (hijab). Detta då det svenska arbetslivet i vissa fall kan ses som etniskt ojämlik. Syftet med studien var att ge kvinnorna en röst i ämnet samt att lyfta deras upplevelser med hjälp utav ett sociologiskt perspektiv. För att ta del av deras upplevelser gjordes en kvalitativ studie med en hermeneutisk ansats och tematisk innehållanalys. Det utfördes åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med kvinnor som bar slöja i arbetet. Från intervjuerna framkom fyra teman: upplevelser, bemötande, samhällets påverkan samt reaktion. Resultatet visade att slöjan är en viktig del i kvinnornas identitet samtidigt som samhället och arbetsmarknaden har svårt att acceptera deras slöjbärande. Kvinnornas arbetstillfredsställelse samt deras psykosociala arbetsmiljö påverkades då de utsattes för fördomar och diskriminering i sina arbetsliv.

Racial profiling: Personal experiences that people of color face in Sweden  The purpose of this study is to explore the personal experiences of racial profiling that people of color face in Sweden. Racial profiling is a social issue in the world today and a much-disputed subject in the Swedish society. The study was conducted with qualitative interviews with four people of color in Sweden. The intersectionality perspective was used as an analytical tool to analyze the experiences people of color face with the help of social constructionism theory. The results showed that all four interviewees have experienced racial profiling in different settings in their lives. In addition, the study showed that the interviewees’ experiences of racial profiling differed depending on the interviewees’ identity attributes such as gender, race, and their religious affiliation affecting their vulnerability and experiences of racial profiling. The findings also show that the four informants have experienced and are vulnerable to everyday racism in Sweden due to the existing prejudices in the Swedish society.

The #MeToo movement is related to new forms of feminism, taking advantage of the online space for mobilisation. There are currently debates on the effect of feminist universalisation, post-colonial feminism and global movement’s on a local level. This study aims to understand how a globalmovement like the #MeToo integrates into already existing feminist efforts. While using India as a caste study, 10 urban Indian feminists have been interviewed to share their experiences on contemporary feminist mobilisation and the #MeToo movement. The study finds that the #MeToo movement have had an impact on Indian feminism, but at the same time is limited in its reach. Indian feminism is identified as ever diverse, with an increased incentive to learn and exchange experiences over identities to make feminist efforts more inclusive.