Many young adult African American men living in urban areas adopt a style of self-presentation known as the gangsta image in an attempt to earn and maintain what they may perceive to be respect, self-esteem, and social status. While these young men succeed in earning the respect of their peers, they also may jeopardize their chances of succeeding in mainstream society by engaging in an alienating lifestyle related to their alternative form of status. The purpose of this case study was to explore the concepts of respect and self-esteem as defined by a culture-sharing group of young African American men living in an urban environment. Using the theoretical lens of Goffman's dramaturgical model of social interactions, case studies of 4 young African American males' experience of self-esteem and respect as components of social acceptance were explored. Their sources of teachings about respect and social position received from the authority figures in their environment, as well as the contextual factors that shaped their self-concept, were also delineated. The research used a qualitative, case study design. Data were collected from observations, interviews, participatory photography, and document review and analyzed by coding and concept mapping using Atlas.ti software. The key finding was that perceptions of self-respect were connected to ongoing negative relationships with mainstream society and law enforcement. This study contributes to social change by helping human services professionals to comprehend the meaning and significance of respect and self-esteem for this population. This understanding can then inform practices related to engaging and supporting the mainstream success of this important group.

Hispanic students often suffer from acculturative stress as they adapt to U.S. college environments; however, few scholars have examined the acculturative stress relationship among undocumented versus documented Hispanic college students. In this quantitative, correlational study design, adaptation levels related to acculturative stress between both statuses were examined. The theoretical foundations of this study are based on the social cognitive career theory. This investigation focused on determining how adaptation levels predict Hispanic college students' acculturative stress and whether this realtionship differ between documented and undocumented college students. The I-Adapt measure was used to measure participants' level of adaptability and the social, attitudinal, familial and educational or the Social, Attitudinal, Familial and Educational (S.A.F.E) measurement was used to measure their acculturative stress levels. The sample consisted of 165 Hispanic college students recruited from a private northeastern university. Contrarily to the main hypothesis, Regression analysis revealed that higher levels of cultural and crisis adaptability predicted lower levels of acculturative stress while higher levels of work stress adaptability predicted higher levels of acculturative stress. Future research should focus on further examination differences in adaptation toward acculturative stress and the aftermath of acculturative stress adaptation methods between documented and undocumented college students. The findings of this study can contribute to social change by informing immigration laws to adopt in order to protect college educated, skilled and productive immigrants.

The complex social issue of domestic violence is a global problem. Its multifaceted impacts are devastating to those far beyond the immediate victim and perpetrator. On the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, domestic violence incidences are frequent. While customary, reactive intervention and research initiatives in Trinidad have focused mainly on women and children, curbing this social ill has been unsuccessful. This dissertation sought to balance the domestic violence equation by exploring Trinidadian men’s perspectives on this social issue and also sought to examine their perspectives on the concept of male marginalization in relation. Using a qualitative method of inquiry, the researcher collected data from a sample of twelve Trinidadian men; seven took part in one-on-one open-ended interview sessions, and the remaining five participated in a focus group. Two central research questions guided the study: (1) What are men’s perceived reasons about why Trinidadian men perpetrate domestic violence against women in Trinidad? (2) What are men’s perspectives on male marginalization and its influence on why men perpetrate domestic violence against women in Trinidad? The study found that the participants perceived Trinidadian men’s domestic violence perpetrating habits to be a result of several factors such as: a need to be in control, feel powerful and to demand respect; men’s inability to communicate feelings and emotions; childhood socialization experiences and lack of consequences for perpetrators. Additionally, male marginalization was perceived to be a result of women’s upward mobility in education, employment and income earning capabilities. Participants perceived male marginalization as contributory to men’s perpetration of domestic violence in Trinidad.

The Adult Education sector in South Africa (SA) occupies a crucial space in higher education (HE) in terms of securing access and opportunities for a diverse group of non-traditional students to further their development. Amongst this diversity are highly marginalized subgroupings of adult learners, especially black working-class women. Participation of these women within HE requires serious attention given the low social ranking that this group continues to occupy in all spheres. Evidence drawn from Adult Education research suggests that not enough attention has been given to this group of learners with respect to how they are impacted by issues of geographic, cultural and racial diversity in the Adult Education setting. This study undertaken here reports on transformative dimensions underlining Adult Education pedagogy, with a specific focus on the concept of empowerment and how this is attained by RPL learners. A qualitative case-study methodology using a critical interpretive perspective grounded in phenomenological enquiry, was used to develop contextual understandings of four disadvantaged adult female learners' experiences of their transitions into HE. The focus is on these learners' perceptions of the forms of empowerment they have gained from their participation in a Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course, and the extent to which such empowerment has impacted positive change in their lives, even beyond the course. The argument made in this qualitative study is that the active participation of marginalized black women in Adult Education, does lead to the attainment of multiple levels of self-empowerment. Such empowerment is realized when the objectives of national educational provisions, operationalized through Adult Education legislature, are correctly aligned with the transformative and social justice mission of Adult Education theory and practice. Proper alignment yields desirable outcomes in terms of enabling transformative learning environments that engender experiences of self-empowerment, agency and control. To this effect, an evaluative study was conducted of the Higher Certificate in Education in Adult Education (HCEAE) course offered by the University of Cape Town. The findings in this study demonstrate that factors such as race, geographic setting and cultural location, impact experiences of empowerment amongst adult learners. Furthermore, it is evident that such experiences of empowerment is a multi-layered and dynamic process which occur at cognitive, personal and social levels that can only be realized through praxis. The bringing together of educational policy, theory, and practice in proactive and productive ways in this study, also offers the potential for designing new hybrid frameworks for assessing the extent to which Adult Education provisions successfully achieve their transformative function, beyond the educational setting.

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Supports to improve self-care or self-management are beneficial for many people living with health issues, especially chronic conditions. Yet, socioeconomically marginalized groups have often been neglected from self-management initiatives, despite experiencing an increased prevalence of chronicity and multimorbidity. To this end, there are several established critiques within the self-management literature that are addressed through this dissertation. First, limited attention has been given to equity considerations within self-management, thus there remain gaps in the evidence base around disadvantaged groups. Second, there is a lack of understanding about the mechanisms that make self-management supports work, as well as little evidence to explain the wide extent of non-participation, including understanding the impact of structural barriers. Third, the social embeddedness of self-care has received little attention, despite people highlighting social roles as important concerns within self-care. In addition, the grassroots history of self-care has been neglected, which has resulted in minimal recognition of the role of mutual aid/self-help groups. This dissertation includes two exploratory, qualitative studies that attend to these knowledge gaps: the first explored self-care experiences among people who use drugs with chronic health issues, and the second explored mutual support among people experiencing homelessness within the context of encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study findings are also contextualized by worsening overdose and housing crises. I employed community-based participatory research methods and the transformative framework to contend with social injustice and power imbalance and amplify the worldviews of marginalized groups. We conducted in-depth interviews and reflexive thematic analysis to analyze data. Overarching findings demonstrate the importance of agency in shaping how marginalized groups manage their health and social needs, the critical structural limitations they face in doing so, and the substantial influence of their formal and informal social supports. Thus, findings show the importance of recognizing these groups’ alternative and holistic practices of care, the need to address structural and systemic barriers that inhibit their capacity for care, and the immense value of harnessing social support networks to meet care needs. Programs intended to support self-care among marginalized communities would benefit from incorporating a relational autonomy lens and community-centered approach.

The district of Barranco is the smallest in the city of Lima, Peru, and is marked by the inequality in the socio-economic level of its inhabitants and a differentiated capacity in their access to public spaces. The present study seeks to explore, through an analysis of the public space and its characteristics, the causes, conditions and structural dynamics of inequality that produce and reproduce segregation and marginalization in the district of Barranco. For this research, interviews, participant observation, cartographic analysis and literature review have been employed. Theoretically, the concepts of public space, gentrification and spatial justice are used in order to examine the power relationships that are manifested and reproduced in the constant recreation of public space. The preliminary results show that the relationship of segregation in the district is based on the indifference and the active role of the municipal governments in promoting the stratification of the district through a zoning delimitation that spatially excludes the less favored, and differentiated policies over the public space in function of that zoning. These processes accentuate the social and historical division of the inhabitants of the district, which makes it even more difficult the appropriation of public space by the less favored sector.

Beyond the binary borders of sex-A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEORY AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT.GERGANA TOSEVAKARIN SELINA thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012.The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transgender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transgender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions:1.Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined?2.In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary?3.Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject?We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using “fuzzy logic”(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead. Furthermore do we believe a female embodied subject can be of great importance to the transgender people because that is the other half of the issue of equality.