Thesis advisor: Belle Liang / Research on women's voice and self-silencing has shown that girls begin to silence themselves during adolescence in response to sociocultural pressures to conform to gender norms and as a way to stay relationally connected with others. While the literature on voice for women has been extensive, it has centered primarily on the experiences of European-American women, which may not be generalizable to other ethnic/racial groups. This study extends existing research by examining voice experiences for Asian American women specifically. Given the multiple minority statuses and social roles that are a part of Asian American women's identities, the current study examined the intersecting influences of gender, race, culture, and power, in the experience of voice and authenticity. Specifically, this study explored voice for these women in different social contexts where issues of gender, race and power tend to be salient. Additionally, the study examined the role of racism-related stress and culture in self-silencing. Finally, associations between voice, support for voice, and psychological wellbeing were assessed. Findings indicated that levels of voice, as well as levels of perceived support for voice varied by social context, providing evidence for the importance of social climate in voice. In general, both voice and perceived support for voice were higher in settings with minimal power differentials (i.e., with female and Asian peers vs. with authority figures). In two of the social contexts of interest (i.e., non-Asian peers and male authority figures), racism-related stress was significantly associated with lower levels of voice. Self-construal, which was used as an indicator of cultural tendencies, was also significantly associated with voice; individuals with an independent style had more voice, and those with an interdependent style had less voice. Higher levels of voice were associated with higher perceived support for voice. And ultimately, higher voice was linked with better psychological outcomes. Implications for research, work/school settings, and clinical practice were discussed, as well as limitations and suggestions for future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

This study explored the perceptions of ten White female South African volunteers working with black children diagnosed HIV positive and/or orphaned by AIDS. A qualitative research strategy was used in order to explore the participants’ perceptions of the role that racial dynamics and everyday racism play in their work as volunteers. Ten participants over the age of 18 years, that have been volunteering for a minimum of one month and that volunteer for a minimum of one hour a week at an organisation in Johannesburg, were interviewed. The data were transcribed and analysed using thematic content analysis and the findings were interpreted using a framework drawn from critical race theory and critical Whiteness studies. Notions of everyday racism were evidenced in the findings of the study. These findings challenge traditional notions in a novel way by expanding the current understanding of the racial dynamics at play in a country working towards equality. In doing so, the study raises theoretical and practical implications for efforts aimed to address racism in South Africa.

This research report examines the period of 1950s Sophiatown and its socio-­‐cultural legacy pertaining to race and gender. Though the establishment of a cosmopolitan black identity was significant in its undermining of Nationalist Party segregationist ideology, the struggle for equality was predicated on a racial struggle that subsumed a gendered agenda. The work of Can Themba and Drum magazine, which have become mythologized in the contemporary South African imaginary, are interrogated with particular emphasis on one of Themba’s iconic pieces, The Suit. Through engagement with Themba’s text, this research report foregrounds the processes through which black women have been subjected to multiple, compounded subjugation. In response to the representations of black femininity in The Suit, the film component of this report, The Tailored Suit, privileges the black woman, Matilda’s, articulations. It thus functions to foreground the agency of marginalised subjects. In articulating from the periphery, the subjugated destabilise the hierarchical social structures that would subordinate and objectify them. By engaging the representations in The Suit, part of an iconic historic moment prefiguring the contemporary socio-­‐cultural milieu, the reimagining in The Tailored Suit offers a fragmented frame of reference, positing an alternative to a homogenising masculine discourse on history.

This qualitative study examined the impact and implications of resegregation on students of color by capturing and analyzing the lived experiences of school principals leading high poverty and low poverty schools where resegregation was occurring. Despite the growing concern for resegregation, little has been down to reverse the adverse affects of this phenomenon. The body of research that has explored the essence of resegregation has in small volumes acknowledged the perception of school principals. A much clearer portrait of the impact resegregation was having on schools as perceived by school principals offered an in-depth understanding of the way in which policy and practices affect schools undergoing resegregation. Hence, this study used the hermeneutic phenomenological methodology in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding and meaning of the complex experiences of resegregation from the perspective of school principals. The data was explicated by using Hycner’s (1999) five step process. The findings and conclusion of this study were intended to inform policy alternatives and practices through aggregating collected and analyzed perspectives of school principals of high poverty and low poverty schools. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Os Estados Unidos da América e o Brasil são países que durante séculos fizeram uso intenso da mão-de-obra escrava, trazida de diferentes regiões da África. Após a Abolição da Escravidão os dois países adotaram políticas diferentes de relações raciais, com conseqüências devastadoras para os ex-escravos e seus descendentes. Alice Walker e Conceição Evaristo, autoras afro-americana e afro-brasileira, respectivamente, apresentam em seus romances uma análise das relações étnicas em seus países, apontando a origem dos problemas da população negra e propondo soluções para os mesmos. Através de uma análise comparativa dos dois romances The third life of Grange Copeland e Ponciá Vicêncio - sob a ótica da crítica literária marxista, este trabalho propõe-se a apresentar os pontos em comum e os pontos divergentes entre as duas sociedades. Norteada pela relação entre literatura, história e sociedade, a análise das duas obras vem demonstrar que, embora aparentemente antagônicos, os dois países são extremamente racistas, dominados por relações de opressão derivadas de um sistema econômico regido pelo consumo e pelo lucro, e de uma cultura que não aceita a diferença no caso dos Estados Unidos, declaradamente, e no caso do Brasil, mascarada pela imagem de paraíso racial. Como conseqüência, verifica-se que a cultura opressora dos dois países é tão arraigada que ambas as autoras não conseguem vislumbrar uma solução plausível para o problema, que consiga fugir dos conceitos sócio-políticos solidamente erigidos através dos séculos. / The United States of America and Brazil made use of African slave labour for centuries. After the end of the slavery system both countries adopted different racial policies, with devastating consequences both to ex-slaves and their descendents. Alice Walker and Conceição Evaristo, afro-American and afro-Brazilian writers, respectively, present in their novels an analysis of the ethnical relations in their countries, pointing out the origin of the Black community problems and proposing a way to solve them. Through the comparative analysis of both novels - The third life of Grange Copeland and Ponciá Vicêncio - under the Marxist literary criticism approach, this study aims at presenting both the common and the different aspects of the two societies. Centred on the relationship among literature, history and society, the analysis of both works demonstrates that, although apparently unlike, the two countries are extremely racist, permeated by oppressive relations derived from an economical system guided by consumerism and profit, and by a culture which does not accept difference openly in The United States of America, and, in Brazil, disguised under the image of racial paradise. As a consequence, it becomes clear that the oppressive culture of both countries is so deeply rooted that neither writer is able to find a plausible solution to the problem, one that could escape from the socio-political concepts solidly built through centuries.

Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. Lyerly / Examines the rise and fall of slavery in Connecticut from the American Revolution to the state's 1848 law abolishing slavery. Also explores the racism present among the state's abolitionists and general populace that differentiated it from surrounding New England states. Explains the distinct nature of Connecticut abolitionism when compared to the national organization. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: History Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Maureen E. Kenny / Recent research suggests that eating disorders exist across genders, races and ethnicities (e.g., Smolak & Striegel-Moore, 2001; Striegel-Moore & Smolak, 2000; Talleyrand, 2002, 2006; Taylor, Caldwell, Baser, Faison, & Jackson, 2007; Thompson, 1994, 1996), but most findings and frameworks within the eating disorders literature are based on research with White women who engage in restrictive eating patterns. Given the rapid rise in rates of obesity and related illnesses in the United States — particularly among Black American women (e.g., Hedley et al., 2004), an understanding of overeating that accounts for race-related factors is needed. By exploring the relationship between perceived racism, racial socialization, perceived stress, and overeating patterns among Black American women, the current study sought to develop a model of disordered eating that accounts for the unique contextual, emotional, and behavioral factors in the lives of Black American women. Using a sample of Black American women (N = 201), the results of the data analysis revealed that perceived racism was related to overeating by way of perceived stress. This finding supports theories that race–related factors underlie the development of eating disorder symptoms (e.g., Harris & Kuba, 1997) and that perceived racism may be a significant etiological factor in the development of eating disturbances among Black American women (Mastria, 2002; Root, 1990; Smolak & Striegel-Moore, 2001; Thompson, 1994, 1996; Talleyrand, 2006). This finding also adds to the larger body of literature, which links perceived racism to a range of negative psychological, behavioral, and physical outcomes (e.g., Mays et al., 2007). Racial socialization was not found to have a significant moderating effect in the relationship between perceived racism and overeating, but was unexpectedly found to be related to disinhibition around food. Although the explanation for this finding is unclear, it is consistent with some evidence that that identification with Black American culture may promote greater levels of comfort regarding food (Talleyrand, 2006; Villarosa, 1994). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Thesis advisor: James M. O'Toole / This dissertation argues that the movement to restrict European immigration to the United States in the early 1900s was critically supported by a set of ideas that the dissertation refers to as "classic racialism." Derived from several intellectual traditions - such as anthropology, biology, criminology, eugenics and zoology - classic racialism posited that differences in human population groups were biologically determined and hereditary, and because of this fact, American nativists held that the "new" immigration to the United States had to be curtailed in order to save the American Anglo-Saxon racial stock. The dissertation uses Italian immigration to the United States as a case study for understanding the fluidity of racial and biological thought. While classic racialism played a key role in supporting nativists' calls for immigration restriction, advances in methods of scientific research were revolutionizing the fields of biology, genetics and anthropology. Research in these fields cast doubts on the veracity of intellectual claims made by classic racialists, which were increasingly untenable in the light of advancing scientific knowledge. The tensions between these competing intellectual paradigms of classic racialism and modern experimentalism in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries reveal the esoteric nature of scientific revolutions, in that the uncertainty and complexity of the developing biological and genetic sciences kept knowledge of scientific advances in these fields restricted to a narrow audience of professional scientists and academics. While modern experimental biology raised significant scientific doubts about the principles of classic racialism, it was the latter that influenced American immigration policy in the 1920s because of classic racialism's simplicity and the broad public recognition that "like produces like." / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Thesis advisor: William Gamson / Thesis advisor: Zine Magubane / This dissertation examines Internal Colonialism Theory's importance to a comprehensive understanding of the oppression of African Americans still living in USA ghettos. It briefly explores the180 year history of Black activist depictions of a "nation within a nation," the impact of the depression-era Marxist notion of a Negro nation, Latin American influences on Robert Blauner, and the pervasive effect of international anti-colonialism and the Black Power Movement upon the development of American academic Internal Colonialism Theory. This appraisal evaluates Blauner's seminal presentation, Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt, and the major contributions of Robert L. Allen and Mario Barrera in analyzing African American and Chicano internal colonial experiences respectively. It re-assesses colonialism and moves beyond Eurocentric characterizations to elaborate a Continuum of Colonialism, including direct, indirect, external, internal, and "end of" colonialisms. This analysis addresses the contradiction that the American Revolution supposedly decolonized America without improving colonized conditions for African Americans or Native Americans, and defines internal colonialism as geographically based, disagreeing with the prevailing interpretation which contemplates the existence of diasporic African America as one collective colony. While summarizing the USA's course from settler colony system to today's inner cities of the colonized, this investigation explores African American class formation utilizing a variation of Marable's conception of Racial Domains as historical context through to the present. With the majority of African Americans in ghettos [internal colonies] scattered around the USA, this document outlines the positive and negative means of ending internal colonial situations within the contemporary USA. While elaborating how Internal Colonialism Theory quite practically fits harmoniously within several differing conceptualizations of American and global racial relations, this perspective offers a framework for more rigorous future discussions and debates about Internal Colonialism Theory, and previews three major international populations to which this assessment of Internal Colonialism Theory can be extended. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

A presente dissertação tem o objetivo de analisar nos romances O outro pé da sereia (COUTO, 2006) e Yaka (PEPETELA, 2006) a representação da situação colonial e os resultados da dicotomia colonizador e colonizado nas sociedades moçambicana e angolana, ficcionalizadas por Mia Couto e Pepetela nessas obras. Objetiva-se, ainda, verificar a forma como os romances mergulham no passado colonial de seus países de origem para problematizar questões acerca das sociedades citadas, avaliando as perspectivas que figuram no tempo presente. Estabeleceu-se, então, uma leitura a partir de um processo histórico comum, a colonização portuguesa, para explicitar as contradições resultantes desse período. Para tanto, nos apoiamos no diálogo entre literatura e história, presente nos romances estudados, para identificar e destacar as contradições coloniais, sobretudo em relação às representações da violência e do racismo nas duas obras. / This study aims to analyze the representation of the colonial situation and which are the results of the dichotomy colonizer and colonized in Mozambican and Angolan societies through the novels O outro pé da sereia (COUTO, 2006) and Yaka (PEPETELA, 2006). In addition, it aims to examine how the novels rely on colonial past of its countries to discuss issues about the societies mentioned, evaluating the prospects contained in the present. It was established an analysis of the novels from an historical process in common, which is the Lusitanian colonization, to explain the contradictions resulting from this situation. For that, we rely on a dialogue between literature and history, present in the reading of O outro pé da sereia and Yaka, to identify and highlight the colonial contradictions, especially the ones related to the representations of violence and racism in both novels.