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This study argues that gender is a significant factor to consider in investigations of political opinions and presents evidence of the relevance of gender to support for various issues and in the social construction of opinion. Moreover, it argues that the patterning of women's and men's opinions, and differences in the sources of those opinions, point to a difference in political cultures: a women's political culture and a men's political culture. Using survey evidence gathered at the time of the 1988 Canadian federal election, the study follows three separate investigative paths in an attempt to uncover the existence of distinctive political cultures. The first path investigates gender gaps in opinions at the time of the election and links these findings to earlier work suggesting the existence of a women's agape ethos, their weaker hawkishness, and their weaker support of continentalism. It is shown that controls for women's lower average incomes, their lesser educational attainment, their greater support of feminism, and gender roles do not fully account for differences in women's and men's attitudes. Moreover, evidence is addressed of women's greater religious fundamentalism, which often works in such a fashion on attitudes as to attenuate gender gaps in opinions. The second path investigates the social structure of women's and men's opinions and finds that despite the similarity of opinion on a number of issues, divergence appears in the sources of opinion. The influence of economic self-interest, age cohort, region, social group memberships, religious fundamentalism and feminism are found to vary between women and men across a number of issues. The third and final path elaborates on opinion structure by the investigation of women's and men's belief systems, that is the connections between various opinions and the manner in which these connections are hierarchical. Although women's and men's belief systems are very similar, the positioning of feininist belief differs by gender. For women, regardless of their level of political sophistication, feminism is connected to the most basic ideological belief, economic liberalism. For men, however, ferninism is only connected with ideological belief among the politically sophisticated. The study links this evidence to the existence of a women's political culture and argues that it stems partially from each gender's socialization, but that it is a culture in transition. The weakening of religious belief generally is likely to result in larger gender gaps in opinion in the future.

This-thesis has examined abortion attitudes and trends during the 1972 through 1977 time span using such independent variables as age, sex, race, education, religious membership frequency of church attendance and• survey date. Log-linear techniques were employed to test the magnitude and nature of the effects of these independent variables on the dependent variable (abortion attitude).Data which was drawn from the General Social Survey (GSS) indicate the abortion attitudes held by the American public became more favorable immediately following the Supreme Court decision in 1973 and thereafter a plateauing effect of support occurred.Further statistical examination of the data shows that age, sex, and religious denomination are not significantly related to attitudes toward abortion and only small effects are noted for race and survey date. However, the two most important variables with the strongest impace on abortion attitudes are frequency of church attendance and educational attainment.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-216) / Microfiche. / x, 216 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-324). / Microfiche. / xviii, 324 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references. / Microfiche. / xxiii, 481 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Adolescent pregnancy and birth rates in the United States continue to decline, however, approximately four in ten adolescent girls become pregnant before they reach 20 years old (Kirby, 2001). There is a paucity of research on the perceptions of mothers and how they relate to their young pregnant adolescents (15 years old and younger) during pregnancy. This study describes the attitudes, values, beliefs, and cultural meaning from the mothers' perspective of the relationship with their pregnant daughters. A descriptive design and naturalistic approach (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was taken to allow the researcher to learn from people rather than to simply study them (Spradley, 1979). Audio taped interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. A non-random, purposive, convenience sample of five mothers of pregnant adolescents (ages 13 to 15) were recruited and interviewed when their daughters were 30 to 35 weeks gestation. Three cultural themes emerged from the analysis: (1) mothers' relationship with their young pregnant adolescent daughter although somewhat conflicted prior to pregnancy, draws them closer together as the pregnancy progresses focusing on caring for and meeting the needs ofthe pregnancy; (2) reactions of mothers to finding out about the pregnancy have qualities similar to the process of grief/loss; and (3) mothers' advice to parents of preteens/young teens is to keep communication open and teach about sex and birth control, however, ifthe teen becomes pregnant, be there for her. This study confirms previous literature and research about the relationship of mothers and daughters and adds groundbreaking new information about how mothers relate to their young pregnant adolescents during pregnancy. This study adds to nursing science insight into changes in the mother-daughter relationship caused by pregnancy and related issues of parenting a pregnant adolescent. The notion that the mother needs to continue parenting her daughter while she is pregnant is important. Further research needs to be done to explore the needs of mothers of young pregnant adolescent daughters. The risk status of mothers needs to be addressed, practice approaches need to be generated and developmental programs for mothers at risk may need to be created and tested.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. 390-414.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-129). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1941. / Bibliography: p. 77-81.