<p> This qualitative study sought to examine the Holy Cross Immersion, a service-learning trip for senior boys at Holy Cross School, New Orleans, Louisiana. The specific focus of the study is whether the experience increased the participants&rsquo; awareness of social justice issues, leading to future civic involvement. Individual interviews were conducted with nine young men who participated in an Immersion service-learning experience as seniors in high school between the years of 2011 and 2014. A focus group followed with three of the participants. I kept a journal throughout the interviews to document observations. Data were collected from the journal and interviews and analyzed using qualitative phenomenological methods. Findings of this study suggest that the Holy Cross Immersion service-learning trip is effective in helping adolescent males understand the marginalized in society, increasing their awareness of social justice issues, and contributing to their desire to volunteer.</p><p>

<p> This study examined sexual victimization, resilience, and revictimization in the transgender community. Participants were recruited nationally through targeted Facebook advertising. This study observed that transgender participants were more likely to experience victimization and revictimization when compared to cisgender participants. It was also observed that transgender participants had more positive attitudes toward help-seeking but scored lower on a resilience scale than cisgender and sexual minorities. Implications will be discussed. </p><p>

<p> This thesis examined the extent to which rape-supportive attitudinal self-other differences (SODs) predicted college men&rsquo;s willingness to intervene as bystanders in potential situations of rape and sexual assault. The study also assessed the extent to which masculine gender role stress (MGRS) moderated this relationship. The online survey study included 33 undergraduate male students at a large state-sponsored university in southern California. Participants were asked for their attitudes and beliefs about masculinity, rape, and sexual assault, as well as the degree to which they would be willing to intervene against rape and sexual assault. Additionally, the survey asked participants how supportive of rape they thought to be the average male student on their campus. Results from OLS regression indicated that rape-supportive attitudinal SODs significantly predicted participants&rsquo; reported willingness to intervene, such that those with higher SODs reported lower willingness. Results from hierarchical linear regression indicated that MGRS had no moderating effect.</p><p>

<p> This study investigated the learning preferences of female students enrolled in pre-requisite math classes that are gateway to chemistry, engineering, and physics majors at a 4-year public university in southern California. A gender gap exists in certain Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines; this gap may be exacerbated by pedagogies that favor males and make learning more difficult for females. STEM-related jobs were forecast to increase 22% from 2004 to 2014. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Women&rsquo;s Bureau, only 18.8% of industrial engineers are female. From 2006 - 2011, at the institution where this study took place, the percentage of females who graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering was 16.63%. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2010 there were 1.569 million &ldquo;Engineering Occupations&rdquo; in the U.S., of which only 200,000 (12.7%) were held by females. STEM professions are highly paid and prestigious; those members of society who hold these positions enjoy a secure financial and societal place. </p><p> This study uses the <i>Women&rsquo;s Ways of Knowing, Procedural Knowledge: Separate and Connected Knowing</i> theoretical framework. A modified version of the Attitudes Toward Thinking and Learning Survey was used to assess student&rsquo;s pedagogical preference. Approximately 700 math students were surveyed; there were 486 respondents. The majority of the respondents (<i>n</i>=366; 75.3%) were STEM students. This study did not find a statistically significant relationship between gender and student success; however, there was a statistically significant difference between the learning preferences of females and males. Additionally, there was a statistically significant result between the predictor variables gender and pedagogy on the dependent variable student self-reported grade. If Connected Knowledge pedagogies can be demonstrated to provide a significant increase in student learning, and if the current U.S. educational system is unable to produce sufficient graduates in these majors, then it seems reasonable that STEM teachers would be willing to consider best practices to enhance learning for females so long as male students&rsquo; learning is not devalued or diminished.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of acculturative stress on body image dissatisfaction in Hispanic patients post &ndash; bariatric surgery. The conceptual foundation of this study was primarily derived from the social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), which postulates that most people tend to engage in upward comparison to models seen as superior to them. Acculturative stress was conceptualized as a psychological reaction a person experiences after encountering stressors associated with the process of acculturation. Participants in this study included 160 patients of Hispanic origin from Doctors Hospital at Renaissance who were identified as post-operative between 12 to 24 months. Acculturative stress was assessed with the Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI), which consists of four factors. Social comparison was assessed with the Comparison to Models Survey. The outcome variable was measured with Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ). As predicted, a positive correlation was found between acculturative stress and body image dissatisfaction for the overall sample. The strength of the relationship differed for each acculturative stress factor. The correlations between the different types of acculturative stress were generally stronger for the female participants than for the male participants, with the strongest factor being the pressure to acculturate. Although there was a strong relationship between social comparison tendency and body image dissatisfaction, there were no statistically significant gender differences between these two factors. </p><p> Lastly, the generational status did not yield any significant relationships with body image dissatisfaction. However, there were differences in the type of acculturative stress reported by the different generational status groups. An additional analysis also revealed that disordered eating tendencies played an important role in the body image dissatisfaction in this sample of bariatric patients, whereas depression did not seem to produce a significant change when added to the model.</p><p>

<p> According to national statistics, the number of Black women college graduates is 44.8% while for Black men, the national college graduate rate stand on 33.1%. The overall graduation rate of the Black population remains 57.3%. Further as the per statistics, out of 7.9% of the total Black male population in America in the age group of 18 to 24 years, only 2.8% of Black men were undergraduates at public flagship colleges and universities (NCES, 2012). It is argued that while this troubling trend is most prevalent in all groups among Black men, young Black men are generally the most vulnerable to underrepresentation in colleges and universities (Harper, 2010). </p><p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine a federally funded academic and support services program titled PASSAGES, which aims to increase success rates for African American males using what this author refers to as a traditional deficit model for recruiting African Americans. This study examined the PASSAGES through an alternative framework, the Anti Deficit Achieving Framework (ADAF), which is specifically designed for African American males (Harper, 2012). </p><p> This study examined current PASSAGES participant&rsquo;s perceptions of the program, both within the traditional deficit model and within the ADAF. Specifically, this study examined factors such as microaggressions that undermine African American males&rsquo; achievements by evaluating their perceptions of the institutional, traditional practices within a student support services program: PASSAGES at Los Angeles Southwest Community College which prohibits them from being successful. The intent of this study was to provide the educational community serving the African American male population with some insight into contemporary techniques to improve their success rates through a positive framework.</p><p>