This study reports four content analyses of the character Nora in Henrick Ibsen's A Doll's House. The first three studies examine different media: the printed page, the play, and a film. The fourth study examines the film again using cluster unitizing as its methodology. The objectives of these studies were twofold: to develop a quantitative methodology for studying a character to complement the more established method of qualitative research; and to compare and contrast various media for presenting the same play. / An adaptation of Sandra Bem's Sex-Role-Inventory was applied to the study of androgynous behavior of the character, Nora. Bem's original scale was used in the first two content analyses with minor modifications. The final two content analytic studies used a revised 3-point scale with twenty adjectives (ten masculine and ten feminine) in place of the original sixty items. / Dietrich's motivational unit was used to unitize the play for each coding. The first three studies used unit-by-unit analysis while the fourth study used longer cluster units. The first two studies were based on one male and one female coder while the third study used four female coders. The fourth study employed fourteen adult coders (six female and eight male). / The intercoder reliability improved with each analysis. The book reliability was .25; the play's was .33; the film was .61; the second coding of the film was .92. Intrascale reliability remained high throughout, but especially with the last coding when reliability for female items was .93 and for male items was .94. Coders for the last study were given the Bem Sex Role Inventory test to determine whether their own androgyny levels affected their coding of Nora; no effect was found. / Coding results were consistent with a subjective, independent dramatic analysis of the play and contributed to a deeper understanding of the character. It was concluded that the adapted BSRI was a promising instrument for studying sex-role behavior in drama. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, Section: A, page: 1625. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: B, page: 0373. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Midwifery is a word that, for many in this country, conjures up an image of superstitious old women delivering babies in primitive conditions of filth and ignorance. This strongly rooted and uniquely American idea owes its tenacious existence to the well-orchestrated campaign of the medical profession and state health officials, whose aim it was to eliminate the "midwife menace" within this century. Their goal was to make inroads for the more scientific and relatively new field of obstetrics. Through the mechanisms of the state, midwifery was successfully eradicated in three rational stages: education, regulation, and elimination. In phasing out midwifery, the state made incursions into a cultural tradition and permanently altered an ethnic institution. An important segment of women's (as well as southern and ethnic) history was forcibly ended, and one of the few long-respected, exclusively female roles of leadership was lost to American life. The existing literature on midwifery is predominantly statistical and anti-midwife (propaganda would not be too strong a word), gathered and publicized by the medical establishment in the early part of the century. Because of the underlying economic motives and the middle- and upper-class "professional" bias, the accuracy of this material is questionable. Neither does it address, in any depth, the role and personality of the old midwife from a cultural, historical perspective. This is the emphasis of this document, which includes a look at the process of state licensing and its effect on cultural institutions, original interviews with the few remaining Florida midwives or their daughters and granddaughters, and specific models from the licensing process in Florida, both past history and its present struggle to implement new midwifery legislation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-03, Section: A, page: 0816. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

This study examines the theme of violence against women, in three novels of Emile Zola, representing respectively the bourgeoisie, the working class, and the peasant class: La Curee, L'Assommoir, and La Terre. Some of Rene Girard's ideas, as put forth in La Violence et le sacre, The Scapegoat, and Des Choses cachees depuis la fondation du monde, provide the theoretical basis for our analysis. / The suffering of the female characters, be it psychological or physical or both, strongly reflects the position of women as scapegoats, and thus transcends all classes. Also vital to the interpretation of this issue are the relationship between sexuality, violence, and original sin, as well as mythological forces at work in each of the novels, such as the Sphinx, the Still, and the Earth. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-09, Section: A, page: 2678. / Major Professor: Antoine Spacagna. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

The present study examined the relative salience of life roles of female college seniors who have chosen nontraditional and traditional academic majors. Three dependent variables were identified to measure characteristics on which the groups were expected to differ. These are (1) participation, (2) commitment, and (3) value expectations. These variables were measured against five separate life roles: (1) student, (2) worker, (3) home and family, (4) citizen, and (5) leisurite. In addition, the study assessed the level of career certainty, vocational identity, and congruence between academic major and anticipated career choice. / A nonrandom sample of 148 undergraduate college women was employed in the study. Volunteers completed the Salience Inventory (Nevill & Super, 1986), the Vocational Identity Scale of the My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980), the Occupational Alternatives Question (Slaney, 1978), and a demographic data form. / A multivariate analysis of variance procedure was used to examine group differences on measures of participation, commitment, and value expectations of the five life roles. The MANOVA did not yield any significant differences between groups regarding role salience. Group differences on career certainty, vocational identity, and occupational congruence were examined by t-test. While no difference was found in career certainty, differences were found in vocational identity (t = 3.66, p =.000) and occupational congruence (t = 4.00, p =.000). While the data suggested differences between groups on (VI), the importance was limited because both groups scored in the high range. The author also concluded that methodological shortcomings rendered the results on congruence invalid. Results are discussed and implications for future research are recommended. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: A, page: 1024. / Major Professor: F. Donald Kelly. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

This study attempts to re-contextualize the works and career of James Lane Allen (1849-1925), a now neglected Southern writer from Lexington, Kentucky, whose career, from the late 1880s until his death in 1925, overlapped a transitional period in American literature. Today, Allen is universally equated with the Southern genteel writer Thomas Nelson Page, known in particular for sentimentally idealizing the Old South's plantation way of life in his fiction, which, in turn, appealed to the mainstream Victorian audience. This study will focus on the "other" James Lane Allen, the anti-Victorian writer who wrote against the political grain of his time, and whose unconventional novels do not invite comparison with works by Page or other genteel writers, since these novels by Allen exude an exotic mixture of pagan sensuality and Darwinian principles foreign to "moonlight and magnolias" fare being served at the time. / Specifically, this study focuses on a particular historical moment in Allen's career and in literary history: the textual history of Allen's first unconventional novel, Summer in Arcady (1896), one of the first "serious" American novels to positively picture sexual desire in Darwinian terms, and particularly bold for its depiction of a female character who exhibits sexual urges. Along with a number of before-now unprinted letters by Allen, the data concerning this work's original and revised states challenges popular twentieth century interpretations of the novel, which--oddly enough--often dismiss the work as a heavy-handed moral treatise on the necessity of chastity before marriage. Far from being the sentimental moralist in this work, Allen is shown to have been strongly influenced by principles of evolution, especially as they related to sexual desire and sexual function, and to have envisioned a work which positively pictured sexual desire as natural. Thus, this "other" Allen, not known as a literary Naturalist, is shown on a number of occasions to have participated in that artistic mindset, and consequently to have produced radically unconventional works within the context of the Victorian cultural milieu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-02, Section: A, page: 0681. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The objectives of this research were (a) to identify three new criteria to measure the assertive verbal behavior of low income Black, Hispanic, and Caucasian women; (b) to contrast the assertiveness ratings obtained using these new culturally appropriate criteria with those obtained using traditional criteria (i.e. those typically used in the measurement of assertiveness--developed predominantly on White, middle class samples). A sample of 115 low income women completed the Simple Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and items pertaining to rights to act assertively. Additionally, they participated in six videotaped role-plays; within the role-plays the gender and familiarity of the other person and the difficulty of the situation were varied. A panel of key informants reviewed these videotapes and selected a representative sample of interviews for content analysis. The results of the content analysis formed the basis of the new criteria to assess assertive verbal content. Additionally, voice tone ratings were re-calibrated. / The new criteria differ from the mainstream criteria in that they detail specific courses of action to specific situations that are in themselves passive, assertive, and aggressive strategies. The groups agreed the most in terms of what constituted appropriate action when dealing with a child and disagreed the most when dealing with an aggressive male friend. Overall, the non-Hispanic groups were more likely to regard references to consequences and obligations as appropriate. The Caucasian group had the largest range of responses including more aggressive tactics. The Black group had fewer types of aggressive acts, however their range of assertive acts included behaviors that the other groups defined as aggressive. The Hispanic group took a more deferential approach, placing more emphasis on correctly addressing the other individual and adopting good manners when speaking. / Generally, the culturally appropriate criteria produced either the same or higher assertion ratings in contrast to the mainstream criteria. Through the development of the new criteria and an examination of their content, lessons for the development of culturally competent practice are noted. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-03, Section: A, page: 1129. / Major Professor: Dianne Harrison Montgomery. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The present exploratory study examined the applicability of personality constructs derived from the theory of Transactional Analysis (TA) to the understanding of women's career preferences and vocational identity. More specifically, it investigated the differences among groups of occupationally traditional and nontraditional women with high or low levels of vocational identity and their scores on seven TA personality characteristics. The study further explored whether a constellation of the TA variables formed a discriminating dimension that distinguished between the four occupational groups. / A nonrandom sample of 124 undergraduate college women was employed in the study. An equal number of subjects were recruited from classes in the Colleges of Education and Engineering to represent women's traditional and nontraditional career choice respectively. Volunteers completed the Vocational Identity Scale of the My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980), Adjective Check List: TA Scales (Gough & Heilburn, 1983), TA Life Position Survey (Kramer & Strade, 1976), and a demographic data form. / Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance procedures were employed to examine group differences on measures of the TA personality characteristics. The MANOVA procedure yielded a significant (p $<$.01) overall multivariate main effect due to group differences of vocational identity on a weighted linear combination of the TA variables. Subsequent univariate ANOVA procedures on each of the TA variables clarified the significance of the MANOVA result. Findings of the ANOVA procedure revealed significant (p $<$.01) differences in group means on three of the seven TA variables. Significant main effects were obtained in this analysis on the Adult ego state, Adapted Child ego state, and I'm OK life position variables. / Further analysis was conducted with the discriminant function technique. It was found that the I'm OK life position and Adapted Child ego state variables made the greatest contribution to the discriminating dimension. Results indicated that the discriminant function formed by these two TA personality characteristics had moderate to high utility as a mechanism to correctly classify subjects in their respective occupational group. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-03, Section: B, page: 1145. / Major Professor: F. Donald Kelly. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

Despite widespread promotion of the benefits of regular activity, uptake by obese adults, particularly women, remains low. There is limited research on the physical barriers to exercise in younger obese adults, yet studies in elderly women suggested a relationship between obesity, fear of falling (FOF) and activity participation. It is feasible that FOF might be a problem in younger obese women and a subsequent barrier to activity participation. The aim of this thesis was to explore the phenomenon of FOF in obese women under 50 years of age and to develop a conceptual framework to explain its relationship to activity participation. An exploratory mixed methods approach was used. An initial study of 12 obese women used semi-structured interviews to elicit original knowledge of concerns they had about falling when active, which was analysed using a thematic approach. Eight participants reported FOF and there were suggestions that FOF led to activity avoidance. Younger participants and those more active were less likely to report problems. The results were used to develop a conceptual framework of FOF which informed the design of a larger study to measure the relationship between FOF and activity level in obese women. A review of FOF instruments to identify those appropriate for use in a further study of obese women was completed. Sixty-three participants completed self-reported questionnaires that measured different constructs of FOF, notably, falls-efficacy, feared consequences of falling and activity avoidance. Statistical analysis confirmed FOF to be an independent predictor of current low activity, irrespective of age, BMI or depression. These findings shed light on an important issue which could be used to inform the design of interventions to promote activity in overweight women. The development of such interventions that target FOF in obesity warrants further investigation.

<p> Conversations about racism and sexism have a history of volatility, and within America&rsquo;s current social and political climate it is no different. Both of these institutions are part of the social makeup of American culture and are based on the premise of one group holding a superior position over another. White individuals may not purposefully set out to behave in racist or sexist ways, but the fact is, white values, manners, and habits take precedence and priority in American culture. Evidence abounds. One example is the commercials that run in the media. The products, actors, and messages are focused on white priorities. Another is in the history of our country, which was written by Anglo-American men and therefore contains a preponderance of detail on the nation&rsquo;s incredible growth through their viewpoints. It is also seen in literature and conversation. If a male or female is referenced, it is assumed they are white; if not, the speaker will place a descriptor of color before the gendered term. Within the institutions of race and sex, the ranking of superiority begins with white men and ends with Black women. The Black male and white female change places depending on the agenda of the white male. For example, if his attention is on male issues, the Black male will rank higher than the white female; the reverse is true if race is the focus. This patriarchal culture began with predominately Anglo-Saxon men making themselves at home in a country that was new to them. For centuries, they were able to keep their position as the dominant presence by force and will. The point is not to create a hatefest on white patriarchy but rather to recognize and understand it for what it has been and how it has formed our culture. </p><p>