Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Howard Pinderhughes.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: B, page: 3830. Adviser: Nicole E. Allen. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-92) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p>Since the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964, female law enforcement officers have battled obstacles and barriers, both external and internal in their effort to gain equality and assimilate into the role of police officer. The problem examined in this qualitative study was the low percentage of women in sworn law enforcement positions of all ranks. Thirty-six sworn female officers currently serving in the state of Arizona were selected to participate in focus group discussions to assist in the phenomenological examination of low representation of women in law enforcement. The female officers were asked a series of questions to facilitate discussion in an effort to explore their experiences and possibly reveal underlying police cultural factors that may lead to limited opportunities for women who choose law enforcement as a career. The qualitative design fostered a sharing of the stories of these female officers and provided an in-depth understanding of their experiences both on and off the job related to their choice of career. Information-rich data provided by the participants served to inform the Arizona law enforcement community concerning the experiences and career choices of women in law enforcement. Discovered through focus group discussions were the reasons women choose law enforcement as a career as well as why they remain in the profession. The excitement of the job coupled with job security, and salary factored into the decision making processes. Data addressing promotion, leadership, and role models were also revealed with female officers advising an inequitable promotional process, yet one in which they believed women needed to participate to improve the profession for others. Recommendations of formal mentoring and succession planning were made along with changes in the recruitment process. Future study should include male participants as well as female participants. Funding sources or sponsoring organizations should be explored in an effort to expand the scope of future study. Conducting focus groups discussions in different parts of the state and for longer periods of time would permit individuals from different areas of the state an opportunity to participate. </p>

<p> Research on race and sentencing is increasingly moving beyond racial category analyses to include more subtle attributes such as skin tone and facial features. In keeping with this progression, this research examines the extent to which convicted offenders' Afrocentric facial features interact with sex in order to create longer criminal sentences for stereotypically Black males and females. A random sample of Black and White males and females currently serving prison sentences in the state of Oregon were selected for inclusion in the study. A preliminary regression analysis was run in order to determine the effect of broad racial category on sentencing length when controlling for offense characteristics, offense history, and extralegal factors. Additionally, photographs of a sample of 110 Black males and 91 Black females were rated for strength of Afrocentric facial features by undergraduate students. These ratings were averaged to create an Afrocentric rating for each Black individual in the sample. Regression analyses were then conducted for Black individuals in order to determine the effect of Afrocentric facial features and sex on sentence length. Results suggested that although broad racial category is not a significant predictor of sentence length, Afrocentric facial features interact with sex to produce longer sentences for Black males, but not Black females, with stronger Afrocentric facial features. Individuals with the fewest Afrocentric facial features were excluded from the analysis in order to limit the potential misperception of racial category by judges. These findings are consistent with current understandings of feature-trait stereotyping, as well as the focal concerns perspective regarding judicial decision-making. </p>

<p> With the &ldquo;controlling images&rdquo; of the Jezebel, the Mammy, and the Sapphire constantly reiterated in movies, television shows, and popular culture, serving the interests of what bell hooks has identified as white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, a consumer has to wonder if there is any way for Black women performers to thrive and empower other Black women while working within these constricting institutions. Although pop culture is the predominant cultural space where these controlling images and stereotypes have been reproduced there are many Black female entertainers who attempt to challenge and undermine such representations.</p><p> Scholars such as hooks and Patricia Hill Collins introduce us to the diverse forms of black feminists and black feminism by showing how black women from all walks of life produce and engage black feminist practice. In common cultural discourse, however artists such as Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Meshell Ndeogeocello are upheld as leading black feminist entertainers of our contemporary period while artists Nicki Minaj and Beyonc&eacute; are denounced as disempowering to black women and merely reproducing dominant racist, sexist, and hetero-normative stereotypes of black women.</p><p> Much Black Feminist scholarship has focused on Black women&rsquo;s resistance to the patriarchal, racist structures that continue to police and attempt to restrain Black women&rsquo;s bodies and freedom within material social and political realms, but less scholarship focuses on the ways in which Black female entertainers produce Black feminist knowledge and empowerment within the realms of pop culture.</p><p> The purpose of this study is not to show how Badu and Monae are the best examples of &ldquo;true&rdquo; Black feminism in the entertainment industry and how artists like Minaj and Knowles are tools of white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy. The purpose is to take the expansions of Black feminism that Collins, Davis, hooks, and several other Black feminist intellectuals, have articulated in order to reflect the broad ways in which Black feminism plays out in the popular music industry and to argue against the grain of critiques of popular culture to demonstrate how, despite its limitations, this realm of cultural representation and performance can be emancipatory for black women.</p>

<p> <i>La mestiza</i> embodies a multiplicity of ancestral locations, ethnicities, and cultures. On the borders and in diaspora, she is often internally divided within a socially constructed white masculinist framework that would have her locate herself from one homeland and identify as either &ldquo;woman of color&rdquo; or &ldquo;white&rdquo; Interconnected with colonial and patriarchal epistemologies, this study explores how the dominant framework, more often invisibly, encourages racism within the mestiza&#129;fs psyche and women&#129;es spirituality communities.</p><p> This study seeks to heal traumas of racism by employing a transdisciplinary mestiza approach &mdash; bearing feminist and indigenous decolonial lenses &mdash; to engage with the nuances &mdash; in between binary racialized identities where the mestiza is situated. In mestiza situated space are stories of recovering indigeneity by recognizing, grieving, and deconstructing the dominant framework. This study focuses on, in particular, stories of mestizas nutured in colonial mentality as well as contextually read as white.</p>

<p> Abusive relationships often minimize and devalue women's identities on a regular basis, leaving them with a diminished self-concept. As a result, domestic violence shelters have been recognized as sites of identity repair and construction, as well as an emergency refuge for women and their children. However, shelters are microcosms of the larger society, and the inequality and bureaucracy that exist in society are often replicated in the shelter community. It is within these complex communities that shelter residents and staff construct and maintain their identities. My research takes a symbolic interactionist approach to explore identity building and maintenance within domestic violence shelters, and considers how the delicate balance between ideology and practice, in addition to inequalities that exist within the shelter environment, influence identity construction. More specifically, I consider (1) How do inequalities of sex and gender, sexuality, class, and race and ethnicity, affect identity formation? (2) How does the balance between feminist ideology and the structure of formal organizations affect identity formation? (3) How does identity construction take place within the shelter setting? Which identities are constructed, and why? How are the identities constructed by shelter staff different from those of the residents? and (4) How do women in shelters manage stigmatized identities? Using a grounded theory approach, my data was collected at a domestic violence shelter in Ohio, where I engaged in participant observation for a period of three and a half years and interviewed 31 residents and 15 staff members. I found that while domestic violence shelters are sites of identity repair, the presence of inequality and the difficult balance between feminist ideology and practice influenced identity construction not only for residents, but for staff members as well. However, the type of interactions that occurred largely influenced the identities that were constructed; as a result, staff and residents' identities varied significantly, both in their construction and their maintenance.</p>

<p> This phenomenological study explored how cancer impacted female patients or survivors while striving for personal work-life balance. Since female cancer patients and survivors encounter unique stressors, challenges, and experiences related to their cancer journey, this study examined the narratives of 10 women identified as having cancer and a comparison group matched on age via random sample for the birth year. The 20 narratives were a subset of the larger Weber (2011) sample collected by Digital Women's Project research team. The foundational theoretical framework is provided by Giele's (2008) life story method, which analyzed narratives through the lenses of identity, relationship style, drive and motivation, and adaptive styles of women.</p><p> However, this study focused on the following two themes: drive and motivation and adaptive style. The personal experiences of the ten diverse women, who received a cancer diagnosis (Group A), described ways that cancer changed their lives. The comparative sample of women without cancer diagnoses (Group B) were also analyzed along these themes. The findings reveal the differences between Group A and B with their outlook, lifestyles, and how work-life balance was navigated. Successful strategies of navigating work-life balance for the two groups were explored: faith, support systems, healthy lifestyle, resources, therapy, and hobbies.</p>

<p> African American women leaders (AAWLs) experience obstacles and barriers in their quest to ascend to the highest leadership levels in U.S.-based organizations. These obstacles include intersectional oppression in the form of gendered racism, outsider status, invisibility, tokenism, stereotypes, and subordination. In the face of these challenges, AAWLs have ascended to the highest levels of leadership in U.S. workplaces. Many studies on AAWLs explore the coping mechanisms and relational strategies employed to enter, execute, and succeed in workplace leadership roles. This study explored their emotional intelligence; the non-cognitive traits, skills, and abilities that enable AAWLs to create success in their lives. This study enables comprehension of the emotional mechanisms African American women (AAW) use to lead in the face of obstacles to their ascension to high-level leadership roles. </p><p> Forty-two AAWLs, who have held leadership positions for a minimum of 3 years at the director level or three levels from the top of an organization, participated in this mixed-methods study. The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) was administered to these leaders to assess their emotional-social functioning. Bar-On's (1997) model of emotional-social intelligence served as the basis for this 133-item, self-report inventory. To complement this quantitative assessment and to insert a Black feminist approach to the research, AAWLs participated in teleconference-styled focus groups in which they revealed their self-defined perceptions about their emotional intelligence and the ways those emotional-social traits, skills, and abilities create success in their leadership experience. </p><p> Emotional-social functioning of the African American women leaders (AAWLs) in the study was atypically advanced. Assessment results revealed assertiveness and independence as strengths. These leaders perceived themselves to be successful, but identified interpersonal relationship-building as an opportunity for growth. This exploration of the emotional intelligence of AAWLs expands our understanding of the non-cognitive abilities, skills, and traits employed by these leaders in their efforts to navigate complex organizational dynamics and to fulfill high- level leadership roles. </p><p> Keywords: African American women, emotional intelligence, leadership</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2682. Adviser: Manisha Desai. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-197). Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.