The purpose of this study was to further investigate Dr. Ruth Hamilton Romano's (1999) research that identified factors contributing to Hispanic female student retention and graduation. This dissertation studied predominately Hispanic females from a community college located in south Texas to ascertain factors that positively contributed to retention and college graduation. Current student persistence research has focused on why Hispanic students leave college, but this work focuses on the factors that support Hispanics obtaining degrees. Previous research identified six major factors that contributed significantly to student success and graduation. Those factors include academic integration, student integration, institutional commitment, goal commitment, support by significant others, and campus-based aid. The research questions utilized in this study were based out of these six factors. The study queried 229 Hispanic women who graduated in the 2004-2005 academic year. Utilizing a multi-method research approach, both quantitative and qualitative research was used. Research data were gathered through electronic and paper surveys along with focus group and individual interviews. The results of Romano's (1999) study revealed that the two most important factors identified by the Hispanic women were goal commitment and the support of significant others. The results of this study showed that goal commitment and financial aid were the two most important factors. Support by significant others was the third most important factor reported by the women. A new factor emerged from the research that is worthy of future research. Hispanic mothers reported that a driving force for their own academic success and graduation was the need for them to serve as positive role models for their children's educational futures. The Latinas desired to demonstrate through their achievement that educational success was possible for their children. / text

Thesis (M.Ed) Stellenbosch University, 1938. / Bibliography / VOORWOORD: In hierdie verhandleing het ek my dit ten doel gestel om die Geskiedenis van die Opvoeding van Meisies in Suid-Afrika te probeer weer. Daar egter die Kaapprovinsie die voorbeeld vir die opvoeding van meisies in Suid-Afrika gestel het, het ek my alleen tot genoemde provinsie bepaal. Die tydperk in die verhandeling omvat strek van ongeveer 1800 tot 1910, omdat in 1804 vir die eerste keer in die Geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika spesiale voorsiening vir die opvoeding van meisies gemaak is. Om die rede het ek my hoofsaaklik bepaal by die wer van Ds. A. Murry en die N. G. Kerk omdat ons e.g. as die baanbreker van gevorderde onderwys vir meisies kan beskou.

A large number of adult women living in rural parts of the country had neither the free time nor the opportunity to receive basic education at their early ages. As a result, despite the women's numerical significance, and their remarkable contribution to the economic development, women faced social and cultural challenges that undermine their human worth and dignity. These problems result mainly from lack of education among the majority of women and can possibly cause poverty and inequality. To address these problems, adult education and literacy programs that incorporate functional adult literacy, vocational training, and entrepreneurial support was implemented. Such a program is believed, would promote socioeconomic empowerment of women. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the impact of this adult literacy program on the rural women's socioeconomic empowerment. Conscientization and dialogue theory of Paulo Freire was adopted as a theoretical framework. A case study method was used with a purpose to determine the impact of adult literacy on the socioeconomic life of rural women. For sampling purpose, three adult literacy supervisors, five adult literacy facilitators, and twenty women were included. Data collection tools were in-depth interviews, focus group discussion and personal field notes. To analyze the data, the researcher took the rules proposed by Huberman and Miles (1994) and Marshall and Ross (1995).The analysis of the data resulted in two major themes, five categories, and twenty-one sub-categories. The result showed that the adult literacy program enhanced the following components of women's life: At the individual level, it improved, the ability to read, write and calculate; self-confidence to express one's feeling and idea; a positive self-concept; and confidence to challenge the already established wrong meaning about women. At the social level, literacy changed women's negative attitude towards children's education; improved their ability to persuade/communicate their spouses; it improved women's knowledge of family planning and health matters. Furthermore, it improved women's social networking ability and mobility; and changed women's attitude towards commonly practiced social evils like female child genital mutilation; and also increased women's participation in social affairs. At an economic level, adult literacy equipped women with the knowledge and skills to engage in different income generating activities like poultry production, honey production and growing different types of vegetables. Moreover, adult literacy advanced women's knowledge of saving and effective utilization of resources. However, it was found that that specific adult literacy program could not equip women adequately to exercise their decision-making right in financial management. / Language Education, Arts and Culture / D. Ed. (Comparative Education)

Este estudo pauta-se na análise de escritos de mulheres baianas, buscando averiguar as relações entre a prática da escrita e as formas de constituição de subjetividades femininas em múltiplos ritmos de tempo. Partindo de um mapeamento desses escritos espalhados pelo território baiano e reconhecendo o manancial que representam para estudos de singularidades culturais em variados contextos, focalizamos um conjunto de memorialistas e escritoras, predominantemente professoras do Alto Sertão da Bahia, que começaram escrevendo memórias e romances autobiográficos e, sem interromper a prática, tornaram-se escritoras de gêneros literários diversos. Nessa escritura trouxeram à baila discussões de temas que perpassaram pelo mundo feminino nas décadas de 1920 a 1960 do século XX, através do registro das suas experiências e das transformações e desafios enfrentados por mulheres em diferentes gerações, estribadas ora na memória, ora no domínio da arte da escrita e uso de elementos ficcionais. Diante disso, perseguimos as trajetórias de mulheres que abriram espaços através da palavra escrita em busca por autorrealização, ora atreladas à integração com a família e a sociedade, ora em aberta rejeição aos papéis normativos, na medida em que se voltavam para a integração do eu. O nosso enfoque privilegiou ainda as narrativas acerca da cotidianidade em seus espaços de formação e atuação como professoras, tensões e lutas de mulheres em posições sociais diferenciadas, dramas sociais e venturas nos modos de viver nas pequenas cidades, espaços rurais e outras redes de sociabilidade, especialmente no Alto Sertão da Bahia. Para exame das conjunturas socioculturais pertinentes a este estudo foram utilizadas fontes documentais em arquivos públicos e particulares, jornais, correspondências pessoais e processos-crime, além de vasta literatura memorialística de variada autoria, todas elas confrontadas com os escritos em análise. A pesquisa mostra, portanto, mulheres que se arriscaram nas artes da escrita, defendendo direitos femininos e direitos de pertencimento ao mundo das letras, elucidando processos de mudanças entre as gerações, com a ousadia de desvendarem momentos diferenciados de constituição de subjetividades e ainda muita capacidade de improvisar suas vidas conturbadas no confronto do antigo com o moderno. / This research is based on the analysis of women writers from Bahia, in Brazil,,and its aim is to establish their writing practices towards the process of building of their own subjectivities. We begin with a map of locations from which they wrote, emphasizing the cultural singularities in their many different geographical contexts. They were mainly public school teachers and some of them became fiction writers. Through their own life experiences, they focus on themes related to the social world of women from the Alto sertão da Bahia, from the 1920s to the 1960s. Their writing document different life experiences, some of them accepting social norms and keeping themselves integratied with their families and, and others often in open rejection of normative gender roles This work shows their daily lives as teachers and their tension/struggles from different social positions, focusing mainly on their daily lives and on their rural habits. . They also document their abilities to improvise their troubled lives in confrontation of old\" with modernways of life. This work relied mainly on their written memories, often in the confrontation between different memory books of their times and also on documentary sources from public and private archives, newspapers, personal letters, criminal and judicial proceedings. As women writers they were committed to defending women rights and in documenting the process of change between generations in order to uncover distinct moments of subjectivity constitution.

This research has how discussions and dialogues memories, ways and discourses had lived by women that became being mother in their childhood and teen, talking between histories and pedagogical relationships by yourself and theirselvies. The objective of this work looking for the possibilities of analyses that run out of the true regimes, but can build scenes that show us the presence considerable of mothers on these phases, how long, the social co-relationships between adults and children. Inside on methodological ways, I have choose for the Discourse Analyses by Michel Foucault, giving emphasis in say it, inter-say it, statements and a lot of dimensions. With this, the visible colors through away memories (un)happy, but, that help to show us in many contexts that go down in South Zone of Maceió, the discourses about family, woman on the community, the respects and disrespects associates at the maternity or the deconstruction of being woman in periphery. Therefore, read this research is a premission to the charm or no charm about the educative process and the complexities never right, but, always uncertainness and dangerous. / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O presente trabalho tem como interdiscussões memórias, trajetos e dicursos vivenciados por mulheres que passaram pelo fenômeno da maternidade em suas infâncias e adolescências, dialogando entre suas histórias e suas relações pedagógicas de si e do outro. O objetivo desta pesquisa preza a busca de possibilidades de análise que fujam dos regimes de verdade, mas, que possam constituir cenários que exibam a presença de um número considerável de mães nestas fases já supracitadas, bem como, suas correlações sociais entre adultos e crianças. Envolvido nos caminhos metodológicos, optou-se pela Análise do Discurso – AD a partir dos contributos do filósofo e educador francês Michel Foucault, dando ênfase aos ditos, interditos, enunciados e suas dimensões argumentativas e discursivas de si e da história do eu. Com isso, as nuances visíveis e sentidas trilham memórias (in)felizes, mas, que ajudam a exibir em contextos diversos que desemborcam na Zona Sul de Maceió as afirmações do que é família, do ser mulher em meio a comunidade, dos respeitos e desrespeitos referentes à maternidade e substancialmente de uma (des)construção do ser mulher na periferia. Portanto, ler este escrito é permitir-se ao encanto e desencanto do que são os processos educativos e suas complexidades nunca certas, mas, sempre incertas e perigosas.

The purpose of this study was to explore individual characteristics that allowed college achievement in Latina women who experienced teenage pregnancy. A specific objective of this study was to examine strengths for overcoming barriers and obstacles to higher education.

The current study investigated relationships that may be crucial to women's decisions to persist in math and science-related college majors.

DEd / Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Management

Statistics on the gender profile of academics in South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) reveal women academics are still concerted at the junior levels of the hierarchy with a small number of women at professorship. By the time of this report, in South Africa there were 4034 associate professors and professors. Of this 4034, 2174 (54%) were full professors. Of this 2174, only 534 (25%) were female professors. The fundamental aim of this research was to tell the story behind these statistics by exploring, describing and giving explanation to the subjective experiences of women academics. The objectives of the research were broken down into: (1) to examine studies that explain discourses for women in academia, identify success and inhibiting factors to career development of women academics, identify gaps in knowledge and explain how this research seeks to address the gaps identified, (2) to investigate models and theories of career development, particularly in so far as they affect women, (3) to explore, describe and explain the career development trajectories of senior women academics in HEIs in SA, and (4) to develop a substantive career development theory that explains career trajectories of women in academia. Utilizing data from 13 in-depth interviews with women professors and associate professors in a diversity of higher educational institutions in South Africa and different fields of study, this research situates the senior women academics’ experiences within the social constructivist context. I posed the question: “Tell me how your career journey as an academic started, up to the level where you are now”. The questioning revolved around family background; social context; educational history; career development trajectory; professional experiences; and work-family integration. All interviews were audiotaped and then transcribed. The analysis and interpretation of data was informed by the theoretical underpinnings of the study, which is located within feminism and social constructivism. The mean age of the participants was 53 years; years in service, 10 years and more. The findings revealed four themes associated with the career success of women academics: enabling and constraining factors; intrapsychic factors, behavioural patterns and differentiated career development trajectories. All these factors are inextricably linked and mutually affect the career success of women academics. The study ended up with a career development theory that came up with five phases and explained preoccupations at each phase. The phases are career exploration, career establishment, career maintenance, work life adjustment and disengagement. These phases are neither age related, nor cyclical at all times, but they are related to the stage in career development, and the needs of women academics / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / D. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016. / Gender inequality has been an area of concern internationally, regionally and nationally. Black South African women in general suffered triple oppression during the apartheid regime, based on race, gender and class oppression. Higher education mirrored the varied forms of marginalisation that existed in society and therefore the majority did not have the access to quality higher education afforded their white minority counterparts. The few black women who did have access were concentrated in historically disadvantaged institutions or studied through correspondence (Chisholm & September, 2005). The courses for which they were enrolled were aimed at perpetuating male dominance in the public sphere and domesticating them through women’s traditional roles of nurturing and caring. With the advent of democracy in 1994 the gates of higher education were opened to students who had previously been excluded. Effectively, black people in general and women in particular benefitted from race and gender categories of equity, according to the Department of Education, White Paper (1997). The equity clause that has been integrated in higher education policies encapsulates a clause that targets the redress of gender-related inequities and inequalities, aimed at ameliorating women’s access to higher education. Although race, gender and disability were identified, the National Plan (2001) notes that race equity had been given primacy in policies over gender equity. I argue that aggregated data emanating from recent studies in higher education indicate that 57% of the current female population are accessing public higher education. Although the figures from documentary evidence affirm a high presence, on examination of other factors this study found a more nuanced picture. Specifically, a change in equity deduced from the same data indicates that fewer women were enrolled in courses such as Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) or in postgraduate studies. Other areas of concern include high dropout rates, attrition and throughput (CHE, 2010; Draft Green Paper, 2012). This argument is made using theoretical and thematic exploration of post-apartheid South African gender equity reform agenda in higher education. In addition, higher education policy documents (National Council for Higher Education, 1996; White Paper, 1997; Higher Education Act, 1997; National Plan for Higher Education, 2001) and gender laws and frameworks have informed the study. It has aligned itself to one of the goals of White Paper (1997) that noted that in order for equity to be meaningful to the formerly disadvantaged; access and success have to run concurrently. Ultimately, the study has contended that by homogenising women the particular contexts of social justice have not been recognised (Young, 1990). The implication of the misrecognition of the particular and specific experiences of black women in higher education could be contributing to the enigmatic low throughput, high dropout rates and high levels of attrition currently being experienced in higher education. This thesis poses a challenge to policymakers and institutions of higher learning to shift their attention from viewing the attainment of gender equity and equality through notions of expanded access (global participation). To narrow the current gap it proposes a hybridisation of equity and equality policies (macro) with initiatives that target the particular and specific conditions (micro) of black women who access higher education. Key words: gender, equity, higher education, post-apartheid, policy, women.