In the decades following 1945, Americans moved increasingly out of cities into suburbs. The migration illustrated the emergence of a new, broader middle class as a result of growing postwar affluence. In the previous half-century, families living in a suburb could claim middle-class status. The emerging class built its identity on the forms and values adopted from this earlier, more affluent Victorian middle class. These adopted values were played out in a home designed around Progressive era ideals of the family. Through this Progressive filter, the new concept of the home was scaled down, without servants, and ceased existing wholly as the wife's sphere of influence--as in the Victorian version. The Progressive impulse also reduced the size of the house to make it more efficient, and through government subsidies shaped the home into a smaller, economically sized package. The financial framework that determined the shape of the postwar home also influenced the technology placed within its walls. This financially influenced technology particularly affected the shape and content of the kitchen. The new, efficient kitchen did not release women from their duty to provide daily family meals, but it did create a culturally safe space for men to cook as a hobby. In the postwar, suburban kitchen women and men contended with economic pressures and changing social realities which complicated the Victorian values and Progressive ideals. Middle-class women needed to leave the home for work, and--now separated from traditional urban social outlets--middle-class men sought refuge in the suburban home. By examining Sunset magazine's "Chefs of the West" column, traditional women's cookbooks and service magazines, men's magazines, building industry trade journals, and census reports, the kitchen demonstrates that women and men reshaped the home in response to changing middle-class values. While financing regulations at first shaped how the emerging middle class lived within the postwar, suburban home, residents reinterpreted the space as a reaction to the economic changes around them. This cycle continued with each new interpretation of the postwar single-family home.

Individuals are involved in an ongoing construction of gender ideology from two opposite but intertwined directions: they experience pressure to follow gender role norms, and they also participate in the social construction of these norms. An individual's appraisal, positive or negative, of gender roles is called a "gender role attitude." These lie on a continuum from traditional to progressive. Traditional gender role attitudes have been linked to primarily negative outcomes. This thesis examines attitudes toward--and beliefs about--male gender in women completing an elective course on the psychology of men and masculinities. Study 1 assessed how these students' (N = 32) narrative definitions of "man" and "masculinity" changed from the beginning to the end of the class. While there was a significant decrease in the presence of the male role norms of achievement/status and aggression over time, there were no differences in the number of references to men's avoidance of femininity, homophobia, non-relational attitudes toward sex, restrictive emotionality, or self-reliance. Because the coding scheme only measured presence of these male role norms rather than framing or valence, additional characteristics of students' responses are discussed. Study 1 also compared women's (N = 20) pre- and post-class male role norm attitudes. Endorsement of global male role norms, aggression, self-reliance, and a composite of particular other male role norms (i.e., "Factor 1" of the Male Role Norms Inventory) were all significantly lower at the end of the class than at the beginning. Study 2 examined potential selection effects in the male role attitudes of women choosing to complete the psychology of men and masculinities course (n = 20) by comparing them to those of women in a psychology research methods course required for the academic major (n = 19). It was determined that pre-class male role attitudes did not differ significantly between the two classes. However, small sample sizes severely limited the statistical power to detect such a difference, and other possible explanations for the lack of difference are considered. Study 3 explored the relationship between women's gender role stress (GRS), which describes stress from coping with restrictive feminine expectations, and attitudes toward male gender roles (N = 32). Results showed that women's GRS did not significantly correlate with overall male role attitudes or with specific subcomponents of these role norms (i.e., self-reliance, aggression, and Factor 1). Thus, there was no evidence that gender role pressures experienced by women relate to their gender expectations for men. While many studies have examined change in attitudes toward women's gender roles, particularly in the context of women's and gender studies courses, there is a lack of research on women's attitudes toward men's roles and the impact on those attitudes of gender coursework focused on masculinity. This research is the first to provide evidence regarding: 1) changes in women's attitudes toward male role norms, and 2) changes in gender role attitudes among students taking a course on the psychology of men and masculinities. Because both men's and women's attitudes toward male role norms are linked to a number of measures of well-being, this research suggests gender-focused education as a potential strategy for improving students' health and relationship quality.

This interdisciplinary thesis examines the concept of sexuality through lenses provided by economic history, anthropology, and queer theory. A close reading reveals historical parallels from the late 1800s between concepts of a desiring, utility-maximizing economic subject on the one hand, and a desiring, carnally decisive sexological subject on the other. Social constructionists have persuasively argued that social and economic elites deploy the discourse of sexuality as a technique of discipline and social control in class- and gender-based struggles. Although prior scholarship discusses how contemporary ideas of sexuality reflect this origin, many anthropologists and queer theorists continue to use "sexuality" uncritically when crafting local, material accounts of sex, pleasure, affection, intimacy, and human agency. In this thesis, I show that other economic, political, and intellectual pathways emerge when sexuality is deliberately dis-ordered. I argued that contemporary research aspires to formulate new ideas about bodies and pleasures. It fails to do so adequately when relying on sexuality as a master narrative.

The purpose of this study was to expand on the current research pertaining to women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, better understand the experiences of undergraduate women in the sciences, identify barriers to female persistence in their intended STEM majors, and understand the impact of the STEM co-educational Living Learning Community (LLC) model on female persistence. This study employed a mixed-methods approach that was grounded in standpoint methodology. The qualitative data were collected through focus groups and one-on-one interviews with the female participants and was analyzed through a critical feminist lens utilizing standpoint methodology and coded utilizing inductive analysis. The quantitative data were collected and analyzed utilizing a simple statistical analysis of key academic variables indicative of student success: cumulative high school GPAs, SAT scores, first year cumulative GPAs, freshman persistence patterns in the intended major, and freshman retention patterns at the university. The findings of this study illustrated that the co-educational LLC model created an inclusive academic and social environment that positively impacted the female participants‟ experiences and persistence in STEM. The findings also found the inclusion of men in the community aided in the demystification of male superiority in the sciences for the female participants. This study also highlighted the significance of social identity in the decision making process to join a science LLC.

Many studies have been conducted on the achievement gap between Caucasian and minority students (Bankston & Caldas, 1998; A. Brown & Donnor, 2011; Howard, 2008; O’Conner, Lewis, & Mueller, 2007; Osborne, 1999), as this gap has been a persistent problem for decades. However, despite more students of color gaining access to institutions of higher education, there is still a severe gap in college graduation rates (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2011), with African American males being the least likely group to be found on college campuses (Dunn, 2012), and thus, possessing the lowest college graduation rate. St. Peter Claver Academy (pseudonym) is a Catholic, male high school located in an inner city, low-income community in the western United States. The demographic composition of the school is 65% Latino and 35% African American. Despite the fact that 100% of seniors are accepted into a college or university, the graduates of St. Peter Claver Academy have very poor college graduation rates. This qualitative study investigated the narratives of seven African- American graduates of the school in order to understand their college experiences, looking closely at attrition, retention, resilience, and persistence. Through the lens of critical bicultural theory, the voices of these former students are central to this study in an effort to seek common threads about their experiences, which can provide educators useful insight on how to improve the college graduation rate for this underrepresented student population group.

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John Fox, Jr. provides commentary on the changing roles of Progressive Era women in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, “A Cumberland Vendetta,” and “The Pardon of Becky Day.” Fox’s portrayals provide evidence that although he recognized the changes in his society with women spearheading reform, he did not entirely approve of these changes or of women taking an aggressive role in advocating change. This thesis provides textual examples and analysis demonstrating Fox’s beliefs. Chapter two focuses on the stories of “The Pardon of Becky Day” and “A Cumberland Vendetta.” Chapter three analyzes The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come and focuses on the relationships of Chad Buford, Margaret Dean, and a mountain girl named Melissa. Chapter four analyzes the relationship between June Tolliver and Jack Hale from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Chapter five concludes the thesis and analysis of Fox’s commentary on women and gender roles.

Karen Finley's The Constant State of Desire merits attention because it acknowledges modern language's inability to represent the suffering of victims and creates awareness of our personal involvement in constructing gendered identities. Finley expresses her abhorrence of the desire for power and perfection by asserting that power is secured in American culture through physical and economic domination. In addition, the pursuit of perfection is engrained in one's psyche through media images and habituated behaviors. Finley does not offer a new language through which to communicate suffering, but she draws the reader's attention to the inadequacies of psychological and cultural rhetoric, thus engaging in an important step of language creation. Finley's art makes use of dominant and nondominant languages combined with body language to illustrate that neither are adequate for representing marginalized bodies of postmodern culture.