This thesis explores the possibilities of embodied writing for social inquiry. Using an examination of the social production of bodily pain to exemplify my approach, and drawing upon autobiographical writing, I develop an embodied writing practice and theorize its implications for decolonizing knowledge production. Following a phenomenologically informed interpretive sociology, I attend closely to language and the construction of meaning through reflexive engagement with pain as a social phenomenon. I also utilize mindfulness meditative practice methodologically to centre the body within social research and intervene in the mind/body split which underwrites much Western knowledge production and reproduces normative, medicalized relations to bodily knowledge. I suggest that by undoing those traditional boundaries demarcating the possibilities of knowledge production, and attending to our epistemological locations which are themselves deeply political, we might generate differently imagined relations to embodiment.

The “Girl Effect” is becoming a growing global movement that assumes young women are catalysts capable of bringing social and economic change to their families, communities and countries, particularly in the Two-Thirds World. The evolving discourse associated with the Girl Effect movement holds implications for sport, gender and development (SGD) programs. Increasingly, SGD interventions are funded and implemented by transnational corporations (TNCs) as part of the mounting portfolio of global corporate social engagement (GCSE) initiatives in development. Drawing on postcolonial feminist international relations theory, cultural studies of girlhood, sociology of sport and governmentality studies, the purpose of this study was to explore: a) how young women in Eastern Uganda experience SGD programs; and b) how constellations of aid relations among a sport transnational corporation (STNC), international non-governmental organization (INGO), and southern non-governmental organization (SNGO) impacted and influenced the ways that SGD programs are executed, implemented and “taken up” by young women. This study used qualitative methods, including 35 semi-structured in-depth interviews with organizational staff members and young women, participant observation and document analysis in order to investigate how a SGD program in Eastern Uganda that is funded by a STNC and INGO used martial arts to build young women’s self-defence skills to help address gender-based, sexual and domestic violence. Results revealed martial arts programming increased confidence, challenged gender norms, augmented social networks and provided social entrepreneurial opportunities. At the same time, the program also attempted to govern young women’s sexuality and health, but did so while ignoring culturally distinct gender relations. Findings also highlighted the colonial residue and power of aid relations, STNC’s brand authority over SGD programming, the involvement of Western actors in locating “authentic” subaltern stories about social entrepreneurial work in SGD, and how the politics of the “global” sisterhood is enmeshed in saving “distant others” in gender and development work. Overall, this study found that the drive for GCSE, when entangled with neo-liberal globalization, impels actors working in SGD to look to social innovation and entrepreneurship as strategies for survival in an increasingly competitive international development climate.

<p>Taking as its pretext the contemporary moment of self-reflexive critique on the part of interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies and American Studies, <italic>Reading Democracy</italic> historicizes a black feminist literary critical practice and movement that developed alongside black feminist activism beginning in the 1970s. This dissertation addresses the future direction of scholarship based in Women's Studies and African-American Studies by focusing on the institutionalized political effects of Women's Liberation and the black liberation movements: the canonization of black women's writing and the development of a black feminist critical practice. Tracing a variety of conceptions of black feminist criticism over the course of two decades, I argue that this critical tradition is virtually indefinable apart from its anthological framing and that its literary objects illustrate the radical democratic constitution of black women's political subjectivity. </p><p>The editors of such anthologies of African American women's writing and black feminist practice as Toni Cade Bambara's <italic>The Black Woman</italic> (1970), Mary Helen Washington's <italic>Black-Eyed Susans</italic> (1975), and Barbara Smith's <italic>Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology</italic> (1984) articulate the relationship of political praxis to creative enterprise and intellectual activity. In the case of Smith's anthology, for example, "coalition politics" emerges as the ideal democratic practice by which individuals constitute political identities, consolidate around political principles, and negotiate political demands.</p><p>Situating anthologies of black women's writing in relation to the social movement politics of the 1960s and 1970s, Reading Democracy explores how black feminist projects in the academy and the arts materialized the democratic principles of modern politics in the United States, understanding these principles as ethical desires that inspire self-constitution and creative and scholarly production. Constructing a literary critical and publication history, this dissertation identifies the democratic principles that the anthologies in this study materialize by analyzing them alongside the novels and short stories published during the 1970s and 1980s that they excerpt or otherwise reference, such as Toni Morrison's <italic>The Bluest Eye</italic> (1970), Audre Lorde's <italic>Zami: A New Spelling of My Name</italic> (1982), and Paule Marshall's <italic>Praisesong for the Widow</italic> (1983). The anthology facilitates the analysis of the single creative work's black feminist consciousness. Using the critical terms of democratic theory to mark the fulfillment of a political theory of black women's writing, as Smith first proposed, this dissertation arrives at a sense of democracy as a strategic zone of embodiment and a modern political imaginary forged by the recognition of "the others" in our midst who are coming to voice and are ineluctably constituted by the same ethical desires as are we ourselves.</p> / Dissertation

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the Applied Learning Academy (ALA) and allow the lessons learned from this public school to emerge from the narrative stories of past students, parents, teachers, administrators, and local business associates who have been directly involved and influenced by the applied learning teaching method. Accountability is critical for all public and charter schools. Districts have been trying to raise the standards with new programs and strategies in an effort to make learning experiences relevant to students? daily lives. Revisiting John Dewey?s philosophy from the progressive movement, project-based, service learning, community partnerships, and portfolio assessment helped to create the applied learning method. In the present study, a qualitative case study approach was utilized to identify successful factors, benefits, and drawbacks of applied learning in order to describe the transition of portfolio assessment, project-based learning, and community-based partnerships within the classroom and to understand the impact and misconceptions of applied learning as experienced through the Recognized Campus, ALA, a 6-8th public middle school within a large urban school district. Participant interviews, field observations, and historical records were collected which indicated that student centered project-based curriculum, small school size creating family relationships, community involvement with partnerships, service learning projects, and metacognitive development from portfolio assessments were the major factors that supported academic rigor and relevance because of the real educational applications in this applied learning middle school. Briefly defined, applied learning is when a problem is seen within the surrounding community, and the solution is generated by the students. This progressive 15-year impact of applied learning ultimately leads to the development of four applied learning schools despite the misconception that applied learning was a remedial or gifted program. Redefining applied learning for a better understanding developed a reconceptualized diagram borrowed from the quantum mechanics model. Reconceptualization expands the interpretation by increasing the intellectual flexibility. As the student becomes energized from the acquired knowledge of learning applicable skills through service learning, project-based curriculum, and portfolio assessment, the student?s academic growth should increase to a higher, educational ?energy level? supported by the critical, situated-learning, and feminist theories.

The system of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) has been the subject of feminist, critical examinations since the 1970s. Subject headings pertaining both to feminist literature and to women in general have been analyzed to determine how LCSH represents these topics. In this study, I contribute to this body of scholarship by analyzing and reporting on the nature of the LCSH subject representation of 52 core works published from 1986-1998 in the areas of feminist theory and women’s movements. These monographs were selected from the 3rd edition of Women’s Studies: A Recommended Bibliography (Krikos & Ingold, 2004). The analysis of works of/on feminist theory and on women’s movements is preceded by a pilot study of 24 core works on the topics of Communications, Film, Television, Media, and Journalism. I utilize the abstracts of these works in Krikos & Ingold (2004), as well as the works themselves, to establish the nature of each monograph’s perspective and scope. To this information I compare the LC subject headings employed in the bibliographic records representing these works in the Library of Congress Online Catalog in order to assess the headings’ usefulness as surrogate representations of these monographs in terms of accuracy, relevance, specificity, and currency. I present my findings as sets of problems and solutions illustrated with specific examples. Overall, LCSH is not able to represent adequately the 24 works in the pilot study sample or the 52 core works in the main study based on its current application. I conclude with a proposed set of subject headings as suggested by the abstracts of these works.

My thesis project is an argument for and an investigation into the complex dynamics of what I term a critical, feminist, anti-racist pedagogy. Drawing from scholarly work in the fields of feminist theory, cultural studies, whiteness studies, and rhetoric and composition, in what follows I argue for a blurring of the traditional reason-emotion split that, I believe, continues to stifle learners in todays U.S. educational system. I then offer a pedagogical theory that rejects or blurs this split, acknowledges and examines the affective realm, and is fueled by the more holistic notion and theory of love as a hermeneutic put forth by self-identified U.S. third-world feminist ChlÌ?a Sandoval. Next, I make connections between Sandovals theory and the work of several contemporary feminist scholars who theorize love and the formation of powerful coalitions that can work toward fostering democratizing social change in U.S. society today.

The purpose of this study is to expose the strategies through which extreme sports constitute gender through exaggeration, parody, queering, resistance, and transcendence of normative gendered binaries. I interrogate how extreme sports operate on the margins of sport, gender, media, and lived experience to better understand the processes and performances that retain, reinforce, and resist our notions of normative gender, bodies, and sexuality. Starting with the claim that performance is constitutive of gender and culture, I will focus on how extreme sporting performances create significant commentaries on mainstream assumptions surrounding sporting gender, sexuality, and corporeality. These commentaries function in extreme sports' spaces: to critique how extreme sports reclaim oppressive language of gendered binaries; to give voice to sexual silences in performances that lampoon, retrofit, and transcend those assumptions; and, for athletes to reclaim corporeality through strategies of parody, resistance, and elision. Taking up the transcendent possibilities for gender, body, and sexuality in extreme sports, I suggest that these are also places to reimagine a phallocentric combat myth, revisit issues of class and performance, and speak of the invisibility of racial difference. Using critical analysis, interviews, and personal narrative, I explore performances of gender, sexuality, and the body in mediated and live extreme events beginning with the revival of the roller derby phenomenon exemplified in the 2007 documentary Hell on Wheels, the 2006 A&E series Rollergirls, and the multiple websites, leagues, and fictional representations such as 2009's Whip It. I then turn to MTV's pranktainment playground of Jackass, Viva la Bam and Nitro Circus as well as the traveling motocross spectacle Nuclear Cowboyz. Finally, I attend to the extreme bodies of ultradistance running through multiple texts and conversations with runners as well as my own participation in the 2011 Keys100 in the Florida Keys. My study will not repeat the many questions, critiques, or concerns of foundational or traditional scholarship on sports, media, or risk. Instead, I focus on several key issues across the chapters: how sport is housed as always already a masculine realm, how mainstream and extreme sports do gender corporeally, and the ways extreme sports challenge our mainstream notions of sexualities.

The purpose of this study was to determine the experiences, challenges and strategies for success of African American female senior-level executives at predominately white institutions (PWIs). This qualitative study used a phenomenological perspective to address the research questions, as phenomenology was uniquely suited to capture participants lived experiences (Guido, Chávez, & Lincoln, 2010; Perl & Noldon, 2000). The conceptual framework for the study was based on the theoretical concepts of black feminist theory, biculturalism and intersectionality. The combination of these theories was uniquely appropriate for researching the lived experiences of African American women (Barrett, Cervero, & Johnson-Bailey, 2003; Collins, 2000; Du Bois & Edwards, 2007). Black feminist theory addressed the lived experiences of African American women (Collins, 2000); intersectionality highlighted the oppression of African American women (Collins, 2000) and biculturalism explained how African American women adapt to be successful (Barrett, et al., 2003). The findings for this study of African American female senior-level executives at predominately white institutions include: regarding experiences (1) relationships and connection were essential; (2) strategic and political savvy were vital; (3) one must have an awareness of your perception; (4) higher education was an isolating place; (5) racism and sexism were still prevalent; and (6) work/life balance was a myth; regarding identities (7) creation of a professional identity as the primary identity at PWI; (8) race and gender as prominent identities; and (9) personal persona purposely protected from PWI; and regarding strategies to cope with challenges and celebrate successes (10) know yourself and focus on your goals; (11) identify something to ground you outside of the PWIs; (12) invest in your success through academic and professional preparation; and (13) advance to uplift others. / text

Detta avhandlingsarbete undersöker hur psykologer förhåller sig till de olika betydelser av kön som finns i de sammanhang de befinner sig i när de utövar sitt yrke. Genom att utforska de betydelser som barn- och ungdoms­psykologer ger skillnader mellan flickor och pojkar har jag identifierat svårigheter och möjligheter när det gäller att inkludera sociala och kulturella aspekter i beskrivningar av barns och ungas psykologiska utveckling inom psykologiprofessionen i Sverige. Ett inkluderande av sociala och kulturella aspekter skulle bidra till en förståelse för hur barns psykologiska fungerande hänger ihop med de samhälleliga sammanhang de befinner sig i, och kunna användas för att ge barnen ett bättre stöd i behandlingsarbete.   Metod Elva intervjuer med svenska barn- och ungdomspsykologer, samt tre svenska läroböcker i utvecklingspsykologi analyserades. Analyserna utgick från socialkonstruktionistiska och diskurspsykologiska perspektiv.   Resultat Analyserna visade att psykologerna gav kön, genus och jämställdhet flera olika betydelser och att dessa olika betydelser ofta var motstridiga. Ett glapp identifieras mellan övergripande beskrivningar av barn och ungas utveckling där ambitionen att beskriva psykologisk utveckling som en interaktion mellan biologiska och kulturella faktorer tydligt kom till uttryck, och de mer konkreta beskrivningarna av psykologisk ut­veckling där ett biologiskt och/eller individinriktat synsätt gavs företräde. Detta glapp kom framförallt till uttryck i läroböckerna. I barn- och ungdoms­psykologernas tal om sitt arbete blev ett annat glapp synligt. När de talade mer övergripande om vad ett professionellt förhållningssätt till kön innebar baserade sig talet på strävan efter neutralitet och en syn på kön som ovid­kommande för psykologisk behandling. När talet handlade om det konkreta behandlingsarbetet konstruerades kön som skillnader. Barn- och ungdoms­psykologerna tycktes sitta fast i ett dilemma mellan en könsneutral retorik och ett bemötande och en behandling som utgick från könsskillnader som ”naturliga”. Det snäva individfokus som kom till uttryck i psykologernas berättelser lyfts fram som en förklaring till att psykologerna inte själva tycktes uppmärksamma detta glapp under sitt berättande. En fråga där psykologerna ställde kritiska frågor kring jämställdhet och lika fördelning av resurser handlade om att så få flickor i yngre åldrar besöker barn- och ungdomspsykiatrin. Vid dessa tillfällen kom en vilja att omfatta flickors och pojkars olika livsvillkor som förklaring till könsskillnader till uttryck. Då det i deras tal inte fanns några kopplingar mellan den olika fördelningen av resurser och över- och underordning mellan kvinnor och män på en samhällsnivå, verkade psykologerna dock sakna tillgång till analytiska redskap att fullfölja tankarna om olika livsvillkor. Försöken att kontextu­a­lisera flickornas ”osynlighet” tycktes då landa i en anpassning efter köns­stereotyper för ”deras eget bästa”. Jag identifierade några undantag från detta mönster. Några få psykologer uttryckte explicit ett jämställdhets­intresse och en önskan att arbeta på ett jämställt sätt i sitt behandlings­arbete. Analyserna av deras berättelser visar att professionella ideal när det gäller kunskapssyn hade stor betydelse för om, och hur, de kunde motarbeta ett könsstereotypt förhållningssätt i sitt arbete. En strategi att arbeta för jämställdhet utifrån ett neutralt kunskapsideal tycktes leda till ett fokus på ”likabehandling” och osynliggöra skillnader i värdering och handlings­ut­rymme mellan flickor och pojkar. En strategi att arbeta för jämställdhet som baserar sig i idealet ”rättvist resultat” tycktes öppna upp för möjlig­heter att upprätthålla uppmärksamheten på orättvisor och maktprocesser mellan könen.   Slutsats Möjligheterna att inkludera kulturella och sociala betydelser av kön i psykologiskt behandlingsarbete med barn och unga verkar hänga nära samman med psykologers professionella ideal för vad som är legitim kun­skap. I vilken utsträckning psykologerna hade tillgång till analytiska redskap att reflektera över kopplingar mellan problemen hos de flickor och pojkar de träffade och över- och underordning mellan kvinnor och män på en sam­hälls­nivå var också viktigt. Sådana tankemässiga redskap, som utgår från feministiska teorier och genusvetenskap, saknades till stor del i de intervjuer och de läroböcker som granskades. / This thesis examines how Swedish child psychologists relate to the meanings of gender in the surrounding culture. By exploring the meanings that psycho­logists working in child- and youth psychiatry, schools, and in the developmental field give differences between girls and boys I have aimed to identify obstacles against, and possibilities for more inclusive ways to under­stand and theorize the psychological development of children and young people. Such inclusive ways would contribute to an understanding of how children’s psychological functioning is related to the societal context in which they live their life, as well as to strategies for psychotherapy.   Methods Eleven interviews with psychologists working with child and adolescent interventions in Sweden, and three Swedish textbooks on developmental psychology were analysed. The analyses were informed by constructionist and discourse-psychological approaches.   Results The analyses showed that both the books and the psychologists gave gender and gender equality many different meanings and that these meanings often were contradictory. A gap was identified between general descriptions of the development of children where an ambition to emphasize interactions between biological and social factors was clearly expressed and more specific parts of the descriptions of child development where priority was given to biological and/or individual-based explanations. This gap was particularly prominent in the textbooks. In the child psychologists’ nar­ratives about their practice another type of gap was more prominent: When talking on a general level about gender and treatment the psycholo­gists construed a child’s gender as irrelevant to treatment. However, when talking about specifics of their practice the psychologists framed gender in terms of differences between boys and girls. The child psychologists seemed to be stuck between a view of gender as neutral and irrelevant, and assumptions of gender differences as ”natural”. The psychologists evidenced no conscious reflections on this gap, possibly because of the strong individual focus that they expressed. On a few occasions an ambition to encompass how living conditions could cause differences between girls and boys was expressed. Some psychologists noted that among younger children less clinical attention was paid to girls than to boys and saw this as unfair; however, none of them reflected on whether there could be connections between this asymmetry and patterns of gendered power and subordination in society. I therefore concluded that the psychologists seemed to lack analytical tools for such a contextualisation. What began as an attempt to bring in the girls’ context then became conserving and lead to a strategy to adjust the girls to expectations in the girls’ surroundings “for their own good”. I identified a few exceptions from this pattern. A few psychologists spontaneously ex­pressed an engagement in gender equality issues and wanted to promote gender equality in their work as therapists. The analyses of their interviews point to how child psychotherapists’ ideals regarding legitimate therapeutic knowledge impact their thinking about whether, and how, to counteract gender stereotypes through therapy. Efforts to promote gender equality that are based in an ideal of neutral knowledge seemed to lead to a focus on “equal treatment” and to work to conceal the asymmetries in valuation and freedom of action of girls and boys. Efforts to promote gender equality that are based in an ideal of justice as the outcome seemed to open possibilities to maintain attention on injustice and power issues related to gender.   Conclusion The possibilities to include cultural and social meaning of gender in psychotherapy with children and young people seem to be closely related to professional ideals regarding legitimate therapeutic knowledge. The extent to which the psychologists had been given analytical tools to reflect on connections between the various problems of the girls and boys they treated, and patterns of gendered power and subordination in society was also important. That kind of tools, based in feminist theory and gender studies, were to a large extent missing in the interviews and the develop­mental psychology textbooks that were analysed.

Racial Queer is a qualitative study of Multiracial college students with a critical ethnographic component. The design methods, grounded in Critical Race Methodology and Feminist Thought (both theories that inform Critical Ethnography), include: 1) 25 semi-structured interviews of Multiracial students, 2) of which 5 were expanded into case studies, 3) 3 focus groups, 4) observations of the sole registered student organization for Multiracial students on Central University’s campus, 5) field notes and 6) document analysis. The dissertation examines the following question: How do Multiracial students understand and experience their racialized identities within a large, public, tier-one research university in Texas? In addition, it addresses the following sub-questions: How do Multiracial students experience their racialized identities in their everyday interactions with others, in relation to their own self-perceptions and in response to the way others perceive them to be? How do Multiracial students’ positionalities, as they relate to power, privilege, phenotype and status, guide their behavior in different contexts and situations? Using Holland et al.’s (1998) social practice theory of self and identity, Chicana Feminist Theory, and tenets of Queer Theory, this study illustrates how Multiracial college students utilize agency as racial queers to construct and negotiate their identities within a context where identity is both self-constructed and produced for them. I introduce the term, racial queer, to frame the unconventional space of the Multiracial individual. I use this term not to convey sexuality, but to convey the parallels of queerness (both as a term of empowerment and derogation) as they pertain to being Multiracial. In other words, queerness denotes a unique individuality as well as a deviation from the norm (Sullivan, 2003; Warner, 1993; Gamson, 2000). The primary purpose of this study is to illustrate the agentic ways in which Multiracial college students come to understand and experience the complexity of their racialized identity production. Preliminary findings suggest the need to expand the scope of racial discourses to include Multiracial experiences and for further study of Multiracial students. Their counter-narratives access an otherwise invisible student population, providing an opportunity to broaden critical discourses around education and race. / text