No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study aims to identify and analyse the actions the Swedish Armed Forces take working towards gender equality. This is done by examining various governing documents, reports, and media coverage. An interview with an employed women with relevant competence of the organisations active work and policies regarding gender mainstreaming is also conducted. These aspects are analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and a liberal feminist theoretical approach. A brief background of previous research and history is also presented. As a conclusion of this study, the resulting framing and consequences of the Swedish Armed Forces gender mainstreaming is presented.

This report was the result of a study conducted in Stockholm County in Sweden. This study aimed to gain further understanding of how social workers working with domestic violence issues perceived how the COVID-19 pandemic affected women who are victims of domestic violence in Sweden. Three social workers working with victims of domestic violence were interviewed using semi structured questions. The sample consisted of two respondents from social services and one respondent from a women'sshelter. Their clients are women from the age of 18 and above with different cultural backgrounds. The results generated from the interview were analysed using feminist theory and earlier research conducted on domestic violence. Though domestic violence against women has been a social problem before the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings revealed the different factors that led to more cases of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic such as economic dependency on the perpetrator, depression,alcohol abuse, and social isolation due to the partial lockdown. These factors cause the women (victims) to be more vulnerable to the crime perpetrated by their partners, and due to partial lockdown and the stay-at-home order by the government to combat the spread of COVID-19 virus in Sweden, the social workers believed that the women (the victims) were stuck with their perpetrators and unable to come out to seek the help needed and this made their situation more vulnerable resulting to long life effects like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD), suicidal thoughts and even death.

The purpose of this study is to begin to articulate the theoretical identity of the field of dance studies as an academic discipline and to produce a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship, while asking questions about disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity within dance studies historically and today. My primary research questions are: What are dance studies research methods? And, which research methods, if any, are inherent to dance as an academic discipline? In order to answer these seemingly direct and simple questions, I also question the assumption that we know what dance studies research methods are. In Chapter 1 I first introduce and qualify myself as a dance artist and scholar, connecting my own experiences to my research; I narrate my research questions in detail and describe the significance, limitations, and scope of this project. In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide a history of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary origins of dance studies in higher education and situate that history within contemporary conversations in dance studies on disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. In Chapter 4 I offer an analysis of the National Dance Education Organization's (NDEO) Research Priorities for Dance Education: A Report to the Nation and The Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi), an online searchable database that aims to document all literature and research in dance education (not dance studies) from 1926 to the present, as it relates to issues and methods in my own research. In Chapter 5 I identify and describe current research methods found in all dance studies dissertations granted from the 4 doctoral programs in Dance in the United States over a three-year period. This chapter begins to articulate the current theoretical identity of the field. I examine and report on current trends in dance studies research methods and draw comparisons across dance studies doctoral programs, setting the foundation for future discussion of dance studies research methods. In Chapter 6 I summarize the project and make suggestions for the future. A feminist lens is used throughout as a way of providing a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship by asking questions about research methods (particularly the use of critical theory as a method for research and writing about dance) and if or how particular research methods lead to the production of embodied or disembodied scholarship. / Dance

African American rites of passage (ROP) have historically contributed to adolescent gender socialization enabling Black youth to overcome the effects of racism and oppression. ROP in the schools provide lessons in Black history, traditions, and culture as they guide youth through the turbulent terrain of adolescence via the communal "coming of age" process. This study examined adolescent girls' experiences in weekly ROP classes at Ella Baker Freedom Academy (EBFA) Charter School over the course of one academic year and five months. EBFA is an African-centered Freedom School in a northeastern city in the United States. This study employed ethnographic methods within a Black Feminist/Womanist framework to investigate how rites of passage support adolescent girls' gendered ethnic identity, self-concept, and peer relations. This study fills in gaps in the literature on ROP, focusing on the participants' ROP experiences within the intersections of adolescent identity formation, womanhood and sisterhood empowerment, and culturally relevant gender socialization practices in school. Three major questions guided the study: 1) How ROP classes supported adolescent girls' intersecting and developing gender and ethnic identities; 2) How ROP classes supported students' female peer relations; and 3) How African values were utilized in ROP classes. The study revealed the interconnected ways in which ROP supported participants' developing gender/ethnic identities, and improved peer relationships, conflict resolution strategies, and personal definitions of womanhood. The ROP classes supported students by: a) developing a critical awareness of sexism, internalized oppression; i.e., colorism, negative racial/gendered stereotypes about Black women and girls in U.S. society, particularly those propagated through the media; b) building appreciation, esteem, and respect in themselves and each other; c) cultivating positive academic identities through healthy female peer relationships via critical dialogue, trust building, conflict resolution, and empowering communications; d) developing personal standards for womanhood using African-centered values; and e) revealing gendered passageways to womanhood and sisterhood in intergenerational and emotionally safe spaces, and across school contexts. / Urban Education

Background: Fat people are subjected to oppression including medical “obesity” rhetoric and fat discrimination which may affect their ability to experience an embodied relationship with their bodies. Aims: The aim of this study was to discover how self-identified fat female-bodied people understand their relationship with their bodies. Methods: Six participants were recruited for semi-structured interviews which were then analyzed in a constant comparative method. Findings: Five themes emerged from the data: dehumanization, acceptance of (the fat) body, empowerment, resistance, and dis<-->embodiment. Relationship with (the fat) body was identified by the participants as fraught with tension in a context that involves considering the positionality of “non-normative’ bodies, the value and importance of community, and a high degree of effort. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

This study explored the multiple contexts of violence in the lives of female adolescents exposed to domestic violence. The research was guided by ecological, critical and postmodern feminist perspectives. Ecological theory embeds individual and familial experiences within the broader social and historical contexts. Critical theory questions often held assumptions and issues of power. Postmodern feminism extended this theoretical lens into a socio-political context that used gender, race, class, and marginalization as central lenses. This perspective emphasized the importance of context, processes, and the subjective experiences of girls. Qualitative methods and a constructivist epistemology were used to understand the experiences of six female adolescents, between 14 and 19 whose mothers had experienced domestic violence. I explored how participants reflected on and made sense of their exposure to violence in their families, the multiple contexts of violence to which they were exposed, and the protective factors they had or employed. Four interviews were conducted with each participant, totaling 24 interviews. Poetry was used to gain trust and begin the process of sharing intrapersonal feelings, to externalize thoughts and expressions, and share lived experiences. Two mothers completed lengthy questionnaires. Participants were recruited through an insider's knowledge of multiple agencies, and using snowballing. No participants ever resided in a domestic violence shelter. This study contributed to our understanding of the lives of adolescent females exposed to domestic violence by elucidating the complexity of the experiences of participants and their families. It reminded us of the contextual importance of describing violence and the ever-changing experience of children exposed to domestic violence. Children learned to cope in multiple ways, but felt alone and powerless. Systems developed to assist youth and families were unable to intervene in a meaningful way, thus extending the feelings of abandonment and powerlessness. Children learned to hide from their feelings and put on a mask to the world. This mask hid the child safely beneath, and ultimately served to distance her from the realities in her midst. But, at what expense? I discuss findings in terms of current resilience theory and provide suggestions for future research and intervention based on these findings. / Ph. D.