Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Kakali Bhattacharya / The purpose of this narrative case study was to explore the lived experiences of four Black undergraduate collegiate women leaders in higher education in their third and fourth years of study in a predominantly White Midwestern institution. This qualitative study was conducted with purposeful and criterion-based sampling. The participants selected needed to be at least a student leader in a registered student organization at one time during their collegiate career. Narrative inquiry was used to explore the participants’ racialized, gendered, and leadership identity development prior to college and throughout the course of their collegiate careers. The participants’ narratives were organized using Bildungsroman format, or as a coming of age story. Findings indicate that although the participants identified as Black women and Black women student leaders, their racialized identity was much more salient than their gendered identity. Therefore, outside of biological markers like menstruating and becoming mothers, they were not able to articulate the development of their intersectional identity. Findings also show the participants had a certain amount of self-confidence and critical self-awareness that allowed them to succeed even when faced with racialized and gendered discrimination as individuals and within their roles as student leaders. Such obstacles contributed to their ability to just do when faced with challenges regardless of the difficulty level of the challenge. The study raises implications about the multitude of support systems that Black women and girls have upon entering college. Another implication is the amount of invisible labor that Black women as collegiate leaders do in order to support their fellow peers. Finally, this study raises implications about the deficit narratives that depict Black women’s and girls’ stories within education. Thus, this study presented a counternarrative to the traditional, negative, and stereotypical narratives that are untrue and detrimental to the racialized, gendered, and leadership development of Black women and girls within and beyond the education system.

This thesis is an exploratory study of the everyday lives of four women with various physical disabilities and how these women came to view themselves as sexual beings. Using an intersectional analysis and in-depth interviews, it examines these women's perceptions of expectations of normalcy in regard to life style, body image, and sexual practices, especially the expectations of their able-bodied family members and friends. It also explores how these disabled women deal with the stigmas they encounter in their everyday lives. Special attention is focused on how disabled people are often viewed as asexual or without sexual desires. By contrast, this thesis highlights the sexual agency of the disabled and includes policy implications that entail new ways of defining sexual practices, as well as the need for sex education for the disabled.

Thesis advisor: Ana M. Martínez-Alemán / The purpose of this study of college men of faith was to posit a theory of the intersection of masculinity and faith in college men’s identity. This study was conducted from a social constructivist epistemological paradigm through an intersectionality social justice theoretical lens utilizing a constructivist grounded theory methodology. The following research questions guided this study: (a) how do masculinity and faith identities intersect in college men who actively participate in faith-based communities, and (b) how does this intersection inform college men’s development? Two interviews were conducted with twelve Christian college men from Catholic and Protestant traditions at two large, four-year, highly residential, and high research activity universities in the Northeast with parallel offerings for faith-based communities. The theory that emerged from this study was grounded in the participants’ experiences at the intersection of masculinity and faith in college men’s identity through constant interaction with cultural expectations of them as men of faith. In order to meet these expectations at the intersection of masculinity and faith, participants described a meaning-making process of accountability and affirmation, where they negotiated masculinity and faith identities and were more likely to receive accountability and affirmation from their faith communities than a hypersexualized and very individualistic masculine culture, which resulted in a greater conformance to faith and religious principles. Through this process, participants were able to create a more harmonious identity at the intersection of masculinity and faith. The theory of accountability and affirmation is present in three major themes of this study: (a) family and relationships; (b) career, calling, and vocation; and (c) sex and sexuality. The theory of the intersection of masculinity and faith in college men’s identity has implications relevant to theory development, student affairs and campus ministry practice, and future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Magister Artium - MA / Not all disabilities are the same and the way that society may respond to people with disabilities depends on their “disability” and how their body deviates from the appearance norms of society. People with disabilities constitute a significant portion of the South African population. A body of research and physical evidence shows that people with disabilities may face certain obstacles or limitations in fulfilling a normal life. Obstacles include perceptions of disabilities, negative stigma and attitudes, barriers to an environment which is accessible for people with disabilities, and constructions of ableism. In a way, these obstacles influence the way people with disabilities construct their identity. Beyond this, the voices of people with disabilities are not always heard and their personal experiences are not always given political recognition. This research aimed to explore how a group of students living with a physical or visual disability constructed their identities in their environment or society. A feminist qualitative method was conducted. The study focused on the experiences and perceptions of nineteen to twenty-seven year old female and male students with disabilities. Out of the six participants, two were coloured, three were black and one participant is classified as coloured, but identifies as biracial. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection and a Qualitative Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the data. Social constructionism and intersectionality were useful theoretical approaches adopted in exploring the lived experiences of students with disabilities. The results of this study revealed that students with disabilities find living with a disability as not being a barrier to living a fulfilling life. Students with disabilities construct their identities in a way that frees them from ideologies which shape the experience of disability in a negative way. However, the study revealed that negative barriers to identity construction still exist. These barriers come in the form of negative perceptions and stigma of disability, ableism and the medical model. The study further revealed that when the lived experiences of students with disabilities are understood through the lens of gender, race and class, these social divisions overlap and are cumulative on the effects of student’s experiences. The one major barrier in identity construction that the study revealed is the negative social perceptions of disability. The way in which students feel that they belong in their society is representative of how they respond to negative social constructions of disability.

So-called 'honour killings' have become an issue of concern for the international community. In Turkey, in particular, the practice still exists despite the adoption of the relevant human rights instruments. This study evaluates how effective current international human rights law, and in particular the recent Istanbul Convention, have been in eradicating so called 'honour killings' on Turkey. The thesis argues that the improvement of the status of women in Turkey in accordance with gender equality as well as the application of the principle of state due diligence, both requirements of the Istanbul Convention and international human rights law, are fundamental means towards eradicating the killing women in the name of 'honour'. The study looks at the application of such standards as well as the current obstacles using the feminist approaches, in particular the intersectionality approach. Through such lens, the study discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish Constitution, Turkish Civil Code, Turkish Penal Code and Law to Protect Family and Prevent VAW and questions the judicial approach to the implementation of the women's right to life. It identifies the lacunae in the Turkish legislation that allow inadequate legal protection for women and the inconsistency of the judicial approach to the definition of the so-called honour killings in the judgements. The study then recommends some concrete amendments to the relevant legal provisions in order to better reflect the international framework and the feminist approaches.

acase@tulane.edu / This dissertation research brings together disparate bodies of literature on environmental inequality, sociology of space, and feminist theories of intersectionality to bear on the location and distribution of environmental hazards in the form of landfills. Landfills pose a threat to both ecological sustainability as well as present risks to human health through contamination and pollution. While environmental inequality literatures have executed exceptional work into the dynamics of race and class with respect to the distribution of hazardous waste facilities, the literature is noticeably lacking with respect to identifying relationships between gender and environmental inequalities. Furthermore, many quantitative studies have exclusively focused on hazardous waste facilities as a singular measure of environmental inequality. This study advances the field in three major ways. First, through the inclusion of theorizations based on feminist intersectionality theories, this research empirically analyzes hypotheses derived from intersectionality theories to understand dynamics of gender-environment interactions. Second, this study extends analysis to all forms of waste containment—municipal, industrial, construction and demolition, and hazardous—to identify trends across the social fabric of the contiguous United States at the county level of analysis with respect to multiple forms of environmental hazards. Third, utilizing innovative analytic techniques, this research provides three unique and related strategies, geographic information systems, logistic binary regression, and structural equation modeling, to examine socio-environmental disparities. Findings from each analytic strategy inform the subsequent strategy. Findings suggest the importance of including gender indicators to account for the unique effect of gender and environmental inequality. Furthermore, results indicate the importance in applying intersectionality theories to environmental outcomes as well as empirically testing hypotheses derived from the largely theoretical and qualitatively backed field. Future research should focus on specific regional dynamics of identified socio-environmental interactions by including historical and qualitative data to triangulate quantitative findings. / 1 / Clare Cannon

The unique meanings people of varying cultures and religions assign to dating behaviours/abuse along with the context in which these meanings are created are largely neglected in dating abuse research. Applying intersectionality, I examine understandings of dating behaviours/abuse from the perspective of South Asian Muslims in Canada. To unravel the context in which these perceptions are formed, I use intersecting characteristics that emerged as themes in 11 qualitative interviews, which include: individual identities, influences of South Asian Muslim and mainstream Western cultures, and personal perceptions of dating. The majority of participants used religion, cultures, and nations as identifiers, perceived their communities to be opposed to dating, and felt pressure to date stemming from Western society. I argue that these intersect to shape their personal perceptions of dating and the meanings and significance of dating behaviours/abuse, which revolved around: significance of exposure and sexual behaviours, control, relationship attachment, and psychological behaviours/abuse. / UOIT

This study addresses methodological critiques of ethnicity research in organisations by combining intersectionality and identity work frameworks. Additionally, it extends intersectionality beyond its traditional focus on multiple disadvantage and demonstrates contextual sensitivity to ethnicity. Taking an individual constructivist stance, I examined ethnicity and its intersection with gender and seniority through an identity work lens. The research question was: How do senior black, Asian and minority ethnic women and men make meaning of episodes that raise the salience of their intersecting identities at work? The study investigated how 24 senior black, Asian and minority ethnic (BME) women and men constructed an understanding of their multiple-identified selves in response to affirming, contradictory or ambiguous identity-heightening work experiences. Respondents kept journals about episodes that raised the salience of their intersecting identities. Then, in interviews, they described the sense they made of the episodes and their responses to them. Following a template-based analysis of 101 accounts, a typology emerged of Accommodating, Refuting, Reconciling, Affirming and Exploratory identity work modes, describing senior BME individuals’ identity construction in response to identity-heightening episodes. I introduce ‘intersectional identity work’ to illustrate how individual (e.g. cognitive effort to reconcile a paradox), relational (e.g. a sense of responsibility and affinity for subordinate minority colleagues) and contextual (e.g. visibility resulting from demographic distribution in one’s immediate environment) factors influence intersecting senior, ethnic and gender constructions at work. Integrating intersectional and identity work perspectives to examine ethnicity demonstrates the dynamic interplay of multiple identity dimensions during meaning-making, the range of modes adopted and the intensity of effort expended by senior BME women and men during personal meaning-making. This approach makes a methodological contribution to ethnicity and intersectionality research. It also makes an empirical contribution to UK ethnicity and identity work research through the suggestive model of identity work modes and rich insight into senior BME individuals’ experiences at the juxtaposition of disadvantage and privilege.

Title: If you can not be seen - You do not exist: A quantitative study of how gender and other socialfactors affect the degree of visibility in the Swedish newscasts of Aktuellt and Rapport. (Syns duinte � finns du inte: En kvantitativ studie om inverkan av kön och andra sociala aspekter påmänniskors synlighet i Aktuellt och Rapport).Number of pages: 46Author: Helena HuhtaTutor: Martin FredrikssonCourse: Media and Communication Science CPeriod: Autumn of 2009University: Division of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this study has been to investigate to what degree women and menparticipate in the newscasts of Aktuellt and Rapport, broadcast on the Swedish public servicechannels of SVT 1 and SVT 2. Furthermore, I have also looked into how social identities, such asage and ethnicity, affect the degree of representation for each gender, respectively. Some of thebasic research questions comprise: 1. how much space is given to men compared to women in termsof: number of participants for each gender, speaking time and position in the news order? 2. Howdo the roles differ for male and female participants in terms of position and topic? 3. How do ageand ethnicity affect the degree of visibility for men and women in Aktuellt and Rapport?Material/Method: This study has been carried out as a quantitative content analysis of Aktuellt andRapport, during ten weekdays in October and November of 2009. The research units included in thestudy consist of all people visible and talking actively, on screen during the domestic news, of saidperiod, in Aktuellt and Rapport.Main results: The results show that men are more visible than women, due to there being a largernumber of male participants, and men also having a tendency to get longer speaking times.Regarding roles, women participate to a much greater extent as private persons than men - the latterrather being made visible as representatives. The main subject areas between the genders also differ, where women usually occur in a “soft news” context, and men in “hard news” context.When looking into the intersection between gender and age, the newscasts have a tendency todisplay younger females and older males. Hence, the female participants seem to have adiminishing chance of being seen as they grow older, while there is an opposite tendency for maleparticipants.Finally, regarding the intersection between ethnicity and gender, the study has shown that thegenders are more evenly represented among people of a non Swedish origin. The ethnic minoritiesare, however, underrepresented in these newscasts as a whole.Keywords: gender, ethnicity, age, intersectionality, news, media, representation.

Female musicians and actors are being disadvanteged in the music industry, because of standards that prevents women from participating on equal terms. Unequal distribution of resources and status depends on power structures which creates an hierarchy. This study is about how an organization, Femtastic, works for equality and diversity in the field of music, how they experience their positions and their possibilities. Also how they relate to the cultural policy objectives. Femtastic is trying to create a structural change in the male-dominated music industry. The study was based on interviews with members from Femtastic and shows that all of the interviewed members have experienced different kinds of resistance in the music industry, because of their gender. Femtastic is an example of how other organizations can work with these issues in order to create an equal music industry, characterized by diversity. I’m using a gender and an intersectionalitative perspective. This is a qualitative study, the purpose is to problematize and observe inequalities. Also to bring a greater insight in the importance of having an intersectionality perspective when investigating gender equality issues. This perspective describes how various power structures interact and maintain each other. The study can support the development against inequalities based on categories such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality.