The school to prison pipeline is a phrase used to describe the phenomenon where youth, and disproportionately African American males, are pushed out of public school systems into criminal justice systems. It hints at the possibility that incarceration is not a matter of chance, but often a structurally created and supported outcome. In order to understand the men most disproportionately impacted by the phenomena this study explores the narratives of twelve formerly incarcerated African American men. Structural racism, challenges of school integrations and criminal justice policies emerge as powerful influences on the life outcomes of formerly incarcerated African American men. This study goes beyond statistical accounts of racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system to deeply consider the voices of generations of formerly incarcerated African American men. Understanding the impact of the school and justice systems on the lives of African American men has implications for educators and policy makers. / text

The promises of the open door community college system have helped people from all walks of life access and achieve higher education credentials. Numerous community college graduates transferred to other universities to continue their academic pursuits or entered the emerging career areas with skills that afford those wages and lifestyles that allow them to support their families, contribute as tax payers and full participants in the American Dream. For many African American and Latino men, the hope of achieving a college degree was realized through their involvement in a special student success program that offered mentoring, academic support, life skills necessary for managing personal and professional relationships, financial literacy and friendships with peers built on honesty, integrity, and accountability agreements. Many of these programs, though life changing for participants, were small in scale, are not supported across institutions, lacked broad involvement from faculty members, and were limited in their scope. Long term sustainable program plans must include issues related to scalability, replication; financial and strategic plans; common measures of effectiveness that eliminate current achievement and attainment gaps President Obama along with other policy groups has challenged 2-year colleges to help America lead all other nations in producing the largest percentage of adults with a college credential. This research used a qualitative case study approach to collect, review, and analyze 82 community college minority male student success programs. To broaden the research study pertinent to what measures of evidence are used to determine effectiveness, program directors and participants were interviewed with a semi-structured approach. Data were analyzed and greater clarity of the problems many men of color face and the programs designed to increase their academic, career and workforce success. To close the gender and racial gaps identified demands holistic solutions between and among private, public, governmental, social, cultural, academic, and financial organizations. Our global knowledge economy demands college presidents, governing board members, faculty, staff, community, faith-based institutions, and men of color to collaborate and create, and improve and strengthen the chances for more minority men to attain college credentials. / text

Purpose: To identify barriers to implementing practice recommendations regarding HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination for male adolescent patients among Family Nurse Practitioners (FNPs). Rationale/Background: HPV infection is a source of numerous cancers. More than one-quarter of the HPV-associated cancers in the United States occur in males. The quadrivalent vaccine is approved in young males and is effective in the prevention of genital warts and reducing HPV related cancers yet vaccination rates are low and expected to remain low. Barriers to vaccination exist even after the 2011 recommendation for routine use. Method: Quantitative, surveys. A 22-item instrument was administered to FNPs working in primary care settings. Participants were surveyed regarding financial, logistic, provider, and parental barriers to vaccination among adolescent males. Results: Descriptive analysis at both the item and scale level demonstrated that FNPs report financial barriers as the most significant barrier. The barriers of least concern were provider attitudes. Barriers regarding FNPs' perception of parental attitudes were seen as moderately concerning. Independent samples t-tests showed that FNPs who did not administer the HPV vaccine to male adolescent patients reported having significantly more financing barriers as compared to FNPs who did. Conclusion: Results suggested that financial issues may constrain FNPs' implementation of practice recommendations for the HPV vaccine and that FNPs who did not administer the HPV vaccination to adolescent male patients may be unable to do so due to financial reasons. Perceptions of parental attitudes are also seen as playing a role in preventing male adolescent patients from receiving the HPV vaccine. Efforts to reduce barriers to implementing recommended HPV vaccine practices should focus on lessening the expense of the vaccine for both providers and parents and increasing parental knowledge and understanding of the HPV vaccine for their sons. Definitions: HPV4 is used to reference the quadrivalent and Gardasil® vaccinations; permissive refers to the 2009 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) support of allowing adolescent males aged 9-26 to decide, in collaboration with their health care providers, to vaccinate; recommended is the ACIP's modification from permissive to routine recommendation.

This quantitative study examined body image and disordered eating in older males. Using a series of questionnaires and demographic questions, two research questions were explored: a) What are the characteristics of older males in terms of eating and body image? and b) Are disordered eating behaviors among older males related to dissatisfaction with body image, specifically physical appearance or physical functioning? Paired samples t-tests revealed that older males rated their ideal body figure as significantly smaller than their current figure, t(35) = -5.53, p < .01, which indicates the presence of body dissatisfaction. Twenty percent of participants were found to be at risk for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, a correlation was found between disordered eating attitudes and body dissatisfaction particularly as it relates to physical appearance, (r(33) = -.486, p < .01).

In order to defend against outgroups, males and females respond to outgroup threat with different strategies. Specifically, males have been shown to respond to outgroup threat with increased ingroup solidarity and cooperation which is likely reflective of their ancestral role as warriors. What remains unknown is whether this cooperative warrior mindset among males not only increases ingroup prosociality, but also decreases ingroup aggression. Aggression against ingroup members under outgroup threat would likely disadvantage the ingroup by reducing the ingroup’s collective formidability. Further, prosocial motivations inhibit aggression. As such, I hypothesized that sex and outgroup threat would interact such that males, but not females, would respond to outgroup threat with reduced aggression towards ingroup members. To test this hypothesis, 41 male and 60 female participants were induced to either feel outgroup threat or no threat. All participants were then provoked by an ingroup member and then given a chance to aggress against that individual. Failing to support my hypothesis, outgroup threat did not interact with sex to predict aggression against ingroup members. This interactive effect was not further moderated by personality factors relevant to aggression. I discuss my findings in context of statistical power and the punishment of deviant ingroup members.

Eating disorders and disordered eating attitudes and behaviors are characterized by an over-evaluation of weight and shape, under or over-controlled eating, as well as engagement in compensatory behaviors. The disorders are associated with psychological suffering, acute and long-term health impairments, a high rate of suicide attempts as well as an increased risk of mortality. Knowledge regarding the etiology of eating disorders is limited and based on current models it is not possible to adequately predict either who will get an eating disorder or who will recover. This lack of understanding has hindered the development of effective prevention and treatment interventions. The aim of the present thesis was to contribute towards an increased understanding of eating disorders and disordered eating attitudes and behavior through the collection of norms and psychometric data, investigation of risk factors and their roles, and focusing on the understudied group of males with eating disorders. Five studies were included. Specifically, Study I focused on collecting general population and clinical norms on the well-established Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and the Clinical Impairment Assessment Questionnaire (CIA). Study II both collected general population norms on, and investigated psychometric properties of, the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-8C), an instrument intended to assess body dissatisfaction. Study III focused on the role of perfectionism (an established risk factor for eating disorders) as a possible mediator or moderator between body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behavior and attitudes. Finally, in Study IV and V attention was placed on males. In Study IV the specific aim was to compare the clinical characteristics between young males and females with eating disorders while in study V the specific aim was to explore variables associated with disordered eating among young males based on a compilation of factors known to play a role among females as well as factors thought to be uniquely associated with males, such as sexual orientation and drive for muscularity. A greater understanding of eating disorders will help reduce the stigma that is associated with eating disorders, easing the way for affected individuals to seek help and ultimately improve the development of effective prevention and intervention.

Masters Research - Master of Philosophy / Introduction Forty-six elite adolescent male rugby league players (12-17 years) participated in a nine-week study to determine the effects of three exercise training programs on 0-30 metres sprint running time and bounds performance (10 bounds). Subjects were randomly assigned to a rugby league fitness group (F) n=12, a sprint group (S) n= 14 and a sprint-bounds group (SB) n= 20. Forty-two subjects completed the study. Methods Separate sessions for fitness, speed, and bounds were conducted once a week for nine weeks. To determine the effect of training a two-way analysis of variance was performed, followed by post-hoc paired t-tests to allow pairwise comparisons when significant interactions were found. Significance was set at p<0.05. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Mac (version 13.1). Effect sizes were calculated to evaluate the meaningfulness of observed changes. Results Moderate improvements (p<0.05; 5%) were observed in both the F and SB groups over 10 m. Speed changes over 30 m differed more among the groups. The F group recorded moderate (p<0.01; 4%) improvements, small improvements (p<0.01; 3%) in the SB group and trivial difference (p<0.05) in the S group. The F and S groups improved by approximately 7% (p<0.01) in bounds performance over 10 bounds whereas the SB group improved by approximately 10% (p<0.01) in bounds performance over 10 bounds. Group S had faster sprint times (p<0.05) prior to training compared to groups F and SB. Discussion All three programs led to improvements in sprint speed and bounds distance, but the extent of the improvements varied with the specificity of the training program and pre-training performance level. Groups F and SB had 4-5% improvements in sprint speed over 30 m whereas group S showed relatively trivial changes. In all groups, the improvements were greater over 10 m and least over 30 m. Bounds distance improved more than sprint speed, and the greatest improvement was achieved in the SB group compared to the F and S groups. Conclusion Rugby league training (game specific drills and extended efforts) coupled with the various components of physical activity can improve speed and power as effectively as specific speed and power training in adolescent boys. Training for acceleration can selectively improve 0-10 m speed more than 0-30 m speed. Sprint and bounds training have been shown to be safe and effective methods to increase speed and power in this group of adolescents.

Thesis (M.Sc.) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv.

Thesis (MSc.(Anatomy)--Faculty of Health Sciences)-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF SHEILA LONG, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION, presented on April 4, 2017, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: African American Males’ Achievement in Literacy at a Medium-sized School District MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. John McIntyre, Examination Committee Chair The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine how culturally relevant pedagogy affects African American males’ academic achievement in literacy. The study examined the perceptions of third grade teachers and third grade African American male students about the use of culturally relevant pedagogy in their classrooms. Culturally relevant pedagogy is defined operationally as “student-centered approach to teaching in which the students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student's cultural place in the world.” Culturally relevant pedagogy is consistent with students’ values and culture that ensures academic achievement while still meeting the expectations of the school district and state requirements. This study was a sequential explanatory mixed method study. Phase one of the study was a quantitative survey of 20 questions that was completed by 8 3rd grade teachers. A small sample size. The data was analyzed using matched pair T-Test of teachers’ perceptions of culturally responsive literacy use in the classrooms and African American males’ vocabulary. In addition to the surveys, Pre- and Post-Vocabulary Tests were collected from 47 3rd grade African American males who attend school in this predominantly white school district. Phase II of the study was a convenience sample of 9 3rd grade teachers and 19 African American males 3rd grade students. I investigated the students’ perceptions of culturally responsive pedagogy through the use of the Journeys (2013) basal series in classrooms. The data was collected and analyzed using interviews and observations. The following questions were addressed to explore the research topic: First, how does the use of culturally responsive pedagogy increase African American males’ achievement in literacy as measured by I-Ready assessment? Second, what perceptions do teachers have about the use of culturally responsive pedagogy in their classrooms? Third, what perceptions do third grade African American male students have about the use of culturally responsive pedagogy in their classrooms? The findings of the study showed that African American males’ literacy scores increased with the implementation of culturally responsive pedagogy using the Journeys’ (2013) Basal series.