There is a wealth of research showing the demotivating effects of prejudice on the academic achievement of historically marginalized social groups. However, there is a lack of research involving Metis students. The purpose of the present study was to examine how the task performance and attitudes of Metis post-secondary students can be influenced by prejudice. Data from 165 Metis post-secondary students were analyzed. The participants were asked to role play applying for a job with a non-Aboriginal employment manager, who may or may not have held negative attitudes towards Aboriginal people. The study involved a 2 X 3 research design. The participants were categorized into two groups: High and low Metis identifiers. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) Prejudiced (manager held negative attitudes about Aboriginal people); (2) Unknown attitudes (students were not given any information about the manager’s attitudes), and; (3) Non-prejudiced (manager thought favourably about Aboriginal people). The participants completed a battery of questionnaires, the scores of which functioned as dependent variables: the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) was used to assess verbal fluency, and to infer motivation; the Selection Attitudes (SA) Scale was used to assess the students’ expectations of being hired, the value they placed on being hired, their motivation to perform the verbal task, as well as their beliefs about the manager’s sense of fairness; and the Stereotyping of Whites (SW) Scale which assessed the extent to which the participants stereotyped the non-Aboriginal employment manager. The Metis Identity (MI) Scale was used to categorize the participants into high or low Metis identifiers. As a preliminary procedure, a psychometric investigation was conducted on the Metis Identity (MI) and Selection Attitudes (SA) Scales. The investigation found the MI Scale to be a reliable measure of high or low Metis identity. The SA Scale consisted of four subscales: expectations, valuing, motivation, and fairness. The valuing subscale was shown to be unreliable and therefore removed from the SA Scale. The primary analysis tested six research hypotheses, which considered the extent to which the high and low Metis identifiers responded to the questionnaires within each of the three research conditions (Prejudiced, Unknown attitudes, Non-prejudiced). It was hypothesised that, while the reactions of the high and low Metis identifiers would not differ significantly in the Prejudiced condition (i.e., where the possibility of prejudice was likely and imminent), the reactions of the high identifiers would be significantly more negative than the reactions of the low identifiers in the Unknown and Non-prejudiced conditions (i.e., where the possibility of prejudice was either ambiguous or unlikely). The hypotheses were not supported. Although there were no significant interaction effects that would support the hypotheses, there were several main effects for both the Metis identity and Prejudice factors. The high Metis identifiers reported more motivation and overall optimism about being hired than did the low identifiers. There were also several main effects for the Prejudice factor. Participants in the Prejudiced condition reported less of an expectation of being hired than those students in either the unknown attitudes or non-prejudice conditions. The participants in the Prejudiced condition also reported less motivation to perform the verbal fluency task to the best of their ability than did the participants in the unknown attitudes condition. The participants in the Prejudiced condition also stereotyped the manager more negatively than those participants in the other two, less threatening conditions. Even though the participants in the Prejudiced condition reacted more negatively to the possibility of prejudice than did those in the Unknown attitudes and Non-prejudiced conditions, whether the participants were high or low Metis identifiers did not significantly influence their reactions. In addition to the primary analyses, multiple regression analyses were performed with the COWAT and motivation as dependent variables. The analysis found that length of post-secondary education, reported motivation, and perceived fairness predicted the COWAT. The Selection Attitudes (SA) Scale and Metis Identity (MI) Scale predicted reported motivation. The study showed that Metis post-secondary students can react negatively to perceived prejudice, especially when it appears to be likely and imminent. However, their reactions may have little to do with whether they are high or low Metis identifiers. Since the perceived possibility of prejudice can influence Metis post-secondary students, it is important for non-Aboriginal educators to be aware of their attitudes and beliefs about Metis students in order to better appreciate how these beliefs can influence their students for the better or worse.

The progress of the Roman Catholic Church in Wales under a succession of able bishops between 1916 and 1962 was striking. The Church grew in strength, stature, and confidence. The expansion in the number of its adherents was largely due to continuing immigration from Ireland, England and the Continent. Although conversions from among the native population certainly occurred, they helped the Catholic cause only minimally. Furthermore, like the other Welsh denominations, the Church found itself in a constant struggle to retain its existing faithful. The growth of the Church in the Principality was one of the primary reasons why hostility and prejudice against Catholicism continued unabated down to the early 1960s. At a local level, the initial opposition to the re-emer gence of Catholicism was undramatic and soon subsided. In the wider sphere, however, animosity remained virulent. In denominational newspapers and conferences, ministers, clergymen and prominent laymen revealed deep anti-Catholic dispositions. Many reacted directly to the growth of the Church by warning fellow Welshmen of the insidious intentions of Rome and its Fascio-political threat. Others vehemently attacked Catholic belief and practice. The Catholic Church's unceasin g attempts to establish its own educational system in Wales became an ideal channel into which these prejudices were directed. While hostility remained fervent throughout the period, underlying_ it was the clear, yet gradual, acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church by the people of Wales. By 1962 the Church had achieved an accepted, and indeed revered, position among the Welsh denominations. The effect of increasing general tolerance, the wide-scale adoption of ecumenical ideals, and respect both for individual Catholics and for their promotion of social, moral and cultural issues, all helped transform the attitude of Welsh society towards the Church.

Adaptation from literature to film has always been a much criticized enterprise, with fidelity criticism, or an attempt to discredit fidelity criticism, often driving the critical discussion. However, this type of thinking is somewhat limited, becoming circular and going nowhere productive. Instead, taking into account what has come before, this thesis attempts to settle on a method of examination that moves away from fidelity criticism and towards an approach that aligns itself with cultural studies. Adaptations, then, can be seen as products of the historical, cultural, political and general socio-economic framework out of which they emerge, owing perhaps more to their context of production than to their source material. In order to provide a case study that reflects this idea, this paper looks to an author who has been adapted on multiple occasions, Jane Austen, and examines her as a cultural construct. Looking at Austen’s most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice, and using Robert Z. Leonard’s Pride and Prejudice (1940), Cyril Coke’s Jane Austen ‘s Pride and Prejudice (1980), Simon Langton’s Pride and Prejudice (1995), Andrew Black’s Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy (2003), Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005), the thesis argues that the appeal of Austen is a result of her cult status and economic viability, and also the malleability of her text, which allows filmmakers to use it in a number of different contexts, while still embodying the source material. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

Three studies tested the integrated threat theory by examining the causal role that threats play in attitudes toward immigrants. In Study I, students were presented with information about an immigrant group indicating that it posed realistic threats, symbolic threats, both types of threat or no threats to the ingroup. Attitudes toward the immigrant group were most negative when it posed both realistic and symbolic threats to the ingroup. In Study II, information was presented indicating that an immigrant group possessed negative traits, positive traits, or a combination of positive and negative traits. The results indicated that the negative stereotypes led to significantly more negative attitudes toward the immigrant group than the other types of stereotypes. In the third study, group descriptions leading to high levels of intergroup anxiety led to negative attitudes toward foreign exchange students. Empathizing with the foreign exchange students reduced these negative attitudes. The implications of the results of these studies for theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study was the examination of age bias in social work professionals who have direct and influential contact with a growing segment of the population: older adults. Those who work most closely with older people may be at risk for age bias, although much of the research on age bias has been conducted with students rather than with those who work with older people. This study adds to the research on prejudice; the sources from which attitudes, values, prejudices, and stereotypical thinking arise were addressed. Key experiences with older individuals were found to predict age bias. Because social work ethical principles closely align with conditions known to reduce prejudice, it was hypothesized that higher ethics adherence would be associated with less age bias. Specific experiential factors were found to influence prejudice toward older people. Influences from family beliefs and from television and other media were associated with a non-biased attitude, as were influences from caregiving to older people. These sources of one's values and beliefs about older individuals were also found to predict the extent of one's knowledge of aging processes. Although ethics adherence was not a predictor of age bias, the discovery of the influence of family beliefs, media portrayals, and caregiving experiences revealed a need for awareness of ageist beliefs in a professional population that works extensively with older adults. / Ph. D.

The proposed study was designed to evaluate a newly developed Prejudice towards Interracial/Interethnic Couples Scale (PTICS) using exploratory and confirmatory analyses. In this study, 963 workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) (which was randomly split 60/40 to form the exploratory and confirmatory datasets) completed the 25 items generated for the PTICS, the Marlowe-Crone Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) Form C, the Political Correctness Ideology-Race Scale (PCIRS), the Social Distance Scale (SDS), the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale, the Color-blind Racial Attitude Scale (CoBRAs), the Modern Racism Scale (MRS), and a demographic survey. The researcher collected data from two different subject matter expert groups to modify the original 17 item PTICS generated from a review of the literature. AMT workers (N = 50) currently in interracial/interethnic relationships and graduate students (N = 21) enrolled in a graduate level Principles of Measurement course at the time of data collection, indicated whether the items measured prejudice towards interracial/interethnic relationships, whether the items were clearly written, types of prejudice not captured by the items, and their own experiences (if applicable) with prejudice towards interracial/interethnic relationships. Based on the feedback from the subject matter experts, items were revised and 8 additional items were added to form the final 25 item PTICS. Exploratory factory analyses of the PTICS resulted in a two factor (relationship inferiority, social disapproval) final solution containing 14 items. Reliability and validity analyses were conducted, and were especially promising for the relationship inferiority subscale (i.e., α = .900; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with interracial/interethnic exposure), and the PTICS total score (α = .849; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure); while further refinement is needed for acknowledging social disapproval (α = .706; significantly negatively correlated with CoBRAS, and MRS, significantly positively correlated with SDS). Confirmatory factor analyses showed global and local fit issues with the two-factor structure, particularly with items from the social disapproval subscale; however, when seven covarying errors were added, global fit improved and issues with local fit were eliminated. Global fit was also improved from the original two-factor model when conducting a one-factor model which included only the relationship inferiority scale, though a few areas of local misfit still remained. Reliability and validity analyses conducted with the cross-validation data further supported the strong reliability and validity for the relationship inferiority subscale (α = .897; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDO, and SDS, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure), and the PTICS total score (α = .849; significantly positively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS, SDS, and SDO, significantly negatively correlated with diversity exposure and interracial/interethnic exposure); and the need for further refinement for acknowledging social disapproval (α = .686; significantly negatively correlated with CoBRAS, MRS; significantly positively correlated with SDS, and diversity exposure). Cross-validation results indicate that social desirability and political correctness may be concerns for both subscales and the total score, while the exploratory data only showed issues for the social disapproval subscale. Overall, the development of a Prejudice towards Interracial/Interethnic Couples Scale (PTICS), with two subscales, is an important contribution to the field; and takes a critical step in deepening our understanding of interracial/interethnic romantic relationships and facilitating quantitative research in this domain.

The number self-identified non-theists is on the rise in the United States. With a recent influx of religious skepticism in various forms of media, the existence of this ideological minority is becoming more salient. This growing population remains understudied in the social sciences. The present survey research attempts to improve this deficit by examining prejudice toward atheists among college students and exploring possible correlates and predictors, including irrational beliefs, self-esteem, and religiosity. More than 80% of respondents exhibited some form of bias against atheists, with religiosity emerging as a viable predictor. This study found a significant correlation between prejudice scores and irrational beliefs. This significance does not hold true, however, for all demographic groups.

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Research on prejudice has long been skewed by participants’ ability to monitor their reactions on overt measures of such attitudes. Accordingly, researchers created an implicit measure to study prejudice (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was thus developed. Though the IAT has long been purported as the only ‘true’ measure of participants’ feelings and cognitions, recent research has suggested the measure is not as infallible as once purported (e.g., Smith & Zarate, 1990). The purpose of this study was to integrate existing research on exemplars and how they affect scores on the IAT. Results showed that priming participants with racial exemplars that vary in terms of stereotypicality and valence had little effect on Race-IAT scores. Further, contrary to previous research, significant differences between African American and European American participants on the Race-IAT did emerge.