Current theoretical accounts of gender role development argue that children are active participants in their own and their peers' gender role development (Liben & Bigler, 2002; Ruble, Martin, & Szkrybalo, 2002). Specifically, children have been reported to bully peers whose behaviors do not conform to gender norms (Ruble & Martin, 2002). Gender-related bullying is especially problematic among adolescent boys who use gay-baiting (calling a boy gay when he does something atypical of his gender) to publicly harm male peers whose behaviors are incongruent with society's definition of masculinity (Pollack, 1998; Kimmel, 2003a; Kimmel, 2003b). Relationships among endorsing traditional masculine gender roles for the self-and others, contingent self-esteem, gender-based bullying, and academic performance have been hinted at in the literature, although there has not been a study connecting these themes. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, is to determine the relations among (a) endorsing traditional masculine gender roles via sex-typing of the self and others, (b) contingent self-esteem, (c) gender-related bullying, and (d) academic success. In addition, I propose and test the notion that contingent self-esteem mediates the relationship between sex-typing of the self and others and gender-related bullying (perpetrators and victims). Participants included 103 7th grade boys (31 European Americans, 72 Latinos) who reported on (a) their personal sex-typed attitudes (OAT-PM) and sex-typed attitudes towards others (OAT-AM), (b) levels of contingent self-esteem, and (c) gender-related bullying (perpetrators and victims) in the spring of 2008. Students' final GPAs were also obtained. Results indicated that Latino boys were more likely than European American boys to be perpetrators of gender-related bullying. European American boys, in contrast, were more likely than Latino boys to become victims of gender-related bullying. In addition, boys were more likely to engage in gender-related bullying if they were highly sex-typed and if their self-esteem was contingent upon proving their masculinity. Such findings suggest the need for researchers to develop intervention programs designed to teach students to have more flexible conceptions of gender in order to minimize the amount of gender-related bullying in the schools. / text

published_or_final_version / Sports Science / Master / Master of Science in Sports Science

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

For adolescents, body weight can be a complicated and sometimes difficult issue. Though the majority of adolescents report being aware of normative gendered body ideals, how adolescents incorporate or reject these ideals into their own weight-control decisions or sense of self can vary dramatically, largely in reaction to their social experiences with body ideals in the local, immediate contexts of their daily lives. The role of one such local context - schools - has remained largely unexplored in existing literature. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and multi-level modeling, I investigate the role high school weight cultures play in the development of adolescents’ weight-loss behaviors, overweight self-perceptions, and self-esteem. I employ social comparison theories, specifically the idea of who may serve as a likely target for social comparison - general others, similar others, or high status others - to develop hypotheses about which aspects of the school context may be associated with various aspects of adolescents’ body weight. Overall, my results indicate that there is a strong relationship between adolescents’ weight-loss behavior, self-perception and self-esteem and the weight-related culture in the school. For example, adolescent boys, on average, are significantly less likely to report perceiving themselves as overweight or engaging in weight-loss behaviors when they attend schools where there are many overweight boys in the student body. I also find that there is some variation within the school in terms of which peers are most salient to adolescents’ behaviors and self-perceptions. Both boys and girls are particularly impacted by the values and behaviors of similar others, when similarity is defined by same-sex adolescents of a similar body size. For example, on average, overweight adolescent girls are significantly more likely to report engaging in weight-loss behaviors when a higher proportion of overweight girls in their school also are engaged in weight-loss behaviors. The same pattern is found among adolescent boys. Overall, these findings suggest that meso-level social contexts - like schools - may be particularly important to how individuals incorporate macro-level beliefs or values - like gendered body ideals - into their own behaviors and self-concepts. / text

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In a small town in a Canadian prairie province where spots, particularly football and basketball, are the chief activities, many young men in school define their self-worth based on their thletic ability. To determine the impact that sports had on the young men in this particular town, 20 boys between the ages of 15 and 19 were selected for interviews. Due to the importance placed upon sports in the school and the small size of the school, all 20 of the boys had some association with football and basketball. They either played on one of the sports teams but spent much of the time sitting on the bench, or they desired to play but failed to qualify for team play. Only one of the boys had never tried to play on one of the teams. The boys were interviewed about how they fit into the circle of sports and how their participation or non-participation has influenced them. It was determined that sports did influence their self-esteem. Many of the boys, both those who were part of the team and those who had been cut from the team, felt left out and began to dought their abilities and their worth. The study confirms much of the current literature. Recommendations include making coaches and administration aware that boys were being negatively influenced by a successful sports program, as well as calling for further research to determine the extent and depth of the negative influence of sports on boys who are not the stars of the team. / viii, 83 leaves ; 28 cm.

Self-report recall questions are commonly used to measure physical activity, energy expenditure (EE) and time use in children and adolescents. However, self-report questionnaires show low to moderate validity, mainly due to inaccuracies in recalling activity in terms of duration and intensity. Aside from recall errors, inaccuracies in estimating energy expenditure from self-report questionnaires are compounded by a lack of data on the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. This thesis describes the development of the Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents (MARCA), a use-of-time instrument designed to address both the limitations of self-report recall questionnaires in children, and the lack of energy cost data in children. / The thesis begins by investigating the energy cost of everyday activities in children and adolescents. An extensive literature search was undertaken to identify as many studies as possible where the energy cost of child and adolescent everyday activities were measured. Data were available from 52 studies totalling 5982 measures made on 43 activities. The data collated in the literature search was used to identify significant gaps in the literature and evaluate existing techniques of assigning energy cost values to child and adolescent activities when measured values are not available. The results suggest that using adult METs is the most accurate technique to assign energy cost values when child-specific measures are not available. / After identifying areas of missing energy cost data, the energy cost of three types of child and adolescent activities were measured: playing video centre games; performing household chores; and “new locomotions”, i.e. riding non-motorised scooters and rollerblading. A total of 131 measures were undertaken on 11-13 year old children using indirect calorimetry. Energy costs ranged from 1.3 to 6.4 METs for video centre games; 1.9 to 3.6 METs for household chores; and 6.5 to 6.6 for the new locomotions. / Next, the development, validity and reliability of the MARCA are discussed. The MARCA is described in terms of its three components: the 1-d recall; the compendium of child-specific energy costs and the analytical module. In particular, the advantages of the multimedia features of the MARCA over traditional pen and paper questionnaires are highlighted. The MARCA was then validated by comparing accelerometer counts with MARC recall data collected on a sample of sixty six 10-13 year olds. The MARCA showed validity comparable to other self-report instruments with Spearman coeffiecients ranging from 0.88 to 0.94. Finally, the thesis demonstrates the unique analytical capabilities of the MARCA via a variety of analyses conducted on the MARCA self-report recall profiles of 1429 children and adolescents aged 9 to 15 years. / Thesis (PhDHumanMovement)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2004. / Title from title page screen (viewed Jan. 12, 2005). Thesis advisor: Randol G. Waters. Document formatted into pages (vii, 63 p.). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 46-50).

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1991.