Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2006. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 14, 2007). Thesis advisor: John W. Haas . Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2006. / Title from PDF title page screen. Advisor: Carolyn Riehl; submitted to the School of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-126).

Mozart's opera Così fan tutte encapsulates various theories of Enlightenment sexual expression and presents a didactic program aiming at appropriate male comportment in a love situation. Through various musical devices, Mozart establishes ideal Rousseauist gender characteristics and their debased forms, and applies them to the respective sexes as evidence of weakened or enlightened states. Mozart also provides an educative voice in the character of Don Alfonso, whose musical lines are appropriately instructive. An exploration of sexual ideals in the Enlightenment as expressed in contemporary texts and civil documents will provide a framework for Rousseau's theories of education and gender formation as postulated in Emile, ou de l'education and Sophie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse. A musical analysis of several numbers in Cosi demonstrates the unfolding weaknesses of the characters. While the men progress towards an enlightened education in the natures of the sexes, the women undergo a regression of character.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-209).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Oklahoma, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-176).

This dissertation applies the life course framework to understanding gender differences in the connection between academic performance and mental health. The premise for this study is based on the paradox that girls perform better in school but get less of a boost to their sense of well being from their achievement relative to boys. The life course perspective focuses both on how different pathways, such as academics and mental health, intertwine and the need to study important transitions, such as the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. This research addresses this transition by considering the consequences of the gender paradox on college enrollment and persistence. The quantitative analyses utilize Waves I, II, and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Results indicate that academic performance and depression were positively correlated for girls and negatively correlated for boys. Adolescent gender differences in depression are driven by the high achieving segment of the student population because girls tend to get less of a mental health boost from earning good grades across the board. This is especially pronounced in high school. The end result is a slight chipping away at the well-documented advantages girls have in postsecondary education. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study investigated the factors that shaped students' choices of training programs in two technical colleges in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to determine the nature of the students reasoning with regards to their decisions about enrolling in particular training programs. It also highlights how the students deal with the pressures from their parents, peers, and the community at large, to conform to their 'gender expected' program choices. The expectations of Kenyan society have been that female students would choose programs within the female dominated fields of secretarial, food and beverage, and clothing technology. The expected programs for male students have been in the male dominated fields of engineering and building trades. The study showed that program choices for girls differed from those of boys irrespective of the type of school the students attended. The study utilized both qualitative and quantitative methodology. Ethnographic techniques were used to analyze the participants experiences obtained through conversation like interviews. Chi square tests and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the enrollment records obtained from the participating colleges. The participants included 39 students and 4 Heads of Departments from the two participating colleges, College A and College B. There were 14 female and 7 male students enrolled in traditionally female programs, and 9 male and 9 female students enrolled in traditionally male programs. For each college, one head of a department with predominantly female programs and one from a department with predominantly male programs participated in the study. All the participants were interviewed within their college. The interviews focused on the participants' individual experiences related to their choices of training programs. The interviews with the Heads of Departments also looked at the relationship between the government guidelines on student enrollment and the actual criteria used by the colleges to select the students for different programs within each college. All the interviews were audio taped. The students indicated that their choices were moderated by factors within the homes they came from, the schools they attended, the society at large, and the world of work. Factors within the homes included gender related socialization, and parental pressure for the students to choose the programs that the parents wanted them to choose. The major factors within the schools the students attended included lack of career guidance, the school facilities, and lack of role models for the students to emulate. The main factors that were related to the society at large were the general expectations that the students would choose "gender appropriate programs. It was interesting to note that the students placed an emphasis on their perception of the expectations of their potential future spouses. The main factors related to the world of work were the availability of employment in particular careers, and the students' perception of the gender biases that the employers might have when recruiting workers for different types of jobs.

Recent research has revealed a gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. Broadly speaking, when compared with girls, boys display a more negative attitude towards reading and perform less well on measures of reading achievement. Yet, why boys appear to have such difficulties with reading and why girls appear to have fewer difficulties with it has yet to be fully explored. This thesis examines the talk of a group of grade five and six students at a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, mixed socio-economic urban elementary school, concerning their ideas of gender normative behaviour, gendered reading practices and the consequences of non-normative gender performances or gender crossing behaviour. Using Critical Socio-Cultural theories of literacy and learning and Feminist Post-Structuralist theories of gender and identity, this year long ethnographic study reveals that students' investments in their gender identities may help to create and maintain the gender gap in reading attitudes and achievement. In particular, boys' investment in maintaining a heteronormative masculine identity may interfere with their participation in school based print literacy. The implications of these findings for bridging the gender reading gap are discussed. In addition, this thesis raises questions about the simplicity of current conceptions of the gender reading gap that depict boys as victims and girls as victors in school. This thesis adds to research that calls for a more complex understanding of issues of gender, "race" and class in .contemporary classrooms.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of single-sex and coeducational physical education classes on secondary school students' self-confidence levels. A dependent sample of Grade 10 students completed Vealey's State Sport-Confidence Inventory at the completion of their single-sex class and then again at the completion of their coeducational class. They also completed a sport specific self-confidence measure, in order to factor out their confidence in basketball and volleyball from their overall State Sport-Confidence. Some students also participated in focus group interviews at the completion of each class type. Vealey's State Sport-Confidence Inventory showed no significant differences between classes or between genders. However, qualitative results contradicted these findings as females indicated obvious differences between the two class types that would in turn affect their self-confidence levels. The results indicate that more research is needed into how class type affects the self-confidence of students in single-sex and coeducational physical education classes.