Sororities play an important role in the process by which sorority women become gendered by influencing members' ideas about what it means to be a woman. Women and men become gendered through regular social interaction with other women and men, and sororities have a particularly strong impact on their members because sorority women spend nearly all of their time with other Greeks. Gender is one of the major ways that we organize our lives and gender is the texture and foundation of our social, political, and economic worlds. This is why we must consider the consequences of gender negotiation in all arenas, including sororities. For the most part, the sorority women who participated in this study negotiated traditional gender arrangements and constructed conservative identities. Sororities on this Pacific Northwestern university created and perpetuated conformity, dependence and political apathy in their members. These organizations developed an environment in which gender stereotyping and victimization was learned and then legitimized. Within these organizations, however, are pockets of resistance, non-compliance, empowerment, and what could be called "potentially feminist" gender negotiation. / Graduation date: 2003

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-275).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (February 21, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Steeped in tradition for over a thousand years, bathing culture in Japan remains relevant due to the preservation of the traditional, innovative modernization of existing bathing structures, and the diversification therein. This thesis will examine the significance of bathing culture, focusing largely on onsen and sento, account for its historical evolution, analyze how it functions in modern society and forecast its future viability. More specifically, the concept that Japan's vibrant bathing culture was able to flourish due to mythological creation stories, politically motivated access to baths, propagated therapeutic value, and scientific reinforcement of the benefits of a hot bath will be explored.

Exceptions to Costa Rican Exceptionalism attempts to locate the complex relationship between tourism and inequality in Costa Rican society across intersections of race and class at multiple levels of Costa Rican society. I examine the power dynamics between “the tourist” and the object of the tourist gaze, Costa Rica and Costa Ricans, Costa Rican citizen-nationals and “peripheral” racial minority citizens, and the peripheral citizen and the undocumented national “other.” This study seeks to arrive at a more complex understanding of how racial and class hierarchy is constructed in Costa Rica by analyzing the role of Costa Rica’s large-scale international tourism campaign in perpetuating that construction. I argue that Costa Rica’s national identity formation depends upon the racialization of “exceptional” political, economic, and social achievements, thereby drawing the boundaries of national belonging and citizenship according to certain features of race, gender, and class. As one of the largest economic sectors in Costa Rican society, tourism plays a significant role in the reproduction and dissemination of the “exceptionalist” construction of Costa Rican identity.

The purposes of this study were first to determine if there were significant differences in living environment press, i.e., the pressure on an individual to behave in a certain way, between those fraternity chapters that had the highest freshman pledge retention rates and those that had the lowest. If significant differences were determined to exist, the second purpose was to investigate how those differences related to differences in the retention rates for freshman fraternity pledges. The data were obtained from the records of all freshman pledges in the Oregon State University fraternity system for a four-year period. From these data the high pledge retention and low pledge retention fraternities were determined. The sample for the remainder of this study was two of the three highest and two of the three lowest pledge retention fraternities. The highest and lowest pledge retention fraternities were eliminated. Analyses included: Pearson Correlation Coefficients to determine if there were significant correlations between retention of pledges in the fraternity system and six factors involving grades and the number of members and pledges living in the fraternities; two-way, fixed analyses of variance to determine if there were significant differences between the high retention fraternities (HRFs) and the low retention fraternities (LRFs) with respect to pledge high school grade point averages and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores; chi square contingencies to determine if there were significant differences between the HRFs and the LRFs with respect to 14 different characteristic, background, and satisfaction variables; and F-test analyses to determine if there were significant living environment differences between the HRFs and the LRFs on each of the subscales of the University Residence Environment Scale, Form R. The conclusions of the study were: 1. Neither high school nor college grades, SAT scores, nor individual characteristics, background, and satisfaction levels can be used to define differences in pledge retention between the HRF and LRF houses. 2. The differences within the living environment, and primarily the relationship dimension of that environment, of the two groups offer the best explanation of the pledge retention differences between the two groups. 3. The overt pressure exerted by the LRFs on their pledges to study and achieve academic success did not result in greater academic success than in HRFs, but did tend to limit the degree of social integration achieved by their pledges. 4. Social integration has a significant positive impact on pledge retention, while overt pressure toward academic integration has a probable negative impact on pledge retention. 5. Successful social integration, while having a positive impact on pledge retention, does not have a negative impact on academic performance. In fact, the impact on academic performance may be positive. 6. A crucial element in the Tinto (1987) model should be a relationship building block within the peer group interactin portion of the social system. Recommendations for further study were made. / Graduation date: 1991

This thesis explores the themes, and trends within the novels of the acclaimed Syrian writer Hanna Mina. Three novels are discussed: Fragments of Memory (بقايا صور), The Swamp (المستنقع), and Sun on a Cloudy Day (الشمس في يوم غائم). The focus revolves around the relationship between rich and poor during a stage of transformation from imperial feudalism into urban modernity in Syria following the Second World War.

Through researching the history of the construction of Barcelona, one can see how the city has been intentionally shaped in order to draw in the public. From the end of the 19th century the city has strived to replicate attractions from other, more well known cities, in order to create a tourism industry of its own. This has resulted in a modern day tourism that is thriving, but lacking in substance. By looking at the political history of Catalonia one learns the powerful independence the city has always had. This strength has only been reflected in times of trouble, and the tourism industry of today has chosen to ignore this history. By only expressing itself to visitors as metropolitan and sophisticated, travelers cannot fully understand what it is that truly makes Barcelona unique.

I Sverige finns många sommarstugeföreningar som direkt arrenderar ut mark till sina medlemmar genom bostadsarrende. Frågor kring bostadsarrendeställets skötsel finns inte reglerat i lag och inte heller alltid i arrendeavtalet. I vissa fall kräver arrendegivaren i arrendeavtalet att arrendatorn måste vara medlem i föreningen. Syftet med uppsatsen är att analyser om det går att inskränka en bostadsarrendators totalnyttjanderätt genom att föra in skötselregler i föreningens stadgar och i så fall med vilket majoritetskrav. Det ska även utredas vilken effekt en klausul som tvingar arrendatorn att vara medlem har på majoritetskravet. En bostadsarrendator anses ha totalnyttjanderätt och därmed själv kunna bestämma om arrendeställets skötsel. Genom gällande regler krävs två tredjedelars majoritet för en ekonomisk förening att ändra i stadgarna och i vissa fall högre majoritet. Vissa beslut kan dock vara så pass inskränkande i den enskilde medlemmens rätt att det inte borde gå att rösta igenom utan samtliga medlemmars samtycke. Inskränkning i arrendatorns totalnyttjanderätt genom att föra in regler i den ekonomiska föreningens stadgar borde gå att göra. Avtalsfrihet råder inom civilrätten och dessutom uppfyller skötselinförandet kravet på skriftlighet och syftet bakom det. Ett beslut om stadgeändring bör vid införande av skötselregler kräva full majoritet för att röstas igenom. Gränsen mellan att kräva enhällighet eller två tredjedelars majoritet är dock fin, men övervägande själ talar för enhällighet. Om det dessutom i arrendeavtalet skulle föreskrivas att arrendatorn ska vara medlem i föreningen, talar väldigt starka själ för att ett sådant beslut ska kräva enhällighet då en medlems möjlighet att gå ur föreningen blir illusorisk. / In Sweden, many co-operative societies lease land to its members through residential tenancy. How the residential tenancy should be looked after is not regulated by law and often not even in the tenancy contract. Sometimes the contract stipulates that the tenant must be a member of the co-operative society in order to rent. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the possibility for the co-operative society to restrict a residential tenants total right to use the tenancy by regulating how it should be looked after in the statutes and with which majority such a decision should be made. The clause stipulating that a tenant must be a member of the co-operative society is also analyzed to see what effect it has on the majority decision. A residential tenant is considered to have total right to use the tenancy a thus be able for himself to decide how the tenancy should be looked after. Current rules require two thirds majority for a co-operative society to change its statutes and sometimes even higher majority. Certain decisions can be very restrictive to the individual member's right and changing such a statute should not be possible unless all members agree to it. Restrictions on the tenant's total tenancy by inserting rules in the co-operative society’s statute should be possible. There is freedom of contract in civil law. The requirement of written contract and the purpose behind it is also fulfilled. A decision to introduce requirement on how to look after the tenancy should require full majority. The line between requiring unanimity or a two-thirds majority is fine, but most of the reasons speak for unanimity. If the tenancy contract stipulates that the tenant must be a member of the co-operative society in order to rent, very strong reasons speak for the decision to require unanimity as the members’ right to leave the co-operative society becomes illusory.

Social insects are ecologically dominant because of their specialized, cooperative castes. Reproductive queens lay eggs, while workers take part in brood rearing, nest defense, and foraging. These cooperative castes are a prime example of phenotypic plasticity, whereby a single genetic code gives rise to variation in form and function based on environmental differences. Thus, social insects are well suited for studying mechanisms which give rise to and maintain phenotypic plasticity. At the molecular level, phenotypic plasticity coincides with the differential expression of genes. This dissertation examines the molecular evolution of genes with differential expression between discrete phenotypic or environmental contexts, represented chiefly by female queen and worker castes in social insects. The studies included herein examine evolution at three important levels of biological information: (i) gene expression, (ii) modifications to DNA in the form of methylation, and (iii) protein-coding sequence. From these analyses, a common theme has emerged: genes with differential expression among castes frequently exhibit signatures of relaxed selective constraint relative to ubiquitously expressed genes. Thus, genes associated with phenotypic plasticity paradoxically exhibit modest importance to overall fitness but exceptional evolutionary potential, as illustrated by the success of the social insects.