This phenomenological dissertation study aimed to explore how agency is exerted beyond hegemonic masculinities in engineering and illuminated the influences of a discipline's culture on masculine thinking and being. Moreover, this study, guided by Black feminism, epistemologically and theoretically, moves Black masculinities scholarship and…

Despite the fact that the sorority experience has been sensationalized in the media (e.g., movies such as "Legally Blonde" and "The House Bunny;" television shows such as "GRSSK"), few academic studies have focused on gender or sexuality within the sorority context (Berbary & Johnson, 2012; Hevel & Bureau,…

This dissertation assesses the self-representation and representation of ten elite collegiate women athletes during the first year of the NCAA's new 'name, image and likeness' policies. Building on theories of representation, gender performance, self-presentation and intersectionality, this study explores how women athletes reproduce notions of…

How Latinas experience their racial identity is unique when viewed through the Black and white racial dichotomy that exists in the United States. In Latin America, race is understood to be phenotypical and determined based off the color of your skin, whereas in the United States, race is often understood to be genotypical (Darity et. al, 2005),…

This sequential explanatory study focuses on two forms of sight: Sankofa (hindsight) and surveillance (close observation or monitoring (Foucault, 1995, 2000; Temple, 2010; Quarcoo, 1972). These two ways of seeing can provide a unique perspective on Black women's career experiences in historically white institutions. I focus on how European…

The purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate how female first-year, first-generation college students' values, attitudes, and beliefs were influenced by their interactions with their peers, family, and institutions during the first-year transition period. The goal of the research was to provide insight on what their feminine…

At the highest level, this dissertation is a case study on how bias can become encoded into the tools used to measure a construct and into the very definition of the construct itself. In this case, the construct is spatial ability. This dissertation focuses on the validity and accuracy of spatial tests and illuminates gender bias that is…

This qualitative case study examined the experiences of 10 current and former students enrolled in an early childhood education teacher preparation program (ECETPP) at a Latine-serving 2-year community college in southern California. The study used Richard Valencia's deficit thinking framework as the theoretical lens to explicate ways in which…

This qualitative research explores the effects of a gendered educational organization on female leaders at the district office and building leadership level. In explaining the theoretical framework of gendered organizational structures, the literature review describes how inequitable access to power within education produces excessive challenges…

Previous research indicated teachers' attitudes significantly impact the success of inclusion programs for students with disabilities. In this quantitative, correlational study, the capability of cultural dimensions (Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions) to predict components of urban, secondary inclusion teachers' attitudes (the Tripartite Model of…

This research utilizes an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis design to investigate female senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) as they experience and implement gendered communication practices in the higher education workplace. Research regarding female SSAO interactions are absent from discourse on gendered communication and no…

The introduction of the virtual work environment has resulted in the creation of a new work structure where interaction between employees and leaders occurs through technological innovations such as teleconferencing, emails, and text messages. The absence of physical workspace has also created a diverse work environment with people from various…

For this study, empathy was defined as not only understanding and sharing another's mental state, but also responding from a perspective more closely resembling the observed rather than the observer. Based on evidence suggesting relationships between reading and empathy, between empathy and gender, and between reading and gender, the current study…

College-aged women expect to disrupt their future careers, earn less, and be responsible for more household and childcare chores than their future spouses. This unequal division of labor has been linked to inequality in the workforce between women and men with women earning less and being concentrated in low pay, low prestige occupations. The…

Informed by critical discourse analysis, this purpose of this study was to examine presidential transitions in the U.S. van Leeuwen's Social Actor Approach was used as the conceptual framework to understand how texts are used to recreate, shape and transform a social practice, such as college and university presidential leadership during times of…