Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item SHATTERING THE COLLEGIATE GLASS CEILING: UNDERSTANDING THE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN STUDENT GOVERNMENT PRESIDENTS(2019) Davis, Kristen Rupert; Griffin, Kimberly A; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the last few decades, leadership skills have arisen as a core part of undergraduate education. The general outcomes associated with leadership skills in college include decision-making skills, increased cognitive complexity, and navigating group dynamics and relationship building (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). While leadership skills are derived from a variety of experiences on campus, positional leadership experiences help students develop concrete and specific outcomes associated with self-confidence, the development of a sense of competence higher levels of psychosocial development, a stronger ability to clarify their purpose in life, and greater aptitude for career planning and life management (Astin & Leland, 1991; Foubert & Grainger, 2006). In particular, serving as the president of a student organization has been associated with increased self-efficacy and growth in perceived leadership ability specifically for women (Bardou, Bryne, Pasternak, Perez, & Rainey, 2003; Dugan, 2006; H. S. Astin & Kent, 1983). However, women less likely to reap these gains, as they are less likely to take on positional leadership roles in college (Stevens, 2011). This is especially apparent in high-ranking leadership role like student government president. The purpose of this study was to better understand women college students’ journey to and through being a student government president, and whether and how gender and sexism influenced their presidential experiences. Case study methodology and a narrative approach to data collection was used to answer four research questions. Participant interviews garnered 5 themes including: (a) Systemic Issues of Diversity and Inclusion on Campus, (b) Catalysts, Influencing Factors, and the Impact of Identity on Running for Office, (c) Impact of Leadership Style, Assumed Biases, and External Feedback on Women Leaders, (d) External Expectations of Image and Presentation, and (e) Relationships with Administrators. Findings from this study suggest that more research on women in leadership in both college and in the workforce is necessary. They also suggest that administrators and campus community members need to be cognizant of bias and stereotypes when engaging with women student leaders. Lastly, findings indicate that issues of inclusion and diversity on campus impact how women engage in leadership roles on campus.Item TRANSFER EFFICACY: EXPLORING A SUCCESS ORIENTED NARRATIVE OF THE TRANSFER STUDENT EXPERIENCE(2019) Hayes, Shannon; Cabrera, Alberto; Park, Julie; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this dissertation study is to understand the extent to which self-efficacy is present in the transfer process for community college students from different racial and sociocultural backgrounds. Specifically, this research borrows from Bandura’s (1994) construct of self-efficacy in order to introduce Transfer Efficacy, which is a framework developed to describe the way in which students’ develop self-efficacy beliefs around their ability to transfer and navigate the transfer process. This study employed a nested qualitative case study methodology, which took an in-depth look at 15 community college students who had transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution. The student participants in this study, who served as the nested cases, were interviewed individually in order to understand their transfer experiences. In addition to the individual interviews with student participants, the other data collected included the analysis of various documents and interviews with four administrators who worked on the two-year and four-year campus. Findings from this study provide a number of implications for future consideration. In particular, this dissertation suggests that Transfer Efficacy may be a useful framework for understanding transfer student narratives. Further, the findings point to the importance of internship experiences for students while enrolled in community college, the significance of pre-transfer advising, and the need for stronger transfer articulation agreements. Also worth noting is the possible connection between institutional commitment, the development of self-efficacy for transfer, and transfer student identity. This study is significant in three main ways. First, this study contributes to the transfer student narrative by providing a new perspective regarding the positive outcomes of transfer. In particular, this study contributes to current transfer student research by unpacking the role of self-efficacy. Second, this research provides practical implications for higher education practitioners so that the transfer student pipeline may become a more solid path for students seeking to graduate with a baccalaureate degree. Finally, this research will shed light on the contextual nature of the transfer process.Item Exploring Identities and Relationships: Narratives of Second-Generation, Black, West Indian College Students From Boston(2019) English, Shelvia R.; Griffin, Kimberly A; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the collegiate experiences of second-generation, West Indian college students from Boston. Too often, Black students are treated as a monolith in education research and practice. This study provides new knowledge regarding how second-generation West Indian college students communicate and enact their racial, ethnic, and immigrant identities in their relationships with faculty, staff, peers, and family while in college. The theoretical framework guiding this study was Communication Theory of Identity, which centered the connection between identities and relationships. Through the use of narrative inquiry, seven West-Indian participants from Boston completed a demographic questionnaire and shared their narratives through two, semi-structured, in-person interviews. Through hand coding methods and inductive and deductive analysis of the data, five themes emerged: (a) Proving Cultural Authenticity, (b) Defining a West Indian Identity, (c) Differences Exist, but Race Still Matters, (d) Homophily in Friendships, and (e) Representation Matters: Faculty and Staff Relationships. The findings offer insight of how participants viewed themselves, communicated their identities to others, and whether their relationships affirmed who they viewed themselves to be. Participants encountered disparate messages about their race, ethnicity, and generation status, compelling them to respond depending upon their audience and context. In particular, the shift from and contrast between participants’ Boston neighborhoods to predominantly white campuses across Massachusetts contributed to a difference in how participants perceived themselves. In college, participants confronted the racialized component of their ethnicity and grappled with how they were viewed as Black and West Indian. Friendships provided the optimal space and relationship in which participants most easily navigated their racial, ethnic and immigrant status identities. In contrast to their friendships, participants minimally shared about themselves outside of close relationships with Black faculty or staff. The shifts in the racial composition of participants’ environments, coupled with the types of messages they received in their interactions and relationships, demonstrates the connection between relationships, context, and identities.Item "Wait, Are You Jewish?": Jewish Culture on Campus(2019) Reich, Madeline Brooke; Moore, Candace M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)With a number of recent high-profile anti-Jewish hate incidents on college campuses and across the United States, a deeper understanding of Jewish student culture is necessary for practitioners and scholars to better understand Jewish students. The purpose of the study was to gain an understanding of Jewish college students’ perspectives on Jewish student culture during college. Two research questions were examined: 1) How does an undergraduate Jewish student’s understanding of self, context, and their pathway to Judaism influence their cultural tool kit during college? and 2) In what ways do Jewish students use basic knowledge as part of their tool kits? Five Jewish college students engaged in semi-structured interviews. Through dialogical narrative analysis, four story types emerged: pre-college Jewish experiences, connection to other Jews, rituals and religious services, and basic knowledge.Item WOKE LIKE ME: EXPERIENCES AND EXPECTATIONS OF WOKENESS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS(2019) Zewdie, Hana; Moore, Candace M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Woke, generally referring to awareness of social issues, has become commonplace language in American popular and political cultures. The lengthy and culturally embedded history of wokeness, and its implications for higher education reveal that this is not merely a fad. Using the framework of critical consciousness and intersectionality, the purpose of this thesis is to gain an understanding of the meaning of woke as understood by college students who identify as such, and to explore associated intra-group expectations and experiences. Five themes emerged describing how participants came to understand wokeness as a series of expectations through an internal process heavily facilitated by engagement with others. Students were willing to engage outside of their woke communities, but only so far, and often held different expectations for themselves than others.Item USING GROUNDED THEORY TO EXPLAIN THE IMPACT OF APPEARANCE ON MULTIRACIAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT(2019) Hentz, Aileen Naoko; Park, Julie J; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although current multiracial identity development models take into consideration the impact of appearance in identity development, minimal research exists explaining the depth of this impact or fully examines the potential impact when self-identification does not match perceived social identification of multiracial individuals. The purpose of this study was to use constructivist grounded theory to investigate how physical appearance influenced the ways in which multiracial college students defined their racial identity, how they perceived society to define their racial identity, and how this intersection impacted their multiracial identity development. By expanding multiracial research to specifically examine the intersection between internal and external perceptions of multiracial identity among students within a higher educational setting, this study fills a significant gap in current literature. The following research questions guided the study including: (1) How does appearance play a role in the self-identification of multiracial individuals? (2) How does appearance influence societal perceptions of multiracial individuals? (3) How does self and societal racial identification impact multiracial identity development? (4) What are the differences and similarities in how multiracial individuals define their identity and how they perceive society to define their racial identity? (5) If societal perceptions differ from self-identification, how does this impact multiracial identity development? Ten college students participated in this study along with 26 photo reviewers. The ten participants’ first round of interviews focused on their multiracial experiences including their racial appearance and its impact on their internal identity, their perceived societal identity, family and peer dynamics, and student involvement and interests. Participants also provided a headshot, which was viewed by 26 photo reviewers. Reviewers responded to interviewer questions pertaining to the perceived racial appearance of each participant. The interviewer discussed the results of the photo review sessions during a second round of interviews with the ten participants, and a theory emerged to explain the impact of racial appearance on multiracial identity development.Item “What Are We?” A Narrative Study of the “Trickiness” of Identity for Asian American College Students(2018) Kim, Yoolee Choe; Park, Julie J.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Asian Americans are a significant and growing population in U.S. higher education, yet their positionality within the U.S. racial landscape has often been unclear. Acknowledged as neither Black nor White, Asian Americans have occupied an often marginalized yet nonetheless racialized position, which has disguised much of their lived experience as racial beings. This study sought to understand how Asian American college students see themselves as racial beings by exploring the role and salience of race and its intersections with other social identities. Using intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this narrative inquiry study was guided by the following research questions: (a) how do Asian American college students describe and make meaning of their racial identity; (b) in what ways, if any, do their other social identities, such as gender, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, religion, ability status, socioeconomic class, and immigrant generation status, interact with the way Asian American college students describe and make meaning of their racial identity; and (c) how do Asian American college students experience the intersections of their multiple social identities? Following in-depth interviews with four Asian American college students representing a range of identity backgrounds, individual narratives were written for each participant, telling the story of how they came to make meaning of their racial identity, other salient identities, and their intersections. A metanarrative was then generated based on the commonalities of participants’ stories. Through these narratives, the lived experiences of Asian Americans as racial beings were centered. For these four participants, identifying as Asian American was a conscious choice whose meaning was created through reflection on experiences with race, often in conjunction with intersecting identities. Systems of power, oppression, and privilege acted upon those intersections and indelibly shaped the way participants made meaning of their identities, as illuminated by intersectional analysis. The study’s findings indicate paths for future research on Asian American identity development, particularly using critical theoretical perspectives that foreground the influence of systems of power and oppression. The findings also suggest implications for supporting Asian American students and for developing and integrating intersectional approaches in order to create more socially just and inclusive institutions.Item STORIES OF A TAIWANESE DIASPORA: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY ON THE EXPERIENCES OF TAIWANESE AMERICAN STUDENTS(2018) Chang, Stephanie Hsiao-Sho; Park, Julie J; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There is a growing emphasis on students’ cultural experiences on campus. As such, the purpose of this study was to explore Taiwanese American students and their connection to Taiwanese culture. As a critical-cultural narrative inquiry this study (a) brought attention to Taiwanese American students and their engagement with Taiwanese culture, (b) expanded upon notions of home and experiences of bicultural integration, and (c) utilized diaspora as a theoretical perspective in a student development and higher education context. Research questions guiding this exploration included the following: (1) What do Taiwanese American students identify as significant and meaningful components of Taiwanese culture? (2) How and where do Taiwanese American students connect to Taiwanese culture on campus? (3) In what ways do the experiences of Taiwanese American students contribute to the existence of Taiwanese diaspora? Eight Taiwanese American students from a Mid-Atlantic University participated in this study. Each participant engaged in two interviews. The outcome of this study included individual participant narratives and a grand narrative encompassing four themes: recognizing their parents’ influence, navigating multiple cultural contexts, finding meaningful connections in non-Taiwanese American settings, and making decisions to move closer to Taiwanese culture. This study explored the importance of Taiwanese American students’ connectedness to their ethnic cultural background.Item Living in the Grey: Racial Sense-Making of Second Generation African Immigrants(2018) Belay, Kurubel; Griffin, Kimberly; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explored messages of racial identity received by second generation African immigrants in order to better under their racial sense-making experiences. As a result of the growth in the Black immigrant population in the United States, which has grown to nearly 10% of the overall Black population (Pew Research Center, 2017), research has shown that Black immigrants experience and understand their racial identities differently than their African American counterparts (Jackson, 2010; Mwangi & Fries-Britt, 2015). Despite the scholarly attention given to Black immigrants, very little research exists on their second generation immigrant children, and how they make sense of their racial and ethnic identities in a U.S context. Given the impact of racial identity on academic experiences, social engagement, and psychological well-being (Chavous & Byrd, 2009; Cokley & Chapman, 2008; Harper, 2009), the continued growth and representation of this population in higher education warrants further inquiry. Guided by a reconceptualized model of the Learning Race in a U.S. context framework (Fries-Britt, Mwangi, Peralta, 2014), this research was guided by two research questions: (1) What messages do second generation African immigrants receive about their racial identities? (2) How do these messages inform their understandings of their own race and race generally? Employing a narrative inquiry methodology, this study examined how three, second generation African immigrants have made sense of their racial identities. Three salient themes emerged from the participant narratives that demonstrated how each of their understandings of race and racial identity were defined by environments bound by space and time. The findings of this study have implications for research and student affairs practice by providing a nuanced exploration of the racial identity constructions of this segment of the ever growing Black immigrant population.Item Being "good company" to students on their journeys toward intercultural maturity: A case study of a study abroad program(2018) Nyunt, Gudrun; Espino, Michelle; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In an increasingly interconnected global society, study abroad is often seen as an effective way to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century but recent studies have questioned the effectiveness of study abroad. The purpose of this qualitative case study of the Maryland Social Entrepreneur Corps Study Abroad program – an 8-week summer program in a Latin American or Caribbean country with a pre-departure and a debriefing course – was to explore how educators can shape the learning environment in a study abroad program to promote students’ development of intercultural maturity. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with student participants and the instructor of the pre-departure and debriefing courses at the beginning and end of the program; a focus group with student participants; observations of the pre-departure and debriefing course sessions; document analysis of recruitment materials, course syllabi, and student assignments; and participants’ scores on the Global Perspective Inventory, a quantitative tool. The study’s findings indicate that participants experienced some growth in all three dimensions of development– cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal – though most did not reach the mature level of the intercultural maturity. Educators in the study abroad program fostered students learning by integrating participants in the day-to-day lives of host families and other host nationals and portraying culture as complex and contextual, but also missed opportunities to do so. Educators struggled to balance encouraging participants to take initiative and bring in new ideas with providing guidance and leadership. Time for reflection was limited and educators missed opportunities to take reflection to a deeper and more critical level that could have helped participants make sense of their experiences and learning abroad. The study adds to the literature by (a) connecting study abroad outcomes to overarching goals of higher education in the 21st century; (b) advancing a conceptual model that combines King and Baxter Magolda’s developmental model of intercultural maturity with Baxter Magolda’s learning partnership model; and (c) by providing feedback for King and Baxter Magolda’s developmental model of intercultural maturity.