UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item Black Racial Grievance, Black American Identity, and Black Political Participation(2024) St Sume, Jennifer; Laird, Chryl; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the relationship among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Black racial grievance is defined as the extent to which Black individuals believe their racial group is mistreated in the United States. This study is divided into three articles. The first article explores the link between Black racial grievance and Black American identity. Political science research has found that racial discrimination makes Black people feel less American (Huddy and Khatib 2007; Kam and Ramos 2008; Theiss-Morse 2009; Levundusky 2017). However, the consequences of discrimination and how they shape what it means to be a Black American remain underexplored. This paper addresses this critical gap, arguing that Black Americans consider their racial group’s treatment and the consequences of this treatment in their self-conception as Americans. I propose a new six-item measure of Black racial grievance, capturing Black perceptions of unfair treatment regarding their racial group, the current significance of racial grievance, and their awareness of these grievances across social, political, and economic domains. Using two national samples, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance measure—indicative of a belief that the mistreatment of their racial group is a problem to be addressed across American society —feel less American. These findings underscore the importance of institutional inequality in Black politics. The second article examines the relationship between Black racial grievance and Black political participation. Previous research has employed measures such as relative deprivation, group consciousness, politicized collective identity, and linked fate to predict Black political participation. However, these measures fail to explain how individuals define their personal Black racial grievance, overlooking how these grievances shape Black participation. These shortcomings are driven by the assumption that little variation exists in Black political behavior. Accordingly, I argue that Black Americans rely on specific evaluations of racial grievance to determine whether to participate in politics. I develop a refined measure of Black racial grievance that captures the extent to which an individual perceives their racial group as being treated unfairly across various domains. I validate this measure through factor analysis and assess its robustness by comparing it to previous measures. As a proof of concept, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance scale—those who feel their group is treated unfairly in more domains of society—and feel strongly attached to their racial group are more likely to participate in politics. The third article investigates the causal links among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Current research suggests that Black participation is motivated by perceptions of discrimination (Klandermans, 2014). To date, scant research has explored the interplay among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Therefore, this study addresses this gap by evaluating how Black racial grievance shapes political behavior among Black Americans. Using data from a national survey of 505 Black adults, I introduce a new measure of Black racial grievance and explore its impact on political engagement. The findings reveal that while experiencing racial discrimination increases racial grievance, it also complicates the relationship with political participation. Specifically, elevated levels of racial grievance correlate with decreased political participation in contexts where individuals feel disillusioned with the prospect of systemic changes. Thus, Black people with high Black racial grievance may choose not to vote or engage in political campaigns if they believe these actions will not lead to meaningful change. This article illustrates how Black racial grievance can sometimes hinder political action. Overall, this dissertation offers three significant contributions to the study of Black political behavior. First, it provides a novel framework to explain how Black people process racial mistreatment. Second, it highlights the intricate interplay among racial grievance, identity, and political action. Third, it lays the groundwork for future research on policy interventions tailored to the unique challenges faced by Black Americans. Ultimately, this work enhances the understanding of systemic marginalization and improves the ability to foster a more inclusive and equitable democracy.Item "Get Dressed Up For The End Of The World!": The Reinvention of the Elder Goth Subculture During a Time of Crisis(2024) Bush, Leah J.; Corbin Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an ethnographic examination of relationships between subcultural identity and Gothic social worlds in the Elder Goth subculture in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Formed in Britain in the late 1970s, the Goth subculture is characterized by a distinct morbid aesthetic and an overwhelming emphasis on the color black. The subculture retains a relatively high number of Elder Goths who participate in the subculture beyond their youth. This interdisciplinary project draws from the lifespan perspective of age studies and aspects of performance studies and queer utopian theory. Individual identities and Gothic communities are built and sustained through subculturally specific fashion and embodied practices at nightclubs, outdoor gatherings, and the phenomenon of virtual streaming dance nights which emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project also considers how meaning is made in subcultural places. Elder Goths draw on the subculture’s embrace of dichotomies in life, commitment to adaptation, and deepen their investment with the subculture at transitional points in their lives. Subculture is thus a fluid process of worldmaking which unfolds over the life course. This dissertation underscores the power of agency in making new and better worlds.Item EFFECTS OF GROUP STATUS AND IDENTITY ALIGNMENT ON SOCIAL INFLUENCE(2024) Beavan, Kelly Ann; Lucas, Jeffrey W; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A series of three studies examine effects of social identity alignment versus social status on influence within task groups. Status Characteristics Theory (SCT) predicts that deference will be given to high-status members, and Social Identity Theory (SIT) predicts deference to in-group members. This dissertation investigates conditions under which social status or identity alignment might be more predictive of deference by examining status characteristics that also constitute significant identities or memberships to a social in-group (e.g., race, gender). By discerning when social identity or status holds greater sway in task groups, results of three experimental studies shed light on influence dynamics and the interplay of status and social identity. The studies tested three mechanisms—degree of in-group identification, identity threat, and task importance—expected to be impactful in affecting the influence of high-/low-status, in-/out-group partners under varying conditions. Study 1 examines these processes in a minimal group setting (based on abstract groups based on “cognitive association styles”), and Studies 2 and 3 use more naturally-occurring social groups (e.g., home state in Study 2), such as those attached to an overarching status hierarchy (e.g., gender and race in Study 3). Each experiment had participants work with two (simulated) partners to complete a series of trials on an uncertain group task. This setting met the scope conditions for the theories I am applying to establish group structures: Participants were task and collectively oriented (SCT), were working on a task with no immediate feedback about performance and were explicitly told of categorical group differences between themselves and their partners (SIT). The instructions for Study 1 assigned participants to minimal groups based on bogus cognitive association styles. Study 2 used self-reported home state as a group-differentiating characteristic, and finally, Study 3 tested theorized processes with gender and race. Hypothesis 1 predicted that high-status partners would exert more influence than low-status partners and found partial support in Studies 2 and 3, primarily driven by the influence of high-status (in-group) partners over subjects. Hypothesis 2 predicted that in-group partners would have more influence than out-group partners, and results generally supported this by revealing strong influence from in-group partners, regardless of status (although in-group high-status partners were most influential in Studies 2 and 3). Hypothesis 3, which expected heightened task importance to increase deference to high-status others, did not receive strong empirical or theoretical support and was only directly manipulated in Study 1. Hypothesis 4 predicted that under threat to group identity, the effects of group membership on influence would increase relative to that of status. Contrary to expectations, results revealed that identity threat significantly increased the influence levels of high-status partners, even when that high-status meant out-group membership. These findings suggested that identity threat did not heighten the SIT-based effects on social influence (i.e., in-group influence), as predicted, and in some ways point to an SCT-based explanation (i.e., high-status influence) under threat. Hypothesis 5, predicting that identification to the in-group would increase the impact of group membership, relative to that of status, on outcomes of social influence, was strongly supported in Studies 1 and 3. Participants who more highly identified with their in-group accepted greater influence from their in-group (compared to out-group) partners, regardless of that in-group’s relative (high- or low-) status. An SIT interpretation of this finding suggests that low-status in-group members who more highly identify with their (e.g., racial, gender) in-group may not necessarily be more influenced by similar in-group others simply because of their shared group membership. They do, however, appear to be significantly less influenced by out-group others (even when that out-group is higher-status), a finding consistent with my predictions on in-group identification. Finally, Hypothesis 6, predicting in-group identification to moderate the relationships between task importance (6a) and identity threat (6b) on social influence, found mixed support. More highly-identified participants were more influenced by in-group partners (compared to their out-group counterparts), and in-group identification significantly and directly predicted influence above and beyond effects from experimental manipulations. Results from the three studies show that subtle features of the group context (identity threat and heightened in-group identification) affect how much influence (high- and low-status) group members exert over individuals. Findings from this research highlight the complex interplay between status, group membership, identification and threat in shaping social influence dynamics, and I conclude by using these results to evaluate the relative strength of status-based (SCT) versus identity-based (SIT) processes in driving outcomes of social influence.Item “WHAT PERSONS, MASCULINE OR FEMININE”: EXAMINATIONS OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND QUEER POTENTIALITIES IN WESTERN MEDIEVAL EUROPE(2023) Taylor, Erin; Bianchini, Janna; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this thesis, I argue that medieval people in Latin Europe had complex, overlapping identities and experiences of gender and sexuality that developed in their specific temporal and geographical contexts. The internal understandings of identities and the external expressions and interpretations of such identities are sites of historical possibility—and sources of potential inter-and intra-personal conflicts Medieval writings like Le Roman de Silence demonstrate how these identities could be constructed and expressed for literary and rhetorical purposes. Extant court cases, including those of John/Eleanor Rykener, Vitoria of Lisbon, and Katherina Hetzeldorfer, demonstrate the complexity of lived experiences of identity, and how deviation from accepted community and cultural norms could prove dangerous. It is impossible to assert such identities of gender and sexuality for historical figures of the medieval era with complete certainty, but the exploration of these identities is necessary for a fuller understanding and representation of the period and the people who lived throughout it.Item "I Have an Extra Level of Context That Some Reporters Don't Have": Journalistic Perspectives on the Role of Identity and Experience in the Production of More Equitable News Coverage(2023) Siqueira Paranhos Velloso, Carolina; Steiner, Linda; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the summer of 2020, Alexis Johnson and Miguel Santiago, Black reporters at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, were removed from covering ongoing racial justice protests. The following year, Felicia Sonmez, a Washington Post reporter who had publicly identified herself as a survivor of sexual assault, was barred from covering stories about sexual misconduct. In both cases, management at their news organizations invoked a safeguard against bias as the reason behind the removal of the reporters from covering certain stories or beats. In other words, management feared that these reporters would not be able to perform basic journalistic duties because their proximity to the subject matter, whether through similar lived experiences or certain identity markers, would render them unable to relay a suitable and accurate account of events. However, the journalists in question protested their coverage bans by arguing that their identity- or experience-based connection to the issue would have been advantageous to their journalism. For example, Johnson said: “as a [B]lack woman, as a Pittsburgh native, as the daughter of a retired state trooper and a retired probation officer, it was a shame I wasn’t able to bring my background to cover this story.” In essence, the journalists argued that, rather than their proximity to the stories rendering them unable to produce proper accounts of events, their personal identities and lived experiences made them more capable of capturing the nuances required for adequate coverage. The purpose of this dissertation is thus threefold: first, it investigates journalists’ perceptions about the relationship between, and impact of, their personal identities and lived experiences and the reporting they produce. Second, it examines best practices journalists recommend to other journalists about covering issues or groups with which they don’t share an identity- or experience-based connection. Finally, it describes best practices journalists recommend to newsroom leaders for supporting journalists in producing more equitable and inclusive coverage. Through a textual analysis of 186 metajournalistic articles and 93 Twitter posts (“tweets”), this study found that journalists pinpoint a myriad of specific advantages they perceive reporting with an identity- or experience-based connection provides. As such, this dissertation advances literature on journalistic identity and role conception by demonstrating how journalists’ personal identities and experiences shape their professional values. It also argues that, by positioning this form of newsmaking as more equitable and legitimate than traditional “objective” reporting, journalists are constructing new conceptions of journalistic identity. This dissertation also contributes to literature on journalistic authority by showing that many journalists claim reporting with identity- or experience-based connections in fact makes them more authoritative interpreters of news. By asserting their roles as professionals who ultimately aim to produce accurate, factual reporting and resisting accusations of being activists rather than journalists, reporters also engaged in boundary work by increasingly placing reporting which embraces the subjectivity of the journalist within the bounds of professional journalistic practice. When making recommendations to fellow reporters for producing more equitable and inclusive reporting, the journalists featured in this dissertation called for a reconsideration of normative journalistic practices and recommended that their colleagues place equity at the forefront of every decision they make during the reporting process. The journalists’ recommendations to newsroom leaders demonstrate that producing equitable coverage goes beyond individual strategies that journalists can implement; change must also occur at the structural level. Establishing and enforcing new sets of journalistic policies at the newsroom level is a vital component of providing coverage that is fair and accountable to all communities. In describing how journalists are harnessing the tenet that knowledge is socially situated to advocate for new standards of news production, I also suggest feminist standpoint epistemology (FSE) as an operational framework of journalistic practice.This dissertation is a timely intervention into the ways journalists say their industry needs to change in order to better serve the needs of American audiences in the twenty-first century. The findings in this study have relevant implications for journalistic practice: they provide a clear roadmap for journalism scholars and practitioners for engaging in efforts to make journalism more equitable and inclusive.Item A Theory of Argumentative Norms: Conceptualizing and Evaluating Domain-Specific Argumentative Expectations(2021) Stoltz, Nathaniel Halkias; Hample, Dale; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project develops and tests a theory, the Theory of Argumentative Norms. The Theory of Argumentative Norms states that individuals carry specific social norms into interpersonal arguments that depend on the goal of the argument—persuasion, inquiry, identity, or play. Conforming to these norms is theorized to lead to optimal argumentative perceptions and outcomes, and violating any of these norms is thus theorized to lead to more negative consequences. The first two chapters detail the theory and its specific normative constructs, leading to the construction of ten hypotheses and a research question. The nature of the theory called for the creation of new instruments and stimuli, so the next two chapters detail the piloting of these measures and materials. The predictions are then tested in two further studies, primarily by the construction and manipulation of dialogic argument vignettes that do or do not contain particular violations, and then asking participants to rate the vignettes for their conformity to argument norms and for other argumentative perception and outcome measures. Findings of the research were mostly supportive of the theory: it was found that norm violations were associated with significantly more negative perceptions than normative arguments, both with respect to in-the-moment perceptions (argument quality, pleasantness) and outcomes (goal attainment, future willingness to argue, escalation). The theory also predicted that different argument goals would be associated with different patterns of outcomes, but these predictions were mostly unsupported.Item Overcoming Opioid Stigma through Communication: An Extension of the Model of Stigma Communication(2022) Ledford, Victoria Ann; Nan, Xiaoli; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines how stigmatizing messages about opioids influence beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. Uniting the model of stigma communication (MSC) and intergroup emotions theory (IET) along with persuasion and stigma research, this study proposed a new identity-based model of stigma message effects: the integrative model of identity-based stigma communication (I-MISC). The experimental study among 1,444 U.S. MTurk participants tests the proposed mediators and moderators put forth in the I-MISC and offers theoretical and practical implications related to stigma communication theory and opioids stigma communication. The I-MISC argues that stigma messages can lead to stigma-related outcomes through dual affective and cognitive pathways. In other words, stigma messages can cause harm because those messages trigger negative emotional reactions or belief-based perceptions. More specifically, the I-MISC situates stigma beliefs and negative affect or emotions as these dual mediators that can operate in tandem or separately to influence stigma outcomes. Affective mediators explored in this study include negative affect, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, anxiety, sadness, and sympathy. Cognitive mediators explored in this study include stigmatizing beliefs about opioids related to beliefs about dangerousness, immorality, and responsibility. In addition, experience with Opioid Use Disorders (OUDs) was explored as a moderator of the relationship between stigma messages and emotional responses. Five outcomes of the stigma process were considered: attitudes, social distance, behavioral regulation, support for opioid-related policies, and stigma message sharing. Results of a 4 (stigma message feature: mark, label, responsibility, peril) x 2 (stigma level: high, low) x 3 (opioid context: prescription opioids, fentanyl, heroin) between subjects online experiment offered preliminary support for the I-MISC. Mark and peril messages exerted the strongest effects, with null findings for label and responsibility messages. Mark and peril messages each exerted indirect effects on all five study outcomes, through primarily a combination of cognitive and affective pathways, leading to less positive attitudes, more desired social distance, increased behavioral regulation, less support for helpful opioid-related public policies, and more stigma message sharing. Affective mediation varied based on an individual’s experience with OUDs. This research suggests the importance of removing stigmatizing communication about opioids in health and news media messaging.Item Positioned to handle the "peaks and valleys": Narratives of Black and spiritual students attending PWIs(2021) Hall, Terra Nicole; Moore, Candace M.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The interrelatedness of spirituality and race has been understudied in higher education (McGuire et al., 2017; Patton & McClure, 2009; Watson, 2006). Whereas existing scholarship has indicated religion and spirituality have been found to be important for Black college students (Chae et al., 2004), there is a need to distinguish between religion and spirituality (Paredes-Collins & Collins, 2011). Although religion may still be highly significant for some Black college students, growing evidence points to a shift in the general population away from formalized religion to one of individualized spirituality (Streib, 2008). Therefore, the current study sought to explore the intersection of racial and spiritual identities for Black undergraduate students and understand how self-identified Black and spiritual students experience support while attending predominantly white institutions (PWIs). A conceptual framework that included the radical healing framework (French et al., 2020) and Black liberation theology discourse (Cone, 1977) was used to frame the current study. In this critical constructivist narrative study, semistructured interviews and visual data served as data sources. The collected data from 13 Black and spiritual undergraduate students attending PWIs uncovered knowledge about the intersection of racial and spiritual identities. Specifically, findings illuminated Black and spiritual students’ definitions of spirituality, identification of on- and off-campus sources of support, and revelation into the emotions and feelings experienced by Black and spiritual students from encounters with people and spaces. Through an analytical approach of restorying, a parable was created to (re)present participants’ narratives. Findings from this study offer implications for student affairs’ practice and research. Student affairs practitioners are recommended to curate and maintain a list of on- and off-campus spaces, expand curricular and co-curricular opportunities to discuss race and spirituality, and increase agency for faculty and staff to address racial and spiritual identities with students. Future research should seek to study the intersection of racial and spiritual identities among graduate students, explore spirituality without a Christian lens, consider other institutional contexts outside of PWIs, probe into intersections of other marginalized social identities, and attend to these topics outside of an ongoing global health pandemic.Item DUAL IDENTITY AND ETHNIC PROTEST IN DIVERSE SOCIETIES(2019) Ives, Brandon Jeffrey; Cunningham, David E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What are the conditions in which some countries experience ethnic protests, while others do not? What are the conditions in which an ethnic community member will protest? What explains why some ethnic community members initiate an ethnic protest and some join later? Ethnicity is a crucial societal cleavage and ethnic protest a critical subtype of protest. It is not gender or class that challenge the territorial sovereignty of states, but ethnic-based opposition groups, often in the form of self-determination movements, that make the most extreme demands in terms of separatist policies. This dissertation adjudicates between conflicting expectations in the literature for why ethnic community members protest and why countries experience ethnic protest. It argues that an ethnic member’s decision to join an ethnic protest is affected by whether the ethnic member identifies primarily with the ethnic group, or with the ethnic group and the national group (dual identity) as well as if the ethnic member resides in a democracy or non-democracy. An ethnic member’s likelihood of ethnic protest participation impacts a country’s likelihood of ethnic protest. A multimethod approach tests the theoretical expectations. Survey-experiments amongst Afro-Panamanians in Panama (which is a democracy), and Greek Orthodox in Lebanon (which is less democratic) examine the micro-level expectations. Interviews with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and with Syrians in Syria via Skype complement the survey-experimental work. The micro-level analysis finds that in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. The decrease is greater during later stages of an ethnic protest. In democracies, however, higher levels of dual identity do not associate with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. Event data and Afrobarometer survey data are used to examine the conditions in which countries experience ethnic protest. Consistent with the micro-level analysis, in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest likelihood. The dissertation finds a previously unexplored conditional effect of identity. In non-democracies, even with a simultaneous ethnic identity, maintaining a national identity can decrease intent to protest.Item WHO AM I?: MEDIA INFLUENCE ON THE GENDER CONSTRUCTION OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS(2018) Lawrence, Angela S; Valli, Linda R; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While gender construction and identity occur across many years of childhood and early adulthood, it is in the adolescent stage when children ask the question, “Who am I?” In this study, I examine the ways media, as well as parents and peers, influence adolescent gender construction. Because of my interest in environments that seek to minimize media exposure, I situated the study in an alternative school setting. My main research question asked, “In what ways do students perform gender in a school environment that shapes interactions with media in particular ways?” To ensure that the investigation considered multiple perspectives, I examined students’ use of media at home and at school; how parental values regarding their children’s media use related to gender performance, values, and ideals; and, lastly, how gender performance at the school compared to what we know about gender performance in traditional environments. Previous research has examined messages students receive about expectations for gender performance in typical, media-saturated environments, but there is little on gender performance in alternative educational settings, a gap this study seeks to fill. Moreover, this study aims to advance the understanding of gender performance in a setting which encourages minimal exposure to media, defined for the purposes of this study as television, videos, movies, computers, gaming systems, radio, CDs, books, newspapers, and magazines. I employed an embedded case study method to examine gender performance as the overarching case, situating the media habits of six student participants as well as parent and staff perspectives as the sub-cases. Data collection included interviews, document collection, anecdotal notes, and classroom observations. Findings from the research demonstrate that when students are less attuned to the societal norms and stereotypes as expressed in mainstream media, they are more apt to express their individuality and perform gender in confident, unapologetic ways that felt comfortable and natural to them. I also present findings and implications from the study with regard to the ways student participants utilize media for socialization and skill-building purposes and the ways parents and students navigate differing opinions on appropriate and inappropriate media content.