UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Exploring complexity in well-being: A mixed methods examination of the Black women’s well-being paradox(2021) Ford, Tiffany N; Graham, Carol; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explores the complexity of Black women’s well-being and policy experience along the income distribution. This dissertation consists of three separate but related essays. Chapter 1 argues for the active inclusion of intersectionality theory in social and economic policy work. I rely on the literature to draw clear links between the intersectionality theoretical framework, the study of subjective well-being, and the development of equitable public policy to support well-being. In chapter 2, I explore an intracategorical complexity approach to intersectionality, focusing on unpacking the layers of difference among Black middle-class women and investigating how they relate to well-being. Using qualitative focus group data, I uncover the key factors shaping well-being for 22 Black middle-class women in Wichita, KS and Las Vegas, NV and discuss what a policy agenda might look like to support their well-being. Results of this transformative exploratory sequential mixed methods design suggested health, money, and social support, like friendships, family, and romantic partnerships, were core determinants of well-being for Black middle-class women. Quantitatively, Black middle-class women’s well-being and determinants differed significantly by their level of education and by a combination of their parenthood and marital status. This work revealed that structural oppression may be influencing Black middle-class women’s well-being by the shaping of the distribution of their determinants of well-being. In chapter 3, I focus on subjective well-being at the intersection of race, gender, and class through an intentional focus on Black women in different income classes. Relying on Gallup Daily data from 2010-2016, I explore both intracategorical and intercategorical complexity, comparing well-being and its determinants within race-gender and across it. This work reveals a paradox of well-being for Black women: in every income class, Black women are more optimistic and less stressed than white people, despite having less of the objective factors known to contribute to that well-being. I offer potential explanations for this paradox. Through an intentional focus on Black women, this work takes an early step in unpacking the relationship between policy-relevant objective factors (like financial security surrounding food and healthcare access and relative health status) and subjective well-being in the lives of an American public imbued with racial and gender diversity. The overall results of this study illustrate the importance of qualitative and mixed methods inquiry into the economic, health, and social position of Black women in the U.S. in order to yield further lessons for policies that could benefit this group.Item Feminist Consciousness and Empowerment as Moderators in the Relationship between Sexism and Self-Objectification and Alcohol Use in College Women(2019) Le, Thomas; Iwamoto, Derek K; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While past research has revealed a positive association between sexism and women’s alcohol use, no studies have examined how feminist identity may moderate this association. Thus, with a sample of 329 college-attending women, we examined the extent to which sexism, self-objectification, and benevolent sexism were associated with alcohol-related problems and heavy episodic drinking, as well as the extent to which various forms of feminist identity moderated those associations. Results showed that self-objectification was positively associated with heavy episodic drinking, whereas neither sexism nor benevolent sexism were associated with maladaptive alcohol use. Sexism was positively associated with alcohol related problems for women of color. Results also showed that the active commitment form of feminist identity moderated the association between self-objectification and heavy episodic drinking. No other interactions with moderating variables were significant. This study emphasizes the importance of examining gender-relevant factors when working with women who engage in risky alcohol use.Item The role of communication, life role commitments, and sexist ideologies in dual-earner marriages(2008-05-31) Sullivan, Catherine Mary; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The dual earner family is now the norm among married couples of all races; yet research has shown that even dual-earner couples are not generally able to attain marital equality. This study investigated inequality in marital relationships as it related to wives' psychological distress and marital satisfaction by examining variables that appear to correspond with invisible power, namely the gendered ways men and women commit to various life roles, how they communicate in times of conflict, and the sexist ideologies that serve to shape these roles and behaviors. Participants were 287 married women who worked full-time outside the home and whose oldest child was under the age of six. The sample was predominantly White, highly educated and had a relatively high income. Participants completed a web-based survey, which included measures of relationship satisfaction, psychological distress, life role commitments, ambivalent sexism, constructive communication, and social support. Participants responded to several measures twice - once from their own perspective and once based on their perceptions of their husband's perspective. Results suggested that while the variables of interest, particularly constructive communication, predicted a large among of variance in relationship satisfaction, they only predicted a small amount of variance in psychological distress. The three variables that were found to predict unique variance in wives' reported marital satisfaction were constructive communication, wives' perceptions of their husband's commitment to the parental role, and wives' own commitment to the marital role. Findings support the importance of these variables for predicting women's reported marital satisfaction and the importance of examining these variables together. Overall, it was found that wives' perceptions of their husbands' perspective were more strongly predictive of wives' marital satisfaction than wives' own ratings. Results suggest that constructive communication is a particularly important tool for women in dual-earner marriages, a way that they are empowered to make marriage more satisfying and possibly as a protective factor or way to cope with what would otherwise be distressing. These findings can be used to inform the development of interventions to help dual-earner couples with young children.