Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item THE WORST OF TIMES? AGING WITH LIMITED FAMILY TIES IN THE UNITED STATES(2024) Liu, Jingwen; Caudillo, Mónica L.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The drastic demographic and family transitions since the 1970s have raised ongoing discussions about whether older adults fare well socially and psychologically when they are increasingly likely to age alone in the U.S. Based on the social convoy model, the three studies of this dissertation answer this question by extending the focus from the proximal kinship ties to nonkin networks and broader social participation. Particular attention is paid to gender and racial/ethnic differences as demographic and family transitions are experienced unevenly by different social groups. The first study examines how family instability and the deviation from “normative” family trajectories are associated with older adults’ mental health. It found different levels of importance of the structure and instability of family for men and women of different racial/ethnic groups. Moving beyond family and households, the second study explores the substitution effect of extended family, friends, and neighborhoods in the absence of proximal relations. It reveals the “double plight” of Black and Hispanic older adults who may suffer from both a disproportionate exposure to the declining marriage and a lack of supportive distant relations serving as buffer zones in the absence of core kinship ties. The third study disentangles the population-level age and cohort trends of social connectedness, a more comprehensive indicator of individuals’ social wellbeing. It finds distinct intercohort changes in both the overall level of social connectedness and intracohort gender and racial/ethnic disparities. These trends can be partially explained by cohort differences in socioeconomic resources and health. However, societal changes that emphasize the significance of intergenerational solidarity, friendship ties, digital communication, non-religious social participation, and volunteering may play a more significant role. Taken together, this dissertation depicts a mixed picture of different populations who demonstrate varying levels of vulnerability and resilience against the quickly developing society. Therefore, it calls for both the enhancement of social welfare regimes and more positive narratives about unique resilience and strengths for women, racial/ethnic minorities, and socioeconomically disadvantaged older adults.Item A BAROMETER OF SCIENTIFIC CULTURE: THE DEBATED ROLE OF AMERICAN SCIENCE AT THE 1850’S SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION(2023) Buser, Allison; Woods, Colleen; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the initial decade of the Smithsonian Institution’s existence, its first secretary, Joseph Henry, sought to establish an institution for the advancement of science that defied popular understandings of scientific work in the United States. From the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, American science was infused with republican ideology and was widely expected to prioritize practical results that would directly benefit society at large. At the Smithsonian, Henry sought to establish a boundary between professional, theoretical science, conducted and distributed more selectively among experts, and wider public influence and demand for utilitarian scientific work. Examination of discourse in popular publications reveals that Henry’s plan created an ongoing public debate in the 1850s regarding the Smithsonian’s legitimate scientific mission. This included criticism of the Smithsonian publications program’s inaccessibility and lack of utility to the public as well as many alternative proposals for how the institution might be of better scientific use to Americans. Such expectations that Smithsonian research and resources would serve the general American population were also expressed throughout the correspondence of the Smithsonian Meteorology Project—the Institution’s first major scientific research initiative. Although Henry sought to create a boundary between theInstitution’s work and the public, the utilitarian demands of many of the project’s volunteer observers ensured that the practical goals of the public remained intertwined with Henry’s own goals to promote theoretical science in the development of the Smithsonian. The influential work of this extended scientific community was often made possible through the contributions of additional members of households. Close reading of the meteorological project correspondence reveals an extensive, although often officially unacknowledged, contribution from women and other individuals whose labor was often more fixed to the household. While the public volunteers of the project shaped the trajectory of the Smithsonian, the devalued labor of peripheral contributors to the Institution’s large-scale data work set important precedent for professional scientific frameworks at the end of the century. Overall, the relationship between the early Smithsonian and the public in the 1850s demonstrates that the process of establishing borders defining a professional/amateur dichotomy in American science was uneven. The Institution contended with republican expectations of the scientific public and its projects continued to rely upon contributors without formal or elite credentials who in turn demanded accessible and practical research and shaped scientific institutions. Despite Joseph Henry's contribution to the professionalization and specialization of science, the boundaries of science and who could participate in scientific research remained fluid through the mid-nineteenth century.Item A STUDY OF GENDER DIVERSITY IN U.S. ARCHITECTURE, ENGINEERING, AND CONSTRUCTION (AEC) INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP(2023) Hickey, Paul Joseph; Cui, Qingbin; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Anecdotally, men dominate the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) field. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by quantifying the gender composition of the c-suite, identifying differences in career paths between women and men, and gathering in-depth information on women engineering executives’ professional stories. Using the industry recognized Engineering News Record (ENR) Top 400 largest companies, initial phase of this research found women filled 3.9% of engineering executive positions in 2019, reducing to 3.5% in 2021. However, certain sub-segments, highlighted by firms with a public commitment to diversity, ENR Top 100 Green companies, and larger organizations, offer more opportunities to women. Exploring further into individual and collective career paths, researchers applied web scraping algorithms to extract LinkedIn data for 2,857 industry leaders. Data found that women work for more companies (+56%), hold more positions (+19%), earn more advanced degrees (53.9% to 31.2%), assemble larger professional networks (+14%), yet remain significantly underrepresented (-83%). Confirming a difference between the career paths of women and men, Machine Learning (ML) modeling predicted profile genders with 98.95% training sample and 89.53% testing sample accuracy. Final stage of research incorporates interviews with women engineering executives, seeking to learn about pathways and barriers in their respective and collective professional journeys and test the findings from the initial two phases of this study. An overriding theme throughout the progressive study, recommendations for increasing women’s representation include directed Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) scholarships for young girls, targeted recruiting of women, establishing mentoring relationships, and creating nurturing cultures to retain early and mid-career women.Item Gender-Specific Significance of Family Transitions on Well-being and Work Attitudes(2022) Hara, Yuko; Chen, Feinian; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Marriage and parenthood are major life events for many individuals. Marriage is linked with improved health partly through spousal influence on health-related behaviors including diet. Previous theoretical and qualitative research suggests a link between family transitions and meal patterns. Yet empirical research using a nationally representative sample to examine the association is scarce. And the issues of whether spousal influence on health-related behaviors can be extended to other types of romantic relationships, such as cohabitation, as well as whether the transition to parenthood is linked with changes in meal patterns, have not been adequately researched. Additionally, research examining whether the health benefits that marriage brings can be universally found for both genders across countries is limited. Family life events carry other consequences, too. Prior research also suggests that family life often has a negative impact on attitudes toward paid work, particularly for women. Past research, however, primarily relied on small sample interview data or cross-sectional data, leaving unclear how work attitudes change during adulthood. This dissertation examines the impact of different family life events such as marriage, cohabitation, and parenthood on changes in subjective well-being, health-related behavior (meal patterns), and attitudes towards work by gender. I focus on adults in their prime work and family life stages in the U.S. and Japan. By using fixed effects models and panel data, I aimed to estimate the average effect of family life events within individuals over time. I found that entering a romantic union reduces meal skipping, but the type of union matters differently for men and women. I also found that the transition to parenthood discourages women’s regular meal patterns, suggesting family ties do not necessarily facilitate healthy behaviors. In the highly gendered social context of Japan, contrary to previous findings from Western industrialized countries, I found no evidence indicating that marriage is associated with self-rated health for women. Additionally, I found that the transition to parenthood is negatively linked with men’s self-rated health. In terms of work attitudes, even when controlling for various job characteristics, I found that both marriage and parenthood are negatively associated with enthusiasm toward work achievement, only for women in Japan. These findings highlight the importance of country context and reveal that entry into marriage triggers shifts in women’s work attitudes even before having children.Item “I BELONG HERE”: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY ON THE EXPERIENCES OF PARTICIPANTS IN WOMEN’S CLUB SPORT(2022) Crawford, Mary Kathryn Sullivan; Espino, Michelle M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Dominant narratives are the stories society tells about the way things are and the way things should be. Often, these stories are internalized and thought of as true and accurate representations of people and systems. In sport, and in higher education, dominant narratives reinforce notions that men are always superior to women. Men are more athletic, more exciting to watch, have greater natural inclinations towards leadership, and as a result, are rightly in positions of power in sport and higher education institutions. In this study, I present counterstories that are contrary to these dominant narratives and represent the experiences of 7 club sport participants who engaged at the intersection of sport and higher education. In this narrative inquiry, club sport participant stories resist these dominant narratives and provide insight into the experiences of women and non-binary students as they navigate sport participation and leadership in student organizations. Findings suggest club sport participants rely on sport for familial and social connections and as a protective environment to express one’s true self. Additionally, club sport participants thrive as leaders when they feel supported and valued by teammates. Implications for practitioners of collegiate recreation and for future research are discussed.Item RELIGION COVERAGE AS A CONDUIT FOR DISINFORMATION AND EXCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICA(2022) Feigenblatt-Rojas, Hazel; Yaros, Ronald; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Past literature on religion and news media focused on whether secular news coverage is disadvantageous to religion but this dissertation explored the opposite approach: whether secular coverage of religion can favor religion (compared to coverage of the marginalized groups whose rights are often under attack by religious institutions) and amplify religious disinformation. This analysis also sought to determine how religious disinformation may spread through fact-based media and whether any differences surface between legacy and emerging outlets reporting. Coverage of a specific political process (issuance of a technical norm to guide the conditions under which abortion to save a patient’s life or health can be conducted) involving religious groups and a marginalized group (women) was chosen for analysis in a Latin American country (Costa Rica) known for a free press and stable democratic rule, but also a majority Christian population. A mixed-methods content analysis of the coverage was conducted based on newer approaches to media pluralism theory, which has been often invoked in the region to discuss unequal media access and its implications on the balance of power relations in a democratic arena. Results suggest religion coverage was a conduit for the spread of disinformation through fact-based news outlets and the spread of marginalizing narratives about women's rights. While not all disinformation came from religious sources, the majority did and the press repeated religious disinformation twice as often as non-religious disinformation. The majority of all the disinformation included in the news stories was not identified as such. In most cases, it was religious disinformation that many reporters failed to fact-check. Furthermore, they gave religious sources and their messages prominent positions in the articles, even when it included disinformation. Religious sources in the sample benefitted from a permissive coverage marked by a "silk glove" treatment by several news outlets, which enabled them to prominently spread disinformation and reaffirm exclusionary narratives. No relevant differences emerged in coverage by legacy and emerging news outlets in this regard. This dissertation contributes a case-based definition of religious disinformation and a new coding scheme that can be used to analyze media pluralism under newer theoretical conceptualizations that focus on the interaction of journalism with power asymmetries rather than measures of diversity.Item Protection for whom? A critical examination into the governance of women athletes through policies(2022) Posbergh, Anna; Jette, Shannon L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Women’s sport remains a contested realm that frequently features standards and regulations implying women are “lesser than,” “different from,” or “derivative of” men (Cahn, 2015, p. 222). As such, a range of protective policies have been introduced as techniques to ensure the safety and health of women, defend “fair competition” in women’s sport, and/or prevent women from violating social and medical boundaries that identify them as women. However, because protective policies rely on divergent rationales in their creation and justification, they elicit different impacts for individuals who are categorized (or wish to be categorized) as women. Previous scholarship has analyzed the underlying issues of science, race, gender, and nationality in individual protective policies and indicated the potential for specific policies (i.e., female eligibility policies) to elicit dangerous health, social, and mental consequences on black and brown women from the Global South. However, there a paucity of research that investigates protective policies as a broad category to understand their similarities, differences, and nuances. To fill this gap, I examine multiple protective policies to conduct a critical, qualitative inquiry into how protective policies are created in elite women’s sports. I focus on how such policies regulate women’s bodies and how different versions of “woman” are constructed by interpreting and selectively drawing from myriad forms of evidence to determine who is protected (and who is excluded), how “protection” is understood, what evidence is mobilized, and how protective policy consequences are justified.I investigate three policies as case studies: the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 2014 consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), World Athletics’ 2019 policy on female eligibility, and World Athletics’ 2019 policy on transgender eligibility. These three policies are selected for analysis because they reflect the range of science-supported protective policies. While all seek to protect women, each adopts a different stance on the importance of sex differences, in the process demonstrating the social construction of “sex” and malleability of scientific evidence. Guided by feminist, critical race, and Foucauldian-inspired governmentality studies approaches, I center the relevant discourses, knowledges, and power relations within policy rationales to better understand how protective policies regulate (women’s) bodies and maintain social norms. Each case study analysis consists of two data sets: the actual policy texts and nine semi-structured interviews with policy authors, scientists, and other relevant administrators involved in the creation, drafting, and implementation of the three policies. I analyze the data through thematic analysis followed by Foucauldian discourse analysis, informed by a governmentality studies perspective. Using this two-step analytic framework, I first determine what was said in document texts and by participants, followed by a deeper level of analysis and contextualization of how dominant discourses, knowledges, and power relations were created and mobilized to protect (some) women athletes. My findings are organized into four empirical chapters. In the first empirical chapter, I examine the document texts to provide a broad examination into the contexts surrounding their creation, as well as the unproblematized logics that inform their dominant discourses, ways of knowing, and power hierarchies. Based on my analysis, I bring to light the implications of the logics underpinning the documents, including the use of elite medical discourses, the construction of “suspicious” athletes, biologizations of race and gender, and individual diagnoses that lack attention to broader social, political, and cultural dimensions. In the second empirical chapter, I focus on the interviews, or “expert knowledge,” with those involved with researching, drafting, and implementing the three case studies to understand how they draw from (certain) forms of evidence, interpret and/or circulate dominant discourses and knowledges, and navigate the (often) contentious process of creating protective policies (see Wells, 2020). In the third and fourth empirical chapters, I examine both sets of data (policy and interview). In the first of these two empirical chapters, I provide an overview of the “start-to-finish” process behind creating and implementing protective policies and investigate the “tensions” that emerge at each step in the process: from explaining why protective policies exist, to finding or constructing appropriate forms of evidence, to determining the necessity of a separate women’s category, to methods of governing. In the latter empirical chapter, I more closely parse through these “tensions” behind and within the rationales and strategies of protective policies to reveal the complexity reality of such documents, particularly with consideration to (protected) participation, (controlled) unfairness, and (felt) policy implementation. This dissertation is significant as it elucidates how, if, and when women’s rights and bodies are protected through policies. As sport shapes and is shaped by society, this research illuminates on a societal scale how science and policy shape dominant ways of knowing, particularly regarding gender, sex, race, and human rights. Especially in a time when legal protections of women’s autonomy, bodies, and rights are in question, this project provides insight into how protective policies enact a range of measures to safeguard (some) women’s bodies through regulation, discipline, or even exclusion. By investigating how sociocultural and scientific knowledges intersect to determine who qualifies as “woman,” who is considered in need of “protection,” and how protection is implemented, the findings from this dissertation will hopefully inform organizational and administrative efforts to create more equitable, compassionate, and inclusive policies, both in sport and society.Item TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM GENDER DIVERSITY AND ITS EFFECT ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL OFFENDING(2022) Layana, Maria Cristina; Simpson, Sally S; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study addresses a gap in the current corporate crime literature by giving special attention to the characteristics and role of the top management team (TMT) in facilitating or mitigating illegal conduct. I ask how changes in certain demographic characteristics of the TMT unit, particularly gender composition, affect various forms of corporate offending over time. Specifically, 1) In what ways are changes in TMT gender characteristics related to corporate illegality over time? 2) What is the nature of the relationship between TMT gender diversity, corporate offending, and other key characteristics of women executives? 3) What is the temporal order of these relationships? 4) How do other TMT and corporate characteristics influence the relationships between TMT gender diversity and firm offending? Stemming from the strategic leadership literature, Hambrick and Mason’s (1984) Upper Echelons (UE) perspective serves as the primary theoretical framework guiding this study. This dissertation focuses on two types of corporate illegality: environmental and financial (i.e., accounting fraud, bribery, and anticompetitive acts) using a universe of firms listed on the S&P 1500 from 1996 through 2013.Item PART OF THE WHOLE: FACULTY CAMPUS SERVICE DECISIONS AT A CATHOLIC LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITY(2021) Kilmer, Sarah Jane; O'Meara, KerryAnn; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Faculty members in higher education institutions are typically evaluated based on their labor in research, teaching, and service. Although varying by institution type, research and teaching are often rewarded more heavily in tenure and promotion decisions than service work. Research indicates that women faculty perform more campus service work than do men faculty within academia, with important consequences for career advancement. One explanation for women’s greater participation in service is that colleges and universities are gendered institutions, with structures that preserve and promote differential expectations for men and women faculty. Within these gendered organizations, cultural and gender stereotypes shape the choices and behaviors of men and women faculty in important ways, including what they sign up for, what they are asked to do, and how they evaluate themselves and others. This study explored the impact of cultural and gender stereotyping as well as institutional context on the decisions that men and women faculty make regarding campus service at one Catholic liberal arts institution in the United States. Distinctive contextual factors such as mission and institutional culture can also influence decision-making around campus service in different ways, and this study examined how environmental factors, alongside the structural nature of gender norms, affected the campus service-related decisions of faculty in this particular case. Guided by the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), Social Role Theory (SRT), and March’s (1994) Decision-Making Theory, the findings from interviews with 21 faculty participants and analysis of over 50 institutional documents and key campus artifacts indicated that participants were aware of gender stereotypes and social roles and sometimes influenced by them. However, the distinctive institutional context had an important effect on participants’ campus service decisions. Participants made campus service decisions inside a women-founded institution where campus service was key to the institutional mission and campus service work was fully integrated into the faculty role, while also emphasized, expected, and rewarded by the institution. Data from the study suggests that participant reasons for engaging in campus service included a desire to understand the university better, make positive contributions to the common good, build meaningful relationships, and perform campus service work that was consistent with their values and strengths. As such, faculty members frequently employed rational choice motives but were also influenced to an important degree by the institution’s mission to engage in rule following decision-making. There are implications for faculty hiring and fit and tenure and promotion guidelines at institutions with distinctive foundations, as well as implications for campus service equity for faculty members and for addressing gendered and racialized norms within Catholic higher education.Item Competition and Prosocial Incentives: Essays on the Role of Gender When Choosing to Compete for Others(2021) King, Benjamin Charles; Agarwal, Rajshree; Starr, Evan P; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation examines how prosocial and selfish incentives affect individuals' willingness to compete as a critical behavioral choice, and the role of gender in this relationship. Understanding more about this connection is key, as men are more competitive than women, on average, and higher levels of competitiveness are correlated with positive career outcomes. Using insights from economics and psychology, I test and expand theory that individuals become more willing to compete when the rewards benefit a charity or another individual. I suggest practical implications for organizational designers who seek to reduce gender gaps in wages and achievement.