Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF OPENLY GAY UNDERGRADUATE MEN INVOLVED IN ELECTED STUDENT GOVERNMENT: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL QUEERING(2020) Goodman, Michael Anthony; Hultgren, Francine; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This is a study at the intersection of sexuality and student involvement in higher education. Exploring the lived experiences of openly gay undergraduate men involved in elected student government, this study enlists a phenomenological queering that unconceals and reveals that which is otherwise hidden in elected student leadership. Eight men were selected for participation in this study, and all identified as openly gay before and after their election to undergraduate student government. These men come from varying U.S. geographies and positions, and conversations and themes were rendered through the methodological approach of hermeneutic phenomenology. Four major themes came from multiple participant conversations and journals. First, these men understood coming out and being out as deeply related to visibility and their work as leaders. They are more than just gay, and at the same time, they just so happen to be gay. Additionally, participants displayed independent ways of being within their outness. For example, some represented a palatable kind of being gay, and some navigated deep religious dissonance and other tensions within the (queer) margins. Re(-)presentation was also a major theme, as participants were advocates for their peers, and were “called” to this work of leadership. Finally, these men were leaders through their identities, and engaged in undergraduate student government as something that was bigger than them, but better because of them. This includes their call to leadership and student government, the political nature of this work, and a desire for things to be better. From this study, insights were gleaned that capture the nuances of this intersection of sexuality and student involvement in higher education. Specifically, this study is a calling to better understand what it means to live and work alongside students who hold these dual identities (out and elected in student government, and within student affairs). This includes a queering of student government and phenomenology, as well as a queering of van Manen’s (1997) existentials of lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality), and lived relationship to others (sociality).Item Intersectional experiences, stigma-related stress, and psychological health among Black LGB communities(2018) Jackson, Skyler; Mohr, Jonathan J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Contemporary theories of stigma-related stress (Hatzenbuehler, 2009; Krieger, 2014; Meyer, 2003) suggest that marginalized populations face chronic experiences of prejudice and discrimination due to their minority statuses—and that these stressful events undermine psychological health. Research based on this perspective typically (a) focus on one aspect of identity (e.g., sexual orientation) in isolation from other salient aspects of identity (e.g., race), (b) test temporal theories of discrimination and health using cross-sectional study designs, and (c) focus on experiences of stigmatization, overlooking the potential role of positive, identity-supportive experiences in mental health. The present study uses daily diary methods to explore the prevalence and day-to-day correlates of intersectional experiences (IEs) in a sample of 131 Black lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals. Every evening for one week, participants reported both negative and positive IEs from the last 24 hours, and completed measures of identity conflict, rumination, and affect. Across 849 combined study days, participants described 97 negative IEs (11.4% of days) and 263 positive IEs (31.0% of days). Multilevel regression was used to test concurrent and temporal relations between daily IEs and mood—as well as the mediating roles of identity conflict and rumination—at the within-person and between-person levels. Negative IEs were associated with identity conflict and negative affect at both the within- and between-person levels, and negative rumination at the within-person level only. Positive IEs predicted positive rumination and positive affect (but not identity conflict) at the within- and between-person levels. Results indicated that identity conflict mediated the concurrent association between negative IEs and negative affect (but not between positive IEs and positive affect) at both levels of analysis. Negative rumination mediated the concurrent association of negative IEs and negative affect at the within-person level (but not the between-person level). The study also produced a significant indirect path from positive IEs to positive affect, mediated through positive rumination, at both levels of analysis. No direct or indirect lag-effects were demonstrated in which IEs predicted next day outcomes. This microlongitudinal investigation is among the first to quantitatively capture the prevalence and day-to-day correlates of intersectional experiences among LGB people of color.Item A Grounded Theory of Lesbian and Gay Leadership Self-Efficacy Development(2011) Ostick, Daniel Townsend; Komives, Susan R.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of gay and lesbian college students engaged in leadership and the meaning they made of their leadership self-efficacy development, particularly as it related to their identity development and various environmental assisters and constraints. The study sought to identity what shaped the development of leadership self-efficacy for these students and generated additional questions for future research. Using Grounded Theory Methodology, this study explored the primary research question: How do gay and lesbian college students engaged in leadership develop their leadership self-efficacy? Three interviews were held each with 10 students who self-identified as gay, lesbian, queer, or sexually fluid who were highly involved in leadership activities on campus. The theory that emerged from the participants' experiences centered on the individual's self-efficacy to engage in leadership defined within the context of their beliefs about the nature of leadership engagement. The self-efficacy of the students was enhanced by support, success, and deep and broad involvement and was diminished by failure and active criticism. The students‟ gay, lesbian, or queer identities served to either improve self-efficacy or leadership or had no demonstrable effect, according to the participants‟ stories. Sexual orientation served to improve self-efficacy for engagement in leadership by broadening perspectives, improving relationships and comfort within groups, allowing the participants to bring their full selves to their experiences, creating empathy and understanding, and improving personal awareness. Participants also shared that their identities were integral to their involvements, that being out increased their overall self-confidence, that greater comfort led to greater involvement, and that visibility and voice was important to their leadership self-efficacy. Students also shared that their sexual orientation did not have an appreciable effect on their leadership self-efficacy when they already had a great deal of confidence to engage in leadership, when they had already integrated their sexual orientations, when situations did not relate to their sexual orientations, or when the saliency of their sexual orientations was lower than other aspects of their personality.Item Educating for Change: How Leadership Education and Training Affect Student Activism in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Undergraduates(2011) Leets, Craig Stuart; Komives, Susan R; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explored the extent to which leadership education and training experiences predicted student activism in lesbian, gay, and bisexual undergraduate students. The impact of these experiences were compared to the impact of participants' involvement and leadership in co-curricular and off-campus organizations to identify the additional ways that leadership education and training can supplement a student's organizational participation in encouraging student activism for this student population. Data from 2,681 students who identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual on the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership were used for this study. A single hypothesis was tested using the College Impacts model as the conceptual framework, and multiple regression was the chosen statistical method. The model established for this study explained 51.3% of the observed variance in student activism with demographic variables, pre-college experiences, organizational participation, and leadership education and training experiences serving as positive predictors.Item When the Clothes Do Not Make the Man: Female Masculinity and Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century British Literature(2006-08-01) Jansen, Leslie; Lanser, Susan S; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recently, masculinity has garnered much attention from scholars of eighteenth-century literature and history. However, these studies focus almost exclusively on the masculinity performed by men. Likewise, studies of female masculinity tend to examine masculine women only within the context of women. My dissertation lies at the convergence of these two areas of inquiry by examining the implications of female masculinity on normative masculinity and the link between these masculinities and nationalism from the early to late eighteenth century, with particular emphasis at the mid-point of the century. I argue that female masculinity was integral to the development and construction of an idealized masculinity and that both positive and negative responses to female masculinity fostered nationalist propaganda and aided in the development of the British Empire. In the first chapter, I trace the shifting grounds of normative masculinity and argue that what constitutes masculinity narrows as the century progresses and is defined by its resistance to any connection with French culture, particularly within the rising middle class. Chapter two examines three female soldier narratives, some of the only positive representations of female masculinity. I argue that the authors praise female masculinity as a means of creating a heroic masculinity to serve the nation. The third chapter examines the function of female husbands. I argue that these texts employ female husbands as a means of inciting xenophobia and promoting nationalism, through narrative strategies of silence and disclosure. In the final chapter, I discuss the masculine women who populate four domestic novels. I posit that female masculinity functions as a means of authorizing sentimental masculinity, a mode of masculinity popular in mid-to late eighteenth-century novels. Through the examination of texts such as novels, pamphlets, and biographies, my dissertation insists that female masculinity was an integral force in the construction of normative masculinity and was intimately linked to a nationalist agenda in the eighteenth century.Item Counseling strategies with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients: An online analogue study(2006-08-01) Asay, Penelope; Fassinger, Ruth E; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The differences of three approaches to addressing a client's sexual orientation in an initial counseling session were investigated. Utilizing an online analogue method, participants were assigned to read and rate a hypothetical counseling vignette between a White, gay male client and a White, heterosexual male therapist. Participants were randomly assigned to Counselor A, who talked about the client's sexual orientation directly, Counselor B, who talked about the client's sexual orientation indirectly, or Counselor C, who did not mention the client's sexual orientation. It was found that addressing a client's sexual orientation in a first session was associated with higher ratings of general and multicultural competence and a greater willingness of the participant to discuss issues of sexual orientation with the hypothetical counselor. Addressing culture either directly or indirectly was rated more highly than not addressing culture at all. No differences in perceptions of counselor approach were found either by race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or previous experience in therapy. More generally, it was found that perceived general competence, multicultural competence, and working alliance were predictive of how willing participants would be to discuss both issues of sexual orientation and other issues with the hypothetical counselor. Multicultural competence contributed unique variance over and above general competence and working alliance. Results suggest that empirical efforts to investigate multicultural counseling competence may be enriched by including sexual orientation.Item Development and Validation of the Behaviors Toward Gays and Lesbians Scale (B-GAL)(2005-07-14) Walton, Heather Marie; Fassinger, Ruth E; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis discusses the current state of research regarding attitudes and behaviors toward lesbians and gay men and outlines the development and testing of the Behaviors Toward Gays and Lesbians Scale (B-GAL). Establishment of internal consistency reliability and construct validity (convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity, as well as factor analysis) was determined on a sample of 175 female and male heterosexual college students. Results suggested a highly internally consistent and valid behavioral measure consisting of three factors. The thesis also discusses the use of the B-GAL in providing a preliminary assessment of college students' behaviors toward lesbians and gay men.