College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item SKYRISE: BLACK GIRLS ‘ARCHITEXTING’ YOUTHTOPIAS(2023) Young, Alexis Morgan; Brown, Tara M; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation illustrates the utility of Black girls’ imaginations in liberatory projects, particularly in the (re)imagining of education. As this biophysical world continues to reveal the insidiousness of current systems of power, now, more than ever, people are exploring the (im)possibilities of abolition. Central to the project of abolition is imagining otherwise ways of being and living; thus, those committed to actualizing liberated futures for Black girls must make sure their voices are amplified in world-making projects. This project examines a six-week extracurricular program, Astronomy Club, that serves as homeplace (hooks, 1990) for six preadolescent Black girls. During the program, Black girls engaged in architexture, the hybrid approach of melding principles of architecture and literature to document their speculations of a youthtopian future. Grounded in Black Feminist Futurity (Campt, 2017), Black Quantum Futurism (Phillips, 2015); Black Critical Theory (Dumas & ross, 2016); the overarching question of this qualitative study asks: In a literacy program designed for and with them, how do Black girls ‘architext’ their imaginations of Black girl-centered educational futures? Data sources include interviews video-recorded observations of program sessions and multimodal program artifacts, analyzed through a grammar of Black futurity as modeled in Campt’s (2017) Listening to Images. Study findings indicate that when the Black girls in this study dream of freer educational futures, they: (1) dream in the dark, (2) dream in community, and (3) dream of a world full of justice. Furthermore, they provided directives for constructing youthtopian learning environments and described them as sites that: (1) center Black life and Black girlhood in the curriculum, (2) tend to their identities and socioemotional positions, and (3) nourish their body, mind, and soul. This study adds to the continued project of creating a new world for and documenting the revolutionary ideologies of Black girls. This dissertation is an invitation to improve the educational conditions of Black girls through their analyses of present schools and their fantasies for schools they desire in the future.Item Attachment and Pain Catastrophizing From a Communal Coping Perspective in Women With Chronic Pain(2021) Reeves, Elizabeth; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Chronic pain is a devastating public health problem particularly in women, who are at increased risk for chronic conditions and report more depression and disability secondary to pain relative to men. The impact of relationships, which are critical to the experience and management of pain as well as central to the female gender role, may help to explain gender disparities. The present study uses the Communal Coping Model of Pain Catastrophizing (CCM) and the Attachment-Diathesis Model of Chronic Pain (ADMoCP) to investigate how relationship patterns influence coping responses in women with chronic pain. It seeks to clarify the mechanisms by which unmet attachment needs contribute to pain catastrophizing and influence perceptions of others’ responses to pain and pain-related behaviors. Furthermore, it seeks to examine how insecure attachment might contribute to lower levels of adaptive, intrapersonal responses to pain such as self-compassion, and whether addressing these deficits might represent a viable target for intervention. A total of 355 women with generalized chronic pain conditions (Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and/or Myofascial Pain Syndrome) completed an online survey. Exploratory analyses examine relationships between attachment, pain appraisals, pain catastrophizing, self-compassion, depression, and disability. Additional analyses test the CCM and the ADMoCP by investigating: (1) two possible mechanisms by which attachment needs might influence pain catastrophizing, depression, and disability; and (2) the role of attachment and pain catastrophizing in shaping perceptions of others’ responses to pain and pain-related behaviors. Findings have implications for conceptualization and treatment from an attachment perspective.Item A MISSING PIECE: EXAMINING TEACHERS’ RESPONSES TO GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS IN BURKINA FASO(2019) Spear, Anne; Stromquist, Nelly; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gender inequality leading to gendered violence in schools is a concerning reality worldwide. This study examines gender-based violence (GBV) in an educational context by conducting a vertical comparative case study on gender-based violence at two secondary schools in the central area of Burkina Faso, West Africa. The study sought to understand the multiple influences that guide secondary schoolteachers’ responses to GBV and the implementation of existing national policies in combatting the violence in Burkina Faso. Using the feminist poststructuralist framework, the study conducted discourse analysis of policies and explored teachers’ discourse of the phenomenon through how teachers’ meaning-making of GBV in schools contributes to decisions around addressing the violence. This qualitative research contributes to the on-going discussion of how teachers can be change agents in schools. These findings can help inform teachers’ training programs and national policy.Item A GENDER ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING PHD STUDENTS’ CAREER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS USING A BOUNDED AGENCY MODEL(2019) da Costa, Romina Bobbio; Stromquist, Nelly P.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This qualitative research study applies a bounded agency model in investigating the career decision making process of engineering PhD students at a large, public research university in the United States. Through a gender analysis of the career decision-making of men and women PhD students in engineering, this study sheds light on the reasons why men and women choose different career trajectories in engineering, with implications for diversifying the professoriate. This study highlights the ways in which men and women PhD students in engineering experience the university as an institution differently, and form different impressions of the academic career. The bounded agency model allows for a holistic examination of the organizational barriers, as well as the individual level dispositions and characteristics that work to limit the range of feasible alternaives and choices for men and women as they make their career choices. The findings provide insight into the career decision-making of men and women PhDs as an iterative process of information gathering, crystallization of values, and narrowing down of options. Gender differences are outlined at each stage in this process, providing a framework for furthering understanding of other underrepresented populations in the professoriate. Additionally, the findings have implications for graduate education in engineering, and for PhD student career development and choice, both in the United States and beyond. keywords: agency, bounded agency, career choice, career development, diversity in STEM, engineering education, gender, graduate student agency, graduate student experience, higher education, STEMItem Portraits of the (In)visible: Examining the Intersections of Race, Religion, and Gender for Black Muslim Women in College(2017) Daoud, Nina; Griffin, Kimberly A.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although anti-Islamic sentiments have existed before 9/11, the past 15 years have brought about a distinct set of challenges for Muslim Americans, ones that have seldom been explored within the context of college campuses. Further, higher education scholarship has not addressed diversity among Muslims and the reality that students facing numerous forms of oppression often have unique challenges negotiating their multiple identities. This project recognizes the distinct subjectivities of Black Muslim women, examining how they navigate college at the intersections of their racial, religious, and gender identities. Through the qualitative methodology of portraiture and a Black feminist lens, this dissertation utilizes Patricia Hill Collins’s matrix of domination to present portraits of four Black Muslim women, focusing on how they make decisions about which of their identities to embody throughout their undergraduate years. Data were collected between October 2016 and March 2017, the months leading up to and following the 2016 Presidential Election. As such, this study’s primary contribution lies in uncovering how contextual influences shape the college experiences of students from marginalized backgrounds. More specifically, findings from this study reveal the significance of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s notion of the decisive moment as well as how Erving Goffman’s conceptualization of impression management can be used to explicate Black Muslim women’s resistance. As it relates to the decisive moment, or the specific time in which an artist is able to capture a snapshot of a broader image, participants discussed how political discourse about each of their social groups (e.g., Black, Muslim, woman, immigrant) shaped their campus interactions. Additionally, the decisive moment galvanized participants to fight against racial injustices. Relatedly, participants engaged in impression management, employing strategies to resist stereotypes related to one or more of their marginalized identities. In particular, participants intentionally performed their racial and/or religious identities (e.g., through wearing a headscarf, being vocal about racism) as an act of resistance. Overall, findings illuminate issues of power and privilege in different spaces, including the Muslim community, the Black community, college campuses, and the U.S., thereby disrupting narratives of universality among those who identify as Black or Muslim, within higher education and beyond.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.Item GIRLS' EDUCATION IN INDIA: A MULTILEVEL EXAMINATION FROM A CAPABILITY PERSPECTIVE(2015) Godbole, Pragati Avinash; Croninger, Robert G.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This quantitative study, guided by the Capability Approach (Sen, 1999), examines how effective opportunities or contextual capabilities influence educational outcomes or education functionings of children, specifically girls in India. Using hierarchical linear modeling techniques and controlling for individual conversion factors, this study explores the links between contextual capabilities such as life, bodily integrity, and political empowerment and the gender gap in children's functionings - reading, arithmetic, and writing proficiency. The study also investigates the relationship between contextual capabilities and the acquisition of these functionings for children in general. Drawn from the India Human Development Survey (Desai, et al., 2007), I used data from 11,345 children (ages 8-11) in 500 rural and urban districts across India. The relationship of contextual capabilities and educational functionings as measured in this study seems to be a complex one. Contextual capabilities of bodily integrity, political empowerment, and adult female education reduced the gender gap in reading and arithmetic proficiency in rural districts and adult female education also reduced the gender gap in arithmetic proficiency in urban districts. Contextual capabilities also had modest associations with reading, arithmetic, and writing proficiency in several models but the direction of some relationships was unanticipated. This study seeks to contribute to literature on Capability Approach and provides a possible way to operationalize capabilities by empirically distinguishing between contextual capabilities and individual functionings. Findings have implications for further research on girls' education and education of other traditionally marginalized groups.Item A session level analysis of the relationship between a group member’s fit with her group and PTSD symptom change in a sample of incarcerated women seeking trauma treatment(2010) Paquin, Jill Denise; Kivlighan, Dennis M; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The present study sought to apply the concept of person-group fit from the domain of organizational psychology to the domain of group psychotherapy. Specifically, using a time-series series design, the current study examined the relationship between an individual group member's fit with her group on two dimensions, perceptions of group climate and in-session intimate behaviors, and whether fit and standing on these dimensions were related to change in PTSD symptoms. An archival data set of 73 incarcerated women participating in six manualized (Trauma Recovery Empowerment Model [TREM], Harris, 1998) therapy groups for the treatment of co-morbid trauma and substance use disorders were analyzed. The relationship between the level of fit on these dimensions and change in PTSD symptoms as documented by participants' pre- and post-test scores on the PTSD Symptom Scale-Self Report (PSS-SR) was assessed. Using a session-level analysis (N = 1,606) and the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) (Kenny, Kashy, Manetti, Piero, & Livi, 2002) both individual (Actor) and group (Partner) effects were modeled in order to test hypotheses about the individual, the group, and the fit between actor and partner and PTSD symptom change. Twenty-two of 73 women did not complete treatment. Analyses revealed significant partner effects for group members who completed both pre and posttest PTSD measures (n = 51) and those who did not (n=22). Specifically, members who completed both measures were in groups in which the other members perceived higher levels of engagement and lower levels of conflict. Results indicated that for both the individual and the other group members (partners), perceptions of the level of group engagement increased over time, perceptions of group conflict and avoidance decreased over time, and the average level of intimate behaviors in which group members engaged did not significantly change over time. PTSD symptoms decreased significantly between pre and posttest, however, no significant relationship was observed between fit of a group member and her group and PTSD symptom change. Results, limitations, and alternatives for data conceptualization and future analysis are discussed.