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 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 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 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.