College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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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 Creating Anthracite Women: The Roles of Architecture and Material Culture in Identity Formation in Pennsylvania Anthracite Company Towns, 1854-1940.(2019) Westmont, Victoria Camille; Leone, Mark P; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Coal company towns are defined by the experiences of the men who owned and the men who worked in the mines, broadly ignoring the women and families who also inhabited and toiled in these spaces. In the Northeastern Pennsylvania anthracite region, women undertook a variety of methods to change their social positions through the renegotiation of their gender, ethnic, and class identities. Performing ‘proper’ middle class American gender expressions, including through the adoption of culturally-coded objects, provided working class women with greater social power and cultural autonomy within the context of systemic worker deprivation and ubiquitous corporate domination. Drawing on identity performance theories, material culture theories related to gender, class, and migration, and theories of the built environment, I examine how women established identities based in and reinforced by material culture and spatial organization Drawing on archaeologically recovered material culture, oral histories, archival research, and architectural data, I demonstrate the ways in which working class women used cultural norms to elevate themselves and their status within their communities. Women were able to balance their needs with ubiquitous gender oppression within working class industrial society by mastering the tasks assigned to women – responsibilities as mothers, familial ministers, household managers, and feminine matrons – and using those positions to pursue what they needed for their own survival. These identities were further negotiated and enforced by the built environment. By examining household decorations, house floorplans, house lot spatial organization, and company town layouts as a whole, I discuss how workers and company town architects used the built environment to exert and subvert ideas of power, control, and self-determination. This research reveals that the process of identity formation amongst working class women in the anthracite region was a careful and complicated conversation between national level cultural influencers, industrial directors, and company town social trends. As women sought out and exploited new ways of exercising discretion over their otherwise structurally circumscribed situations, they gained social leverage and influence that has been consistently ignored in modern retellings of their lives.Item MEN WHO INTERVENE: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY ON THE ROLE OF MASCULINITY IN BYSTANDER INTERVENTION(2018) Kaya, Aylin Esra; Iwamoto, Derek K; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Sexual violence is a significant public health problem, particularly on college campuses, and disproportionately impacts women. Bystander intervention training has been identified as a promising intervention against sexual assault, as a third party is present in approximately one in three incidents of sexual assault. However, research has found that men report greater barriers to intervention and less efficacy and intention to intervene, thus require further attention. Theorists suggest that men’s masculine norm socialization may contribute to reluctance to intervene, but there is little understanding on the role that masculinity may play in facilitating intervention. The purpose of this study was to identify an outlier population of college men (N = 15) who have intervened against sexual assault, and to qualitatively examine the social and gender-relevant factors that influenced their intervention. Through a grounded theory analysis, the results indicated that the core category of “bystander intervention” was comprised of direct, indirect, and passive bystander behaviors. These behaviors were influenced by five key categories, which included: 1) exposure to training, 2) the role of alcohol, 3) social factors, 4) individual characteristics, and 5) masculine norms. These categories were salient for all participants, and differentially influenced and facilitated bystander intervention. Participants described their development and navigation of masculine norms, which in turn shaped their individual characteristics, exposure to training, and the ways in which they navigated the high-risk environments where they noticed potential assaults. Participants also described their decision-making process around intervening, and the strategies they used to intervene. These results offer a model for understanding college men’s bystander intervention against sexual assault, which incorporates both individual and social factors, as well as the complex role of masculine norms.Item Career Barriers of College Women across Racial/Ethnic Groups: Examination of The Perception of Barriers Scale(2018) Kim, Young Hwa; O'Brien, Karen M.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of the study was to examine the factor structure, measurement invariance, and psychometric properties of a commonly used measure of perceived career barriers (The Perception of Barriers Scale; Luzzo & McWhirter, 2001) with a sample of racially diverse college women. The results supported a nine-factor structure of the Perception of Barriers Scale indicating different sources of barriers. In general, configural, metric, and scalar invariance of the Perception of Barriers subscales were found across Asian American, African American, Latina American, and White American college women for the nine-factor structure. All three groups of women of color reported higher career barriers due to racial discrimination, higher educational barriers due to finances concerns, and higher educational barriers due to lack of confidence and skills than White women. The results also demonstrated the potential difference in salient barriers across Asian American, African American, and Latina American women. The reliability estimates were satisfactory and construct validity was supported by negative associations among the scores on several Perception of Barriers subscales and a career-self-efficacy measure. The findings suggested that college women experience barriers from various sources when pursuing their career and educational goals.Item Future Chore Division Ideals and Expectations: Validating a Measure with Undergraduate Women(2018) Silberberg, Ayelet; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)College-aged women expect to disrupt their future careers, earn less, and be responsible for more household and childcare chores than their future spouses. This unequal division of labor has been linked to inequality in the workforce between women and men with women earning less and being concentrated in low pay, low prestige occupations. The current investigation sought to improve understanding of this phenomenon by exploring the factor structure and psychometric properties of a measure of chore division ideals and expectations in a sample of undergraduate women. Exploratory factor analyses suggested separate measures of ideal and expected chores, each comprised of two factors: traditionally feminine chores, and traditionally masculine chores. Confirmatory factor analyses did not reach satisfactory cutoff levels, but the scores on the preliminary scales showed evidence for convergent validity, internal reliability, and test-retest reliability. Results also supported hypotheses regarding relationships between the subscales. Tentative implications of these findings, future directions for research, and clinical implications are discussed.Item GENDERED INVESTMENTS IN CAREER AND FAMILY: VALIDATING A MEASURE OF MOTHERHOOD SCHEMAS AMONG UNDERGRADUATE WOMEN(2016) Savela, Alexandra; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One persistent trend characterizing many work-family arrangements is the tendency for women to invest more heavily in the family sphere compared to men and to compromise career pursuits for their children or partner. Discovering which factors perpetuate these gender-stratified investments in work and family is necessary because, along with investing more in the family, women tend to be concentrated in low-paid, low-prestige occupations. Improving the ability to measure how young women perceive the motherhood role will allow researchers to advance the study of women’s career development. Accordingly, the present study tested, among undergraduate women, the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Meaning of Motherhood Scale, which assesses the ways in which mothers are expected to think, feel, and behave to be seen as “good” mothers. The study found that the Meaning of Motherhood Scale, originally developed with a sample of mothers, did not have the same structure in a sample of undergraduate women, non-mothers. Implications of this finding are discussed. Post-hoc analyses were implemented to explore the factor structure of the Meaning of Motherhood Scale with undergraduate women and a three-factor structure measuring Involvement, Flourishing, and Traditional expectations of mothers was found. Tentative implications of these post-hoc findings, future directions for research, and clinical implications are discussed.Item Investigating regional food hubs as tools for development and change: A multi-scale and mixed methods approach(2017) Motzer, Nicole; Silva, Julie A; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The revitalization of rural, agricultural communities in the United States represents a constant challenge. Persistently high levels of rural poverty stem in part from agricultural industrialization, the subsequent loss of family farms, and dwindling rural economies. Theoretically integrating economic viability, social justice, and environmental sustainability back into agriculture and food, alternative food networks (AFNs) represent opportunities for rural communities to redress social, economic, and environmental declines accompanying agricultural industrialization in the twentieth and twenty–first centuries. As organizations that aggregate, market, and distribute locally and regionally sourced food within wholesale, retail, and institutional markets, regional food hubs (RFHs) represent the most recent AFN type, but also the one most associated with advancing rural revitalization and agricultural change. An overall lack of empirical investigation, however, along with limited conceptualizations of development constrains current understandings as to how – or even if – RFHs contribute to rural development in the ways that are increasingly espoused in the literature and policy. With a focus on RFHs as rapidly expanding yet largely untested AFNs, this dissertation follows a mixed methods and multi–scale approach. Blending quantitative analyses at national and regional scales with qualitative case study data, this dissertation explores development–related potential and processes for RFHs in a variety of places and then empirically evaluates rural development outcomes in a theoretically ideal setting. Findings indicate that RFHs generally do not locate where outcomes are most likely to reflect rural development expectations, though to spatially varying degrees. When a RFH does locate in such a place, outcomes are primarily though not always positive, and overall suggest that RFHs can help to fill social, economic, and ecological gaps and needs. Results reveal that women farmers play integral roles in shaping and extending RFHs’ development impacts. Yet, persistent poverty and geographically concentrated disadvantages limit transformative capacities. Reigning in rural development claims, this dissertation concludes that although RFHs are unlikely to redress broad conditions of rural decline, they may prime rural, agricultural communities in ways that extend both the efficacy and reach of policies and interventions to follow.Item Violence against Women Policy and Practice in Uganda - Promoting Justice within the Context of Patriarchy(2016) Gardsbane, Diane; Freidenberg, Judith N.; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The goal of this study was to understand how and whether policy and practice relating to violence against women in Uganda, especially Uganda’s Domestic Violence Act of 2010, have had an effect on women’s beliefs and practices, as well as on support and justice for women who experience abuse by their male partners. Research used multi-sited ethnography at transnational, national, and local levels to understand the context that affects what policies are developed, how they are implemented, and how, and whether, women benefit from these. Ethnography within a local community situated global and national dynamics within the lives of women. Women who experience VAW within their intimate partnerships in Uganda confront a political economy that undermines their access to justice, even as a women’s rights agenda is working to develop and implement laws, policies, and interventions that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. This dissertation provides insights into the daily struggles of women who try to utilize policy that challenges duty bearers, in part because it is a new law, but also because it conflicts with the structural patriarchy that is engrained in Ugandan society. Two explanatory models were developed. One explains factors relating to a woman’s decision to seek support or to report domestic violence. The second explains why women do and do not report DV. Among the findings is that a woman is most likely to report abuse under the following circumstances: 1) her own, or her children’s survival (physical or economic) is severely threatened; 2) she experiences severe physical abuse; or, 3) she needs financial support for her children. Research highlights three supportive factors for women who persist in reporting DV. These are: 1) the presence of an “advocate” or support 2) belief that reporting will be helpful; and, 3) lack of interest in returning to the relationship. This dissertation speaks to the role that anthropologists can play in a multi-disciplinary approach to a complex issue. This role is understanding – deeply and holistically; and, articulating knowledge generated locally that provides connections between what happens at global, national and local levels.Item THE ROLE OF RESOURCE LOSS IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF SURVIVORS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE(2015) Sauber, Elizabeth Winick; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study advanced knowledge regarding the mechanisms through which intimate partner violence leads to psychological and financial distress. Data were collected from 141 female domestic violence survivors who were abused by a male partner within the past six months. Four hierarchical regression analyses revealed that psychological, physical, and economic abuse were predictive of posttraumatic stress, depression, and economic self-sufficiency among survivors. Guided by the Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1998), the loss of financial, work, and interpersonal resources also predicted these three outcomes, above and beyond abuse experiences. Specifically, psychological abuse, economically controlling behaviors, interpersonal resource loss and financial resource loss remained unique predictors after all of the other variables were entered into the models. Additionally, bootstrap mediation analyses showed that financial resource loss partially mediated the relationship between economic abuse and economic self-sufficiency. Together, these findings can be used to inform future interventions to promote the financial and psychological well-being of survivors.Item THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-CONCEPT IN PLANNING FOR CAREER AND FAMILY IN UNDERGRADUATE WOMEN(2015) Silberberg, Ayelet; O'Brien, Karen M; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Married women are more likely to leave careers and take on domestic labor responsibilities than their partners. This contributes to gender inequality in the workforce. The current investigation sought to understand this phenomenon by examining factors contributing to career and family planning in college-aged women. A novel Implicit Associations Test (IAT) examined the degree to which implicit self-concept explains variance beyond explicit measures of gender in willingness to compromise career for family, and chore division expectations. Eighty-six undergraduate women completed the IAT and a computer survey. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses found no relationship between the IAT and other variables. However, participants expected to perform more chores than ideally desired, and a positive relationship emerged between egalitarian gender role expectations and egalitarian ideal chore division. In post-hoc analyses, high expressivity related to egalitarian chore division expectations, and willingness to sacrifice career for children. Recommendations for future research and practice are discussed.Item College Women and Disordered Eating Symptomatology: A Relational-Cultural Perspective(2014) Piontkowski, Sarah; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Scholars have long been trying to understand the complex risk factors for and protective factors against disordered eating symptoms at the clinical and subclinical levels. Our understanding of the connection between relational factors, in particular, and disordered eating may be enhanced by the measurement of constructs from feminist theories that provide a richer and more culturally-specific perspective on women's psychological development, as gender alone remains the single most robust predictor. Using a sample of 451 college women, this study introduced two constructs from relational-cultural theory, perceived mutuality and self-silencing, to a model examining the sociocultural, personal, and relational factors that predict disordered eating. In addition, narrative responses were collected to examine who in participants' lives most strongly influenced, both positively and negatively, their body image and relationship with food, and how. In addition, differences between clinical and subclinical groups of participants were explored on key study variables. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the variables of sociocultural pressure for thinness, internalization of the thin ideal, and body dissatisfaction uniquely predicted significant variance in disordered eating. Perceived mutuality and self-silencing did not predict significant, unique variance in disordered eating. However, self-silencing did mediate the relationship between perceived mutuality and disordered eating. Furthermore, a series of one-way ANOVAs revealed statistically significant differences between clinical and subclinical groups on key variables. Participants in the clinical group, as compared to participants in the subclinical group, scored significantly higher on: self-silencing; internalization of the thin ideal; body dissatisfaction; poor interoceptive awareness; and perceived sociocultural pressures for thinness, and significantly lower on: perceived mutuality (across mother, father, and friends); perceived mutuality with mother; and perceived mutuality with father. Analyses revealed that there were not significant differences between the two groups on social support or on perceived mutuality with friends. The qualitative findings broadened our understanding of the ways in which family, friends, romantic partners, and society both positively and negatively influence college women's body image and relationship with food through messages and modeling. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.