Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

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Police use of force and race often garners a good deal of attention, however it is also important to understand the influence of gender when dealing with male-dominate populations, like police officers. The current study aims to add to the current body of literature by using data from seven cities

Police use of force and race often garners a good deal of attention, however it is also important to understand the influence of gender when dealing with male-dominate populations, like police officers. The current study aims to add to the current body of literature by using data from seven cities to examine the relationship between officer gender and police use of force, as well as officer gender and citizen resistance. In relation to use of force, the results show that male officers used significantly less force than female officers. In terms of citizen resistance, the results indicate that officer gender had no effect. Additionally, a number of control variables were significantly related to police use of force and citizen resistance. The implications of these findings are discussed.
ContributorsWeiser, Marah Brooke (Author) / William, Terrill (Thesis director) / Trinkner, Rick (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
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This study focuses on how parents purchase toys for their children. Specifically, the focus is on how likely parents are to purchase a toy typically associated with being feminine, masculine, or gender neutral. This study builds on research that showed that a parent’s gender role ideology affects how likely they

This study focuses on how parents purchase toys for their children. Specifically, the focus is on how likely parents are to purchase a toy typically associated with being feminine, masculine, or gender neutral. This study builds on research that showed that a parent’s gender role ideology affects how likely they are to purchase cross-gender toys (traditionally masculine toys for girls, traditionally feminine toys for boys) for their children (Kollmayer 2018). The study used photographs of pretested toys that had been deemed as masculine, feminine, or gender neutral. Using a within-subjects design, participants saw toys from each category and indicated their likelihood of purchase for each toy. The likelihood of purchase was used as the dependent variable. The findings were used to make recommendations to toy companies and retailers on how to market toys in regards to gender.
ContributorsSmith, Madeline Grace (Author) / Eaton, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Lisjak, Monika (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
The implementation of gender quotas in the Costa Rican legislature presents an interesting case study that with the use of national legislative gender quotas, women’s issues are more positively addressed within the country. This analysis argues that with the higher presence of women legislators in the Legislative Assembly made possible

The implementation of gender quotas in the Costa Rican legislature presents an interesting case study that with the use of national legislative gender quotas, women’s issues are more positively addressed within the country. This analysis argues that with the higher presence of women legislators in the Legislative Assembly made possible by the quota these women. in turn, have created more gender-focused policies. Thusly, higher amounts of female-focused policy will positively impact women’s issue areas within Costa Rican society. This argument will be supported by other scholar’s research on the subject of the gender quota and female equality in Costa Rica. I will also be presenting my own research that will investigate the data taken from the Costa Rican health ministry, UNICEF, and other organizations to comparatively evaluate the improvement of problems that women face coinciding with the higher female presence in the legislature.
ContributorsBlythe, Alexandra (Author) / Shair-Rosenfield, Sarah (Thesis director) / Funk, Kendall (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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DescriptionThrough artist book, printed photographs, paintings, writing, and web design, August Tang deconstructed their identity as a nonbinary person. Both educational and expressive, the creative project was a manifestation of a coming out journey, affirmation of gender identity, and experiences relating to gender with friends, family, and strangers.
ContributorsTang, August B (Author) / Button, Melissa (Thesis director) / Sanft, Alfred (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
In this research paper I combine statistics from various reports and studies with around 20 different interviews with female journalists to understand how women are faring in national and local television newsrooms in 2019. I explore issues such as the pay gap, sexual assault, the importance of appearance, balancing work

In this research paper I combine statistics from various reports and studies with around 20 different interviews with female journalists to understand how women are faring in national and local television newsrooms in 2019. I explore issues such as the pay gap, sexual assault, the importance of appearance, balancing work and family life and obstacles that women of color uniquely face. I spoke with women from various cultural backgrounds, experience levels, and in different positions within their newsrooms. Through my scholarly research and 19 interviews with women who either currently work at NBC News in New York City and women who currently or recently worked at 12News, the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, I conclude they share similar stories of oppression, sexism and issues. However, women have made more progress in local markets and have more opportunities when compared to the national level. I also explore reasons for why this disparity is happening and why local newsrooms seem to have more women represented through their on-air talent than national newsrooms do. One of the reasons I concluded for this include, how local newsrooms have a better understanding of their audience members thus making them more able to reflect their talent to their diverse audience. Another factor that might play a role in this disparity includes, the historical factor and societal norm of seeing men in higher positions and authoritative roles, such as being an anchor, at the network level. Lastly, the idea of how family and having children impacts women’s careers more than men. This can lead to less women pursuing a job at the network since they must spend time raising a family and have the ability and flexibility to do that easier at the local level. Overall, I focused on the barriers, obstacles and stories these women have had throughout their careers all while looking at it from both a local perspective and a national one.
ContributorsBaietto, Marcella Marie (Author) / Wallace, Julia (Thesis director) / Dunn, Heather (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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There exists a notable gender gap in the field of economics. One explanation for this gap is the low supply of women entering the economics labor market. To understand the shortage of female economics students, I observe students at the undergraduate and graduate level. My data consists of a sample

There exists a notable gender gap in the field of economics. One explanation for this gap is the low supply of women entering the economics labor market. To understand the shortage of female economics students, I observe students at the undergraduate and graduate level. My data consists of a sample of current undergraduate students and a sample of past Ph.D. applicants at Arizona State University. The gender gaps in these samples, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, can largely be explained by the variation in mathematical preparation of the students. The data reveals that undergraduate male economics students are more frequently enrolled in higher level math courses compared to female undergraduate students. Likewise, a higher number of male Ph.D. applicants have stronger mathematical backgrounds relative to female Ph.D. applicants. This common factor might explain the higher supply of male students who apply and get accepted to postgraduate studies in economics, relative to female students, holding all else constant. I conclude with the following recommended interventions: make information regarding postgraduate opportunities in economics more readily available, and increase math requirements for a bachelor’s degree in economics at ASU.
ContributorsZafari, Zorah (Author) / Datta, Manjira (Thesis director) / Zafar, Basit (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) practitioners (including policymakers, scholars, and nonprofit leaders) in the U.S. and Canada have often focused their attention on the United Nations’ WPS initiative as a strategy for responding to conflicts abroad, particularly in the Global South. As a result of these limitations, black, Latino, and

Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) practitioners (including policymakers, scholars, and nonprofit leaders) in the U.S. and Canada have often focused their attention on the United Nations’ WPS initiative as a strategy for responding to conflicts abroad, particularly in the Global South. As a result of these limitations, black, Latino, and Indigenous advocates and peacebuilders in the U.S. and Canada remain largely unable to take advantage of WPS frameworks and resources. The subjectivity of the term “conflict” and the range of circumstances where it is used inspire this research. The selective application of the word “conflict” is itself a challenge to security, for conflicts can only be addressed once they are acknowledged and so named. Where does WPS intersect with contemporary Indigenous advocacy? A case study of the #noDAPL movement and the ways that nonviolence and women’s leadership emerged at Standing Rock, ND in 2016 provide a partial answer. Four challenges and recommendations are offered to WPS practitioners who seek to expand the availability of WPS resources to Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada. These challenges and recommendations draw upon existing National Action Plans, legal and policy documents, and data from four interviews conducted with Indigenous women advocates in the U.S. and Canada in 2019. Above all, this paper seeks to encourage WPS practitioners to move beyond “gender mainstreaming” to consider not only how policies and practices impact women and men differently, but also how they may impact Indigenous people and settlers differently.
Created2019-05
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Description
With the increase in women’s professional sports teams and the burst in female sport participation since Title IX, we might expect increased media attention on women’s sports. However, female athletes’ journey for equality is still a work in progress. Women in sports are underrepresented in the volume and type of

With the increase in women’s professional sports teams and the burst in female sport participation since Title IX, we might expect increased media attention on women’s sports. However, female athletes’ journey for equality is still a work in progress. Women in sports are underrepresented in the volume and type of sports coverage they receive. They are generally represented in media forms, such as magazines and advertising, that focus on their bodies as sexual objects rather than their abilities as athletes. This paper will explore how female athletes are portrayed not only less and in less athletic contexts than male athletes, but also in ways that support the patriarchal dominance that is prevalent in American sports. By examining print media, advertising, televised sports coverage and social media, this paper demonstrates the system of male hegemony that underlies American sports.
ContributorsEvans, Rebekah (Author) / Barca, Lisa (Thesis director) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Committee member) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
A posthuman figure like the female cyborg challenges traditional humanist feminism in ways that make room for theorizing new subjectivities and feminist epistemologies. Rather than support a traditional feminism that assumes common experiences within patriarchal society and erases differences among women, cyborg feminism moves beyond naturalism and essentialism to acknowledge

A posthuman figure like the female cyborg challenges traditional humanist feminism in ways that make room for theorizing new subjectivities and feminist epistemologies. Rather than support a traditional feminism that assumes common experiences within patriarchal society and erases differences among women, cyborg feminism moves beyond naturalism and essentialism to acknowledge complex, individual, and ever-changing identity. Three films, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015), all offer such a vision of the female cyborg. In these films, the cyborg subject is a composite of machine and human—sometimes physical, dependent on the corporal mixing of flesh and machine, but just as often mental. Human sentiment, human memories, and human emotion merge with mechanical frames and electronic codes/coding to produce cyborgs. Importantly, every main cyborg in these films is coded as female. For each cyborg, a female body hosts preprogrammed sexuality and the emotions each creator thinks a woman should have, whether those are empathy, compassion, or submissiveness.

The cyborgs in these films, however, refuse to let categorizations like female, or even their status as human, alive, or real, restrict them so easily. As human-robot hybrids, cyborgs bridge identities that are assumed to be separate and often oppositional or mutually exclusive. Cyborgs reveal the structures and expectations reified in gender to suggest that something constructed can as easily be deconstructed. In doing so, they create loose ends that leave space for new understandings of both gender and technology. By viewing these films alongside critical theory, we can understand their cyborgs as subversive, hybrid characters. Accordingly, the cyborg as a figure subverts and fragments the coherency of narratives that present gender, technology, and identity in monolithic terms, not only helping us envision new possibilities but giving us the faculties to imagine them at all.
ContributorsMargolis, Madison Lawry (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Miller, April (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
Hygiene stigma can exist in tandem to gender stigma which could mean the marginalization of certain groups due to stigmatized identities, specifically women. The marginalization of women is important because of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Empowering women and girls and achieving equity. Figuring out how hygiene

Hygiene stigma can exist in tandem to gender stigma which could mean the marginalization of certain groups due to stigmatized identities, specifically women. The marginalization of women is important because of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Empowering women and girls and achieving equity. Figuring out how hygiene stigma specifically affects women in Fiji required researching the effects of hygiene stigma, gender inequity and indigenous Fijian societies could influence respondents’ answers. After researching these different topics, these questions were developed: does hygiene stigma and gendered stigma have an overlap? If so, are men more biased than women when it comes to objectifying women? Do indigenous Fijian societies possess an immunity to objectifying women since are considered to have Fijian women have more agency? The data was retrieved from the Global Ethnohydrology Study from 2015-16 in the Viti Levu, Fiji, which was specifically researching whether hygiene stigma is an effective method of helping people have better hygiene norms. A thematic analysis was then conducted, and the data was coded. Based on the results from 28 respondents we were able to conclude that there is gendered stigma within Fijian populations. We found that both men and women objectified women at similar rates and Fiji is not immune to hygiene stigma. The limitations to this analysis were there was no statistical analysis to find correlations hygiene stigma and gendered stigma. There was only one specific code that was being analyzed in this research project which limits the other types of stigma that may exist.
ContributorsKibuka Musoke, Paula Kulabako (Author) / Wutich, Amber (Thesis director) / Schuster, Roseanne (Committee member) / Brewis Slade, Alexandra (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05