Filtering by
- All Subjects: Communication
- All Subjects: sports
- Creators: Hugh Downs School of Human Communication
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Resource Type: Text
Building on research on family communication and forgiveness, this study seeks to understand how families communicate the value and practice of forgiveness. Through semi-structured interviews, the study asks participants to recall their formative conversations and experiences about forgiveness with their family members and to discuss how those conversations influenced their current perspectives on forgiveness. Interviews from five female undergraduate students yielded seven main themes from where individuals learn how to forgive: 1) Sibling conflicts, 2) Family conversations about friendship conflicts, 3) Conversations with Mom, 4) Living by example, 5) Take the high road, 6) “Life’s too short”, and 7) Messages rooted in faith and morality.
Research has shown that being a female athlete in a male-dominated sports world is an oppressive burden, yet the experiences of being a black female athlete have been largely ignored. To combat this lack of attention, this paper invokes communication and feminist theorist Bell Hook's concept of moving black women from margin to center to reveal the intersectional oppression of gender and racial narratives that they face in sports. By outlining the difference between white and black femininity and studying media portrayals of popular black female athletes such as Venus and Serena Williams and others, it becomes obvious how black women are typecast into certain social and athletic roles. This research also includes an auto-ethnographic component of my own experience as a black female lacrosse player at the NCAA Division I level. This component functions as a point of comparison and contrast of the ideas and concepts I discuss. Lastly, I offer recommendations and suggestions as to how to empower young black female athletes and retain them in a variety of sports. The goal of my thesis is to place special attention onto black women in an area which there is an extreme lack of representation. My own empirical research has led me to the conclusion that not only is such a discussion important, but it is absolutely necessary. If we are to fight back against hegemonic social structures such as racism and gender roles in the sports world, we must first understand what we are up against. My thesis gives us a glimpse into our imposing opponents, and I hope that future research continues this trend so that black female athletes like myself may one day be considered an athlete in the same sense that our white peers are.
Travel Vignettes from London, Dublin, and Edinburgh is comprised of a series of vignettes based on the travelogues of a month-long trip to the UK. The vignettes are narrative nonfiction and born out of the observations, interactions, and conversations with local residents, resulting in what’s classified as “creative ethnography,” or the translation of cultural field notes into a creative medium. Each vignette focuses on a specific location and narrate the environmental and cultural features as experienced by the author. The critical introduction to the collection defines creative ethnography and discusses its value over traditional ethnography (and other forms of social research) to a contemporary/GenZ audience. The author also discusses how this form of cultural preservation has impacted/shaped their perceptions of travel and how it informs their creative/professional/academic future.