Matching Items (10)
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- All Subjects: Women's Studies
- Creators: Behl, Natasha
- Creators: Romero, Mary
Description
This study explores experiences of women as they pursue post-secondary computing education in various contexts. Using in-depth interviews, the current study employs qualitative methods and draws from an intersectional approach to focus on how the various barriers emerge for women in different types of computing cultures. In-depth interviews with ten participants were conducted over the course of eight months. Analytical frameworks drawn from the digital divide and explorations of the role of hidden curricula in higher education contexts were used to analyze computing experiences in earlier k-12, informal, workplace, and post-secondary educational contexts to understand how barriers to computing emerge for women. Findings suggest several key themes. First, early experiences in formal education contexts are alienating women who develop an interest in computing. Opportunities for self-guided exploration, play, and tinkering help sustain interest in computing for women of color to engage in computing at the post-secondary level. Second, post-secondary computing climates remain hostile places for women, and in particular, for women of color. Thirdly, women employ a combination of different strategies to navigate these post-secondary computing cultures. Some women internalized existing dominant cultures of computing programs. Others chose exclusively online programs in computing to avoid negative interactions based on assumptions about their identity categories. Some women chose to forge their own pathways through computing to help diversify the culture via teaching, creating their own businesses, and through social programs.
ContributorsRatnabalasuriar, Sheruni (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Lim, Merlyna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The majority of Black D/deaf female students who enter college do not obtain college degrees; as many of them drop out of college citing irreconcilable differences with faculty, staff and peers (Barnartt, 2006; Williamson, 2007). Although, many of these inequities are being addressed in current scholarship, traditionally social scientists have analyzed issues of race, gender, class, sexuality or disability by isolating each factor and treating them as if they are independent of each other (Thornton Dill & Zambrana, 2009). This qualitative dissertation study investigates the everyday lives of Black D/deaf female students on a college campus. The study is based on data gathered during four focus group interviews with twenty-two total participants and fifteen individual semi-structured interviews. Interviews were videotaped and conducted in either spoken English or sign language depending on the preference of the participant. Interviews conducted in sign language were then interpreted to spoken English by the researcher, and subsequently transcribed. The study sought to explore identity and individual agency, microaggressions and marginality on campus, and self-determination. Analysis focused critically on the women's understanding of their intersecting identities, their perception of their college experience and their persistence in college. The data revealed a seemingly "invisible" space that women occupied either because of their deafness, race, gender or social class status. Even though the women felt that that they were able to "successfully" navigate space for themselves on their college campus, many experienced more difficulty than their peers who were White, male or hearing. The women developed strategies to negotiate being part of both the deaf and hearing worlds while on their college campus. However, they frequently felt excluded from the Black hearing culture or the White deaf culture.
ContributorsChapple, Reshawna (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Artiles, Alfredo J. (Committee member) / Gustavsson, Nora (Committee member) / James, Stanlie M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The utopian impulse represents hope for another world; a reflection of the injustices inherent to the hegemonic order that are understood as natural, necessary, desirable, and unchangeable. Those who challenge this orthodoxy are heretical utopians; pioneers of the counterintuitive who explore the types of relations that rather than reproduce the dominant order, shatter it, and manifest new ones based upon principles of justice. This project explores how ideological mechanisms of control embedded within the hegemonic fascist imaginary landscape of the United States render the visions of emancipatory social movements, that challenge dominant ways of knowing and being, as the "merely utopian" so as to instrumentalize the behavior of civil-society towards the maintenance of the established social order and the suppression of alternatives (Gordon 2004). In a rapidly changing world reeling under the pressures of late-stage capitalism, it is essential for those who value social and political justice to incessantly cultivate the cultural imaginary so as to shift the boundaries of what types of social relations are possible, feasible, and desirable through the process of struggle in heretical spaces.
ContributorsBrown, Andrew (Author) / Quan, H.L.T. (Thesis advisor) / Lauderdale, Pat (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
ABSTRACT
As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served existed, and I wanted to research this chasm. I wanted to understand what challenges a woman of color faced if she was both a client and a nonprofit professional, possessing dual identities and engaging in a sort of welfare system border crossing. There was a gap in the academic research on women in the nonprofit sector, more specifically the charitable, human services sector, and there was little to no research on women who have been both clients and caseworkers. Therefore, I conducted a series five of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women of color working at a local food bank. As an employee of the food bank, I recorded my own observations and field notes in order to write a feminist institutional ethnography. I employed interpretive, less conventional design methods, which were aligned with my commitment to social justice. The research highlighted many negative stories about oppression and exclusion women faced in the nonprofit sector. It also confronted the problematic stereotype welfare recipients, specifically women of color, are faced with as a result of the politics of disgust and dominant myth of the Welfare Queen. The research sought to explain how and why women of color transition in and out of the welfare state, and how they manage to work within a food bank, where they are constantly surrounded by inequalities.
As a graduate student earning both a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Human Rights and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership Management, I have tried to bridge the theoretical and the empirical in a meaningful way. A problematic chasm between the nonprofit professional and the client being served existed, and I wanted to research this chasm. I wanted to understand what challenges a woman of color faced if she was both a client and a nonprofit professional, possessing dual identities and engaging in a sort of welfare system border crossing. There was a gap in the academic research on women in the nonprofit sector, more specifically the charitable, human services sector, and there was little to no research on women who have been both clients and caseworkers. Therefore, I conducted a series five of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women of color working at a local food bank. As an employee of the food bank, I recorded my own observations and field notes in order to write a feminist institutional ethnography. I employed interpretive, less conventional design methods, which were aligned with my commitment to social justice. The research highlighted many negative stories about oppression and exclusion women faced in the nonprofit sector. It also confronted the problematic stereotype welfare recipients, specifically women of color, are faced with as a result of the politics of disgust and dominant myth of the Welfare Queen. The research sought to explain how and why women of color transition in and out of the welfare state, and how they manage to work within a food bank, where they are constantly surrounded by inequalities.
ContributorsRoland, Kimberly (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This thesis reviews options available to women in rural India and whether these opportunities grant them freedom. Initially, I distinguish the term freedom from autonomy, recognizing the flaws in the theory of autonomy. I identify freedom as a human's ability to make choices without external coercion. This differs from the concept of autonomy because autonomy does not recognize culture as a form of coercion; autonomy also neglects to consider the possibility of a person making a decision that affects his or her life negatively. These concepts tie into battered women in rural India because of the pressure they receive from cultural forces to make decisions reflecting practiced gender norms. Through case study research, I found that battered women in India lack access to freedom, being unable to access their freedom because of the constant threat of violence and/or ostracism. I drew this conclusion after reviewing opportunities of financial freedom through micro-credit loans, land-owning, and women’s employment. I reflect on freedom of mobility, and examine women’s threat of violence in both the public and private sectors. Lastly, I reviewed women’s political freedom in rural India, reviewing laws that were passed to ensure women’s equality. Women in India are already in a vulnerable position because of existing gender norms that require women to perform tasks for the benefit of the men in her life. A woman under the threat of domestic violence is twice as vulnerable because of her positionality as a woman in her culture, as well as a wife in her marriage. She is bound by gender norms in society, as well as her expected marital duties as a wife. Being unable to escape the threat of violence in both her private and public spheres, a woman experiencing domestic violence has virtually no access to freedom. I suggest that state and community-level empowerment is necessary before individual-level empowerment is effective and culturally accepted.
ContributorsJoyave, Anna (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Forrest, Michael D. (Committee member) / Anokye, Akua D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This project was focused on critically analyzing legislation that was proposed in the Arizona State Senate concerning the release of peace-officer information in the wake of involvement in deadly-force incidents. The motivation for this project was drawn from my experience serving as a legislative intern for the Senate democratic staff during the spring of 2015. The first section includes details of the bill itself (SB 1445) and the process it underwent within the legislature. This includes an introduction to the controversies and stakeholders involved in the process. Second, data from interviews that I conducted with both those in support and those in opposition to the bill is analyzed. This section includes an in-depth look into the perspectives of stakeholders that may not have come out during public testimonies. Third, an outline of my own perspective on this bill and its process is included. Fourth, in a segment entitled Contextualizing Race in Policing, the national and local context of this bill is analyzed in order to arrive at conclusions that define problems underlying legislation like SB 1445. Fifth, in a segment entitled Next Steps, ideas are outlined on how to strengthen positive relationships between law enforcement and communities, drawing heavily from the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
ContributorsGalvan, Jose Pedro (Author) / Romero, Mary (Thesis director) / Perez, Nancy (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This study investigates the perceptions and experiences of U.S. urban poverty among Mexican immigrant women living in La Villita, a neighborhood in Chicago. La Villita is the largest Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in the Midwest with a population of 77% Mexican and Mexican Americans, with women making up 43% of the population, and 34% of the population living below the poverty line. Although women are less than 50% of La Villita’s population, immigrant women are more likely to experience poverty and earn lower wages than immigrant men. Using qualitative methods and a demographic survey, this study explores the ways in which immigrant women perceive and experience living in a low-income neighborhood. This study addresses the following three questions: 1) How do citizenship status, migration experience, and gender inform the ways Mexican immigrant women experience and manage poverty in Chicago? 2) How do their pre-migration experiences in Mexico influence the women’s perceptions of U.S. poverty? And 3) How do Mexican immigrant women develop and/or find resources from in their low-income neighborhood in Chicago? This study applies a transnational feminist framework to thirty-five semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. The findings demonstrate that women’s perceptions about poverty are constructed before migrating to the U.S. Once in the U.S., these perceptions begin to change because of their continued referencing to what used to be their living situations in Mexico. However, even though some of the women might not identify as poor after years living in the U.S., their perceptions of escaping poverty in the U.S. are based on attaining basic necessities such as shelter, food, and clothing. Based on the findings of this study, the women’s experiences of poverty informs us that the lack of social opportunities in the women’s lives hinders their full participation in society, an exclusion that perpetuates poverty. Thus, this study shifts the focus from material deprivation to social exclusion as an additional factor that sustains poverty. The last finding demonstrates how women manage living in poverty and how La Villita itself is a resource that offsets some of the material and social challenges they face in the U.S.
ContributorsGutierrez, Julia (Author) / Leong, Karen J (Thesis advisor) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary M (Committee member) / Durfee, Alesha (Committee member) / Estrada, Emir (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Do adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse see their past victimization as having any relation to or impact on their current political engagement? While it is important to know how having experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacts women survivors’ adult personal relationships, health, and wellbeing, more research must be done on how these abuse experiences affect women survivors’ political engagement. Nearly 25,900,000 women voters in the United States have likely experienced childhood sexual abuse (National Sexual Violence Resource Center 2011), therefore it is imperative and participation. This interpretive autoethnographic and ethnographic study examines the narratives of six women CSA survivors currently attending a counselling support group, and employs feminist methodology to conceptualize the women’s beliefs and feelings on the impact of CSA on their political participation. The findings of this study, however, do not seek to be generalizable to all women survivors of CSA, but instead reveal how six adult women survivors of CSA cope with and interpret their victimization as having an impact on their adult political engagement and participation. Utilizing interpretive concepts of power, citizenship, and civil society, this study finds that adult women survivors of CSA may be more politically active if they have a safe space to disclose their abuse experiences to fellow survivors of CSA. This study suggests that a civil society community of adult CSA survivors might be beneficial for survivors and may encourage survivors to see political engagement as a viable avenue for healing from the trauma of CSA.
ContributorsDykstra, Joelle (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Colbern, Allan (Committee member) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This paper examines the intersections of faith, patriarchy, feminism, and institutional failure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Members of the faith believe the paternal structure of the organization is God's plan. The paper focuses on home, church, and the public sphere to provide a more complete understanding of the ways in which the practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints blur the lines between public and private and asks how women, most centrally the author, navigate contradictions in the doctrine and the institution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Finally, this paper examines the tension between critical thought from a feminist perspective and being a devout member in the eyes of the church.Data was collected and presented using interpretivist methodology, ethnography and autoethnography. The author draws upon her experience as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and examines the ways power is layered and instrumental to the patriarchal teachings which are often contradictory and in tension with women developing full personhood.
ContributorsLunt, Sue (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The increasing job opportunities abroad as spa therapists attract significant numbers of young Indonesian women. Although the placement process is conducted by licensed recruitment agents and supervised by government officials, migrant workers might be at high risk of experiencing work exploitation and physical or sexual abuse. To investigate the phenomenon of documented, yet still vulnerable, female migrant workers, this research conducts interviews with several former spa therapists who were working in Malaysia and some civil servants. This study highlights that individual or personal resistances could be a collective political struggles. Specifically, this research connects individual experiences with the bigger picture of social, economic, and political condition, which, together, constitutes a gender-based labor migration system. To do this, the research employs qualitative-interpretive research methods through discourse analysis and in-depth and open-ended interviews. It also employs an intersectional feminist approach to data analysis to reveal how Indonesian female migrant workers are marginalized and oppressed and the power dynamics at play.
ContributorsNabila, Asma Zahratun (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021