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Identity formation among lesbians: reviewing Cass' theory twenty years later with an emphasis on media influences

Description
The current study sought to reevaluate Cass' Theory of sexual identity formation in terms of lesbian identity development over the past twenty years and how media acts as mediation in lesbian identity development. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with only nine useable transcripts analyzed for this thesis. This study is…

The current study sought to reevaluate Cass' Theory of sexual identity formation in terms of lesbian identity development over the past twenty years and how media acts as mediation in lesbian identity development. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with only nine useable transcripts analyzed for this thesis. This study is an explanatory investigation into linear stage theory, specifically Cass' theory, as well as the impact of media as a mediator during lesbian identity development. This study had three objectives 1) to gain an understanding of the theory and its components related to lesbian identity development 2) to understand the lesbian identity formation process and 3) to understand the impact and influence if any, media has had on lesbian self-reported identity development. Qualitative methods were used to obtain information and analyze the responses. Results indicate that the participants in this study believed that the coming out process was important. This study's results showed that several of the participants entered each stage of the theory, while others did not. Media had little influence on the identity development, and the participants had mixed reviews of medias portrayal of lesbians. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.
ContributorsHaseley, Hilary (Author) / Lacasse, Jeffrey R (Thesis advisor) / Segal, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Rounds, Tamara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Social learning in context: group homies, mentorship, and social support

Description
Social learning theory has enjoyed decades of supportive research and has been applied to a wide range of criminal and deviant behavior. Still eluding criminological theorists, however, is a meaningful understanding of the causal processes underlying social learning. This lack of knowledge is due in part to a relative reluctance…

Social learning theory has enjoyed decades of supportive research and has been applied to a wide range of criminal and deviant behavior. Still eluding criminological theorists, however, is a meaningful understanding of the causal processes underlying social learning. This lack of knowledge is due in part to a relative reluctance to examine value transmission as a process in the contexts of mentorship, role modeling, and social learning. With this empirical gap in mind, the present study seeks to isolate and classify meaningful themes in mentorship through loosely structured interviews with young men on the periphery of the criminal processing system. The purposive sample is drawn from youth in a Southwestern state, living in a state-funded, privately run group home for children of unfit, incarcerated, or deported/undocumented parents. The youth included in the study have recently passed the age of eighteen, and have elected to stay in the group home on a voluntary basis pending the completion of a High School diploma. Further, both the subjects and the researcher participate in a program which imparts mentorship through art projects, free expression, and ongoing, semi-structured exposure to prosocial adults. This study therefore provides a unique opportunity to explore qualitatively social learning concepts through the eyes of troubled youth, and to generate new lines of theory to facilitate the empirical testing of social learning as a process. Implications for future research are discussed.
ContributorsCesar, Gabriel T Gilberto (Author) / Pratt, Travis C. (Thesis advisor) / Wright, Kevin A. (Committee member) / Ready, Justin T. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012