Matching Items (22)
Description
For many adolescents, high school is a critical period of self-awareness, peer-influence, and identity construction. During this volatile period, young people explore how to express themselves in ways that range from conformity to non-conformity and transgression. This is particularly true when it comes to young people's understanding and expression of gender identity. For some youth, their personal form(s) of gender expression align neatly with social expectations; for others, it does not. When gender expression does not align with social expectations, students may be vulnerable to bullying or harassment by peers or adults. Often, youth who are policed and regulated by their classmates through bullying (or harassment, depending upon the relevant or implemented policy) are targeted based on their perceived identity, be that racial, ethnic, citizenship, or, most frequently, gender and sexuality. This project advances the need for research done from a critical youth studies perspective (both methodologically and ethically) and provides new insight into the types of language and practices used by youth to express, perform and "do" gender. Utilizing qualitative methodology, including participant observation, focus group and individual interviews, surveys, and the collection and content analysis of school ephemera, this research investigated how high school students navigate gender identity amidst other intersecting identities. This project examined how youth both "do" and "perform" gender in their everyday lives as high school students. Their gender identity is frequently understood amidst other intersecting identities, particularly sexual orientation, religion and race. These youth also pointed to several important influences in how they understand their own gender, and the gender identity of those around them, including media and peer groups. Because this research took place at two charter art schools, the findings also provided a framework for understanding how these two schools, and charter art schools more generally, provide alternative spaces for young people to experiment and play with their identity construction. Findings indicate that youth are forced to navigate and construct their gender identity amidst many conflicting and contradictory ideologies. Schools, media, and peer groups all heavily influence the way young people understand themselves.
ContributorsPrior, Sarah (Author) / Cavender, Gray (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth Blue (Committee member) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This study is based on 31 interviews conducted in 2012 with male, female, and transgender sex workers at the St. James Infirmary, a full-spectrum health clinic run by sex workers for sex workers, located in San Francisco, California. My primary goals were, first, to document the lived realities of a diverse range of sex workers who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, and, second, to understand the impact of sex work discourse on the facilitation of stigma toward the sex work community and, finally, how that stigma influences the sex worker group identity and individual identity constructions. My primary findings indicate that although sex work discourse has traditionally been constructed within the dominant public sphere and not by sex workers themselves, this discourse has a profound effect on creating and perpetuating the stigma associated with sex work. In turn, this stigma affects both how the group and how individuals construct their identities, often negatively. Alternatively, a benefit of stigma is that it can induce the production of counterpublics which facilitate the emergence of new discourse. However, for this new discourse to gain acceptance into the public sphere, activist organizations must utilize traditional (and sometimes unintentionally marginalizing) strategies that can impact both the identity construction of the group and of individuals within the group. Understanding these complex relationships is therefore essential to understanding how activist organizations, such as the St. James Infirmary, situate themselves within the larger dominant public sphere, their impact on sex work discourse, and their impact on individual sex worker identity construction.
ContributorsRead, Kathleen (Author) / Adams, Karen L (Thesis advisor) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Based on the Foucauldian understanding that sexuality discourse operates as a powerful instrument for the regulation of societies and individuals, this research considers how internalized gender and sexuality discourses affect young women's embodied experiences of masturbation, and more broadly their sexual subjectivity and health. Drawing on interdisciplinary feminist perspectives on gender, sexuality, health, and embodiment, I examine female sexual health within a positive rights framework. That is, I view the rights to both sexual safety and pleasure as essential components of female sexual health, and conceptualize girls and young women as potential sexual agents. By asking young women about their lived experiences of self-pleasure, this research challenges not only the historical legacy of pathologizing female desire and pleasure, but also scholars' tendency to construct female sexuality solely in a heteronormative, partnered context. Based on focus groups, interviews, journals, and questionnaires collected from 109 female college students from diverse ethnic, religious, and sexuality backgrounds in Arizona and Michigan, I employ grounded theory to analyze individual feelings and experiences in the context of larger societal discourses. My findings indicate that when girls internalize negative discourses about masturbation (e.g. as sin or secular stigma), general heteronormative sexuality discourses, and a silence around female self-pleasure, there are severe negative consequences for how they understand and experience masturbation. I argue that they engage in sexual self-surveillance that often results in emotional and physical struggles, as well as the re-inscription of hegemonic cultural discourses on female masturbation, bodies, desire, and pleasure. By illustrating how even the most private and `invisible' behavior of masturbation can become a site for regulating female sexuality, this research provides important evidence of the power of increasingly covert mechanisms to govern gendered bodies and subjectivities through self-surveillance. Alternatively, this research also highlights the potential of normalizing self-pleasure for increasing girls' and young women's capacity for resisting oppressive gender and sexuality discourses and behaviors, developing an agentic sexual subjectivity, and feeling sexually empowered. Thus, this research also has practical implications for conceptualizing sexual health for girls and young women in a way that includes the rights to sexual safety and pleasure.
ContributorsFrank, Elena (Author) / Weitz, Rose (Thesis advisor) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / Fahs, Breanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Assessment practices in U.S. schools have become a greatly debated topic since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. In response to these new guidelines, schools and teachers have made adjustments in the ways they implement assessment practice and utilize assessment data -- ultimately impacting the lives of students and their educational outcomes. Using elements of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice as a lens to consider both context and implications of assessment practices within this new legislative era, a case study is focused on the lives of teachers and students within a single U.S. middle school. This study synthesizes secondary data in the form of standardized test scores, teacher grades in math and reading, a student grit survey, along with student narratives and teacher observations to reveal the ways in which assessment practice structures the classroom field. Findings reveal the conflicting ways in which teachers and students navigate a system framed by bureaucratic legitimacy. For teachers, issues of assessment rules and time constraints lead to frustrations and bureaucratic slippage. Conversely, students implement strategies to resist and manage the routine assessment practices of teachers.
ContributorsBroberg, Gregory B (Author) / Jurik, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Cavender, Gray (Committee member) / Schneider, Anne L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study explored the perspectives and experiences of eight women active within a particular location of the collective social media landscape. One aspect of the research centered around critiquing mainstream media diets for encouraging fat stigma and deepening the negative effects of stereotyping larger bodies. The research questions centered around transgressive media diets, specifically those that were body positive, and focused on if they could help to eradicate fat stigma and educate the masses on false stereotypes. To examine this, eight plus-size fashion bloggers and/or plus-size models were interviewed following a semi-structured format. These women, as bloggers and Instagrammers with a strong presence in the plus-size fashion industry, were both content producers as well as consumers, and their personal narratives enabled the study to better understand the complex interconnections between production and consumption, self-expression and the politics of self-representation, the cooptation of these self-representations by profit-oriented media interest, and how commodification shapes the transgressive potential of these representations. The research also found that many content creators came to transgressive media diets because they saw a lack of representation and decided that they must make that representation for themselves. The study also examined what community building meant within the porous landscape of social media platforms and the relationship between identity building and community building as social processes. Many of the participants brought up examples of fat discrimination yet many defined themselves as "confident" or "badass", thus finding ways to empower themselves despite the pressure of societal norms. Some of this empowerment came from finding a community online. Finally, these plus-size models and fashion bloggers moved through a thin ideal industry by demanding and being examples of diversity.
ContributorsValentine, Erin (Author) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Thesis advisor) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / McGibbney, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This study examines the representation of Asian online brides by studying the images and profiles that are advertised on Asianonlinebrides.com. To do so, I combined the history and growth of the Human Trafficking industry, the idea of the Asian “exotic OTHER,” the power and structured/constrained agency, and social construction of gender theories. In particular, I utilized a mixed methods approach for data collection. The content and visual analysis in this study provided the two sides of the analytic coin: the written and the visual. I am particularly interested in the narrative comments offered by the prospective brides, e.g., what they state to be their preferences in their dream man/husband, and the personality traits, and characteristics that they write about themselves. The following were examined: the gender displays, picture frames, feminine touch, and the ritualization of subordination. For example, body language, clothing, skin, hair color, and texture, bone structure, posture, etc. I argue that this data alerts us to the whole host of ideas, assumptions, social, cultural, and gender constructions. The power relations that exceeds the text and inform us of these online brides. The findings have indicated that these women are vulnerable and caught within oppressive social structures. They have nevertheless utilized those structures to their advantage. By doing so, the brides have acted as assertive agents in that they have looked out for the interests of both themselves and their families. Moreover, a significant body of data was provided first hand through the written and visual narratives of the online brides. These brides have offered valuable insight into the field of Asian online brides. Their stories have presented a unique perspective to the online brides’ process that can only be captured through the narratives provided in this research.
ContributorsDai, Linh K (Author) / Cavender, Gray (Thesis advisor) / Jurik, Nancy (Committee member) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Tibbs, Donald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Despite equal opportunity legislation, female firefighters (3.4 percent) remain underrepresented compared to their male counter parts (97 percent) in the United States (NPFA, 2012). I question why there are so few women pursuing a firefighting career and if there are any organizational, cultural, or structural barriers which affect the retention and recruitment of women. My research entails observations and interviews with staff at three firefighting stations in my community; my data spanned both individual background and organizational dynamics. Across the firefighting occupation, my analysis focuses on understanding the recruitment process and early phases of firefighting careers to understand the ways in which women might be encouraged and discouraged into the occupation. In this paper, I begin with a literature review about the history and status of women in the field, comparisons with barriers faced by women in other traditionally male fields such as policing since there is limited literature on women in firefighting, efforts undertaken to increase the percentages of women in firefighting, and the organizational dynamics of firefighting highlighted in prior research. From this review I develop an analytic framework for my analysis. After a review of my research methodology, I turn to my analysis of recruitment and probationary stages in firefighting and how these stages affect recruitment and retention of women. First, I review how social networks facilitate pre-employment socialization which enhances candidate work opportunities in firefighting. Second, I examine the recruitment process and criteria for hiring and the ways in which the same social networks facilitate success in the probationary phases of employment. Third, I highlight issues of stereotypical masculine images associated with becoming a good firefighter. By focusing on the recruitment and hiring processes, training and probationary periods, and inherent masculinities prevalent in the fire organization, I am able to identify some key issues and apply them to the fire organization.
ContributorsMoser, Sarah Elizabeth (Author) / Jurik, Nancy (Thesis director) / Cavender, Gray (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Father Daniel Berrigan once said that "writing about prisoners is a little like writing about the dead." I think what he meant is that we treat prisoners as ghosts. They're unseen and unheard. It's easy to simply ignore them and it's even easier when the government goes to great lengths to keep them hidden.
Supermax prisons are used to hold those prisoners whom prison authorities regard as the most problematic in the prison system. These facilities merge the 19th-century practice of long-term solitary confinement with 21st-century technology in ways that subject prisoners to unparalleled levels of isolation, surveillance, and control, usually for long duration, with the potential to inflict significant amounts of psychological harm. Despite a range of academic studies documenting the serious and potentially long-lasting psychological harm it may inflict, and several judicial opinions criticizing the risks it entails and significantly limiting its use, supermax prisons are still in full effect today.
Although there have been no successful cases brought to the Supreme Court alleging the use of supermax prisons being in violation of the inmate’s Eighth Amendment right, one can look at isolated factors that distinguish supermax prisons in which judges at the Supreme Court level have shown to be unconstitutional in general population prisons. This thesis examines the Eighth Amendment implications of cruel and unusual punishment within supermax prisons, through isolated factors through judicial intervention.
Supermax prisons are used to hold those prisoners whom prison authorities regard as the most problematic in the prison system. These facilities merge the 19th-century practice of long-term solitary confinement with 21st-century technology in ways that subject prisoners to unparalleled levels of isolation, surveillance, and control, usually for long duration, with the potential to inflict significant amounts of psychological harm. Despite a range of academic studies documenting the serious and potentially long-lasting psychological harm it may inflict, and several judicial opinions criticizing the risks it entails and significantly limiting its use, supermax prisons are still in full effect today.
Although there have been no successful cases brought to the Supreme Court alleging the use of supermax prisons being in violation of the inmate’s Eighth Amendment right, one can look at isolated factors that distinguish supermax prisons in which judges at the Supreme Court level have shown to be unconstitutional in general population prisons. This thesis examines the Eighth Amendment implications of cruel and unusual punishment within supermax prisons, through isolated factors through judicial intervention.
ContributorsLucca, Veronica Cristina (Author) / Stanford, Michael (Thesis director) / Cavender, Gray (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This thesis intends to identify various alternatives to current prostitution policy in the United States. Specifically, this paper focuses on the proposals of abolition, legalization, and decriminalization, as they are interpreted through feminist perspectives. Additionally, the effectiveness of each proposal is based on how well they would reduce the threat and perpetuation of violence, decrease the spread of venereal disease, and lower the rate of drug use amongst sex workers in the U.S. Each method is analyzed through the success and failure rates in the societies in which they have already been implemented. Ultimately, the conclusion is met that legalization would be the most effective and logical policy reform to ensure the safety of American sex workers.
ContributorsDykema, Kendi Montana (Author) / Weitz, Rose (Thesis director) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court found that the death penalty was being applied too arbitrarily in the United States and that this arbitrary application constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment (Furman V. Georgia, 1972). This lead to a moratorium on capital punishment until the case Gregg V. Georgia, which outlined guidelines for the states in applying the death penalty in order to ensure that its application was constitutional (Gregg V. Georgia, 1976). These guidelines included enumerated aggravating factors and a bifurcated capital trial (Gregg V. Georgia, 1976). Despite these findings from the Supreme Court, the application of the death penalty in Arizona has remained problematic. In practice, Arizona has adopted a death penalty statute that appears to conform to the standards set by Furman and Gregg. Arizona state law includes a list of aggravating factors to help guide juries in capital trials and these trials are bifurcated. However, Arizona's aggravating factors are both numerous and inclusive, to the point that it is challenging to commit a first-degree murder in Arizona that does not include an aggravating factor. The statute fails to limit the crimes that qualify for the death penalty so state budgetary concerns become the limiting factor. Arizona's application of the death penalty remains arbitrary, in consistent, and as a result, unconstitutional as defined by the United States Supreme Court.
ContributorsPerez-Vargas, Maricarmen Contreras (Author) / Cavender, Gray (Thesis director) / Corey, Susan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2015-05