Browsing by Subject "Ethnicity"
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Item A content analysis of the career paths and cultural capital of Mexican-American male principals: A critical race discourse on the journey toward the principalship(2012-08) Horak, John; Valle, Fernando; Mendez-Morse, Sylvia; Klinker, JoAnn F.This is a content analysis of the career paths and cultural wealth of Mexican-American male principals. A Critical Race Theory (CRT) perspective on the journey toward the principalship was utilized to frame and ground the study. There is a critical need to identify and examine the perceptions of race, and racial barriers, in the principalship. This research utilized critical qualitative questioning, counter narratives, and content analysis as approaches to provide a deeper understanding on how race impacted the principal journey. Content analysis provided a research design method which allowed for the organization of the tremendous amount of data collected (Schreiber & Asner-Self, 2011). The context of the study was conducted from a critical race lens which is an intellectually and politically committed movement that studies race, racism, and power (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). The framework was used a strength-based approach utilizing cultural wealth, an array of knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts possessed and utilized by communities of color to survive and resist macro and micro-forms of oppression (Yosso, 2005). The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the career paths of seven Mexican-American male principals and their narratives about their experiences with race and ethnicity and the cultural wealth used in order to obtain the principalship. Procedures of data collection included the selection of the seven Mexican-American male principals, initial interviews, transcribing and analyzing interviews, member checks, and a reflexive journal. Three central themes were identified from the data analysis including impact of race, the role of gender, and cultural wealth harnessed. This study found: racial barriers were still in place, covertly practiced examples of deficit thinking by the dominant culture, and microagressions by the racially dominate group. Findings of this study regarding gender and Mexican-American male principal career paths included that 100% had a strong male role model(s) in their homes growing up. Cultural wealth findings of this study illustrated that all had extended family and community support and racial conversations highlighted obstacles and racial structures in place to challenge them as they became principals.Item A land of opportunity?: How perceptions of financial prospects affect racial and ethnic groups' political participation(Texas A&M University, 2006-08-16) Suthammanont, Christina MarieThis dissertation develops and empirically tests a theory of political participation that posits that the local economic context moderates the effects of individuals?? socioeconomic status by influencing their prospective financial outlooks. These perceptions, in turn, affect individuals?? likelihood of engaging in various political activities. I examine the theory using indicators of economic vitality and status both for the entire population and for racial and ethnic group-specific economic conditions. This two-pronged approach allows me to assess the extent to which group-specific conditions are more salient for minority group members than are more traditional contextual (full population) measures that reflect the economic status of the entire population. Thus, such questions as whether blacks?? financial outlooks are influenced more by the visibility of black-owned businesses or by the total visibility of business activity are addressed. Hypotheses are tested using the 1992 National Election Study, the 1995 Texas Minority Survey, and economic data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, 1992 Economic Census. Results indicate that the financial perceptions of blacks and Latinos are significantly related to levels of political activity while the financial outlooks of Asians and whites are not significantly related to their political activity.Item Academic and social influences of underrepresented adolescents' perceptions of opportunity and plans for the future(2016-08) Kyte, Sarah Blanchard; Riegle-Crumb, Catherine; Callahan, Rebecca M; Crosnoe, Robert; Muller, Chandra; Raley, KellySociologists of education have long stressed the importance of students’ expectations for their subsequent success. Yet, an insufficient amount of previous work has considered how academic and social psychological factors guide when and how students develop their expectations for the future, particularly for the socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority students attending our cities’ schools. By using rich survey and administrative data from a large, urban district serving low income and predominantly Hispanic and African American students, this dissertation identifies how these students develop expectations related to higher education in general as well as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in particular at the start of high school. Chapter 2 examines whether Hispanic girls hold higher college expectations than Hispanic boys because they acquire a superior toolkit of academic resources including achievement, attitudes, and relationships, and/or whether girls are better able to leverage these resources. Further, it considers the potentially gendered role of nativity, language-minority, and socioeconomic status in shaping college expectations among Hispanic students. Chapter 3 analyzes how students’ perceptions of the relevance of science outside of school contribute to gender differences in expectations to major in specific areas of STEM, namely the biological and physical sciences as compared with computer science and engineering. Chapter 4 unpacks the extent to which minority students expecting to major in STEM anticipate that gender- or race-based discrimination may act as a barrier to their goals. Taken together, the findings of these studies underscore the importance of perceptions related to schools, society, and opportunity at the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity for guiding students’ expectations, an important precursor to subsequent behavior and success.Item An Examination of Sex, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation in Experiences and Consequences of Workplace Incivility(2012-10-19) Zurbrugg, Lauren EldersTheories of intersectionality and selective incivility framed this study of interactions between sex, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and their relationship with incivility and psychological and occupational outcomes. Women, sexual minorities, and people of color were expected to report both the greatest levels of incivility as well as the worst outcomes as a result of receiving incivility. Specifically, sexual minority women of color were predicted to be the most vulnerable to experiencing the highest levels of incivility and to experience the worst outcomes as a result of incivility. Survey data was first collected from a southern United States student sample. Results revealed that sexual minorities reported the most frequent experiences of workplace incivility. In terms of outcomes, sex and sexual orientation interacted with incivility to predict psychological stress and organizational commitment, with sexual minority men evidencing the worst outcomes. To determine the generalizability of the results of Study 1, a second survey was conducted utilizing a United States law school faculty sample. Results from Study 2 revealed that sexual minority women reported significantly higher levels of incivility than members of other groups. Additionally, sexual orientation and ethnicity interacted with incivility to predict job satisfaction and commitment, with sexual minority people of color reporting the worst outcomes. Finally, sex and ethnicity interacted with incivility to predict psychological distress, burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions, with men of color indicating the worst outcomes as a result of incivility.Item The beads of Bosutswe, Botswana(2010-05) DuBroc, Beau Richard; Denbow, James R. (James Raymond), 1946-; Rodriguez-Alegria, Enrique R.The hilltop archaeological site, Bosutswe in Botswana had a nearly a thousand years of continuous occupation. Nearly every single strata in both precincts produced shell beads of various materials and origin. By using travelogue sources as well as more recent enthnographical sources, I focus on the possible uses and importance of beads to the people of Bosutswe and the wider southern African region. Using the excavated beads as evidence, I show how certain varieties of beads made their way to the site by way of trade routes with distant riverine areas. Also, I compare my findings with arguments claiming that different groups preferred different sizes beads; therefore, one can determine a site’s ethnic makeup by this measurement alone.Item Changing faces on children’s cable programming : the emergence of racial and ethnic minorities as lead characters on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel 1996-2005(2014-05) Blassingille, Brandi Naomi; Beltrán, MaryAlthough children’s programming has been considered to be at the forefront of incorporating racial and ethnic diversity, the roles on television for racial and ethnic minorities have continued to be limited or based on stereotypes, and sheer presence in numbers for non-whites is still lacking in comparison to white characters. Television programming during the 1990s and early 2000s became a key period in history for racial and ethnic representation, as programming as a whole reflected a greater non-white presence than ever before, with children’s programming as no exception. This thesis focuses on how race and ethnicity were depicted on the children’s cable networks Nickelodeon and Disney Channel during this time period. My study focuses on three programs, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (Nickelodeon, 1996-1998), Taina (Nickelodeon, 2001-2002), and The Proud Family (Disney Channel, 2001-2005), all of which placed racial and ethnic minorities as lead characters, diverging from the standard in casting for children’s television programs. In observing whether these programs portrayed race in an assimilationist, color/culture conscious, or post-racial manner, my study provides insight into the overarching narrative constructed about race and ethnicity for youth viewing two of television’s most successful networks committed to programming for kids in this time period.Item Constructing notions of development : an analysis of the experiences of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and the Peace Corps in Latin America and their interaction with indigenous communities in Ecuadorian Highlands(2013-08) Kawachi, Kumiko; Wade, Maria de Fátima, 1948-; Roberts, Bryan R., 1939-Post-development theorist, Arturo Escobar's influential work, Encountering Development as well as other post-development academic works discussed the concept and delivery of "development" based on known antecedents--Western countries as practitioners and non-Western countries as beneficiaries. Even though cultural sensibility has become a significant issue in development today, there is little research that analyzes the construction of non-Western donors' discourse such as those of the Japanese governmental aid agency, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Moreover, non-Western aid donors and practitioners' engagement with indigenous development in Latin America has not been discussed. This dissertation aims to answer the following questions: How do Western and non-Western governmental donor agencies construct and deliver 'development' to 'non-developed' countries in Latin America, particularly to countries with large indigenous populations? How do these donor agencies' volunteer practitioners implement development projects in the field? What are the differences in the aims and delivery of development projects between Western and non-Western donors and their volunteer practitioners, especially in those projects aimed at indigenous populations? A corollary to those questions was to attempt to discover how the agencies and their volunteers negotiated notions of development with indigenous peoples as well as how agencies and volunteers perceived and addressed ethnic differences in the aid recipients' countries. To answer these questions I compared and contrasted two governmental agencies that are the most prominent and with the longest record of volunteer aid in Latin America: the United States Peace Corps and the Japanese agency, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). Although the U.S. Peace Corps and its notion of development were models of "development" for the JOCV program, JOCV's discourse of development and its development practices are not the same as the Peace Corps. Both agencies' cross-cultural policies for their volunteers as well as the development practices the agencies adopted likely reflect how the Japanese and United States understand their own societies in general cultural terms, as well as in terms of moral and religious preferences, ethnicity and sexual orientation. The Peace Corps and JOCV volunteers' experiences with indigenous populations showed several limitations to their programs and provided suggestions for the future particularly in the area of indigenous development.Item Demystifying the process : the selection of receiving schools in intra-district performance-based school choice(2015-05) Lee, William Christopher, active 21st century; Holme, Jennifer Jellison; Cantu, Norma; Gooden, Mark A; Heilig, Julian V; McCray, TaliaAlthough intra-district performance-based school choice as featured in NCLB and state laws has existed for over a decade, scant attention has been devoted to the study of how the policies and programs are operated by school districts. Policymakers and education practitioners have adopted performance-based school choice to address school achievement disparities, yet it is currently unclear if federal and state mandated choice programs are being managed with fidelity to the egalitarian design of the policy. Few researchers have examined whether these policies achieve their specified goals of increasing access to high performing schools for students residentially assigned to underperforming locations. This study utilizes a qualitative comparative case study design that contrasts school choice implementation in two large, socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically diverse school districts in the state of Texas. As the primary method of data collection, semi-structured interviews were conducted with: school district superintendents, school board members, choice program administrators, principals, community leaders, and parents. This study contributes to the school choice research literature through analyzing program operations, community influence in policy implementation, and the resulting implications for access and equity. The study concludes with policy recommendations to ensure maximum advantage to the students that school choice is designed to benefit.Item DIFFERENCES IN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT BY GRADE SPAN CONFIGURATION: A TEXAS STATEWIDE STUDY(2016-08-04) Fiaschetti, Carolyn F; Slate, John R.; Martinez-Garcia, Cynthia; Moore, George W.Purpose The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to examine the extent to which grade span configuration was related to the academic achievement of students in Grades 5 and 6. Specifically, the academic achievement of students in poverty, boys and girls, and students of three ethnic/racial groups (i.e., White, Black, and Hispanic) were examined. Specifically analyzed in these three investigations were the reading and mathematics achievement of these groups of students according to the grade span configuration of their school. The two grade span categories that were compared were a single or double grade level school (i.e., Grade 4-5, 5 only, or 5-6) and a multiple grade level school (i.e., PreK-Grade 6). Each of these three empirical investigations included three years of statewide public school data analyzed. This 3-year analysis of data permitted a determination of the extent to which trends were present in the relationship of grade span configuration with academic achievement of students in Grade 5 and 6 enrolled in Texas public schools. Method A causal-comparative research design was used for this study. Archival data were obtained from the Texas Education Agency for three school years (i.e., 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015). Specific information obtained for Grade 5 and 6 students in Texas was: State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness Reading and Mathematics passing rates; grade span configuration; economic status; and ethnic/racial status. Student passing rates were analyzed as a function of grade span configuration by poverty, gender, and ethnic/racial status for Grade 5 and 6 students in Texas. Findings Statistically significant results were present for all reading analyses, with multi-grade level grade span configurations having statistically higher passing rates than single/double grade span configurations, and for all but two mathematics passing rates analyses. Higher passing rates were present for students in multi-grade level schools than their peers in single/double grade level schools. Results from this study were congruent with much of the recent empirical literature in that student academic performance is better in settings that have more grade levels than in settings with fewer grade levels. Implications for policy and recommendations for research were provided.Item Discourse forms and social categorization in Cha'palaa(2010-05) Floyd, Simeon Isaac; Epps, Patience, 1973-; Sherzer, Joel; Hale, Charles R.; Pierre, Jemima; England, NoraThis dissertation is an ethnographic study of race and other forms of social categorization as approached through the discourse of the indigenous Chachi people of northwestern lowland Ecuador and their Afro-descendant neighbors. It combines the ethnographic methods of social anthropology with the methods of descriptive linguistics, letting social questions about racial formation guide linguistic inquiry. It provides new information about the largely unstudied indigenous South American language Cha’palaa, and connects that information about linguistic form to problems of the study of race and ethnicity in Latin America. Individual descriptive chapters address how the Cha’palaa number system is based on collectivity rather than plurality according to an animacy hierarchy that codes only human and human-like social collectivities, how a nominal set of ethnonyms linked to Chachi oral history become the recipients of collective marking as human collectivities, how those collectivities are co-referentially linked to speech participants through the deployment of the pronominal system, and how the multi-modal resource of gesture adds to these rich resources supplied by the spoken language for the expression of social realities like race. The final chapters address Chachi and Afro-descendant discourses in dialogue with each other and examine naturally occurring speech data to show how the linguistic forms described in previous chapters are used in social interaction. The central argument advances a position that takes the socially constructed status of race seriously and considers that for such constructions to exist as more abstract macro-categories they must be constituted by instances of social interaction, where elements of the social order are observable at the micro-level. In this way localized articulations of social categories become vehicles for the broader circulation of discourses structured by a history of racialized social inequality, revealing the extreme depth of racialization in human social conditioning. This dissertation represents a contribution to the field of linguistic anthropology as well as to descriptive linguistics of South American languages and to critical approaches to race and ethnicity in Latin America.Item Diversity Distress: The Experiences of Students of Color in Higher Education(2011-02-22) Pratt, Beverly M.In this study, I specify the reasons why racial minority undergraduate students choose to pursue higher education studies at historically White colleges/universities, despite the schools' potential for diversity controversies. Rather than looking at why students do not attend historically White institutions, I investigate what characteristics of both the educational institutions and the students contribute to students' decisions to stay at historically White institutions despite perceived hostile environments. I also examine students' experiences at historically White institutions, including attitudes toward diversity and any discrimination that they may experience. In doing so, this study adds a fresh yet central perspective to the complex issue of diversity: the opinions of students of color themselves. Doing so may lead to more positive answers and propositions for what administrations can do to increase the percentage of racial minority students. The study is a mixed-methods approach, including 17 semi-structured interviews with Latina/o students and a sample of 287 students who self-identify as racial minorities, including Latina/os, African Americans, and Asian Americans, at a historically White southern university. From these mixed-method results, the following themes were found: 1) The size of a hometown has a statistically significant effect on how often discrimination is experienced, 2) Self-identifying as Black has a statistically significant effect on how often discrimination is experienced, 3) Latina/o students choose to attend SCU because of university affordability, proximity to their home towns, and the university's academic reputation, 4) Latina/o students experience racial oppression at SCU because of the lack of campus diversity, direct racist acts toward themselves and friends, and they consider transferring to more diverse educational institutions, and 5) Latina/o students remain at SCU because they want to make a difference at the university for themselves and others, certain characteristics of the university are appealing, and because of professorial mentors.Item Documenting and explaining birthweight trends in the United States, 1989-2007(2012-12) You, Xiuhong; Hummer, Robert A.Birthweight is one of the most important health indicators for a newborn infant. Birthweight at either the lower or higher end is associated with adverse health outcomes in later life. In recent years, birthweight distribution in the United States has shifted to the lower end. This dissertation uses US vital statistics data from 1989 to 2007 to document recent birthweight trends in the US and examines the possible causes behind the trends. Results are reported for all births and by race/ethnicity/nativity. Descriptive analysis suggests that the lowering birthweight trend is the result of the rapid increase of lower-birthweight multiple births and decreasing birthweight among singleton births. The lowering birthweight is reflected in all birthweight measures. Low-birthweight rate is rising, mean birthweight is declining, and the proportion of macrosomic infants is decreasing. While this trend is most pronounced among US-born non-Hispanic whites and least among non-Hispanic blacks, it is prevalent among all race/ethnicity/nativity groups. Regression results suggest that much of the birthweight trend can be explained by shortened gestational age but common maternal socio-demographic, health and behavioral, and health care and medical intervention factors cannot fully explain the birthweight trend. Regression decomposition concludes that both the trends in maternal factors and the changes in the effects of these factors on birthweight contribute to the birthweight trend. Trend in gestational age is the biggest contributor, contributing more than 100% to the birthweight trend, while improvement in education, reduction of smoking during pregnancy and improvement in prenatal care have slowed down the birthweight decrease. Further research needs to be done to identify factors leading to the recent birthweight trend that are not available from the vital statistics.Item Ethnic background differences in college students’ self-compassion and general well-being(2014-12) Chen, Ling-Hui; Schallert, Diane L.In considering current college students’ general well-being, their diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds need to be considered as an important contributor. Previous research revealed that certain ethnic grouops had more difficulty adjusting to college life. This study examined the contributors to general well-being by introducing self-compassion as an important contributor for college students from three different ethnic backgrounds as determined by their self-identified choices. Data came from the online survey responses of 95 college students attending a southwestern university. Correlations between self-compassion and the nine subscales of general well-being yielded a positive relationship as in previous studies, with six of them meeting the previous criterion ( r = .60). Results showed that etnic groups and degree of ethnic identification did not, for these students, moderate the relationship between self-compassion and general well-being..Item Ethnicity and acculturation as moderators of the relationship between media exposure, awareness, and thin-ideal internalization in African American women(Texas A&M University, 2006-10-30) Henry, Keisha DenythiaThe moderating effects of ethnicity and acculturation on three relationships: media exposure and awareness of sociocultural appearance norms, awareness of social ideals and thin-ideal internalization, and thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction were examined. European American students and African American participants from both predominantly White and historically Black colleges and universities completed measures of media exposure, awareness of socicultural attitudes towards appearance, internalization of appearance norms, body dissatisfaction, and acculturation. The LISREL 8.5 program was used to perform structural modeling analysis using the Satorra-Bentler scaled chi-square and associated robust standard errors to test the relationship between ethnic groups. The results support previous findings regarding the mediational effect of internalization on the relationship between awareness and body dissatisfaction, and also provided evidence for the relationship between media exposure and awareness of sociocultural norms. The relationship between media exposure and awareness, and awareness and internalization were similar for both groups, while relationship between internalization and body dissatisfaction was stronger for European American women than for African American women. These results indicate ethnicity may serve to protect some women against the development of eating disorder symptoms, as well as the role of acculturation as a moderator between media exposure and awareness and between internalization and body dissatisfaction in African American women.Item Evaluating liberal multiculturalism : what could political theory offer in accommodating diversity?(2010-08) Alptekin, Huseyin; Gregg, Benjamin Greenwood, 1954-; Hooker, JulietLiberal multiculturalism, at least in the lines of some of its advocates, is vulnerable to serious critiques. This paper lists all major critiques directed to liberal multiculturalism without necessarily agreeing with all. Yet, this is not a sufficient reason to drop it from the intellectual agenda. In contrast, it still stands as the most promising theory to solve the problems stemming from cultural diversity. The position taken in this report sees liberal multiculturalism insufficient in accommodating all the interests of all the parties involved (e.g., different minority groups, political positions, theoretical approaches). Yet, a flexible and contextual formulation of liberal multiculturalism is able to accommodate the broadest range of demands involved in the debate without any serious damage to the core liberal premises such as respecting freedom of choice and basic human rights. What is achieved with such a formulation is not an entirely consistent philosophical truth project, but a relatively flexible guide to solve public policy issues in the face of cultural diversity.Item Exit over voice in Dominican ethnoracial politics(2015-12) Contreras, Danilo Antonio; Madrid, Raúl L.,; Philpot, Tasha; Dietz, Henry; Brinks, Daniel; Mahon, JimWhat explains why ethnoracial identity is of low salience in elections in Latin America, particularly in Afro-Latin America? Marginalized individuals in ethnoracially diverse societies, especially stratified ones, would seem most likely to mobilize politically along ethnoracial lines. I argue that, under certain conditions, individuals will deal with ethnoracial discrimination and stratification through exit rather than voice. That is, they will reclassify their way out of marginalized ethnosomatic categories instead of voting for candidates and parties that share their ethnoracial identities. This tends to be the case where ethnoracial group identity is inchoate and group boundaries are permeable. High levels of stratification combined with low degrees of ethnoracial group consolidation will typically prevent the activation of ethnoracial identity in elections. Whereas ethnoracial stratification provides the incentive structure for individuals to switch ethnoracial categories, inchoate ethnoracial group identity and permeable ethnoracial boundaries lower the transaction costs to doing so. I also argue that individuals may emphasize national origin over race or ethnicity where ethnoracial group loyalties are weak and immigration is widespread. I test my argument against competing approaches using quantitative, qualitative, and experimental evidence from the Dominican Republic. The evidence suggests that the confluence of stratification and inchoate ethnoracial group identity indeed has prevented the activation of ethnoracial cleavages in elections in the DR. This same combination, however, has not impeded the activation of national origin in elections. Rather than strengthening the salience of ethnoracial cleavages in elections, nationalism has helped to redirect those cleavages.Item First-Year Seminar Course and Academic Performance: An Examination of Differences by Student Characteristics(2017-06-29) Angrove, Kay E.; Combs, Julie P.; Skidmore, Susan T.Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the relationship between (a) student demographic variables (i.e., ethnicity, gender, first generation status, low income), college admission variables (i.e., admission status, SAT/ACT scores, remediation requirements), and (b) GPA and retention was influenced by first-year seminar (FYS) course participation at one Tier II doctoral university in the southwestern United States. Method To examine differences among students who took the FYS and students who did not take the FYS among specific student variable groups an explanatory, quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional research study was conducted. Institutional data for the entering first-time first-year class of 2014 at one 4-year university were examined. Six research questions were constructed to examine the differences in GPA outcomes and FYS course participation by student variable group using six separate two-way ANOVAs. In cases where data were non-normal, a Kruskal-Wallis was presented for comparison. If there was heterogeneity of variance, a Welch test was presented for comparison. Six additional research questions were constructed to examine the differences in one-year retention and FYS course participation using a chi-squared statistical test of independence. Findings For ANOVA results that compared GPA outcomes and the statistical interactions with the FYS course, several student groups had statistically significantly higher GPAs when compared to their peers in the same student group who did not take the FYS course: Black, Hispanic, at-risk (development education), first-generation, and low-income (Pell Grant recipients). For chi-squared statistical results comparing student variables and one-year retention outcomes, male students, students reporting as not first-generation status, and students who did not receive the Pell Grant (low-income status) had statistically significantly higher retention rates if they took the FYS course. Although statistical significant was present within several variable groups who took the FYS, small effect sizes were also present in each finding indicating negligible practical significance. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed in the context of Tinto’s (1975) theory of student departure and Astin’s (1984) theory of student development theory.Item Forging a nation while losing a country : Igbo nationalism, ethnicity and propaganda in the Nigerian Civil War 1968-1970(2011-08) Doron, Roy Samuel; Falola, Toyin; Okpen, Okpeh; Walker, Juliet; Boone, Catherine; Brannds, HWThis project looks at the ways the Biafran Government maintained their war machine in spite of the hopeless situation that emerged in the summer of 1968. Ojukwu’s government looked certain to topple at the beginning of the summer of 1968, yet Biafra held on and did not capitulate until nearly two years later, on 15 January 1970. The Ojukwu regime found itself in a serious predicament; how to maintain support for a war that was increasingly costly to the Igbo people, both in military terms and in the menacing face of the starvation of the civilian population. Further, the Biafran government had to not only mobilize a global public opinion campaign against the “genocidal” campaign waged against them, but also convince the world that the only option for Igbo survival was an independent Biafra. Thus it is not enough to look at the international aspects of the war, or to consider the war on a strictly domestic level. By looking at both the internal and external factors that shaped the Biafran propaganda machine and the Biafran war effort and how these efforts influenced international support and galvanized internal resolve to continue fighting, we can see how the Biafran war effort was able to last for twenty months after the fall of Port Harcourt. Recent scholarly and political work, uncovered documents, and the new plethora of memoirs on the Civil War provide us with a veritable treasure trove of data and analysis with which to study the issue of Igbo nationalism and a unique opportunity to create a new vision of secessionist conflict in Africa. This work will thus provide a step in moving away from the long accepted “Tribalism” paradigm that has so long pervaded not only the study of post-colonial Civil Wars in Africa, but more importantly, the discourse in looking at ethnicity, violence and national identity across the continent. Further, by analyzing the ways that the Biafran propaganda machine operated on a nationalist level, we can see the effects of Biafran secession on the broader Igbo national consciousness and the Igbo national movement, as well as on subsequent political movements in Nigeria.Item “The gay Facebook” : friendship, desirability, and HIV in the lives of the gay Internet generation(2013-12) Robinson, Brandon Andrew; González-López, Gloria, 1960-Why are men seeking other men online? And how does the Internet influence these men and their sexuality? These are the two underlying questions driving this thesis. To answer these general questions, I conducted a qualitative study, which used in-depth individual interviews with 15 men who have sex with other men who self-identified as gay, queer, or homosexual. Through employing a theoretical framework that is inspired in queer theory, I uncovered three main topics in these men’s lives that are intimately shaped by their use of the Internet: friendship, racial and bodily desire, and HIV. First, I show the creative ways gay men are using the Internet, and specifically a sexualized space, in order to build relations with other gay men, despite the larger obstacles a heteronormative society puts in these men’s way to forge these friendships. In using their gay identity to try to establish relationalities with other gay identified men, the informants in this study challenge the impersonable traits associated with modernity, while seeking to build new alliances that could potentially radically disrupt heteronormative society. Secondly, I highlight how the social exclusionary practices toward people of color and non-normal bodies on Adam4Adam.com reifies whiteness and masculinity, which in turn, reifies heteronormativity. Here, I unmask how the structure of Adam4Adam.com, especially its filtering system, normalizes these discriminatory practices in users’ lives. Thirdly, I examine the role and meaning of HIV and sexual health in the lives of my informants. I incorporate the term “doing sexual responsibility” to show how my gay informants manage their anxiety-ridden lives when navigating their sexuality and sexual health. I also show how the gay men in this study engage in online foreplay as a pleasurable way to manage this anxiety and how trust and hegemonic masculinity are unintended consequences of this danger discourse on sexuality. As these men’s narratives and this thesis illustrate, society is still structured through heteronormative standards, but the Internet provides a new space for gay men to navigate their marginalized status in society.Item The Gift of Rain : re-imagining masculinity, ethnicity, and identity in Malaysia(2013-05) Menon, Sheela Jane; Lee, Julia H.; Harlow, BarbaraTan Twan Eng's debut novel, "The Gift of Rain" (2007), explores issues of allegiance and belonging through a conflicted figure of mixed heritage -- Philip Hutton. Set during the Japanese Occupation of Malaya during World War II, the novel looks back to this period as an unstable cornerstone from which to imagine and re-imagine ethnic, national, and gender identity in Malaysia. Yet, the vision that Tan offers is itself riddled with inconsistencies. The multi-ethnic identity that the novel celebrates is contingent upon systems of power, particularly those associated with patriarchy, British imperialism, and Chinese heritage. I argue that The Gift of Rain opens up a space within which to question narratives of nationhood and loyalty, ethnicity and culture, masculinity and femininity, suggesting that identity remains conflicted and conditional, emerging and developing amidst constant change.