Browsing by Subject "young adult"
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Item I Am the Monster: Self and the Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Young Adult Literature(2014-05-15) Talafuse, ElizabethMy dissertation surveys British, American, Australian, and New Zealand young adult texts of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries featuring female protagonists who are fantastic monsters. Addressing such texts as Margaret Mahy?s The Changeover, Justine Larbalestier?s Liar, and Diana Wynne Jones?s The Time of the Ghost, I examine the metaphorical use of monstrosity in literature to address the ?problem? of female adolescence, specifically in relation to female physical development, sexuality, and agency. With chapters on witches, werewolves, and ghosts, I investigate the ways in which the characters? understanding of their monstrosity intersects with their emerging gender identity. I interrogate what these representations of monstrous young women reveal about social and cultural perspectives on femininity and the developing female body. As supernatural entities, monsters extend the possibilities of human experience, demonstrating physical and psychic powers that disturb the established order. Framing the female protagonist as a monster, however, indicates a fear of her potential to disturb and destroy. Thus, I argue that while the proliferation of monstrous female protagonists encourages female agency by making the monstrous powerful, familiar, and enticing, the trend simultaneously demonstrates the ways in which these seemingly subversive characters are contained within moral and social frameworks of femininity.Item I'm Too Young for This: Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship(2014-07-25) Vollmer Dahlke, DeborahAs of January 1, 2012, an estimated 13.7 million cancer survivors were alive in the United States. The number of cancer survivors is expected to reach 18 million by the year 2022. Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) cancer survivors, ages 15-39, are a population that experiences disparities in care, including a lack of evidence for increased survival. This thesis presents three papers, each using different methods. The first, an analysis of AYA breast cancer survivors? risk factors including access to clinical trials, uses geographic information systems to map patients? distance to trials and logistic regression to analyze demographic and clinical risk factors. The second paper applies quantitative and qualitative analyses in an evaluation of a public and professional education project on AYA survivorship. The third paper uses qualitative methods and a theory-based taxonomy to assess the use of behavior change theories in mobile health (mHealth) applications for cancer survivorship. The results demonstrate the multifactorial elements that impact AYA cancer survivorship, and suggest the need for interventions and expanded research. Additional research is needed to understand the unique physical and biological characteristics of AYAs, in particular those of AYA breast cancer survivors. The thesis illuminates the challenges AYA survivors experience with late effects?physical, psychosocial and financial?and the need for ongoing education for healthcare professionals. In considering the potential of mHealth applications for health behaviors change among AYAs and other cancer survivors, the study articulates concerns about the limited use of theory in the majority of mHealth apps, and suggests the need for intervention designers to reflect more deeply on theoretical models. This thesis contributes to the field of AYA survivorship research in its evidence assessing risk factors including distance to cancer trials for AYA breast cancer patients, by identifying ongoing educational needs for both survivors and providers and by assessing lack of theory and potential for improvement among mHealth interventions. It offers suggestions for future research, policies, and program changes, including the use of emerging mobile technology and sensors to engage AYA survivors both as participants and designers of research that could improve their quality of life and wellbeing.Item Representations of transgender young adults in multiple medias, or The transgender success story(2009-05) Smith, Adeline Jocelyn; Carter, Mia; Stone, Allucquere RosanneAdolescence is not experienced in the same way by all individuals or communities; individuals who cannot find harmony between their sense of identity and social norms often have a much harder time during this period. In this vein, there is an especially strong need for transgender adolescents to be able to locate themselves in the world around them. I examine current transgender representations available to (and specifically marketed towards) young adults through three venues—literature, television, and the Internet. The amount of material that deals directly with any instance of transgender or transsexual identity is minimal. I will argue at the very least that these representations are important for transgendered adolescents to find someone with whom they can identify but that more than likely, it is important for all adolescents to have exposure to representations of transgender individuals. I closely analyze the young adult novel, Parrotfish (Wittlinger 2007), and the CW television show, America’s Next Top Model, for narratives of success that are applied to transgender subjects. I also briefly analyze three websites and compare them to the previous texts, identifying key similarities and differences. I end with suggestions for future growth in all three areas.