Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item From Surviving to Thriving: Exploring the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Adolescents and Engaging Teacher Allies in Rural Montana Schools(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2024-05) MacAlister, EmmaWritten by an educator for educators, this qualitative research study explores two questions: (1) What are the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ adolescents residing in rural Montana? (2) How can rural educators become LGBTQ+ allies in their schools and communities? Relying on the voices of five participants, this case study examines queer adolescents’ lived experiences within their family units, rural high school, and local community. The research study also explores ways rural educators can become teacher allies by creating more inclusive, equitable classrooms and communities for rural-living LGBTQ+ youth. Existing research analyzes queer adolescents’ lived experiences in the rural Southeast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest United States, yet much of this research adheres to a deficit narrative; in essence, what rural places lack. Existing research also depicts high rates of school victimization among LGBTQ+ youth, mental health and behavioral issues, and a lack of queer representation in the rural classroom. This study’s data derives from semi-structured interviews and sheds light on participants’ experiences (both positive and negative) in one rural Montana community, and its findings are broken into seven themes: (1) Outsider Status: Lacking a Rural Sense of Belonging; (2) Conflicting Familial Support; (3) School Victimization & Subsequent Anxiety; (4) Catching a “Vibe” About Teacher Allies; (5) Lack of LGBTQ+ Representation in School; (6) Resilience & Western Toughness; (7) Heightened Sense of Empathy & Advocacy. With Critical Rural English Pedagogy (CREP) (Petrone & Wynhoff Olsen, 2021) as its theoretical framework, the research study further examines the complex intersection between queerness and rurality and provides ways rural educators can LGBTQ: Listen to queer students, Give queer students support, foster queer students’ rural sense of Belonging, Transform rural classrooms and communities, and Question damaging beliefs about gender and sexuality—with the goals of not only engaging queer students in the classroom but empowering them to enact positive social change in rural America.Item Evolutionary Sample Size and Consilience in Phylogenetic Comparative Analysis(Oxford University Press, 2021-03) Gardner, Jacob D.; Organ, Chris L.Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) are commonly used to study evolution and adaptation. However, frequently used PCMs for discrete traits mishandle single evolutionary transitions. They erroneously detect correlated evolution in these situations. For example, hair and mammary glands cannot be said to have evolved in a correlated fashion because each evolved only once in mammals, but a commonly used model (Pagel’s Discrete) statistically supports correlated (dependent) evolution. Using simulations, we find that rate parameter estimation, which is central for model selection, is poor in these scenarios due to small effective (evolutionary) sample sizes of independent character state change. Pagel’s Discrete model also tends to favor dependent evolution in these scenarios, in part, because it forces evolution through state combinations unobserved in the tip data. This model prohibits simultaneous dual transitions along branches. Models with underlying continuous data distributions (e.g., Threshold and GLMM) are less prone to favor correlated evolution but are still susceptible when evolutionary sample sizes are small. We provide three general recommendations for researchers who encounter these common situations: i) create study designs that evaluate a priori hypotheses and maximize evolutionary sample sizes; ii) assess the suitability of evolutionary models—for discrete traits, we introduce the phylogenetic imbalance ratio; and iii) evaluate evolutionary hypotheses with a consilience of evidence from disparate fields, like biogeography and developmental biology. Consilience plays a central role in hypothesis testing within the historical sciences where experiments are difficult or impossible to conduct, such as many hypotheses about correlated evolution. These recommendations are useful for investigations that employ any type of PCM. [Class imbalance; consilience; correlated evolution; evolutionary sample size; phylogenetic comparative methods.]