Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Understanding adolescents' experiences of ageism(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Poppler, Ashleigh Katelyn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Brandon ScottAgeism, defined as discrimination against people on grounds of age, has been examined almost exclusively with regard to adults' perceptions of older adults (Nelson, 2005). Less research has examined adults' beliefs about teenagers and the ways adolescents experience ageism. Research on intersectionality indicates that adolescents of multiple social identities may be at a heightened risk of experiencing ageism (Crenshaw, 1989). The current study used a mixed-method approach to understand adolescents' subjective experiences with cognitive and behavioral facets of ageism and how these experiences differ across sociocultural backgrounds. All adolescents in the sample were asked: 'have you ever been treated differently because of your age' (yes or no?); 'if so, how have you been treated differently?' and 'how do you think adults feel about teenagers these days?' Results demonstrate that most youth believed that they were treated differently because of their age and that they believed adults felt negatively about teenagers. Additionally, logistic regressions indicated that Black youth were more likely to report that adults perceive teenagers as lazy and with contempt compared to non-Black youth, and young women were more likely to report that they were treated as unknowing or incapable compared to non-females in the sample. Findings indicate that adolescents perceive both cognitive and behavioral forms of ageism. These findings extend Positive Youth Development theory by highlighting that despite the importance of supporting adolescents, many adults hold negative beliefs about teenagers. Results from this study inform PYD theory and can be used to promote healthy adult-adolescent relationships.Item American fantasies and imagined histories: ethnic play and settler colonialism in twentieth-century Wyoming(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2021) Powers, Andrea Shawn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan KollinAmerican Fantasies and Imagined Histories examines three case studies unified through ethnic play, the interrelated structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy, geographical location, and time period. This project employs an interdisplinary approach that combines original archival historical research, and literary and cultural analysis while drawing on Indigenous and Black frameworks. In twentieth-century Wyoming, redface and blackface filled Native and Black cultural absences maintaining the structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy. At the same time, this dissertation examines settler colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy in relation to the experiences of Black and Native peoples. This study shows how ethnic play both maintains and disrupts the race and gender hierarchies created by the interrelated structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy.Item Predilection, progress and prejudice: coon songs and the construction of race in nineteenth century American culture(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2019) Matzinger, Ryan Joseph; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert Rydell; Billy Smith (co-chair)This is a study about the history of American culture and the construction of race through the musical idiom of coon songs. It is an examination of the jazz narrative and the role of blackface minstrelsy and coon songs, as they directly relate to the jazz tradition and the construction of race in nineteenth-century America. The modes of inquiry utilized are from the American Studies methodology and resulted in a more thorough, in-depth understanding of the construction of American race ideology, with a more complete, holistic perception of the jazz narrative. In a methodology that blends the excavation of less standard resources and research techniques that approach American history from further outside the chronological strictures and modes of conventional historical inquiry, the American Studies jazz-scholar-musician is compelled to live by, creatively inquire about, and more thoroughly comprehend the rationally intuitive values of jazz music and cultural literacy. In this study of race construction, coon songs, and the American jazz narrative as regarded from a revised conventional modality of jazz as American Studies, and American Studies as jazz, what's really on the line is the way American culture cultivates and also demolishes social and racial hierarchies through musical idioms.