Gender Role Congruence and Self-Efficacy in Emerging Outdoor Leaders

Being a leader in the outdoors requires the competence and confidence to act and make decisions in high-risk situations. However, female leaders may experience an incongruence between the assertive decision-making expected of their leadership role and the passivity expected of their gender role, which can impact their leadership self- efficacy. The purpose of this study was to explore how gender role congruence influences the self-efficacy of male and female emerging outdoor leaders. A convergent mixed- methods design was used by triangulating self-efficacy survey data with in-depth interviews, observations, and reflective drawings from eight student outdoor leaders at a large Midwestern university’s outdoor recreation program. Multiple themes emerged from this study, with the primary result being that participants had highest self-efficacy with gender role congruent behaviors. Both engrained perceptions of gender roles in outdoor leadership and prior experiences contributed to these feelings of self-efficacy. Additionally, the results of this study indicated that women experienced low self-efficacy more often than men and faced specific challenges leading in a male-dominated space. No other known study examining gender and self-efficacy in the outdoors has used such a design, so this research brings a novel contribution to the literature and to outdoor leadership development programs. Advisor: Lindsay Hasting

Investigating the Intersection of Flood Risk and Environmental Justice in Maryland

Gemstone Team E-JUSTICEConsidering the implications of environmental justice, we sought to identify areas of Maryland with high socio-economic vulnerability, flood risk, and environmental risk to assess whether emergency preparedness policies in these areas were effective. We characterized this disparity based on a review of hazard mitigation policies in areas of Maryland that were susceptible to flood risk and toxic release. Our first phase of research determined which counties met our criteria of containing low-income, minority populations and being subject to flood risk. With the use of GIS technology to visualize pollution risk factors, we chose various counties in Maryland to use as our focus of comparison. The second phase analyzed emergency management plans for flooding and hazard mitigation policies of the selected counties. In our third and final phase, we interviewed officials or related personnel in the emergency preparedness policies and practices to gain a better understanding of the reality of their implementation. We found that Baltimore City, Dorchester County, Anne Arundel County, and Prince George’s County had high-risk factors for flooding and socioeconomic vulnerability and had less comprehensive emergency plans. Additionally, we found that the explicit mention of environmental justice was not a priority of most plans, creating space for future improvements and research