Perception and Power Through Naming: Characters in Search of Self in the Fiction of Toni Morrison

Humpty Dumpty was correct to see the important connection between language and power; and if Lewis Carroll had developed this discussion further, he might have had his characters comment as well on the interrelationship between language and thought, language and culture, and language and social change. While linguists and anthropologists continue the difficult debate about whether language is culture or is merely related to culture, and while sociolinguists and psychologists question the effects of language on society and on the psyche, American blacks and women understand all too well that He is master who can define, [1] and that the process of naming and defining is not an intellectual game but a grasping of experience and a key to action

Do Individual Investors Drive Post-Earnings Announcement Drift? Direct Evidence from Personal Trades

This study examines whether individual investors are the source of post- earnings announcement drift (PEAD). We provide evidence on how individual investors trade in response to extreme quarterly earnings surprises and on the relation between individual investors' trades and subsequent abnormal returns. We find no evidence that either individuals or any sub-category of individuals in our sample cause PEAD. Individuals are significant net buyers after both negative and positive earnings surprises. There is no indication that trading by any of our investor sub-categories explains the concentration of drift at subsequent earnings announcement dates. While post-announcement individual net buying is a significant negative predictor of stock returns over the next three quarters, individual investor trading fails to subsume any of the power of extreme earnings surprises to predict future abnormal returns.post earnings-announcement drift, trading activity, individual investors, market efficiency

An Evaluation of an Urban Community College Single Parent and Displaced Homemaker Program

The purpose of this study was to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of an urban community college Single Parent and Displaced Homemaker program composed primarily of minority women, many of whom were receiving public assistance. The critical dimension of mattering (Schlossberg et al., 1989) formed the conceptual framework for the evaluation. Program effectiveness, impacts, efficiency and participant needs were assessed. The primary methodology was survey research. A descriptive and a causal comparative study were conducted to determine if there were significant differences in the number of semesters completed and the number of credits taken by program participants when compared to students on a waiting list for the program. No evidence of bias was found in the client population when compared to the target population. The needs most frequently rated very important by the participants were: supplemental funding, student tracking, federal financial aid, and personal counseling. Participants rated an increase in income, improved self-esteem and self-confidence, and obtaining a job related to their curriculum as the most important impacts needed from the program. College personnel and program participants who rated the program\u27s services rated all aspects of the program as very good. When responses of the college personnel and the participants were compared, it was found that the college personnel rated the program\u27s benefits and impacts significantly higher than participants. Participants\u27 retention in college and credits taken were significantly higher than those of students on the waiting list for the program. Some participants indicated that they were able to leave the welfare system as a result of involvement in the program. Improvement in self-esteem and self-confidence and knowledge of women\u27s issues were rated among the highest impacts of the program. Results of a correlation study comparing client needs and program impacts demonstrated that the program significantly reduced clients\u27 needs. Findings of the evaluation demonstrated that the program is efficient and is operating as intended. Recommendations for program improvement, national, state. and local policy implications, and suggestions for future research are included in the study

Women’s Independent Travel Experiences in New Zealand

An ever-increasing number of women worldwide are making the most of their independence and becoming increasingly motivated to travel more than ever before. Women are grasping the opportunity to be tourists in their own right; for their own pleasure and satisfaction, breaking away from their hybrid identities of, ‘the wife’, ‘mother’, ‘girlfriend’ or the ‘housewife’. Women of all ages are beginning to become empowered and to travel together in close female friendship groups, in two’s or alone. They are gaining confidence and are able to independently self-organise their trips. Educational opportunity and financial self sufficiency through improvement in earning capacities has greatly increased women’s access to a much wider range of leisure and travel choices. Personal life spans involve significant chronological transitions, such as from university to work, marriage to divorce, work to retirement where identity has to be renegotiated; new autobiographies reconstructed, and new trajectories have to be set. Often, it seems women are motivated to travel during such transitional circumstances. Despite the tendency to assume that male appeals are universal, research suggests that female and male perceptions and experiences of space differ substantially. In tourism, gender relationships have been examined from a number of perspectives; women as the employee's of the tourism industry; women as hosts in the tourism destination; and more recently women as tourists. Women are slowly being recognised as a market segment, facilities and different services in luxury hotels, women only tours and cruises are evolving to meet demand. The gendered perceptions and ideologies of New Zealand; being 100% pure nature and the adventure capital of the world which is open to all, ages, and abilities, attracts statistically more women backpacker travellers than men. A major objective of this thesis is to redress the bias in tourism research; to represent women including lesbian women in the tourism arena. In both cases giving women a ‘voice’ to represent their touristic experiences, desires and link these to the notion of identity construction through tourism. Little remains known on the wider variables and influences that motivate the travel choices of lesbian consumers in particular. It has been argued that female tourism experiences, like their leisure behaviours, are constrained by male dominated cultural values and attitudes at destinations and by social constraints and restrictions in their home society. However, on the other hand it has also been argued that some women’s tourism experiences - such as backpacking and independent travelling- can also be potentially liberating for some women as they gain the freedom to express their often hybrid identities in new ways. The focus in this study is towards the positive gains and benefits to the individual through travel experiences, but this cannot be done in isolation without considering some of the constraints and challenges. It is multidisciplinary in approach, grounded in theoretical frameworks offered by gender studies, tourism studies, social science, leisure studies, women’s studies, queer theory, cultural geography and sports studies. It is a qualitative study which sets out to explore tourism experiences and the personal growth and identity development through tourism experiences in New Zealand. Sixty in-depth interviews were held with international women travellers, backpackers and tourism providers in New Zealand. Adopting an interpretive paradigm with a limited feminist influenced, the important focus was to allow the women to speak of their experiences and lives in their own voices. In line with qualitative methodologies, it is the words and photographs of the women that form the data set for this study. It critically examines how a performative understanding of the playing out of gender can be linked to notions of serious leisure, the reflective production of biographies and accumulation of cultural capital. The results reveal that personal development, self identity and social identity can be influenced by travel experiences in varying degrees. Four interlinking categories of importance were identified; embodied experiences, psychological development, socio-spatial interactions and visual consumption. Each category evolved and was sometimes dependent upon age and sexuality. The results of this study show that there are real benefits to personal growth and identity development to women through their travel experiences. Through travel women make the time or find the time to self-reflect on their lives. They escape from the social constraints at home and can achieve a sense of freedom. Through the act of travelling itself and through participating in physical adventure activities travel can present a means of empowerment and a record of achievement. The confidence gained through travel experiences can enhance self-esteem and help construct a new dimension to their identities