Running as a woman (or man): a review of research on political communicators and gender stereotypes

Women gained the right to vote nearly 100 years ago, but it was not until 1980 that political scholars and practitioners began paying much attention to the role of women in elections. Twelve years later it was the so-called "Year of the Woman" in 1992 that sparked increased scholarly attention on women as political communicators. A record number of women, 117, ran for the U.S. Congress in 1992, but the number of women running and serving has been slow to increases since that time. One reason may be the unique challenges gender poses for female political communicators. Over three decades of research has proven gender stereotypes and expectations play a key role in how women (and men) communicate with voters. This review of research summarizes major findings and changes in gender and political communication research over the past three decades. Our focus is on communication by candidates and how gender shapes that communication. In all, 133 scholarly sources were reviewed; these sources included scholarly journals from related disciplines as well as books using quantitative, qualitative, and rhetorical methods. Our analysis demonstrates that gender stereotypes are still prevalent in American political campaigns, and women candidates must work to overcome the belief that they are not masculine enough to be political leaders. Additionally this review reveals two common strategies candidates use to negotiate gender stereotypes: feminine style and gender adaptiveness. We conclude that more research is needed to better understand how candidates navigate gender stereotypes in the 21st century, particularly in political debates and online communication

The Effect of Source-Message-Variants on Racial Attitude Change Among College Freshmen

The objective of this study was to determine how the racial attitudes of freshman students were reinforced or altered by variant stereotypic messages received from differing classroom instructors. A theoretical model and an associated set of propositions and hypotheses were formulated based on symbolic interactionism, consistency and dissonance theory, and information relating processes. The following research hypothesis was generated: Groups receiving variant messages, both as to source and content, will differ in the extent of change in the attitudes of their members toward persons of the opposite race. Twenty-six null hypotheses were formulated, covering different sourse [sic]-message variation as applied to the experimental groups and the control group; namely, the attributed race of the speaker, the character of the message and the race of the students in the group. Freshman enrolled in English courses in Fall, 1979 at Shippensburg State College were assigned randomly to either the control group or experimental groups. The final sample size was 132, with 105 in the experimental groups and 27 in the control. The dependent variable was the group mean for the extent of racial attitudinal change as measured before arid after treatment by a pre-test and post-test instrument. The independent variable consisted of a taped message played to the respondent s in which two factors were altered: (1) the speaker was identified as either Black, White or not identified by a racial characteristic at all; (2) the message either favored or disfavored racial integration. Six experimental groups were each assigned one of the following independent treatments: (1) black source--pro-integration message, (2) black source--anti-integration message, (3) white source--pro-integration message, (4) white source--anti-integration message, (5) unknow source-- pro-integration message, and (6) unkown [sic] source--anti-integration message. The control group was the seventh group. It received no source-message variant but was given the cognitive-affective-behavioral pre and post-tests. The statistical techniques used were the t-test and analysis of variance. The objective of this study was to examine to what extent the attitudes of white and non-white freshmen changed toward each other during the fall semester at Shippensburg, and how these attitude changes were associated with the application or non-application of treatments that varied as to the known race of a speaker and the advocacy or opposition toward integration. Differences in observed racial attitude change were found between: 1. The group receiving an anti-integration message (regardless of attributed race of the speaker) and the control group. 2. Students receiving the pro-integration message from a white speaker and students who received a pro-integration message from an unknown source. 3. Students receiving the pro-integration message from a black speaker and the students who received anti-integration messages regardless of the attributed race of the speaker. 4. Students receiving the pro-integration message from a white speaker and the students who received an anti-integration message regardless of the attributed race of the speaker. 5. Students receiving the pro-integration message from an unknown [sic] speaker and ·the group receiving an anti-integration message from an unknown speaker. 6. Students receiving pro-integration messages and the students receiving anti-integration messages. 7. Students receiving messages from a white speaker and those ·who received messages from an unknown speaker. The study suggests: 1. There is a greater need for Blacks to be in positions of importance in the college community, in order for students to have positive racial referents. 2. Colleges should avoid presenting types of situations that promote negativisim [sic], due to the impact of negative messages. 3. There is a greater need for interracial information and experiences in order to enhance students [sic] evaluations of racial opposites

Adult Environmental Education and the Cultural Commons: A Study of Community Practices for a Just and Sustainable World

Ecojustice adult education, an extension of adult environmental education, has been spurred on by international efforts to educate adults about environmental issues. It is a new and evolving arm of the adult education field that studies the ways that dominant views are impacting human/earth relationships. Ecojustice education teaches about the natural and cultural commons that sustain all life. In this symposiusm, doctoral students investigated their own communities to find examples of the cultural commons

Addressing Inequity to Achieve the Maternal and Child Health Millennium Development Goals: Looking Beyond Averages.

Inequity in access to and use of child and maternal health interventions is impeding progress towards the maternal and child health Millennium Development Goals. This study explores the potential health gains and equity impact if a set of priority interventions for mothers and under fives were scaled up to reach national universal coverage targets for MDGs in Tanzania. We used the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) to estimate potential reductions in maternal and child mortality and the number of lives saved across wealth quintiles and between rural and urban settings. High impact maternal and child health interventions were modelled for a five-year scale up, by linking intervention coverage, effectiveness and cause of mortality using data from Tanzania. Concentration curves were drawn and the concentration index estimated to measure the equity impact of the scale up. In the poorest population quintiles in Tanzania, the lives of more than twice as many mothers and under-fives were likely to be saved, compared to the richest quintile. Scaling up coverage to equal levels across quintiles would reduce inequality in maternal and child mortality from a pro rich concentration index of -0.11 (maternal) and -0.12 (children) to a more equitable concentration index of -0,03 and -0.03 respectively. In rural areas, there would likely be an eight times greater reduction in maternal deaths than in urban areas and a five times greater reduction in child deaths than in urban areas. Scaling up priority maternal and child health interventions to equal levels would potentially save far more lives in the poorest populations, and would accelerate equitable progress towards maternal and child health MDGs

Understanding cooperation through fitness interdependence

Some acts of human cooperation are not easily explained by traditional models of kinship or reciprocity. Fitness interdependence may provide a unifying conceptual framework, in which cooperation arises from the mutual dependence for survival or reproduction, as occurs among mates, risk-pooling partnerships and brothers-in-arms

An ISO/SWS study of the dust composition around S stars

We investigate the composition of the solid-state materials in the winds around S-type AGB stars. The S stars produce dust in their wind that bears a resemblance to the dust produced in some O-rich AGB stars. However, the reported resemblance is mostly based on IRAS/LRS spectra with limited spectral resolution, sensitivity, and wavelength coverage. We investigate the dust composition around S stars using ISO/SWS data that surpass the previous studies in terms of spectral resolution and wavelength coverage. We compare the dust spectra from the 9 sources with the O-rich AGB spectra and a subset of M super-giants. We constructed average dust emission spectra of the different categories. We report the discovery of several previously unreported dust emission features in the S star spectra. The long wavelength spectra of W Aql and pi1 Gru exhibit the "30" micrometer feature attributed to MgS. Two sources exhibit a series of emission bands between 20 and 40 micrometer that we tentatively ascribe to Diopside. We show that the 10-20 micrometer spectra of the S stars are significantly different from the O-rich AGB stars. The O-rich stars exhibit a structured emission feature that is believed to arise from amorphous silicate and aluminium-oxide. The S stars lack the substructure found in the O-rich stars. Instead they show a smooth peak with a varying peak-position from source to source. We suggest that this feature is caused by a family of related material, whose exact composition determines the peak position. The observed trend mimics the laboratory trend of non-stoichiometric silicates. In this scenario the degree of non-stoichiometry is related to the Mg to SiO4 ratio, in other words, to the amount of free O available during the dust grain growth.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted by A&