Dissertation
THE MISEDUCATION OF THE GOOD GIRL: A FEMINIST POLICY DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE COLLEGIATE IDEAL FOR WOMEN POST WORLD WAR II
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/111953
Abstract
This study destabilized nostalgic reproductions of college life for women in the years post World War II. Examination of the post war social norms implemented on the college campus revealed that administrators and students alike socially reproduced expectations for women students that had little to do with education. By investigating how behavioral expectations were communicated to women, this study creates space to critically analyze what possibilities the communication created, and further what possibilities were foreclosed on. I used poststructuralism as a theory of language that asserts our language is not only socially constructed, but in constant negotiation through power/knowledge exchanges. I interrogated policy documents through a poststructural lens; asking myself, not what is said about women, but what makes that particular language possible, and what are the consequences? I also used Foucault’s discipline theory of hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination, to consider the outcomes of the academy’s policy communication with women. Allan’s (2008) poststructural hybrid methodology of policy discourse analysis was used to examine historical documents from three land-grant research universities. My analysis focused on the problems, solutions, and images presented in policy documents and the salient discourses and subject positions represented in the documents. This method of analysis kept language use as the main category of analysis and reveals discursive formations in text that can be used to understand a person’s lived reality and the subject positions that shape identity. The implications for future research are focused on discourse research and naming/problematizing of seemingly benign notions, like nostalgia in research. My research has shown that nostalgia should be considered as a “semantic overlay” or a part of historical research that needs to be actively considered in order to allow openings for discourses and subject positions counter to the mystic nostalgia tends to create. Future research topics could include a study of returning veterans and the role women students played in their re-socialization. Also, my study revealed the academy recognized the economic stimulus marriage created and how the family unit was a postwar defense against another depression.
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Details
- Title
- THE MISEDUCATION OF THE GOOD GIRL: A FEMINIST POLICY DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE COLLEGIATE IDEAL FOR WOMEN POST WORLD WAR II
- Creators
- Meghan Christine Levi
- Contributors
- Pamela J Bettis (Advisor)Kelly A Ward (Committee Member)A.G. Rud (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 130
- Identifiers
- 99900581826501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation