Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Publication Date

Summer 7-28-2026

Abstract

Gender inequities rooted in patriarchal norms shape the experiences of college-going emerging adults across many domains, often to the detriment of young women. In this study, we applied a mixed-methods approach to analyzing how college students interpret and make meaning from gendered experiences, and how the meaning making process relates to these emerging adults’ sense of university belonging. Participants provided written narratives of a gendered experience and completed a survey about university belonging. Through our qualitative analyses of the narrative responses, we identified four themes that represent cultural socialization messages that these participants engaged with in their narratives: bioessentialism, expectations of gender performance, responsibilization of women for safety, and awareness of broader social issues. These narratives were also quantified for level of meaning making, and then analyzed in relation to university belonging survey data. The findings of these quantitative analyses suggest that most college students engage in some level of personal meaning making in relation to the gendered experience they describe. Further, there may be a unique relationship between meaning making and faculty relations among college-going young women, such that college women who report better faculty relations tend to engage in greater levels of meaning making

Keywords

Gender, Meaning making, University belonging, Mixed methods, Feminist Standpoint Theory, Cultural Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Psychology

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Individual, Family, and Community Education

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dr. Ursula Moffitt

Second Committee Member

Dr. Jay Parkes

Third Committee Member

Dr. Shengjie Lin

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