Hispanic College Student Women Leaders' Sources of Knowledge and Self-Perceptions of Their Influence

Date of Degree

12-2010

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program

Education

Advisor

Dorothy Ettling

Advisor

Jessica Kimmel

Advisor

Helena Monahan

Abstract

This case study explores the sources of knowledge of eight Hispanic college student women acting as leaders at their university. Personal interviews with each Hispanic woman offered insight into their knowledge sources and their self-perceptions of their influence. This study uses the framework of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) which states women draw knowledge from five sources: silence, received knowledge, subjective knowledge, procedural knowledge, and constructed knowledge sources. The findings indicate that Hispanic college student women do not draw knowledge from the silence source. Four of the women drew knowledge from the received knowledge source, the subjective source and the procedural source (the women often drew knowledge from more than one knowledge source). One of the Hispanic women drew knowledge from the constructed knowledge source. Self-perceptions of their influence were assessed on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 indicating low influence and 5 indicating high influence). Three women gave a self-perception of influence score of 5, while four of the women gave scores of 4, and one woman scored between 4 and 5. All these scores point to self-perceptions of high influence during their leadership.

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