The Voices of African Descent Bisexual Women
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2015 The Voices of African Descent Bisexual Women: Experiences Related to Identity and Disclosure in Social Support Networks and Health Care Settings in the United States and United Kingdom Kristin M. Brown Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL WORK THE VOICES OF AFRICAN DESCENT BISEXUAL WOMEN: EXPERIENCES RELATED TO IDENTITY AND DISCLOSURE IN SOCIAL SUPPORT NETWORKS AND HEALTH CARE SETTINGS IN THE UNITED STATES AND UNITED KINGDOM By KRISTIN M. BROWN A Dissertation submitted to the College of Social Work in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2015 © Kristin M. Brown defended this dissertation on April 20, 2015. The members of the supervisory committee were: Neil Abell Professor Directing Dissertation Koji Ueno University Representative Jean Munn Committee Member James Whyte, IV Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend thanks to all those who made this study possible, including Florida State University and the College of Social Work. I would like to acknowledge the Chair and Members of the Dissertation Committee, who committed to my doctoral program and this study over a period of several years. I would like to express gratitude to the women who participated in this study and shared generously from their life experiences, in the US and the UK. I would like to thank all of the organizations, scholars, researchers, and community organizers who supported this study internationally. Your expert review and feedback was constructive. Your publicizing the study opportunity was invaluable. The interview space provided was an important resource. I acknowledge individual and institutional funders who provided grants and scholarships. I would like to thank family and friends for their generous support. I would like to acknowledge forbearers who made these opportunities possible. Throughout this study and my graduate programs, I took strength from the words of Audre Lode i he poe A Lita fo “uial: …Whe e speak e ae afaid ou ods ill ot be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive Lode, . iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ x 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ......................................................................................................... 1 Significance of the Problem ....................................................................................................... 4 African Descent Bisexual Women and Health Care ................................................................. 4 African Descent Bisexual Women and Social Support ............................................................ 5 African Descent Bisexual Women and Resilience ................................................................... 6 2. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT .................................................................................................... 8 Conceptual and Empirical Context of the Problem ................................................................... 8 Ethnic and Sexual Minority Women, Health Care and HIV/AIDS ............................................ 8 Identity, Disclosure, Social Support and Well-being ............................................................... 9 Cross-National Perspective ...................................................................................................... 11 Overview of Health Care Systems in the US and UK ............................................................. 12 Nondiscrimination Policies in the US and UK ........................................................................ 13 Definition of Terms .................................................................................................................. 14 Social Support Concepts and Terminology ............................................................................ 14 Resilience Terminology .......................................................................................................... 16 Conceptual and Empirical Literature: African Descent Bisexual Women ................................ 16 Discussion of Related Research ............................................................................................. 19 Health care .......................................................................................................................... 19 Social support ...................................................................................................................... 20 Resilience and well-being .................................................................................................... 21 Spirituality ........................................................................................................................... 22 Expressive arts ..................................................................................................................... 22 Relevance to Social Work Research and Practice .................................................................... 23 3. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................... 27 Aims of the Research Study ..................................................................................................... 27 Research Questions .................................................................................................................. 27 Research Design ....................................................................................................................... 29 Grounded Analysis ................................................................................................................. 29 Settings .................................................................................................................................. 30 Sample ................................................................................................................................... 30 Race and ethnicity criteria................................................................................................... 30 Sexual identity and orientation criteria .............................................................................. 31 Sexual and gender criteria ................................................................................................... 31 iv Recruitment ........................................................................................................................... 31 Incentive .............................................................................................................................. 34 Protection of Human Subjects ............................................................................................... 34 Informed consent ................................................................................................................ 34 Confidentiality and data protection .................................................................................... 35 Confidentiality ................................................................................................................... 35 Disclosure of HIV status .................................................................................................... 35 Data protection ................................................................................................................... 35 Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 36 Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 36 Software ............................................................................................................................. 37 Modified grounded analysis ................................................................................................ 37 Transcription ....................................................................................................................... 38 Initial coding ........................................................................................................................ 39 Focused coding .................................................................................................................... 40 Memo writing ...................................................................................................................... 41 Identifying themes and subthemes ..................................................................................... 42 Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................... 43 Accuracy during the process of analysis ............................................................................