Intersection Theory Research Articles

“Why am I here?”: A phenomenological exploration of first‐generation college student experiences in STEM majors within a predominantly white institution

AbstractFirst‐generation college students (FGCSs) are a growing population in undergraduate education. Research on FGCS primarily focuses on the challenges and barriers they encounter in college. While important, this literature offers a limited view of FGCS as learners. Moreover, minimal literature has examined these students' lived experiences within sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study explores the learning experiences of FGCS (N = 17) in undergraduate STEM programs at a mid‐sized, private, predominantly white institution. Guided by the frameworks of intersectionality and social cognitive career theory, the researchers utilized a qualitative, phenomenological research methodology to hear the perspectives of FGCS to and to identify problematic higher educational structures in STEM. Findings point to an elitist stance underlying STEM programs based in general disciplinary norms that restricted FGCS access to STEM majors and careers across social, academic, and professional elements of the academic experience. FGCS who were multiply minoritized based upon race, gender, and social class experienced the compounding of marginalization, and academic success and persistence came at a personal cost. Students also reported relying predominantly on personal strengths and motivations to overcome elitism in STEM rather than on institutional supports. Findings also highlight the variation in the first‐generation experience and identify the unique barriers FGCS encounter within STEM fields. Implications for dismantling inequitable structures for higher education in STEM attending to the social, academic, and professional inclusion of FGCS.

Lorentzian Fans

Abstract We introduce the notion of Lorentzian fans, which form a special class of tropical fans that are particularly well-suited for proving Alexandrov–Fenchel-type inequalities. To demonstrate the utility of Lorentzian fans, we prove a practical characterization of them in terms of their two-dimensional star fans. We also show that Lorentzian fans are closed under many common tropical fan operations, and we discuss how the Lorentzian property descends to the underlying tropical variety, allowing us to deduce Alexandrov–Fenchel-type inequalities in the general setting of tropical intersection theory on tropical fan varieties.

The interplay of gender and perceived sexual orientation at the bargaining table: A social dominance and intersectionalist perspective

Prior research suggests that female negotiators often obtain worse outcomes than male negotiators. The current research examines whether this pattern extends to the large subset of men and women who identify as gays and lesbians. In particular, we interweave scholarship on gender stereotypes with work on intersectionality and MOSAIC theory to develop a theoretical model that anticipates how male and female negotiators will be treated at the bargaining table based on whether they are perceived to be heterosexual or homosexual. This model predicts that homosexual women, like heterosexual men, will receive more beneficial negotiation offers and outcomes than heterosexual women and homosexual men. Additionally, it suggests that this will happen because people hold markedly different behavioral expectations for male and female heterosexual and homosexual negotiators. The results of five experimental and audit studies involving diverse samples of participants including Masters Students in the U.S. and India, individuals selling items on Craigslist, and street vendors in India provide robust support. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of considering gender and sexual orientation in tandem when studying negotiation.

The Conundrum of Identity in the Omani Higher Education: A Case Study of an English Language Teaching (ELT) Context

The developing status of the Omani higher education has made this sector subject to both national and global influences. Such influences created inconsistencies between the demands of the local context and those of the increasingly globalizing context, which resulted in a nationally diverse faculty body. This paper draws on the Social Identity Approach (SIA) and the intersectionality theory to argue that identity in the workplace could be understood better through focusing on processes rather than individual narratives since processes reveal much of the complexity of prototypes especially when applied to workgroups. The paper reports the findings of a qualitative case study conducted in an English language-teaching department in Oman. The study explored identity intersectionalities within a workgroup by analyzing the data generated through 16 interviews, eight meeting observations and document analysis. The thematic analysis reveals that identities are constructed based on intersections of language, nationality, contract and professional identity. Such intersections were evident in relation to the process of recruitment, employment security and retention, staff inclusion, and professional identity enactment. These findings demonstrate that analyzing identity at the intra-categorical level sheds light on its effects at the individual level. The paper concludes by highlighting theoretical and practical implications that are relevant to ELT contexts internationally.

Continuum of Trauma: Fear and Mistrust of Institutions in Communities of Color During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Historical, cultural, and social trauma, along with social determinants of health (SDOH), shape health outcomes, attitudes toward medicine, government, and health behaviors among communities of color in the United States (U.S.). This study explores how trauma and fear influence COVID-19 testing and vaccination among Black/African American, Latinx/Indigenous Latin American, and Native American/Indigenous communities. Leveraging community-based participatory research methods, we conducted 11 virtual focus groups from January to March of 2021 with Black/African American (n = 4), Latinx/Indigenous Latin American (n = 4), and Native American/Indigenous (n = 3) identifying community members in Inland Southern California. Our team employed rapid analytic approaches (e.g., template and matrix analysis) to summarize data and identify themes across focus groups and used theories of intersectionality and trauma to meaningfully interpret study findings. Historical, cultural, and social trauma induce fear and mistrust in public health and medical institutions influencing COVID-19 testing and vaccination decisions in communities of color in Inland Southern California. This work showcases the need for culturally and structurally sensitive community-based health interventions that attend to the historical, cultural, and social traumas unique to racial/ethnic minority populations in the U.S. that underlie fear and mistrust of medical, scientific, and governmental institutions.

The Right to Cyberbully? A Gendered Analysis During COVID-19 in Malaysia

This paper explores the rhetoric of cyberbullying with a focus on Malaysian female influencers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research objectives entailed identifying various critical rhetoric and attacks against female influencers on digital platforms, understanding diverse levels of cyberbullying experienced by influencers from different backgrounds, and analysing reasons behind online aggressive behaviours. The study's theoretical framework contributes to intersectionality theory by examining how the COVID-19 context shapes nuances in Female Cyber Victimisation. Methodologically, the research employs critical discourse analysis to study language in online comments and responses reflecting cyberbullying against Malaysian female influencers. The analysis covers social media platforms (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) and forums (Hardware Zone, Lowyat.net, Cari.com.my), focusing on cyberbullying content over two years. Three prominent Malaysian female influencers targeted by cyberbullying namely Cathryn Li, Veveonah and Ain Husniza were selected for their distinct demographics and contexts, showcasing varying cyberbullying rhetoric. Findings reveal male internet commenters' presumptions about female influencers are shaped by religion and modesty perceptions. Influencers challenging gender norms face escalated negativity. Cathryn Li, perceived as less modest and non-Muslim, faced extensive derogatory comments affecting her mental health. Ain Husniza faced mockery due to her Malay Muslim background, while Veveonah was targeted for political motives. Rooted in conservative gender roles, societal expectations contribute to targeting female influencers, resulting in ridicule and harassment. These cases underscore the intricate interplay of gender, cultural norms, and online harassment, highlighting the necessity for comprehensive interventions to combat cyberbullying and safeguard the well-being of female influencers. Keywords: COVID-19, cyberbullying, gender, influencers, female cyber victimization.

Retrieving Materialism: The Continued Relevance of Dorothy Smith

In this article, I argue that Smith’s continued relevance coincides with more recent retrievals of Marx-inspired materialism. This materialism and the associated understanding of human beings—the social, language, and world people share in common—certainly do not capture all there is to say about Smith’s eclectic and expansive social theory. However, the material dimension distinguishes her work from many other feminist sociologies and results in her continued relevance as a thinker who brings to the table another way of doing feminist sociology. I illustrate this by showing how Smith’s Marx-inspired materialism and its associated understanding of language offer a productive and timely alternative to the feminist social theory of anti-categorical intersectional theory and new materialist theory.

Non-reductive geometric invariant theory and hyperbolicity

The Green–Griffiths–Lang and Kobayashi hyperbolicity conjectures for generic hypersurfaces of polynomial degree are proved using intersection theory for non-reductive geometric invariant theoretic quotients and recent work of Riedl and Yang.

Isovariant homotopy theory and fixed point invariants

An isovariant map is an equivariant map between G-spaces which strictly preserves isotropy groups. We consider an isovariant analogue of Klein–Williams equivariant intersection theory for a finite group G. We prove that under certain reasonable dimension and codimension conditions on H-fixed subspaces (for H≤G), the fixed points of a self-map of a compact smooth G-manifold can be removed isovariantly if and only if the equivariant Reidemeister trace of the map vanishes. In doing so, we study isovariant maps between manifolds up to isovariant homotopy, yielding an isovariant Whitehead's theorem. In addition, we speculate on the role of isovariant homotopy theory in distinguishing manifolds up to homeomorphism.

"I don't have the energy": Racial stress, young Black motherhood, and Canadian social policies.

Significant socio-economic, health, and mental health disparities due to highly entrenched and systemic anti-Black racism in Canadian institutions, policies, and practices are now well documented in research and policy reports. Yet, few in-depth studies have addressed the mental health impacts of anti-Black racism on Canadian populations. This article is rooted in a community-based, qualitative research project with young first and second-generation Black Caribbean-Canadian mothers and is informed by Black Feminist epistemologies and intersectional theories and methodologies. Our research demonstrates how participants' childhood experiences with xenophobic and racist immigration policies and educational, child welfare, and childcare systems caused their future mental health challenges as young Black mothers, and how these struggles were exacerbated by their encounters with the racist, ageist, xenophobic medical, social, and mental health services they had to access as young mothers. Based on these findings, we recommend enhancements to current social policies to minimize the differential mental health impacts on young Black Canadian mothers.

Exploring Environmental Inequalities among Marginalized Communities across the World

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to explore the pervasive issue of environmental inequalities that disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
 Methodology: The study adopted a desktop methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library.
 Findings: The findings revealed that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to issues of environmental inequalities that impact marginalized communities. The empirical review revealed the stark reality that marginalized communities, often characterized by low socioeconomic status and limited access to resources, bear the brunt of environmental hazards and injustices. These disparities are not only detrimental to the health and well-being of these communities but also perpetuate cycles of poverty and hinder their ability to thrive. The findings of this study emphasize the significance of formulating targeted policies and interventions to rectify the environmental injustices faced by marginalized communities. Addressing these disparities requires a multifaceted approach that takes into account the complex intersections of race, class, and environmental well-being.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Critical theory, Environmental Racism theory and the Intersectionality theory may be used to anchor future studies on environmental justice and marginalized communities. The study recommends that there is need for inclusive decision making that involves community members, there is need for investing in sustainable infrastructure and promoting environmental awareness among others.

At the Intersections of Gender Inequality and State Fragility in Africa

ABSTRACT Intersectionality has become a widely used theoretical lens through which scholars examine women’s political and economic participation. Intersectional frameworks analyze the ways in which formal state structures produce gender inequalities. It is precisely this conceptual and empirical strength that make a theory originally rooted in the experiences of Black women in the United States, applicable to other groups of women in a range of national contexts. Extensive debates surround the generalizability of intersectional theory. Using my work on gender inequality as a predictor of state fragility in the African region, this piece addresses these questions both conceptually and methodologically. My larger project is a cross-national study; however, I will use original country case study datasets from women’s local civil society organizations in Nigeria and Ghana to illustrate the relationships between institutionalized inequalities and the mobilization efforts of different groups of women. First, I begin by defining intersectionality. Next, I combine African feminists and African Muslim feminists’ theoretical contributions which extend and expand intersectionality. This piece contributes to conversations about the ways in which intersectionality can be applied to other groups of Black women outside of the United States. Third, I demonstrate how intersectionality is used to capture the range of priorities and strategies activists used to define and promote gender equality within formal state structures.

Confronting Anti-Muslim Racism and Islamism: An Intersectional Perspective on Muslim Women’s Activism in Germany

ABSTRACT This article explores how Muslim women’s activism unfolds in the context of anti-Muslim racism and Islamism in contemporary Germany. In particular, it identifies both gendered forms of anti-Muslim racism and Islamism encountered by Muslim women’s organizations and ways they respond to it. Drawing on theories of intersectionality and boundary making, this study identifies the most common strategies used to confront anti-Muslim racism and Islamism and their implications for intersectional boundary making. For this purpose, six expert interviews with representatives of major Muslim women’s organizations were conducted and supplemented by data from internet research and participatory observation. Based on a Grounded Theory-inspired approach, the findings show that the responses of Muslim women’s organizations to anti-Muslim racism and Islamism reconfigure group boundaries. They create more inclusive spaces in which boundary formations by religion, race, and ethnicity and gender are transcended.

“Walking between the raindrops”: The hybrid and Intersecting Identities of Arab women with a PhD in Israel

This study examines Palestinian-Arab women with a PhD in Israel. Arabs represent about one-fifth of the country’s population, and despite significant modernization, Arab society remains largely conservative. The study relies on gender and ethnic identity development theories, as well as intersectionality theory. Based on interviews with Arab women who combine an academic career with family life, the findings highlight the barriers they have overcome, as well as opportunities that have promoted their career. It concludes that despite barriers that impede women’s progress, particularly in conservative societies, Arab women academics have realized their ambitions and become role models.

Intersection Theory of Polymatroids

Abstract Polymatroids are combinatorial abstractions of subspace arrangements in the same way that matroids are combinatorial abstractions of hyperplane arrangements. By introducing augmented Chow rings of polymatroids, modeled after augmented wonderful varieties of subspace arrangements, we generalize several algebro-geometric techniques developed in recent years to study matroids. We show that intersection numbers in the augmented Chow ring of a polymatroid are determined by a matching property known as the Hall–Rado condition, which is new even in the case of matroids.

Sexuality and Mental Health of Pakistani-Descent Adolescent Girls living in Canada: Perceptions and Recommendations

In Canada, the demands of female immigrant adolescents in terms of sexual health are largely unmet and have grown significantly in recent years. According to studies, racialized immigrant adolescents are less likely than non-immigrant adolescents to be knowledgeable about sexual and reproductive health and to use resources for sex education and related services. This difference seems to be related to socio-cultural and religious practices in Pakistani immigrant adolescents. This paper intends to explain the viewpoints of female adolescents of first- or second-generation Pakistani descent who reside in Canada with regard to their development of sexuality and psychological well-being. Moreover, this paper also describes how female adolescents perceive the necessity to support their sexuality as they go through the adolescent stage. Individual interviews and timelines were created using qualitative interpretative descriptive design. We included 21 female adolescents of first- or second-generation Pakistani ethnicity using a purposive sample. Data analysis was performed using a thematic analysis. The findings indicate that immigrant adolescent girls received conflicting messages about sexuality from their parents which impacted their psychological well-being. Additionally, survey participants noted that prejudice, exclusion from sex education classes, and a lack of sexual health information contributed to social isolation, health care avoidance, and poor mental health outcomes like melancholy and anxiety among adolescent girls. The absence of sexuality-related communication with parents and the scarcity of medical professionals who can relate to and address the needs and realities of immigrants may have an impact on the participants’ experiences. Female immigrant girls also spoke up on the need for open, honest, and stigma-free conversations as well as for the need to end the taboo around the subject of sexuality. This study used principles from both intersectionality and postmodern feminist theories to increase our understanding of the interplay between the experiences of developing sexuality and overall well-being in female immigrant adolescents of Pakistani descent. It is crucial to involve, listen to, and incorporate female adolescents’ voices when planning and implementing interventions to support healthy sexuality among immigrant adolescents.

Progressive borealism and the diversity deficit in Iceland’s constitutional reform process

ABSTRACT Efforts to rewrite Iceland’s constitution have attracted significant attention, being heralded as the world’s first ‘crowdsourced constitution’ and a pioneering example of deliberative democracy. Such claims fit into a wider pattern of what this paper terms progressive borealism: exoticising Iceland as a progressive utopia at once both part of and removed from Europe, predicated on the systematic exclusion of marginalised groups. The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly, it describes the phenomenon of progressive borealism, which relies on the reimagination of colonial-era depictions of Iceland’s liminality, purity and wildness. Essential to this notion is the importance ascribed to whiteness and racialisation of ethnic minorities. Secondly, it considers how progressive borealism has impacted Iceland’s constitutional reform process. Data is taken from a deliberative poll which formed the basis of recommendations to the Icelandic Parliament. The data demonstrate a diversity deficit, meaning that the most marginalised residents are unable to participate in debates over Iceland’s future, challenging the claim that social diversity is irrelevant in democratic processes such as deliberative polling. The analytical framework draws insights from theories of intersectionality and superdiversity to reveal that the lack of inclusivity is a product of structural forces generating and perpetuating systematic exclusion of marginalised communities. The paper closes by considering the prospects for meaningful constitutional change in this context.

A case of ‘de-immigrantization’: when sexual minority individuals lose immigrant status

Individuals generally hold multiple, and sometimes stereotypically contrasted, group memberships which may change depending on uncontrollable contextual factors. For instance, if someone is a foreigner, there exist certain social stereotypes regarding their nationality which may influence others’ conceptualizations. However, how might an intersection of memberships, such as being both foreign and gay, affect natives’ perceptions of them when these stereotypes may not converge? Across four experiments, the stereotypes attributed to generalized and specific groups were examined to better understand intersectional prototypicalities. Results indicated certain cases in which immigrants may be “de-immigrantized”, or, perceived as less stereotypically immigrant. More specifically, Portuguese participants viewed gay immigrants as less prototypically immigrant, but did not view lesbian immigrants as less prototypically immigrant, bringing into question the complexity of double minority conceptualizations. Additionally, individuals from nationalities with a higher perceived percentage of gays or lesbians in their population (e.g., Brazil and France) were generally viewed as less prototypically immigrant than individuals from nationalities with a lower perceived percentage of gays or lesbians in their population (e.g., India and Japan). Conclusions provide support for intersectional theories and yield additional insights into the categorization of multiple minority groups on the basis of sexuality and nationality.

Examining the Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment: The Role of Exclusionary School Discipline & Criminal Justice Contact

Abstract Black men and women have different levels of average educational attainment, yet few studies have focused on explaining how and why these patterns develop. One explanation may be inequality in experiences with institutional punishment through exclusionary school discipline and criminal justice exposure. Drawing on intersectional frameworks and theories of social control, I examine the long-term association between punishment and the Black gender gap using data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY-C). Decomposition analyses reveal that about one third of the gender gap can be explained by gender differences in experiences with institutional punishments, net of differences in observed behaviors. These measures are predictive at key educational transition points, including finishing high school and earning a 4-year college degree. Though Black boys and girls have similar family backgrounds and grow up in similar neighborhoods, results suggest that Black girls have a persistent advantage in educational attainment due in part to their lower levels of exposure to exclusionary school discipline and the criminal justice system. In addition, I find that gender differences in early achievement, early externalizing behavioral problems, school experiences, and substance use in adolescence and early adulthood are associated with gender differences in educational attainment. Taken together, these results illustrate the importance of punishment disparities in understanding disparate educational outcomes over the life course of Black men and women.

Segre-driven radicality testing

We present a probabilistic algorithm to test if a homogeneous polynomial ideal I defining a scheme X in Pn is radical using Segre classes and other geometric notions from intersection theory which is applicable for certain classes of ideals. If all isolated primary components of the scheme X are reduced and it has no embedded components outside of the singular locus of Xred=V(I), then the algorithm is not applicable and will return that it is unable to decide radically; in all the other cases it will terminate successfully and in either case its complexity is singly exponential in n. The realm of the ideals for which our radical testing procedure is applicable and for which it requires only single exponential time includes examples which are often considered pathological, such as the ones drawn from the famous Mayr-Meyer set of ideals which exhibit doubly exponential complexity for the ideal membership problem.