Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/10
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Item Restricted NAVIGATING BARRIERS: WOMEN'S CAREER ADVANCEMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA POST-VISION 2030(University of Birmingham, 2024-09) Bakadam, Lina; Cai, MinjieThis dissertation investigates the barriers to women’s career advancement in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in particular, within the context of economic and social changes driven by Vision 2030. The introduction highlights the importance of understanding these barriers as the Kingdom aims to empower its citizens and diversify the economy. The methodology chapter explains the systematic approach to extracting data, quality assessment, and thematic analysis of current literature, uncovering main themes to understand the career advancement of women. The findings emphasise the persistent challenges women encounter, which include cultural expectations, gender disparity, and a lack of support within the workplace. While there is a gradual improvement to empowerment, women remain challenged by a complex landscape of organisational and societal challenges. The discussion chapter integrates the findings with relevant theoretical frameworks, providing insights into recommendations for future research and practical implications targeting the enhancement of women’s role within Saudi society.19 0Item Restricted Straddling Two Worlds: How Linguistic Backgrounds and Sociocultural Norms Influence the Experiences of Saudi Female Expats in Australia(University of Wollongong, 2023-03-08) Alhassoun, Lamia Abdulaziz; Ward, RowenaThis study constructs a collective story of Saudi female expats (SFEs) as they navigate the transition from their conservative society in Saudi Arabia to a new one in Australia. It examines the impact of the SFE’s Arabic background and their English learning experiences in Australia on their lives and explores SFEs perceptions of their self-representation in the social and educational milieu in Australia. Additionally, it sheds light on the intricate relationships between language, culture, gender and self-representation. The study employs a demographic questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with twenty-two SFEs in Australia. The study adopts lenses from social identity theory (Erikson 1968; Tajfel & Turner 1979, 1986), Intragroup marginalisation (Castillo et al. 2007), Social learning theory (Bandura 1977; Ryle 2011) and Oberg's cultural shock theory (1960) to guide the analysis of the study data. The findings of this study reveal that SFEs, generally, have a positive attitude towards learning and using the English language. However, SFEs’ low self-confidence in their English language proficiency negatively impacted their cross-cultural interactions in Australia. The study attributes SFEs' low self-confidence to five factors: limited opportunities to practice English, a preference for socialising with Arabic speakers, the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia's English education policies and limited interest in English improvement. The study also explores how SFEs represent themselves differently in Australia. Their reflections in the research interviews revealed that they define their ‘in’- and ‘out’-groups differently depending on the context in relation to their interlocutor’s ethnicity, gender, language and faith. SFEs indicated that when interacting with Saudi male compatriots, they tend to be formal and direct in line with the norms of their Saudi culture and upbringing marked by gender segregation. However, they are friendlier and more open with non-Saudi male interlocutors due to the more relaxed gender norms in Australia. One of the key findings is that SFEs’ interactions with non-Saudis are influenced by their sense of obligation to represent their faith and nationality in the best light. The study also shows that the SFE’s insufficient knowledge of Australian culture and their low confidence in their English skills, tends to make their interactions with native-English speakers to be direct and to the point. SFEs are aware that they can appear terse for this reason. The lack of opportunities to interact with the host/Australian community and learn about Australian culture was negatively impacted by the social isolation policies imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study contributes to the limited literature on the experiences of SFEs as they navigate cross-cultural contexts and self-representation in Australia. This study offers valuable insights into the real-world challenges experienced by SFEs in adjusting to a more liberal society while maintaining their cultural identity. It sheds light on their perceptions of self-representations and attitude towards learning and using English and straddling cultures in Australia. Practical implications for improving cross-cultural interaction and strategies for enhancing English language education programs to better accommodate the growing SFE community in Australia are discussed in the conclusion.47 0Item Restricted Eating disorder psychopathology predicts heart-rate variability under social evaluative stress in female adolescents(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-08-24) Allehyany, Bshaier; Burmester, VictoriaThis study investigated whether eating disorder psychopathology predicts increased vulnerability to social evaluative stress in female adolescents (mean age = 14.64 years) and whether social anxiety disorder symptoms amplified this relationship. Twenty-two females answered eating disorder and social anxiety psychopathology questionnaires and underwent a modified sing-a-song test to provoke social evaluative stress, while their heart-rate variability was recorded. We extracted mean heart-rate variability intervals for the sing-a-song stress test, and evaluated whether eating disorder psychopathology predicts heart-rate variability using a linear regression model with moderation analysis. Results indicated that higher eating disorder psychopathology predicted lower heart-rate variability (β = -4.082; p =.003) and that only high symptoms of social anxiety intensified this relationship (β =.2973, p =.0001). We demonstrate that subthreshold eating disorder psychopathology may explain increased reactivity to social evaluation in female adolescents, and that social anxiety symptoms may facilitate this relationship. Future work should account for subthreshold eating disorder symptoms when investigating the stress response in female adolescents. As well, possible mechanisms underlying the associations between subthreshold eating disorder symptoms and social stress need to be investigated, such as body image anxiety and fear of weight gain.20 0