The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1 - 128

Zak Foste • Keith Edwards • Tracy Davis

ing their own emotions. While these behaviors are not consistent with their own values and beliefs, their mask pushes them towards actions that they feel would be acceptable to other men. Harris (2008) also found that there is a major difference between how men conceptualize masculinity and how they perform it. While the men in Harris’ study stated that being a man meant “having good character” and “respect,” their actions often included expressing demeaning attitudes towards women and engaging in binge drinking. this performance has consequences not only for their own development but also for women and other men.

participate in the study. seth, a pseudonym, is a white heterosexual male who recently transferred to a midwestern regional university of roughly 13,000 students. after receiving informed consent, seth was interviewed twice for approximately 90 minutes each time. the interview questions related to his understanding of himself as a man and what impacted these understandings. in addition, he was asked to record his experiences with masculinity in a journal between the first and second interview. data consisted of these journals, interviews, a member check, and a methodological journal. a constant comparative method of data analysis was employed. in order to establish trustworthiness for this study, a methodological journal tracking decisions about research design and methods was kept and an auditor with significant qualitative research experience was employed. in addition, using a member-check strategy, seth was given transcripts of the interviews and asked to read the manuscript upon which this article is based. Participant comments and reflections were included in the data. Finally, a reflexive journal was kept in order to maintain heightened awareness of researcher positionality, particularly for data analysis. glesne (1999) explains the importance of positionality by stating that “reflexive accounts . . . demand more than personal tales of research problems and accomplishments. they require thoughts about the researcher’s position and how the researcher is affected by the fieldwork and relationships” (p. 177). essentially, the present research seeks to shed light on one college man’s lived experience as it relates to masculine identity development by describing salient contextual factors

METHODS
the present case study was conducted using a constructivist perspective. constructivism suggests that knowledge does not emerge from an independent reality but is built through the perspective of those interpreting it (Vygotsky, 1978). a case study—defined as an “intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single instance, phenomenon, or social unit” (merriam, 1997, p. 21)—allows us to understand the subject in a real-life context. One of the advantages of using a constructivist case study, then, is the intimate relationship between researcher and participant that facilitates rich description (crabtree & miller, 1992). Purposeful sampling was used to select a participant. this form of sampling is based on the assumption that “the investigator wants to discover, understand, and gain insight and therefore must select a sample from which the most can be learned” (merriam, 1997, p. 61). With this in mind, the researcher invited seth, a junior at a regional midwestern university, to

128

The Journal of College and universiTy sTudenT housing

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1