This volume explores the life stories of women who were former members of Mormon fundamentalist polygamous societies, from their own perspectives, to seek insight into their readiness for higher education settings. In order to support all learners in higher education, it is important to understand the unique needs of women students who have non-traditional formal schooling experiences and/or have come from restrictive or patriarchal cultures. This book helps further the discourse by providing recommendations for inclusive programs that consider how to develop elements of self-concept, empowerment, and motivation necessary for higher education success—academically and beyond.

Psychosocial Impact of Polygamy in the Middle East is the first to deal with polygamy in the Middle East in a comprehensive way. This book fills a gap in the literature by addressing the question of the psychosocial impact of polygamy on all members of polygamous families by offering a new way of examining family structure, such as father-mother, father-children, mother-children relationships, and the relationships between offspring from different mothers. It introduces a model for intervention with polygamous families for scholars and practitioners. This book also explores Islam’s role in polygamy as well as the social and economic consequences of the phenomena.

From the author of A Midwife's Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for History, and The Age of Homespun--a revelatory, nuanced, and deeply intimate look at the world of early Mormon women whose seemingly ordinary lives belied an astonishingly revolutionary spirit, drive, and determination. A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, minute-books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never-before-told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon "plural marriage," whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, fifty years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress, and who became political actors in spite of, or because of, their marital arrangements. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, writing of this small group of Mormon women who've previously been seen as mere names and dates, has brilliantly reconstructed these textured, complex lives to give us a fulsome portrait of who these women were and of their "sex radicalism"--the idea that a woman should choose when and with whom to bear children.

The author delves deep into the diaries and autobiographies of twenty-nine polygamous women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, providing a rare window into the lives they led and revealing their views and experiences of polygamy, including their well-founded belief that their domestic contributions would help to build a foundation for generations of future Mormons.

From The Gallup Organization-the most respected source on the subject-comes a fascinating look at the importance of measuring public opinion in modern society. For years, public-opinion polls have been a valuable tool for gauging the positions of American citizens on a wide variety of topics. Polling applies scientific principles to understanding and anticipating the insights, emotions, and attitudes of society. Now in POLLING MATTERS: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People, The Gallup Organization reveals: What polls really are and how they are conducted Why the information polls provide is so vitally important to modern society today How this valuable information can be used more effectively and more...