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A Musicology Of Record Production - Research Creation, Gender, And Creative Reflective Practice In Project-Paradigm Music Production, Lydia Wilton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research-creation project elucidates the “methodology” of producing records. As an artist-researcher, I investigate how a record producer uses the recording studio as a “musical instrument”. My primary research goal is to answer two fundamental questions about record producing that have yet to be addressed and which cannot be explored successfully by other means: “Does the record producer’s creative agency have musical consequences?”, and “If so, what are they?” Through the creative practices I adopted for this project’s artefact - an album of nine tracks, called Blasphemy, that I produced for the London, Ontario-based rock band Nameless Friends - …

The Role Of Patient And Rehabilitation Factors In The Recovery Of Home And Family Work Roles Following Distal Radius Fracture, Sheena Saju Philip Ms.

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: Distal radius fracture (DRF) is a common upper extremity fracture that causes significant impairment and leads to difficulties in fulfilling important life roles such as indoor and outdoor cleaning, meal preparation, grocery shopping, caring for others, and earning and managing family income. However, clinicians do not routinely address home and family life roles after a DRF. Patient and rehabilitation factors are crucial in addressing home and family work roles (HFWRs). The HFWR questionnaire consists of tasks that are typically performed at home.

Objective: The overarching objective of this thesis is to explore the role of patient and rehabilitation …

"We Are The Living Dead": The Gendered Impacts Of Open-Pit Mining In The Dominican Republic, Klaire Gain

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite a rhetorical commitment to enhancing community well-being, Canadian mining corporations have a history marked by ecological degradation and human rights violations, with women experience disproportionately negative impacts. While Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a desired topography for open-pit mining, the geographical area of the Dominican Republic has been largely absent from the literature. As such, this dissertation, rooted in decolonial ecofeminism, enacted a critical narrative inquiry with 7 women from the Dominican Republic to explore the gendered impacts of open-pit mining on their health and well-being.

This thesis is composed of six chapters, with chapter one introducing …

Conceptual Engineering & Contextualism, Madhavi Mohan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between conceptual engineering and contextualism in philosophy. Conceptual engineering evaluates philosophical theories about concepts against whether they meet normative and political objectives, while contextualism highlights the influence of context on meaning and truth. I argue that conceptual engineering is subject to contextualism, rendering theories about concepts applicable only in specific contexts.

The first chapter examines essentially contested concepts: concepts inevitably subject to contestation, owing to different, equally legitimate reasons philosophers may have for valuing them. Nevertheless, within specific contexts, these concepts serve particular purposes, and conceptions aligned with those purposes better capture their …

Science Attitudes Of Students Enrolled In An Introductory Environmental Science Course, Rajan Brar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examines attitudes towards science for 198 students enrolled in an introductory university environmental science course. Conceptual frameworks include the theory of planned behaviour and the tripart model of attitudes to assess science attitudes. A quantitative research design, using secondary data, is used to address this purpose. Within this study, Enjoyment of Science and Science Anxiety factors of attitudes towards science, components of the affective domain of attitude are compared to student gender, faculty, and academic year using a modified mATSI:2 questionnaire. It is found that faculty displays the most significant association with science attitudes, with students from science …

Exploring Factors Perpetuating The Underrepresentation Of Women Caos In Local Government, Kelly Sutton

MPA Major Research Papers

Despite women's progress in various professional domains, a persistent gender disparity remains evident in local government's most senior non-elected leadership roles. The underrepresentation of women in municipal city management continues, even though women comprise 47.4% of the Canadian labour force (Catalyst, 2020). This research paper aims to understand the underrepresentation of women in municipal Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) roles by examining theoretical perspectives and drawing from recent qualitative research into the gender imbalance in public sector leadership by DeHart-Davis et al. (2020). This research paper aims to shed light on the need for substantive change by unravelling the complexities surrounding …

Equity And Inclusion For Leaders In The School District: Exploring Gender, Michele Radomski

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

There are increasing expectations that educational leaders attend to social justice. However, little attention is paid to their own experience of equity and inclusion, and there is an ongoing omission of gender from organizational discourse. This problem of practice identifies the lack of attention to the experience and implications of gender for leaders in a school district. The organizational improvement plan aims to prioritize gender on the organization’s agenda, bridge the gap between representation and equity and inclusion, and create a gender-inclusive leadership climate. Feminist frames for change establish the underlying change strategy and Lewin’s change model structures the change …

Women And Medicine On The Gold Coast, 1880-1945, Michael Osei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prior to colonial rule and the imposition of western medicine and practices, several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa relied on traditional medicine to treat tropical diseases that ravaged the populace. Specialists in traditional medicine, both men and women, restored and preserved their patients' health through herbarium and spiritism. Like their male counterparts, female traditional medicine practitioners on the Gold Coast were highly respected by people for their knowledge and competence as their communities' primary healers and caregivers. This study, drawing on various primary and secondary sources, including oral traditions, colonial reports, medical journals, and historical accounts, argues that women played a …

A Feminist Analysis Of The Impact Of Covid-19 On Olympic Female Athletes From Canada And The People’S Republic Of China, Dongwan He

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gender equality in sports acquired unprecedented discussion in the past few decades with the efforts of sports organizations such as the United Nations (UN), athletes, professionals, and scholars worldwide. Girls’ participation, women’s media representation, participation of transgender athletes, equal opportunity, equal pay, etc. drew attention and awareness successfully. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 has been limiting the achievement of women in sports due to the cancellation of sports events, postponement of the Olympic Games, stay-at-home orders in lockdown, and restrictions on health measurements. This study utilized methods of semi-structured interviews, media analysis, and comparative analysis to examine the barriers faced …

Gendered Language And Entrepreneurial Joiners, Mihwa Seong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the impact of gendered language in start-up job advertisements on the perceived attractiveness of start-ups among individuals (‘joiners’) interested in working for new firms. While entrepreneurship research has established the prominent role of entrepreneurial joiners in start-ups and the importance of building a gender-diverse team, we know relatively less about how start-ups can attract more women joiners. This dissertation seeks to investigate whether women’s ratings of the attractiveness of joining start-ups increases significantly when start-ups use more feminine language in place of male-centric gendered language. Compared to men, I theorize that women are more sensitive to the …

Teacher Professionalism, Embodiment, And Surveillance: An Autoethnographic Study, Melanie Cloutier-Bordeleau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This autoethnographic study entails using my own situated knowledge and experience as a white bisexual secondary school teacher from a low socioeconomic background as a basis for data generation and analysis. Attention is given to examining the current enforcement of specific norms governing behavioural and physical conduct, and the role these norms play in constructing and reinforcing hierarchical structures of identity related to race, gender, socioeconomic status and sexuality. The main question the study explores is: How does the performativity and performance of educator “professionalism” contribute to constructing/reinforcing hierarchies of identity with respect to gender, sexuality, social class and race? …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Hospitals’ Responses To Institutions: Three Contemporary Essays Concerning Ontario Reforms, Gabriel J. A. Huppé

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation contributes new insights on the antecedents and consequences of hospitals’ responses to institutions. It consists in three essays that collectively explore why and how hospitals balance their technical requirement of providing high-quality and affordable healthcare with an evolving constellation of institutional demands. The collective findings provide a contemporary perspective on the reconditioning of decoupling as a multi-form process, and a nuanced conception of factors affecting the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of practices within hospitals.

Extending research on institutional leadership, Essay 1 examines hospitals’ approaches to an external mandate for energy conservation and climate mitigation. Through a qualitative investigation, it …

Nature, Nurture, Or Both? Study Of Sex And Gender And Their Effects On Pain, Maryam Ghodrati

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As a pain researcher, in order to have a better understanding of pain, we should adopt a multidimensional view, such as the biopsychosocial (BPS) model and consider physical, psychological, and social elements altogether. The studies in this dissertation are part of the bigger project of SYMBIOME in which the aim is to help to create and develop a prognostic clinical phenotype in people post musculoskeletal (MSK) trauma. Chapter 2 presents a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in order to assess the structural validity of the first section of the new Gender Pain and Expectation Scale (GPES). Our analysis indicated a 3-factor …

Food Insecurity In The Agrarian Household: An Analysis Of Gendered Identity, Conjugal Dynamics, And Coping In Northwestern Benin, Rosalind Ragetlie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Food insecurity represents an enduring challenge for subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While gender has been identified as an important determinant of food insecurity in other SSA contexts, this has not been a focus of research in Benin. This dissertation examines how gender shapes food insecurity within the agrarian household by examining the household as a place where the broader structural forces that influence food insecurity and gender play out at a micro-level. I take a mixed-methods approach, drawing on community-level focus groups (n=12), semi-structured interviews (n=40), and a quantitative survey (n=600).

The findings reveal that while food insecurity …

An Analysis Of A Canadian Framework Of Police Response’S On Sexual Assaults: Victim Advocate Case Review Program, Ardiana Berisha

MPA Major Research Papers

One in five sexual assault cases reported to police are deemed to be baseless by investigating officers and are therefore coded as “unfounded”. High rates of unfounded sexual assault cases have revealed significant flaws within the justice system as women’s stories are disbelieved by the police. Coding sexual assault cases as unfounded has become common practice amongst police services across Canada as police officers continue to dismiss sexual violence against women. Police officers play a crucial role as they are the first point of contact within the justice system that determine whether an offence has been committed. Police services across …

Syrian Refugee Women's Experiences With The Ontario Health Care System: A Critical Ethnography Study, Areej Al-Hamad

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There has been growing interest in migration and refugee research; the vulnerability of Syrian refugee women and how they adapt to their host communities. However, there is limited evidence regarding the pre- and post-migration trauma and its impacts on the health of Syrian refugee women in the Canadian context. The purposes of this critical ethnography using intersectional perspectives were: (1) to explore and describe Syrian refugee women’s experiences and meanings of pre- and post-migration trauma and its impact on their health in the context of repeated displacement and migration from their homes and families; (2) to critically examine how the …

Exploring The Mental Health Experiences Of African, Caribbean, And Black Youth In London, Ontario, Lily Yosieph

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This qualitative study explores the mental health experiences of African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) youth in London, Ontario, investigating how the factors of race, gender, culture, and place have shaped their perceptions and experiences of mental health. The data collection and analysis were conducted using a phenomenological approach and a critical lens informed by feminist, intersectionality, and critical race theories. These data illuminate the ways in which these young people’s attitudes toward mental health and help-seeking strategies are impacted by broader social constructs and community expectations, which they navigate and often resist in their everyday lives. Their insights can provide …

The Imitation Of Ecuadorian Assibilated Rhotics By Naïve Andalusian Speakers From Seville, Maria De La Esperanza Ruiz-Peña

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of the present thesis is to establish whether Flege’s “equivalence classification” (Flege, 1995, p. 239) operates in the same way in auditory imitation of an unfamiliar dialect as it does in second language (L2) acquisition of speech. In order to do so, this study investigates how Andalusian Spanish speakers imitate assibilated rhotics produced in Ecuadorian Spanish. Despite substantial growth in interest in D2 phonological acquisition in later years (e.g., Babel, 2009; Nielsen, 2011), little research has been done to determine whether the mechanisms that underlie the production of L2 are also responsible for the auditory imitation of an …

Social Media As A Predictor Of Depression Rates Among Male Versus Female Adolescents During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kaylee A. Fishback

Undergraduate Honours Theses

Technology use has drastically and progressively increased as the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to unfold. Adolescents are now reliant on technology for their education, in addition to communication with friends and family (Pfefferbaum & North, 2020). With the recency of the pandemic, research on the effects of increased internet and social media use for adolescent mental health is decidedly underdeveloped. This study aimed to fill the research gap by examining how the frequency of male and female adolescents’ social media use is associated with depression rates during the pandemic by using a longitudinal design. Participants for this study included 351 …

Blackness, Gender And The State: Afro Women's Organizations In Contemporary Ecuador, Beatriz A. Juarez-Rodriguez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation presents an ethnographic analysis of the Afro women’s social organization CONAMUNE (Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Negras del Ecuador), the political thought and praxis of its members and their entanglement with myriad ethno-racial political spaces in contemporary Ecuador. CONAMUNE is an umbrella organization comprised of Afro women’s grassroots organizations from different provinces of Ecuador. In addition to their activities within CONAMUNE, many of the women with whom I worked have sought out positions of government employment or political representation (as teachers and principals, as employees of government ministries or programs, as local municipal councillors, etc.), through which they bring …

On Unequal Terms: The Indigenous Wage Gap In Canada, Taylor N. Paul

MA Research Paper

Research has demonstrated that Indigenous peoples are economically disadvantaged relative to the rest of the Canadian population. However, research on the Indigenous wage gap specifically has received little attention until recently. In this article, I draw on data from the 2016 Canadian Census to investigate differences in wages between Indigenous peoples and White Canadians, and among Indigenous groups. First Nations face the widest residual gap in wages when compared with White individuals, followed by those with Indigenous ancestry. While Indigenous women experience an 11% to 14% wage gap, only registered First Nations men experience a wage gap of approximately 16%. …

The Mental Health Culture In Hockey: A Scoping Review, Lauren Dormer

MA Research Paper

In any major Canadian city, one can find hockey arenas, outdoor rinks, or a Tim Horton coffee shop on every corner. Between September and April, many Canadians will adorn their favourite players jersey or their favourite teams toque, exuding team pride, further strengthening the idea that Canadian culture is entangled within the world of hockey.

Due to hockey’s role within Canadian identity, this study conducted a scoping literature review in order to conceptualize what we know of mental health within hockey literature. There were three overarching research questions that guided this study: 1) How is mental health defined, measured, or …

Exquisite Corpses: Markedness, Gender, And Death In Video Games, Meghan Blythe Adams

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation analyzes gendered death animations in video games and the way games thematize death to remarginalize marked characters, including women. This project combines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s work on the human subjection to death and Georges Bataille’s characterization of sacrifice to explore how death in games stages markedness. Markedness articulates how a culture treats normative identities as unproblematic while marking non-normative identities as deviant.

Chapter One characterizes play as a form of death-deferral, which culminates in the spectacle of player-character death. I argue that death in games can facilitate what Hegel calls tarrying with death, embracing our subjection to …

A Study Of Gender Representation In Silver Birch Award Nominees From 2009 And 2019: A Queer Theory Perspective, Sara Dimarco

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gender-based ideologies permeate everyday spaces and materials, including children’s literature. This study explores and compares gender representation in Canadian authored fiction nominees for the prestigious Silver Birch award from 2009 and 2019 (OLA, 2019). Using methodological tools from critical discourse study (Fairclough, 2013; Wodak & Meyer, 2016) and ethnographic content analysis (ECA; Altheide, 1987; 2004) with queer theory (Blaise & Taylor, 2012) as a theoretical lens, this study analyzed ten Silver Birch (OLA, 2019) fiction nominee novels from 2009 and ten from 2019. Depictions of gender within the books are assessed through character descriptions, contexts the characters are in, and …

Equity Considerations In Active School Travel Interventions, Alina Medeiros

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Active school travel has benefits for children’s physical and mental health, academic achievement, and the environment. Underscoring active school travel is children’s independent mobility, defined as their ability to travel around their community without adult supervision. Interventions have shown some success in reversing declining trends in active school travel and independent mobility. However, little is known about how interventions have varying impacts on different subgroups of children. This thesis identifies ways to increase equity in active school travel interventions by investigating how equity is currently considered in interventions and gendered disparities in children’s ability to engage in independent mobility. This …

Intimate Partner Violence (Ipv): Clinical And Societal Perspectives, Marudan Sivagurunathan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) can have a lasting impact on survivors’ emotional, physical, and psychological wellbeing. IPV is multifaceted and can influence survivors’ interactions across various institutions, including healthcare settings. This PhD project consists of both qualitative and quantitative studies aimed at exploring the clinical and societal perspectives around IPV.

Study #1 sought to explore the discourses around male IPV drawn from a social networking site (Reddit.com). While some areas related to IPV are well researched, studies on male intimate partner violence survivors are limited. The results from study #1 show that male IPV disclosure is a complex process. While …

Gender And Sexuality-Based Bullying: Student Experiences And Educator Responses, Elizabeth Torrens

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Drawing on qualitative interview data, this dissertation critically examines the issue of gender and sexuality-based bullying (GSB) in the context of Ontario schools. GSB is explained through a theoretical perspective that situates bullying as a mechanism employed by students as they navigate gendered and heteronormative school status structures. Because the status-based structures are so entrenched in educational contexts, a resilience perspective is also adopted to determine best next-steps for mitigating the negative effects of GSB. Further, resilience in this case is viewed through a critical sociological lens that requires the consideration of broader social forces, rather than reducing resilience to …

The Psyche And Gender As A Multiplicity, Jessica N. Ellis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gender appears “unlocatable” because it is not a property of biology. At best, it is widely considered a “social construction” reinforced through institutional norms. This thesis contends that the underlying reason there is such difficulty in theorizing gender constitution is because much of Western philosophy is prefaced on an unrealizable contradiction. The subject is assumed to be constituted by multiple factors such as one’s biology as well as the influence of society. Such a multiplicitous constitution, however, cannot be expressed within an individualistic psyche. The work of Marx is predominately appealed to in order to explain traits of the individual …

Exploring Gender Equity Through Occupation: A Critical Decolonizing Ethnography In Tanzania, Stephanie Huff

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Within the discipline of occupational science, scholars of increasingly diverse geographical spaces have highlighted the necessity of diversity and epistemological expansion to enact transformative scholarship. In response, this dissertation enacted a critical decolonizing ethnographic project with 5 women from Tanzania to explore their experiences of gender inequities.

This thesis is composed of four integrated manuscripts, as well as introduction and conclusion chapters. Manuscript two examines past perspectives and approaches to research which examined gender equity and inequity in Tanzania, illuminating gaps and recommendations for future gendered research in Tanzania. Manuscript three presents an argument for the uptake of Africana Womanism …

Does Higher Education Make A Difference? The Influence Of Educational Attainment On Women’S And Men’S Employment Outcomes, Katelyn Mitri

MA Research Paper

Scholars agree that precarious employment is growing across and within all occupations and industries, but little is known on the educational attainment of precarious workers. Some studies suggest that recent graduates, women, and the less educated are more likely to be employed in precarious work. Other research contends that involuntary precarious employment is rising among all groups and educational levels. Using the May 2018 Labour Force Survey, this study explores whether higher education protects men and women from precarious employment, and if higher education has a protective effect on men’s and women’s wages within precarious employment. Findings suggest that women, …