Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Refugees From Syria Caught Between War And Borders: A Journey Towards Protection, Maissaa Almustafa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the global crisis of protection through the lens of the Syrian refugee crisis and the particular experiences of refugees’ journeys to Sweden.

In doing so, the dissertation challenges the dominant narratives that represent refugees either as victims who deserve aid in their regions, or as threats when they exert their agency and journey towards the global north. In the same vein, the dissertation problematizes the dominant narrative of the “European crisis of migration” and proposes that the “unauthorized” arrivals of refugees in Europe are reflections of a global crisis of protection, a crisis that develops as a …

Host Community Impacts: Learning From The Experience Of Hosting International Volunteers In El Barrial, Suchitoto, Getsemani And San Miguel, El Salvador, Mike Boylan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Previous exploration of International Experiential Learning (IEL) programs has generally focused on the experience of Northern volunteers, without considering the outcomes in Southern host communities. Contemporary scholars raise serious concerns about potential harm being done in Southern host communities as a result of IEL programs that resemble historical colonialism. This study contributes to the growing body of research that addresses this gap in the understanding of Southern host community experiences. The results tell us that the host community members do not articulate negative experiences in the way that post-colonial scholars predict. The analysis of 23 interviews including host community members, …

The Legitimation & Networked Unification Of #Nodapl: Diverse Discourses Of Value Validate A Collective Identity, Jacqueline Marie Ouellette

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

NoDAPL was, first and foremost, an Indigenous-led resistance against the construction of a pipeline in North Dakota. It was also a movement that built solidarity, bridging networks between international Indigenous peoples, Black Lives Matter activists, veterans, and feminists. This discourse analysis of social media and digital texts addresses the networked publics, collective identities, social capital, and intersectionality in applying Van Leeuwen’s (2007) understanding of legitimation. In doing so, the practice of reproducing and extending the values, themes, and images of various algorithmic imaginaries will be explored, as they relate to network homophily, identity construction, and mobilization. This study will argue …

Beneficial Mourning By Inmates Who Have Lost A Significant Person, James Bradley Shoemaker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Incarceration is already replete with loss before someone of significance to an inmate dies. The prison environment challenges every aspect of grieving, and failing to effectively mourn pathologizes grief, reduces quality of living, and results in behaviours that cause recidivism. It is a poignant interaction between this researcher in his role as a chaplain and a particular inmate that provides the impetus for this study. This study begins with a qualitative meta-synthesis that examined 10 qualitative articles and dissertations published over the last 30 years to explore how some inmates manage to effectively grieve the loss of a significant person. …

Building Young People’S Capacity For Critical And Transcendent Engagement: Examining The Institution, The Community, And The Individual As Protagonists Of A School Setting, Livia Dittmer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As a powerful socializing force in Western society, schools have significant influence on young people’s development into adulthood. As powerful agents of societal maintenance and change, adolescents have significant influence on communities and institutions such as schools. In this embedded case study, I use structuration theory, German Critical Psychology, and systems thinking to examine the dynamic relationship between institutional structures and student agency in a school setting. I specifically examine the influence of this relationship on young people’s capacity for critical and transcendent engagement, constructs described further in this work. In the setting of Nancy Campbell Academy (NCA), an international …

Processing Youth Adventure Wellness Experiences: Poetic Representations Of Youth’S Peace Bus Experiences, Ty Th Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This narrative inquiry explored how youth are processing their Peace Bus program experiences two and a half years after program completion. The purpose was to gain an understanding of (1) what program components the participants reflect on, (2) how they conceptualize their program experiences, and (3) what factors contribute to their reflection processes. This research sought to address the gap in literature where little is understood about the ongoing experiences of program participants of adventure wellness programs and the processes that lead to positive changes. As the researcher, I conducted a qualitative study using narrative inquiry and poetic representation methods. …

Hooking In, Activating And Extending: An Institutional Ethnography Of The Family Violence Project Of The Waterloo Region, Ian Degeer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Domestic violence (DV) is a significant social issue requiring a thoughtful and dedicated response. At present, many social service agencies and governmental bodies have a responsibility to provide a response to DV. Increasingly, innovative service delivery models are being used to construct more coherent responses to the violence. One such model, originates from the United States is entitled the Family Justice Centre model. This model of service delivery consists of the agencies responding to DV residing within the same building. The goal of this model is to improve the access to service for victims and to improve collaborative efforts between …

Exploring Profiles Of Lgbtq Social Wellbeing In Waterloo Region, Canada, Kendra Hardy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Literature on the wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people has predominantly examined the negative experiences associated with LGBTQ identity; however, a growing body of literature explores the positive wellbeing of LGBTQ people. The present study examines social wellbeing as the connections across six elements identified in previous literature: discrimination, sense of safety, outness, social support, sense of belonging, and community acceptance. Latent profile analyses (LPA), a person-centered approach, was used to explore these elements of social wellbeing with cisgender LGBQ (n = 406) and transgender (n = 110) participants from a sample of LGBTQ …

Exploring Case Variables Predictive Of Histories Of Mental Illness In Incidents Of Police-Involved Firearm Fatalities In Canada, Michael Ouellet

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The tragedy of police-involved fatalities resulting in the death of individuals with serious mental illness has been brought to the forefront by recent high-profile incidents that have galvanized public concern and criticism that law enforcement organizations must improve their response to people in psychiatric crisis. This thesis employed descriptive and hierarchical logistic regression analyses to understand cases of police-involved shooting fatalities in Canada between 2006 and 2015. More precisely, this research focused on determining whether particular variables predicted group membership between victims with and without a history of mental illness. The General Aggression Model (GAM; Allen, Anderson, & Bushman, 2018) …

Parents Who Kill: Media Constructions Of Male And Female Filicide Cases, Mary Mccluskey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Often, mothers who murder their children are portrayed as “bad mothers”, as “the news media creates monsters out of [those] who transgress what is considered appropriate maternal behavior” (Goc, 2009, p. 42). This is especially important, as the media has created portrayals of females as murderers which are different from portrayals of males who murder their children. Previous research has addressed the association of motherhood in female offenders, however, there is a lack of research that compares the portrayals of females and males who murder their children, formally known as filicide. Using a social constructionist lens, this research analyzes filicide …

Exploring The Personhood And Citizenship Of Persons With Disabilities Among Konkombas In Rural Ghana, Festus Moasun

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Persons with disabilities (PWDs) are susceptible to various forms of mistreatments, particularly in the developing world, such that their personhoods are called to question. It was for this purpose that I set out to explore the personhood and citizenship of PWDs in rural Ghana. I used the constructivist paradigm in addition to the personhood and critical disability theories to guide the study which was conducted using an interpretive phenomenological research approach. To make the findings of the study participant driven, semi-structured interviews were held with PWDs. The findings revealed personhood to be perceived in a rank order of three semi-fluid …

The Geography Of Crime: Placing Geographers In The Space Of Criminologists, Anthony Wv Piscitelli

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Geography of Crime consists of five articles. The first article, Exploring opportunities for geographers to explain the spatial distribution of crime, serves as a key conceptual link between each of the other four articles. This paper provides a broad introduction to the dissertation showing what gaps in the crime literature exist, especially those ripe for analysis by geographers. Three primary directions emerged as a focus of this dissertation: overarching theoretical contributions, specialized geographic quantitative techniques, and qualitative approaches centred on the concept of place.

The second article, Connecting social disorganization theory to broken windows and routine activities proposes …

Bridging The Gaps In Bringing In The Bystander: An Intersectional Approach To Campus-Based Sexual Violence Prevention, Anne E. Rudzinski

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This paper draws upon pilot-test data from an intersectional approach to a sexual violence prevention program on university campuses. While many programs have been created to address the sexual violence epidemic, many focus heavily on white, heterosexual, and cisgender scenarios. This research utilizes the Bringing in the Bystander® workshop, a community-based prevention initiative focused on preventing sexual violence through inspiring students to intervene in pro-social ways. In this analysis, the program maintained the same pedagogical structure, but contained a wider variety of narratives designed to include stories and scenarios about contexts relevant to the experiences of LGBTQ+ and racialized students. …