Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Quilts As Social Text, Helen Kathryn Ball

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The acts of writing and reading are exquisitely intertwined at a level that is deeper than the mere writing of a report. These acts are social. Given that our intent is to study social phenomena and re-present them in a text, how can we accomplish this task in a way that does not perpetuate the social scientific discursive tradition that privileges the positionless, invisible, disengaged account? Using a feminist-postmodernist approach to qualitative research, this paper explores the crisis of representation in social science writing. The discursive practices of social scientific knowledge production are explored through the creation of quilts as …

Restaging The Welfare Diva: Case Studies Of Single Motherhood And Social Policy, Iara Lessa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The single mother has been an enduring and representative character in the development of social welfare. Casted as the embodiment of the various crises of the family which Western democratic nations have experienced throughout the twentieth century, she is the representative of what is outside the foundation of a desirable life: an economically dependent family unit without a male head. Nevertheless, the single mother is also an actual woman raising children alone struggling for survival under very adverse circumstances. In its materiality, it is this body, not the allegorical character, who is the subject of studies and interventions concerned with …

Impact Of Gender And Culture: Contributing Factors To Satisfactory Long-Term Marriages, Maria Yip Ling Cheung

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The constructs of gender and culture have been neglected in our understanding of marital relationships. With the recent upsurge of postmodernism, the two constructs have come into focus as essential to furthering our understanding of these relationships. My doctoral dissertation research is a cross-cultural comparative study of five Hong Kong Chinese immigrant couples in Canada and five Euro Canadian couples who were born in Canada I used a social construction perspective to examine the gender and cultural processes that evolve in the long-term satisfactorily married couples. Couples who have been married for thirty to thirty-six years were under study.

I …

The Social Construction Of A Nonabuser Image: A Study Of A Post-Treatment Male Abuser Self-Help Group, Bruce Alan Bidgood

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This paper chronicles the experiences of the members of a post-treatment mutual support group for wife abusers (MS group). A review of the accumulated research on male abuser interventions suggests that this field is dominated by positivist program evaluative efforts. There is a paucity of qualitative research initiatives into the experiences of this population. The paper attempts to contribute to the very small but growing body of qualitative research on male abusers through the description of a grounded theory-naturalistic inquiry investigation into the individual and organizational strategies used by the members to construct an image of themselves as non-abusers. The …

A Healing Story: A Family Systems View Of The Intertwining Of Family Stories With The Biblical Narrative, John Frederick Nunns

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

God's covenant with Abraham embodied a promise of a great family beginning with a son being born to Sarah in her old age. Abraham is considered a man of great faith. What drove Abraham's faith? Was it an altruistic desire to serve God or was it a strong desire to have a family or an intertwining of both‘? This thesis proposes to examine how emotional family process shapes our faith and how faith development shapes our ‘families’. Every family has a story to tell. ln the introduction I share my family story. The focus of chapter one is how God's …

Rural Images, Tourism And Sustainability: Perceptions Of Rural Accommodation Operators And Their Visitors In Waterloo-Wellington Region, Ontario, Kelley Anne Mcclinchey

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study was to investigate rural images and perceptions of rural accommodation operators and their visitors, and to explore the contribution of tourism to sustainability in the Waterloo-Wellington region. The objectives were; to investigate and compare images, as perceived by rural hosts and visitors, and as projected through accommodation brochures; to compare perceived and projected images with ideal rural images; and to explore the role of rural tourism in sustaining rural cultures and contributing to sustainable rural development. Images and perceptions of rural accommodation operators were obtained via personal interviews and visitors’ perceptions were gathered through the …

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between School Setting And The Self-Esteem Of Grade-Six Girls, Maureen Thoroughgood Kropf

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study had three purposes: 1) to explore the relationship of school setting and the self-esteem of grade-six girls, with setting defined in terms of elementary (K-6), middle (6-8) and combined (K-8); 2) to explore the relationship of school setting and the self-esteem of grade-six girls, with setting defined in terms of urban and rural; 3) to contribute Canadian knowledge to the predominantly American research on the relationship between self-esteem of students and school settings and transitions. Two major theories from this literature emerge. The first, a cumulative change theory, suggests that the cumulative effects of developmental changes and the …