Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Data-Driven Analysis Of Video Game Culture And The Role Of Let's Plays In Youtube, Ana Ruiz Segarra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Video games have become an important part of the global popular cultures that are connecting broader audiences of all ages around the world. A recent phenomenon that has lasted almost ten years is the creation and upload of gaming-related videos on YouTube, where Let’s Plays have a considerable presence. Let’s Plays are videos of people playing video games, usually including the game footage and narrated by the players themselves. In this work I use the metadata, of popular channels and their videos to analyze the current state of video game culture in YouTube and what is the role of Let's …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of A Modified Cystoscopy Technique, Khalil Hetou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction

Pain, anxiety and embarrassment are well documented feelings in patients undergoing ambulatory diagnostic cystoscopy. In this study, we explored utilizing Peak-end theory in improving pain perception in patients undergoing diagnostic cystoscopy.

Materials and Methods

We conducted a randomized clinical trial at the London Health Sciences Center for patients undergoing an ambulatory diagnostic cystoscopy for the first time. Males and females as well as allocation ratios were 1:1. The control arm received a standard cystoscopy. In the intervention arm the cystoscope was left for additional 2 minutes without further manipulation in the bladder before scope removal. The primary outcome was …

Biopolitics, Risk, And Reproductive Justice: The Governing Of Maternal Health In Canada's Muskoka Initiative, Jacqueline Potvin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I examine how Canada’s Muskoka Initiative discursively constructs and addresses maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) as a global development problem. I evaluate how the Muskoka Initiative aligns with, and departs from feminist articulations of sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice. I do this by analyzing how the Muskoka Initiative drew on and reinforced dominant norms of motherhood, and aligned with neoliberal development frameworks. I also examine how the reproductive bodies and lives of women in the Global South were configured as sites of both development intervention and biopolitical governance. My findings are based on a …

Opportunity, Constraint, And Capital In Canadian Ice Hockey, Andrew English

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The study explored the potential social benefits and motivations of participation in sport beyond those that pertain solely to healthy active living. Using organized youth ice hockey in Canada, the study also examined how cultural context can be a factor in the facilitation of such benefit, as well as the ways the game can reflect and reproduce inequalities in society more generally. A framework based on Pierre Bourdieu’s assertions on social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capital, was used to analyze data from ten semi-structured interviews with men who are former youth hockey players. The interview data revealed that through hockey …

Informing Care: Mapping The Social Organization Of Families’ Information Work In An Aging In Place Climate, Nicole K. Dalmer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Within an institutional ethnography method of inquiry, this dissertation makes visible the information work that permeates the care work of families of people living with dementia who are also aging at home. An institutional ethnography privileges people’s everyday work and acknowledges that local contexts are influenced by translocal, ruling relations. To map out the social organization of family caregivers’ information work, this dissertation details four separate, yet interrelated studies. The first study comprises two sets of interviews: one with 13 family caregivers of older adults to understand their experiences of the information work they do and a second with five …

Canadians Misbehaving: A Quantitative Analysis Of The Factors Contributing To Perceived Frequency Of Organizational Misbehaviour By Employees And Employers, Brendan S.J. Watts

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Individuals do not always follow the rules at work, yet it is not entirely clear what conditions generally contribute to higher rates of misbehaviour. Much of the research on organizational misbehaviour is ethnographic or based on limited sample populations (single organization, single industry, etc.), so there remains a gap in the literature for findings representative of a wider population and comparison across occupational classes. Additionally, there has been an over-emphasis on the study of misbehaviour by employees, while employer misbehaviour remains relatively unexplored within the literature. Organizational misbehaviour is also often treated as an objective act with little recognition for …

Oral Health, Dental Insurance Coverage, And Preventive Dental Care Utilization: The Case Of Immigrants In Canada, Yujiro Sano

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Oral health is essential for social, economic, and psychological well-being. Yet, we know very little about oral health among adult immigrants in Canada. Framing oral health as determined by a wide range of social, economic, cultural, and political conditions, three integrated articles in this dissertation aim to understand how some adult immigrants potentially experience disadvantages in accessing optimal oral health, dental insurance coverage, and preventive dental care utilization, due to their vulnerable positions in Canada.

Using the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), the first article examines whether the ‘healthy immigrant effect’ extends to self-rated oral health in Ontario, Canada. Findings …

Internationalization Of Higher Education Within Canada’S Migration Management Framework: Supply Side Of International Student Migration, Alexandra Bozheva

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation offers an integrative look into the supply side of international student migration (ISM) in Canada. Within its scope, supply side of ISM is understood as a space of interactions of the two key involved domains: education industry and migration management.

Drawing from previous empirical and theoretical works, this thesis investigates a set of research questions, starting with: (1) how the institutional domain structures the international student enrolment, and (2) how the pursuit of education suppliers’ collective agenda can influence policies defining ISM. With the neoliberal transformations of the late 1970s in education funding, Canadian higher education institutions (HEIs) …

Ideology Over Evidence? The Place Of Values Within The Safe Streets And Communities Act, Alyssa Holden

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the context of Canadian policymaking, the alleged ‘punitive turn’ demonstrated by the Harper government from 2006-2015 was extraordinary. Under this turn, punitiveness coincided with a rejection of empirical evidence (Kelly and Puddister, 2017; Doob and Webster, 2015 2016; Marshall, 2015; Newell, 2013 Mallea, 2010). The controversial bill, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, has been regarded as one of the most poignant examples of this rhetoric (Marshall, 2015; Newell, 2013). This thesis investigated the role of evidence and penal populism in policymaking through a content analysis of the legislative debates of the SSCA. Drawing on a neo-Weberian framework this …

Intelligible Variability: Narratives Of Male Sex Work In London Ontario Canada, Nathan Dawthorne

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Compared to women, there is limited knowledge concerning men working in the sex trade in Canada. London (Ontario) in particular has been the epicentre of campaigns and lobbying against the sex industry for its alleged exploitation of women. In this environment, most policymakers and service providers argue that men-who-sell-sex are non-existent or are so rare that they are not worth consideration, if they are acknowledged in the first place. Yet other gendered configurations of the sex industry do exist. Given the city’s lack of comprehensive inquiry, this dissertation sets about finding these men and documenting their life histories. This allows …

Skills And Student Affairs: A Discourse Analysis, Shannon Mckechnie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Media, industry, and other public actors have claimed that a ‘skills gap’ exists in students exiting post-secondary education and entering the workforce. The Ontario provincial government has developed policy, the Highly Skilled Workforce Strategy, to provide directives to universities in the province to provide skills development to students to aid in closing the gap and providing a workplace relevant education. In this study, I explore the experiences of student affairs and services (SAS) staff responsible for enacting provincial policy related to skills development at the university level by investigating the discourses that shape policy and practices of these staff …

Transgender Youtubers And The Power Of Coming Out: Existentialism, Gender Performance, And Self-Actualization, Meghan Miller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The transgender community has historically faced discrimination and oppression. However, the internet has emerged as a preeminent resource for transgender people to seek community and visibility, with YouTube acting as an especially valuable visual repository of self-representation. The present research is concerned with examining how transgender YouTube creators use the platform for self-actualization through the lens of existentialist and gender performance theory. Employing a qualitative content analysis of gender disclosure videos to explore this problem, this study shows how transgender YouTubers seek personal authenticity and self-disclosure, especially with the help of and in relation to their audiences. Further, having come …

The Economic Integration Of Lgb Immigrants: The Role Of Social Relationships, Sagi Ramaj

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Using the 2008 and 2013 Canadian General Social Survey, I analyze economic outcomes—employment, income, homeownership—of Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) immigrants compared to their heterosexual and/or native-born peers. I explore how LGB immigrants differ from others in terms of sociodemographic traits, human capital, and social relationships, and how this produces car disparities by sexual orientation and nativity status. Gay immigrants are faring as well, or better, in the labor market compared to heterosexuals and Canadian-born gays. Bisexual immigrants have a labor market disadvantage relative to heterosexuals and Canadian-born bisexuals. LGB immigrants are disadvantaged with regards to their homeownership attainment. Socio-demographic …

The Politics Of Wounds, Jonathan Nash

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What configuration of strategies and discourses enable the white male and settler body politic to render itself as simultaneously wounded and invulnerable? I contextualize this question by reading the discursive continuities between Euro-America’s War on Terror post-9/11 and Algeria’s War for Independence. By interrogating political-philosophical responses to September 11, 2001 beside American rhetoric of a wounded nation, I argue that white nationalism, as a mode of settler colonialism, appropriates the discourses of political wounding to imagine and legitimize a narrative of white hurt and white victimhood; in effect, reproducing and hardening the borders of the nation-state. Additionally, by turning to …

"We Were Meant To Go Down One Road, But Now We Have Rerouted": A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Experience Of Aging Out-Of-Place, Sachindri Wijekoon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In an age of globalization, the experience of aging in a foreign land is part of the late-life experience of many older adults. However, studies of aging and migration have largely failed to conceptualize the unique resettlement experiences of immigrants entering North America as older adults. This dissertation asked, “What is the experience of aging out-of-place?” Specifically, this research question aimed to understand how late-life immigrants relate to, and connect and engage with places through aging processes, and the essentiality of daily occupations within such engagement. An interpretive paradigm and a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology guided this inquiry. The hermeneutic phenomenological …

Cumulative Childhood Adversity And Disparities In Adult Psychological Distress And Educational Attainment, Loanna Heidinger

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Exposure to childhood adversity often does not occur as an isolated experience; rather, adverse childhood circumstances tend to co-occur, resulting in a climate of disadvantage that has detrimental consequences, and contributes to disparities in adult outcomes. Although the enduring impacts of cumulative childhood adversity on adult mental health and attainment outcomes are well documented in the literature, studies have not accounted for the long-term impact of cumulative childhood adversity on trajectories of adult psychological distress. Furthermore, measures of adversity used to predict selection into higher education consistently focus on childhood economic hardship as the sole indicator of adversity and overlook …

The Changing Spaces Of Racialized Contestation In Brampton, Ontario; A Multimedia Analysis, Stuart Emberg Mchenry

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Demographic changes, most notably changes in ethnic composition, can have major implications for the successful functioning of a community. Brampton, Ontario, is an example of one of these changing communities. Using two media sources: one traditional—the local newspaper—and the other emergent—online news—this thesis answers several key questions: is demographic change from a predominantly European-descent population in 1991 to today’s majority ‘visible minority’ population related to changes in the manifestations of racialized incidents in Brampton as reported in The Brampton Guardian? Has the emergence of online news impacted the geographic scope and nature of racialized incidents?

Content analysis of one-hundred …

Information Freedoms And The Case For Anonymous Community, Rachel Melis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What we have witnessed in the last decade in the context of social upheaval, social activism, and resulting social movements is testament to the need for a re-evaluation of what constitutes community in a networked world, and what role the individual subject plays within social networks, systems of social, corporate, and state control, and networks of resistance. New processes of subjectivation are emerging and rather than being grounded in identity, sociality is being reconfigured, and it is in this process that this dissertation focusses on anonymity as a means of working through these new configurations. This integrated article dissertation explores …

Participatory Action Research Examining The Role Of Physical Activity In Mentoring For Resilience, Francesca Gable

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examined the use of physical activity-based mentorship programs to positively influence student mental health and resilience in post-secondary institutions. The process of relationship building was observed through regularly implemented physical activity interactions over time. The purpose was to determine the ability of a physical activity-based mentorship relationship to positively influence student resilience. A participatory action research methodology was used to engage with a population of ninety undergraduate Kinesiology students (30 mentors:60 protégés) over an eight-month period. Sixty interviews and thirteen focus groups were conducted, and fifteen-hundred pages of journal reflections were consulted to further understand the relationship building …

"Mine" Or "Ours": Property And Moral Reasoning, Robert J. Nonomura

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research seeks to address long-standing empirical questions about human morality arising from the critical sociological tradition. It examines, in social-psychological terms, the theoretical contention that systems of ownership predicated on exclusionary conceptions of what is “mine” and/or “ours” causes people to overlook or decidedly ignore the needs of others and of society at large. More specifically, it draws upon the theoretical works of Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, and C. B. Macpherson to examine the relationships between individuals’ attitudes toward private property relations and the kinds of “active” or “passive” cognitive processes individuals use when reasoning about moral …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Humor Styles And Depression, Marisa L. Kfrerer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study examined the relationship between humor styles and depression using two methods of examination: (1) the mean humor style differences between individuals who reported that they had been diagnosed with depression versus those who did not report being depressed; and (2) a short scale assessing depressed affect. Participants were 878 adult Australians. With respect to mean differences, depressed individuals were found to use self-defeating humor more, and self-enhancing humor less than non-depressed adults. When the depressed affect scale score was analyzed, negative correlations were found between depressed affect and both positive styles of humor, affiliative and self-enhancing. Additionally, …

Invisible Labour: Support-Service Workers In India’S Information Technology Industry, Indranil Chakraborty

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The dissertation investigates the life, working conditions and urban experience of support-service workers in the Information Technology (IT) sector of India: the janitors, security guards, fast food delivery service professionals and car pool drivers who work in and around technology parks that develop software applications for a world-market. The common experiences of these employees are migration from rural contexts to a radically modern employment setting, where they work long hours with minimal benefits in informal conditions that often violate basic labour laws. The thesis draws on quantitative and qualitative research, and in particular on analysis and interpretation of hundred and …

The ‘Meanings’ And ‘Enactments’ Of Science And Technology: Ant-Mobilities’ Analysis Of Two Cases, Farrukh Chishtie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this work I study two cases involving practices of science and technology in the backdrop of related and recent curricular reforms in both settings. The first case study is based on the 2005 South Asian earthquake in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan which led to massive losses including large scale injuries and disabilities. This led to reforms at many levels ranging from disaster management to action plans on disability, including educational reforms in rehabilitation sciences. Local efforts to deal with this disaster led to innovative approaches such as the formation of a Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) model by a local NGO, which …

Ideology Of Multiculturalism As A Double-Edged Sword: Second-Generation Of Black Jamaicans And Dark-White Portuguese, Esra Ari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research examines the interlocking effects of “race” and “class” on the integration of second-generation Jamaicans and Portuguese into Canadian society. Comparing a “visible minority group” (black Jamaicans) with a “non-visible minority group” (Portuguese) controls for the effects of “race,” assisting in the assessment of these two second-generation groups’ degrees of integration. This study uses an historical and critical approach to provide a background for the discussion of this study topic. The main research questions concern the role of multicultural ideology in both cementing social control and in the integration of working-class second-generation Jamaicans and Portuguese into Canada. To address …

Accessing Healthcare In Ontario: Influences On Utilization Among Asian Immigrant Women, Gwynne Ng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Previous research on immigrant integration has tended to focus on economic and social integration. As such, the factors shaping health integration are less understood. At the same time, health researchers suggest that immigrants in Canada may underutilize certain health services. For instance, studies have documented the low participation rates of cervical cancer screening among Asian immigrant women in Canada (Xiong, Murphy, Matthews, Gadag, & Wang, 2010; McDonald & Kennedy, 2007; Woltman & Newbold, 2007). This study sheds light on immigrant integration by exploring the experiences of Asian immigrant women with cervical cancer screening and Canadian healthcare services more broadly. Through …

Industrial Stagecraft: Tooling And Cultural Production, Jennifer A. Hambleton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The tooling of theatrical spectacle requires collaboration between stagecraft technicians and designers in an increasingly globalized and standardized manufacturing process. While hand skills are still used and remain useful, digital fabrication and other tools are now incorporated in labour processes in scenery manufacturing workshops, altering collaborative work in complex ways. This thesis is an inquiry into the epistemological role of software and digital fabrication tools in stagecraft practices and explores how the politics of craft labour intersect with material practices in media production labour. The technical aspects of the fabrication of theatrical spectacles and display environments, the way objects are …

The Impact Of Beauty, Body Image, And Health Discourses On Eating Disorder Risk In South Asian-Canadian Women, Nazia Bhatti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores socio-cultural influences that impact South Asian women’s self-perceptions and eating behaviours. The findings revealed that cultural gender ideologies played a substantial role in shaping the way women view themselves and their bodies. The analysis of interviews conducted with seven South Asian-Canadian women between the ages of 19-29 years, demonstrate that women’s perceptions of their own physical appearance is framed within the context of their South Asian cultural identity and cultural norms. This study was approached through the lens of post-colonial feminism by examining cultural factors that contribute to South Asian women’s increased risk for developing eating disorders. …

Self Presentation Of Select Female Athletes On Instagram And Public Responses, Erin Ratelle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social media sites vastly have changed the ways in which athletes can interact with their fans. Positioned within the area of feminist cultural studies, this thesis employs a mixed-methods approach to examine how 8 selected female athletes display their bodies on Instagram via posted photos; how the public responds to this content via photo comments; and how these interactive postings fit with wider socio-cultural and historical contexts of women’s bodies in sport and physical activity. Using Erving Goffman’s theory on self-presentation and Jurgen Habermas’ theory on the public sphere, I conceive Instagram as both stage and space for public deliberation. …