Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Conceptualizing Youth Participation In Children’S Health Research: Insights From A Youth-Driven Process For Developing A Youth Advisory Council, Mohammad El-Bagdady, Krishna Arunkumar, Drew Bowman, Stephanie Coen, Christina Ergler, Jason Gilliland, Ahad Mahmood, Suraj Paul

Geography & Environment Publications

Given the power asymmetries between adults and young people, youth involvement in research is often at risk of tokenism. While many disciplines have seen a shift from conducting research on youth to conducting research with and for youth, engaging children and teens in research remains fraught with conceptual, methodological, and practical challenges. Arnstein’s foundational Ladder of Participation has been adapted in novel ways in youth research, but in this paper, we present a new rendering: a ‘rope ladder.’ This concept came out of our youth-driven planning process to develop a Youth Advisory Council for the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, an …

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 …

"Integrated Science 3002a: Big Bike Giveaway: Changing London's Environment, Health, And Economy One Bike At A Time", Jermiah Joseph, Katelyn Melo, Devanshi Shukla, Tony Nguyen, Katherine Teeter

Community Engaged Learning Final Projects

There are significant benefits that manifest when an individual chooses to ride a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation. To investigate these benefits, the environmental, health, economic, and social impacts of biking were evaluated through research and data analyses. This revealed that numerous advantages can be obtained at an individual and local scale through citizens choosing to adopt a biking lifestyle. However, it was found that many Londoners are deterred from biking due to poor biking infrastructure. This paper calls into question the current cycling framework in London and it’s limitations on achieving the numerous benefits that biking offers. …

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 …

Women's Experiences On The Path To A Career In Game Development, Johanna Weststar, Marie-Josee Legault

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

This chapter seeks to identify whether there is a dominant, presupposed career pipeline to a career in game development and then looks for women and women’s experiences at each stage of that pipeline. It concludes that a dominant pipeline does exist and that this pathway both disadvantages women who attempt it and marginalizes other pathways. Along the way women deal with obstacles that can delegitimize their choices and experiences and/or make the assumed pathway inhospitable. This chapter relies on published literature as well as data from the 2014 and 2015 Developer Satisfaction Surveys (DSS) conducted by the International Game Developers …

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 …

Bad Comic, Good Comic: The Social Construction Of Brownness In The Racial And Ethnic Humor Of South Asian Comedians, Tasmeea Islam

MA Research Paper

The current study aims to compare how South Asian comedians Russell Peters and Hasan Minhaj use racial and ethnic humor to articulate their understandings of Brownness, a tenuous space of both privilege and persecution in North America. Racial and ethnic humor inhabit a contentious continuum that includes exclusionary racist humor, which naturalizes and reiterates racial ideologies, and emancipatory racial humor that exposes and resists dominant power structures. I employ a thematic content analysis of the stand-up comedy shows Comedy Now!(2004) and Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017) to argue that the social construction of Brownness in the material of South Asian …

Divorce And Health: Does Educational Attainment Matter?, Sara Quinn-Hogan

MA Research Paper

This study examines the relationship between divorce and women’s health, looking at whether the negative effects of divorce on health remain controlling for one’s educational attainment. Using data from the 2011 cycle of the Canadian GSS, a logistic regression was conducted to examine the relationship between divorce and health controlling for educational attainment. First, it was hypothesized that divorced women are more likely to report poor health than women who are married, single, or widowed. As expected, being divorced increased the odds of poor health. The second hypothesis was that controlling for educational attainment would reduce the negative consequences of …

Assessing The Importance Of Cve Strategies In Ontario, Matthew Murray

MA Research Paper

For several years now, countering violent extremism (CVE) strategies have existed as a core component of police agency mandates and governmental policy directed toward reducing radicalism. However, little is known about what specific skills and attributes are necessary for police officers to successfully perform these duties. In this paper, we draw upon in-depth interviews with 6 individuals that have performed CVE-related duties within Ontario to discover which core competencies they perceive to be crucial to effectively work in such an environment. Additionally, an environmental scan is utilized to survey the contemporary CVE landscape in Ontario. The respondents described how CVE …

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 …

School Shouldn’T End When The Bell Rings: An Exploratory Homeschooling Study, Mackenzie Dukelow

MA Research Paper

Homeschooling has experienced significant growth over the last several decades, yet little to no research has explored the relationship between homeschoolers and the public education system. Being the first to explore this relationship, the current study collected and examined data from 3 semi-structured interviews and 15 online homeschooling blogs in order to understand the growth of homeschooling in Ontario and the relationship between homeschooling and the public education system. The results of this study reveal the relationship between homeschoolers and the public education system varies significantly over time and locale, the challenges within each system and the difficulty of transitioning …

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 …

Neoliberalism And The School Choice Movement In The United States, Lianne M.A. Mulder

MA Research Paper

This paper investigates the role of neoliberalism in the advocacy for and implementation of school choice in the United States. It applies conflict theory of education to the school choice debate and uses post-Katrina New Orleans as a case study of school choice implementation. It concludes that neoliberal and like-minded think-tanks, foundations, and lobby groups are involved in the advocacy for school choice in the United States because it assists them in furthering their goals of influencing whose values and ideals will be taught and whose children will land the desired jobs; thereby maintaining the capitalist status quo and enabling …

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 …

Pathways Over The Life Course: Patterns Of Depressive Symptoms In Adolescence And Their Potential Impact On Educational Attainment, Stephen Carneiro Fernandes

MA Research Paper

This analysis draws on life course sociology to investigate the association between depression in adolescence and postsecondary completion in young adulthood. Three gaps in the mental health and education literature are addressed: lack of attention to the duration and timing of depressive symptoms, the overuse of high school degree receipt and college entry as outcome variables, and the exclusion of theoretically important confounders, such as self-rated health. Using panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, distinct mental health pathways that are based on a 12-item revision of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale are …

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 …

Gsa Members' Experiences With A Structured Program To Promote Well-Being, Alicia A. Lapointe, Claire Crooks

Journal Articles

LGBT2Q+ youth experience significant oppression in schools and there are few evidence-informed programs to promote well-being. This study describes the experiences of youth who participated in a 17-session structured mental health promotion program through their GSAs. Focus groups were conducted with 15 youth. Results indicated that the program helped youth validate and affirm their identities and expressions. The program also afforded youth structured opportunities to identify and process minority stressors, and develop essential coping strategies to bolster their well-being and manage their toxic relationships.

What Do We Know About In-Service Police Training? Results Of A Failed Systematic Review, Laura Huey

Sociology Publications

To learn more about what the social scientific research literature can tell us about ‘what works’ in the field of in-service police training, the author attempted to conduct a systematic review of the recent published research on this topic (2000-2015). After initially narrowing the search results to 21 studies, the review had to be abandoned because there was an insufficient number of studies on any one topic or training technique. The author reflects on what this failed review means from the standpoint of the possible economic and social costs of potentially ineffective and inefficient in-service training.