Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Children's Neighbourhood Geographies: Examining Children's Perception And Use Of Their Neighbourhood Environments For Healthy Activity, Janet E. Loebach

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines children’s everyday neighbourhood activities, and the role of the local environment in supporting or limiting their healthy behaviours. Research from the last two decades has documented a dramatic decline in the time children spend playing in their neighbourhood settings, and engaging in local active and independent travel. Traditionally, neighbourhood-based activities have fostered key developmental and health outcomes, including higher levels of physical fitness, the negotiation of new social relationships, and increased cognitive and environmental competence. The processes of carving out neighbourhood ‘domains’ for independent activity and establishing community relationships are also linked to the development of a …

The Money Of Qaroon And The Patience Of Ayoub: Women And Land In Egypt's Mubarak Resettlement Scheme, Dina Najjar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation addresses the challenge of achieving increased empowerment and equality for Egyptian women. The dissertation tests the assumption that land access (through both joint and full titles) increases empowerment and equality for women in two desert resettlements of Sa’yda and Intilaq, part of the massive Mubarak Resettlement Scheme (MRS). In particular, the dissertation identifies: 1) how land access could empower Egyptian women and 2) women’s experiences with land access in the MRS. Findings reveal that land access is indeed the most promising route for women’s advancement in life, but the desert land required patience and financial assets. Land access, …

"Being Stuck": Understanding The Health-Related And Everyday Lived Experiences Of Young Mothers In Rexdale, Ontario Through A Social Determinants Framework, Jaspreet Kaur

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the ways the health-related and everyday lived experiences of young mothers are shaped by various social determinants, and in the context of their neighbourhood. Using a critical qualitative methodology, five mothers between the ages of 17 to 19 were interviewed from Rexdale, a neighbourhood in the City of Toronto characterized by a number of social risk factors(e.g. high rates of visible minorities, unemployment, and teen mothers). In-depth thematic analysis led to the emergence of four themes: 1) Living in Rexdale: Representations and realities; 2) Leaving Rexdale and wanting something …

Climate Change And Human Rights: A Case Study Of Vulnerability And Adaptation In Coastal Communities In Lagos, Nigeria., Idowu M. Ajibade

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Lagos, Nigeria is one the world’s megacities at risk from climate change. Communities along the coast have been hit hard by floods, storm surges, and rising seas, due to the city’s geographic location, inadequate infrastructures, and poor urban governance. These factors together with social inequality have been known to shape vulnerability to climatic hazards but less understood is the role of human rights.

The objective of this thesis is to develop a grounded understanding of the links between human rights and the vulnerability of people to climate change impacts (i.e. floods and storm surges). The study combined qualitative and quantitative …

Attracting And Retaining The Highly Skilled In Medium-Sized City-Regions Of Ontario: The Role Of The Built Environment, Catherine A. Mclean

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study set out to address the out-migration of highly skilled individuals from medium-sized city-regions in Ontario. In today’s knowledge-based economy, city-regions that are able to attract, develop and retain valuable human capital have a distinct advantage that is crucial to economic growth. Using mixed qualitative methods, involving a policy document analysis and in-depth interviews with recent graduates, this study seeks to understand to what extent and in what ways policies of key institutions seek to attract and retain post-secondary graduates in medium-sized city-regions in Ontario? Does the built environment play a role in these policies? This study revealed that …

The Local Food Environment Of Children In London Ontario: A Methodological Comparison, Claudia Rangel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study examined current methodological approaches to characterize the local food environment around children in London, Ontario, assessing variations in BMI and dietary preferences in relation to the choice of food environment measure. Taking advantage of a unique dataset that collected GPS trajectories of children’s schools and homes for a large sample of children between 11 and 14 years of age, two commonly-used approaches (i.e., network buffers and Euclidean buffers), and two novel measures of activity spaces (i.e., standard deviational ellipses and α-hulls) are used as ‘geographic containers’ (i.e., areal units) to derive food outlet measures. Results showed slight …

Gendered Geographies Of Food Security In Blantyre, Malawi, Liam John Riley

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation addresses the need for a deeper understanding of how gender roles and identities shape household access to food in African cities. The case study of Blantyre, Malawi, is similar to other medium-sized cities in southern Africa where the colonial legacies of structural poverty shape contemporary food insecurity, intra-household gender relations, and urban development. Five conceptual threads run throughout the dissertation and draw together the overarching theoretical and empirical contributions of the research. The first conceptual thread is that urban food insecurity in Blantyre is characterised by a growing level of precarity and vulnerability. Informal, seasonal, and inconsistent incomes …