Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sense Of Community And Restorative Justice As Models Of Support: Female Survivors Of Sexual Abuse And Males Who Have Offended Sexually, Chris Mcevoy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Sexual abuse is a social phenomenon that adversely affects the lives of the victims, those who have offended and the surrounding community. It is an issue of public health, policy, and justice. Currently, few research studies explore the ability of community agencies to support all persons affected by sexual abuse, and even fewer studies examining the perspectives and experiences of individuals left searching for remediation or healing. The Revive program, part of Community Justice Initiatives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada functions as a mutual-aid support group for persons affected by sexual abuse, using principles of restorative justice to guide their mission. …

Personal Stories Of Empathy In Adolescence And Emerging Adulthood, Kendall M. Soucie

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Empathy, the ability to understand and experience the emotions of others, has yet to be investigated from a narrative or life story perspective. The purpose of the present study was, therefore, to examine the ways in which emerging adults and adolescents, through their self-defining stories, process and come to extract meaning from their personal empathic and non-empathic experiences. Twenty-nine adolescents (14–17, M=15.28, SD=.99), and 31 emerging adults (18–20, M=18.23, SD=.56) narrated stories about their empathic (times when they felt sad for someone, times when they put themselves in someone else’s shoes) and non-empathic experiences (times when …

Effective Teaching & Teaching Evaluation Practices: Canadian University Geography Departments, Susan Vajoczki

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this thesis teaching evaluation practices in Canadian university geography departments are examined. The objective of this research is to identify good practices for teaching evaluation that can be applied within geography departments at Canadian universities and may be applicable to other departments and within other countries. In order to meet this goal a number of research questions were identified. These include:

1. What is effective teaching in higher education?;
2. What is effective teaching within the discipline of geography in higher education?;
3. How and why is teaching evaluated in higher education?;
4. What is the breadth of teaching evaluation practices currently used …

Hydrological Response Patterns And Solute Flux In Canadian Shield Basins: Role Of Different Physical Features And Antecedent Moisture Conditions, Jessica Mueller

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Patterns of stream flow in relatively undisturbed Canadian Shield basins are closely linked to their physical and vegetative characteristics and meteorological conditions. The physical characteristics include topography, soil-till composition, depth and structure, slope morphology and bedrock geology. Hydrological flowpaths through, and in-situ chemical processes in the soil-till matrix are influenced greatly by the composition of these features and by the antecedent hydrological conditions preceding a given storm or snowmelt event.

A long term data set, collected by the Dorset Environmental Science Centre, is used to examine eight forested basins within the Muskoka-Haliburton region of south-central Ontario. The basins have a …

The Impact Of The Blackberry On Couple Relationships, Jurgen Dieter Czechowsky

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research focused on the BlackBerry developed by Research In Motion and its impact on couple relationships. The areas examined were couple communication, time spent together, and martial satisfaction using grounded theory, a demographic survey, the ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale and interviews. Ten couples participated and reported that the BlackBerry offered many practical applications for their relationship. The research showed that communication via the BlackBerry resulted in fewer face-to-face interactions. There was no increase in time together and for some time decreased. Martial satisfaction had increased for two couples, decreased for two couples with no influence for the rest of …

Perspectives On The Post-Degree Supervision Needs Of Ontario Social Workers, Heather Jane Hair

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The dominant contemporary post-degree supervision literature reflects a long held belief that social workers employed in various practice settings need a combination of further education, support, and administrative guidance from someone more expert than themselves. In spite of these claims, a noticeable gap in knowledge is learning what, if anything, social workers need from supervision to help them provide effective services.

My particular interest is post-degree supervision within the social work landscape of Canada. I chose to focus this research project on the supervision needs of social workers in Ontario, the province where I have spent many years working as …

Understanding Indigenous Canadian Traditional Health And Healing, (Gus) Louis Paul Hill

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative research study is situated within an Indigenous research methodology. The goal of the research was to develop an in-depth understanding of traditional healing from the perspectives of practitioners of traditional healing. It was important to explore the experiences of practitioners of traditional healing because there continues to be a lack of literature on this subject, as well as a significant lack of understanding and awareness about traditional healing and Indigenous Canadian people in mainstream society. The theoretical underpinnings of this research are holism and the four aspects of the self, visually represented in the Anishnaabe medicine wheel.

In-depth …

Trips Down Memory Lane: Recall Direction Affects The Subjective Distance Of Past Events, Kent C.H. Lam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The subjective temporal distance of a past event—how close or far away it feels—is influenced by numerous factors apart from actual time. The present studies extend research on subjective distance by exploring the experience of remembering autobiographical events as part of a stream of related events. It is proposed that a key determinant of subjective distance is the temporal direction in which events are recalled. Five experiments supported the hypothesis that people feel closer to a target event when they recall a stream of related events in a backward direction (i.e., a reverse-chronological order ending with the target event) rather …

Aging With Dementia And An Intellectual Disability: A Case Study Of Supported Empowerment In A Community Living Home, Shehenaz Manji

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This case study explores the qualitative experience of 4 consumers with a dual disability living in a home specializing in dementia support. Drawing insights from participant observation, daily living log notes, and interviews with 4 each of family/friend caregivers, direct-care staff, and administrators, the study has 3 main goals: (i) to understand how the onset of dementia in people with an intellectual disability changes their needs, what adjustments have to be made in the support practices, and what service barriers and successes are experienced; (ii) to understand how people with dual disabilities experience living in a home specializing in dementia …

Intra-Urban Analysis Of Commercial Locations: A Gis-Based Approach, Christopher D. Storie

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The urban landscape is an interspersed mixing of residences, shops, theaters, parks, natural areas, and a multitude of other uses. From the early days of the central markets, to the planned downtown, to the heavily planned super-regional shopping complexes, commercial landscapes evolve. There has been considerable research conducted on analyzing the commercial structure of urban environments in an attempt to better understanding the nature of retailing and its resultant impacts on the geography of the city.

This research has three broad goals: a) to develop a technique that makes operational, in a systematized and objective manner, an approach to analyzing …

The Effects Of A Transition To University Intervention Program On Adjustment And Identity Development, Thanh-Thanh Tieu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The transition to university can be a stressful time for many students, whether it is smooth and successful, or full of difficulty. While the transition to university can be taxing enough, it also coincides with the period in which adolescents are said to be developing their sense of identity (Erikson, 1968). Given the stress many students experience, the Transition to University (T2U) Program, a social support focused intervention, was developed to assist students with the adjustment (e.g., Lamothe et al., 1995; Pratt et al., 2000). The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of the T2U Program on …

The Story Of South African Child Welfare: A History Of The Present, Jeanette Elizabeth Schmid

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Though significant transformation has occurred in post-apartheid South Africa, extensive poverty, AIDS and violence present major challenges. The capacity of families and local networks, undermined by apartheid policies, continue to be depleted, leaving children vulnerable. During the apartheid era, the child welfare sector, despite its intention of supporting children and families, utilized interventions that failed to address the needs of the majority and weakened family life. Post-apartheid, government has presented Developmental Social Welfare—with its family-centered, rights-oriented, community-based, participatory, generalist and intersectoral approach—as an indigenous correction to the previous expert-driven, pathologizing, individualistic, discriminatory and costly approaches.

Employing a Foucauldian genealogy or …

Audio Data Verification And Authentication Using Frequency Modulation Based Watermarking, Jonathan Blackledge, Omar Farooq

Articles

An approach to watermarking digital signals using frequency modulation - ‘Chirp Coding’ - is considered. The principles underlying this approach are based on the use of a matched filter to reconstruct a ‘chirp stream’ code that is uniquely robust. The method is generic in the sense that it can, in principle, be used for a variety of different signal (the authentication of speech and biomedical signals, for example). Further, by generating a bit stream that is signal dependent, chirp coding provides a method of self-authentication, which has a wide range of applications including copyright protection and digital rights management. However, …

Are We Over-Lawyering International Affairs, Philip C. Bobbitt, John D. Hutson, John C. Yoo, Philip D. Zelikow, Edwin D. Williamson

Faculty Scholarship

This panel will discuss the role of lawyers — particularly government lawyers — in addressing questions of legal policy. We will discuss fundamental questions such as: Should lawyers decide legal policy? Or, is that best left to the policymakers? Should lawyers give advice as to legal policy, or should they stick to providing answers as to what the law is? How should lawyers respond to what a policymaker thinks is the legal question, but is really a question of legal policy? If lawyers find the law vague or lacking, should they fill in the gaps, advising as to what the …

The American Law Institute Goes Global: The Restatement Of International Commercial Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The American Law Institute's new Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration is only barely underway, and the reporters began with a chapter, namely the recognition and enforcement of awards, that should represent for them a comfort zone of sorts within the overall project. Yet, already a number of difficult, and to some extent unexpectedly difficult, questions have arisen. Some of the difficulties stem from the very nature of an ALI Restatement project. Others stem from the nature of arbitration itself and, more particularly, from the inherent tension between arbitral and judicial functions in the arbitration arena. Still …

Can Good Muslims Be Good Americans?, James Shoopman

Publications

Because I am a former pastor who teaches a world religions course, my former church members frequently send emails and articles that they suspect might be of interest to me. The most disturbing trend I've seen among such emails, in the wake of 9/11, has been the explosion of virulent anti-Muslim hatred circulating as Christian sentiment within and beyond the Christian community. Middle Eastern Muslims have been demonized in western culture since the time of the crusades, but reaction to the horrible events of 9/11 truly brought hatred of the Arab to a new level, and people began to broadly …

Life-Affirming Leadership: An Inquiry Into The Culture Of Social Justice, Raquel Delores Gutierrez

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

A new paradigm for leading social change is emerging; a worldview acknowledging the importance of leadership that is life-affirming and lasts over time. The current inquiry explored the ways in which the social reality of Life-Affirming Leadership is created and the implications those realities have for the current and future generations of social justice workers, their organizations, and the communities in which they work. The dominant paradigm for social justice work needs to be radically renovated (see Horwitz, 2002; James, 2005; Ohlson, 2006; Polansky, 2005; Utne, 2006; Wheatley, 2005; Williamson, 1997; Yáhzí, 2005); as such, a re-evolution is in progress, …

Writing Circle Feedback: Creating A Vibrant Community Of Scholars, Allyson Washburn

Faculty Publications

An article previously published in this journal described Gray's twelve steps to help scholars write and publish (1999). One of the elements of Gray's process is to share writing drafts and receive feedback from peers. Writing circles provide writers with peer support and reactions to their writing throughout the writing process. Participation in a writing circle can assist junior library faculty in overcoming such factors as fear, lack of confidence, and procrastination. This paper describes the establishment and workings of a writing circle at the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) at BYU that attempted to assist junior faculty librarians to …

The Building Of The Shenyang Jianzhu University 1998-2007: A Case Study Of The Role Of Professor Fuchang Zhang And His Communist Party Network, William D. Blizzard, Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine how the building of Shenyang Jianzhu University’s new campus was accomplished under the leadership of Professor Fuchang Zhang, Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party for the university, using his Communist Party network. This study was conducted in the city of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, Peoples Republic of China, using interviews with Professor Zhang, his peers, government officials, and other university presidents. Archival data is also included. There were limitations in the study that included personal and professional friendships, student recruiting issues, as well as methodological limitations because all interviews had to be …

Inner Voice Of Women's Self-Leadership, Diana M. Cooley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

My research explores an aspect of leadership that is personal, which is the inner voice of self-leadership. The inner voice affects all aspects of leadership. The inner voice is highly personal in that one’s private thoughts are unique. The inner voice can increase one’s self-awareness and influence one to move forward and change or to pull one back to stand still. My thesis is that we can more fully understand how women leaders lead themselves and subsequently lead in society if we advance our understanding of their stories and experiences regarding the inner voice. This research improves our understanding of …

Developing Collaborative Leadership: A Study Of Organizational Change Toward Greater Collaboration And Shared Leadership, Jonathan Tyler Clark

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Implicit in leadership behavior is the ability to work with others, to be in relationship, and to collaborate. Contemporary theories about leadership have shifted from a focus on the individual “leader” toward the collective act of “leadership.” A concrete understanding of collaborative leadership remains somewhat underdeveloped in the literature and theoretically. This dissertation is a case study of organization's efforts to change from autocratic organizational leadership to a more collaborative working environment. Taking the form of a literary portrait, the study analyzes an example of action learning about collaborative leadership. The portrait will be of the agency's change, with special …

Energy-Flow – A New Perspective On James Macgregor Burns’ Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit Of Happiness, Pi-Jern Caroline Fu

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This theoretical dissertation documents a personal transforming leadership experience; during which, I explored my Leadership as Energy-Flow model by having a virtual dialogue with the polymathic works of theorists and thinkers to corroborate and refine it. The model consists of a theory and a conceptual scheme. The energy-flow theory, based on the laws of physics and Chinese philosophy and cosmological science, fashions the energy-flow conceptual scheme. Using the conceptual scheme, I delve into the Premise of the Dialogue, “In what ways and to what extent would using the energy-flow frame of reference describe and stimulate new meanings in Transforming Leadership: …

The Leadership Self-Identity Of Women College Presidents, Robbie Hertneky Phd

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this research study was to explore the concept of leadership self-identity in a particular population of formal leaders—women college presidents. Using narrative inquiry, the research examined the following: how these women describe and define themselves as leaders, what personal attributes they believe allow them to be leaders, their past and future career intentions, how their relationships with others influence their leadership self-identity, and the stories they tell about themselves and leadership. Participants were asked questions designed to reflect their core identity and personal narrative, and to describe their career and relationships. Common themes that emerge include: how …

Mentoring Women Of Color For Leadership: Do Barriers Exist?, Sandra Yvonne Jeffcoat

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The number of women in the workforce is increasing, but they continue to hold few corporate leadership positions. Women are running into the glass ceiling, a ceiling that is thicker for Women of Color. The under-representation of women and minorities in leadership positions and the recognition of the business value of Diversity in this global economy have driven organizations to launch diversity programs and use mentoring as support for aspiring women leaders. Ragins and Cotton's 1991 research found that there were barriers for women who were looking to use mentoring as a tool for leadership development, but her participants were …

How Are Nasa Engineers Motivated? An Analysis Of Factors That Influence Nasa Goddard Engineers’ Level Of Motivation, Howard Eric Kea

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

NASA is an organization known for pushing the envelope of engineering and scientific achievement. It can be argued that engineers working for NASA are intrinsically highly motivated due to the nature of the work and the mission of NASA. This study explores how supervisor behaviors, both intrinsic and extrinsic and demographic factors influence motivation of NASA Goddard engineers in their current environment. Recent Congressional and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policies, such as full cost accounting, levy strict oversight of project spending. As a result of these policies, NASA engineers must now focus their attention on getting assigned work …

Poetic Leadership, A Territory Of Aesthetic Consciousness And Change, R. Amrit Kasten-Daryanani

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Poetic leadership is a new theoretical construct that views leadership as an activity that unites a lyrical intellect with keenly felt emotion for the purpose of producing changes in the consciousness of self and others. This change begins within the interiority of self, moving surely to broader realms of one's surroundings and society, provoking movement that impacts the developing potential of the individual and the cultural milieu in which they exist. Emotion is the primary trace into consciousness used in this dissertation, which serves to unite experiences of the heart with experiences of the mind. The unification of these disparate …

Fostering Sustainability In Higher Education: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Transformative Leadership And Change Strategies, Kim H. Mcnamara

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

As evidence of the earth’s limited capacity to sustain human life mounts, institutions of higher education are being looked to for leadership in the effort to educate students about environmental concerns and support the development of sustainable innovations. Colleges and universities are responding to this call for leadership by starting and/or expanding environmental research programs, integrating sustainability issues throughout the curriculum, adopting sustainable operations, and building green facilities. Reflecting upon the sustainability efforts of these institutions, this research study explores the following questions: What factors are essential for initiating and leading a successful change effort to foster sustainability in higher …

Evolving Learning: Educators’ Inner Experiences Of Engaging In Service-Learning With Undergraduates, Cara Meixner

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Evolving Learning: Educators’ Inner Experiences of Engaging in Service-Learning with Undergraduates is an exploratory, qualitative study of faculty members’ learning, growth, and development in service-learning contexts. Through two, interwoven forms of constructivist grounded theory – situational mapping and dimensional analysis – this dissertation brought voice to a once ‘private’ perspective, making explicit what all is happening as participants make meaning of their experiences engaging in service-learning with college students. A three-phased series of recursive, comparative interviews and concurrent analysis resulted in the development of a grounded theory best captured by a core, organizing perspective – evolving learning. This perspective is …

On Being A Nonprofit Executive Director, Janet Elizabeth Rechtman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In describing the course of change in a dynamic field such as the nonprofit sector, neo-institutional theorists argue that isomorphic forces such as replication of best practices tend to increase the homogeneity of actors. This interplay of structure and agency creates what is known as the structuration of an institutional field. These theorists have little to say about the people who influence and are influenced by these dynamics. This study explores this personal experience at the micro level of the nonprofit field executive leadership. It focuses on their challenges related to the isomorphic pressures resulting from: (1) socio-economic roles, (2) …

Small School Leadership: A Q Method Study Of Elements Of Leadership Specific To A Small School Setting, Charis Eirene Sharp

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Smaller schools have become an extremely popular school reform model. Research that connects them to student achievement is being used to support and create autonomous small schools as well as schools-within-schools. While it would seem to be a logical application, the schools-within-schools model is not performing at the levels expected as indicated by the small schools research. Research on these two different school settings needs to be separated, examined, and applied independently. Areas lacking research include questions about which aspects of schools support the functioning of the school, such as leadership. This study used Q-methodology to study leadership in a …