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Educational attainment in the U.S. continues to be marred by racial and socioeconomic (SES) disparities. Despite decades of research on the predictors of attainment and the decreases in dropout rates, minority-race and low-income youth continue to dropout at higher rates than their White and wealthy peers. Therefore, the question remains, why do many students persist while some drop out? To better understand attainment, an analysis of a nationally representative sample within which attainment is evaluated as part of a process of grade advancement and the nuanced nature that the timing, frequency, and severity of previous life events have on a child’s educational path are addressed is needed. The study presented here is a first step to evaluate the effects of residential mobility and school exclusion history on the attainment of a cohort of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). First, patterns of school exclusion, residential mobility, and dropout over the study period were outlined. Next, the relationships between predictors of dropout and dropout examined. Finally, the effects of the frequency and timing of residential mobility, school exclusion, and other predictors on attainment were explored using discrete time survival analysis. Findings indicate the potential utility of these methods in future research to better understand the process of dropout so more informed interventions can be designed to serve students. / Urban Education

Shyness is a personality trait that is stable across time and situations in some individuals. While childhood shyness is a risk factor for later mental health and emotional problems, not all shy children grow up to have these problems. This thesis examined subtypes of shyness identified based on the temporal stability of shyness and based on levels of sociability and their corresponding outcomes, as well as the roles of social and biological contextual factors. Chapters 2-4 comprise the empirical studies. In Chapter 2, I report three shyness trajectories from middle childhood to adulthood (ages 8 to 30-35). Relative to a low-stable non-shy trajectory, children with an increasing, but not a decreasing, shy trajectory were at higher risk for clinically significant social anxiety, depression, and substance use, and were hypervigilant to angry faces in adulthood. Chapters 3 and 4 then report electrocortical correlates and mechanisms during the processing of non-social auditory novelty and social exclusion across children, adolescents, and adults with varying levels of shyness and sociability. Chapter 3 established that shyness, but not sociability, was related to the P300 ERP in processing non-social auditory stimuli in both 10-year-old children and adults, in support of the notion that shyness and sociability are independent personality dimensions. Findings on subtypes of shyness also showed that children characterized by conflicted shyness (with high levels of both shyness and sociability) reported higher neuroticism, but this relation was mediated by increased P300 amplitudes to processing background stimuli. Finally, Chapter 4 reports that individuals characterized by conflicted shyness who exhibited high theta EEG spectral power to social exclusion were most fearful of negative evaluation, irrespective of age. Also, conflicted shy adolescents who showed high theta spectral power to social exclusion were most likely to engage in substance-use. These findings highlight that there is much heterogeneity in shyness, and that shyness is not directly related to adverse mental health outcomes. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Shyness is a personality trait that is stable across time and situations in some individuals. Past research suggests that shy children exhibit more internalizing problems, including anxiety and depression, compared to their non-shy counterparts. However, the development of shyness has not been studied beyond adolescence, and the biological and social factors that contribute to adverse developmental pathways and outcomes related to shyness are not well understood. The goal of this thesis was to understand the mental health outcomes of shy individuals by examining different subtypes of shy individuals. To this end, this thesis first demonstrated how shyness unfolds across the first four decades of life to shape adult mental health outcomes in a cohort of individuals. Second, this thesis examined how neural responses to threatening social and non-social contexts related to the socioemotional outcomes across children, adolescents and adults with varying levels of shyness.

Background: There is a burgeoning population of older adults globally and there is an increasing urgency in the policy literature to understand the health issues facing this population. A social exclusion lens provides an opportunity to understand health inequity and disadvantage among vulnerable populations. There is limited research examining how social exclusion plays out for older women, particularly in the rural context. This study examines the social exclusion experiences of Canadian, rural, older women and highlights policy implications for global health practitioners. Methods: Guided by the principles of interpretive description, this qualitative study included eight participants who identified as women, 65 years or older, spoke English, and who lived alone in private households in rural communities of Durham Region, Ontario. Concurrent data collection and analysis was conducted using an inductive approach. One-to-one, semi-structured interviews were completed. Findings: Six themes illuminate the exclusion experiences of rural, older women and they include: “Expectations of ageing in rural communities”; “Navigating the tensions of belonging within the social fabric”; “Singlehood isolation”; “Driving independence”; “Health infrastructure and changing personal health”; “Affording ageing”. Implications & Contributions: The study adds a Canadian, rural perspective to the global conceptual literature on social exclusion. It illuminates the unique ways in which female gender and rural context influence social exclusion experiences. Implications for global health policy include: recognizing health as a key category of exclusion and the need to address health equity, adopt a gender-specific and life-course approach to address social exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, utilize unconventional channels for engagement, implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition, and support affordable access to health-promoting programs and services. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This study examines how older (senior) women, living in rural communities in Durham Region, Ontario experience social exclusion, and aims to help inform global health policies for older adults. Social exclusion is a way of understanding how processes interact to impact on someone’s ability to participate fully in their life Six themes were identified and add to the global evidence on social exclusion. This Canadian study shows the unique ways in which female gender and the rural context influence on social exclusion experiences. Global health policy implications include: health is a key category of exclusion and addressing health equity is important, adopt a gender-specific approach that considers what happens over a lifetime that contributes to women’s exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, use unconventional channels of engagement, and implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition.