Following a stroke, the majority of survivors experience challenges returning to participation, also known as “involvement in life situations” in the International Classification of Functioning, Health, and Disability. Contextual factors, such as low income and linguistic minority status, have been shown to have an impact on participation post stroke; however, the process by which this occurs is poorly understood. The aim of this research was to increase our understanding of how low income and official minority language status influence the experience of return to participation following a stroke. A qualitative multiple case study approach was used with eight francophone stroke survivors living in a low-income situation in eastern Ontario (Canada). Data was collected from several sources: semi-structured interviews with the stroke survivors and with their care partners, participant observations, four measures, and chart reviews. Data was categorised, and patterns that furthered understanding of the experience of return to participation were identified during intra and cross-case analyses. The stroke survivors were all able to access healthcare and social services in both official languages, and the findings suggest that official language minority status had limited influence on the experience of return to participation. Low income, however, influenced precursors to participation by limiting the stroke survivors’ ability to afford housing, goods (e.g., medication, equipment), and services (e.g., transportation, private therapy). Certain personal and environmental factors modulated the experience of return to participation – specifically, age, knowledge of the healthcare and social service systems, support of family and friends, the built environment, and health literacy. The healthcare and social policies of the macro environment, which regulates the healthcare and social services, had a critical influence on the experience of return to participation for these stroke survivors, irrespective of their individual situations, unless wealth or financial support was available.

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Mortality related to smoking continues to be one of the foremost preventable public health issues. Smoking amongst sexual minorities (those who have a sexual attraction to or sexual contact with people of the same sex and/or of both sexes or a sexual identity of gay/lesbian or bisexual) remains significantly greater than the general population and those with only opposite sex attractions or sexual contacts. While smoking prevalence has dropped since the late 1990's in the general population, smoking among sexual minorities remains disproportionately greater than heterosexuals. Methods: A secondary data analysis was completed using two United States data sets: the 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) dataset collected in 1994. The analyses focused on high school students, grades 9-12. The purpose was two-fold. First, the goal was to develop a profile of smoking indicators in sexual minority youth in the 1994 Add Health dataset and in the 2013 YRBS dataset. Profiles include six smoking-related indicators: 1) ever smoked; 2) age of first cigarette smoked; 3) current smoking; 4) frequent smoking; 5) daily smoking; and 6) attempts to quit smoking. Second, the goal was to compare sexual minority youth to their heterosexual peers within each data set to identify the scope of any disparities in smoking behaviors. Results: Disparities in smoking behaviors were found in both comparisons between the heterosexual and sexual minority youth. Prevalence of all smoking behaviors was greater for sexual minority youth in both data sets. The smoking disparities were greater in the sexual minority youth in the 2013 YRBS sample. Between the 1994 Add Health and 2013 YRBS samples, smoking behaviors in sexual minority youth showed a decrease in all smoking behaviors, but not as significant as their heterosexual peers. Youth who are attracted to both sexes or identify as bisexual consistently have a greater prevalence in smoking behaviors.Conclusion: A growing disparity exists between sexual minority youth and their heterosexual peers related to smoking behaviors. Public health policy and programming needs to focus on earlier prevention efforts related to psycho-sexual development with targeted policy and curriculum around the adoption of negative health behaviors in sexual minority youth, especially those who have both sex attractions, have sexual contact with both sexes or identify as bisexual.

This study investigates Korean-American identity in the postmodern condition. Although there have been several studies on assimilation and ethnic identity, the existing body of literature is largely divided into assimilation and cultural pluralism. It seems that these existing theories of assimilation and ethnicity do not adequately capture the complex and paradoxical nature of the postmodern condition, thus fail to lend a framework in which the issue of ethnic identity is properly examined. The postmodern perspective that this study employs is not a theory of ethnicity per se, but it renders many useful insights into ethnic identity. Postmodernism recognizes the paradoxical co-existence of "surface homogenization" and the search for deeply rooted ethnicity. Using postmodern argument, this study avoids the modernistic accounts of ethnicity which have a tendency to reduce it to mere binary oppositions of assimilation and nativism. This study offers the findings from the narratives of the second and 1.5 generation Korean-Americans as the following: (1) Korean-Americans are aware that they are not fully accepted as American, and they are often viewed together with other Asian-Americans. (2) Their connection to American history is rather weak due to Koreans' short immigration history. (3) They assert that they have both Korean and American elements in their identity neither of which they can deny. This study calls this pastiched identity. (4) However, others (whites, other Koreans) have difficulty accepting pastiched identity. They tend to reduce it to either Korean or American which makes them doubly marginalized. (5) Thus, Korean-Americans need to challenge the governing meta-narratives in America by asserting their difference and sameness simultaneously. (6) But at the same time, they need to invent a collective voice in American cultural politics and to share their stories to establish a "community of memory" for future generations.

This dissertation addresses the problem of how Asian Indian sojourners to the United States discourse the nature of "Indian," "American," and "Indian sojourner" identities in the host setting. The assumption grounding the study is that cultural discourses produce a social reality which then guides the actions and experiences of the sojourner. The ethnographic methods of interviews and participant observation were used to study sojourner discourse. The analyses in the dissertation relied primarily upon transcribed interview data in making claims about patterns in sojourner discourse. The analytic results suggest that sojourner discourses are efficacious in facilitating adaptation to the host setting. Indian sojourners presented codes of identity which created predictable kinds of cultural identities. The reality produced in the talk of the sojourners provided a basis for social relations with members of each of the focal groups. The sojourners symbolically positioned themselves somewhere between the American and Indian identities by appropriating symbols from each in self-reference. The findings suggest that cultural adaptation is not a universally experienced set of phases, but that sojourners groups may creatively develop symbolic resources for dealing with the exigencies of the host setting.

How is place communicated? Places of significance are often contested areas. How do communities talk about these places? Can they talk about them in ways that make their meanings understood to others? In this dissertation, hearings from the Kaho'olawe Island Conveyance Commission hearings are analyzed in an effort to understand the many layers of meaning imbedded in a particular place; the island of Kaho'olawe in the State of Hawai'i. These hearings are unique in many ways, because they are the culmination of a twenty year effort to get the United States government to recognize Native Hawaiian claims to the island. This dissertation looks at metaphors of the land, the social drama which covers the 20 years since the first trespassers landed on the island, and at the stories told by two witnesses about their connection to the land. Each way of looking at what people are saying about the island highlights the differences in the way Hawaiians and the military construct place. In part, these differences are emphasized by their use of the same symbols. Both the military and Hawaiians emphasize the uniqueness of the island and its importance in the maintenance of their culture. Analysis of the testimonies also foregrounds deep tensions in the relationship between the military and Hawaiians that stem, in part, from differing definitions of who are Hawaiians. The conclusion is that the island is a place of cultural significance to both Native Hawaiians and the military. However, each side frames the symbols that they use very differently, and thus, the two sides have difficulty communicating in meaningful ways with each other.

Full participation and equal opportunity in sport in America historically has not been available to a variety of identity groups based on race, gender and disability. Many studies have described the fate of African-Americans and women in sport, but very few have examined a similar relationship with respect to athletes with disabilities. Furthermore, there has been limited examination of issues of vertical integration of these identity groups within the management or executive levels of sport organizations. This work proposes a new theoretical framework (i.e., Critical Change Factors Model - CCFM) based on critical, distributive justice, and open systems theories. Two longitudinal case studies were presented that examine the degrees of integration and inclusion achieved by African-American males in Major League Baseball and women in intercollegiate sport. Basic descriptive statistics and qualitative data analysis techniques were used to present each case. An organizational continuum of workplace diversity and a three-tiered social stratification model were incorporated to help illustrate the historical progression of integration of each group. The conceptual model was designed to allow for the comparative analysis and generalizability of recommendations across identity groups. The model provided key insights and findings in the complexities of organizational change related to identity group integration. A strategic management process approach was used to apply the findings from this comparison to athletes with disabilities as a third identity group, thereby creating a new equity paradigm incorporating disability. This focused on the potential for systems change as an organizational function within the context of both internal and external environments. Recommendations directed at organizations to become more accepting and tolerant institutions focused on strategies that sport managers can employ to improve conditions at each stratification level. Recommendations for removing or diminishing resistance to greater diversity within sport organizations included the identification, development and distribution limited resources in a more equitable manner to newcomer groups. Recommendations also centered on the broader application of the theoretical and practical concepts presented in this study to any particular identity group as it might be related to any organization, regardless of its purpose and enterprise.

Members of racially- and ethnically-diverse societies often associate primarily with those of their own group. Such societies often also experience high levels of social conflict over distributional issues. This dissertation analyzes economic factors that link demographic diversity with these social, economic and political outcomes. Its main contribution is to highlight the role that between-group inequality plays in determining the extent and nature of contact among diverse segments of a society, and how the resulting social structure influences political and economic outcomes. It also argues that the interaction of inequality and social isolation can be a primary cause for the intergenerational perpetuation of intergroup inequality.

Studies of identity in anthropology have recently sought to articulate a growing awareness of the multiplicity and fluidity of human identification and affiliation. This discourse addresses static frameworks that historically mire the concept of identity within an “imagined community” of uniformity, positioning group after group within a model of un-altering, ‘sameness’. Frequently lost in the re-conceptualization is the consistent archetype of the “normative” against which “groups of color” or alterity are compared/contrasted. In this project I develop a theoretical direction from which one may examine notions of identity applied to Deaf populations through ethnographic engagement with Deaf populations in the U.S. and Britain. This theoretical development is ethnographically applied to a study of Black Deaf identity and a new theory of identity that emerges. This theory specifically allows us to identify: (1) current constructions of Deaf identity predicated on White normativity. (2) the importance of Deaf institutions and organizations as collectivities of embodied agency integral in developing models of identity that reflect multiplicity or a static/hegemonic identity within which alterity is marginalized. (3) the utility of an alternate transcultural model which effectively addresses the concept of identity and its embodied complexity.