Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Thomas Vontz / This qualitative study explored middle school students’ conceptions of citizenship through the use of civic images. Citizenship education as the primary purpose for social studies education is firmly established; however, citizenship is an abstract concept. The definition and characteristics of citizenship, as well as research concerning the decline or evolution of civic behaviors, is inconclusive and oscillating. Recently adopted national and state social studies standards focus on inquiry and literacy skills, emphasizing the use of primary sources; namely historical documents. These texts are often insufficient curriculum drivers and generate a need to find alternative primary sources that scaffold and support students’ understanding. Images speak a familiar language and have been found to support student learning of history. This study fills a gap in the research regarding the use of images to teach citizenship, the purpose of social studies. Using a case study approach to research, multiple methods of data converged to address the research question, how do suburban middle school students understand citizenship through civic images? Twenty-seven eighth-graders enrolled in two Guided Study courses served as the research participants. The researcher spent two weeks at the start of the study, observing the students in their educational environment. Following the observations, for approximately eight weeks, students viewed a civic image and responded to a series of questions adapted from the Stanford History Education Group’s Historical Thinking Skills Chart (2006). At the conclusion of the eight weeks, the researcher conducted focus group interviews with each class and individual interviews with eight randomly selected students and the participating teacher. The results of this study support the use of images as instructional resources to teach abstract concepts, particularly citizenship, as well as support the use of images as primary sources to teach inquiry and literacy skills. The civic images deepened student understanding of civic and historical concepts and, more importantly, they informed students’ definitions of citizenship. Equality and community were revealed by the data as defining characteristics of citizenship for the students involved in this study, supporting previous research that members of younger generations are redefining what it means to be a good citizen.

O diagnóstico de neoplasia em crianças e adolescentes, bem como os cuidados oncológicos necessários, impõem aos pacientes e a suas famílias o convívio cotidiano com múltiplos eventos adversos ao desenvolvimento, que podem ser de natureza biológica, psíquica, social e econômica. Essa complexa realidade exigirá recursos e estratégias pessoais e familiares para positivo desfecho, superando situações de vulnerabilidade. Até o momento, apesar do crescente número de casos de câncer, encontra-se reduzida produção científica sistematizada no campo da Psico-oncologia Pediátrica sobre quais variáveis seriam as mais relevantes em termos de efeitos no desenvolvimento infantojuvenil, embora se reconheça importância dos recursos pessoais (incluindo características de personalidade), sócio-familiares e dos serviços de saúde. Nesse contexto, este trabalho objetivou avaliar longitudinalmente possíveis efeitos da vivência de adoecimento e cuidado oncológico sobre recursos pessoais, familiares e características de personalidade de crianças e adolescentes com câncer. Trata-se de estudo longitudinal, de natureza quantitativa, descritivo-comparativo e interpretativo, a partir de instrumentos de avaliação psicológica. Foram compostos dois de crianças e adolescentes, de sete a 17 anos, de ambos os sexos, bem como seus respectivos pais/responsáveis, compondo amostra de conveniência. O Grupo Clínico (G1, n=30, crianças/adolescentes com diagnóstico de neoplasia há pelo menos um mês) foi retirado de pacientes do Setor de Oncologia e Hematologia Pediátrica de um hospital-escola público, considerado serviço de referência na área. O Grupo de Comparação (G2, n=20, crianças/adolescentes com desenvolvimento típico), foi constituído de modo a ser balanceado em relação a idade, sexo e origem escolar (particular ou pública) a G1. Todos os voluntários (crianças/adolescentes e seus pais/responsáveis) responderam, individualmente e em ambiente adequado para avaliação psicológica, a uma bateria de instrumentos avaliativos, aplicados em dois momentos, nomeados nesse estudo como Fase 1 (recorte transversal) e Fase 2 (recorte longitudinal, após intervalo mínimo de seis meses da primeira avaliação). Os pais/responsáveis responderam a: Critério de Classificação Econômica Brasil, Questionário de Capacidades e Dificuldades (SDQ), Inventário de Recursos do Ambiente Familiar (RAF), Escala de Eventos Adversos (EEA), Escala de Adversidades Crônicas (EAC) e Inventário de Percepção do Suporte Familiar (IPSF). Na criança/adolescente foram administrados: Matrizes Progressivas de Raven (Coloridas ou Escala Geral), Método de Rorschach (Escola Francesa) e Teste das Pirâmides Coloridas de Pfister. A aplicação e a avaliação dos instrumentos seguiram seus respectivos padrões técnico-científicos, realizando-se análises descritivas e comparativas de G1 e G2 (Teste t de Student ou Teste de Wilcoxon, p0,05%), nas duas fases do estudo. Os resultados apontaram, como síntese das duas fases avaliativas, sinais de preservação dos recursos familiares e cognitivo/afetivos das crianças/adolescentes com câncer, com manutenção do funcionamento adaptativo, embora com impacto negativo na percepção de si e de sua identificação com o humano, tendendo a maior mobilização emocional, com tensão e ansiedade em seus esforços adaptativos, identificados pelos pais/responsáveis como indicadores de dificuldades em termos de saúde mental, comparativamente ao Grupo de Comparação. O Grupo Clínico tendeu a recorrer mais a estratégias defensivas baseadas em mecanismos repressivos e de racionalização, inibindo expressões afetivas no ambiente, favorecendo-lhes adaptação ao contexto de vida. Estes achados empíricos evidenciaram, numa perspectiva longitudinal, os recursos e os esforços adaptativos de crianças/adolescentes que convivem com o diagnóstico oncológico, bem como suas famílias. Foi possível apontar a relevância da sistemática avaliação e reavaliação da complexa rede de variáveis envolvidas nesses processos, atestando a contribuição dos métodos projetivos no campo da Psico-Oncologia Pediátrica. / The neoplasia diagnosis in children and adolescentes, as well as the oncological care needed, impose to patients and their families the daily living with multiple adverse events to the development, that may be of biological, psychic, social and economic nature. This complex reality will demand personal and family resources and strategies for a positive outcome, overcoming situations of vulnerability. To date, despite the growing number of cancer cases, there is a reduced systematized scientific production in the field of Pediatric Psycho-Oncology about what variables would be the most relevant in terms of effects on child and adolescent development, although the importance of personal resources (including personality characteristics), socio-family and health services is recognized. In this contexto, this study aimed to longitudinally assess possible effects of the experience of illness and cancer care on personal, family and personality characteristics of children and adolescents with cancer. This is a longitudinal study, of a quantitative, descriptive-comparative and interpretative nature, based on psychological assessment instruments. The were composed two groups of children and adolescents, from seven to 17 years of age, of both sexes, as well as their respective parents/guardians, composing a convenience sample. The Clinical Group (G1, n=30, children/adolescents with diagnosis of neoplasia for at least one month) was composed from patients of the Oncology and Pediatric Hematology Sector of a public school hospital, considered a reference service in the area. The Comparison Group (G2, n=20, children/adolescents with typical development) was constituted in order to be balanced against age, gender and school origin (private or public) to G1. All volunteers (children/adolescents and their parents/guardians) responded, individually and in a suitable environment for psychological assessment, to a battery of assessment instruments, applied in two moments, named in this study as Phase 1 (transversal cut) and Phase 2 (longitudinal cut, after a minimum interval of six months of the first assessment). Parents/guardians responded to: Brazil\'s Economic Classification Criteria, Capacities and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Family Environment Resource Inventory (RAF), Adverse Event Scale (EEA), Chronic Adversity Scale (EAC), and Inventory of Perception of Family Support (IPSF). In the child/adolescent were administered: Progressive Matrices of Raven (Colored or General Scale), Method of Rorschach (French School) and Test of Colored Pyramids of Pfister. The application and assessment of the instruments followed their respective technical-scientific standards. Descriptive and comparative analyzes of G1 and G2 (Student\'s t test or Wilcoxon test, p0.05%) were carried out in both phases of the study. The results showed, as a synthesis of the two evaluative phases, signs of preservation of the family and cognitive/affective resources of the children/adolescents with cancer, with maintenance of the adaptative functioning, although with a negative impact on the perception of self and its identification with the human, tending to greater emotional mobilization, with tension and anxiety in their adaptive efforts, identified by parents/guardians as indicators of difficulties in terms of mental health, compared to the Comparison Group. The Clinical Group tended to resort more to defensive strategies based on repressive mechanisms and rationalization, inhibiting affective expressions in the environment, favoring adaptation to the context of life. These empirical findings have evidenced, from a longitudinal perspective, the resources and the adaptive efforts of children/adolescents living with cancer diagnosis, as well as their families. It was possible to point out the relevance of systematic assessment and re-assessment of the complex network of variables involved in these processes, attesting the contribution of projective methods in the field of Pediatric Psycho-Oncology.

The main aim of this thesis is to contribute to the advancement of the topic of father and fatherhood in the lives of children, adolescents, and emerging adults. In the literary review part of this work, the topic is set into the context of family and history, then, the current available findings on this topic in each of the developmental period of an offspring, up to emerging adulthood, are introduced. In the research section, the carried-out research is presented. It focused on the description of the role of a father of current emerging adults in the Czech Republic, on exploration of the term "good father" and on finding relations between the perception of one's own father and reported quality of life. Keywords Father Good father Child development Adolescent development Emerging adults

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<p>  </p> <p>Dyadic play interactions are a cornerstone of early development and difficulty engaging in sustained synchronous interactions are linked to later difficulties with language and joint attention. For children at elevated risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it is unclear if early difficulties in synchronous exchanges could inform later diagnoses. As part of a prospective monitoring study, infant siblings of children with ASD (high-risk group) or typical development (low-risk group), and their mothers completed a standardized play task. Play interactions for infants were evaluated to: (1) assess if early difficulties with social responsiveness or synchrony proceed ASD diagnoses within the first year; (2) explore whether repertoires of observed synchronous behaviors distinguish ASD-risk; and (3) examine whether the unfolding rates of synchrony and responsiveness over continuous time highlight ASD-risk differences. </p> <p><br></p> <p>By 12 months, distinct mean-level differences in synchrony and responsiveness by risk status were observed. Higher synchrony and responsiveness totals were also positively associated with infants later language and cognitive scores and negatively associated with ASD symptom severity (Chapter 2). Although, dyads utilized mostly comparable repertoires of observed synchronous and responsive behaviors, regardless of group membership (Chapter 3). And lastly, the overall rates of unfolding synchrony and responsiveness were fairly stable throughout the interaction. However, distinct patterns by ASD-risk and developmental outcomes were evident (Chapter 4). Ultimately, the encompassed studies did not consistently find robust ASD-specific differences. However, these studies did demonstrate the applicability of advanced methodologies to provide relevant contextual/dyadic elements (beyond the field’s norm of mean-level totals), particularly for infants with non-autism developmental concerns. Future research should build upon these studies to assess synchrony and responsiveness growth curves that extend beyond 12 months of age, as well as utilize behavioral coding approaches that systematically capture both synchronous and asynchronous exchanges.</p>

American youth are leaving organized religion at historical levels. Given that religious and political similarity (consensual solidarity) tends to strengthen affectual solidarity (emotional connection) in parent-adolescent dyads, decreasing adolescent religiousness and increasing political disagreements may threaten family social cohesion. However, during adolescence, youth empathy skills tend to increase and adolescents’ conflict with their parents tends to eventually subside. Based on principles outlined in intergenerational family solidarity theory, I hypothesized that adolescent empathy skills and authoritative parenting style would buffer the negative relational effects of religious and political discrepancies within the parent-adolescent relationship. I used Waves 2-4 (referred to as Times 1-3) of parent-adolescent data drawn from the Family Foundations of Youth Development study (Time 2 N = 1764 families) to understand patterns of discrepancy using a person-centered analysis. As a first step in latent profile analysis, I enumerated five distinct classes in Time 2 using the indicators of religious and political identities and social cohesion at both Times 2 and 3, alongside the covariates of adolescent empathy, parenting styles, and demographic controls. Next, I labeled the five classes as follows: Class 1 – Less Religious Parents Politically Mixed (26% of the sample, n = 665); Class 2 – More Religious Parents Moderate Conservative (26% of the sample, n = 399); Class 3 – Both Somewhat Religious Conservative (20% of the sample, n = 254); Class 4 – Least Religious Adolescents Politically Mixed (14% of the sample, n = 236); and Class 5 – More Religious Adolescents Very Conservative (14% of the sample, n = 210). Finally, I compared the five classes on the longitudinal distal outcome of social cohesion at Time 3. The Less Religious Parents Politically Mixed families predicted significantly less social cohesion while the Both Somewhat Religious Conservative families predicted significantly higher social cohesion from Time 2 to 3.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:40:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gustavo Orlandeli Marques.pdf: 1736153 bytes, checksum: 21676686f2c0a961700e8eea58a7a999 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This essay aims to verify the choice of heroic models of children and adolescents that are members of a social project as well as it generates reflection on their relations in the identity formation, according to the referential or Analytical Psychology. The heroic models were conceived as culture icons that receive projections of a symbolic life of the hero archetype which is needed to the psychic estruturation in human development. Interviews have been done to obtain the definition of a hero, the election of heroic models, their capacities and the use of these capacities in case subjects get them. The population was made of 188 subjects, children and adolescents of both sexes, taken care of for a social project, with the age between 06 to 16 years old. The method used was the quantitative and qualitative ones, having analytical answers created. The data obtained was analysed accordingly to the referential of the Analytical Psychology. It was concluded that there is a large influence of the Christian religions on the population, which directly interferes in the definition and choice of the heroic models, no matter real or fictitious, as well as in the pointing of their abilities. Parents were also elected as heroes by a major part of the population, being attributed powers in their relation to the child. The variables gender and age were compared in all items, presenting percentage differences in some points representing different tendencies of age and gender. The use of powers presented statistic relevance according to use in other people´s benefit, making possible to reflect about the concept of generosity as archetype psychic instance / O estudo objetivou averiguar a escolha dos modelos heroicos de crianças e adolescentes membros de um Projeto Social e refletir sobre as relações destes na formação de identidade, dentro do referencial da Psicologia Analítica. Os modelos heroicos foram concebidos como ícones da cultura que recebem projeções de uma vivência simbólica do arquétipo do herói, necessário à estruturação psíquica no desenvolvimento humano. Foram realizadas entrevistas que visavam obter a definição de herói, a eleição de modelos heroicos, suas capacidades e a utilização dessas capacidades caso os sujeitos as obtivessem. A população foi composta por 188 sujeitos, crianças e adolescentes, de ambos os sexos, com idade entre 06 e 16 anos, atendidos por um Projeto Social. O método utilizado foi o quantitativo e qualitativo, sendo criadas categorias de análise das respostas. Os dados obtidos foram analisados sob o prisma do referencial da Psicologia Analítica. Foi concluído que há uma grande influência de religiões cristãs na população, o que interferiu diretamente na definição e escolha dos modelos heroicos, fossem eles fictícios ou reais, bem como no apontamento de suas habilidades. Os pais também foram eleitos como heróis por grande parte da população, e a eles foram atribuídos poderes referentes à relação da criança com estes. As variáveis gênero e idade foram comparadas em todos os itens, apresentando diferenças percentuais em alguns pontos, que representam tendências distintas em termos de idade e gênero. O uso dos poderes apresentou significância estatística quanto à utilização em benefício alheio, o que possibilitou uma reflexão sobre o conceito de generosidade enquanto instância psíquica arquetípica

Wilderness Experience Programs (WEPs) take youth into wilderness settings in order to teach wilderness travel and leadership, expand personal capacity, and equip youth with coping skills in order to manage life’s difficulties. Though considerable research has been conducted on WEPs, no one has sought to understand the student experience these programs provide through a constructive-developmental lens (Kegan, 1982, 1994). The purpose of this case study was to explore, describe, assess, and understand–using the framework of Robert Kegan’s (1982, 1994) constructive-developmental theory–the impact a 21-day wilderness backpacking experience had on five participating youth. The researcher believed that understanding how participants in a wilderness backpacking course make sense of their experience through the lens of their constructive-developmental perspective might help inform the theories of change that underpin WEPs, the means by which desired change is facilitated, and the reasons why some youth thrive and others struggle. This exploratory study utilized a case study approach. The researcher embedded as a participant-observer for the duration on a 21-day backpacking course with Outward Bound Canada in the Ghost River Wilderness, Alberta, Canada. Nine youth participated in the expedition, with five male students volunteering as research participants. Pre-trip and post-trip administrations of the Subject-Object Interview and post-expedition semi-structured interviews were conducted with each research participant. Additionally, the researcher made field observations and wrote field notes. The subsequent analysis produced in-depth profiles of each research participant’s experience of the course, pre and post expedition scores from the Subject-Object Interviews, and a description of how each research participant’s experience might be understood through the lens of their constructive-developmental perspective. Although no significant changes to constructive-developmental perspective were realized, implications of these analyses were discussed, conclusions were drawn, and recommendations were made. / Graduate

Theory and research have indicated that well-being can be enhanced via the fulfilment of three key well-being concerns or needs, namely efficacy, integrity, and belonging. This thesis used a positive youth development framework to explore well-being concern experiences within the context of a young person’s most salient activities and goals, referred to here as identity projects (Harré, 2007). Guided by an adaptation of the identity project model (Harré, 2007), using a longitudinal design, this thesis incorporated both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how identity projects were negotiated during adolescence; what impact well-being concerns had on commitment to projects; and how this related to subjective well-being (SWB). In the quantitative study, 162 ethnically diverse Year 12 high school students participated at time one (T1); and one year later 87 students took part at time two (T2). Participants completed an adaptation of the Personal Project Analysis tool (Little, 1983), and two independent measures of SWB. The main foci of the quantitative study were to explore the predictive value of each well-being concern to project commitment and SWB; and to investigate if commitment mediated the link between well-being concerns and SWB. For the qualitative study, narrative interviews were conducted among 16 adolescents at three time points – Years 12 and 13, and after completing high school. The main foci of the interviews were to investigate how well-being concerns were voiced within the context of specific projects; and to gain insight into how projects were negotiated during life transitions. The quantitative results showed efficacy and integrity, but not belonging, were predictors of concurrent commitment at T1 and actual commitment to T1 projects at T2. The mediating role of commitment (between the well-being concerns and SWB) was, however, not supported. Instead, each well-being concern directly predicted different aspects of SWB, and these relationships changed over time. Overall, experiences of efficacy and belonging, within identity projects, enhanced SWB in the short term, while only experiences of integrity enhanced SWB, namely life satisfaction, in the long term. The qualitative results indicated experiences of efficacy and belonging were most prevalent within leisure pursuits, while integrity was most commonly discussed within education and career projects.