This research examined how the needs of elderly women are being met in the hospital setting. Qualitative data were gathered through in-depth interviews with eleven women between the ages of 70 and 93 who had had a hospital stay in the previous year. Data analysis revealed that the system failed to attend to participants' age specific needs. This failure created gaps in care which were particularly troubling for elderly female patients whose frailty made them susceptible to additional health problems. Participants received inadequate care in such areas as bathing, walking assistance and help with eating. Hearing impairments and denture issues were at times overlooked. These gaps in care caused participants to view a hospital stay as a matter of survival. Participants developed strategies to cope with gaps in care which included lowering their expectations, developing support networks and relying on family members to meet their basic needs and advocate on their behalf. Recommendations for change include identifying elderly women as a vulnerable patient population and defining the problems they face as structural issues as opposed to individual problems.

No description available.

Children, over the course of development, experience numerous situations capable of eliciting fear; however, the behaviours which children exhibit in these situations remain unclear. The investigation presented here pursued the question "how do young children express fear in a non-painful medical situation where they perceive threat from physical harm?". It is important to note that this study differentiated between fear and anxiety, however it did not examine differences between these two emotions. 116 children, between the ages of 12 and 87 months, and their parents participated in the study. Children's fine-grained behavioural responses, (i.e., facial activity) and broader behavioural displays (e.g., crying, protective behaviours) were examined during a fearful situation. The specific threat used to provoke fear was orthopedic cast removal with an oscillating saw. Few people, including adults, who have had a cast removed would challenge the notion that the oscillating saw can effectively elicit fear. Facial activity was measured with the Baby-FACS coding system and global behaviours were assessed with the Observational Scale of Behavioral Distress. Results demonstrated the existence of a constellation of facial actions and a group of more global behaviours indicative of fear in young children. The facial actions and global behaviours identified in the total sample were examined on a subset of the children who were rated as displaying clinically significant fear. The same 13 facial actions were found to cluster together in the sample of children displaying clinically significant fear. Further, global behaviours occurred with a higher frequency in this sub-sample. Age and cast location were found to predict children's fear for both classes of behaviour in that younger children and children with casts on their legs had higher facial action factor scores and OSBD scale scores than older children or those with arm casts. Finally, facial activity and global behaviours appeared to be valid measures of fear as they were both correlated to an independent observer's and the cast technician's ratings of fear. Results are discussed in relation to current theories of emotional development and implications for clinical applications are reviewed.

Traditional psychological research on resilience has focused on individual traits and abilities and minimized the role of cultural and socio-political contexts in its analyses. In this tapestry, I use a narrative framework to learn about ten Vietnamese refugee youths, who have received university scholarships to attend university, but whose life chances would otherwise be considered, at high risk of failure because of their race, ethnic, and income status. I also interviewed their parents. Their narratives are discussed in the light of historical, cultural and social contexts in which they live and learn. In reporting the students' life stories, I use the concepts of "dance of life " that takes place within a context of shared human stories. The parents' endurance, struggles, and hopes accumulated over generations, become a story of collective resiliency. This story provides the informative thread for a collaborative weaving of the students' "dance of life" in which the children's individual responsibility for their academic (achievements. For the refugees academic resilience is a pervasive individual and collective experience, rooted in the distortions of social relations and the disruptions of community life that are the product of an oppressive society. Resiliency becomes the common "process" of participation open to all individuals, and conjoins deep personal meaning and shared common purpose. Thus, academic achievement is seen by the refugees as an effective instrument of empowerment and liberation for the entire family, community, and the hope for the future The self as narrated by these students orchestrates a dance between and among themselves within a family, a community, and across generations. The students' achievement is motivated by a debt of love and gratitude to those members of the family achievement is motivated by a debt of love and gratitude to those members of the family and the community to which they belong. Students stated that through their own efforts and the "right attitudes" they could reach their goals in school and break down the barriers of discrimination. They reported growing closer and more emotionally dependent on their parents over time. They struggled more with how to have and maintain satisfying peer relationships without becoming independent from their parents. This study opens a door to the discussion of socio-cultural perspectives that may partially explain previously reported outcomes of high achievement among Vietnamese refugee youths, despite their humble origins and their parents' low level of in come and education.

Cross cultural education in art museums is an interesting and complex issue. While cultural exhibitions have received attention in research, studies have usually focused on the nature of the exhibitions and have not explored the audience's understanding about culture in relationship to the exhibition. This qualitative study explores how and what First Nations cultures have been mediated by a civic art museum and negotiated by the museum audience, and the relationship between the two. Observations of the exhibition and audience and interviews with 99 adults in the museum were collected and analyzed to identify patterns and relationships. Analysis of the exhibition found the mediation of culture was distinguished by a partnership of the museum and First Nations cultures which reflected both their languages and voices. Audience responses illustrated a range of affective, factual and conceptual responses. Positive affective responses reflected the stimulation and satisfaction with learning which occurred. Visitors indicated enlightenment, exposure and revision of previously held ideas and assumptions, similarities and differences among cultures, and insight into perspectives of others. Partnership between the museum and the exhibition of masks from Northwest First Nations cultures is seen as a complex undertaking requiring reflection and examination of these two cultures. Visitor responses to the exhibition indicates learning, thinking and innumerable ways individuals construct meanings and understanding from art museum experiences.

This case study was conducted in order to understand the challenges and experiences of teachers from the Westview School District (pseudonym) participating in the British Columbia Ministry of Education's Grades 6-9 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Initiative. The four levels of teachers for this study included: 1. staff from the ministry responsible for either coordinating or managing the Initiative; 2. staff from the district responsible for implementing the Initiative in the district; 3. mentors who were the teachers responsible for supporting mentees as they implemented ICTs into their practice; 4. mentees who were the teachers implementing ICTs into their teaching practice. The research questions that framed this study are: 1. By participating in the Initiative did teachers make any changes to their practice, confidence levels and attitudes towards information and communication technology? 2. How effective was the mentorship model for implementing information and communication technology? 3. What factors are necessary to support the adoption of information and communication technology in teaching practice? Three methods of data collection were used including interviews, a personal journal and observation of mentors and mentees. Teachers were given a choice of being interviewed using either personal, email or mail interviews. From the analysis of the data, clusters of themes of experiences were identified including; teachers' motivations and feelings; difficulties with the mentoring relationship; technology issues; satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the Initiative. In conclusion, outside forces that are beyond the control of educators can seriously affect the outcome of educational initiatives. In order to counteract these forces, other means of support including funding must be made available. Time is required to make substantial changes to teachers' practice and students' learning. Therefore, technology implementation must be supported over a period of more than one and a half years before noticeable changes can be made. Mentoring is not a relationship that can be created for or imposed on people and it requires time to develop. The complexities of the combination of needs, personalities and skills make mentoring a difficult relationship to create through a one time initiative.

This ethnographic study is placed in a space between the principles and laws that come under the purview of multiculturalism and the way in which they are received and enacted in the everyday lives of student groups at a secondary school in Vancouver, BC. Using de Certeau's "logic of action," I view student multicultural practices are viewed as a set of "tactics" measured according to a principle of "usefulness" set against an official or ideological background of rights and privileges within a multiculturalism of mutual respect, integration, harmonious intergroup relations, social cohesion and a shared sense of Canadian identity. Student expressions of "distinctness," belonging and identity are examined using Charles Taylor's approach to a "Canadian multiculturalism." Student groups within a locale transform multiculturalism as policy into a tactical multiculturalism of "distinctness" in which propriety further suggests a multiculturalism based on recognition and individual rights. Using the ideas of Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, a system of "strong" (cohesive) and "weak" (fragmenting) multiculturalism is identified in the practices of three institutionally composed groups of students - "ESL," "Regular," and "IB." This system is further nuanced by taking account of a richly textured "background" or context in which multiculturalism is practiced. I arrived at an idea of multiculturality, a stylistic spectrum that varies from a passive multiculturalism of "distinctness" with its emphasis stereotypical and bounded forms, to an active style that looks more to historical contingencies and dynamics of context consistent with a Taylorian multiculturalism of dialogue, a discussion of value moving towards a "fusion of horizons" (Gadamer). Based on the study, some suggestions are made regarding pedagogical directions with respect to multiculturality.

This thesis explores the ways in which a municipal government in Brazil developed itself as a learning system through the support of a capacity-building project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. The project, which began in 1998, focuses on building capacity for adaptive, community based watershed management in the municipality of Santo Andre. It involves a team of Canadian partners led by the University of British Columbia Centre for Human Settlements. Santo Andre is a city of 600,000 people in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area. The focus of the thesis is on Santo Andre's planners' perspectives about the individual learning, and related organizational changes, that were induced by the project. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-one staff holding a variety of planning responsibilities. The findings are that, while not planned for in the design of the project, learning occurred at three levels: learning by the planners as individuals engaging in daily practices, learning through changes in the planners' relationships with one another and with residents of Santo Andre's Watershed Protection Area, and learning through and about the organisational processes of the municipal government itself. It is concluded that international capacity-building projects can contribute to the enhancement of local planning to the extent they are structured to address the potential for learning at all three of these levels.

The continued assimilation of advanced computing and information technologies in the workplace in the midst of rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions has led many corporations to transform their corporate culture and structure. These profound changes are implicating corporate functions such as planning, design, manufacturing, and marketing. A significant form of corporate re-structuring has been in the computer and information technology mediated integration of these functions which is sometimes labeled Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). Fundamental questions are provoked regarding the reshaping of these emerging modes and relations of production. Do these developments represent a departure from traditional Taylorist or Fordist workplace operations and organization? Are these emerging modes of work which generally are interwoven with Japanese inspired quality improvement programs and associated manufacturing methods producing a more human-centered workplace? Do these shifts in corporate re-structuring support the possible unfolding of forms of human-centered workplace democracy? To critically inquire and address the above questions, a case study was conducted involving a large manufacturing firm which has been undergoing a radical re-structuring of all its corporate operations. The case study method involves an analysis of the internal discourse(s) and practice(s) of an emerging manufacturing facility called the Factory of the Future (FOF) in the context of a changing corporate culture mediated by computer and information technologies and changing organizational practices. Many sources of information were appropriated to construct a collage of textual material in order to present FOF's unique genealogy and to provide a detailed description of the emerging phenomenon of CIM. Among these were internal documents, videos, and interviews conducted with factory and office workers. Based on a critical interpretation of the case study findings a number of provisional conclusions were reached and may be summarized as follows: • Certain neo-Taylorist and neo-Fordist modes of production are emerging both in the factory and office as the transformation of the corporation proceeds toward a CIM mode of operation. • More human-centered organizational practices have marked the changing corporate culture although they are at times subject to conflicts and contradictions. • Managerial power has grown in the midst of computer and information mediated systems, even though worker participation and involvement in work related decisions has also been enhanced.

Researchers and theorists have suggested that two personality styles may serve as pathways for the development of depression. One personality style, sociotropy, involves intense needs for positive interchange with others, whereas the other style, autonomy, involves an excessive need for self-control and independence. These personality styles were investigated in the context of Coyne's (1976) interpersonal model of depression, which suggests that depressed persons are rejected by others. Research on this model has been equivocal, and it is possible that these two personality dimensions result in meaningful interpersonal differences within depressed persons. Depressed outpatients, (N=41) and non-depressed controls (N=41) were assessed on sociotropy and autonomy and then participated in a brief task in which a research assistant helped them plan adaptive life changes. These interactions were rated subjectively and utilizing behavioural coding. Results indicated that a combination of depression and autonomy were particularly likely to lead to rejection and less positive interpersonal behaviours. Sociotropy was related to perceptions of interpersonal deference, whereas depression was associated with self-orientation in the task. These results suggest that both depression and personality impact rejection and interpersonal behaviours in social interactions. Overall, this study represents a significant step toward greater specificity in the interpersonal model of depression, and clinical implications of these findings are described.