Marital status significantly shapes individuals' psychological well-being, though more is known about its effect on negative than positive dimensions. This study examines the association between marital status and psychological well-being across negative and positive dimensions, using data from two waves of the Midlife in the United States Survey (MIDUS 1995-1996 and 2004-2006). Compared with prior studies, my research examines a more comprehensive set of indicators of psychological well-being: depression, autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, self-acceptance, and purpose in life. I further examine how the associations between marital status and these dimensions of psychological well-being vary by age. I use three analytic samples to examine the cross-sectional associations and effects over time: Wave 1 sample (n=2,801), Wave 2 sample (n=1,737), and panel data containing respondents in both waves (n=1,657). Although the results vary across the two waves and between cross-sectional and panel analyses, results of Ordinary Least Regression (OLS) models indicate that, compared with those in other marital statuses, married adults tend to have better psychological well-being, including less depression and greater self-acceptance and positive relations with others. Differences among the married also are found, with remarried adults reporting more autonomy than continuously married adults. Using the multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM), the results showed that the association between marital status and psychological well-being only holds for middle-aged adults (45≤age≤60). These findings of variation in the association between marital status and psychological well-being across not only dimensions of well-being but also age groups highlights the importance of further research examining sources of variation and explanations for them. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2014. / July 2, 2014. / Age variation, Marital Status, Mental health, Multiple-group, Psychological well-being, Structural Equation Modeling / Includes bibliographical references. / Anne E. Barrett, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ming Cui, University Representative; Isaac W. Eberstein, Committee Member; Koji Ueno, Committee Member.

Rising concerns over fatness in the United States have initiated a rise in research attending to the reproduction of fatness inequality. Prior work has documented that fat workers are evaluated less favorably and endure more weight-based discrimination than their thinner peers. Additionally, overweight and obese workers tend to have lower earnings than their thinner counterparts, and these penalties are especially harsh for women. However, less is known about the role of age in the relationship between fatness and earnings for women and men. We also know little about the processes through which fatness produces lower earnings. This mixed-methods project lends new insight into both of these issues. Using a sample of workers aged 25 to 72 drawn from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (1995-1996 and 2004-2006), I examine gender and age variation in the relationship between fatness and earnings. Multiple regression analyses reveal that obese individuals have lower earnings than their normal weight counterparts, overweight women have lower earnings than overweight men, and earnings penalties begin to accumulate at older ages among women. Measures of self-reported labor market discrimination and unfavorable workplace relations are unable to account for these penalties, suggesting that reduced earnings may be the result of subtler interactions in the workplace. I also analyze data drawn from twenty in-depth interviews with women with fatness-related labor market experience. These women describe interactions that point to the devaluation of fatness in the labor market, including extensive discussions about diet and being approached by coworkers and bosses about their size. They also describe strategies used to compensate for their fatness that may contribute to the reproduction of fatness inequality. The findings from this project reveal that fatness, gender, and age affect personal earnings with these systems of inequality interrelated. They also illustrate how women's fatness inequality may be maintained through interpersonal interactions in the workplace. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / July 12, 2013. / Age, Intersectionality, Obesity, Work / Includes bibliographical references. / Anne E. Barrett, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jack Fiorito, University Representative; Irene Padavic, Committee Member; John Reynolds, Committee Member.

This study evaluates the impact of women's decision making power and attitudes about themselves in Egypt on three dimensions of child health: stunting, wasting and underweight. This study seeks to understand how women's perceived decision making power and self-perception affect child health, net of household socio-economic characteristics. These measures of child health are utilized because they describe the long and short term consequences on the health of Egyptian children. An analysis of stunting, wasting and underweight is important as it excludes children that have already succumbed to infant and child mortality that will not make up Egypt's future population and subsequent economic and political landscape. Analyses of the children's recode of the 2008 Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey reveal that while accounting for little of the variation in child health, dimensions of women's power are statistically significant predictors of child health, independent of measures of socioeconomic status. Logistic regression is used to understand how the effect of mother's perceived decision making power and attitudes affect child stunting, wasting and underweight in Egypt and how that effect changes when accounting for measures of socio-economic status and other controls. Children are less likely to be stunted, wasted or underweight when their mothers have more power and access to resources. These findings suggest that women's decision making power is important in its own right as a proximate determinant of child health, net of its traditional role as part of a measurement of socioeconomic status. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 24, 2014. / Attitudes About Self, Child Health, Decision Making, Egypt, Stunting, Women'S Power / Includes bibliographical references. / Isaac W. Eberstein, Professor Directing Dissertation; Rebecca Miles, University Representative; Elwood Carlson, Committee Member; Kathryn Tillman, Committee Member.

This research contributes to medical sociology, neighborhood research, and life course studies by synthesizing relevant concepts from each field in order to offer a more complete understanding of how and why place impacts health. This achieved through the use of a life course framework that examines the influence of neighborhoods on self-rated health and allostatic load from adolescence through the transition into adulthood using a longitudinal, nationally representative data set that includes detailed information on early life health, as well as detailed data regarding adult health and well-being. Specifically, this dissertation contributes to the aforementioned by examining the following questions: 1) What are the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics on two measures of physical health at three different time points and 2) What mediating mechanisms account for their effects? The findings of this research further bolster existing evidence regarding the importance of the neighborhood environment for physical health. However, the results also extend the existing knowledge base in important ways. This work demonstrates that neighborhood structural characteristics, measured as disadvantage, affluence, and immigrant concentration, influence both subjective and objective measures of physical health at multiple points throughout the life course. Health outcomes such as allostatic load, self-rated health, and mean health are sensitive to compositional structural attributes of the community environment, but there are differences in which aspects of place matter most, the timing of the neighborhood effects, as well as differences in the way that traditional identified mediating mechanisms operate. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2014. / March 31, 2014. / Allostatic load, Health, Life Course, Neighborhoods, Self-rated health / Includes bibliographical references. / Jill Quadagno, Professor Directing Dissertation; Rebecca Miles, University Representative; Karin Brewster, Committee Member; Kathryn Harker Tillman, Committee Member.

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION At the University of Zululand in fulfilment or partial fulfilment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Education in the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION, 2000. / This research examined the role of parents and community leaders in the development and maintenance of school culture in the Inanda District schools. The study made use of interviews and questionnaires to determine whether parents and community leaders perceive themselves as role players in developing the school culture. On the basis of the views from respondents, the study concluded that although parents and community leaders are aware of their role but they do not seem to be willing to do it. The research project, however, established that a high percentage of community leaders are not aware of what is taking place in the school. A high percentage of community leaders responded that there was poor communication between the schools and the community. This seems to limit their contribution to the development of school culture. The study makes recommendations which may facilitate the role of parents in creating the appropriate school culture.

Chinese international students’ difficulties in adjusting to the U.S. classrooms has long been overlooked. They have been stereotyped as not experiencing any problems as a result of their excellence at all levels of education, which also implies that they have been succeeding at handling cross-cultural issues. Research which focuses on Chinese international students are usually generated in the area of second language learning or pedagogical methods, Chinese international students’ cross-cultural experience has not been fully explored. The present study was hence conducted to fill the literature gap. Its results could lead to an improvement of Chinese international EFL students’ studying abroad experience, as well as provide directions for possible future studies. The study investigated the research question: how does a group of eight Chinese international EFL students studying STEM disciplines in doctoral programs at a large public research university make meaning of their cross-cultural classrooms/lab setting experiences? The study is a qualitative case study. Participants were recruited via purposeful snowball sampling. An interpersonal, semi-structured interview was used for data collection, and guidelines provided by Smith et al. (2009) were adopted for data analysis. The results show that all eight participants have been experiencing culture-shock since they arrived in the U.S., and they held many erroneous assumptions about studying in the U.S.. Their major difficulties were generated by adjusting to the U.S. classroom culture and using/understanding cultural English. Causes of their cross-cultural experience could be traced to differences between the Chinese and the U.S. curricula and pedagogical methods; and the teacher centered, textbook oriented teaching methods adopted in their Chinese schools for English teaching. Besides, since most of the participants were top students when they were in China, considering the demand for academic excellence in the Chinese culture, participants’ eagerness to maintain/obtain academic accomplishments severed the negative part of their cross-cultural experience. On the basis of my findings, I recommend re-examining (and corresponding change) of the curricula, avoiding the expert blind spot while teaching, and a change in schools in China regarding its English teaching method. However, because this is a qualitative case study, when facing a different group of students (other than my participants), these suggestions should be applied selectively.

No description available.

Thesis (MPhil (Modern Foreign Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Arts and Culture is one of the new learning areas in the grade 8 and 9 school curriculum. To understand and then express themselves in a correct and confident manner, learners need the correct terminology for Arts and Culture. The learners need more than the day to day terminology in order to participate in conversations focussing on specialised subjects such as music, dance, drama and visual arts. It is important to note that the idea is not to develop expert academics but it is an attempt to enrich children for life and give them more self confidence. The aim of this computer project is to provide an information website to assist the grade 9 learners in the Arts and Culture domain to develop the appropriate language needed in the learning area.

Thesis (M. Mus.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research for this thesis was conducted because many educators in the South African education system are not equipped to teach Arts and Culture to primary and secondary learners because of a lack of resources and skills. The researcher tries to determine whether traditional songs of the Cape could lay the foundation to understand the origin, functions and dynamics of a culture, as well as the capacity to use creative arts- and cultural processes to develop one's self-image and promote spiritual well-being. The main aim of this study was to determine whether educators can be empowered by providing them with the necessary skills to teach Arts and Culture by means of the integration and implementation of traditional songs of the Cape in the classroom as resource materials when planning a curriculum. Arts and Culture educators were empowered to equip themselves to be able to teach learners to understand, acknowledge and promote the arts and unknowncultural practices such as traditional songs of the Cape. The researcher based the component of the Empowerment Training she was responsible for on the requirements for Participatory Action Research: Awareness, Emancipation, A learning strategy for participants and the development of independence. The results of this thesis are based on two projects the researcher participated in. The main aim of the first project, "Mother's Milk, Mother's Muse" that was initiated by Professor Meki Nzewi of the University of Pretoria, was to collect traditional songs, games, legends and stories of the Cape. These materials are available on CD and DVD and included in this thesis. These were then used in the second project as resources to equip Arts and Culture educators with a variety of skills, which include the teaching of songs, during the Advanced Certificate in Education (Arts and Culture) at the University of Stellenbosch, offered since 2005. This thesis is a compiliation of how Arts and Culture educators were empowered to use and implement these materials in the learning area by the component in the ACE course for which the researcher was responsible. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die feit dat baie opvoeders weens ongebrek aan hulpbronne en vaardighede nie volledig toegerus is om die leerarea Kuns en Kultuur aan leerders op primere- en sekondere vlak aan te bied nie, het aanleiding gegee tot die navorsing vir hierdie tesis. Die navorser stel ondersoek in om te bepaal of tradisionele Kaapseliedere as basis sou kon dien vir on begrip van die oorsprong, funksies en dinamiese aard van kultuur, asook van die vermoe om kreatiewe kuns en kulturele prosesse te benut om 'n selfbeeld te ontwikkel en geestelike gesondheid te bevorder. Die doel van hierdie ondersoek was om vas te stel of opvoeders bemagtig kon word deur hulle toe te rus met basiese onderrigtegnieke om die leerarea Kuns en Kultuur te kan aanbied, deur die integrasie en implementering van tradisionele KaapseIiedere in die klaskamer en die insameling van liedere as hulpbronne wat tot opvoeders se beskikking is tydens kurrikulumbeplanning. Bemagtigingsopleiding is aan Kuns en Kultuur-opvoeders gebied ten einde hulself toe te rus om leerders te kan touwys maak hoe om die kunste asook kulturele vorms en gebruike wat histories nie erkenning kry nie, in hierdie geval tradisionele Kaapseliedere, te erken, verstaan en bevorder. Riglyne vir Deelnemende Aksie Navorsing, naamlik bewusmaking, emansipasie, 'n leerstrategie vir deelnemers en die ontwikkeling van selfstandigheid is as basis gebruik vir die bemagtigingsopleiding. Die navorser was betrokke by twee projekte waarop die resultate van hierdie tesis gebaseer is. Die hoof doeI van die eerste projek, "Mother's Milk Mother's Muse", was om tradisionele Kaapse liedere, speletjies, legendes en stories in te samel. Tydens die tweede projek, die Gevorderde Onderwyssertifikaat (Kuns en Kultuur) wat vanaf 2005 by die Universiteit Stellenboseh aangebied word, is die ingesamelde materiaal onder andere gebruik om verskillende tegnieke, waaronder die aanleer van liedere, aan opvoeders te demonstreer. Die materiaal wat ingesamel is, is op CD en DVD by hierdie tesis ingesluit. Hierdie tesis is onsamevatting van die maniere waarop Kuns en Kultuur-opvoeders deur middel van die komponent waarvoor die navorser in die GOS-program verantwoordelik was bemagtig is om hierdie materiaal te ontgin en in die leerarea te implementeer.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture