abstract: Students may be situated within complex systems that are nested within each other. This complexity may also envelope institutional structures that lead to the socio-economic reification of student post-secondary opportunities by obscuring positive goals. This may be confounded by community misunderstandings about the changed world that students are entering. These changes include social and economic factors that impact personal and economic freedoms, our ability to live at peace, and the continuing trend of students graduating high school underprepared. Building on previous cycles of action research, this multi-strand mixed-methods study examined the effects of the innovation of the I am College and Career Ready Student Support Program (iCCR). The innovation was collaboratively developed and implemented over a 16-week period using a participatory action research approach. The situated context of this study was a new high school in the urban center of San Diego, California. The innovation included a student program administered during an advisory period and a parent education program. Qualitative research used a critical ethnographic design that analyzed data from artifacts, journals, notes, and the interviews of students (*n* = 8), parents (*n* = 6), and teachers (*n* = 5). Quantitative research included the analysis of data from surveys administered to inform the development of the innovation (*n* = 112), to measure learning of parent workshop participants (*n =* 10), and to measure learning, hope, and attitudinal disposition of student participants (*n* = 49). Triangulation was used to answer the studies’ four research questions. Triangulated findings were subjected to the method of crystallization to search for hidden meanings and multiple truths. Findings included the importance of parent involvement, the influence of positive goals, relational implications of goal setting and pathway knowledge on agentic thinking, and that teacher implementation of the innovation may have influenced student hope levels. This study argued for a grounded theory situated within a theoretical framework based upon Snyder’s Hope Theory and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory. This argument asserted that influence on pathway and agency occurred at levels of high proximal process with the influence of goal setting occurring at levels of lower proximal process. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2018

This thesis explores the themes of hope, empowerment, and belonging in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Using three different frameworks, I analyze the portrayal of interconnected senses of hope, empowerment, and belonging in the texts through the Baudelaire orphans, and their promotion of the same in the child reader. C.R. Snyder’s psychological hope theory is used to analyze how hope is created in the child protagonists and encouraged in the child reader, through finding pathways to their goals and the will to utilize them. Eliza T. Dresang’s Radical Change theory provides a framework for exploring how child empowerment functions in the texts, which is largely connected to the pursuit of knowledge and autodidacticism. Lastly, I use the role of literary orphanhood, changing concepts of family, and sociological frameworks for belonging to address how the Baudelaire orphans, and the child reader, find home and belonging outside of the idealized nuclear family—namely through shared social locations, social solidarities, and a symbolic reunification of the Baudelaire family. Moreover, I analyze the role of the Gothic and what MariaNikolajeva calls aetonormativity—adult normativity that Others children—in creating the hopeless and disempowering conditions that paradoxically make way for the development of hope, empowerment, and belonging.

Syftet med studien är att lyfta fram åsikter och uppfattningar hos ungdomar som tvångsvårdas på SiS särskilda ungdomshem. Fokus ligger på att undersöka vilken bakgrund dessa ungdomar har, deras uppfattningar kring tvångsvården samt identifiera och tolka inre och yttre motivationskrafter till livsförändring hos ungdomarna. För att fånga ungdomars egna erfarenheter och åsikter om tvångsvården valdes en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med en deduktiv ansats utifrån motivationsteorierna Self-Determination Theory och Hope Theory. Det empiriska materialet består av ungdomars egenskrivna texter från två böcker, där ungdomarna beskriver deras liv innan och under placeringen på SiS samt deras tankar inför framtiden. Materialet analyseras genom en tematisk textanalys.  Den tematiska analysen resulterade i fem huvudteman; fragmenterade barndomar, från motstånd till insikt, frihet och återuppbyggnad, en osjälvisk förändring samt navigering genom okänd terräng. Resultatet visade att ungdomarna har upplevt trasiga uppväxtförhållanden och att stöttande personer i deras närhet är av stor vikt, speciellt deras mödrar. Vidare visade resultatet en splittrad uppfattning om tvångvården där de flesta beskriver en initial skepsis gentemot vården men att de med tiden kommer till insikt om deras problematik och behov till behandling. Gällande ungdomarnas motivation till förändring kunde flertalet inre och yttre motivationsfaktorer identifieras, där autonomi och frihet samt undvikande av straff var de mest framträdande. Återkommande i resultatet gällande ungdomarnas framtid var att ungdomarna uppgav hopp inför framtiden men beskrev samtidigt en rädsla för att falla tillbaka i destruktiva mönster och därmed en bristande tro till deras egen förmåga att förändra sina liv. Resultatet analyseras utifrån tidigare forskning och det teoretiska underlaget. / The purpose of the study is to highlight the opinions and perceptions of young people who are receiving care provided by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care. The focus is on examining the backgrounds of these young people, their perceptions of compulsory care, and identifying and interpreting internal and external motivational forces for life change among the youth. To capture the youths' own experiences and opinions about compulsory care, a qualitative research method with a deductive approach based on the motivational theories of Self-Determination Theory and Hope Theory was chosen. The empirical material consists of youths' self-written texts from two books, where the youths describe their lives before and during the compulsory care as well as their thoughts about the future. The material is analyzed through a thematic text analysis. The thematic analysis resulted in five main themes: fragmented childhoods, from resistance to insight, freedom and rebuilding, selfless change, and navigating through unknown terrain. The results showed that the youths have experienced broken upbringing conditions and that supportive individuals in their surroundings are of great importance, especially their mothers. Furthermore, the results revealed a mixed perception of compulsory care where most describe initial skepticism towards the care but eventually come to realize their issues and need for treatment. Regarding the youths' motivation for change, several internal and external motivational factors were identified, with autonomy and freedom, as well as avoidance of punishment, being the most prominent. Recurrent in the results regarding the youths' future was that they expressed hope for the future but also described a fear of reverting to destructive patterns and thus a lack of belief in their ability to change their lives. The results are analyzed based on previous research and the theoretical framework.

立志，是儒家教人成長及轉化的「霹靂手段」，也是儒家形塑健動人格的根本原理。儒門修養技巧粲然多元，但立志的扼要及深遠，恐怕會讓各種修養都只能瞠乎其後。「立志」在儒家就是「悠悠萬事，唯此為大」的一件事。及至宋明以降，眾位儒林名宿更一再懇請立志，於是遂在文學的「言志」傳統之外，別開一支「教」與「學」的「立志」傳統。 本論文研究緣起，即留意那些飽覽經籍又盡閱世情的大儒，何以竟會一致地高度關注「立志」？「立志」不是人人「能說會道」的「常識」嗎？這種「常識」，為什麼要大張旗鼓去疾呼呢？ 進而，儒家「立志」的觀念，有特定的規創性內涵──為己。「為己」要求自我生命的轉化及善成。人能養成強烈的「為己意識」，才能收回以往長年外逐名利的虛偽及疲憊，學著與自己相處及自重自愛。從外逐而轉內，人才能「轉俗成真」，有「真人」才有「真志」及「真學」。故「為己」正是儒家「大學之道」的基石。 本論文正是剖釋「立志」與「為己」這兩個儒家教學的核心要義。 緒論檢討前行成果餘留的研究空間，並指出由於「立志」一詞的濫用，讓傳統「立志」所蘊含的深沈與厚重之義，轉趨浮薄。同時，本論文的研究策略，並非幽深地精究一家一派，而是為求研究成果更普遍有效，將以《論語》、《孟子》為主要材料，再揀選宋明大儒提及相關內容的文獻予以研討。 第一章是〈評定《論語》：「古之學者為己，今之學者為人」的三派詮釋〉。自古對於「古之學者為己，今之學者為人」的詮釋，大致有「貴古派」、「今是派」與「調和派」等異說。文中即往復辯難三派何者最諦當。主要結果確定「貴古派」的論調，能獲得《論語》最多的印證與支持，更指出「為己」的具體要求，即「自知」與「自愛」。 第二章是〈「為己之學」隱含的「孤獨」意涵〉。以往多認定儒者處於熱絡的人際網路；但是，深入文獻，能照見儒者亦有孤獨心理。那孤獨感對儒者在「人格」及「學」的養成，又有什麼影響？主要結果是，孤獨感對「為己意識」養成有所助益，甚至實踐「為己之學」，本身常要面對踽踽獨往的情況；而孔子本人提出「為己」，正與他「吾少也賤」的孤獨感大有相干。 第三章是〈「志」的內涵及其作用〉。由於「志」字本身就有「目的」和「希望」的涵義。因此本章藉助William Damon的「目的感」理論及Charles R. Snyder的「希望理論」來作為理解儒家「志」字的新資源。再則，傳統釋「志」字為「心之所之」，文中將以「信念」對「情緒」、「行動」的決定關係，去釐清「志」的「所之」動力如何生起。並歸納先儒對「志」的實踐體驗，獲知立志將生起四個踐德大用：解放抑制、動力騰湧、不動不奪、遏制習欲。當立志而生起這四種效用，使人在踐德上「欲罷不能」，人遂能善勇進取，所以「立志」是生命轉化的有力保證。人惟患不能立志，不患不能成章自立。 〈結論〉則總述全文，並本於前面的研究，將傳統解釋成「心之所之」的「志」，重新概念化成為「為己的信念系統」。更指出儒家「立志」的課題，不僅只涉及個人的生命目的追尋而已；事實上，協助青年立志這件事，本身與今日社會發展的衰盛相關，而且立志的研討，更有潛力能對尼特族、青年晚熟等社會憂患，給出預防及紓困之道，而這是儒學在當代能發揮人性溫度和可貴價值的切實脈絡。