Abstract The disquiet around parent-school relationships is the focus of this study. During transitioning to high school, the boundaries around this relationship changes. Few studies have addressed these changes, particularly from parents’ perspectives. It is parents’ voices which are central to this study. This dissertation uses the standpoint of parents, which is often absent or silent in educational literature and research. Within a critical and constructivist paradigm, and influenced by Institutional Ethnography, two elementary schools (divergent in race, social class, ethnicity and immigrant status) and one high school are the sites for interviews with 14 parents and 13 educators. 11 parents were re-interviewed after their children entered high school. Four questions were addresses: How has parent involvement come to be understood? How is the parent-school relationship experienced by parents and educators? How and why are decisions made around the transition and school choice process? Do parents’ perceptions align/vary from those of educators? Based on historically constructed notions and assumptions, parent involvement is usually understood as a visible and public demonstration of appropriate and caring parenting ignoring interactions outside of the public’s gaze. Illustrated through Parent Council membership, parent involvement is gendered, classed, culturally related and race, ethnic and immigrant status specific. Some parents had more social, cultural, economic and emotional capital to bring to the transition process, while others were marginalized and had to rely on/trust the education system. School and Board policies and procedures were examined and their varied affects on parents’ experiences and choices analysed. Educators assisted in disseminating assumptions around parent-school relationships and contributed to inequitable parent knowledge, partially as a result of too little training. By examining social, economic and cultural positioning of parents within local school communities, positive parent-school relationships can be nurtured, which political pundits and educationalists have failed to accomplish. During transitioning, organization and social discontinuities contributed to parent and school disconnects and constructed borderlands in the parent-child-school relationship. This study evidenced the fragility of the parent-school relationship, especially during this vulnerable time for parents and thus, reflective questions are presented in hope of initiating a crucial conversation in local school communities.

Since 2002, the Canadian state has mandatorily tested applicants for permanent residence for HIV (Human immune deficiency virus). The policy and practices associated with this screening have never been critically scrutinized. Authoritative claims about what happens in the conduct of the immigration medical examination are at odds with the experience of immigrant applicants living with HIV. This is the analytic entry point into this inquiry that is organized within the theoretical and methodological frame offered by institutional ethnography and political activist ethnography. Analysis is connected to broader research literatures and the historical record. The goal of this study is to produce detailed, contextualized understandings of the social and ruling relations that organize the lives of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. These are generated from the material conditions of their lives. An assumption about how organization happens is the social and reflexive production of knowledge in people’s day-to-day lives through which connections between local and extra-local settings are empirically investigable. I investigate the organization of the Canadian immigration process. How is this institutional complex ordered and governed? How is immigration mandatory HIV testing organized, and with what consequences to HIV-positive applicants to Canada? This is a text-mediated organization where all the sites are connected by people’s work and the texts they circulate. The positive result of an immigration HIV test catalyzes the state’s collection of medical data about an applicant. These are entered into state decision-making about the person’s in/admissibility to Canada. I focus on a key component of the immigration process, which is medical examination and HIV testing with this, along with the HIV test counselling practices that happen (or not) there. The reported absence of the latter form of care causes problems and contradictions for people. This investigation adopts the standpoint of these persons to investigate their problems associated with HIV testing. The main empirically supported argument I make is that the Canadian state’s ideological work related to the HIV policy and mandatory screening ushers in a set of institutional practices that are highly problematic for immigrants with HIV. This argument relies on data collected in interviews, focus groups, observations, and analysis of texts organized under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C., 2001, c. 27) and textually mediated, discursively organized concepts that shape people’s practice. Canadian immigration medical policy makers should make use of these findings, as should civil society activists acting on behalf of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. I make nine specific recommendations for future action on HIV and immigration in Canada.

This thesis explicates the translocal ruling relations embedded in the process that a Canadian corporation used to acquire collectively held land for a mine in Mexico. Using Institutional Ethnography, I begin from a disjuncture between the corporation’s statements that the mine holds “local support” and the contesting claims of an opposition movement. I contextualize this disjuncture by referring to the institutional discourse of “corporate social responsibility” in mining. I make visible the hierarchy of texts activated by the corporation to acquire land and produce the claim of “local support.” I overlay this problematic with a reconstruction of the legal disputes between the corporation and its opposition, indicating where the process is hooked into legislation that organizes multinational investment in mining. The inquiry illuminates the workings of power, illustrating how provisions for foreign investment enshrined in multilateral institutions and upheld in Mexican legislation hold primacy over provisions for “local support.”

Since 2002, the Canadian state has mandatorily tested applicants for permanent residence for HIV (Human immune deficiency virus). The policy and practices associated with this screening have never been critically scrutinized. Authoritative claims about what happens in the conduct of the immigration medical examination are at odds with the experience of immigrant applicants living with HIV. This is the analytic entry point into this inquiry that is organized within the theoretical and methodological frame offered by institutional ethnography and political activist ethnography. Analysis is connected to broader research literatures and the historical record. The goal of this study is to produce detailed, contextualized understandings of the social and ruling relations that organize the lives of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. These are generated from the material conditions of their lives. An assumption about how organization happens is the social and reflexive production of knowledge in people’s day-to-day lives through which connections between local and extra-local settings are empirically investigable. I investigate the organization of the Canadian immigration process. How is this institutional complex ordered and governed? How is immigration mandatory HIV testing organized, and with what consequences to HIV-positive applicants to Canada? This is a text-mediated organization where all the sites are connected by people’s work and the texts they circulate. The positive result of an immigration HIV test catalyzes the state’s collection of medical data about an applicant. These are entered into state decision-making about the person’s in/admissibility to Canada. I focus on a key component of the immigration process, which is medical examination and HIV testing with this, along with the HIV test counselling practices that happen (or not) there. The reported absence of the latter form of care causes problems and contradictions for people. This investigation adopts the standpoint of these persons to investigate their problems associated with HIV testing. The main empirically supported argument I make is that the Canadian state’s ideological work related to the HIV policy and mandatory screening ushers in a set of institutional practices that are highly problematic for immigrants with HIV. This argument relies on data collected in interviews, focus groups, observations, and analysis of texts organized under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C., 2001, c. 27) and textually mediated, discursively organized concepts that shape people’s practice. Canadian immigration medical policy makers should make use of these findings, as should civil society activists acting on behalf of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. I make nine specific recommendations for future action on HIV and immigration in Canada.

On 15 October 2017 actress Alyssa Milano posted the following on her Twitter account: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet”. After Milano’s tweet, the hashtag #MeToo is said to have gone viral overnight. Suddenly, the stories of survivors and victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse seemed to be everywhere— although, it may be argued, that they have always been the lived reality for many of us. Activists and those who research feminist hashtags like #MeToo tend to view the hashtag as a personalized tool for storytelling that enables survivors and victims to re-claim agency over the production of their own stories. This thesis deals with how survivors/victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault and/or sexual abuse tell their stories and reproduce their experiences in the context of #MeToo movement. Through an analysis within the framework of institutional ethnography, the process of constructing a #MeToo account will be recovered. The analysis focuses on investigating what informs and shapes the way in which survivors/victims tell their story and how their #MeToo accounts interact with the reader. It will be argued that institutional processes of handling cases of sexual violence significantly influence the way survivors and victims share their experiences in the context of the movement. It will be suggested that being critical and mindful of the institutional processes that affect the way survivors and victims share their experiences, means to disrupt the oppression and the violence that criminal justice systems and retributive models of justice perpetrate. As it is then that we can open up to more transformative, sustainable approaches to justice and survivor/victim support. The project contributes to the current body of feminist hashtag activism scholarship with an institutional ethnography perspective.

This thesis explores the process of accreditation within a government contracted social service agency in British Columbia, Canada. The agency is seeking accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). Institutional ethnography is used to explicate the social relations of CARF - how it organizes frontline work with clients and how it re-organizes an agency’s relations to government funding and service delivery. Data include the author’s frontline work accounts, interviews with frontline workers and the Director, and textual documents used within frontline work. The research process traces specific reporting documents that connect frontline work to the agency’s funders, Community Living B.C. and the Regional Health Authority, and to CARF. This thesis makes visible how the accreditation discourse of measurement and continuous quality improvement shifts how frontline workers think about and do their work with clients in ways that align their priorities with those of government contract management.

The purpose of the collected papers dissertation was to critically examine the individual and institutional conditions that shaped battered women’s work experiences in church organizations. The studies in the collected papers shared the provision of using a methodological and analytic tool, institutional ethnography (IE), that offers a strategic and comprehensive means of investigating issues related to institutions and institutional processes that merge a macro and micro view. The first paper was a conceptual paper that emphasized the socio-political context in which adult vocation education is practiced and shared a practical means of using IE to uncover the interconnected and interdependent social processes that prohibit an individual’s ability to navigate structural and political subsystems that impact learning, teaching, and work. The second paper was an empirical paper that used IE to help us see how battered women’s needs as workers in Christian churches are evaporated behind institutional ideologies and actions that invalidate her concerns while preserving their ideals. The study revealed four ways that African American battered women entered into an institutional death process by direct disclosure or assumed disclosure: (a) invalidation, (b) overspiritualization, (c) inauthenticity, (d) and bifurcation. It was found, that once disclosure took place, women placed a different expectation upon the church to respond to their issue of domestic abuse. In summation, Study #2 highlighted the use of IE in uncovering the institutional relations that shaped women’s experiences as work in Christian churches. Overall, the findings elucidate ways that social workers, churches, adult educators, and HRD researchers and practitioners can engage in research that has implications for how to collaborate for implementable solutions. The findings provide ways for African American women to navigate oppressive regimes; and lends insight to how adult educators, HRD practitioners, and pastors who work with battered women can assist and intervene in the educational, emotional, and natural support areas for African American battered women working in Christian churches.

Since 2002, the Canadian state has mandatorily tested applicants for permanent residence for HIV (Human immune deficiency virus). The policy and practices associated with this screening have never been critically scrutinized. Authoritative claims about what happens in the conduct of the immigration medical examination are at odds with the experience of immigrant applicants living with HIV. This is the analytic entry point into this inquiry that is organized within the theoretical and methodological frame offered by institutional ethnography and political activist ethnography. Analysis is connected to broader research literatures and the historical record. The goal of this study is to produce detailed, contextualized understandings of the social and ruling relations that organize the lives of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. These are generated from the material conditions of their lives. An assumption about how organization happens is the social and reflexive production of knowledge in people’s day-to-day lives through which connections between local and extra-local settings are empirically investigable. I investigate the organization of the Canadian immigration process. How is this institutional complex ordered and governed? How is immigration mandatory HIV testing organized, and with what consequences to HIV-positive applicants to Canada? This is a text-mediated organization where all the sites are connected by people’s work and the texts they circulate. The positive result of an immigration HIV test catalyzes the state’s collection of medical data about an applicant. These are entered into state decision-making about the person’s in/admissibility to Canada. I focus on a key component of the immigration process, which is medical examination and HIV testing with this, along with the HIV test counselling practices that happen (or not) there. The reported absence of the latter form of care causes problems and contradictions for people. This investigation adopts the standpoint of these persons to investigate their problems associated with HIV testing. The main empirically supported argument I make is that the Canadian state’s ideological work related to the HIV policy and mandatory screening ushers in a set of institutional practices that are highly problematic for immigrants with HIV. This argument relies on data collected in interviews, focus groups, observations, and analysis of texts organized under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C., 2001, c. 27) and textually mediated, discursively organized concepts that shape people’s practice. Canadian immigration medical policy makers should make use of these findings, as should civil society activists acting on behalf of immigrants to Canada living with HIV. I make nine specific recommendations for future action on HIV and immigration in Canada.

No description available.

Cette ethnographie institutionnelle décrit et analyse le travail infirmier en milieu hospitalier et la toile des relations sociales qui le régulent. De nombreux écrits en sciences infirmières portent sur le travail infirmier, mais peu s’intéressent à l’interrelation entre le travail infirmier et l’hôpital comme structure sociopolitique et historique qui régule et organise le travail au quotidien. Loin d’être une simple toile de fond, l’hôpital est un lieu de socialisation fondamental pour les infirmières ; la majorité des infirmières travaillent dans un hôpital et la formation infirmière se déroule au moins en partie en milieu hospitalier depuis plus d’un siècle. Cette ethnographie institutionnelle, qui s’est déroulée sur cinq mois dans un hôpital montréalais, explore et analyse la régulation du travail infirmier par l’institution hospitalière. Les observations, les entrevues et l’analyse de documents institutionnels ont permis de décrire en détail ce que font les infirmières au quotidien en milieu hospitalier. Des points de tensions ont été identifiés relatifs au système des professions, à l’intériorisation de la hiérarchie professionnelle structurée par l’hôpital et comment l’hôpital invisibilise le travail infirmier. Cette thèse suggère que l’hôpital est un médiateur dans les relations interprofessionnelles qui sont structurées à l’intérieur d’une hiérarchie rigide, héritée d’une vision victorienne et reproduite depuis plus d’un siècle, dans laquelle sont socialisées les infirmières. Cette hiérarchie est caractérisée par l’allocation débalancée de la technologie entre différents groupes professionnels ainsi que leur rapport aux lieux physiques dans leur travail. Finalement, cette thèse propose une vision novatrice et perturbatrice de la compréhension de l’hôpital, de son histoire et de son rôle dans la socialisation des infirmières qui pourrait servir à aider les infirmières à clarifier et investir leur agentivité politique. / This institutional ethnography describes and analyses nursing work in hospitals and the web of social relations that regulates it. Many writings in nursing science have explored nursing work, but few explore the inter-relation of nursing work and the hospital as a socio-political and historical institution that regulates daily work. Far from being a simple backdrop, hospitals are fundamental to the socialization of nurses; the majority of nurses work in hospitals and, for over a century, they have been the main setting of nursing education. This institutional ethnography took place over five months in a Montreal hospital, explores and analyzes the regulation of nursing work by the hospital institution. The observations, interviews and analysis of institutional texts produced a detailed description of the daily work of bedside hospital nurses. Areas of tension were identified relative to the system of professions, of the internalization of the professional hierarchy as it is structured by the hospital and how hospitals render nursing work invisible. This thesis suggests that hospitals mediate inter-professional relationships, that are structured within a rigid hierarchy, inherited from the Victorian epoch and that socialize nurses who then also reproduce it themselves. This hierarchy remains visible today notably through the uneven allowance of technology between health professions as well as their relationship to the physical space within the hospital. Finally, this thesis proposes an innovative and disruptive perspective on the understanding of hospitals, their history and role in the socialization of nursing that could help clarify what is nurses’ political agency and how that political agency can be invested.