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Introduction: Family-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (FFCBT) is emphasized as an approach to optimize treatment outcomes for early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Parental engagement is critical to successful treatment. However, few studies have examined how to promote parental engagement during FFCBT. Additionally, from a parental perspective, there is a limited understanding of factors that influence parental engagement throughout treatment, including the role of nurses. Aims: To determine (i) how parents experience and understand their engagement in FFCBT provided for their child with early-onset OCD in community or outpatient mental health programs, and (ii) how parents describe the role of nurses related to parental engagement during the treatment process. Methods: This study used an interpretive description approach. Semi-structured interviews were completed with parents (n = 17) recruited from community or outpatient children’s mental health programs in the Hamilton Region of Southwestern Ontario. Treatment provider interviews (n = 9) augmented the data collected from parents’ perceptions of their engagement and the role of nurses during FFCBT. Interviews were analyzed using Braun and Clark’s (2006) thematic analysis process. Results: A conceptualized model was constructed to display and communicate the individual, interpersonal, and contextual influences identified by parents and treatment providers. These influences facilitated or inhibited parental engagement during treatment across distinct phases, levels, and stages of engagement. Six distinct nursing roles were identified that promoted parental engagement throughout treatment. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Without effective treatment, pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can interfere with childhood development. Early-onset OCD is a unique subtype of the disorder involving pediatric patients with symptoms that present before the age of 10 years. Family-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (FFCBT) emphasizing parental involvement is commonly used to treat pediatric OCD. However, parental engagement during FFCBT, including nurses’ roles, is poorly understood. This study aimed to increase knowledge about parental engagement during FFCBT for children with early-onset OCD receiving treatment in community programs. Data analysis of parent and treatment provider interviews identified various factors and how nurses influenced parental engagement during FFCBT. A model was made to display how these factors helped or hindered parental engagement during treatment and how nurses promoted engagement across three distinct phases. This new knowledge informed recommendations to promote parental engagement for treatment providers, improve service development and delivery, and strengthen nursing education.

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Interest in ‘science-based targets’ (SBTs) as a means of helping the private sector achieve greater environmental sustainability has sharply increased in recent years. However, the significant ambiguity around what SBTs for Earth systems are and how they relate to broader sustainability issues has received little attention. This study adopts an interpretive approach to explore how different ‘framings’ of SBTs reflect very different storylines about sustainability problems and the role of SBTs in delivering solutions. It treats environmental governance not as a search for solutions to a pre-defined problem, but as a struggle over the definition of the environmental problem itself. In doing so, the study addresses deeper questions about whether sustainability science and practice should work within ‘the system’ to change it or critique it as part of the problem. It uses Q methodology to explore the perspectives of 22 scientists and practitioners engaged in SBTs for Earth systems. The results show two main framings of SBTs: ‘we need to develop science-based targets for the Earth system’ and ‘we need systemic economic, political and social change – and science-based targets.’ Results indicate that two distinctive storylines exist around SBTs, which emerge from reformist and radical environmental discourses. Alongside areas of consensus, they diverge on crucial issues regarding the nature of SBTs, sustainability problems and solutions, and the role of SBTs in transformation. The study suggests that the SBT is a boundary object; its ambiguity can both promote collaboration between diverse actors and conceal more radical discourse. It concludes that the plural interpretations of SBTs and their contribution to sustainability transformations have important implications. This highlights a need for greater reflexivity within sustainability science and practice, which could move them towards their sustainability aims.

Eleven participants living with non-insulin-requiring Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM) discussed their self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) experience. All had been recently diagnosed (< 2 years) and treated for diabetes with a self-regulating SMBG guideline for primary care practice. Their digitally-recorded interviews and photographed logbooks were analyzed thematically and interpreted through the lens of numeracy literature to answer 2 questions: 1. What is the meaning of SMBG among people with non-insulinrequiring T2DM? 2. How do people with non-insulin-requiring T2DM perceive the function of SMBG in diabetes self-management? The meanings of SMBG were patient competence, "It is easy, just a little pin prick"; patient control, "I can control it. It doesn't control me"; and patient security, "It is not that way anymore." Three periods of lived time were observed: Diagnosis "The numbers say I have diabetes"; "I just can't figure out why it does that"; and Routine "I make my numbers." Prominent numeracy functions emerged by time period. During Diagnosis primary numeracy functions included comparing SMBG results to target values. Participants expressed this experience as, "I am some kind of O.K." During applied numeracy functions included taking medication correctly. SMBG readings were experienced as a clue to the diabetes mystery, sometimes confusing the participants, "I just don't know why it does what it does," or answering questions, "Now there is no question marks." Numbers motivated some people for action "The numbers get me out a walking" or restraint "If I didn't have the numbers, I would be tempted to cheat." During Routine interpretive numeracy functioned to aid the evaluation of the efficacy of participant's health behavior change. Numbers had taken on meaning helping a person to "know where I am at." Clinical implications are suggested including adjustments to the selfregulating SMBG guideline for primary care practice. Findings are discussed in relation to personal knowledge processes (Sweeny, 1994) and related SMBG research. Participants concluded that routine SMBG is essential to maintaining and restraining health behavior. This study provides a model for use of SMBG in diabetes selfmanagement and patient perspectives on SMBG during the 2 years following T2DM diagnosis.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty could be used to effectively expand the media-narrowed definition of beauty. This study focused on the Onslaught video and corresponding message board. The sample included 119 posts written by 85 different message board users. Both a descriptive and interpretive content analysis based on reception analysis was used to deconstruct the message posters' interpretation and construction of individual beauty. The posters used the board primarily to express themselves, attach blame to the media and arrive at consensus. Overall, the users responded positively to the campaign. Twenty themes emerged from the posts, with the most prevalent attaching blame to the media for societal problems. The findings of this study suggest that Dove effectively created an online community where women could find a voice to express themselves and share experiences. More importantly, Dove initiated a public discussion that is a preliminary step in changing social norms. As such, the campaign should be viewed as having been effective.

To farm more sustainably, some farmers are rediscovering and innovating knowledge, skills, and technologies that were used before the modernisation of agriculture in the 1950s. One such 'retro-innovation' is the use of draft animals as a source of labour on farms. As modern farming and agronomy pay little attention to 'retro-innovations', not much is known about why and how farmers reintroduce draft animals on their farms. Therefore, the potential of draft power to contribute to the sustainable development of agriculture also remains unclear.   To fill this gap, this study uses interviews and participant observation with seven draft animals’ farmers in Northern Italy. Results indicate that these farmers are organic small-scale farmers using both draft animals and tractors. Engaging in multiple farming activities is an important aspect of these farms. Although draft animals are primarily used in vegetable growing, they can, among others, be involved in logging, marketing the farm production, and used for horse-riding. Their reintroduction as source of labour aligns with the so-called “peasant logic” to farming. This style of farming is reflected in farmers’ craftsmanship, co-production, and autonomy, and the use of draft animals as a skill-oriented technology. Farmers engaged in a peasant style of farming use draft animals as: (1) a technology to increase the farm autonomy and sustainability; (2) work companions with whom they collaborate and develop a strong relationship; and (3) a retro-innovation that is motivated by their self-perception as local stewards.   The study indicates that the relationship between farmers and their draft animals is the most rewarding aspect of animal traction, confirming the meaningful role of non-humans in farm practices and emphasising the central role animals can take in a peasant logic of farming. Future research should continue exploring the role of retro-innovation and of relationships between humans and non-humans for sustainable agricultural development.

This licentiate-thesis, Stories About a red Cottage, is an attempt to combine cultural theory with a didactic method applied to Swedish as a field of study. With the two notions intertextuality and the foreign as a starting point, I discuss the importance of how an idyllic view of Sweden affects students studying Swedish as a foreign language as part of their studies in Scandinavistics. The students are familiar with the German culture and well aware of the legends and the myths about Sweden which are distributed via German media. At the same time they are shaping new images of Sweden in the didactic interaction with the teachers. The study indicates that the encounter with a foreign culture requires preparation to question even what seems to be self-evident. Hence, the study proposes an intertextual approach when using texts for studies in foreign languages. The result also demonstrates that even if it is important that we critically analyze the stories we hear and our interpretations of them, it is as important that we demand the right to get lost in dreams, because this is where we find a part of the secret of the esthetical experience.

Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera sociala konstruktioner av 1-3 åringars ålder och kompetens, genom att analysera hur pedagoger porträtterar de yngsta barnen. Detta görs genom diskurspsykologisk analys av pedagogers uttalanden i samtal om omsorg och undervisning, utifrån studiens tre frågeställningar; Hur talar förskollärare och barnskötare om 1-3 åringars kompetens? Vad framställs som sanningar om 1-3 åringars kompetens? Vilja subjektspositioner tillskrivs 1-3 åringar? Diskurspsykologi har agerat som både epistemologisk och metodologisk utgångspunkt i denna studie. I resultatet framträdde totalt fem tolkningsrepertoarer. Tre av dessa framträdde genom samtal om barns kompetens i omsorg; fysisk omsorg, praktisk omsorg och intellektuell omsorg. De andra två trädde fram i samtal om barns kompetens i undervisning; pedagogers självmedvetenhet och erfarenhet som förutsättning. Vi kunde sedan sammanställa fyra av dessa till en, vad vi kallar, bristdiskurs. Vi diskuterar sedan kring hur dessa tolkningsrepertoarer försätter barnen i olika subjektspositioner och vad barnen därigenom ges för handlingsutrymme.