Magister Artium - MA / This project was born after the researcher, a practicing social worker at a psychiatric facility, observed the presence of high rates of anxiety and depressive disorders among transgender patients. These patients were often also abandoned by their family or primary caregivers. This research was part of a larger National Research Foundation (NRF) project in the Western Cape and Gauteng, which explored LGBT older persons’ care needs. It differed from the main project in that it focused on the mental health care challenges experienced by older transgender people. The project was funded by the NRF and the researcher was allocated funding from that project to explore LGBT aging and care in the marginalised areas. LGBT discrimination has been indicated as a key factor in the onset of mental health issues later in adulthood. Older adults are generally at a higher risk of developing mental disorders. The older transgender community with mental health care needs thus often suffers multiple forms of oppression within a heteronormative society. The aim of the research was to determine the mental health care challenges experienced by older transgender people in the Cape Metropole, Western Cape. Objectives to reach this aim included exploring and describing the unique challenges faced by older transgender people, their experiences when accessing mental health care, and describing strategies of addressing their mental health care needs. The research methodology entailed a qualitative approach. Snowball sampling was applied for selecting five older transgender participants and five key informants. Photo voice, a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design, was used. Data collection consisted of in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and photo journaling. Themes were developed from the data utilising Thematic Analysis, aided by Atlas.ti software. Ethics and trustworthiness were certified through guidance by the research supervisor. This research was classified as high risk, since it involved marginalised individuals from the aged LGBT community. Anxiety in the group was anticipated and dealt with by providing further counselling where needed. The findings indicate that older transgender people experience minority stress across all racial and age cohorts. They suffer heightened anxiety when accessing healthcare services, as they anticipate transphobia and oppression. In addition, the intersectional socio-economic status of age and gender identity seems to contribute to building resilience within the participants. Lastly, substance use and social and professional support were identified as coping strategies in the face of on-going discrimination.

Research on the unique challenges facing racialized and minority adolescent girls in Canada has prompted sport actors to develop tailored intervention strategies to address the disproportionately lower participation and retention rates of these subpopulations. However, much research has relied on unitary conceptualisations of participation barriers facing socially disadvantaged adolescent girls, which has produced “one-size-fits-all” policy and program solutions to address declining participation trends. Therefore, in my thesis research, I used intersectionality theory, a feminist participatory action research (FPAR) approach, and semi-structured interviews with 11 coordinators and coaches in the City of Ottawa’s Community Centre Basketball League (CCBL) to understand how they address the recruitment and participation of second-generation African Canadian adolescent girls in low-income Ottawa neighbourhoods. I then used Braun and Clarke’s (2019a) reflexive thematic analysis to better understand the facilitators and barriers to the recruitment and participation of these girls in the CCBL program. I identified four themes that inform the recruitment and participation of second-generation African Canadian adolescent girls in the CCBL: a) CCBL coordinators hire coaches who can relate to the program users through shared culture and/or lived-experiences; b) CCBL coaches use their identities and lived experiences to enhance their understanding of the program users; c) CCBL coaches and coordinators make efforts to build trust with and increase buy-in from parents to improve participation from program users; and d) CCBL coaches and coordinators make religious accommodations in response to the needs of Muslim and Christian program users. The findings from my research can be used to promote more inclusive and equitable community-based sport programs serving ethnoculturally diverse adolescent girls in Canada.

Adolescent mental illness is a major concern in the Unites States. The adolescent stage is a critical developmental period of physical and mental changes, thus it is important to understand protective factors associated with positive wellbeing. The current study aimed to explore: (a) the associations among race, gender, ethnic identity, and depressive symptoms among eighth grade adolescents, (b) to what extent are there differences in degree of depressive symptoms among youth based on race and gender, and (c) to what extent a strong sense of ethnic identity serves as a protective factor against the development of depression among youth with different demographic characteristics. Data were collected from participants in the Maryland Adolescent In Context Study (MADICS) when they were in the 8th grade. Findings indicated that race and gender were not significantly associated with depression. Among the current sample identifying as a Black participant was not significantly predictive of symptoms of depression compared to students who identified as White. Girls and boys did not significantly experience depression symptoms differently based on items endorsed on the survey. Additionally, statistical significant interaction effects between race and gender with relation to symptoms of depression were not detected. Finally, youth in the sample who reported higher ethnic identity scores also reported more depression. Implications for school psychologist will be discussed.

Uneducated working-class individuals in the United States are dying from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholic-related liver disease at unprecedented rates; a phenomenon economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton describe as deaths of despair. This paper focuses on deaths of despair in the Appalachian region, where mortality rates from these types of deaths are disproportionately higher than the rest of the country. Marxism and intersectionality are two philosophical frameworks that I will apply to Appalachian despair to test the adequacy of their explanatory power. By placing Marxism and intersectionality in the context of the data surrounding deaths of despair, I can test their capability to accurately diagnose and understand this health issue.

This study examined the critical digital practices and pedagogies of two professors from two different Canadian provinces – Ontario and British Columbia. Employing a qualitative multi-site case study methodology and a tri-theoretical framework that I refer to as a Critical Intersectional Technological Integration framework (CITI), I investigated the meaning of digital and critical literacy within mandatory educational texts such as provincial curriculum documents and syllabus statements. I engage with how educators mobilized these texts to become critical digital literacy learners, producers, and communicators of knowledge. This study provides a detailed analysis of how two professors understand their pedagogical conceptualizations and enactments of critical digital pedagogies and lessons learned in regard to future pedagogy and practice. Several significant findings emerged from this research study. First, the two professors’ teaching and schooling experiences revealed how intertwined equity and diversity issues were, which influenced their pedagogies and practices as critical digital literacy teacher educators. Second, the critical digital literacy teacher educators modelled expansive definitions of literacy to include the consumption, critique, and creation of digital content. Third, deliberately exploring issues of diversity and equity was a strategy employed by the professors to support teacher candidates to appreciate the complexity of education and arrive at the understanding that schooling, pedagogy, and curriculum are not neutral practices. I argue that this work should not be left solely to teacher educators; rather, teacher preparation programs must play a larger role in preparing and supporting teacher educators with both the technical and pedagogical know-how of meaningfully designing and integrating critical digital practices into their courses.

The Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949 with the intention of creating a social utopia with equality between the sexes and China’s diverse ethnic groups. However, by portraying gender, ethnicity, and politics in propaganda along the lines of yin and yang, the Party perpetuated a situation of oppression for women and minorities.

Many faculty enter the professoriate with high ideals. They have identity conceptions of themselves as potential change-agents, expanding human knowledge and contributing to the greater good. Over time, for many, this idealism fades and is replaced with job dissatisfaction and bitterness. This study uses intersectionality as a theoretical frame to explore faculty identity development by examining the ways academic socialization into a competitive, hierarchical system privileges certain aspects of an individual's identity while imperiling others. In presenting data based on hour-long qualitative interviews with six mid-career university faculty members in the social sciences or humanities, the specific mechanisms that trigger this change are revealed. These lost dimensions may be the very source of academic renewal, pluralistic integration, and personal gratification.

No description available.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2018 / The critical role of entrepreneurial learning in sustainable development has been discussed extensively in recent literature. However, little is known about the effect(s) of entrepreneurial learning on economic sustainability of microenterprises. This research seeks to answer the question of “How entrepreneurial learning facilitates the economic sustainability of microenterprises?” The study draws from social learning theory and intersectionality studies to contribute towards understanding the complexity of entrepreneurial learning and economic sustainability, focusing in particular on women with disabilities. The study contributes to literature on entrepreneurial learning by examining the rarely-researched social conditions of learning characteristic of entrepreneurial environments in emerging economies. Furthermore, unlike previous studies that adopted either a gender-or disability-only approach in explaining the entrepreneurial experiences of women with disabilities, this study considers the combined influence of gender and disability as interlocking social identities. A qualitative case study approach based on four mini-cases was adopted. These mini-cases included 36 semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs with disabilities operating established microenterprises in Uganda. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with seven key informants from two national disability associations in Uganda. These interviews acted as a pilot to obtain advice on how to conduct research in a sensitive and appropriate manner that would not further marginalise women with disabilities. Data from both the key informants and these women were analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings indicate that the intersecting social identities of gender and disability of women entrepreneurs with disabilities have both favourable and unfavourable outcomes for their entrepreneurial learning and economic sustainability. These consequences have a lasting and varying impact on these women’s actions, affecting their tendencies to adapt and ingeniously imitate entrepreneurial behaviours in uncertain and resource-constrained learning environments. Furthermore, for this group, learning influences economic sustainability through the acquisition of entrepreneurial capabilities that nurture ingenious imitation practices such as self-determination, self-restraint, and social embeddedness. By contrast, the capabilities emphasised in social learning theory literature are not generally rooted in individuals’ abilities to acclimatise and overcome their limitations, and only emerge from social interactions under stable learning conditions. Results also suggest that the socio-economic context influences how economic sustainability of an enterprise is conceptualised. Women with disabilities operating microenterprises in resource-constrained contexts perceive economic sustainability as a mutually-inclusive triadic relationship between enterprise growth, sufficient livelihood, and empowerment. The key contribution of this study is that the researcher introduces the metaphor “adaptive observational learning” to explain a new form of entrepreneurial learning that occurs in social settings, particularly for women with disabilities. It involves individuals acquiring new knowledge by observing, adapting, creatively imitating, and replicating the actions of others in a way that is well suited to their abilities, and enables them to overcome their impairment limitations. The study further questions the narrow conceptions of describing economic sustainability solely as financial viability and growth; and argues for the need to include social components when classifying economically sustainable enterprises in impoverished contexts. / MT 2018

Inequalities in society, past and present, are influenced by a number of aspects of identity. The purpose of this study is to investigate dental health differences at a Romano- British site as they relate to (1) sex, (2) social status, and the (3) confluence of sex and social status, using the theoretical frameworks of Embodiment and Intersectionality. Dental health data for 342 adults from Roman Winchester (4-5th century CE) were compared between sex and social status groups. Statistical analyses showed that males exhibited higher rates of anterior antemortem tooth loss (AMTL) and higher rates of dental wear than females; additionally, the Lower Social Status group had higher rates of posterior and total AMTL than the Higher Social Status group. When analyzing sex and social status, the Higher Social Status group exhibited no statistically significant differences. Within the Lower Social Status group, however, males and females exhibited differences in anterior AMTL, anterior dental wear, and posterior dental wear. No differences in dental caries rates were found for any subgroups. Results show that in this skeletal sample, dental health between the sexes was not drastically different, suggesting, at least with respect to diet, that women were not fundamentally inferior to men, contrary to surviving literary evidence. By analyzing the confluence of sex and social status, analysis shows that the Higher Social Status group was defined by more equality between sexes, while minor differences were found in the Lower Social Status group. This may suggest that in families where resources were strained, men and women consumed slightly different diets, while in families where resources were plentiful, women and men consumed similar foods. The results of this thesis provide new insights into the lives of women and lower social status groups, and contributes to a greater understanding of inequalities and dietary variation in Roman Britain. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)