Through a case study of the experiences of eight undergraduate students participating in the St. Thomas More College/Intercordia Canada international community service-learning programme (2008), this thesis seeks to assess whether the participants learning has proved transformational through an analysis of the forms and processes of transformative learning as developed by Richard Kiely (2002, 2004, 2005). Content analysis of semi-structured student interviews (pre and post-participation), programme materials, student journals, academic reflections and essays reveal transformative shifts across the political, moral, intellectual, cultural, personal and spiritual learning domains. The study adds to the research on international community service-learning through an analysis of Kielys transformative learning theory in a new context, and explores how context affects learning processes. Findings indicate the dynamics of participant vulnerability and acceptance from host communities can provide for transformational relationships of solidarity across difference.

Through a case study of the experiences of eight undergraduate students participating in the St. Thomas More College/Intercordia Canada international community service-learning programme (2008), this thesis seeks to assess whether the participants learning has proved transformational through an analysis of the forms and processes of transformative learning as developed by Richard Kiely (2002, 2004, 2005). Content analysis of semi-structured student interviews (pre and post-participation), programme materials, student journals, academic reflections and essays reveal transformative shifts across the political, moral, intellectual, cultural, personal and spiritual learning domains. The study adds to the research on international community service-learning through an analysis of Kielys transformative learning theory in a new context, and explores how context affects learning processes. Findings indicate the dynamics of participant vulnerability and acceptance from host communities can provide for transformational relationships of solidarity across difference.

Abstract The focus of this thesis is stress in rehabilitation professionals. Within the thesis, burnout encompasses compassion fatigue and moral stress. Therefore, burnout is the emotional and ethical fatigue which is produced through organizational and clinical expectations present when working with individuals who live with disabilities. This thesis argues that current rehabilitation service delivery models exacerbate burnout through their neglect of emotional and ethical needs in professionals. The goal of this thesis is to develop an alternative model of service delivery which addresses burnout in rehabilitation professionals. The thesis answers the following question. How does Jean Vanier's thinking about relationships between individuals, living with and without disabilities, contribute to the field of rehabilitation therapy and, more specifically, to reducing stress currently experienced by rehabilitation professionals? To answer this question and meet the thesis goal, the research is situated within a constructivist paradigm and uses a single, interpretive case study design. This research has produced the transformational model of service delivery. This model states rehabilitation is a transformational process. Whereas traditional rehabilitation views the client as the focus of the change process, the transformational model states both the client and the professional benefit from their participation in a transformational change process. The change process is directed at the personal identity of both client and professional and is characterized by increased awareness and acceptance of key aspects within self and other. Whereas in more traditional rehabilitation models, creating the relational conditions necessary for change is the professional's responsibility, within the transformational rehabilitation model, both client and professional contribute to the relationship which is characterized by commitment, co-operation and compassion. In addition, client and professional experience the outcome of transformation, maturity. A mature person is defined by his/her capacity for agency and authenticity. This thesis argues that Jean Vanier is relevant to rehabilitation professionals. The articulation of an alternative model of service delivery, based on Vanier's thinking about relationships between individuals living with and without disabilities, makes a significant contribution to reducing stress in rehabilitation professionals. / Thesis (Ph.D, Rehabilitation Science) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-05 08:51:06.833

This thesis provides a presentation and analysis of Simone Weil’s articulation of the weakness of love vis-à-vis our encounters with others. It does so both as a way to better examine Christian theological claims about the importance of weakness and as a way of accessing the tensional depths of Simone Weil’s work from an often neglected angle. To achieve this engagement, I read Weil alongside Jean Vanier, whose life and work share with Weil a profound emphasis on the centrality of weakness for meeting others truthfully and lovingly. In Chapter One I draw on both Weil and Vanier to present their shared critique of relationships that are reduced to a pursuit of power and influence over others. I call such relationships “territorial” because they posit human beings as competitors for two-dimensional territory and therefore envision human relationships in essentially competitive terms. Chapter Two is a detailed presentation of Weil’s constructive work on the weakness of love that emphasizes her account of the impersonal, non-egoistic, and unattached relationships we ought to pursue with others. Weil claims that we experience the fullness of reality through an uncompromising embrace of all things, which we can only accomplish through the removal of ourselves in the face of others. We get concrete development of these themes in Weil’s presentation of neighbour love and friendship, which she understands as a total openness to another’s position, circumstance, and being. In the third chapter, I use the theme of communion in Vanier’s work to call into question the way Weil demands our total surrender to the other. I suggest that an absent self cannot be truly weak and vulnerable before others. The central problem, I suggest, is a conception in which any sort of positive presence is necessarily an obstacle and any imposition of oneself necessarily competitive. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / In this thesis, I present and examine Simone Weil’s understanding of how we might avoid doing violence to other people and instead treat other people with love and compassion. The first chapter reads Weil together with Jean Vanier to examine the various ways that power and the attempt to dominate others dictates our relationships with others. In the second chapter I systematically present Weil’s understanding of how we might, through a certain kind of personal death, transport ourselves wholly into the perspectives of other people and thereby practice true compassion towards them. In the third and concluding chapter I use Vanier’s compelling presentation of human flourishing as consisting of heart-to-heart interdependent relationships to critique the refusal of being dependent on others that is both implicit and explicit in Weil’s account of compassion.

The aim of this study is to address the proposition that the spirituality of L'Arche has a great deal of potential to offer people with learning disabilities outside its own community setting. For chaplains who have the task of seeking to nurture and develop the spiritual lives of people with learning disabilities in schools, there exists the opportunity to draw out the fundamental characteristics of the spirituality of L'Arche and incorporate these into their own formation programs. The opportunity to be creative and imaginative in developing formation programs comes from within the context of legislation which requires schools to meet the spiritual needs of the children in their care. / Christian Spirituality / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

The aim of this study is to address the proposition that the spirituality of L'Arche has a great deal of potential to offer people with learning disabilities outside its own community setting. For chaplains who have the task of seeking to nurture and develop the spiritual lives of people with learning disabilities in schools, there exists the opportunity to draw out the fundamental characteristics of the spirituality of L'Arche and incorporate these into their own formation programs. The opportunity to be creative and imaginative in developing formation programs comes from within the context of legislation which requires schools to meet the spiritual needs of the children in their care. / Christian Spirituality / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)