Master of Science / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie Rolley / More than 5% of the 65 and older population utilize nursing homes, congregate care, assisted living, and board-and-care homes, with about 4.2% of these individuals occupying nursing homes at any given time (Administration on Aging, 2008). The rate of nursing home use generally increases with age and studies have shown that by the year 2030, the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) adults over the age of 65 is expected to be nearly 3 million (SAGE, 2010). With this overall increase in potential resident populations, those aging adults who identify as LGBT are faced with additional unique challenges commonly not encountered by their heterosexual counterparts. The majority of LGBT elders fear they will experience discrimination in long-term care organizations, with more than half maintaining that staff or even other residents will abuse or neglect them (Knochel, et al., 2010). Unrevised long-term care organizational rules combined with prejudice and hostile treatment from staff members can create unwelcoming environments for LGBT elders who are generally unable to advocate for themselves. Challenges that aging LGBT adults face in long-term care settings will be reviewed and discussed in this report. In addition, this report will provide educational guidelines to assist long-term care organizations in developing an educational model targeted at addressing LGBT elders’ concerns. When staff within a long-term care community lack proper training on and understanding of LGBT concerns, it can negatively affect the quality of care provided to these members. As such, the educational guidelines will encourage an educational model incorporating cultural competency training among the long-term care staff and organizational leadership, and will utilize community development principles to ensure inclusiveness and increase social capital.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / Sarah E. Riforgiate / Leadership is a phenomenon studied in all cultures (Murdock, 1967), yet representation in the diversity of influential leaders is often limited (Moon, 1996). In order to understand the full breadth of leadership scholarship, it is essential that research focuses on how leadership is both enacted and communicated in underrepresented groups. A group that is currently facing marginalization from dominant culture is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community. With no national anti-discrimination law in place to protect the individuals belonging to this community (American Civil Liberties Union, 2016) it is vital to understand how leaders within this marginalized group are motivating others to fight to enact change. While influential organizations like The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) are fighting for social justice on a national level, it is important to understand how local organizations are engaging in communicative leadership to motivate others to enact change in their own community. This study seeks to understand how leadership is communicated within a local LGBT rights organization (given the pseudonym the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Campaign, or LGBTC) and to identify the ways LGBT leaders motivate others to enact social change. Using ethnographic methodology, the researcher observed four monthly board meetings held by this group (lasting approximately an hour and a half each) and conducted a focus-group interview where the participants confirmed observations and answered follow-up questions from the ethnographic observations. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed two common themes: the first theme, cohesive communication, was exemplified through organizational procedures that allowed for collective discussion and expression of individuality by emphasizing and depending on group members’ personal expertise. The second theme, proactive communication, emerged through group members’ communication to evoke tenacious defense strategies to counter the opposition and engage in outreach with external organizations. These leadership communication behaviors resulted in two critical implications on the theoretical and practical levels. In regards to the theoretical implications, LGBT leaders, who have been typically characterized as predominantly transformational, were found to enact leadership outside of that typology, actually engaging in relational styles through shared leadership, communicating in a way that relies on interaction and emotional expression. On a practical level, other marginalized groups could benefit from inclusivity, or the mode of collective leadership this particular LGBT Rights Group engaged in. By including multiple voices and having a variety of minority representation, the LGBTC was able to successfully motivate community change. Other marginalized groups experiencing social injustice may be able to motivate others to enact change by adopting this mode of collective communication through shared leadership.

This thesis explores the relationship between sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and career progression (CP) by applying a performative, post-structuralist, and queer theory influenced approach to career theory. It analyses how, that is to say in what ways and by what means, homosexual and transgender difference is produced through the processes associated with CP. It is based on 36 interviews with individuals of diverse ages and occupations who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) and are based in the south-west of England. Hitherto career theory has based its understanding of CP on individual differences and/or category based explanations. The contribution of this thesis comes from using an anti-categorical understanding of difference to show how SOGI and CP are interacting disciplinary regimes. SOGI not only affects CP through assumptions about capability and suitability, but difference is constituted through CP – as the associated acts and interactions shape the way we think of ourselves, our possibilities, our becoming. Responsibility for achieving SOGI and CP is devolved to the individual, who is then often forced to prioritise one or the other. The findings show some shared patterns (which are argued to be based on situational, performative, embodied experiences not identity categories), such as minimising or compensating for difference, femininity as a locus for limiting discourse and self-employment as a mode of exclusion. Trajectories, choices and aspirations are affected, though not necessarily disadvantageously, leading to the conceptualisation of careers as queered by homosexual and transgender difference. This research contributes by arguing that rather than consider CP in terms of category based ceilings, CP and the production of difference can be understood as multiplicitous, emergent, and co-productive processes. This thesis forms a timely contribution to understanding LGBT experience during a period of intense change in social recognition, which includes discourses of normalisation, by suggesting that we still need to recognise the often subtle internal and external reiterations of heteronormative discourse that produce difference.

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to explore and describe how two gay male parents transitioned to parenthood. The Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR) theoretical model was used as the theoretical framework for understanding the experiences of the two participants in the study. The study also used an interpretivist paradigm and explorative case study design. The participants were purposely selected, and the data were generated by means of a semi-structured interview. The findings indicate that the participants experienced similar resistance from their families of origin after ‘coming out’ to them. The ability of one of the participants to become a parent was questioned. The participants in the study, like most couples, considered various factors such as their financial situation and their medical aid benefits before they decided to become parents. They also had to consider their pathway to parenthood, which in their case was adoption. The participants faced many challenges during the adoption process such as finding a country that allowed gay men to adopt, having limited adoption options due to changes in the law, and trying to get paternity leave. They reported that as parents they felt marginalised by the school system and also by having to deal with insensitive and uncomfortable questions from members of society about their family identity. Their children also experienced bullying at school. They were, however, able to establish a strong family and felt fulfilled in their role as parents. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

Magister Legum - LLM / The objective of this study is to explore the criminalisation of persons based on sexual orientation in Cameroon in light of that country’s international human rights obligation. The study examines the constitution and laws of Cameroon as applicable to sexual minorities. It aims to discuss recent developments in international human rights law with regard to the human rights basis for decriminalising homosexuality.

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The research in this dissertation develops a multiperspective theoretical framework, which I describe as queer criticality, to guide the examination of discursive practices, educational policies, and public discourses that undergird heteronormativity and disproportionately impact the personal safety and professional wellbeing of sexual minority and gender variant (SMGV) teachers and students in Canadian K-12 schools. Queer criticality, as a theoretical construct, seeks to bring together and investigate aspects of critical theory, critical pedagogy, poststructuralism, and queer theory. My aim is not to attempt to reconcile these competing theories to produce a grand narrative or proscriptive way of theorizing; rather, I investigate the productive tensions that a notion of queer criticality can prompt for self-reflexive researchers when these theoretical perspectives are placed in dynamic relationship with one another. Accordingly, this collection of interwoven essays examine critically how research has positioned SMGV youth as both victims and, more recently, resilient survivors who experience a daily onslaught of homophobic, transphobic, and heterosexist violence in their schools, classrooms, and communities; it also explores interpretative frameworks and mobilization strategies used to politicize or privatize SMGV identities and concerns through educational policy and practice; and it utilizes empirical research to interrogate the lived effects of these heteronormative discourses and discursive practices on sexual minority teachers working for inclusive educational and social change; and transsexual teachers searching for a valued space and place for recognition of their personal and professional identities in their public schools. Ultimately, through these connected essays, this poststructural assemblage seeks to open up spaces for difference to be exposed and interrogated within K-12 public schools. It also works to help provide discursive materiality to sexual minority and gender variant identities by demonstrating how heteronormalizing discourses impact and shape the lived experiences of all teachers and students in Canadian schools. Ultimately, this research asks whose lives are deemed intelligible and, thus, liveable in our public schools. / Theoretical, Cultural, and International Studies in Education

In 2012 clashes between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities continue to be played out in Canadian Catholic schools. Although Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures same-sex equality in Canada, this study shows that some teachers in Alberta Catholic schools are fired for contravening Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality, while Ontario students’ requests to establish Gay/Straight Alliances are denied. This study seeks to uncover the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (lgbtq) teachers and students in publicly-funded Catholic school systems in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. I employ a multi-method qualitative research framework involving: 1) semi-structured interviews with 20 participants (7 current and former teachers and 13 former students), 18 of which are re-presented as condensed narratives; 2) media accounts that illustrate the Catholic schools’ homophobic environment; and 3) two key Alberta and Ontario Catholic policy and curriculum documents. The central question driving this study is: How does power operate in Canadian Catholic schools? Is it exercised from the top down solely, or are there instances of power rising up from the bottom as well? To answer this question, I draw upon the critical theories of Gramsci (1971), Althusser (1970/2008), Foucault (1975/1995), and Giroux (2001) in order to explain the phenomenon of “holy homophobia” in Canadian Catholic schools. The chief finding of this study is that contradictory Catholic doctrine on the topic of non-heterosexuality is directing school policy and practice regarding the management of sexual minority groups in Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, positioning these schools as potential hotbeds for homophobia. Hopefully, this thesis can one day serve as a resource for anti-homophobia education researchers and practitioners, school administrators, educators and students who are interested in eliminating religiously-inspired homophobia in school settings.

In 2012 clashes between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities continue to be played out in Canadian Catholic schools. Although Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures same-sex equality in Canada, this study shows that some teachers in Alberta Catholic schools are fired for contravening Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality, while Ontario students’ requests to establish Gay/Straight Alliances are denied. This study seeks to uncover the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (lgbtq) teachers and students in publicly-funded Catholic school systems in the provinces of Alberta and Ontario. I employ a multi-method qualitative research framework involving: 1) semi-structured interviews with 20 participants (7 current and former teachers and 13 former students), 18 of which are re-presented as condensed narratives; 2) media accounts that illustrate the Catholic schools’ homophobic environment; and 3) two key Alberta and Ontario Catholic policy and curriculum documents. The central question driving this study is: How does power operate in Canadian Catholic schools? Is it exercised from the top down solely, or are there instances of power rising up from the bottom as well? To answer this question, I draw upon the critical theories of Gramsci (1971), Althusser (1970/2008), Foucault (1975/1995), and Giroux (2001) in order to explain the phenomenon of “holy homophobia” in Canadian Catholic schools. The chief finding of this study is that contradictory Catholic doctrine on the topic of non-heterosexuality is directing school policy and practice regarding the management of sexual minority groups in Alberta and Ontario Catholic schools, positioning these schools as potential hotbeds for homophobia. Hopefully, this thesis can one day serve as a resource for anti-homophobia education researchers and practitioners, school administrators, educators and students who are interested in eliminating religiously-inspired homophobia in school settings.