No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>The study set out to investigate the relationship between parental literacy levels and the literacy abilities of their children who were Grade 3 learners at a primary school in an impoverished area. The study initially hypothesized that there is a correlation beteen the literacy level of parents and the literacy abilities of their children. More specifically, it assumed that the higher the lieracy leevls of the parents, the stronger the literacy abilities of their Grade 3 child would be.</p>

Childhood is socially constructed and holds profound meaning for contemporary society. Although children are increasingly seen as social agents, the dominant view is that children are unable to make substantial contributions to society due to their immaturity and minority status. Childhood theorists have countered this by emphasising the importance of seeking children’s views, an approach which underpins this study. Children’s books provide ideological sources for constructing and understanding childhood. They have a cultural role in representing childhood to children and adults and are widely perceived to be a resource for children’s education and socialisation. In addition, children’s books are written, produced and their use is mediated by adults. This study aims to find out if books provide a space for children in a predominantly adult constructed world by exploring what young people think about the ways in which childhood is represented in children’s books. The research was undertaken with young people aged 10 to 14 years, concentrating on the lower and higher end of the age group, and took place in schools. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used with 158 young people taking part in a questionnaire survey and 43 participating in interviews. The study found that young people were active co-constructors, rather than passive recipients, of representations of childhood in children’s books. Young people demonstrated that they were skilled text handlers who acknowledged the influence of other media on their engagement with books although there were marked differences in their reading interests depending on age and gender. Young people were interested in fiction which portrayed assertive and competent depictions of childhood which they could relate to their own experience as well as enjoying reading about young characters with powers and skills which were extraordinary. Young people did not view childhood or the depiction of childhood negatively, accepting it as a state of being rather than one of becoming, hence contributing to their own understandings of childhood.

This thesis concerns the Gwich’in Dene of Northern Canada and the land they inhabit. Based upon fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork (December 2005 – March 2007, April 2008), I elaborate on personal experiences with Gwich’in pedagogy on the land and in the Teetł'it Gwich'in community of Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, Canada.  These experiences have included travelling, hunting, trapping, fishing, cooking, cutting wood, building cabins, digging graves, searching for a disappearing elder, attending meetings and feasts, living in a Gwich’in household, visiting, storytelling, and making trails.  I further discuss historical and political processes that have taken place outside and, more specifically, in the North.  I attend to the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade and British explorers, to Anglican and Roman Christian missionaries, to previous anthropologists, to Government initiatives concerning trapping and mineral exploitation, and to the Gwich’in Tribal Council.  Finally, I examine the role of literacy in Gwich’in lies, both historically and in the present day.  I expand on the work of Archdeacon Robert McDonald and Gwich’in women in transcribing the Bible into the Gwich’in language. The Gwich’in emphasise the importance of this Bible for language revitalisation and making sense in life.  I show that Gwich’in have been actively involved in many of these processes and have either challenged or incorporated them. There remains, however, a consistency that underlies Gwich’in understandings in life.  I find the source of this consistency in the connection between pedagogy, history, and literacy.  I argue outsiders and Gwich’in have been reading the land quite differently, and that this has subsequently influenced historical narratives, policy-making, co-management arrangements, and travelling on the land.  These differences are also brought forth in reading and writing texts.  This has become clear in publications written about the Gwich’in that deny or dismiss Gwich’in pedagogy. I have taken a different standpoint, starting with the premise ‘you have to live it’.

As a high school English Language Arts teacher and literary magazine staff advisor, I have witnessed a difference in the degree of enthusiasm and engagement with which students approach writing for their classes, and writing for the their own purposes. Typically, students are more authentically engaged in their self-initiated writing. This study uses a grounded theory approach to explore how and why avid young writers write to discover ways in which classroom writing programs can be made more authentic. Through interviews with five young writers who were actively writing outside of school, I was able to discover key findings about the identities and practices of these young writers and the implications of these findings for the teaching of writing in high school English Language Arts classes. / February 2017

Health disparity research indicates that health illiteracy is associated with poorer health outcomes, greater risk of hospitalization, higher emergency room utilization, and increased death (Collins, Currie, Bakken, Vawdrey & Stone, 2012; Skopelja, Whipple & Richwine, 2013). Health information is increasingly being transitioned to online formats and according to Usher and Skinner (2010) the newest challenge that healthcare consumers face in taking control of their health is their ability to access, evaluate and incorporate the large amount of health information available on the Internet. Achieving a better understanding of the eHealth literacy levels of Aboriginal women and how they use technology to access health information may support better health outcomes in a variety of settings including the perinatal period which is important not only for the mother’s health, but her child’s as well. This mixed methods study explored the eHealth literacy knowledge, attitudes and skills of urban Aboriginal women in the perinatal period residing in a small city in British Columbia. A convergent parallel design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data from five study participants. Due to the small sample size study findings need to be interpreted with caution. The results may demonstrate that urban Aboriginal women in the perinatal period are comfortable and competent in accessing health information on the Internet. They identified the following as areas for improvement: (1) identifying if the information they retrieve is credible, (2) improving the cultural appropriateness of health information and websites, (3) improving access through continuing to build technology and search skills for Aboriginal women, and (4) supporting better access to the Internet and technology equipment for those Aboriginal women still affected by the digital divide. / Graduate