The demographics of community colleges are rapidly changing. The culture composition of the student population in community colleges has expanded, and includes larger percentages of African Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans than are found in other higher education institutions. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of 10 community college leaders, consisting of 4 administrators, 5 faculty members, and 1 faculty/administrator, in their attempt to adapt to the changing demographics of the student population. Multicultural lens, the conceptual framework for the study, helped guide leaders in assessing their levels of multicultural sensitivity and competence in relation to the culturally diverse student population. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews; these data were then sorted, coded, and analyzed for central themes. The emergent themes'factors in leaders adapting to the changing student demographics'included leaders' educational, personal, work, and leadership experiences. The leaders' lived experiences contributed to them identifying with and understanding the various educational, family, financial, and cultural challenges these students encounter. The results of the study might help administrators, faculty, staff, and trustee boards continue valuing and promoting an environment of inclusion by improving the policies and practices related to student diversity and student success.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a public health challenge because it jeopardizes the health of women and girls. FGM is condemned worldwide but, it is still practiced in the Odi community of Nigeria. The literature on women's lived experiences of FGM in other parts of the world was reviewed, but knowledge is lacking on the lived experiences of women from Odi community in Nigeria. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore their lived experiences, their perspectives on the current legislation for the prevention of FGM, and their perspectives on the cultural myths surrounding the practice. The phenomenological lens was used both as the study design and as the theoretical framework which states that humans know the world through their experiences. This theory guided the study on how the women of Odi community attached meaning to their experiences with FGM. Nine women, 18 and older, who had experienced FGM, were recruited through a snowball technique. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews. Colaizzi's method was used for data analysis. Five major themes emerged: (a) FGM is a traditional rite, (b) challenges of FGM, (c) FGM cultural myth instills fear, (d) ignorance of legislation against FGM, and (e) needs government intervention to halt FGM. Participants recommended the enforcement of the legislation against FGM. The findings of this study will be communicated to stakeholders of FGM in the Odi community and in public health journals to serve as a basis for further research. The implication for social change is that maternal and child health will be improved.

This qualitative study examined the phenomenology of advanced breast cancer (ABC) among 7 female participants between the ages of 20 and 45. Oral data were collected to extract participants' interpretations of their spiritual and psychosocial experiences of living with ABC. Findings suggest that these women experienced a dichotomous relationship with regard to their bodies and their relationships with others; this served as a means of making sense of their experiences and as a coping mechanism. Positive psychology and the theory of reasoned action and planned behavior provided the theoretical framework for examining the role of social reinforcements, beliefs, and attitudes and intentions on the health behavior of pre-menopausal African American women with ABC in Northern and Southern Delaware. Additionally, the theoretical framework provided answers to the overarching questions of how pre-menopausal African American women with advanced breast cancer applied meaning-making and spirituality to find purpose in their diagnosis. Inductive analysis of their narrative data suggested a set of themes: the body as a medical object, the body as a feminine object, honesty in relationships, missed opportunities from healthcare professionals, from wounded to mended, and the joy of purposeful living. The participants reported that an intimate relationship with God helped them feel supported in a way that family and friends could not. The findings in this study support potential spiritual and meaning-making interventions as well as promote a more positive quality of life for pre-menopausal women living with advanced breast cancer.-¬-¬-¬

The problem that this study focused on was the difficulties and challenges experienced by daughters who had absent fathers. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of daughters who grew up with absent fathers, and the effects on them as adults at home, in school, in their neighborhoods, and in their decision-making processes. The sample consisted of 20 daughters who grew up with absent fathers. Data were collected using face-to-face semi-structured interviews, and analyzed using 5 phases of Hycner's (1999) phenomenological research. Results indicated that participants' lived experiences of home life were characterized by financial and emotional hardships resulting from the loss of a father's earnings and care. The meanings or lessons that participants derived from having absent fathers included the importance of being independent, of appreciating the people who remained with them, and of making a better life for their own children, either by choosing a mate who would be a committed father or by helping their children to come to terms with the man's absence. Participants reported that the absence of their fathers shaped their decision-making patterns in romantic relationships, either by normalizing exploitative behavior in men (e.g., deception, abuse, or abandonment), or by predisposing them to distrust men. Participants were also affected in their decision-making patterns by the loss of a male perspective and a father's guidance. These results are of significance because by gaining understanding of the experiences of daughters with absent fathers, healthcare professionals may provide appropriate assistance to help these women cope better with their difficulties and struggles.

For many people, Japanese life is increasingly marked by precarity. This is often characterized by a lack of social and familial relationships that were the foundation of Japanese society in earlier eras. Buddhism has rarely played a part in addressing these feelings of precarity because Buddhism in Japan is associated with funerals and death. Yet some women participate in and actively create what this dissertation calls “feeling Buddhism,” which combats the feelings of helplessness and social isolation that accompany precarity. Feeling Buddhism is about sensing Buddhism, physically feeling the body perform ritual acts and inhabit sacred space. It is also about the emotions, affects, and feelings that accompany these physical acts. Based in feminist ethnography, this dissertation argues that Japanese women cultivate constructive feelings through Buddhism that enable them to craft deep and meaningful connections with one another. In particular, it focuses on the Buddhist women who belong to the Pure Land Sect or Jōdoshū. Chapter One traces the history of women’s historical involvement in Japanese Buddhism to show that Japanese women have always been active participants in Buddhism. Chapter Two examines three articles written by Japanese scholar-priests to argue that they are more concerned with praising Jōdoshū and Hōnen than addressing women’s relationship with Buddhism. Chapter Three looks at two Jōdoshū women’s groups in Kyoto and utilizes theories of ritualization and affect to argue that these experiences create new and mend existing relationships though Buddhism. Chapter Four looks at the Jōdoshū nun Kikuchi Yūken and her caring labor with young women in Tokyo to argue that her work ought to be considered a form of socially engaged Buddhism. Chapter Five moves beyond Jōdoshū to examine the International Ladies Association of Buddhism and argues that the women within the organization attempt to cultivate upper-class taste and an appreciation for an internationalization.

With the advances in technology, there has been a steady and unstoppable expansion in online education, and as technology has kept changing, so has online education. These changes have impacted the experiences of the faculty members, which has led to a growing interest in examining what online faculty members’ lived experiences are. To have a better understanding of the prior status of the research conducted on online education, this dissertation included a systematic literature review between the years 2000-2018. The systematic review of the literature demonstrated that the major issues examined in prior studies included online faculty motivation, inhibitors, online faculty course design, implementation practices and roles, and online faculty satisfaction. Researchers have attempted to explain online faculty motivation, satisfaction, workload and role changes mostly through quantitative studies. Some researchers also implemented mixed methods and qualitative research to examine online faculty members’ perceptions of online education, best practices in designing and implementing online courses. These studies were limited in terms of their data relying mostly on context bounded self-reports. Moreover, as technology evolves swiftly, so does the online education due to the changing affordances of available technology. Therefore, this study aims to describe the lived experiences of the online faculty members through a qualitative research design, namely multiple descriptive case study, collecting data from two rounds of interviews and an online course observation. In addition, a review of the literature demonstrated that only one study attempted to examine online faculty experiences through the lens of a distance learning theory (Bair & Bair, 2011). Therefore, there was also a need to analyze and explain the experiences of the online faculty members through a distance learning theory. While depicting the lived experiences of the online faculty members, the current study aims to portray a detailed picture of the online faculty members’ course design and implementation strategies in relation to Michael Moore’s (1989) Three Types of Interaction Framework. The findings of the study demonstrate that online faculty motivation and satisfaction are dynamic. As the initial experiences of the faculty members wear out, the factors impacting their motivation and satisfaction change. The factors impacting faculty members’ motivation and satisfaction also vary from one faculty member to another faculty member. In addition, the experiences of the faculty members in designing and implementing online courses change as they become more experienced. The faculty members implement several strategies to facilitate student interaction with other students, the course content and the course instructor while they design and teach online courses. They also improve their strategies as they face challenges while they teach online. The findings of the study in relation to Michael Moore’s (1989) Three Types of Interaction Framework demonstrate that while the faculty members design their online courses, they pay utmost attention to having a consistent structure of their online courses in order to avoid student disorientation. They use a variety of content materials to cater for the needs of their online students, and design several activities to enhance student interaction with the content. They prefer to chunk the content into modules, in which they design a consistent pattern of course activities. The faculty members while designing the course activities also pay attention to creating opportunities for learner-learner interaction such as discussion boards and group projects. The study also show that faculty design their online courses in ways help them communicate with the students, for instance, they design home pages, orientation modules, or provide several alternative ways of contact. The study also indicates that while the faculty teach online courses, they use different strategies to facilitate student interaction with their classmates, the course content and the instructor. The strategies implemented to enhance learner-learner interaction include mostly discussion forums. The faculty members paid attention to provide variety of assignments for discussions such as reflecting on peer’s work, discussing case studies as well as checking if the students read the assigned materials. Due to student complaints about the challenges faced while completing group projects, they were rarely used. Some faculty chose to drop the group projects completely whereas some faculty used them sparingly. As for the student interaction with the content, most faculty members prefer to roll out the whole course upfront and allow students to see the whole course, be able to make connections and see the expected outcomes. Some faculty, however, also prefer releasing the course content module by module and using pre-requisites to control student interaction with the content as well as their peers. As for student interaction with the course instructor, the faculty members implement various strategies such as on-campus course orientations, announcements, e-mails, discussion boards, one-on-one synchronous sessions and phone calls to communicate with their students. Finally, the study presents a more detailed picture of the lived experiences of the online faculty through the lens of distance learning theoretical framework. It helps to better understand how the online faculty design and facilitate student interaction with their classmates, course content as well as the course instructor. It provides several pedagogical and empirical implications in line with and addition to prior research.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar a experiência vivida por mulheres idosas. Justifica-se na medida em que há fortes indícios de que o envelhecimento da população feminina seja subjetivamente vivenciado como condição na qual se articulam, interseccionalmente, opressões de gênero, idade e classe social. Organiza-se metodologicamente como pesquisa qualitativa empírica com o método psicanalítico e caracteriza-se como estudo psicossocial, procurando investigar os modos pelos quais processos emocionais e sociais implicam-se mutuamente. Centra-se no estudo de casos selecionados dentre aqueles atendidos durante doze anos de trabalho em instituição de saúde pública especializada na atenção à saúde de idosos. Considerado à luz do método psicanalítico, esse material possibilitou a produção interpretativa de quatro campos de sentido afetivo-emocional, denominados: Sofrendo a Decadência do Corpo, Sofrendo por Ser Mulher, Sofrendo pela Solidão e Sofrendo na Cidade Grande. O quadro geral permite a proposição de que, apresentando-se fortemente marcada por sentimentos de desamparo, humilhação e injustiça, a experiência vivida pelas participantes deve ser compreendida não apenas como intimamente associada às mudanças corporais, características do processo de envelhecimento, mas também como sofrimento subjetivo socialmente determinado, demandando uma clínica compreensiva, que seja sensível ao padecimento e atenta às condições concretas de vida / The present study aims to investigate the lived experience of elderly women. It is justified in that there is strong evidence that the aging of the female population is subjectively experienced as a condition in which gender, age and social class are intersectionally articulated. It is organized methodologically as an empirical qualitative research with the psychoanalytical method and is characterized as a psychosocial study, seeking to investigate the ways in which emotional and social processes demand to be understood as always implicated in each other. It focuses on the study of selected cases among those attended during twelve years of work in a public health institution specializing in the health care of the elderly. Considered in the light of the psychoanalytical method, this material permit the interpretative production of four affective-emotional meaning field named: \"Suffering the Decay of the Body\", \"Suffering for Being a Woman\", \"Suffering for Solitude\" and \"Suffering in the Big City\". The general framework allows the proposition that being strongly marked by feelings of helplessness, humiliation and injustice, the participants\' emotional experience must be understood not only as closely associated with the body changes that characterize the aging process, but also as socially determined subjective suffering, demanding a comprehensive clinic that is sensitive to suffering and attentive to the concrete conditions of life

Hearing loss is a silent, often overlooked condition which deprives people of the most basic of human needs--the ability to communicate effectively. The notion that there is a dearth of understanding by health care professionals when caring for persons with hearing loss has been acknowledged. This research study aimed to describe the meaning of what it is like to live with a different sense of hearing for seven Canadian participants. The process of inquiry was guided by Parses human becoming theory for nursing (1981, 1987, 1992, 1998). The Giorgi (1970, 1971, 1975, 1985, 1989, 1992) modification of the phenomenological method was used for analysis-synthesis. Five women and two men employed and ranging between 25 and 70 years shared their lived experiences with the researcher via email correspondence. Confidentiality and anonymity were assured. Participants were asked to write about what it is like for them to live with a different sense of hearing. The central finding of this study was: Living with a different sense of hearing is experiencing the joy-sorrow of hearing-not hearing unfolding through discovering gained-lost communication surfacing all-at-once with diminished-enhanced feelings of self while choosing the rhythm of revealing-concealing amid potential regard-disregard of others. The findings of this research build on Parses (1981, 1998) theory of human becoming and may enhance nurses understanding of what it is like to live with hearing loss, which may in turn alter the way nurses structure practice with persons who live with a different sense of hearing, making a difference in their quality of life.

The New Zealand education system has undergone some two decades of substantial reform. There can be little doubt that this has brought significant change to the nature of what is expected of people occupying positions of leadership in schools and educational institutions (Ball, 2007; Bottery, 2004; Codd, 2005). Against this contextual backdrop, and in the researcher’s experience as a teacher and former holder of a position of leadership, there is an observable phenomenon of educational leaders stepping aside from position and yet continuing to work as teachers within the same workplace. Despite claims of a leadership ‘crisis’, and international acknowledgement of concern over the retention of educational leaders (Brooking, 2007; Brundrett & Rhodes, 2006; Fullan, 2005), the human experience of this phenomenon appears unrepresented in current research literature. The present study has sought to capture this experience through addressing the central research question “What is the lived experience of the voluntary relinquishing of the position of leader, yet choosing to remain within the same educational workplace?” In order to gather rich qualitative data, a descriptive multiple case study design was employed. In-depth unstructured interviews were carried out with eight educational leaders who had relinquished position within the contexts of New Zealand State Secondary Schools and Private Training Establishments, and chosen to continue working in these same contexts. The subsequent analysis drew on the tradition of hermeneutic interpretation (van Manen, 1990) to arrive at interpretations of the uniqueness of individual experiences, and offer understandings of the shared meanings of the experience in the form of essential themes. The key findings which emerged in this study were those of a sense of the ‘a-lone-ness’ of leadership, the ‘ready-suddenness’ of the decision to step aside, a seeking of ‘balance’ in the relinquishing of position, a powerful sense of ‘re-turning’ to the call of teaching, and varying degrees of ‘ease’ and ‘dis-ease’ in the experience of ‘letting go and holding on’ following positional relinquishment. These findings serve to extend aspects of those of earlier leadership and role exit studies, and offer previously undocumented understandings. Thus, a major contribution of this study is in the bringing-to-voice of the stories of those who step aside from leadership position yet remain in the workplace, and in the opening of avenues for further research.

In the past few years, many people with an Islamic background have settled in Australia. Within the health care context, this means that health care providers must modify the care provided to ensure it meets the needs of this culturally diverse population. Little nursing research has focused on understanding the perceptions and experiences of Muslim people within health care systems, particularly in Australia. This study provided an opportunity to explore, and document the experience of the hospitalisation for Islamic people and thereby advance the available information upon which important nursing care decisions that relate to this group can be more informatively made. This study aims to explore and interpret the lived experience of thirteen Muslim patients who had been hospitalised in an Australian hospital. The hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger (1967/1996), the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer (1989), and the ideas of van Manen (1990/1996) underpin this study. The meaning and understanding of the everyday experience of Muslim patient in a non-Islamic hospital is achieved through interpretation of the participants’ stories. Data were generated using unstructured audio-taped interviews from participants. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed, then interpreted using phenomenological methods. The two themes to emerge from the participants’ experiences are: Being-thrown-into-an-un-everyday-world and living-Islam-in-the-un-everyday-world. The theme of Being-thrown-into-an-un-everyday-world arose from the sub-themes of the awareness of self and Being an outsider. The theme living-Islam-in-the-un-everyday-world was drawn from the three sub-themes of Being the same and different, hindrances to being Muslim, and adapting-to-the-un-everyday-world. The findings of this study provide an insight into the experience of Muslims being cared for in Australian hospitals. It is hoped that this interpretation will make a significant contribution to the care of Muslim patients by having health professionals consider how this group could be cared for in a culturally sensitive manner. It is not intended as a prescription for care but draws the reader to reflect on aspects of the Muslim faith and how this may impact on individuals experience when in hospital. The scope of this study and the dearth of available research in this area conclude that much more research needs to be undertaken. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1317115 / Thesis(Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Population Health and Clinical Practice, 2008