Although a modest body of literature has emerged to investigate the experiences of youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), there is a need to better understand their experiences to guide developmentally appropriate interventions and supports. This exploratory mixed-methods project included two studies aimed at gathering information about the self-perceptions and lived experiences of adolescents with ASD. In study 1, 27 adolescents (ages 13-18) completed measures to examine their self-concept and self-perceived competence, self-awareness of ASD characteristics and behaviours, and the types of behavioural attributions and stigmatizing beliefs they ascribe to their problematic behaviours. Two comparison groups (adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and typically developing adolescents) were used for self-concept and behavioural attribution comparisons. Study 2 comprised a smaller sub-set of 13 participants who participated in interviews designed to capture how ASD is perceived and experienced by those living with this disorder. Study 1 results suggested that adolescents with ASD have some awareness of the social, behavioural and adaptive challenges associated with their diagnosis and, as a group, hold some self-perceptions of competence and behavioural attributions that are different from those of adolescents without ASD. In Study 2, interviews were analyzed thematically to capture how adolescents talk about their diagnosis and psychosocial experiences, and how this may impact their self-concept and self-image. Four major categories emerged: (1) self-awareness and understanding of ASD; (2) psychosocial stress; (3) social-ecological factors; and (4) sources of support. Together, these results provide insights about how they perceive themselves and their diagnosis and some of the individual, family, and school factors related to their self-perceptions and self-awareness. Results from both studies converge to provide support for a systems approach to understanding the interactions between adolescents, families, peers, school, community, and greater society when undertaking individual assessments of needs and treatment planning for ASD. Findings from the studies are discussed with respect to the positive and negative effects of awareness and knowledge about one’s diagnosis on self-perceptions and psychological adaptation. This research has important implications for clinical and educational interventions that address the unique needs and strengths of adolescents with ASD to promote positive developmental outcomes.

By use of interview data, this thesis investigates how two moral points of view, the Conventional and Radical, held by study participants relate to: 1) factors that influence ethics; 2) role models of a self-defined well-lived life; 3) factors that help and hinder participants from living their well-lived life; and, 4) experience of pressures to compromise and freedom to live out their ideals within organizations. A longitudinal analysis is applied comparing participant moral point of view as students, to participant perceptions since entering the workforce as university graduates. The results show differences and similarities within the four areas of interest based on moral point of view. The implications of finding differences in participant perceptions based on moral point of view are discussed, and areas for future research are offered.

Being the capital of the young Republic, transformation of Ankara&rsquo / s urban environment into a modern one was one of the objectives of the Early Republican period. In the study, the transformation of urban culture is traced through everyday life of the inhabitants and lived spatiality in the new and old/traditional parts of the city. Urban culture clearly manifests itself in urban public spaces by means of everyday life and lived spatiality. It is not only the elite but the humble income social groups which are the main agents/actors of the transforming urban culture. In Ankara, gradual appropriation of a modern life style takes place in the urban public spaces but these spaces do not have to be part of the grand narrative of nation-building. Cultural places (Sergievi, theaters, movie theaters, people&rsquo / s houses), recreation places (parks, coffee shops, restaurants), shopping areas, streets and boulevards, districts are spaces of everyday life and new spatial and bodily practices flourish in these spaces. The reality of the city shelters both the new/modern, the old, and the spontaneously developing urban environments which equally participated in the transformation process. The research is based on memory in the study. Written documents, newspapers, literary constructions, memoirs and interviews with the old inhabitants of the city are the main sources. According to the analyses made on the obtained data, Ankara was a fruitful medium for creation of a modern urban culture during the mentioned period and middle social groups were the main components of this transformation process.

Teacher education between familiarity and strangeness. An inquiry into the descriptions of lived experience told by teachers and student teachers in school and at the university. The aim of this dissertation is to study teacher education as lived experience with an overall ambition to contribute to a deeper understanding of teacher education as a complex phenomenon. A basic interest is to approach teacher education from a point of view where the lived experience of teachers and student teachers in school and on campus is brought into focus. The main question of the study is: what meanings of the phenomenon teacher education emerge, when teacher education is studied as lived experience? To empirically inquire into lived experience a hermeneutical phenomenological perspective is developed. This means a phenomenological understanding of the life-world as an intentional, lived and social world, and a hermeneutical openness to put repeated and confirmed experience into play to open for new experience. The choice of participant observation and conversational interviewing as research methods made it necessary to develop a methodological strategy involving a flexible position as well as a wakeful position. The results of the empirical study are presented in three in-betweens. Each of them focuses on a certain aspect of the life-world, as it emerges from the research question posed. The themes of unifying, modelling and of being market-oriented explore the meaning of teacher education as it comes forth between actor and institutional setting. Between actor and task, the meaning of teacher education takes shape in the lived situations of teachers and teacher students in school and on campus. When the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education unfolds between actor and actor, it is formed in the encounter with the “other”. So far, the results are consistent with earlier research on teacher education. To challenge familiar descriptions and to approach complexity, the results are put into play by the use of corporality, temporality and spatiality as existential themes. This leads to the conclusions that the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education transpires from male and female perspectives. This conclusion puts at risk the gender neutral description of women and men within teacher education as “teachers” and “students”. Secondly, the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education is intertwined with situations where personal and collective experience of teachers and student teachers is expressed in feelings of familiarity and strangeness. This means that the past in the sense of what “traditional” teacher education used to mean is challenged by transformation in terms of what teacher education could mean. Thirdly, the meaning of the phenomenon teacher education always includes different meanings as well as a prevailing meaning that is interacting with the institutional setting. This puts into play the assumption that traditions always stay the same, and that reproduction dominates transformation.

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

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.

<p>Att befinna sig i ett terminalt skede i livet kan innebära en känsla av oro och ångest inför sjukdomen och döden. Möjligheten att då få tillbringa sin sista tid i hemmiljö med nära och kära kring sig genererar för många en trygghet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att belysa vuxna människors erfarenheter av att i livets slutskede vårdas av anhöriga i hemmiljö. Metoden som använts är systematisk litteraturstudie där aktuell forskning inom området sammanställts. Databaser som använts för sökningen var PsycINFO, Medline, Cinahl, Elin@kalmar och SweMed+. Artiklar som syftade till problemformuleringen kvalitetsgranskades och resultatet bygger på tio vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultatet visade att sociala relationer och stöd från familjen genererar livskvalitet och trygghet hos människan som vårdas i livets slutskede. Delaktighet i sin vård och känsla av att inte förlora kontrollen över sina symtom gjorde att människan kände hopp och att de klarade av situationen. Slutsatserna var att möjligheten att få bo kvar hemma ansågs mycket betydelsefullt. Sociala relationer bidrog till att människor hemma kände en lägre grad av symtom. Den sjuke uppskattade stödet från familjen men ville inte bli en börda för anhöriga. Information om stöd och en realistisk planering samt insikt i situationens allvar bidrog till att hon kände delaktighet och bättre kunde hantera situationen.</p>

Syftet med denna avhandling är att skapa kunskap om vad det innebär för yngre barn att genomgå nålrelaterade medicinska procedurer. Dessutom vad vårdande stöd i samband med dessa procedurer innebär utifrån barns, föräldrars och sjuksköterskors perspektiv. Nålrelaterade medicinska procedurer är undersökningar som barn behöver vara med om i vården för att motverka sjukdom, för att ta reda på varför barnet är sjukt och för att ge barnet behandling. Dessa åtgärder innebär att barn behöver vara med om nålstick. Med hjälp av deltagande observationer och livsvärldsintervjuer, som har dokumenterats genom videoobservationer, fältanteckningar och ljudinspelningar, har datainsamlingen genomförts i vården med yngre barn, 3-7 år, deras föräldrar och sjuksköterskor. Barnen har berättat om konsekvenser som de har upplevt av nålprocedurer och om att få stöd vid dessa åtgärder. Föräldrar och sjuksköterskor har berättat om sina erfarenheter av att ge stöd till barnen. Avhandlingens resultat visar att en framträdande konsekvens för barn under nålprocedurer är upplevelse av rädsla. Hur föräldrar och sjuksköterskor svarar an mot detta har en avgörande betydelse för om barnets rädsla ökar eller minskar. Denna avhandling bidrar med kunskap om barns upplevelser av nålprocedurer och behov av stöd samt hur stödet kan utformas vid dessa åtgärder. Emellertid, forskning inom området ärfortfarande otillräcklig och ytterligare forskning behövs där barns perspektiv lyfts fram i vården. / Aim: The overall aim of the thesis is to create knowledge about what it means for younger children to undergo needle-related medical procedures (NRMPs), and what caring support in relation to this means based on nurses’, parents’, and younger children's perspectives. Methods: The first and second papers used descriptive phenomenological analysis to describe the meanings of supporting younger children during NRMPs from the perspective of nurses (Ι) and parents(ΙΙ). The third and fourth papers used lifeworld hermeneutic analysis to explain and understand the consequences related to NRMPs (ΙΙΙ) and support (ΙV) during these procedures from younger children’s perspectives. Data has been collected by participant observations and lifeworld interviews documented by video-recorded observations, field notes, and audio-recorded interviews. In total 60 people participated, fourteen nurses, twenty-five parents, and twenty-one children. Main results: The results show that an important consequence for children of procedures with needles is experiences of fear. The child's fear affects how the child is able to manage the procedure and the support the child gets from adults is crucial to whether the child's fear increases or decreases. The support consists of giving support or receiving support. Parents support the child by safeguarding and protecting the child during the needle-related procedure; they “keep the child under the protection of their wings,” sometimes very close and sometimes a little further out under the wingtips. Nurses support the child by starting from individual child’s experiences and needs; they "balance on a tightrope" in an unpredictable situation. In the meeting between the child, the parents, and the nurses, the adults are guided by the child in what forms of support are provided. This continues until the needle-related medical procedure is completed and the child can walk proud and strong from the procedure with a feeling that "I can handle this.” Conclusions: Children’s need for support during needle-related medical procedures is primarily tied to children’s experiences of fear. For the child to experience a caring support, adults need to understand children’s experiences of fear as well as children’s need for support and what form the support should take. A caring support develops dialectically between children and adults in a circular movement. In such a dialectic, the child guides the adult and vice versa. That children have the capability of guiding adults during needle-related medical procedures shows that they are active and participating. Here it becomes clear that there is no objective location of the phenomenon of support. Support can therefore only be studied as a lived experience of those who need it.

Bakgrund: Psykisk ohälsa är vanligt förekommande hos Sveriges befolkning och räknas till en av folksjukdomarna. Personer med psykisk ohälsa kan drabbas av psykiska eller fysiska besvär och söker sig då till vården där patienterna kommer att möta sjuksköterskor. Syfte: Belysa sjuksköterskornas upplevelser av att bemöta patienter med psykisk ohälsa i vården. Metod: Litteraturöversikt som bygger på åtta kvalitativa artiklar. Resultat: Tre huvudkategorier och två subkategorier skapades. Första huvudkategorin var kunskapens betydelse i vårdandet av patienter med psykisk ohälsa med subkategorierna positiva upplevelser av kunskapens betydelse och negativa upplevelser av kunskapens betydelse. Andra huvudkategorin var upplevda yrkesroll i mötet av patienter med psykisk ohälsa. Tredje huvudkategorin var upplevda känslor i mötet av patienter med psykisk ohälsa med subkategorierna positiva upplevelser och negativa upplevelser. Diskussion: Fynd i huvudkategorierna som diskuterades var sjuksköterskornas bristande kunskap och kompetens leder till att patienter med psykisk ohälsa inte erbjuds den vård de har rätt till. Okunskapen kan leda till rädsla för det okända och en känsla av att psykiatrin inte är en del av allmänsjuksköterskornas ansvar. / Background: Mental health illness is common within the Swedish population and is considered an endemic disease. People with mental health illness can suffer from psychological or physical issues and will turn to the health care system, where they will meet nurses. Aim: Shed light on nurses’ experiences of encountering patients with mental health illness in health care facilities. Method: A literature review based on eight qualitative studies. Result: Three main categories and two subcategories were created. The first main category was the importance of education in the encounter with patients with mental health illness with positive experiences in regards to the importance of education and negative experiences in regards to the importance of education as subcategories. The second main category was perceived professional role in the encounter with patients with mental health illness. The third main category was perceived feelings in the encounter with patients with mental illness. The subcategories were positive experiences and negative experiences. Discussion: Findings in the main categories were discussed, where the nurses' lack of knowledge and skills are evident. This means that patients with mental health illness are not cared for in a way they should. The lack of knowledge can lead to fear of the unknown as well as feeling like psychiatry isn't a part of the general nurses’ responsibility.

Etant donné que la phénoménologie husserlienne se propose de résoudre les problèmes philosophiques en adoptant pour méthode la réflexion et la description de l'expérience vécue, il est très tentant de voir en Husserl un héritier de cette tradition philosophique qui se trouve ruinée par les arguments de Wittgenstein. En partant du présupposé que la déconstruction du « mythe de l'intériorité » enclenchée par Wittgenstein est juste en son principe, il s'agira de montrer que l'on ne peut trouver chez Wittgenstein une réfutation implicite de la conception phénoménologique de l'intériorité qu'en faisant une lecture superficielle des Recherches logiques et des Idées directrices. En effet, si l'on sait porter attention aux détails des textes pertinents, on peut déceler chez Husserl une réflexion très fine sur la nature du langage qui débouche éventuellement sur une critique de la conception moderne et empiriste de l'intériorité du sujet très similaire à celle mise en chantier par les Recherches philosophiques, critique qui, de surcroît, a l'avantage de désamorcer certaines difficultés rencontrées par Wittgenstein. Une telle étude comparative et polémique permettra de tirer deux grandes conclusions à l'égard de la méthode devant être employée en philosophie. Premièrement, il sera démontré que la réflexivité exigée par le discours philosophique se reflète dans l'usage que Husserl et Wittgenstein font des guillemets. Cette observation en apparence triviale permettra d'établir que le discours philosophique repose sur l'usage d'un dispositif typographique banal appartenant à la grammaire de notre langage ordinaire. Ensuite, la supériorité de la méthode « généalogique » de la phénoménologie génétique de Husserl sera mise en relief. Cette dernière a le mérite d'éviter les apories du conventionnalisme de Wittgenstein tout en désamorçant les difficultés soulevées par l'essentialisme de la phénoménologie statique des Idées directrices. / Since Husserl's phenomenology purports to solve philosophical problems through description and reflection upon lived experience, it is extremely tempting to see him as an inheritor of the philosophical tradition that Wittegenstein's arguments demolished. Taking as its starting point the assumption that the deconstruction of the « myth of interiority » instigated by Wittgenstein is well founded, this project will attempt to show that Wittegenstein's arguments can only appear to refute Husserl's conception of interiority on the basis of a superficial reading of the Logical Investigations and of the Ideas I. Indeed, upon a close examination of the relevant texts, Hussserl's reflexions on the nature of language can be shown to lead him to a critique of the modern and empiricist conception of interiority very similar to Wittgenstein's, a critique that turns out to have the ressources to avoid some of the major difficulties that the latter faces. This comparative and polemical study will defend two more general theses about the method that philosophical inquiry ought to rely upon. First, it will be argued that the reflexiveness required for philosophical discourse is illustrated in both Husserl and Wittgenstein's use of quotation marks. This seemingly trivial observation will support the claim that philosophical discourse relies on the use of a banal typographical devise belonging to the grammar of ordinary language. Second, a case will be made for the superiority of the « genealogical » method of Husserl's genetic phenomenology, for it manages to avoid the pitfalls of Wittgenstein's conventionalism while also steering clear of the problems incurred by the essentialism of the Ideas I static phenomenology.