The overall aim of the thesis was to explore the perspectives of Chinese women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) focused on their beliefs about health and illness and self-care behavior, the quality of care in China, and their lived experience.                       All the studies were conducted with qualitative methodology using individual interviews. Data were collected in obstetric clinics or wards at three different hospitals or the participants’ workplaces in the south east of China. Content analysis, according to Mayring, was used for data analysis in Study І (15 interviews) and Study II (17 interviews). Content analysis, according to Graneheim & Lundman, was used for data analysis in Study III (44 interviews). In Study IV (18 interviews), data were analyzed by using phenomenological hermeneutics, according to Lindseth & Norberg.      Three styles of beliefs about GDM among the Chinese women were explored in the thesis: GDM should be considered seriously; GDM was not a severe illness; and GDM was nothing to worry about. Correspondingly, three self-care behavior models were revealed: women strove to control GDM, and maintained their blood glucose values at a normal level; or women tried to control GDM based on the knowledge they received, but some of them felt helpless because the blood glucose level could not be maintained within the normal range; or women almost ignored GDM. They mainly sought help from professional sector and popular sector, and regarded health professionals and husbands as important people. They showed, however, that they sought a balance between following professionals’ advice and avoiding practical difficulties, which demonstrated the influence of health professionals, people around, and Chinese culture. The thesis highlighted a lack of knowledge, a lower level of risk awareness and poor self-care behavior among the women with GDM, as well as a lack of professional care resources for GDM and the lack of high-quality personalized care for the women. The core problem could be an resource imbalance between over-stretched hospitals and low-efficiency under-utilized primary healthcare centers. Their lived experience showed an eagerness to be cared for.     The thesis highlighted women’s call for caring care in China. The care of GDM for these women can most likely be improved by reform of clinical practice, particularly in primary healthcare services. It is necessary to increase the number of health professionals and material resources to a reasonable level, and to strengthen caring care in China.

Este estudo descreve as histórias de dez jovens, que vivenciaram a maternidade na faixa etária de 10-14 anos de idade, no município de Mairiporã, SP, no período de agosto de 2004 a agosto de 2005. Tendo como objetivo “(re) conhecer o significado da maternidade para jovens que vivenciaram a experiência, a partir do processo de compreensão de suas histórias de vida”, e refletir sobre as condições de vulnerabilidade, procedemos a um estudo de análise qualitativa, utilizando como procedimentos metodológicos a técnica de história oral, para coleta de dados e, para a análise do material, a técnica de análise de conteúdo. As entrevistas, gravadas e transcritas integralmente e posteriormente recortadas para análise, foram realizadas com jovens, identificadas a partir de declarações de nascidos vivos, obtidos junto ao Cartório de Registro Civil de Mairiporã. Os achados foram analisados, contemplando dois momentos: antes do nascimento do bebê e após o nascimento do bebê, adotando categorias temáticas específicas. A primeira parte aborda a vivencia da infância, a família e o relacionamento familiar, o ficar mocinha, o namoro, a gravidez, as reações à gravidez, o pré-natal e o parto. A segunda parte refere-se a vivencia da jovem após o nascimento do bebê, os cuidados com o bebê, o relacionamento com o parceiro, o relacionamento mãe-filho, as dificuldades, o significado da maternidade, os sonhos, mensagem para adolescentes e para pais. As histórias detalham como se deu o desenrolar de suas vidas dentro do seu contexto histórico e social, contemplando o processo de desenvolvimento desde a infância, a passagem pela adolescência, com as características próprias, quando engravidou até o momento presente no papel de mãe. O significado da maternidade para as jovens foi evidenciado por quatro eixos centrais: felicidade por ser mãe, senso de responsabilidade, sentimento de arrependimento e perdas e mudanças em suas vidas. Os sonhos se expressaram em vontade de estudar, trabalhar, ter uma casa e independência dos pais. As mensagens dirigidas a adolescentes foram para que se previnam para não engravidar, usando preservativo, tomando pílula, que tenham juízo e não percam a juventude; e, a pais, que conversem mais com os filhos e não sejam violentos, autoritários ou omissos, e que as mães orientem mais seus filhos. / This study describes the stories of ten young girls aged 10-14 years who experienced motherhood in the city of Mairiporã, São Paulo, during the period between August 2004 and August 2005. Once the objective was to “know the meaning of maternity of young girls who have lived this experience by considering the understanding process of their life stories”, and to reflect on vulnerability conditions, and a qualitative study was carried out by adopting oral history technique for data collection and content analysis technique for data analysis. The interviews were recorded, fully transcribed and prepared for analysis. They were conducted with young girls, identified by birth certificates from a registry office in Mairiporã. The findings were analyzed according to two distinguished periods: before and after the baby’s birth. The first one describes childhood experience, family relationship, first period, dating, pregnancy, prenatal care and delivery. The second one refers to baby care, partner relationship, mother-child relationship, difficulties, the meaning of maternity, dreams and advice for adolescents and parents. The stories detail their lives within their historical and social contexts from childhood to adolescence, including its peculiarities, and from pregnancy to the present role of mother. Four thematic categories signifying maternity were revealed: happiness for being a mother, sense of responsibility, feelings of regret and loss and changes in their lives. Wishes were expressed by the willingness to study, work, have their own home and be independent from parents. The messages addressed to adolescents draw attention to prevention: condom use, use of contraceptive pills, being reasonable and not loosing their youth. The messages addressed to parents include more dialogue with children and absence of violence, authoritarianism and negligence. Also, mothers are expected to give their children a stronger sense of direction.

Based on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork (September 2012-August 2013) in a village in Baghpat district located in the western part of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the thesis compares the lived experiences of marriage of women in what I describe as regional marriage (RM) with women in cross-regional marriage (CRM). RMs are marriages that conform to caste and community norms (caste endogamy, gotrā [clan] and village/territorial exogamy) and are negotiated within a limited geographical region, i.e., the state. CRMs are those between men in north India and women from the southern, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. Such marriages cross caste, linguistic and state boundaries with the marriage distance exceeding 1000 kms. CRMs also differ from RMs with regard to their modes of arrangement and the payments involved. They result from two sets of factors – one operating at bride-sending regions (mainly poverty) and the other at bride-receiving regions (masculine sex ratios and the difficulties some men have in achieving “eligibility” for marriage). NGO and journalistic accounts and some academic work has focused on CRMs: being a consequence only of masculine sex ratios and bride shortages; deviating from north Indian marriage norms; involving the “sale” and “purchase” of poor women from poor districts and states; and CRBs’ low status and lack of agency in receiving communities. This research aims to interrogate the moral panic surrounding the “plight” of CRBs. The thesis begins by contextualising CRM by exploring the factors that lead some (UP) men of particular castes to seek brides from other states and those that influence the migration of women over long-distances for marriages. It examines the process of negotiation entailed in making a RM and a CRM – the role of matchmakers, marriage payments and the rituals regarded as necessary to make a marriage “legitimate”. The thesis then focuses on the question of lived experiences of marriage by examining different aspects of regional brides’ (RB) and cross-regional brides’ (CRB) everyday lives – what the process of adjustment in a new (marital) home means for women when they leave their natal homes to live in their husbands’ homes and villages, the work that married women do, their relationships with other women in their marital villages, their relationships with their husbands and with their natal kin. Married women’s lives are embedded in various power dynamics and this research aims to address how factors such as caste, class, religion and age/years of marriage shape women’s post-marital experiences, in addition to their regional origins. This ethnographic study also attempts to outline issues specific to CRBs, particularly discrimination, belonging and incorporation within a culturally and linguistically different context, as well as the intergenerational implications of these marriages in terms of the (caste) status, rights and marriages of children of cross-regional couples. This research departs from existing studies on CRM as it attempts to understand postmarital experiences through a comparison with RM. Such an approach makes it possible to recognise similarities in the lived experiences of RBs and CRBs that enables a more nuanced understanding of the gendering of intimate/marital relationships in contemporary rural India within a context of caste inequalities and poverty.

The purpose of this study is to examine the correctional facilities in Örebro and Karlstad, and how they handle the demand for a religiously conditioned diet. Food and drink are perhaps the most central aspects of all people’s lives. Every single person must eat, regardless of health, age and social status. Our wellbeing revolves around food, drink, and the meal preparation. As a result of that the meal throughout history has been covered with various rites in many different cultures, from the saying of prayers to the collective preparation of the food. The meal is intimately connected to religion, both from an institutional perspective but perhaps above all from a purely practical layman's perspective. This report tries to answer how the correctional facilities in Örebro and Karlstad handle the demand for a religiously conditioned diet from three different perspectives. Firstly, from the point of view of the state agency, which is examined by studying the laws and regulations that controls the handling of food in relation to religion. Secondly, from the point of view of those who are preparing the meals who have been interviewed. Thirdly, from the point of view of the inmates who have had the opportunity to answer a survey. Based on the theory of lived religion the essay concludes that the Correctional Services do follow the laws that are set by the Swedish parliament. There is provision of diversified diets which take into consideration religious requirements to an extent that is possible. Additionally, the staff that prepares and handles the food take the religious requirements seriously. The study emphasised the importance of such requirements for inmates. The highest percentage of inmates requesting a religious based diet was between 20 to 25 percent with a diet free from pork.

Este estudo descreve as histórias de dez jovens, que vivenciaram a maternidade na faixa etária de 10-14 anos de idade, no município de Mairiporã, SP, no período de agosto de 2004 a agosto de 2005. Tendo como objetivo “(re) conhecer o significado da maternidade para jovens que vivenciaram a experiência, a partir do processo de compreensão de suas histórias de vida", e refletir sobre as condições de vulnerabilidade, procedemos a um estudo de análise qualitativa, utilizando como procedimentos metodológicos a técnica de história oral, para coleta de dados e, para a análise do material, a técnica de análise de conteúdo. As entrevistas, gravadas e transcritas integralmente e posteriormente recortadas para análise, foram realizadas com jovens, identificadas a partir de declarações de nascidos vivos, obtidos junto ao Cartório de Registro Civil de Mairiporã. Os achados foram analisados, contemplando dois momentos: antes do nascimento do bebê e após o nascimento do bebê, adotando categorias temáticas específicas. A primeira parte aborda a vivencia da infância, a família e o relacionamento familiar, o ficar mocinha, o namoro, a gravidez, as reações à gravidez, o pré-natal e o parto. A segunda parte refere-se a vivencia da jovem após o nascimento do bebê, os cuidados com o bebê, o relacionamento com o parceiro, o relacionamento mãe-filho, as dificuldades, o significado da maternidade, os sonhos, mensagem para adolescentes e para pais. As histórias detalham como se deu o desenrolar de suas vidas dentro do seu contexto histórico e social, contemplando o processo de desenvolvimento desde a infância, a passagem pela adolescência, com as características próprias, quando engravidou até o momento presente no papel de mãe. O significado da maternidade para as jovens foi evidenciado por quatro eixos centrais: felicidade por ser mãe, senso de responsabilidade, sentimento de arrependimento e perdas e mudanças em suas vidas. Os sonhos se expressaram em vontade de estudar, trabalhar, ter uma casa e independência dos pais. As mensagens dirigidas a adolescentes foram para que se previnam para não engravidar, usando preservativo, tomando pílula, que tenham juízo e não percam a juventude; e, a pais, que conversem mais com os filhos e não sejam violentos, autoritários ou omissos, e que as mães orientem mais seus filhos. / This study describes the stories of ten young girls aged 10-14 years who experienced motherhood in the city of Mairiporã, São Paulo, during the period between August 2004 and August 2005. Once the objective was to “know the meaning of maternity of young girls who have lived this experience by considering the understanding process of their life stories", and to reflect on vulnerability conditions, and a qualitative study was carried out by adopting oral history technique for data collection and content analysis technique for data analysis. The interviews were recorded, fully transcribed and prepared for analysis. They were conducted with young girls, identified by birth certificates from a registry office in Mairiporã. The findings were analyzed according to two distinguished periods: before and after the baby’s birth. The first one describes childhood experience, family relationship, first period, dating, pregnancy, prenatal care and delivery. The second one refers to baby care, partner relationship, mother-child relationship, difficulties, the meaning of maternity, dreams and advice for adolescents and parents. The stories detail their lives within their historical and social contexts from childhood to adolescence, including its peculiarities, and from pregnancy to the present role of mother. Four thematic categories signifying maternity were revealed: happiness for being a mother, sense of responsibility, feelings of regret and loss and changes in their lives. Wishes were expressed by the willingness to study, work, have their own home and be independent from parents. The messages addressed to adolescents draw attention to prevention: condom use, use of contraceptive pills, being reasonable and not loosing their youth. The messages addressed to parents include more dialogue with children and absence of violence, authoritarianism and negligence. Also, mothers are expected to give their children a stronger sense of direction.

According to the UK Government, 'disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in cultural, leisure and sporting activities than non-disabled people' (Department for Work and Pensions & Office for Disability Issues, 2014). Despite this fact, much of the research that relates to disabled people and music is focused on the therapeutic benefits of music and there is a deficit in research that explores disability and music from the perspective of the musicians themselves. The aim of my PhD project was to fill this gap by examining the lived experiences of disabled musicians in order to ascertain what might cause the perceived under-representation of disabled people in the music world. As a musician and music student with mobility and sight impairments, I have first-hand experience of the challenges that can face disabled musicians and these experiences inspired me to explore this area of concern. Consequently, my PhD project is centred on the lived experiences of disabled musicians as they engage in performance and work towards qualifications in music. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data that was collected through 11 semi-structured interviews with disabled musicians and an autoethnographic analysis of my own experiences, both as a disabled musician and PhD researcher. My PhD project shows that disabled musicians encounter a wide range of barriers as they engage in music making or journey towards a qualification in music and that these barriers create significant physical and emotional challenges for disabled individuals. Most of the issues disabled musicians experience occur during performance or while they work towards a qualification in music; these issues are the result of negative attitudes, discrimination and imbued misconceptions. Consequently, there is a need for the lived experiences of disabled people to be better understood by both non-disabled individuals and institutions who provide facilities and services. This improved understanding would allow both service providers and individuals the means to establish and maintain better access to music and music education through the implementation of reasonable adjustments and more positive attitudes towards disabled people.

The cost of textbooks has continued to increase, and the financial effect on students in higher education is significant. Numerous studies have been done to learn more about student and faculty perceptions toward Open Educational Resources (OER) use. Recent studies confirm that most instructors would use OER in order to alleviate the financial burden placed on students; however, OER adoption rates do not reflect this belief. In my study I sought to better understand what instructors experience when they search for OER. In this phenomenological study, I interviewed faculty who expressed a desire to use OER and to capture their lived experiences of adopting and adapting OER. I would like to better understand what is working well for these faculty and what challenges exist as they seek to find and adopt OER and identify possible solutions that could improve OER adoption rates. I learned that there is a desire to use OER to reduce the financial burden that textbooks impose on students, but that there is very little understanding on where to find quality OER and tools that are needed to adapt it. Future research may focus on ways to improve the process of finding and customizing OER so that it can be an alternative to expensive textbooks.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) accumulates annual data from state department of corrections. The information that the BJS accumulates annually is relevant to this study because it shows the possibility of the many African American women as well as other women in need of assistance while their loved one is incarcerated. The purpose of this study was to explore lived experiences of African American women involved with an incarcerated spouse, partner, or mate. The focal point of interest was how lived experiences affect African American women's physical and psychological well-being. The theoretical framework for this study comprised both the resilience theory and Bandura's self-efficacy theory. The research question that guided this study was: What are the significant experiences acquired during the incarceration process of the spouse, partner, or mate? Data were collected using semi structured interviews conducted with African American women over the age of 18 from a metropolitan city in the northeastern United States with incarcerated spouses, partners, or mates. NVivo software was used to find emergent themes from the data. The conclusions from the research, has endorsed positive social change by enlightening the helping professional. There are psychological implications that these women encountered during their lived experiences such as anxiety disorder, depression, trauma, stigma and shame, as well as criminality by association by staying in the relationship. The community should sustain these anguished women and be a factor in their well-being during the incarceration of their spouses, partners, or mates, as well as guiding them through the penal system via a resource center.

Individuals observe their surroundings and naturally judge others by what they observe or hear. In recent media portrayals, law enforcement officers were scrutinized for use of force and individuals were quick to verbalize their interpretation of events. Bandura's social learning theory served as a focal lens to guide the study. This qualitative phenomenological study examined lived experiences and what factors influence public perception of law enforcement use of force. Interviews were conducted with 10 participants who have encountered or witnessed law enforcement officers utilize use of force during a citizen encounter. NVivo software was used to code and analyze themes from interviews. The findings indicated lived experiences and emotions were high and did influence perception of use of force. Participants explained a variety of emotions when discussing their lived experiences. In addition, social media and mainstream news media played an important role in shaping perception of police officer use of force. This study promotes social change by presenting law enforcement agencies and society insight on how to improve on public perception and understanding of use of force so community relationships with law enforcement can flourish.

Despite the high incidence of violence directed at registered nurses while on duty, there is limited qualitative data that explores the lived experience of returning to the workplace after an assaultive incident. This phenomenological study sought to explore and analyze the phenomena of registered nurses who are employed in high-risk settings. The research questions considered the detailed descriptions of the experiences of nurses returning to the workplace. The conceptual framework was resiliency, as these participants continued to survive and thrive after the adverse assaultive events. Data were collected using in-depth interviews from purposeful sampling. Registered nurses working in the high risk areas of inpatient psychiatry and emergency departments provided detailed descriptions about the phenomena. Data management was an inductive, iterative analysis completed and facilitated by the use of NVivo 10 software program. The study found that participants had a brief emotional response post assault mitigated by the community of nursing personal from their immediate surroundings and that assault is "part of the job." Providing a true culture of safety would include enhancements to the internal community of bedside nursing practice. In addition, research is needed on interventions that can effectively enhance the internal community after assault by patients. This study contributes to positive social change by providing registered nurses, an oppressed group, and a "voice" to mitigate negative consequences associated with assault in the hospital setting.