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<p dir="ltr">This dissertation studies the lived experiences and perceptions of Indiana public-school superintendents use of social media. This phenomenological qualitative study seeks to explore how superintendents use social media in their careers, why they use social media and how they respond to parents<a href="#_ftn1" target="_blank">[1]</a> and stakeholders on social media platforms.</p><p dir="ltr">This study uses semi-structured interviews with five Indiana public-school superintendents to gain insight into their experiences with social media in their professions. The Spiral of Silence theory developed by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1974) was used as a lens to code and interpret the findings related to superintendent engagement with stakeholders on social media.</p><p dir="ltr">Superintendents explained the importance of having dedicated staff to create, post and monitor social media for the district due to it being time consuming and quick changing. They emphasized the critical importance of knowing the audience for posts and utilizing the best platform for communicating with that audience. Since social media is immediate communication, they emphasized the importance of celebrating students and staff along with keeping the public informed.</p><p dir="ltr">As a result, the assertions evolved to stress the importance of dedicating a position within a budget for a person to create, post and monitor on social media. As the key communicator for the district, the superintendent must focus on building relationships with the community to build a culture of trust and support for the district.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr"><a href="#_ftnref1" target="_blank">[1]</a> I am using “parent” to describe all primary caregivers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster parents, legal guardians, etc.</p>

The purpose of this research was to study the lived experience of being a strategic leader, described as the black box of leadership, and to extend the limited research in this field. The researcher utilised the qualitative ethnographic methodology of direct observation, observing 138 discrete critical incidents that made up the lived experience of the five strategic leaders in the sample. The researcher further utilised observation tools from the field of Neuro Linguistic Programming, personal experiences, metaphors, allegories, analogies as well as deep personal introspection to make sense of the lived experience of the five CEOs. The primary research objective was to answer the question: What do CEOs do and how do they do it? A further related objective was to explore how they think about what they do. The research answered these questions by prising open the 'black box' of the lived experience of the strategic leader. The result of the research is the pure leadership spider web model. The pure leadership spider web model breaks down the lived experience of the strategic leader, the content of the black box, into eight dimensions: the pillars that make up the personal leadership philosophy; emotional states of mind brought to bear in meetings; kinaesthetic patterns used during meetings; meeting dynamics; emotional states brought to bear on day-to-day shop-floor engagement; emotional states brought to bear on leadership engagement sessions with other like business leaders; frames of mind governing the day-to-day experiences; and The Magic Language Box. / Business Management and Entr / DBL

This doctoral study explores social workers’ shared understandings of spirituality as lived experience in their personal lives and professional practice. It examines Canadian social workers’ shared conceptualizations of spirituality as lived experience, what it entails, its role and purpose (why), and how it informs professional practice. Data collection involved three steps: a national publicity led to 24 completed self-screening questionnaires (SSQ); 14 in-depth interviews conducted through constructivist grounded theory’s theoretical sampling and; the preliminary findings were validated by the 24 SSQ participants. This study generated two key findings. The central concepts category of the conceptual schema of spirituality as lived experience emerged as Transcendent Life Energy (TLE) as Unconditional Love (UL) in Transformative Relationships (TR) With Self (WS) in Support of Wellbeing (SW)- i.e. TLE-UL-TR-WS-SW. Second, the conceptual schema analyzed through Self as body-mind-emotions-spirit-social (B-M-E-S-S) being—the social work practitioners—illuminated that spirituality as lived experience is about inherent, interconnected, transformative relationships that involve individuation as a life-long process that support healing, development of personal values, growth, and wellbeing in participants’ lives, their clients’ and social life. These findings unveiled interrelated discoveries of significance in social work practice. The wellbeing of Self is inherently interconnected with practitioners’ professional practice, their clients’ and others’ wellbeing. This confirmation is consistent with the concerns about the use of Self in countertransference and religion/culture. However, the personal values that participants developed through the conceptual schema were consistent with human rights and social work values; they included: respect for inherent dignity and worth of persons, self-determination, personal and professional integrity, do no harm, and social justice. Participants’ process of developing personal values exposed a distinction between beliefs and values acquired through socialization and those developed through the conceptual schema. These findings illuminate the function of social work as catalyst for transformative relationships and clarify the role of individuation as directly related to wellbeing, in the midst of cultural and embodied hegemony. Furthermore, the findings illuminate how, why, and what spirituality as lived experience entails and; highlight the multidisciplinary nature of social work practice and theory as inherently interconnected, encompassing human, natural, and social sciences. / October 2016

Background Adolescent subjective health and mental problems have become a public health concern not only in Sweden but worldwide. The overall aim of this thesis is to deepen and widen the understanding of young peoples’ subjective health, psychosomatic and stress-related problems. A special focus is put on experienced stress among adolescent girls and young women. The study setting is one youth health centre, and three upper secondary schools in Umeå, a university town in northern Sweden. The research design combines qualitative and quantitative methods with the main focus on qualitative methods. An interdisciplinary theoretical synthesis is utilised, primarily based on bio-psycho-social, phenomenological, and social constructionist approaches. The three qualitative papers (I-III) are based on the same sample of 40 young women who had sought help at the youth health centre because of their stress-related problems. Paper I explores the stressors experienced by the young women, whereas Paper II explores the lived experiences of stress. Paper III examines the young women’s experiences of living in a violent partner relationship as young teenagers, and how this has affected their lives and health over time. Paper IV investigates perceived stress and subjective health complaints among older adolescents in upper secondary school.   Methods Data was derived from: a) a qualitative interview study with 40 adolescent girls and young women, aged between 16–25 years, who had sought help at the youth health centre for stress problems. Qualitative content analysis was used in combination with discourse-orientated analysis (Paper I); a phenomenological approach (Paper II), and narrative method (Paper III); b) a school-based survey with a sample of 16–18-year-old boys and girls (n=1027), in upper secondary school, grades 1 and 2, from different educational programs at three schools. Perceived stress, self-rated health, subjective health complaints, anxiety, and depression, were measured with a questionnaire including a set of instruments. Statistical analyses were descriptive and analytical.   Results Paper I identified multiple stressors of modernity, gender orders and youth. Contextual factors, including social constructions and practices of gender, played an important role for the stress experienced by these young women. The results revealed that multiple and intersecting stressors and demands connected to essential life spheres, contributed not only to experiences of distress but also to feelings of constraint. Moreover, the roles of excessive taking of responsibility and failing adult support were revealed. Paper II illuminated multidimensional lived and embodied experiences of distress. ‘Living close to the edge’ emerged as the common theme running through all of the interviews and captured the young women’s sometimes unbearable situations. The theme contains dimensions of physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and existential distress, as well as dimensions of distrust and disempowerment. Paper III examined two Swedish adolescent girls’ experiences of living in a violent relationship as teenagers, and how this has affected their lives and health over time. The analysis revealed violation, stress, trauma, coping, and agency during adolescence and the transition into adulthood. Paper IV showed a high level of perceived stress, and subjective health and stress complaints among boys and girls. High pressure and excessive demands from school were experienced by a majority of boys and girls. Perceived stress was correlated with subjective health and stress complaints and anxiety. There was a clear gender difference: two to three times as many girls than boys reported subjective health complaints, e.g. headaches, tiredness and sleeping difficulties, musculoskeletal pain, sadness and anxiety.   Conclusion Several issues of relevance to public health were raised throughout the thesis. According to the interview results, the young women face multiple and intersecting stressors of modernity, gender orders and being young, which correspond to their multidimensional experiences of ‘living close to the edge’. Their experiences of stress are multidimensional, and include physical, emotional, cognitive, social and existential dimensions. Findings from the qualitative study were also mirrored in the findings from the larger group of adolescents in the school survey, where a high proportion of older adolescents, particularly girls, reported perceptions of stress. Moreover, perceived stress correlated to a variety of subjective health complaints and anxiety. The results can be understood and explained from a variety of perspectives. The experience of ‘managing alone’ indicated perceptions of inadequate social support. The overall results indicated a risk of more negative health development, particularly among adolescent girls and young women. Stressors of modernity, gender orders and youth were prominent. The continuation and normalisation of oppression and violence are also discussed as a severe gendered stressor in young women’s lives. This calls for a broad contextualised and gender-sensitive approach to young people’s stress and health problems. In conclusion, the age and gender gap in adolescent health needs to be further explored, and processes of distress, distrust and disempowerment have to be taken more seriously. / Under det senaste decenniet har medier och flertalet nationella forskningsrapporter informerat om ökande psykisk ohälsa och stress bland barn och unga i Sverige. Denna avhandlings syfte är att med hjälp av en utforskande och tvärvetenskaplig ansats fördjupa förståelsen av subjektiva ohälsoproblem och upplevd stress bland unga i Sverige, med speciellt fokus på flickors och unga kvinnors upplevda stressproblem. Avhandlingen har en explorativ och flexibel studiedesign som kombinerar kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder med särskild tyngdpunkt på de kvalitativa metoderna. Datainsamling har genomförts med a) kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer med en grupp flickor och unga kvinnor (16–25 år) som sökt hjälp för stressrelaterade problem på en ungdomshälsomottagning i Umeå, och b) en skolbaserad enkätunder-sökning med totalt 1027 pojkar och flickor, 16–18 år, i åk 1–2 på tre kommunala gymnasieskolor i Umeå. Forskningsintervjuerna har huvudsakligen analyserats med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Innehållsanalysen har i de olika delarbetena sedan kombinerats med diskursorienterad analys (Artikel I), med fenomenologisk ansats (Artikel II) och med narrativ metod (Artikel III). Skolenkäten har analyserats med deskriptiva och analytiska statistiska metoder (Artikel IV). Resultaten från den kvalitativa intervjuundersökningen med unga kvinnor belyser a) multipla stressorer som kan hänföras till flera parallella områden i livet – men även till samhälleliga diskurser: modernitetens stressorer, genusordningarnas stressorer och ungdoms-årens stressorer, b) multidimensionella, levda och förkroppsligade erfarenheter av stress och ”att leva på gränsen” som innefattar fysiska, emotionella, kognitiva, sociala och existentiella dimensioner och c) erfarenheter av våld och kontroll i partnerrelationer samt deras konsekvenser. Resultaten från enkätundersökningen med gymnasielever visar att en stor andel av ungdomarna rapporterar subjektiva hälso- och stressbesvär av olika slag inklusive oro och ångest. Jämfört med pojkarna så är det två till tre gånger fler flickor som rapporterar besvär och denna skillnad är signifikant. En majoritet av ungdomarna håller ett högt tempo och upplever sig också pressade av krav från skolan samt av egna inre krav. Upplevelserna av stress i form av högt tempo och höga krav korrelerar med de subjektiva hälso- och stressbesvären samt med ångest.   Sammanfattningsvis visar avhandlingen att ungas stressrelaterade och subjektiva hälsobesvär bör förstås i ett vidare socialt sammanhang som inkluderar ett genusperspektiv. Kontext- och genusspecifika interventionsmodeller behöver utvecklas för att möta dessa hälsoproblem, men stress bland unga behöver också diskuteras och studeras vidare i relation till hur samhällsutvecklingen och dess värdegrunder påverkar unga av idag.

Writing the speculative fiction novel, Birthright, and this accompanying exegesis, led me to challenge the validity of the disclaimer usually found in the front matter of most novels that the story is purely imaginary, bears no relationship to reality, with the characters not being inspired by anyone known or unknown to the author. For the first time in my career, I began to consider how writers including myself might frequently revisit themes and ideas which resonate with our lived experiences. I call this restorying, an unconscious process whereby aspects of one's life history are rewritten through one's creative work to achieve a more satisfactory result. Through personal contact, studying authors' accounts of their creative practices, and surveying current literature on narrative therapy, a case is made that, far from being generated purely from imagination, writers' creative choices are driven by an unconscious need to restory ourselves.

Catholic educational leaders serve as the primary faith leaders in their school community and remain influential in the public discourse of Catholic education. As insiders understanding the contextual educational landscape, and who are at the forefront of renewal and change within their own school communities, Catholic educational leaders are critical in providing an account and understanding of how their lived experience contributed to the formation of their Catholic identity. Through their daily interactions with parents, students, stakeholders, politicians, and community, their ability to articulate their Catholic identity as a school leader is imperative for the broader understanding of Catholic education. This study, grounded in narrative inquiry methodology, explored the question “What is the lived experience of Catholic educational leaders in relation to shaping, informing, and influencing the conceptual formation of Catholic identity in 21st century schools?” This question resonates with the necessity to better understand how Catholic identity is lived authentically within Catholic schools for leaders who are entrusted with leading a diverse faith community. Four Catholic educational leaders share their stories of experience, working within a relational three-dimensional space of temporality, sociality, and place as key considerations of inquiry. By living, reliving, telling, and retelling their stories to live by, threads of coherence and continuity link their personal, professional, and spiritual landscape. Participant findings generated four organizing categories: Catholic identity, Catholic education, Catholic leadership, and relationships. Each category was subsequently framed with additional sub-categories to further develop and deepen Catholic identity as a storied landscape of experience within the framework of the three- dimensional narrative inquiry. Navigating this inquiry space gave rise to contradictions and tensions surrounding the articulation and expression of Catholic identity the difficult and complex role of Catholic educational leadership, the turmoil of an educational landscape that is challenging the relevance of Catholic education, and the dynamic and every evolving influence relationships have on faith formation. To both insiders and outsiders of Catholic education, this study illuminates a better understanding of how Catholic educational leaders shape, form, and influence the conceptual formation of their Catholic identity in 21st century schools. It also provides a lens to view how diversity and unity of Catholic identity is constructed and understood narratively. / Graduate