This thesis explores the social realities of working in a minority language labour market through a case-study of the Gaelic language in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.  In this study, the ‘Gaelic labour market’ refers to a group of jobs for which knowledge of Gaelic is a condition of employment. By conceptualising language as situated in social practices, this study draws on in-depth interviews with people who work in this labour market, to research the ways in which personal identities, values and meanings associated with the language can be asserted, formed and contested through working practices.  The research found a multiplicity of motives for working in the Gaelic labour market which included both ‘mercenary’ and ‘crusading’ elements.  Gaelic language practice in the Gaelic labour market is not necessarily stable or habitual, but is contested practice given that there is no single ideology of language which workers bring to bear on upon their working situations. Whilst for some participation in the Gaelic labour market profoundly affected how they identified with the language, for others this involvement had little consequence for their identity.  The dominant outcome was one of ambivalence over what membership of the Gaelic labour market meant and in which ways it could have implications for how workers lived their lives.  The results show how the labour market is one space through which different ideologies of the language are contested, as well as being a contested concept in and of itself.

The aim of this research is to investigate the extent to which human rights in Islam corresponds with the international schemes of human rights despite its "cultural particularities". This thesis investigates the right to freedom of faith in light of the main textual sources in Islamic Shariah focusing on the concept of apostasy. To put the study in context, the research traces the history of human rights in both the Islamic and Western perspectives.

Despite ongoing changes in the national sociopolitical landscape, negative attitudes toward non-heterosexuals continue to permeate throughout our society. Not only is sexual prejudice still prevalent, but experiencing it can have severe and far-reaching effects on LGBT individuals’ mental and physical health. Additionally, previous research has consistently found sexual prejudice to be a predictor of aggression directed toward sexual minorities. In fact, the recurrence and consistency of this finding has motivated researchers to suggest the development of intervention programming for the reduction of sexual prejudice. One major prospect for intervention involves interpersonal contact with sexual minorities. Evidence in favor of the contact hypothesis has been found with a wide variety of target minority groups, including sexual minorities. However, a review of the literature in this area reveals a significant measurement gap. Overall, most studies across all areas of contact research have neglected to follow the proper procedures necessary for the development and refinement of measures. This study sought to address this gap by validating a more robust psychometric measure of intergroup contact with sexual minorities developed by Daboin and Peterson (2012). Since this measure was previously constructed, this validation study relied on secondary data analyses. To achieve the purpose of this study, a series of analyses were conducted including exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and path analysis, as well as reliability and validity analyses. Results indicated that the CSMQ has an underlying structure of three factors: “Quantity of Casual Contact and Contact with Male Sexual Minorities,” “Quantity of Intimate Contact and Contact with Female Sexual Minorities,” and “Overall Perceived Quality of Contact with Sexual Minorities.” These three factors are significantly correlated with one another and negatively correlated with both negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Additionally, results showed that the revised CSMQ and its resulting subscales have excellent internal consistency, and provided supporting evidence for their convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.

Principals and vice-principals occupy a vital role in our public schools. They hold politically and organizationally powerful positions to influence change and support educational reform. Riehl (2000) points out that one’s practice of leadership is influenced by one’s identity, thus knowing who administrators are is significant. Although understanding who our formal administrators are is still an emerging area of scholarly inquiry, most of the educational literature focuses on administrators from the mainstream, dominant culture. Little attention has been given to who our visible minority principals and vice-principals are, especially within in a Canadian and British Columbia context. This study explores how the life histories and life experiences of visible minority principals and vice-principals of BC who are immigrants and children of immigrants have created their identities. In particular, how have their experiences as “other” influenced their praxis as formal school leaders? Using a life history methodological approach, data were gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews. Six themes and three sub-themes emerged from the interviews that highlight participant life experiences, meaning and learning about their identity and praxis as leaders. Participants linked their present views, beliefs, and approaches to leadership with events and personal experiences from their past. Participants’ enactment of school leadership was informed by their experiences trying to fit in with mainstream culture; identity issues and cultural identity development; connecting with minority students and families; needing to promote diversity; being mentored and now being mentors; and influencing change. Therefore, a connection was made by the research participants between who they are as leaders and how their experiences have influenced them. / Graduate / 0514 / shailoo@uvic.ca

This study focuses on how minorities are stigmatized in the French media. It limits itself to the case of the proposal of the denaturalization law and the consequent discourse about it. The subject is introduced through a short background on the law and its relevance to the possible racist nature of the debate, followed by some background on racism in France, an overview of the theory on new racism and how it can explain stigmatizating discourses. Critical Discourse Analysis is used as the method to uncover said discourses as it is a method related to the in-depth analysis of implicit dominant ideologies and power-structures. The study analyzes twenty articles from two French newspapers in order to determine how stigmatizing discourses are expressed. The results in the discussion show recurrent racist narratives that systematically denigrate and stereotype Muslims and immigrants. They also show a pattern of the dominant culture negating space to minorities.

In this multi-methodological (Gee, 2011; Hult & D. Johnson, 2015) study, I examine Richard Ruiz's (2014) original concept of the epiphenomenal nature of language in language policy and planning (LPP) across social scales (Hult, 2013) in Hong Kong. While research in Hong Kong has focused on interactions between schools, teachers, students, parents, business, and the government, the work on non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) remains a neglected social scale. Addressing this gap, I examine the role of a local NGO, Hong Kong Unison (Unison), as a social actor involved in the negotiation of language-in-education policies for the city's ethnic minority students. Through the collection of one decade of publically accessible documents, I created a corpus of Unison's work. Corpus linguistics approaches and a wider-angle perspective to critical discourse analysis (cf. Tian, 2006, 2008) were combined in order to highlight salient patterns and discourses within the data (cf. Baker, 2016). Corpus and discursive analyses indicate that Unison is primarily involved in transforming language policies through their active role in increasing public awareness about the social, political, and educational difficulties ethnic minority students encounter in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the NGO’s ideologies reveal the epiphenomenal nature of LPP. Epiphenomenality reflects how decisions made about language are influenced and shaped by non-linguistic phenomena. Unison's negotiation of LPP demonstrates how their decisions about language are connected to issues of equality, justice, economic opportunity, educational attainment, and social advancement. These ideologies manifest themselves in dialogue across social scales, demonstrating Unison's impact in negotiating LPP in Hong Kong. This study, while providing more insight into LPP research by examining the role of a local NGO, continues to raise questions on how to best understand how multiple scales intersect in the policymaking process, and how the epiphenomenal nature of language shapes decision-making.

There is a paucity of longitudinal data investigating the role of vitamin D in the maintenance of health in ethnic minority groups. Specifically, little is known about the role of vitamin D on muscle strength, how this affected by emigrating from low to high latitudes. This PhD thesis provides insight into the relationship between vitamin D status and muscle strength in healthy adults migrating from sunny climates (45°N to 45°S to the equator) to higher latitude (Aberdeen, 57°N) (first study) and also sunlight behaviours in both low and high latitudes (second study). A total of 71 people of ethnic minority aged 19-42 years took part in the first study with 56% were seen within 3 months of arriving in Aberdeen (newcomers) and the remainder having been resident for any longer period than this (residents). Participants attended visits every 3 months for 15 months. At each visit, fasted blood samples were collected for analysis of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] by dual tandem-mass spectrometry, parathyroid hormone (PTH), carboxy-terminal collagen crosslinks (CTX) and N-terminal propeptide of type I collagen (P1NP) by electrochemiluminescent immunoassay. Maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) was measured using a Takei digital grip dynamometer (both arms) and a Biodex dynamometer (right knee) for isometric knee extension and isokinetic knee extension and flexion. Mean baseline 25(OH)D concentrations were higher in the newcomers (35.2 nmol/L) than the residents (25.0 nmol/L, p<0.01). After adjusting for the season of measurement at baseline, there was a trend for higher vitamin D status only between newcomers arriving in spring (33.5 nmol/L) and residents (26.8 nmol/L, p=0.09), but not between the newcomers arriving in autumn (36.1 nmol/L) and residents in autumn (35.2 nmol/L, p=0.81). Notably, few newcomers (13%) and residents (7%) had 25OHD concentrations >50 nmol/L. There was a small seasonal variation in 25(OH)D concentration with the difference between zenith (summer/autumn) and nadir (winter/spring) was 5 nmol/L, 6 nmol/L, and 12 nmol/L among the newcomers arriving in spring, autumn and residents, respectively. There was no seasonal variation in bone turnover markers. There was a positive, albeit small, association between vitamin D and knee extensor isometric torque. Mixed modelling predicted that each 1 nmol/L increase in 25(OH)D would increase peak torque by 1 Nm (p=0.04). If extrapolated to higher 25(OH)D, the change in muscle strength would be clinically meaningful. In the second study, 117 Asians in Kuala Lumpur (3°N) and 110 non-Europeans (78% Asians) in Aberdeen were recruited and monitored for one year [every 3 months for participants in Aberdeen and during Southwest monsoon (SWM; July-Sept) and Northeast monsoon (NEM; Nov-Feb) in Kuala Lumpur]. Personal sunlight exposures were assessed by polysulphone film badges and a web-based questionnaire. Asians living in their usual environment (Kuala Lumpur) had similar sunlight behaviours to Asians living in Aberdeen. Sunlight was the major source of vitamin D in Kuala Lumpur during both seasons (median % cutaneous in SWM = 61%; NEM = 59%), but only during summer in Aberdeen (52%). Dietary intakes provided the most source of vitamin D in Aberdeen during autumn (94%), winter (97%) and spring (56%). This thesis has added evidence to the current limited observations on vitamin D and muscle strength, particularly in the cohort of young adults migrating from low to high latitudes. Intervention studies are yet to be conducted with a speculation that an increase in vitamin D status may show a positive impact on muscle strength. The extent of low sunlight behaviour among healthy adults in Kuala Lumpur is of concern.

The diploma thesis deals with a characteristic of a journalist, who belongs to an ethnic/national minority, in the newsrooms of nationwide media in the Czech Republic. Its aim is to explain, how the minority journalist understand their professional role and what effect their ethnic identity has on their professional self-concept in the newsroom. The work also aims to determine the extent to which the principles of diversity management are applied in the newsrooms and how the management supervisors monitor and evaluate them. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on professionalisation of the profession of journalists, their role and the construction of identity and ethnic identity of minority journalists in the newsroom. The work also represents the elements of diversity management and its application in the newsrooms. In the empirical part of the research by means of analysis of the interviews not only structure and interaction of professional and ethnic identity of the journalists in the Czech media and their tenure at the newspapers, but also a supervisors' point of view and the application of the principles of the diversity management in the area of Czech nationwide media are evaluated. The work covers the printed and audio-visual media. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

L’intégration en Saxe des minorités allemandes d’Europe centrale et orientale expulsées à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale se déroule sous autorité soviétique, pendant la construction du socialisme est-allemand. Le réfugié devient officiellement un « Umsiedler » et son intégration se construit entre exigences idéologiques et contrainteséconomiques.L’étude des sources aux différents échelons administratifs et politiques rend possible une différenciation des parcours d’intégration notamment selon les catégories sociales (femmes, enfants, personnes âgées, prisonniers de guerre, etc.). La typologie des réfugiés révèle leurs possibilités variées d’intégration : certains groupes apparaissent comme des « laissés-pour-compte » tandis que d’autres profitent des opportunités politiques du nouveau régime. Elle présente également les limites de l’intégration qui se réalise parfois dans un climat de violence et de résistances.Cette étude d’un Land prend place dans une historiographie plus générale de l’intégration des expulsés dans les deux Allemagne. Le contexte de l’après-réunification et la confrontation des mémoires soulèvent aujourd’hui pour les victimes des expulsions des enjeux mémoriels et pour la communauté scientifique des débats / In Saxony, the integration of the German minorities of Central and Eastern Europe expelled at the end of World War 2 took place under Soviet authority during the establishment of East German socialism. The refugees were officially called “Umsiedler” and their integration was constructed between ideological requirements and economic constraints.The analysis of sources on different administrative and political levels facilitates a differentiation of the integration paths, especially of different social categories (women, children, elderly people, war prisoners, etc.). The typology of the refugees shows the variety of integration possibilities: certain groups appear to have been completely neglected while others took advantage of political opportunities in the new system. But the limits of integration are also demonstrated by this typology, since this integration sometimes took place in an environment of violence and resistance.This study of a German Land takes place in a more general historiography of the integration of German expellees in the two Germanies. Today, the post-reunification context and the confrontation of the memories raise memory issues for the victims of expulsion and are a cause for debate in the scientific community

Aidai Idinova Abstract The thesis will look at the how effective human rights protection can be, and especially regarding the Roma population in the Czech Republic. As there is a huge number of human rights, this thesis will focus on the right to education. Moreover, the case study of this thesis is the Roma population in the Czech Republic, therefore the rights and livelihoods of the Roma population will be analysed, examined and evaluated in this country. The thesis will also look at four hypotheses and try to find out if there really exists discrimination in the country, and to what extent; whether religion has an effect towards perceptions towards Roma; whether longer education changes one's attitudes towards Roma; and whether a communist past correlates with greater discrimination. But most importantly, this thesis will look at the right to education and the access to education for Roma students. Education is such an important human right as it has long-term effects in Roma's employment, health care and housing opportunities. Therefore, the Czech educational system will be analysed in regards to the socially disadvantaged group of the Roma population.