published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The purpose of the current study was to measure the effects of a sexual issues discussion group on the sexual attitudes and behaviors of physically disabled college students. A review of the literature on sexual rehabilitation counseling shows that many programs have been designed to help the disabled. However, it was discovered that most of these programs were developed for the traumatically disabled and did not include the congenitally disabled or those afflicted with debilitating diseases. Furthermore, few reports described the sexual adjustment counseling programs and even fewer reported data on the effectiveness of these programs. Research indicated that the disabled have more difficulty adjusting to college than do able-bodied students. Since sexual adjustment is an important component of total adjustment, it was hypothesized that this might be an important function of a college counselor working with disabled students. The lack of reviews of sexual adjustment programs, the scarcity of reports on the effectiveness of these programs and the rarity of information on sexual adjustment counseling with disabled college students were the impetus for this study. The specific questions which this study was designed to answer were: (1) Does participation in a sexual issues discussion group affect the sexual attitudes of physically disabled college students? (2) Does participation in a sexual issues discussion group affect the sexual activity of physically disabled college students? and (3) Does participation in a sexual issues discussion group help physically disabled college students reach specific attitudinal and behavioral goals which they have identified prior to beginning the group? The population included all the physically handicapped students at Arizona State University identified as disabled by the Disabled Students Office. The population was contacted by mail. From the resulting volunteers, individuals were randomly selected, placed in two categories (congenital and acquired disablements), and then randomly assigned to two groups of six, creating a stratified random sample. Each group had four members who had congenital defects and two members with acquired disabilities. The experimental treatment consisted of an eight-week program, conducted in the University Counseling Center, of two-hour sessions which focused on sexual issues. A waiting list control group took the pre and post tests as did the experimental group. The experimental group also drew up individual contracts which they hoped to accomplish as a result of participating in the treatment. Analysis of Variance was used to test the hypotheses related to Questions 1 and 2. Results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups which could be attributed to the treatment. Evaluation of the individual contracts indicated, however, that experimental subjects did move toward the goals which they had set for themselves. Analysis of graphs of the data suggested that change was made in the experimental group toward more liberal sexual attitudes and behaviors. From the evidence gathered in the study, it was concluded that the treatment did not have a statistically significant effect on the sexual attitudes and behaviors of physically disabled college students as measured by the test instruments. However, the self-ratings suggested that participants in the experimental group did move toward goals which they had set for themselves prior to treatment. The major conclusion was that the size of the N (12) was a contributing factor in the failure to denote a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Recommendations included further investigation of the experimental treatment procedures, separation of the congenitally disabled from those with acquired disabilities, revision of the test instruments and offering similar treatment as a credit course.

It has been well documented that our physical characteristics exert a strong influence on the way others react to us. The purpose of this study was to investigate college students' attitudes and behavior toward the physically disabled. It was hypothesized that although initial verbal reactions

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The purpose of this exploratory investigation was to investigate how self-identified gay or bisexual (GB) men with developmental disabilities managed their complex identities. Through various profiling strategies and snowball sampling techniques, seven such GB men volunteered. These key participants resided over a wide geographical area, from the coastal US to the southern part of British Columbia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each person, three of whom identified a caregiver as being a particularly important part of his "coming-out" process. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with these supporting participants, as well as a few other relevant professionals. Key participants' life stories were framed within several theories: namely; Goffman's (1963) stigma, Lave and Wengers' (1991) legitimate peripheral participation, disability theory, queer theory and Smith's (1987) institutional ethnography. Similarly, the supporting professionals' responses were analyzed. The results present rich kaleidoscopic narrative descriptions, and provide many implications for special education practice and queer activism.

Social capital refers to material and symbolic resources that are accessed through social relationships and used for purposive actions. Conceptualising social capital as having four archetypal forms provides planners with an analytic and heuristic tool for considering the different resources that community and government actors bring to various projects and social endeavours. These forms of social capital are called bonding social capital (based on intra-community relationships), bridging social capital (based on extra-community relationships), institutional social capital (based on relationships established by the formal and informal institutions of society) and synergistic social capital (based on relationships between state and civil society actors). This quadripartite model of social capital was found to be useful in analysing the different socially embedded resources which were applied to housing initiatives for two distinct communities of people in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One case looked at a seniors care home established for elderly Chinese people by a community-based organisation (CBO) known as the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society (S.U.C.C.E.S.S.). The second case examined community housing for adults with developmental disabilities that was supported directly by family members and a CBO called Mainstream Association for Proactive Community Living (MAPCL) and indirectly by an informal group known as the Parents Support Group for Families of Mentally Handicapped Adults. In both cases, the housing initiative relied on resources that were accessed through the intra-community ties of people united by a common ethnicity or interest in supporting adults with developmental disabilities. Necessary inputs for developing and sustaining the housing initiatives were also found in extra-community ties with the wider community and internationally-based professional associations; relationships with government actors at the municipal, provincial and federal levels; and predictable societal relationships established by legislation and norms of behaviour. A four-part model of social capital additionally serves as a planning tool to identify a broader range of resources and possibilities for policy intervention and to remind planners they work with multiple publics, must adopt a critical approach to community involvement and coproduction and should encourage governments to be active in shaping the institutional environment and engaging with individuals and community groups.