Abstract The difference in educators’ and immigrant parents’ definition of parent involvement has led to the view that immigrant parents are less involved in their children’s education than native parents from the middle class (Crozier & Davies, 2005). The purpose of this study was to understand the experience of three immigrant parents born in Africa and the Caribbean with parent involvement in their children’s education at the elementary level. This phenomenological study utilized semi-structured interviews to gain a better understanding of the various ways in which immigrant parents are involved in their children’s education, and the factors that influenced how they became involved. The findings revealed that the essence of the parents’ experience of involvement in their children’s education was maintaining nurturing relationships. Participants guided their children into a relationship with God, they cultivated a loving relationship with their children, and had a cooperative relationship with their children’s school. The parents’ experience is explored using the themes spiritual leadership, creating and nurturing relationships, and anticipatory socialization. The description of the parents’ experiences provides some insight into how immigrant parents view and enact their role in their children’s education. The study also highlights how different cultural beliefs influence the ways in which parents contributed to their children’s development. The parents were already making contributions in a variety of ways to their children’s education. However, for the most part their activities were home-based and geared towards only their own children. There were opportunities for the parent to become more involved in ways that would extend to other members of the school community. The implications of this study for practice are that educators should give an orientation to parents new to Canada about strategies they can use to incorporate school based involvement activities into their busy schedules. This will suggest ideas that parents may not have considered and could be effective in increasing their involvement on the school compound. Implications for future research include the need to investigate how culture delimits the ways in which parents become involved. There is also a need to explore what factors would motivate immigrant parents to become more involved in their children’s education on the school site.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The present study aimed to connect the research on mothers’ forgiveness, mothers’ negative mood symptoms and well-being, and children’s psychosocial outcomes. It also examined the mediating effect of mothers’ negative mood symptoms and well-being on the relationship between mothers’ forgiveness and children’s psychosocial outcomes. 152 pairs of mother-child dyads participated in the study. It was found that mothers’ dispositional forgiveness, as assessed by the Heartland Forgiveness Scale, was related to children’s externalising syndromes, specifically aggressive behaviours, and social and attention problems on the CBCL. These relationships between maternal forgivingness and children’s psychosocial outcomes were mediated by mothers’ negative mood symptoms, in particular stress, while maternal well-being was not found to be a significant mediator. The relationship between mothers’ forgiveness and children’s psychosocial outcomes, and the mediating role of maternal stress in this relationship, were discussed. Implications for parenting programmes to facilitate children’s psychosocial outcomes, and future directions were also proposed. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The purpose of this study was to describe the strengths and needs of Deaf adults as parents of school-age and adolescent children. A cross-sectional, descriptive design was employed to gather data from a convenience sample of Deaf parents and hearing children from 15 families. The Parental Strengths and Needs Inventory (PSNI)--a 60 item Likert instrument--and structured interviews were used in data collection. The PSNI was administered to parents in sign language via videotape, and they were interviewed with the assistance of a professional interpreter. Parents' and children's total scores on the PSNI were above average according to Strom and Coolege's scoring instructions (1985). Review of subset scores indicated that Deaf parents had above average interest in acquiring additional information about childrearing, and parents of adolescents felt more than average frustration. Comparison of parents' and children's scores on parallel forms of the PSNI demonstrated no significant differences in total or subset scores, supporting validity of parents' scores. Comparison of parents' and children's interview responses with the topics on the PSNI revealed that the content on the PSNI was valid, but incomplete for Deaf parents. Deaf parents shared the concerns of normally hearing parents, but had additional concerns specific to parental deafness which were not addressed in the PSNI. Contributions of the study to Nursing research focused on strategies for triangulation and pilot testing of instruments in cross-cultural research. Limitations of the study were presented in terms of instrumentation and study design. Cautions also reported are interpretation of findings related to the ex-post-facto nature of the research design and the complexity of factors interrelated with parental Deafness.

Objective: To explore interventions that support children and parents making health decisions. Systematic Review: A systematic review was conducted to synthesize evidence on interventions that support children’s health decision making. Five studies of variable quality were included. Interventions that improved decision making were decision coaching with or without an educational resource, or education alone. Pre-/post-test pilot: A pre-/post-test study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of decision coaching guided by the Ottawa Family Decision Guide for children with type 1 diabetes and their parents. Of 16 families invited, 7 participated. Compared to children/parents who preferred one option at baseline, participants who were unsure of the best option rated decision coaching as more acceptable and had larger decreases in decisional conflict. Conclusions: Few studies have evaluated interventions supporting children’s decision making. The piloted decision support intervention was feasible and acceptable, particularly with children and parents who were unsure of the best option.

No description available.

Appreciation of humor is generally accepted as being a unique aspect of human personality. Yet, despite its prominence in everyday situations, it remains a relatively unexplored area of scientific investigation. The present study has a twofold purpose: (1) an examination of the relationship of "sense of humor" to neurosis in a relatively normal population and, (2) an exploratory investigation of the type of parent-child relationship which fosters a particular mode of response to humor. As a result of the methods used to explore these areas, a third area for study was available to the investigator. That was the examination of the type of parent-child relationship perceived by the subject and the subsequent development or absence of neurosis.