Since the 1990s, suicide and stress amongst farming individuals in Britain has gained increasing attention. This is because restructuring of the farm sector has placed greater economic pressure on farm family businesses and led to dramatic socio-cultural change in rural communities. Academic research has been dominated by a medical, reactionary approach to the examination of stress. This ignores the cultural and gender processes which are embedded in a patriarchal family farming ‘way of life’ that may, in reality, underpin medicalised outcomes. This ethnographic research, utilising repeated life history interviews with multiple members of farming families, based in Powys, Mid Wales, provides a crucial first step in a more proactive understanding of stress by tracking the dynamics, construction, enactment and maintenance of relational farming identities. From such a perspective, behavior according to a farming ‘way of life’ is brought sharply into focus as a course and source of components of stress. Drawing upon a range of theoretical positions, a robust conceptualisation of farming stress is developed. In particular insights from feminism inform the non-medical approach adopted by this research. Ideas are drawn on from emerging, feminist international perspectives of relational farming gender identities and by closer integration of theoretical post-modern insights from cultural, rural studies which has persistently neglected farming individuals. This research contributes to theoretical and empirical development within agricultural geography by providing an example of how micro contextualisation of farming/ rural lives can be contextualised within the macro-economic framework of agriculture. Results are drawn from 7 case study farming families, with scale of analysis utilised to reveal from birth the construction, maintenance and enactment of relational farming gender identities. Farm survival is found to be heavily dependent upon socialisation within the ideology of family farming, the enactment of farming identities beyond the farm gate, and the necessity for individuals to adhere to a patriarchal ideology. This patrilineal ‘way of life’ ideology and its gendered components are revealed to demonstrate that adherence to gender roles is becoming increasingly difficult within the current context of agricultural and rural change. The struggle that individuals have to maintain their place and sense of belonging in family farming emerges as a key source of contemporary stress. Further work is needed to ensure that the gendered understanding of farming stress formulated in this research is applied to rural stress policy and practice.

Although schools and industrial organisations have historically been, and in some cases still are, considered completely different entities, there is nevertheless an increasing awareness that similarities also exist. It can be a determining factor for the roles and competencies of school principals as leaders if indeed there is truth in the conception that schools ought to be led and managed as businesses (industrial organisations, companies). The aim of this study was to determine which comparisons (similarities and differences) can indeed be drawn between the environments in which school principals as leaders of education on the one hand and leaders of industrial organisations on the other operate. For this purpose the nature of a school and that of an industrial organisation were investigated. Furthermore, it was attempted to draw a comparison between the roles and competencies of leaders in both environments with the expectation that the roles which successful leaders fulfil in the industrial organisation and the competencies they should have at their command, can provide important guidelines for nurturing more efficient and more successful leaders in schools. In order to reach the afore-mentioned goal, a literature study was done on the nature of an industrial organisation and of a school and on the roles and competencies of leaders of organisations and leaders of education. Subsequently, as second objective, a quantitative investigation was undertaken, based on a questionnaire which was forwarded to school principals in the Gauteng Province. A representative sample of 400 school principals from all schools in the province was drawn for this purpose and the responses were statistically analysed with a view to establish which of the roles and competencies indicated by the literature study are indeed considered important and which of these roles and competencies are prominent among school principals. The first research objective was to determine the roles and competencies of managerial leaders, and it was found that they must have command over visionary thinking, be capable of planning strategically, be motivators and change agents, be able to communicate well and be capable of working with people, be able to manage and be adaptable themselves, be able to lead, be able to empower people and to evaluate them. Subsequently common orientations for industrial leaders and leaders of education were determined. Here, dealing with personnel was very evident, especially with regard to staff development., sound relationships with members of staff, acknowledgement of staff performances, teamwork, the integrity of the leader, as experienced by the staff, the climate within and culture of the organisation, how energetic the leader is and his/her abilities to organise, and to which extent standards are maintained. The information obtained by the research led to reaching the third objective, namely designing a model for improving the efficiency of the leader of education regarding his/her roles and competencies. The model recommends intervention from the part of the Department of Education as well as ways in which the school principal him/herself takes responsibility for improving the efficiency of school principals. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Healthcare professionals are expected to know their role in patient safety. In a rural hospital, they may have different roles along with their professional role. Staff and services are fewer and the community is often part of the hospital. This can influence patient safety culture. Researchers and governing bodies have focused on developing processes to assist healthcare leaders developing their patient safety culture. Researchers and governing bodies have tended to focus on urban hospitals and then implement the same processes in rural hospitals. This strategy has not always been successful. The purpose of this study is to explore the roles and responsibilities in patient safety culture of health care professionals in rural hospitals. A systematic review, using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) review process, was completed to discover how patient safety culture and rural hospitals are described and measured. Some common elements in the literature were unique characteristics of rural hospitals, leadership, error reporting and the use of patient safety culture surveys. Ethnographic methods were used to explore healthcare professional’s roles in patient safety culture in a rural hospital. Healthcare professionals describe their roles differently than described in the literature. A patient safety culture model was developed from the literature and refined with the study findings. The affinity model was developed based on the study findings from the small rural hospital and the literature. Everything they do is how rural hospital practitioners described their role in patient safety. / Thesis (Ph.D, Nursing) -- Queen's University, 2014-02-20 09:15:25.007

Research on sex discrimination has found consistent support for the idea that women who violate gender roles by succeeding in male-dominated domains elicit hot forms of discrimination. In particular, evidence suggests that a perceivers' conservatism, which represents a preference against gender change toward greater equality, might motivate this kind of discrimination. Therefore, I hypothesized that perceiver conservatism would predict discrimination against female gender role violators. In two studies, I found evidence that conservatism predicts negative evaluations of targets (Study 1), as well as sabotage (Study 2). In addition, Study 2 revealed that the relationship between conservatism and sabotage was partially mediated by the perceivers' anxiety. However, if the discrimination that conservative perceivers direct at gender role violators is motivated by conservatives' preference against social change toward greater equality, then targets who support gender status hierarchies while they violate gender roles should experience less discrimination from conservative perceivers than those who challenge status hierarchies. Consistent with this reasoning, perceivers' conservatism was negatively related to perceived interpersonal hostility of female gender role violators who expressed support for gender hierarchy. In contrast, perceivers' conservatism was positively related to perceived interpersonal hostility of female gender role violators who expressed opposition to gender hierarchy (Study 1). However, targets' expressions of support for gender hierarchy did not have this effect on the relationship between perceivers' conservatism and perceptions of the target's ineffectuality (Study 1), respect for the target (Study 1), or sabotage of the target (Study 2). Moreover, while supporting status hierarchies reduced perceptions of interpersonal hostility from perceivers high in conservatism, it increased perceptions of hostility from those low in conservatism. Thus, supporting gender hierarchies may appear to help in some contexts, but is associated with significant costs, as well. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Research on sex discrimination has found consistent support for the idea that women who violate gender roles by succeeding in male-dominated domains elicit hot forms of discrimination. In particular, evidence suggests that a perceivers' conservatism, which represents a preference against gender change toward greater equality, might motivate this kind of discrimination. Therefore, I hypothesized that perceiver conservatism would predict discrimination against female gender role violators. In two studies, I found evidence that conservatism predicts negative evaluations of targets (Study 1), as well as sabotage (Study 2). In addition, Study 2 revealed that the relationship between conservatism and sabotage was partially mediated by the perceivers' anxiety. However, if the discrimination that conservative perceivers direct at gender role violators is motivated by conservatives' preference against social change toward greater equality, then targets who support gender status hierarchies while they violate gender roles should experience less discrimination from conservative perceivers than those who challenge status hierarchies. Consistent with this reasoning, perceivers' conservatism was negatively related to perceived interpersonal hostility of female gender role violators who expressed support for gender hierarchy. In contrast, perceivers' conservatism was positively related to perceived interpersonal hostility of female gender role violators who expressed opposition to gender hierarchy (Study 1). However, targets' expressions of support for gender hierarchy did not have this effect on the relationship between perceivers' conservatism and perceptions of the target's ineffectuality (Study 1), respect for the target (Study 1), or sabotage of the target (Study 2). Moreover, while supporting status hierarchies reduced perceptions of interpersonal hostility from perceivers high in conservatism, it increased perceptions of hostility from those low in conservatism. Thus, supporting gender hierarchies may appear to help in some contexts, but is associated with significant costs, as well. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

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This study was undertaken in conjunction with the Successful Integration of Learning Technologies (SILT) Project in Victorian state schools, and its purpose was to identify the forms of teachers’ professional practice that enhance knowledge building, in order to inform teacher development policy and pre-service education. Knowledge building is based on a constructivist approach to learning and teaching, and this, in conjunction with the spread of learning technologies, is said to have greatly changed the role of the teacher in the classroom: from the expert dispensing knowledge to the facilitator of student learning. (For complete abstract open document)

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-92).

The thesis presents analysis on four types of social statuses (as defined by Linton and Merton), namely volunteer, carer for an adult, child carer, and friend, in the second half of life in Germany based on the German Ageing Survey. In reference to the cultural sociological theories of Gerhard Schulze, the impact of retirement as life event on older adults’ lifestyle and likelihood of adopting these statuses is critically discussed. The use of the category of ‘old adult’ is put into question. It is found that between 1996 and 2008 the share of volunteers and of people spending time on leisure activities in company has increased in all age groups in the German population aged 50 and over. Carers, on the other hand, showed stable numbers with decreasing time investment, and the share of people looking after children was on the decline. All social statuses were represented in different numbers in Eastern and Western Germany, with Eastern Germany showing less engagement especially in volunteering and social leisure activities. Possible reasons for this are discussed. The volunteer and friend statuses were selected as dependent variables for regression models of the influence of retirement. The models based on cross-sectional as well as the models based on panel data showed that there was at best a marginal influence of retirement on a person’s likelihood of volunteering or spending leisure time with friends and relatives. With Gerhard Schulze’s theory of the ‘event society’, it is argued that the reason for the increase of volunteers and of people more actively cultivating their friend status amongst older Germans is that they no longer significantly differ in their value orientations and lifestyles from younger adults and that therefore the persistent founding of research and social policy on age categories is no longer a valid approach.

abstract: Unanswered questions about the evolution of human gender abound and are salient across the anthropological disciplines and beyond. Did adult sex-typed behavioral tendencies actually evolve? If so, when? For what purpose? The best way to gain insight into the evolution of human gender is to understand the evolution and development of sex-typed behavior in comparative primate taxa. Captive research indicates that there are many proximate factors likely to shape the development of sex-typed behavior in non-human primates—prenatal and postnatal endocrinological experience, social experience, ecological factors, and their interactions. However, it is largely unknown how sex-typed behavior proceeds and is shaped by those factors in evolutionarily salient environments. This study investigated one—whether extrinsic sexually differentiated social interactions are likely influential in the development of adult sex-typed behavior in wild-living Lemur catta. Little is known about sex-typed development in this species or in strepsirrhines in general. This research therefore addresses an important phylogenetic gap in our understanding of primate sex-typed development. Behavioral observations were carried out on mixed cross-sectional sample of adult females (n=10), adult males (n=8), yearling females (n=4), yearling males (n=4), and newborn females (n=16) and males (n=14) at Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve in southwest Madagascar from September 2008 to August 2009. Twenty-three sex-typed behaviors were identified in adults using linear mixed effects models and models of group response profiles through time. Of those, only eight had a pre-pubertal developmental component. Infants did not exhibit any sex differences in behavior, but juveniles (prepubertal, weaned individuals) resembled adults in their (relatively few) patterns of expression of sex-typed behavior. Most adult sex-typed behaviors in this species apparently develop at or after puberty and may be under gonadal hormone control. Those that develop before puberty do not likely depend on extrinsic sexually differentiation social interactions for their development, because there is no clear evidence that infants and juvenile male and females are not treated differently by others according to sex. If sexually differentiated social interactions are important for sex-typed behavioral development in subadult ,italic>Lemur catta, they are likely intrinsically (rather than extrinsically) driven. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012