Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: James D. Wright. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-78).

This study provided a comprehensive picture of the lives of young adolescents (ages 12-14) and their mothers residing in emergency family violence shelters. It used qualitative Life Story methods emphasizing a holistic, contextualized, chronological approach to gain deeper insight into experiences as told from the emic perspectives of individuals who have lived them, with research questions addressing relationships, intimate partner violence (IPV), coping, and views of the future. The study was prompted by the prevalence of childhood exposure to adult IPV with 15.5 million American children/adolescents exposed annually, the risks of IPV exposure, and the paucity of first-person perspectives in existing research. Research focusing on adolescents is especially lacking. The study was informed by social cognitive and family systems theories and an ecological/resilience framework. An ethnically diverse, purposive sample of 14 young adolescent-mother dyads (N= 27) was recruited from four Texas shelters. Youth and mothers were interviewed separately using a semi-structured interview guide. They completed standardized measures of IPV exposure level and youth psychological adjustment. Interviews were analyzed using thematic and categorical-content analysis. Four staff interviews at recruitment sites added context. Results revealed high levels of IPV exposure, poverty, parental incarceration, child maltreatment, residential instability, school transitions and maternal health problems. Seven themes were prominent in youths’ life stories, with the most prevalent concerning lifelong frequent moves, highly cohesive family boundaries, and loss and fear. Other themes concerned evolution in youths’ thinking about family issues, complex feelings about adult males, centrality of physical child abuse, and the influence of parental crack cocaine abuse in their lives. Numerous quotes voice participants’ strengths in spite of adversities. Youth typically framed experiences in terms of how they affected daily living, with IPV interwoven with the broader themes. Youth described key relationships, perceptions of fathers, general coping strategies, situational coping with IPV (including safety planning behaviors), perspectives on shelters, potential protective factors, and views of the future. Mothers’ interviews expanded interpretation of youth narratives. Results compare youth-mother perspectives. Implications are discussed for theory, research, and social work practice, including practice in emergency shelters, schools, substance abuse treatment programs, law enforcement and CPS. / text

This paper investigates the spread of aggressive corporate tax reporting by modeling a firm's decision to adopt the corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) shelter. I use a sample of known COLI participants to examine whether certain firm characteristics are associated with the decision to adopt a COLI shelter. I find some evidence that firms with higher performance-matched discretionary accruals are more likely to adopt a COLI shelter, suggesting a positive relation between aggressive financial reporting and aggressive tax reporting. I also find that firms with greater capital market visibility are less likely to adopt a COLI shelter, consistent with a potential reputational cost for being associated with aggressive tax avoidance activities. Further, my results suggest that COLI adopters are generally R&D intensive firms with low leverage and few foreign operations. In addition to firm specific characteristics, I consider two explanations for the spread of COLI adoption motivated by theory on diffusion of innovations and institutional isomorphism. I investigate whether firms imitate prior COLI adopters and whether COLI adoption spreads through common auditors. My results are not consistent with an imitation explanation. Further, my results suggest that having the same auditor as a prior COLI adopter does not increase the likelihood that a firm will adopt COLI. / text

This case study of Covenant House, an emergency shelter for street kids in downtown Toronto, focuses on the experiences that draw kids into youth shelters and that drive them out. The analysis stresses the importance to street kids of feeling "cared for". Street kids were drawn to Covenant House because they felt cared for there by its open intake policy, appealing facilities (clean surroundings and good food), and staff who listened to and were interested in their problems. But residents were rather swiftly turned off by its rigidly enforced, elaborate and "uncaring' rule structure, and either walked out or got kicked out. Given the limited alternatives in Toronto's "shelter world", however, Covenant House has become the preferred choice for street kids who find themselves in a cycle of entering, leaving and returning.

This study investigates the dialectic of emancipation and control in the relationship between staff and clients at shelters for battered women. The dialectic of emancipation and control represents the tension shelter workers feel in trying to empower their clients while, at the same time, maintaining control over the programs and domestic order of the shelter. Past research has introduced this dialectic, but no studies exist which view it in the context of the staff/client relationship. Additionally, very little communication research exists exploring the interaction that takes place in shelters for battered women.Four employees of four different shelters were interviewed by this researcher. Their accounts were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the constant comparative review method consistent with grounded theory. The workers' accounts indicated that the nature of their profession requires them to be dominant over their clients in five areas. Additionally, the workers discussed four contradictory aspects of their work which reflect the existence of the dialectic of emancipation and control in their interaction with clients. / Department of Speech Communication

This thesis is a study of the processes by which domestic violence, as framed by Australian feminists from the early 1970s, was inserted into the policy agenda of governments, and developed into a comprehensive body of policy. The thesis covers the period between 1970 and 1985. Acknowledging the federal nature of the Australian polity, it examines these processes that unfolded within both the Australian Commonwealth government and the government of New South Wales. The thesis provides a political history of domestic violence policy making in the identified period. It shows that policy responses to women escaping violent partners included both immediate measures (such as protection and justice strategies) and more long-term measures to attempt to secure the conditions for women�s financial, legal and personal autonomy. The elements found to have been most significant in shaping the development of such policies were the roles and identities of the participant players, including the driving role of the women suffering partner violence; the lack of contest in the early stages of policy achievement with established professionals in related fields; the uniquely �hybrid� role and positioning of refuge feminists; and the degree of integration and continuity which characterised the domestic violence policy process. The thesis also investigates the relationship between domestic violence policy making and the broader women�s policy enterprise. It demonstrates the care with which those involved avoided the dangers of sensationalism and tokenism while striving for an appropriate policy response. The thesis pays particular attention to the circumstances in which feminists in the early 1970s experienced their �discovery� of domestic violence. It demonstrates the significance of social and economic circumstances in shaping the political options of feminists in the thesis period and those preceding it, and the extent to which policy possibilities are shaped by representations of the nature and functions of policy itself. Finally, the thesis investigates the relationship between the strategic processes undertaken and the policy outcomes produced, finding that policies achieved in the thesis period complemented and in some ways transcended accepted policy practice in the relevant period.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-121).

Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Dev.Stud.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Project (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1991. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-225).