This dissertation explores the lives of baby boomers turning sixty as they use narrative to review their past by focusing on turning points. They reflect upon their present, and anticipate their future. The story begins at the St. Pius X High School Class of 1965's fortieth reunion, and proceeds to a class sixtieth birthday celebration and focus group. In addition, five members of the class record their life stories retrospectively. This research explores issues of identity, both personal and generational; the social construction of aging; grief, loss and death; and resilience, meaning, and spirituality. Methods used are autoethnography, narrative, participant observation, and writing as inquiry.

The overall purpose of this exploratory study was to comprehend how in the event of a hurricane Hillsborough County, Florida protected its elderly and disabled residents with special medical needs. This study used Social Constructionist Theory as a framework and Grounded Theory methodology in the collection of qualitative data. To understand stakeholder knowledge and how they constructed the SpNP, three focus groups were conducted, with representatives from agencies on the Planning Committee. Through 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, clients of the SpNP, provided insight into their knowledge of the program and how society influenced evacuation decisions. Finally, 10 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with elites or directors of agencies in the SpNP (bosses of stakeholders), who functioned as key informants to verify results. Examination of how SpNP stakeholders, perceived the meaning of community responsibility for people with special medical needs identified three themes: disaster experience, coalition building, and collective moral responsibility. Examination of how SpNP clients, constructed their meaning of the SpNP, identified five themes: registration barriers, SpNP knowledge, support systems, cultural expectations, and the media. Examination of societies influence on the evacuation decision of SpNP clients identified three themes: risk perception, evacuations barriers and the media. The study highlighted the importance of forming community coalitions to address the needs of vulnerable populations. It is also obvious that the state legislation needs to specifically define special needs and standards of care that must be provided at public and special needs shelters. Implications for public health practitioners, suggest the need to be more involvement with the media, in efforts to promote policies and the perception of risks due to hurricanes. Public health nurses need to receive training on caring for chronic illnesses. Mandatory training for social workers, nurses, and physicians who provide health care to the general population should be considered. There is a need for all agencies that provide services and advocate for individuals with special needs to participate in the SpNP, by registering and educating their clients. Many SpNP clients were confused as to the services provided, which could be partially solved by separating the programs transportation and SpNS components.

Ski areas attract and cater to tourists and are often powerful symbols of cultural identity and place-based meaning. Within contexts of mountain tourism development, ski areas also communicate messages to orient visitors and residents to special features and qualities of the natural environment. This research specifically focuses on how Vermont ski areas and their neighboring rural communities use language, symbolism and imagery, within the context of website communications, to shape cultural meanings of nature and place. A sample of small, medium, and large ski areas, representing a range of development sizes, locations, and recreational offerings, were paired with their adjacent rural communities. A qualitative content analysis and a textual analysis of photographic images and written texts from ski area and town websites examined presentations of “nature” and place. Website presentations were compared across ski areas of different sizes, and between towns and ski areas. Findings show that portrayals of “nature” differ by the size of the ski area, but are similar across rural towns – though towns tended to produce a discourse about “nature” divergent from that of ski areas. In addition, both ski resort and town websites used images and texts of “Vermont” symbolically in constructing their place identity, though they did this in different ways. This study contributes a better understanding of the ways that ski areas and rural communities work both independently and collaboratively to create and sustain meaningful physical places and cultural myths. Aligning public communications electronically to present a more unified place identity to visitors and residents alike has potential planning and management implications for tourism development, especially in rural regions in Vermont and elsewhere.

Radicalization and recruitment of young Kenyan males into homegrown terrorism has persisted since November 2011 following the decision by the government to send Kenya Defense Forces to fight al Shabaab terrorist groups in Somalia. Using Schneider and Ingram's conceptualization of social construction of target populations as a guide, the purpose of this multicase study was to explore the motivation of young Kenyan males in accepting radicalization and recruitment into homegrown terrorism and their interpretations, feelings, and perceptions of the policies and strategies in place to empower them. Using a purposeful sampling with a maximum variation strategy, data were collected through interviews with 34 young Kenyan males, 4 of whom were connected to 4 terrorism incidents in Kenya since 2011. Additional data were collected through publicly available data and policy statements. All data were inductively coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure and cross-case analysis. Findings indicated that young Kenyan males are enticed with financial offers by al Shabaab, and faced social problems that needed solutions, and participants believe the government of Kenya should better protect them from al Shabaab maneuvers. Implications for social change include recommendations for reform of youth policies and programs by the Ministry of Youth Affairs, and implementation of the recommendations of this study so that youth can be properly engaged in nation-building activities.

The purpose of this study is to examine and contribute the understanding on how male and female employees expect and experience male and female leadership. The aim of this study is to get a better understanding on how leadership and gender is socially constructed in organizations. In order to answer the study’s purpose, the study is based on qualitive methods where semi-structured interviews were conducted with two focus groups. The aim of this method was to create a discussion between the group members which could illustrate the groups opinions on male and female leadership. The study shows that male and female employees experience different type of female leadership, but similar experience of male leadership. The study also shows that male leadership is still the ideal leadership.

People with disabilities, and in particular people who are blind or vision impaired, are not embracing computing and Internet-related technologies at the same rate as the able-bodied population. The purpose of this study was to find the reasons behind this digital divide for people with disabilities and provide solutions. The investigation into this 'disability divide' initially examined the historical significance of the social construction of disability, the developments of computing and Internet-related technologies and the evolution of associated government and corporate policies. In order to gain an understanding of the specific elements in the current disability divide, interviews were conducted with a range of government representatives, multinational information technology developers and online information providers in Australia and the United States of America. In order to gain an understanding of what people with disabilities required from information technology, a national survey was conducted with people who are blind or vision impaired to determine their computing and Internet experiences. This study clearly identified that people with vision disabilities have a high level of computing and Internet expertise and it is specific barriers, rather than lack of will, that has prevented access to computing and Internet-related technologies. These barriers include issues relating to the perception of disability in society, Federal and state government policy, corporate policy, mainstream computing products, assistive technologies, real-time online communication, poverty and a lack of educational opportunities. Addressing the issues in these areas will significantly reduce the impact of the disability divide, allowing people who are blind or vision impaired to participate more effectively in the information age.

Social pressure for sustainability has become a significant factor in Australian business. Made popular by a variety of diverse social movements that employ various tactics, sustainability is increasingly being debated in boardrooms and work areas of both large and small businesses. In this research, sustainability issues are treated as a set of a wider range of obligatory and externally imposed (OEI) issues that are increasingly confronting contemporary business. Of interest to this research is how senior managers deal with sustainability issues. While some businesses excel in dealing with OEI issues, others prevaricate. This research focuses on those businesses that appear to excel in resolving sustainability issues to explore how senior managers deal with sustainability issues. Such understanding is essential for contemporary practising senior managers, as it provides guidance for management behaviour that will enable sustainability and other OEI issues to be dealt with. The author's effort to understand how senior managers deal with sustainability issues has led to the first business context application of Harré's positioning theory. A social constructionist approach, positioning theory is concerned with ordinary conversations, and presumes that these are the building blocks of all other discursive phenomena. The resulting theory builds on positioning theory and provides a point of departure to conduct related research on other organizations that excel in dealing with OEI issues and those that prevaricate. With positioning theory it has been shown that, in dealing with sustainability issues, senior managers engage in a range of positioning of themselves and others. In doing so, power and knowledge have been considered in the light of Foucault's unique and penetrating concepts. This has led to the proposed augmentation of positioning theory to include a concept of social flux, which is put forward as an indication of social order or culture. Through this development, it has shown how senior managers confront opposition and reinforce support to enable them to achieve and preserve sustainability objectives. In practical terms, senior managers alter four components of the social order to align the culture with the issues that need to be dealt with. These components - rights, duties, morals and actions - are parameters that senior managers tune or level when they deal with sustainability issues. When the social order is appropriately tuned or levelled, it is aligned with the issues that need to be dealt with. That alignment enables issues to be resolved in a way appropriate for the organization.

This study explores the experiences of General Practitioners (GPs) and patients in the management of type 2 diabetes in contemporary Australia. I focus on the way the socioeconomic position of patients is a factor in that experience as my underlying interest is in exploring how health inequalities are understood, approached and handled in general practice. The study is thus a practical and grounded exploration of a widely debated theoretical issue in the study of social life, namely the relationship between the micro day-to-day interactions and events in the lives of individuals and the broad macro structure of society and the position of the individual within that. There is now wide acceptance and evidence that people’s social and economic circumstances impact on their health status and their experiences in the health system. However, there is considerable debate about the role played by primary medical care. Nevertheless, better theoretical understanding of the importance of psychosocial processes in generating social inequalities in health suggests medical care may well be important, as such processes are crucial in the care of chronic illnesses such as diabetes which are now such a large part of general practice work. I approach this study through an exploration of patient centred clinical practice. Patient centredness is a pragmatic, idealised prescriptive framework for clinical practice, particularly general practice. Patient centredness developed in part in response to critiques of biomedicine, and is premised on a notion of a more equal relationship between GP and patient, and one that places importance on the context of patients’ lives. It contains an implicit promise that it will help GP and patient engage with and confront social disadvantage.

<p>The thesis concerns how leadership and gender are constructed in organisations, through the management language, interactions and context. A particular focus is placed on the relations between men, masculinity and leadership. The theoretical starting point is a doing gender perspective, where the terms leadership and gender are understood as processes; that gender and leadership is done in an organisational situation. Through a processual perspective different levels are linked in the analysis of construction of gender and leadership; society, organisational and individual levels, expressed in terms of structure, symbols, interactions and individual sense making. Masculinity research is also a theoretical area of importance for the thesis, with analysis matrices for the understanding of construction of masculinity between men, as well relationships between masculinity and technology and masculinity and leadership respectively.</p><p>The empirical data consists of interviews and observations of managers at three different organisational levels at the factory of an industrial engineering firm.</p><p>Leadership stands out in the empirical data as an extended and male, dedicated as well as uniform story. In discussions of gender the differences between women and men are preferentially described, where above all opinions about women’s gender-typical characteristics are expressed. The opinions are to a greater extent gender-stereotypic. These dominating patterns are however challenged in different ways, through the managers different ways of positioning themselves towards respectively leadership and gender, expressed through their desire to limit the work and reasoning that distances itself from gender aspects being a deciding factor for leadership; through policies on fundamental values and equality as well as through a younger, female manager.</p><p>From a starting point in the dominating pattern the term leadership masculinities is developed: locally confirmed discourses and practices where leadership and masculinity meet in reciprocal interactions. These leadership masculinities are represented in the empirical material by The Son of the District, The Father, The Dedicated and The Feminine. The last leadership masculinity captures something of the variation and contrast to the dominating pattern which is also found in the material, for example as family and relationship orientation at both a policy and practice level.</p><p>In the thesis it is discussed in conclusion how reproduction and change, uniformity of pattern and variation appear in parallel in the data – there are gaps in the pattern that can be perceived as opportunities for change of gender relationships and leadership practice.</p>

<p>Forensic DNA databases are expanding in both use and range. In particular, the U.K. and U.S. are developing new techniques and policies in regards to their forensic DNA databases with the hope of increasing the role of forensic DNA databases in criminal investigations. Despite the goal of reducing crime, there are ethical concerns that arise with the ways in which these forensic DNA databases are being developed. This paper outlines the technical aspects of forensic DNA databases and then describes different conceptions of identity, using race as an example of a constructed identity that is relevant in the use of forensic DNA databases. Then it explains how forensic DNA databases construct a unique identity with the goal of ascribing this to people and groups. This ascribed identity is problematic, and different problems that are related to identity are discussed. Despite the benefits of forensic DNA databases, these problems are ethically relevant and as such, a series of policy recommendations are made with the aim of balancing the harms and benefits of forensic DNA databases.</p>