Diploma thesis directs on poverty and social exclusion in the Czech Republic between years 2005 and 2015. The thesis focuses mainly on at risk of poverty rate, at risk of poverty and social exclusion rate and overall comparison of development of selected factors in NUTS 2 regions. The aim is to assess the impact of changes in the structure of education, economic development, employment and unemployment on poverty in selected regions of the Czech Republic and comparison of these regions among themselves. Among the selected regions are Praha, Severovýchod, Jihovýchod and Moravskoslezsko. The main hypothesis is the assumption that regions with lower share of tertiary educated people will show a lower percentage of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

This thesis addresses the status of Roma in society, in the educational system and on the labour market. The central theme of the work is primarily the education of Roma children and their integration in the educational system. The thesis is focused on the integration of Roma children into education system and, by extension, into the majority society from an early age. At present some of them attend preparatory classes and nursery schools. This thesis is seeking ways to increase the participation of Roma children in preschool education and seeks alternative options for their inclusion.

The contextualisation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in development attracts ample research interest in the field of ICT for Development (ICT4D). This study focuses on exploring the perspectives from which deep rural communities define development. In addition, this study seeks to understand the issues facing deep rural communities, as well as the effect that these issues have on community engagement in ICT4D initiatives. The core problem being considered is the differing views about the meaning of development as understood by the intended beneficiaries of development initiatives, compared to that which those working to develop deep rural communities hold. Furthermore, the role of ICT in development is also examined, with primary criticisms levelled against its use considered. In an attempt to understand these ideas, interpretive case study research is used and qualitative techniques applied to analyse data from the field work that was completed. The results confirm the dominance of basic human needs and economic growth ideas as the basis from which the majority of poor people define development. Moreover, the study reveals that, deep rural communities share the same sentiments as with the so-called development ‘experts’ regarding the importance of ICT in facilitating development goals. / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Informatics / unrestricted

Workplace ostracism is a ubiquitous phenomenon that can have negative implications for both individuals and organizations. Despite evidence indicating that ostracism is a painful experience associated with detrimental health and work-related outcomes, very little research has investigated the potential role of personal resources and workplace interventions in mitigating the prevalence and harmful impact of ostracism on employees. Mindfulness--due to its implications for enhanced attention in personal interactions, heightened awareness of others' needs, and acceptance of stressful situations--is one such resource that could prove beneficial in this regard. The current research examined the role of both trait and state mindfulness in reducing the propensity to commit ostracizing behaviors and attenuating perceptions of being "out of the loop" due to one's own lack of attention. Additionally, mindfulness was expected to buffer the harmful impact of workplace ostracism on need satisfaction, and thus have relevance for more distal health-related (i.e., psychological well-being) and work-related (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors) outcomes. Three studies investigated these relationships through cross-sectional (Study 1), experimental laboratory-based (Study 2), and quasi-experimental intervention-based (Study 3) designs. Evidence of the benefits of mindfulness in decreasing exclusionary behaviors and protecting targets of ostracism was apparent in each study. The current studies yield support for the relevance of mindfulness in addressing the substantial problem of ostracism within workplaces and other organizations.

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Shyness is a personality trait that is stable across time and situations in some individuals. While childhood shyness is a risk factor for later mental health and emotional problems, not all shy children grow up to have these problems. This thesis examined subtypes of shyness identified based on the temporal stability of shyness and based on levels of sociability and their corresponding outcomes, as well as the roles of social and biological contextual factors. Chapters 2-4 comprise the empirical studies. In Chapter 2, I report three shyness trajectories from middle childhood to adulthood (ages 8 to 30-35). Relative to a low-stable non-shy trajectory, children with an increasing, but not a decreasing, shy trajectory were at higher risk for clinically significant social anxiety, depression, and substance use, and were hypervigilant to angry faces in adulthood. Chapters 3 and 4 then report electrocortical correlates and mechanisms during the processing of non-social auditory novelty and social exclusion across children, adolescents, and adults with varying levels of shyness and sociability. Chapter 3 established that shyness, but not sociability, was related to the P300 ERP in processing non-social auditory stimuli in both 10-year-old children and adults, in support of the notion that shyness and sociability are independent personality dimensions. Findings on subtypes of shyness also showed that children characterized by conflicted shyness (with high levels of both shyness and sociability) reported higher neuroticism, but this relation was mediated by increased P300 amplitudes to processing background stimuli. Finally, Chapter 4 reports that individuals characterized by conflicted shyness who exhibited high theta EEG spectral power to social exclusion were most fearful of negative evaluation, irrespective of age. Also, conflicted shy adolescents who showed high theta spectral power to social exclusion were most likely to engage in substance-use. These findings highlight that there is much heterogeneity in shyness, and that shyness is not directly related to adverse mental health outcomes. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Shyness is a personality trait that is stable across time and situations in some individuals. Past research suggests that shy children exhibit more internalizing problems, including anxiety and depression, compared to their non-shy counterparts. However, the development of shyness has not been studied beyond adolescence, and the biological and social factors that contribute to adverse developmental pathways and outcomes related to shyness are not well understood. The goal of this thesis was to understand the mental health outcomes of shy individuals by examining different subtypes of shy individuals. To this end, this thesis first demonstrated how shyness unfolds across the first four decades of life to shape adult mental health outcomes in a cohort of individuals. Second, this thesis examined how neural responses to threatening social and non-social contexts related to the socioemotional outcomes across children, adolescents and adults with varying levels of shyness.

Background: There is a burgeoning population of older adults globally and there is an increasing urgency in the policy literature to understand the health issues facing this population. A social exclusion lens provides an opportunity to understand health inequity and disadvantage among vulnerable populations. There is limited research examining how social exclusion plays out for older women, particularly in the rural context. This study examines the social exclusion experiences of Canadian, rural, older women and highlights policy implications for global health practitioners. Methods: Guided by the principles of interpretive description, this qualitative study included eight participants who identified as women, 65 years or older, spoke English, and who lived alone in private households in rural communities of Durham Region, Ontario. Concurrent data collection and analysis was conducted using an inductive approach. One-to-one, semi-structured interviews were completed. Findings: Six themes illuminate the exclusion experiences of rural, older women and they include: “Expectations of ageing in rural communities”; “Navigating the tensions of belonging within the social fabric”; “Singlehood isolation”; “Driving independence”; “Health infrastructure and changing personal health”; “Affording ageing”. Implications & Contributions: The study adds a Canadian, rural perspective to the global conceptual literature on social exclusion. It illuminates the unique ways in which female gender and rural context influence social exclusion experiences. Implications for global health policy include: recognizing health as a key category of exclusion and the need to address health equity, adopt a gender-specific and life-course approach to address social exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, utilize unconventional channels for engagement, implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition, and support affordable access to health-promoting programs and services. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This study examines how older (senior) women, living in rural communities in Durham Region, Ontario experience social exclusion, and aims to help inform global health policies for older adults. Social exclusion is a way of understanding how processes interact to impact on someone’s ability to participate fully in their life Six themes were identified and add to the global evidence on social exclusion. This Canadian study shows the unique ways in which female gender and the rural context influence on social exclusion experiences. Global health policy implications include: health is a key category of exclusion and addressing health equity is important, adopt a gender-specific approach that considers what happens over a lifetime that contributes to women’s exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, use unconventional channels of engagement, and implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition.

This thesis explored the effects of social exclusion on the sense of control. We indexed the sense of control using the sense of agency. The sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over our actions and the outcomes of those actions. We experience the sense of agency at an implicit, pre-reflective level. In other words, we routinely make movements that impact some sort of change in the environment, and simply just know that our actions cause an effect. Experimentally, we can measure the sense of agency using the intentional binding effect. Intentional binding is a temporal illusion in which we perceive the time between our voluntary action and the outcome of that action to be shorted compared to when the same effect is caused by an involuntary action. We conducted three experiments. In experiment one, we used an episodic memory recall task to prime participants to feel socially excluded or socially included. In experiment two, we used a different manipulation of social exclusion and social inclusion called Cyberball. We found that in both experiments, intentional binding was significantly reduced following social exclusion compared to social inclusion and baseline. In experiment three, we investigated the pre-reflective sense of agency in eating disorders. Eating disorders are highly associated with chronic social exclusion experiences and an altered sense of control in life. We found that individuals with higher eating disorder symptomatology experience a lower sense of agency, compared to healthy individuals. Overall, this thesis is the first to demonstrate that social exclusion has observable effects on the sense of agency. We were able to triangulate these findings using another social exclusion manipulation as well, strengthening our original findings. Lastly, we showed that a disorder characterized, in part, by social exclusion, reduces the sense of agency / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

No / During the past ten years, there has been growing interest in the health needs of young people leaving care in England and Wales. Most such young people leave care between the ages of 16 and 18 and many experience significant problems adjusting to independent living. This article fulfils two objectives. First, it examines the legislative and policy context within which practice towards such young people is now conducted. Second, it deepens our understanding of this policy context by reporting the results of a project on this subject that was undertaken in one local authority district in the north of England in 2005. The project surveyed all young care leavers within the district, analysing their health concerns and experiences. Using postal questionnaires (70 responses), face-to-face interviews (30) and focus groups (two), it sought to provide a clear picture of current needs and to inform future policy action by local health and social care professionals.