The aim of this study is to investigate and understand the types, prevalence, and potential impact of teacher candidates’ struggles, as well as factors and contexts that may relate to the occurrence of struggles. The mixed methods study was carried out in three stages – qualitative, quantitative, qualitative – with teacher candidates and teacher educators from a large Canadian teacher education program as participants. Based on participants’ descriptions and experiences of struggles, I developed a taxonomy of 19 struggles, 10 of which were identified by both teacher candidates and their educators. The struggles included a wide range of behaviours, emotions, skills, and conditions. Teacher candidates also discussed which support systems they use in times of struggles, while instructors explained how they help teacher candidates who struggle. The study positions struggles in a broader and multilayered context that involves teacher candidates, their educators, the preparation program, its structure and elements, policies, social dynamics, and professional norms and expectations. The causes, triggers, consequences, and remediation of struggles are considered in relation to a combination of individual, institutional, and structural factors. The study has implications for teacher education programs, policymakers, and the teaching profession.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare what causes some municipalities to work with and market their sustainability work in circle economy and what causes some other municipalities not to do so. The study focused on six municipalities, three who worked with and marketed their sustainability work and three who didn’t. Through telephone interviews a representative from each municipalitiey answered; how they defined circular economy, what drove/not drove them to work with circular economy, what difficulties there is with circular economy in the public sector and how the municipalities work can be improved. The results showed that the definition of the economic model was about the same, what differed was their knowledge about the importance of product design. Knowledge and interest in circular economy was two of the causes of why municipalities worked with the model. The fact that the issue was not a priority and the lack of resources from politicians seemed to be two determining factors of why the municipalities’ interest in working with circular economy was small. Sweden’s government needed to act in the question and focus more on top-down instead on today’s down-top work. The municipalities needed to get guidelines and support to make decisions that promoted circular economy since it was an important part of a sustainable development.

Although numerous studies have shown that discrimination contributes to poorer mental health, the precise mechanisms underlying this association are not well understood. In this paper, we consider the possibility that the association between day-to-day discrimination (being disrespected, insulted, and harassed) and depressive symptoms is partially mediated by religious struggles (religious doubts and negative religious coping). To test our mediation model, we use data collected from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (n = 444) to estimate a series of multiple regression models assessing associations among day-to-day discrimination, religious struggles, and depressive symptoms. We find that day-to-day discrimination is positively associated with religious struggles and depressive symptoms, net of adjustments for general religious involvement, age, gender, race, ethnicity, immigrant status, interview language, education, employment, household income, financial strain, and marital status. We also observe that religious struggles are positively associated with depressive symptoms. Our mediation analyses confirm that day-to-day discrimination can contribute to depressive symptoms by stirring religious struggles. Our key finding is that religious struggles may serve as a maladaptive coping response to discrimination. Our analyses extend previous work by bridging research in the areas of discrimination, religious struggles, and mental health.

The current study seeks to examine the relationship between family struggles, as measured by social class and parental marital status, and substance use among first-generation college students. 902 students from the University of Central Florida participated in an online questionnaire that assessed their social class, parents’ marital status, drug and alcohol use, as well as demographic variables. Results indicated a significant positive correlation between substance use and social class as well as generational status. Males were also more likely to use drugs and alcohol than females. A regression analysis indicated social class, gender, junior and senior academic years were all identified as significant predictors of drug and alcohol use, whereas college student generational status, parents’ marital status, freshmen and sophomore academic years were not. There are various possible explanations that may account for the reasoning behind first-generation students not being vulnerable to substance use, including extensive stressors specific to that population as discussed with previous literature. The findings of the current study can be implicated throughout counseling centers and prevention programs among college campuses in order to decrease the high prevalence of substance use among college students and prevent negative consequences.

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No description available.

This study underscores the importance of press discourse as means of production and circulation of representations regarding land and people. Considering the press has a strong influence on the construction of social imaginaries, this study explores how textual images in The (London) Times and The New York Times shaped public opinion about Patagonia and Patagonians and how those images relate to the United States and British national and international political agendas and to the historical/cultural context. In other words, this study proposes to analyze the relationship between media and agency. The time period under study is the second half of the nineteenth century the era during which Argentina focused on the need for exercising sovereignty over Patagonia as a way of expanding the state's frontier, incorporating new commercially productive lands to respond to the demands of the international market, contesting in this way the Chilean interests in the area, and responding to the demands of the aspirations of a ruling class "landed aristocrats" who wanted to attract Europeans. The analysis of this research draws on a total number of 669 articles which have been coded with the purpose of assessing the differences between the United States and British imaging of Patagonia and Patagonians, taking into consideration that England was directly linked through financial investment to Argentina while the United States had chosen a military policy to expand its control of western lands (1865-1890), similar to the Argentine policy for controlling northern and southern lands. / Master of Arts

Today is Past is a serious play in which the main character does not meet defeat at the end. This is not to say, however, that the play has a conventional happy ending. It hasn't. But at the final curtain the protagonist has made an important decision which will determine the direction of her life.

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The thesis states that the confidant in the tragedies of Jean Baptist Racine evolves from the traditional servant figure to a sophisticated intimate of the principal character. The confidant's identity becomes synonymous with that of the principal character: he appears as his alter ego. The sources used are six of Racine's secular tragedies, in addition to critical works and essays of his writings. The tragedies included in this study are La Thebaide, whose secondary characters serve as a comparison to the more developed confidants as found in Andromaque, B /r/nice, Mithridate, Britannicus, and Phedre. Racine presents a variety of tragic characters whose multifaceted personality emerges through the intervention of their confidant. Representing one side of the protagonist's character, or his "other self, " the confidant becomes Racine's dramatic tool to portray the internal struggle in all its aspects. Racine's preoccupation with moral issues and his desire to instruct his audience pervade his writings. It is thus possible to trace the development of the confidant from his part as self-effacing messenger to his role as alter ego to the principal figure where he dramatically demonstrates the tragic, inner division of man.