Abstract Not Available.

Both government and private industry are concerned as to why young Canadians, particularly young women, hesitate to choose careers in the growing labour markets of science and technology (S&T). Aggregate data suggest that women not only enter into S&T-related endeavours in disproportionately lower numbers than men, but also exit from S&T careers at higher rates than do their male counterparts. This investigation's primary objective was to establish comparative rates of "loss" (non-retention) of highly trained young women and young men from the fields of S&T in Canada. Its secondary objective was to conduct a preliminary investigation into some potential social and psychological correlates of retention (and non-retention) in S&T careers. A national sample ($N=3158$) of Natural Science, Engineering, Life Science/Health Professions, and Mathematics/Computer Science (NELM) bachelor's degree holders participated. Statistics Canada surveyed 1212 women and 1946 men in NELM fields from the university graduating classes of 1986, two- and five-years after graduation (i.e., in 1988 and 1991). A set of four complementary hypotheses were tested in order to investigate the fundamental postulation that early career retention among undergraduate degree holders in S&T would be proportionately lower for young women than for young men. Findings at both the two- and five-year follow-ups showed highly similar retention-rates for women and men. Women had only slightly high non-retention rates than men ($\sim$5%) among Natural Science and Mathematics graduates; rates were approximately equal among Engineering and Life Science graduates. In direct and sequential logistic regression analyses conducted to predict the probability of retention (vs. non-retention) in S&T at post-graduation year-5, the main predictor variable of interest--sex--consistently failed to reliably predict retention (vs. non-retention) in S&T, even after controlling for the effects of the following antecedent variables: level of mother's and father's education; respondents' age; marital status at 2-years; number of dependent children at 2-years; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for originally having enrolled in an N, E, L, or M program of study, further education at 2-years; income at 2-years; job satisfaction at 2-years; and, salary satisfaction at 2-years. Findings had two main policy implications, first with regard to the relative insignificance of sex in the prediction of persistence in S&T, and second with regard to the importance of further education and training in predicting this outcome. These are discussed in light of the inter-related issues of lessening the shortage of highly qualified S&T personnel in Canada and of eliminating the underrepresentation of women in Canada's S&T community.

This thesis is the story of a young woman enrolled in a co-operative education program in a Canadian secondary school. It examines the relationship between her school-to-work transition, occupational identity development and relational voice as she negotiates her emerging role in the adult world of work. In particular, the thesis focuses on the contradictions, struggles, and realities within her personal and professional relationships, school experiences, and part-time work. Data were collected from in depth interviews and periods of observation both in school and at her work placement. The thesis also presents a methodological model with which to conduct critical, reflective life story research. It identifies the need for critical reflection as a regular part of the preparation and implementation of ongoing research activities involving the study of relational voices and related topics.

Morbidity and mortality from breast cancer can be reduced by early detection through screening. Despite recommended guidelines for breast screening since 1988, participation rates have been suboptimal. The objectives of the current study were to describe: (1) changes in breast cancer screening knowledge, attitudes, decisional conflict, intentions and practices among women aged 50-69 years since initiation of a regional mass screening program in Ottawa-Carleton in 1991; and (2) breast cancer screening knowledge attitudes, intentions, and practices among women aged 40-49 years compared to women aged 50-69 years. Among women aged 50-69 years, the percentage ever having had a mammogram increased from 60% in 1991 to 83% in 1994. There were commensurate increases in the percentage reporting mammography within two years from 47% to 74%. There was an insignificant improvement in the annual professional breast examination (PBE) rate from 57% to 59%. A small, but statistically significant increase occurred in monthly breast self-examination (BSE) rate from 46% to 54%. Women in their forties continue to overutilize screening mammography; 63% reported ever having had a mammogram and 44% reported having had a mammogram within the past two years. Reported annual PBE and monthly BSE rates of women aged 40-49 years were comparable to the rates of women aged 50-69 years; 63% versus 59% and 48% versus 54% respectively. Intentions to have mammography every two years once they are 50 years and to have annual PBE were similar to those of women 50-69 years, however, they were more likely to accept an invitation to screening (71% versus 56%). Women 40-49 years were more knowledgeable than women 50-69 years while they had similar concerns about future mammography as the women over 50 years. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

L'objet de cette recherche consiste en un questionnement de la dimension temporelle de l'enfermement. Il s'articule autour de deux facettes du temps: la premiere, subjective, est centree sur le rapport au temps, sur la maniere dont il est vecu par des femmes incarcerees; la seconde, objective, s'interesse a sa regulation par l'institution carcerale. Le premier theme developpe questionne le rapport que les femmes incarcerees entretiennent avec le temps de leur sentence. Ce dernier est vecu comme un probleme existentiel, la survie necessitant une recherche de sens qui sera l'enjeu f'une dechirure identitaire. Le second theme examine la dialectique enter le temps institue et instituant ainsi que le rapport de soumission des femmes a cette structure spatio-temporelle rigide, enjeu eventuel d'une rupture identitaire. Le dernier theme consiste en la resultante des deux premiers par l'etude du positionnement dans le passe, le present et l'avenir ainsi que l'insecription du temps carceral dans la trajectoire de vie. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

As a result of contemporary North American culture's reliance on the gender typifications that females are nurturing, sexually passive, and frequent victims of abuse, and that males are assertive, sexually aggressive, and frequent perpetraturs of abuse, people are more likely to perceive of females in the role of sexual abuse victims and males in the role of sexual abuse perpetrators. Furthermore, males are assumed to enjoy or profit from any form of sexual contact with females, and females are assumed to be incapable of causing harm through coercive sexual contact. This study demonstrates that such gender typifications overlook other "atypical" or "deviant" realities, namely the reality where females are perpetrators of sexual abuse and males or females are their victims. Moreover, the experiences of victims of sexual abuse by females clearly defy conventional gender typifications. Their reported experiences reveal that females can he perpetrators of sexual abuse, males can be sexually victimized by females, males do not enjoy or profit from coerced sexual contact with females, and that there can be varying degrees of psychological harm following coerced sexual contact with a female. Finally, this study reveals that there are consequences to opposing gender typifications. The survivors of sexual abuse in this study faced negative consequences as a result of reporting a reality that defied the "typical". Participants maintained that professionals, be they, police officers, child protection agents and mental health professionals, responded to their claims of sexual abuse with shock, disbelief, and denied their victimization and injury as a result of the gender of their sexual abuse perpetrator. Professionals often renegotiated the behaviours of alleged female perpetrators so that they were more consistent with conventional gender roles. According to respondents, the responses of professionals' heightened their feelings of self-blame, denial, resignation, anger and helplessness. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

For the past 30 years, a feminist spirituality movement has been developing in North America. Variously called Goddess Worship, Goddess spirituality, or Women's spirituality, it derives in part from Neo-paganism and Contemporary Witchcraft, on the one side, and feminist liberation theology on the other. Continuing the questioning begun by Simone de Beauvoir on female self and other, on gender and its construction, and on the merits of a morality of indeterminacy, this ethnography of a community of like minded women who participate together in devotional circles to the Goddess in and around Ottawa, Ontario, Canada focuses on the ritual, textual and iconological means by which these women come to an embodied relationship with the divine apprehended as female. By deconstructing the actions, the words, and the images of the human body, as the locus of contact with the divine, and the divine body as the central cosmological metaphor of this spirituality produced and used by these women, the ritual and ethical discourses on identity, power and agency built around them are made evident. Compared and contrasted, they then are studied as charters for the construction of the self and community.

Cette these tente de comprendre comment enterrent la notion de retard dans l'explication de la sous-representation des femmes dans les Parlements dans cinq pays occidentaux Canada, Quebec, France, Angleterre, Danemark. Elle cherche a savoir si cette sous-representation est due a un retard dans les droits (civiques, civils et sociaux) ou dans le fonctionnement de la societe. Ce qui permet dans cette meme veine de saisir le sens et l'utilisation de la notion du retard. Afin d'affiner la question, la presente these met a contribution des donnees statistiques sur la scolarisation des femmes et leur activite salariale, et des donnees puisees dans leur histoire socio-politique et juridico-culturelle. Il en ressort que la sous-representation des femmes au niveau de l'eligibilite est imputable, avant tout, aux modalites de fonctionnement de la structure politique qui ne prend pas en consideration les "avancees" effectuees par les femmes.