Using a grounded theory methodology, this research sought to describe the occupational change process Indian women experience as they settle in a new environment, with a focus on how they sustain their sense of self and well-being. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with eight women of Indian origin who had immigrated to New Zealand within the past five years in an attempt to generate theory about the processes that these immigrants' experience. A constant comparative analysis revealed a central change process, Two Becoming One, which encompassed three interconnecting occupational processes. The first process women experience is Oh God, Where Did I Come?. In this process, where the environment is new and unfamiliar, the women feel compelled to do familiar activities that they know they can accomplish, thus increasing confidence and supporting well-being. The second process, Being In The Change, sees the women learning more about their new environment and engaging in new occupations, while continuing to hold on to doing familiar activities. A New Zealander with an Indian Soul finds the women doing more as they embrace a strengthening sense of self and well-being and strive to build their future in a new land. Central to these three processes is the core category Two Becoming One. This process is a commentary on the women's journeys of integrating the demands of two cultures, each with its own unique environment and ways of doing things, while supporting a healthy sense of self and well-being throughout the experience. The study findings demonstrate the dynamic interplay that occurs within a person-environment-occupation interface. Situating the findings within current literature reveals the limitation of previous understandings of the person-environment-occupation dynamic, in relation to people performing in an unfamiliar environment. With an increasing trend of immigration worldwide, this study brings to light the importance of understanding the bearing that environmental context has on occupation and the resulting impact for persons' sense of self and well-being. Further research in this area is required to gain deeper awareness of the ways in which people interact with their environment over time, and the resultant effect on occupation.

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing in Advanced Practice

This is a research on Chinese women’s marriage migration to South Korea. I explore this topic by adopting the perspective of politics of intimacy. It aims to find out how the broad political and economic transformations in China and South Korea structure this migration flow and how the operation of transnational matchmaking as a business shapes marriage relationship. In addition, how Chinese women negotiate their intimate life and adapt to Korean society. I highlight the issue of intimacy in Chinese women’s marriage migration. Capitalist development and the change of economic structure in China and South Korea generate potential migrants, and the gendered mobility structure shaped by South Korean immigration policies particularly favors women’s marriage migration. Transnational matchmaking, organized on market principles, provides a means for brides and grooms to know each other. However, it also contributes to generating a marriage relationship without emotional basis, which contradicts with the discourse of love. Economic political forces and the operation of matchmaking as a business shape it is particularly difficult for Chinese women to build up a marriage relationship structured around love and emotion. However, in a situation that love and emotion are considered as the basis of “modern” marriage, a relationship without it has to be dealt with. I thus discuss their negotiation of intimacy in both premarital and marital relationships. In premarital intimacy, the discourse of love is manipulated by marriage brokers on behalf of men in a way that entraps women. After marriage, as both parties only barely know each other, the version of companionship they negotiate is different from that in other marriages and is often manifested in the issues of money and reproduction. However, both money management and reproduction are sites of power struggle between men and women. Men tend to use money to control women, and they press women to bear a child. However, when women are not sure about the relationship, they are usually reluctant to do so. Despite that women possess certain emotional power; in general they are in a weak position. Thus, they use the weapons of the weak, secret, non-confrontational methods to deal with the reproductive pressure. I thus demonstrate that intimacy is not negotiated by women and men of equal standing, but existing gender conventions are played out in the process of negotiation. Overall, I argue that it is important to discuss the issue of intimacy in transnational marriage as this is a perspective to avoid conflating women’s marriage migration with labor migration and reveal the emotional and human aspect of their marriage and experience. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Between 2001 and 2011, a total of 509,809 new immigrants have migrated from Mainland China to Hong Kong on the One-way Permit for family reunification, in which 69.7% were female who are typically wives of Hong Kong permanent residents. How these marriage migrants integrate into Hong Kong society and the assessment of their impact to Hong Kong is becoming a pivotal issue. Many studies and surveys indicated that these marriage migrants have encountered tremendous difficulties during their course of immigration adaptation, and many have resulted in severe psychological stress. Extensive literature has empirically documented that social support facilitates immigrants’ ability to make use of relationships to buffer their adaptation challenges and to promote their integration into the new environment. Yet hardly any studies have examined the determinants and changes of social support among these marriage migrants within a longitudinal framework. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of social support, including the structural, functional and the perception of social support. The “Social Support Mobilization Model” suggests that perceived stress leads to an increase in social support. On the contrary, the “Social Support Deterioration Model” suggests that persistent high level of stress erodes social support over time. This study test the Deterioration Model by examining the impact of lingering of stress levels on social support. Using a random sample of 211 Chinese marriage migrants from a two-year longitudinal secondary data, bivariate and multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the associations of social support with acculturation stress, persistent stress, psychological well-being, optimism and perceived neighborhood disorder. Findings indicated that marriage migrants have difficulties in re-establishing their social network outside their own community. Acculturation stress and psychological well-being were found to be the two most crucial factors affecting social support. Acculturation stress predicted both the structural and functional aspects of social support, but not the perceived social support. The psychological well-being, on the other hand, exerted significant influence on both the functional and perceived social support, but not on the structural social support. Results suggested that social support interventions should focus on alleviating acculturation stress, expanding social networking opportunity outside of their own immigrant community and enhancing psychological well-being. Besides, professional counseling and psychological support services should be provided to new immigrants, especially those who have experienced high level of stress. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This two-part study provides a two-faceted analysis of female immigrant students' experiences in secondary physical education classes, together with an analysis of the discourse they use to express their feelings about these experiences. This information is needed to facilitate the process of integrating female immigrant students into mainstream physical education classes so they have the opportunity for successful and full participation in these classes. Recent research questions whether immigrant females are receiving equitable treatment in curriculum planning and in physical education classes. My research addresses this issue and should be of interest to those professionals involved in the instruction, design, and promotion of physical education and physical activity programs in which female immigrant students are involved. The purpose of the first part of this study was to assess the attitudes of female immigrant students toward physical education class and their participation rates in physical activities outside of physical education class. Measures were taken to determine whether attitudes and participation rates differed depending on ethnic background, religion, English proficiency, number of years in Canada and achievement levels. The purpose of the second part of this study was to gain an understanding of how ESL students use language to express their attitudes, opinions and feelings about physical education and to identify the main issues E S L female immigrant students saw as being barriers to their success in mainstream physical education classes. In order to fulfill the purposes of this study, two types of measuring instruments were developed and two sets of data were collected. First, a questionnaire that obtained background information from subjects and measured their attitudes toward physical education and their participation rates in physical activity was developed and administered. Second, cooperative activities designed to generate language on attitudes toward physical education class were developed. Quantitative data were obtained from the questionnaire and qualitative data were obtained from the language activities subjects were led through. Results from the quantitative questionnaire indicated that 26% of the female immigrant sample had limited background experience in physical education class when they arrived in Canada. Students felt mildly positive about taking physical education class in Canada but less positive than when taking physical education in their native countries. Subjects spent about two hours a week on physical activity in Canada, slightly less than they spent in their native country. While 86% of the subjects participated in some physical activity in Canada, only eight to 16% participated in exercise at a level likely to have a positive impact on their cardiovascular health. When subjects lived in Canada, there was no significant difference in subjects' attitudes toward physical education depending on their ethnicity, religion, English language proficiency or number of years in Canada. There was also no significant difference in subjects' participation rates in physical activity depending on religion. Ethnicity did, however, have a significant effect on participation rates in physical activity and participation rates increased significantly as students' English language proficiency improved and as students spent more time in Canada. Also, attitudes toward physical education class were strongly related to achievement in physical education while participation rates in physical activity were not. Results from the qualitative portion of the thesis focused on how students articulated their feelings on physical education. Analyzed language data showed that ESL students had limited lexicogrammatical resources to describe their feelings, behaviours and reactions. An analysis of the value judgments made showed that students had varying abilities to support their judgments with good reasons. The issue students discussed most often was that English language problems prevented them from communicating with other students and resulted in them disliking physical education and doing poorly. Another issue of great concern for these E S L students was how difficult it was for them to pair up with native speaking partners. Students felt physical education teachers could do more to assist students with limited proficiencies in English and recommended many good teaching strategies for this purpose. As a result of this study, physical education and ESL teachers are encouraged to implement strategies which help female immigrant students integrate more successfully into physical education classes. It is essential that teachers respect the linguistic, cultural, racial and religious diversities of their students. Teachers should also include students' heritages in the curriculum as this leads to greater school achievement and to students feeling more highly valued. By using specific cooperative learning strategies, . teachers can orchestrate positive interactions between students in their classes in a structured way. By using the knowledge framework to teach language, content and thinking skills to ESL students, teachers can minimize English language demands and access students' first language knowledge. By teaching critical thinking skills, teachers can help students evaluate present situations accurately and make good choices such as establishing how to function in physical education classes more successfully. By teaching ESL students the discourse of value judgments and choice, teachers can help them effectively communicate their feelings and explain their viewpoints using institutionally adequate reasons. ESL and physical education teachers should encourage immigrant females to become involved in extracurricular sport and exercise activities and actively find or create opportunities for their inclusion. The benefits for new immigrant students include developing English language competencies, making friends, improving psychomotor skills, becoming more competent in sports, and feeling better about their abilities. This study developed a perspective on one aspect of new female immigrant students' education and led to a more sophisticated understanding of the physical education of immigrant students. There is a great need for more studies that examine the experiences of new immigrant female adolescents in sport and exercise.

Ce travail est une analyse historique de l'experience migratoire feminine, examinee par le coin de femmes emigrants grecques. Le zenith de l'emigration grecque au Canada se date aux premieres annees apres la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale, quand la situation politique, economique et sociale en Grece combinee avec les regulations etabli par le Canada sur l'emigration ont contribue au mouvement des plusieurs femmes grecques vers ce qui semblait comme un 'meilleur future'. Cette these qui tient comme base les temoignages oraux, examine les fonds des femmes grecques, leurs experiences au Canada, leurs activites et leurs identites transnationales. / Bien que plusieurs travaux d'academiciens on analyse la perspective feminine de phenomenes migratoires, peu d'attention est attribue au cas des femmes de l'Europe du Sud (une categorie d'emigrants un favorise) comme les Grecs. En plus, plusieurs travaux ont echoue de creer une analyse profonde et sensitive vers feminite, que pourra surmonter les stereotypes, les prejuges et les preconceptions sur feminite. Cette approche aspire d'introduire une dimension analytique importante, cella du transnationalisme, concernant les roles sociaux, les identites et les activites des femmes emigrants grecques. Finalement les temoignages oraux atteint un role central pour le caractere et la realisation de cette these.

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