This thesis presents an analysis of texts written for a child audience in Russia between 1990 and 2010 and characterized by humorous inversions of common sense, a tendency for jokes, puns and a cheerful narrative tone. These narrative features are associated with the concepts of playfulness and play. This thesis argues that, by addressing the implied child reader of the post-perestroika period in a playful mode, children’s authors tried to cope with profound social and cultural transformations which challenged their identities as adults and intellectuals. The new individual responsibilities concerning the upbringing and the education of children, on the one hand, and the crisis of written culture and of the intellectual as sources of moral guidance, on the other, occurred at the same time as the general structures of trust were collapsing in Russian society. The thesis argues that playfulness allowed children’s authors to explore their own identity, and even to express their own fears and doubts as providers of upbringing and education. At the same time, playfulness was a way to involve the child of the post-perestroika period in an attempt to re-construct culture, an attempt which required a strong pedagogical agency. Divided between the wish to guide younger generations and the need to re-define their own selves, children’s authors found in playfulness a field where these contradictory drives could be negotiated and their authorial personae could be re-worked. In the so-called post-post-Soviet period, which followed the election of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia, playful children’s literature is still engaged in this exploration of the adult self and of the possibility of providing guidance through literature. This exploration is further challenged by a generational gap separating adults with a Soviet background from children. The first chapter establishes the theoretical grounds and methods which inform the thesis, while chapter two provides a historical overview of the way in which play and playfulness, both as cultural phenomena and as concepts, intertwined with specific conceptualizations of childhood in Russian and Soviet children’s literature until perestroika. The last two chapters are devoted to the analysis of texts, and mostly focus on works by children’s authors Grigorii Oster, Artur Givargizov and Natal’ia Nusinova which appeared in the years 1990–2010.

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The current study used a three-phase mixed-methods design to produce a new self-report measure of the strategies that college students use to cope with the death of a loved-one. College students are commonly bereaved and may be in the process of undergoing important developmental tasks related to emerging adulthood. However, the application of grief-specific stress-and-coping theories (i.e., the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement) to this population has been hampered by measurement issues. The current study aimed to address the flaws asserted above through the use of a mixed-methods scale development design. To this end, the researcher made use of the discussion component of a bereavement-focused special topics course to refine a focus-group facilitation guide and generate a preliminary list of content domains. In Study 1, three bereaved students participated in a formal focus-group. Three graduate-level bereavement researchers drew from the qualitative data available from the Pilot Study and Study 1 to develop a pool of 192 items for use in quantitative analysis. In Study 2, these items were administered to a sample of 700 bereaved undergraduates. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that a 5-factor model was the best fit for the data. Results suggest that bereaved students use a variety of strategies when coping with bereavement, including using drugs and alcohol, seeking support from others, accessing religious faith, exploring new relationships and identities, and experiencing depression symptoms. Preliminary support was provided for the validity of a 26-item coping strategies measure with five subscales named the GCOPE.

This study used the conceptual framework of emerging adulthood to explore the following question: “What are the post-care housing experiences of youths who have transitioned from care through the Independent Living with Supports (ILS) program offered by MacDonald Youth Services (MYS)?” In order to answer the research question, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten youths who had aged out of care through the ILS program. Six service providers who worked with youth in and from care in various capacities and from various agencies were also interviewed. Content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The youths’ housing experiences were characterized by multiple moves post-care, including homelessness in the case of seven youth participants. These findings mirror the literature. In addition, none of the youth participants indicated they were successfully connected to formal supports prior to leaving care... / May 2016

M.Ed. (Psychology of Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis advisor: Karen D. Arnold / As students increasingly incur high amounts of debt for their undergraduate education, there is heightened concern about the long-term implications of loans on borrowers, especially borrowers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) and the human capital framework (Becker, 1993), this research explores how student debt and social class intersect and affect individuals' trajectory into adulthood. A total of 50 interviews were conducted with young adults who had incurred $30,000 to $180,000 in undergraduate debt and who were from varying social classes. The findings explore how four categories of students -<italic>Insiders, Entrepreneurs, Pioneers, and New Moneys</italic>- varied along dimensions of economic and cultural wealth, and experienced their college search, college education, and transition to the workforce differently. The findings point to the immense role that habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) plays in shaping borrowers' educational experiences and post-graduation outcomes: Individuals' embodied cultural capital shaped their educational experiences and interactions with institutions and the labor market. Those who had high levels of cultural resources tended to have a more rigorous college search, stronger academic orientation, and greater student involvement during college. Compared to other students, they were more likely to transition to high-paying, high-status professional positions after graduation and attend graduate school. In contrast, individuals with low cultural resources tended to have a more casual college search, were more prone to encountering errors with their financial aid, spent a great deal of time working during college, and later faced underemployment in the labor market. They were less likely to report benefiting from a social network and their credential in the labor market and more likely to express regret about their debt and college education. The findings illustrate the inequitable payoff that college and debt have for borrowers with varying levels of cultural resources, and suggest that loans can serve as a form of social reproduction. A conceptual model outlines the factors associated with incurring high levels of debt and illustrates how they relate to borrowers' college experiences and lives post-graduation. In highlighting how debt exacerbates social inequities and the risks it can pose to students, especially students with low income and cultural resources, the findings call for higher education institutions to conduct a comprehensive review of their practices and services from the time students apply to college to after they graduate. Enhanced supports at high schools and community organizations can also assist families, particularly in encouraging participation in early savings plans and strengthening their financial literacy. Additionally, increased governmental scrutiny of borrowing can help protect students from over-indebtedness. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Book Summary: This book provides a broad overview of quality health care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). It focuses on providing the reader a practical approach to dealing with the health and well-being of people with IDD in general terms as well as in dealing with specific conditions. In addition, it offers the reader a perspective from many different points of view in the health care delivery system as well as in different parts of the world. This is the 3rd , and much expanded edition, of a text that was first published in 1989 (Lea and Fibiger). The second edition was published in 2006 (Paul Brookes) and has been used as a formal required text in training programs for physicians, nurses and nurse practitioners as well as by administrators who are responsible for programs serving people with IDD. This book is considered the “Bible” in the field of health care for people with IDD since 1989 when the first edition came out.

Book Summary: This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

The development of obesity from adolescence to adulthood is not well understood, nor does the research support a multidimensional approach for this understanding. Studies have described primarily cross-sectional bivariate relationships between combinations of obesity, religiosity, depression, and social support, but it is still not known whether there is a relationship between adolescent religiosity, depression, and social support in the development of adult obesity or whether depression and social support mediate the religiosity-obesity relationship. The dynamic, multidimensional, functional model of wellness presented by Hawks was the basis for the spiritual, social, emotional, and physical interactions proposed in this study. The research questions sought to identify the relationship that exists between adolescent religiosity, depression, and social support and adult obesity and considered depression and social support as potential mediators of the religiosity-obesity relationship. This quantitative study employed multiple linear regression while using the prospective nature of the Add Health data set to gain a longitudinal understanding of the religiosity-obesity relationship. Adolescent male religiosity significantly predicted adult obesity, but female religiosity did not. Neither depression nor social support mediated the religiosity-obesity relationship. Social change implications include a rationale for developing sex-based multidimensional approaches, including spiritual approaches, for supporting adolescents in their transition to adulthood. Support for acknowledging the differences between sexes for multiple health interactions is provided and indicated for healthcare providers. Finally, health educators are presented with much-needed support for the concept of the multidimensionality of wellness.

As of 2015, over 34% of emerging adults in the United States between 18 and 34-years-old were still living with their parents or guardians, and prior research has suggested this trend was steadily growing. The current study examined contextual factors, such as an individual's state of well-being during this transitional phase, to determine what, if any, variables may also be contributing to this issue. Both Adlerian theory and social exchange theory were used as the theoretical foundation to better understand how to mitigate this phenomenon. Amazon MTURK was used to recruit 336 participants who completed the survey. A series of MANOVAs and chi-square analyses were used to test for the relationship between the failure to launch phenomenon, wellness, and moderating effects of mentorship in this study. The results showed a significant, although weak, relationship between financial dependence and wellness factors of coping self (p = 0.034) and social self (p = 0.026). The presence of and frequency of contact with mentors significantly predicted successful launching (p = 0.001). Mentorship was not found to be related to wellness factors nor did it moderate the relationship between such factors and failure to launch. The findings implied mentorship was a potential mitigating factor to the failure to launch phenomenon. The positive implications include personal, familial, and societal growth for this population as they successfully transition to independent adulthood.