Sexual experiences are an important part of everyday life, yet little research has taken place to understand it’s implication in the leisure realm. As leisure scholars adopt a holistic view of the individual, one’s sexual experiences remain a critical element devoid of empirical research. The current study examined the linkages between leisure and sexual experiences for six couples in the life stage of early adulthood. Findings revealed that relationally, couples conceptualized sexual experiences as a means to express love. At an individual level, it was clear that leisurely dimensions including intrinsic motivation, perceived freedom, involvement, arousal, mastery and spontaneity were present in some sexual experiences. This research provides support that sexual experiences can be plotted on Neulinger’s (1981) Leisure Continuum highlighting the work-like and/or leisurely aspects of relational sexual experiences.

Abstract The majority of young Australian women aspire to be married with at least one child and in some form of paid employment by the time they are 35 years of age. In an age of increasing female labour force participation, it seems then that young women really can have it all. However, while younger generations of women are now more likely than their male counterparts to go to university, Australian women, compared to women in other countries, have low workforce participation rates after childbearing; and many move to part-time positions characterised by lower earnings, less responsibility and less opportunity for training and promotion. Further, there continues to be significant occupational segregation in the workplace, and women continue to earn significantly less than men. Why are Australian women not utilizing their skills to their full potential? The issue of balancing paid work with family responsibilities is central to this debate; and crucial is the role of Australian work-family legislation, which has previously focussed on improving Australia’s low fertility rate through financial aids rather than recognising women’s increased attachment to the paid workforce. This underscores the need for further research on how young Australian women negotiate work and family, to contribute to the evidence base for the formation of policy that supports the needs of young Australian women. This thesis takes an innovative approach of examining the work and family aspirations of a new generation of young Australian women negotiating work and family, transitioning from their late teens/early twenties to their early 30s. A prominent theoretical model of women’s work and family preferences, Lifestyle Preference Theory, postulates that women’s work and family outcomes are primarily the result of what they had always aspired, and that all women living in contemporary society can ‘choose’ their preferred type of lifestyle. However, as argued in this thesis, this model doesn’t take into account women’s circumstances, systemic-level supports and life changes that impact upon women’s decisions. Further, compared to previous generations of women, when most of the research on women’s aspirations was conducted, there is a new development process bridging adolescence and early adulthood, termed Emerging Adulthood. Using a mixed-methods approach of quantitative and qualitative analyses, this thesis examines young Australian women’s work and family aspirations according to their life experiences and within the social and structural constraints on their lives, during this developmental period of the life course and new socio-historical context. Chapter 1 provides a historical context to women’s changing roles and increasing workforce participation over past decades, while also discussing the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and gender differences in the workforce. Chapter 2 discusses the Australian context in more depth; including work and family trends and systemic-level work-family support. This section also introduces theoretical contributions in the area of women’s aspirations, and developmental changes likely to affect young women. Chapter 3 then provides an analysis of young Australian women’s work and family aspirations, including the consistency of their aspirations over time, using nationally representative data from the younger cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH). Chapters 4 and 5 examine the representativeness of Lifestyle Preference Theory as a model of young Australian women’s work and family aspirations. Chapter 4 investigates whether Australian women can be categorised as ‘types’ committed to pursuing a particular lifestyle while Chapter 5 investigates whether women’s aspirations are independent of context, as theorised by Lifestyle Preference Theory, or correlated to women’s circumstances and the constraints on their lives. Chapters 6 and 7 aim to give voices to the experiences of young Australian women forming their aspirations during this period of the lifespan, by analysing qualitative comments from the younger cohort of the ALSWH. Chapter 6 provides a context of what is important and happening in the lives of young Australian women, while Chapter 7 provides a more thorough discussion of women’s comments about their aspirations and with a comparative discussion of their comments to current theoretical models. Through an analysis of focus group material, Chapter 8 continues to examine the experiences of young women during this developmental period of the lifespan. This Chapter reviews young women’s thoughts on their aspirations for work and family, how they anticipate making work and family decisions, and how they perceive and experience this developmental period of the lifespan. Chapters 9 and 10 return to the quantitative data of the ALSWH to investigate why women change their aspirations over time, and specifically look at the impact of first birth and life events on women’s motherhood and employment aspirations. These Chapters discuss the role of systemic-level work-family support on women’s changing aspirations. Chapter 11 provides an integrative conclusion of findings, which show that women are forming and adjusting their aspirations as best they can within their circumstances and the constraints on their lives, and the broader context of Australia’s work and family support systems. This Chapter provides recommendations for policy and directions for future research.

Background. Despite extensive research the etiology of schizophrenia remains unclear. Whilst a substantial body of research points to a developmental component where early risk factors and maturational processes interact to culminate in psychosis during adulthood, key components and processes are yet to be confirmed. Prospective birth cohort studies, with their longitudinal data drawn from the general population, are vital to better understanding these pathways. To date, birth cohort (BC) studies have found that compared to healthy individuals, those who develop schizophrenia are more likely to display subtle deviations in certain developmental domains during infancy, childhood or adolescence. Yet there had been no recent review of these findings to identify areas of agreement, disagreement or where information was lacking. Aims. The overall aim of this dissertation is two-fold: firstly to identify and consolidate the current literature related to the antecedents of schizophrenia based on birth cohort studies; and secondly to undertake empirical studies based on an Australian birth cohort to address specific issues raised in the preceding review. Methods. The following three papers present empirical studies which use common methods based on an Australian birth cohort. Each study was based on a birth cohort of 3801 young adults born between 1981 and 1984, as part of the Mater University Study of Pregnancy and its outcomes. An extensive range of behavioural, cognitive, physical and social measures had been taken at various stages during their development namely, antenatally, at birth and six months, and at 5, 14 and 21 year follow-ups. Psychiatric diagnoses were obtained at age 21 follow-up from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), or, if this was not available, on a self-report health outcomes checklist; this produced the outcome variable ‘screen-positive non-affective psychosis’ (SP-NAP). The association between antecedents and later SP-NAP were examined using logistic regression adjusted for potentially confounding variables (such as actual age at assessment, cannabis use in adolescence, and gender). Each study also (a) examined differences in case vs. noncase maturation over time; and (b) conducted planned sensitivity and post hoc analyses, such as for source of diagnoses and predictive validity. Analyses were performed using SAS 9.2 (SAS). Results. The main findings of the review were that BC studies of schizophrenia provide important insights into both the maturational antecedents of schizophrenia and putative risk modifying factors. Yet while some antecedents, such as neurocognitive dysfunction, have been well documented, others are less certain (such as postnatal physical growth). There are no studies based on pre-morbid attentional measures. In addition, there were no studies of developmental pathways where continuity of maturation was based on within-individual scores rather than group means. These findings led to three empirical studies based on an Australian birth cohort previously untapped in psychosis research. The first study found that higher levels childhood and adolescent general psychopathology increased the risk of SP-NAP. This effect was less clear for females and when adolescent psychopathology had been rated by mothers at the 14-year follow-up. In contrast, self-reported hallucinations at the 14 year follow-up increased the risk of SP-NAP in both sexes. Males with high psychopathology scores in both childhood and adolescence were at greatest risk, followed by males and females whose ‘social, attention and thought’ scores were either consistently dysfunctional or worsened from childhood to adolescence (3- to 13-fold risk). The second study found that altered physical growth in infancy and adulthood (increased head circumference and height) raised the risk of SP-NAP for females but not males. For cases, there was no evidence of ‘catch-up growth’, i.e., growth retardation at birth being followed by a period of rapid growth. There was also no group difference in pubertal maturation for males or females. The final study found that dysfunction in childhood and adolescent intelligence, attention and speech increased the risk of SP-NAP for males but not females. Males with persistently high scores or who worsened on measures related to childhood and adolescent attentional problems were at greatest risk of SP-NAP. Discussion. While there are some caveats, disturbed developmental antecedents – particularly psychopathology and impaired cognition in males – were more frequently identified in cohort members who developed non-affective psychosis than their peers. More specifically, this disturbed development appeared be in domains which reflect those of the adult disorder and include the possible endophenotypes of psychosis-like experiences, inattention and visuospatial dysfunction. Of interest, self-rated items during adolescence were associated with increased risk of later psychosis. Finally, developmental pathways associated with non-affective psychosis were not uniform in timing but varied depending on such factors as domain and gender. These findings stress that understanding the heterogeneity in developmental pathways is crucial to understanding the heterogeneous nature of the subsequent disorder.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Donald G. Unger, Dept. of Individual & Family Studies. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2009. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-109).

Thesis (M.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Kinesiology & Health, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-81).

Mémoire (M.Ed.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1999. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-152). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-152). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 438-460).