This study explored one classroom teacher's attempt to bridge young learners' access to the academic content of Social Studies in an elementary, multilingual, multicultural, mainstream classroom. To this end, it examined both the planning and enacting of a Grade Five/Six Social Studies unit: Immigration In Canada. The unit was designed to draw on the teacher's and learners' social and cultural identities as a resource and afford students multiple ways to access and demonstrate understandings. In the complex, and dynamic environment of the mainstream classroom, the subject of Social Studies presents a linguistically demanding academic discipline for native English speakers and often an even more formidable challenge for students who are in the process of acquiring English as a second or an additional language Simultaneously, the subject matter of Social Studies can provide a useful venue to share experiences related to language, culture and personal histories. This study provided a rich and holistic account of the everyday classroom life of students' and their teacher's experiences over a three month time span during Social Studies lessons. Through qualitative research methods, data were drawn from reflective notes of planning sessions, field notes of classroom observations, audio-recorded interviews of the students, and an audio-recorded interview of the teacher, a survey and student work samples. Two, one hour after school planning sessions and seventeen (usually forty-five minute) classroom lessons were observed over a three-month period. The data was analyzed and systematized around my research questions in order to explore how the Social Studies unit was enacted in a mainstream setting. The qualitative analysis of the data suggested that there were positive connection between the curriculum as planned and the curriculum as experienced in the classroom. The study demonstrated that a Social Studies unit that encompassed a multiliterate pedagogy where particular attention was paid to drawing on students' social and cultural identities had very positive outcomes. The study also highlighted that the teacher's own professional identity played a key factor in affirming student identity and promoting student engagement. There was a strong link between investment of the learner and the relationship between the teacher and the students. The students were more deeply invested in the lessons than they might otherwise have been because the learning environment that the teacher constructed, valued students as members of a learning community, each with a personal history that was respected. The findings also suggest that the narrative genre of storytelling was a preferred activity for students and bridged a connection between both home and school environments. Within the Social Studies lessons the teacher continually emphasized and fore-grounded the role of relationship between student and teacher and student to student as means to an effective learning environment. The study also highlighted the need for further research in diverse, elementary mainstream, classroom settings and the need to further examine literacy practices that encompass a more linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy.

With the aging of society and increased longevity, understanding the factors that contribute to declines in quality of life and mood, such as normative health declines and cognitive declines is progressively more important. Past research has consistently demonstrated that cognitive skills decline with age; specifically, a major change associated with normative aging is a decline in executive functions (Phillips & Henry, 2008). Past research has focused on investigating how abnormal declines in cognitive and executive functioning have impacted the self and others; however a relatively unexplored issue is examining how individual differences in normative age-related changes in cognitive functioning impact the self and others. The first purpose of the current study was to investigate normative age-related differences in executive functioning skills and how these individual differences impact individuals and their marital partners. The second purpose of the current study was to investigate whether executive functioning skills in particular, rather than other domains of cognitive skills thought to be separate from executive functioning, predicted poor quality of life and mood in self and partner. Participants were 91 heterosexual couples 55 years and above who were married or cohabiting. They completed measures of quality of life and mood in addition to a variety of cognitive tasks and executive functioning tasks measuring their inhibition, working memory and task switching abilities. We found that lower executive functioning skills in one partner significantly predicted lower levels of quality of life in the other partner (partner effect). However, we found that there was no significant relationship between those with lower levels of executive functioning and one’s own ratings of quality of life (actor effect). Conversely, when investigating the impact of executive functioning on mood we found that lower levels of executive functioning resulted in lower ratings of mood for the same partner (actor effect). However, lower levels of executive functioning in one partner did not predict lower levels of mood in the other partner (partner effect). In no instance was general cognition, as assessed using tasks of language, visuospatial ability, and short-term memory, related to partner or actor effects for either outcome measure. Implications of these findings are discussed.

No description available.

This study investigated Gollwitzer's mindset theory in the context of romantic relationships. One-hundred and sixty-eight students involved in a dating relationship were asked either to deliberate about or to think of implementing a goal not related to their relationship (e.g., finding a summer job) or a goal related to their relationship (e.g., moving in with their romantic partner). All participants subsequently completed assessments of current affect, perceptions of partner and of optimism for the future of the relationship. In line with Taylor and Gollwitzer (1995), thinking about implementing a decided goal not related to the relationship was found to increase positive affect and relationship illusions compared to non-relationship goal deliberation. In contrast, among those in the relationship mindset conditions, deliberation was found to elicit greater relationship illusions compared to goal implementation. These results help to delineate between effects of relationship specific and non relationship specific mindsets on relationship appraisals.

People continually make evaluations of their own and other people’s romantic relationships using various terms of relationship quality. Although relationship quality has been examined intensely among relationship researchers, existing theories have different views on what constitutes relationship quality (e.g., Rusbult, 1980; Sternberg, 1986). In five studies, I used a prototype approach to identify core features of relationship quality which are important for relationship functioning. I proposed that these core features are shared across relationship quality concepts (i.e., commitment, intimacy, love, passion, satisfaction, trust, and relationship quality; Fletcher, Simpson, & Thomas, 2000). Thus, I examined how shared and unique features of relationship quality concepts play a role in romantic relationship functioning. In Study 1, university students listed characteristics of each of the relationship quality concepts. These lists showed both shared features across concepts (e.g., caring, honesty, loyalty, and good communication) and unique features for each concept. In Study 2, another group of university students and a community sample rated how central each feature is to a corresponding concept. The results indicated that shared features were rated as more central to each of the concepts than the unique features. In Study 3, university students rated how important each feature is for good relationship functioning. Overall, as predicted, shared features were rated as more important for relationship functioning than unique features. I recorded reaction times in Study 4 as an implicit measure of judgments about whether shared and unique features were good indicators of relationship functioning. Participants made judgments on shared features more quickly than on unique features. Finally, Study 5 examined how the presence of these prototype features would be related to people’s evaluation of their ongoing romantic relationships. The presence of shared features and unique prototypical features predicted positive relationship evaluation more strongly than the presence of unique non-prototypical features. Overall, the results of these five studies support the idea that there are core characteristics of relationship quality across concepts (i.e., shared features). The current research makes contributions to the area of relationship research by identifying important aspects in evaluating the quality of romantic relationships.

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No description available.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.