The personal essay provides a vibrant method of inquiry for exploring migration. Migration tests the individual on all levels and the personal essay bears witness to that lived experience in writing. In applying Montaigne’s maxim “What do I know?” to experience, the joint endeavor of trial and assessment coincide in the migrant and the personal essay. Yet to date, no study of how the personal essay and the migrant intersect and reinforce their parallel journey of discovery has been published. Emphasizing observation, reflection and synthesis, the personal essay provides a rigorous and innovative approach to investigate what migrants encounter firsthand. Both the genre and the migrant try, weigh and test experience for its value and significance in writing and in the real world. This study of the nexus between migration and the personal essay genre addresses a crucial gap in the research, a space of increasing relevance in a progressively more mobile and globalized world. Migration is a lifelong experience, and New Zealand is a nation of migrants. This research examines personal essays written by contemporary migrants to New Zealand from twenty different countries. By probing the roots and routes of migration, migrant essays address complex questions around identity and belonging to assess the lived stakes of migration. Migrants cross geographic, linguistic and existential frontiers, and their personal essays bear witness to the contact zones between self and other, self and text. The migrant personal essay reflects and analyzes experience from the outsider perspective and testifies to the dominant culture how belonging is predicated on mutual acceptance of the other. As this study demonstrates, the personal essay is the ideal genre to explore how migrants negotiate and assess the space between inner and outer, home and journey, experience and meaning – abstractions intrinsic to our sense of self and world.

This thesis examines the tension and cooperation between politics of conformity and difference that are embedded in urban spaces, such as burials and mosques in Britain and beyond. It examines the social, political and cultural ideologies and complexities of the historical past and present by focusing on death, belonging and architecture. It will show that the past has become re-imagined and embedded into the postcolonial concrete present. Thereby, carving out new national traditions and memories that travel through time and space. The study suggests that urban space, although often ignored is important not only for our everyday consciousness and social realities, but is pivotal to examine and study especially in relation to national policies, such as “multiculturalism”.

Feeling connected to one’s community has been associated with increased self-rated health and well-being. Connectivity has also been linked to health behaviours such as smoking and obesity, which have been related to overall health status. Physical activity is related to overall health status as it protects against many chronic diseases. Unfortunately, less than 50% of Canadian adults are meeting the physical activity requirements set out by Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Living. Thus, this study determines whether sense of connectedness is associated with current participation in leisure-time physical activity and intention to start or increase engagement in physical activity. Cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) cycle 3.1 was used to analyze the association between sense of community belonging and physical activity among Canadians aged 25 to 64. A series of logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. People reporting a stronger sense of connectedness had greater odds of being physically active with income, education and sex often moderating the relationship. It appeared that the relative odds of being physically active were greatest among people who felt very strongly connected to their communities and in the highest socioeconomic groups. Further, feeling more that very weakly connected to the community increased the odds of intending to start or increase physical activity among inactive females and decreased the odds of intending to increase physical activity among moderately active males. This study provides preliminary results regarding how important social factors may alter population level physical activity. The results from this study inform our understanding of barriers and facilitators associated with physical activity and how policies and conditions which affect community connectedness may be used to enhance physical activity.

This thesis examines representations of nationhood, exile, belonging and nostalgia in three Palestinian memoirs: Ghada Karmi’s In Search of Fatima (2002), Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah (1997) and Aziz Shihab’s Does the Land Remember Me? (2007). For diasporic Palestinians (such as these three) who are denied access to Palestine as a geographical entity, Palestine exists most strongly in and through narrative. As such, I examine the extent to which these memoirs are acts of nation-building. I explore the impact that living in exile has on the authors’ construction of personal and national identity, and the extent to which exile inhibits their ability to belong. Finally, I suggest that although these memoirs do not offer explicit solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they are important as measured, reasonable and imaginative acts of nation-building that dramatize and make accessible the plight of the Palestinian nation. / This thesis also examines literary considerations such as memoir as a genre, use of figurative language, and authorial presence.

Urban sprawl with the advent of automobile commuting has led to the loss of a “sense of place” and the decline of informal public gathering in the urban core of Windsor, Nova Scotia. Building an integrated sense of community is the thesis objective. An interactive relationship between the town’s history and landmarks, and elements such as edges, paths, and districts, is established in the physical form of a new downtown civic square located at the intersection of the traditional main street (Gerrish) and Grey Street. The civic square enables new, year-round civic activities including a library, market, art gallery, and skating rink, enhanced by informal gathering spaces. The square revives Windsor’s “sense of place,” providing an anchor of public space and activity for citizens a ten-minute walk from surrounding residential neighbourhoods, and offers the opportunity for informal meetings and the element of surprise within the journeys of daily life.

This thesis is an exploratory work into the migration and settlement experiences of highly skilled Turkish migrants who have settled in Canada. It is a qualitative study conducted with sixteen immigrant respondents living in Halifax and Toronto. The focus of this work is on the role of networks, specifically in shaping these migrants’ migration routes, developing belongings and reworking identities. While it is the feminist theory that informs this study, I use the intersectional theory as the theoretical framework. It has been found that the social class not only arose as a central factor that influenced these migrants’ experiences but it also affected the interplay between ethnicity and gender. The findings are analyzed with the help of current literature on globalization and international migration theories. The similarities and differences between the Halifax and Toronto respondents are also highlighted in order to inform provincial and national policies.

Belonging is a fundamental human need and this need is universal (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). How a student perceives their own belonging within a school and classroom can be predictive of their future engagement, motivation, achievement, and success of their interpersonal relationships. Students who feel connected are found to be less likely to engage in risky behaviours, be absent from school, or drop out of school entirely (Nichols, 2006; Anderman, 2003). Recent research on belonging has sought to examine the relationship between belonging and its outcomes on student behaviour (Anderman, 2003; Clegg, 2006; Goodenow, 1993; Ma, 2003; Osterman, 2000). There is an increasing need for belonging research to examine the development and incidence of belonging in children at school (Johnson, 2009; Osterman, 2000). This study has three research questions: a) What are students’ experiences with belonging in the school? b) What are teachers’ perceptions of students’ belonging in the school? c) How do the students’ experiences and teachers’ perceptions of student belonging in the school compare? The comparison of teachers’ and students’ responses will provide more information as to whether the students’ experiences and teachers’ perceptions of student belonging are aligned or if they are disparate. This data will make it possible to begin to target specific belonging factors in school programs and teacher practices. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-24 11:48:13.315

This study is conceptualized within the broad context of a national education system struggling to produce within learners either the academic outcomes required for economically productive adulthood or the social and moral outcomes required for active and responsible citizenship. Feeling a sense-of-belonging is a basic human need and crucial for successful communal living as it fosters solidarity. A complicating factor is the notion that diversity negatively affects solidarity. As the only remaining compulsory social institution, schools provide the ideal location for instilling the values required for solidarity. Additionally, since education occurs in a social setting, a sense-of-belonging facilitates the environments required for effective learning. The study adopts the position that both social (relationships) and non-social (structures and resources) components of the “school climate” (a term used to denote the whole-school context) affect the development of a sense-of-belonging in learners. The questions are posed: which aspects of school climate show the greatest effect on sense-of-belonging? What are the effects of diversity and minority group status? Adopting a structural model developed by Cemalcilar (2010), a quantitative methodology is used to measure various aspects of learners’ experiences in terms of their levels of subjective satisfaction and identifies the effects of the aspects on sense-of-belonging. Further, the relationships are examined in relation to the effects of components of the concept of diversity. Brofenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development (1979) and various normative functionalist theories of social control, primarily those of Hirschi (1969), are applied to explain variations in satisfaction and sense-of-belonging. Regression analysis indicates that the strongest determinants on learners’ satisfaction with the school climate are the relationships with peers and teachers, and the quality of the campus and resources. The need for emotional bonds characterised by trust and respect emerges as vital. An unexpected result is that social and structural satisfaction as conceptualized in the model do not significantly account for variations in sense-of-belonging. The learners do, however, report relatively high levels of sense-of-belonging, so alternate sources of the sensation not directly measured by the model are presented as possible explanations (e.g. extra-murals and gangs). The results do not support the hypothesis that diversity negatively affects sense-of-belonging and few significant effects were found for belonging to a minority group. Concluding remarks highlight the need for government to continue the improvement of the structural conditions of our schools and the greater need for an emphasis on respect - Ubuntu - in the hidden and visible curricula to foster improvements in both academic and civil outcomes. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011

Our post-modern society is being continually more characterized by the working life, where corporate relations and the understanding of human momentum, limitations and knowledge is the basis of the quality of the corporation. In other words, it is of the greatest importance to keep in mind the attitudes, behaviour, stress levels and motivations that constitute a good working environment. We find it interesting to study what social psychological approaches and social processes could be of importance to good cooperation. The research has its starting point in a qualitative method focused on semi- structured interviews, where we have interviewed eight respondents working within the psychiatry. The research has strengthened our pre-understanding but also made clear the existence of other social processes and approaches that affect cooperation. How people look at each other in the social contexts which they are currently in, as well as people’s childhood conditions and psychological development having a large impact on how man will relate to other relations and consequently situations of collaboration, is of the utmost importance. Respect, communication, a sense of belonging, trust and social connections but also conformity and like-mindedness are all concepts that are of the greatest importance to good cooperation. However, it is also of significance to find a balance between these concepts whereas emphasizing one concept more than the others will not result in a well-functioning collaboration. The essay discusses and analyzes the empirical material we have achieved from a social psychological point of view where theorists like Scheff, Collins, von Wright, May and Gastil ́s concepts and theories are being applied. Scientific articles which we also apply and which have a significant impact in the study is Justice and Effective cooperation, Workplace Friendships and Organizational Outcomes, Adult attachment styles in the workplace and Workplace Communication Problems. / Vårt postmoderna samhälle präglas allt mer av arbetslivet och där samarbetsrelationer och förståelse för människans drivkrafter, begränsningar och kunskaper är en grund för verksamhetens kvalité. Det är med andra ord av vikt att tänka på frågor som berör attityder, beteenden, stressnivå och motivation för att ett gott arbetsklimat skall kunna existera. Vi finner det intressant att studera vilka socialpsykologiska förhållningssätt och sociala processer som kan vara av vikt för ett gott samarbete. Undersökningen har sin utgångspunkt i en kvalitativ metod inriktad på halvstrukturerade informant intervjuer där vi har intervjuat åtta respondenter som arbetar inom psykiatrin. Uppsatsarbetet har förstärkt vår förförståelse men också tydliggjort att det existerar många olika sociala processer och förhållningssätt som påverkar samarbete. Att det är av vikt hur människor ser på varandra i de sociala kontexter de befinner sig i och att människans uppväxtförhållanden och psykologiska utveckling har en stor inverkan på hur människan kommer att förhålla sig till andra relationer och därmed också i samarbetssituationer. Respekt, kommunikation, tillhörighet, tillit och sociala band men också konformitet är begrepp som är av stor vikt för ett gott samarbete. Dock är det av vikt att finna en balans mellan dessa begrepp då mer tyngd åt den ena eller andra aspekten inte gynnar ett väl fungerande samarbete. I arbetet diskuteras och analyseras det empiriska materialet utifrån ett socialpsykologiskt perspektiv där teoretiker som Scheff, Collins, von Wright, May och Gastils begrepp och teorier tillämpas. Vetenskapliga artiklar som vi även tillämpar och som har en betydande inverkan i studien är Justice and effective coopertion, Workplace Friendships and Organizational Outcomes, Adult attachment styles in the workplace och Workplace Communication Problems.

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