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In this thesis I contribute to arguments showing how the human body is much more than a vessel that enables us to experience the world through our senses. Our sense of embodiment and our embodied performances give meaning to and shape the world in which we live. I argue that our bodies are crucial to socio-political change and subverting discriminatory cultural assumptions and ideologies. Deviant performances can cause us to be less than intelligible individuals. That is, according to Judith Butler, we become less than intelligible when we do not perform in such a way that meets certain cultural expectations. Dominant expectations are typically implicitly understood to be common-sense values. Unfortunately, many of our implicit values have embedded unjust prejudices that directly affect our thinking and behaviour. These discriminatory implicit values are couched in “the background.” Alexis Shotwell’s expansion of what John R. Searle terms “the background” is particularly useful to understand the political nature of implicitly held beliefs. These discriminatory assumptions couched in the background systematically oppress us. However, the prejudices of the background can be exposed through repeatedly performing our bodies in certain ways. Additionally, our performances can enable us to pool our intellectual resources together and live out the socio-political change we desire. In doing so, performances and identities that were once considered unintelligible can become intelligible and can alter cultural climates. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-09 13:54:49.323

While research suggests that peer influence can lead to increases in undesirable behaviours of adolescents, there has been little focus on the specific mechanisms of influence. A relatively small literature examining social interactions between peers has found that the discussion of rule breaking topics by pairs of boys relates to how much problem behaviour the boys engage in. This research is limited by its reliance on a set of similar samples from a North American population base. This thesis explored the relationship between social interaction and behaviour with sample from New Zealand Aotearoa. Nine pairs of Year 10 boys were recruited primarily from two high schools. A half-hour conversation was video taped for each pair. These conversations were coded on the basis of the nature of the talk between pairs of participants following the coding system proposed by Poe, Dishion, Griesler and Andrews (1990). The coded behaviours were analysed and compared to measures of previous rule breaking behaviours. The duration of rule breaking talk was found to correlate with the level of previous rule breaking behaviour. It was not clear whether the amount of rule breaking talk was related to the amount of laughter following it. Possible explanations are discussed. While generalisations from these results are limited by an unexpectedly small sample size, they show similarity to the previous research findings. The findings, the difficulties in recruitment to the research and the implications of these for future research are discussed.

Transition to middle school is a turbulent time of development in which friends have growing impact on adolescents’ academic adjustment. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the unique and joint contributions of academically oriented and deviant close friends on reading and math achievement, competence beliefs in reading and math, and engagement during the transition into middle school. The sample was 652 (53.4 percent male) ethnically diverse and academically at-risk students. Within-wave associations between peer affiliation and outcome variables were found in the expected directions. Outcome variables were highly stable. The model yielded adequate fit of the data. Contrary to expectations, neither peer affiliation variable (academically-oriented friends or deviant friends) contributed to year 6 outcomes, controlling for year 5 outcomes, nor did the two affiliation variables interact in predicting changes in outcomes. Affiliation with close friends was moderately stable over time and affiliation with learning oriented friends was positively associated with the academic outcomes and affiliation with deviant friends was negatively associated with the academic outcomes. Close friendships may change so rapidly that a relationship between close friend affiliation at any one point in time is not predictive of changes in one’s engagement, competence beliefs, or achievement. Future research that examines peer relationships and academic competencies across a longer period of time and more frequently may allow for a clearer understanding of relationships among peer affiliation and academic outcomes.

Cette thèse propose d’éclairer les parcours de femmes, mères et célibataires, qui n’existent pas au regard des statistiques officielles ou plutôt ne devraient pas exister selon les injonctions familiales normatives en Tunisie. Il s’agit d’identifier les différentes conduites individuelles et les stratégies mises en place par ces femmes face à une grossesse prénuptiale. Au-delà des apports de connaissances en socio-démographie sur une population souvent passée sous silence, cette thèse basée sur une analyse quantitative et qualitative se situe à la jonction des dimensions collectives, structurelles et individuelles. L’interprétation des matériaux récoltés portent à la fois sur les différents déterminants sociaux qui mènent ces femmes à la grossesse mais aussi analyse leurs conduites à partir de ces contraintes sans pour autant s’en contenter. Elle ouvre sur une réflexion plus large quant aux formes possibles de recompositions familiales, conjugales et sexuelles en Tunisie. / This Ph.D. research focuses on women who are both mothers and single in Tunisia. Not only is it interesting but also is it challenging to work with them for women bearing the double status of single motherhood are excluded from society. Indeed, whether in Official statistics or mainstream family models, these women are literally "inexistant". The aim here is to identify their individual behaviors and strategies facing premarital pregnancy. Beyond the socio-demographic inputs on a rejected population, this thesis involves questioning their subjective dimensions (feelings, thoughts). This work is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis and is therefore situated at the junction of both structural and individual perspectives. Which social determinants led these women to pregnancy? How did they cope with the related social constraints? These questions open to a broader reflection on models in terms of family, marriage and sexual behavior in Tunisia.

Sexual deviancy and addiction are two concepts that have undergone considerable development in the way in which they are constructed. Since the 1800s both concepts have come to the attention of the medical field, psychological field and the criminal justice system which have made numerous attempts to regulate and treat them within these realms. By using the lens of social construction and Spector and Kitsuse’s theory of social problems, this project explores how experts describe sexual deviancy and addiction. Important considerations involving the significance of victims and a victim status emerge from the analysis, as the differentiating factors between demands for treatment for addiction, while sexual deviancy experiences an increasingly punitive regime.

How do the media react in the face of a violent phenomenon involving actors both embraced and marginalized by society? One such phenomena – the McArthur murders – encapsulates this dynamic considering how the media explained the murders to their audiences. McArthur, a white LGBTQ+ man, murdered over a seven-year period specifically targeting male victims of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent associated with the LGBTQ+ community and geographic area in Toronto, Canada. The victims embodied a variety of marginalized identities including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, immigration status and houselessness. It is in this context that this qualitative study finds itself, investigating media coverage of the McArthur murders in two mediums/Canadian outlets. The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper representing newspaper coverage, and a podcast produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Uncover: The Village representing podcast (or audio) media. Considering the context of the McArthur murders and the identities of the actors involved, the study is focused on how normativity and deviancy are constructed through mediatized eyes (or frames). Through a blend of deductive and inductive framing analysis relying on a queer phenomenologically-inspired theoretical framework, the study’s aim is threefold: (1) to uncover what frames are most prevalent across both outlets, (2) to understand, using deductively applied frames, how both outlets construct the events of the McArthur murders and, (3) to understand the interplay between mediatized reification or mitigation of normativity. The analysis found that both newspaper and podcast were most concerned with attributing responsibility in their coverage, which introduced the queer phenomenological understanding of institutions into the analysis, a pattern which continued throughout each deductively applied frame. Moreover, connections to analogous sets of murders in 1970s Toronto broadened the implications of the study across time. Finally, the analysis showed that rather than solely reifying or mitigating normativity, both outlets’ coverage despite similarities and differences, are illustrative of normativity and deviancy’s ongoing orientation towards one another. The conflict between societally standard and aberrant is shown to be a constant over time, after death, and across contexts – a dynamic relationship which has significance for how media scholars might approach cross-medium analyses of complex phenomena in further research.

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This study examined the effectiveness of the LEAST Approach to Discipline with junior high school teachers having behaviorally disordered pupils in their classes. The sample consisted of twenty junior high school teachers who were paired on the basis of quantity and problem severity of behaviorally disordered pupils in their classes. Each matched pair was split and randomly assigned to the experimental and control group. Treatment consisted of eight hours of training in the LEAST approach. Subsequently, each experimental teacher was observed in class and given feedback regarding his application of the LEAST approach. The control group received no treatment. Following treatment, a two-month data collection period ensued. During this time data was collected for both groups on seven dependent variables. Specifically these were (1) teacher deviancy management skills, (2) pupil perception of the classroom environment, (3) pupil compliance, (4) office referrals, (5) teacher-parent conferences, (6) pupil absences and (7) non completed assignments.

Group therapy has been demonstrated to be effective through a number of factors. Group theorists and researchers have attempted to identify client characteristics that would enable the clinician to determine a client's appropriateness for group therapy. Reviews of research have identified client expectancies and positive and negative interpersonal skills as promising predictors of group process, outcome, and attrition. The Group Selection Questionnaire (GSQ) was created to provide clinicians with a short and useful tool to aid them in identifying potential members for therapy groups, and has shown positive preliminary results in the past. This study presents tentative support for the factor structure of the GSQ and compares the GSQ and the Group Therapy Questionnaire (GTQ), another well established pre-group selection measure. Convergent validity of the GSQ is generally supported. GSQ Demeanor, Expectancy and Total scale scores correlate significantly with the GTQ Expectations about Group scale. In addition, GSQ Participation, Expectancy and Total scale scores correlate with GTQ Interpersonal Problems, with more interpersonal problems indicating fewer positive interpersonal skills, better expectancies for group, and stronger overall group readiness. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as future research directions.