The incidence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is expected to rise in the coming years. Presently, in health care there has been a shift of the provision of care to the home therefore, the major burden of care falls on informal caregivers. The challenges that these caregivers face may be compounded by residing in a rural area where the provision of health care services has been increasingly compromised. In the literature, there has been an abundance of information looking at the experiences of caregivers of people with other chronic illnesses. However, the information on the lived experience of caregivers of people with severe COPD has been minimal. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience and meaning of that experience for spousal caregivers providing care to a person with severe COPD living in rural Saskatchewan. Face-to-face, conversational interviews, along with observations of the caregivers and their spouses interactions and environment, were utilized to collect information from five women caring for their husbands with severe COPD living in rural Saskatchewan. Hermeneutic phenomenological reflection, as guided by the works of van Manen, utilized writing, collaborative discussion, life world existentials, and imaginative variation to illuminate themes and the overall essence of this experience. Five overlapping themes identified stemmed from the essence of unrelenting responsibility: 1) Assuming additional roles; 2) Ongoing vigilance; 3) Unfulfilled expectations; 4) Emotional burden; 5) Intermittent reprieve. This study assists in understanding the challenges faced by COPD caregivers and further aids in our understanding of how COPD patients manage their condition. In addition, it will facilitate the identification of strategies and actions to meet the needs sensitive to this population.

Informell formativ bedömning är inte bedömning som tenderar att dokumenteras och sammanfattas till ett betyg, utan den bedömning som via dialoger i klassrummet hjälper läraren att avgöra vad eleverna kan eller om de hänger med i det läraren försöker förmedla. För att bedömningen sedan skall vara formativ krävs det att informationen som läraren får fram vid dessa dialoger används som grund i fortsatt undervisning. Syftet med den här studien är att fördjupa kunskapen om informell formativ bedömning inom matema- tik på gymnasieskolan. Vi vill undersöka hur lärare själva menar att de använder informell formativ bedöm- ning i undervisningen utifrån en teori som tillskriver informell formativ bedömning ett antal strategier. För att kunna göra detta kommer vi genomföra kvalitativa intervjuer. Det visade sig att vårt resultat kom att skilja sig från tidigare forskning med liknande teoretisk utgångs- punkt. Denna skillnad kan bero på att vissa strategier används omedvetet av lärarna. Om lärare blir mer medvetna om strategier de använder omedvetet eller strategier de inte använder alls får de en större repertoar av strategier att använda i klassrummet. Detta tror vi kan leda till att undervis- ningskvalitéten ökar och därmed ger elever en bättre chans att lära. / Informal formative assessment is not the assessment that tend to be documented and summarized to a grade, but the assessment through dialogue in the classroom that helps teachers to determine what students know or if they can keep up with what the teacher trying to convey. For the assessment to be formative its required that the information that the teacher collects/gathers in these dialogues is used as a basis for further teaching. The purpose of this study is to widen the knowledge of informal formative assessment in mathematics in secondary school. We wanted to examine how teachers themselves say that they use informal formative assessment in every day teaching based on a theory that ascribes informal formative assessment a number of strategies. To do this, we used qualitative interviews. It turned out that our results were to differ from previous research with similar theoretical basis. Perhaps the differences demonstrate strategies that teachers use unconsciously. If teachers become more aware of the strategies they use unconsciously or strategies they are not using at all, they get a larger repertoire of strategies to use in the classroom. We believe this could lead to an increase in teaching quality, and therefore give students a better chance to learn.

In the 21st century, the delivery of cancer care is facing unprecedented challenges, including an increasing number of cancer patients, a shortage of nursing personnel, a shift in care from in-patient to outpatient facilities, and new technologies requiring additional resources and education. The purpose of this critical qualitative study was to explore how nurses learn to transition into cancer nursing practice (CNP) in the workplace. The inquiry examined the contextual and learning factors that enhanced or impeded the nurses’ transition into diverse cancer settings. A comprehensive literature review was conducted in three areas: workplace identity and transitions; social learning theories and informal learning in nursing practice; and the context of cancerland, namely, cancer system, cancer patients’ experience, and cancer nursing as a specialty. Participants completed a preinterview questionnaire that determined whether they met the criteria and were representative of the phenomenon being studied. Telephone interviews were conducted with 15 nurses with more than 3 months and less than 2 years working in 1 of 4 cancer facilities in Ontario. An interpretive, phenomenological approach was used to formulate a description of the newly hired nurses’ lived experience. Three overarching themes emerged unique to CNP: (a) Getting In - nurses perceptions of their recruitment and selection into CNP; (b) Surviving In - nurses’ struggles learning CNP and the emotional strain of “being with” critically ill and dying patients; and (c) Staying In - factors that impacted the nurses’ decision to stay or leave, such as effective nursing leadership, quality of work life, and accessibility of supports (preceptors and mentors) and professional education. The findings will assist nursing leaders, educators, and preceptors when developing strategies to enhance the recruitment, orientation, and education of nurses into CNP. The review included a description of the ways in which the nurses perceived their new role, as well as the rewards and difficulties they encountered as they coped during their first few months of practice. Also included were descriptions of the ways in which the nurses learned to transition into the different cancer nursing subspecialties of in-patient; outpatient; chemotherapy; radiation therapy; and urban, rural, and remote settings.

Adult educators talk frequently about learning which occurs during daily living; however, relatively few explore the breadth and depth of such learning. I contend that shopping, as it is commonly understood and practiced in Western societies, is a site of everyday learning. Among people concerned about globalisation, this learning connects shopping to the politics of consumption, identity and resistance. Central to this inquiry are Antonio Gramsci's (1971) concepts of hegemony, ideology, common sense and dialectic. These are useful in understanding the irresolvable tensions between the political, economic and cultural arenas of social life. Informed by critical, feminist and critical race scholarship, I proceed to conceptualize adult learning as “incidental” (Foley, 1999, 2001) and holistic. I then conceptualize “consumer-citizenship.” Social relations of gender, race and class are central in the construction of identity which influences experiences and understandings of consumption and citizenship in the context of Canadian society and global development. My over-arching methodology, which I call “case study bricolage,” incorporates qualitative case study methods of interviews, focus groups and participant observation with 32 self-identified “radical shoppers” in Vancouver, British Columbia. As well, I employ cultural studies' intertextuality, and include an analysis of popular fiction to further expose discourses of shopping, consumption and consumerism. Drawing on Laurel Richardson's (2000) “crystallization,” I use various analytical “facets” to respond to three questions about shopping-as-learning: What do participants learn to do? Who do participants learn to be? How do participants learn to make change? Critical media literacy theory illuminates the function of popular culture in constructing a discursive web which shoppers navigate. Through shopping, participants learn how to learn and to conduct research, and how to develop a shopping-related values system, literacy and geography. Benedict Anderson's (1991) concept of “imagined community” helps explicate how participants' affiliations with shopping-related movements provide a sense of purpose and belonging. Finally, Jo Littler's (2005) notions of “narcissistic” and “relational” reflexivity clarify that different processes of reflexivity lead to different perspectives on societal change. This inquiry has implications for research and theorizing in adult learning, and the practice of critical adult education.

Informal settlements around the world are plagued by a general lack of essential infrastructure, scarce and strained resources. This has resulted in glaring sanitation and subsequent health problems. Kenya is a developing country with several informal settlements which lack systems for managing human excreta. Effective management of human excreta remains elusive in the highly populated informal settlements. Sanergy is a socialenterprise that seeks to provide a sustainable human excreta management solution in Kenyan slums. The purpose of this thesis is to assess Sanergy’s project viability in managing human excreta in slums. This analysis is based on qualitative methodology consisting of open and semi-structured interviews, moderate participant observation, focus group discussions as well as some participatory tools such as brainstorming and neighborhood mapping. Additionally this study incorporates GIS mapping information, national and global statistics and a literature review to understand the different dynamics of managing human excreta in a slum context. The result of this paper’s assessment shows the viability of the Sanergy project as a sustainable sanitation solution for Kenyan slums, and beyond. / Sanergy

This dissertation consists of two essays examining formal and informal long term health insurance markets. The first essay analyzes heterogeneity of Long-Term Care Insurance policyholders in their lapse decision, and how their ex-ante and ex-post subjective beliefs about the probability of needing Long-Term Care affect their lapse decisions. In this essay, I develop a model of lapse decision in a two-period insurance framework with a Bayesian learning process and implement several empirical specifications of the model using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. The results show that policyholders' ex- ante point predictions of their probabilities and their uncertainties about them have a persistent but declining impact on lapse decisions. Those who believe that their risk is higher are indeed more likely to remain insured. However, as their uncertainties surrounding their ex-ante point predictions increase, their chances of lapsing increase regardless of their initial perception biases. These results are heterogeneous across cohorts and policyholders and, in particular, show that those in the older group near the average age of Nursing Home entry have a precise prediction of their risk levels compared to the younger cohort. Policy simulations show that a more informed initial purchase decision reduces the chance of lapsing down the road. The second essay examines the extent to which informal risk sharing arrangement provides insurance against health shocks. I develop a comprehensive model of informal risk sharing contract with two-sided limited commitment which extends the standard model to a regime with the following features. Information regarding the nature of realized health shocks is imperfect and individuals' health capital stock serves as a storage technology and is a factor of production. The theoretical results show that, in such a regime, Pareto optimal allocations are history dependent even if participation constraints do not bind. I perform numerical analysis to show that risk sharing against health shock is less likely to be sustainable among non-altruistic individuals with different levels of biological survival rates and health capital productivity. The results also show that optimal allocations vary depending on the set of information available to individuals. Using panel data of households from villages in rural Ethiopia, I test the main predictions of the theoretical model. While there is negative history dependence in transfers among non-altruistic partners, history dependence is positive when risk sharing is along bloodline and kinship. However, neither short-term nor long-term health shocks are insured through informal risk sharing arrangements among non-altruistic individuals.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the workings of multi-scalar networks that connect informal economy organizations that are active locally, nationally and internationally. The study adopts a „right to the city‟ framework wherein the relation between the local and the global is discussed. The main questions that were addressed in the research were (I) how do local, national and global networks among street vendorsand marketers and their organizations shape the resistances of street vendors andmarketers and (II) how do local, national and international networks amongorganizations that work for street vendors and marketers contribute to street vendors‟ and marketers‟ claims to the rights to the city. Qualitative interviews were conducted with street and market vendors operating from urban areas in the Zambian Copperbelt as well as with organizations dealing with market and street vendors in the samegeographical area. Results showed that networks operating on different geographical scales served the street and market vendors as well as their organizations different purposes. Findings are related to the relative importance of the global for the local as well as contemporary theories of democracy and citizenship.

Este estudio se haya enmarcado en la orientación teórica del postfeminismo. Su objetivo es explorar en como influyen en las estrategias y percepciones de cuidado el género y la generación a la que pertenecen las personas cuidadoras informales del ámbito domiciliario. El diseño del estudio es cualitativo. Los participantes son mujeres y hombres cuidadores familiares en domicilio de Mallorca, preferentemente de medio urbano (n=55), de tres generaciones diferentes. La recolección de datos se realizó mediante 14 entrevistas individuales y 6 grupos de discusión respondiendo a los perfiles de los dos géneros y tres generaciones. En los resultados y discusión se analizan los datos obtenidos en referencia a las estrategias, valoración e impacto percibido, así como recursos implicados en el desarrollo del cuidado. Se expone un modelo interpretativo-conceptual del fenómeno así como. también se señalan algunas posibles implicaciones que para la política, la práctica y la investigación puede tener este estudio.

This ethnographic study investigated the interactions between the musical lives of adolescents and school music-learning culture in a suburban high school. Participants included two music teachers and seven adolescents. Framed within a symbolic interactionist perspective (Blumer, 1969), data were collected via methods consistent with qualitative inquiry, including an innovative data collection technique utilizing music elicitation interviews with adolescents. Findings emerged from the data via thematic analysis (Grbich, 2007). Findings indicate limited interactions between the musical lives of adolescents and school music-learning culture because participants portrayed and experienced a dichotomy between the musical assumptions and practices inside and outside of school. Interactions occurred when participants engaged in sharing musical capital that overcame segmentation among music learning, out-of-school experience, and elective participation in secondary school music programs. Supporting findings indicate that the school music-learning culture derived from teachers' negotiating between two major influences: 1) their own musical values, which were based on their musical backgrounds and the long-established professional tradition of formal performance emphases in school music programs; and 2) the musical values of their students. Adolescents self-defined their musical lives as largely informal musical activities commonly experienced outside of school. They expressed a wealth of personal musical knowledge and described their affinity for music across four dimensions: 1) expression and feeling, 2) relevance, 3) quality in artistry and craftsmanship, and 4) diversity. Three themes describe how adolescents’ personal relationships with music influenced their beliefs and choices regarding music participation and learning: 1) musical roots: nurturing personal and social connections with music, 2) motivated learning: seeking relevance and challenge, and 3) finding a voice: striving toward musical independence. Findings indicate that music teachers may enhance interactions between adolescents’ musical lives and school music-learning culture by acknowledging students’ musical engagement outside of school, honoring their personal musical knowledge and interests, and making them collaborators in developing music-learning models rooted in their affinity for, and personal relationships with, music.

The dissertation explores how distinctive institutional factors related to property rights determine urban development patterns and housing tenure modalities in a developing economy context. The first part proposes a choice-theoretic model that explains the existence of the Antichresis contractual arrangement as a way to temporarily divide property rights. The model explains why the Antichresis contract dominates the Periodic-Rent contract in terms of landlord profits for certain types of property in which the gains in expected profits from solving the problem of adverse selection of tenants offset the loss of expected profits created by the moral hazard in landlords investments. The empirical section of the dissertation provides evidence in support of the model. Using data from Bolivia, I find that property types that require less landlord maintenance investment have higher capitalization rates under Antichresis contracts than they would under Monthly-Rent contracts and vice-versa. Additionally, the model shows that the Antichresis contract has limited capacity for helping the poor as suggested by recent literature. On the contrary, it can be hurtful for the poor in markets were landlords have limited information about tenants, in markets with inefficient court systems, or in markets with tenant-friendly regulations. The second part of the dissertation explores the issue of squatter settlements in the developing world. The theoretical model presented in this part explains how the landlord squatter strategies based on credible threats drive capital investment incentives and ultimately shape urban land development in areas with pervasive squatting. The model predicts that squatter settlements develop with higher structural densities than formal sector development. This prediction explains why property owners of housing that originated in squatter settlements take longer periods of time to upgrade than comparable property owners who built in the formal sector even after they receive titles to their property. The higher original structural density increases the marginal benefit of waiting in the redeveloping decision creating a legacy effect of high-density low-quality housing in these types of settlements. Geo-coded data from Cochabamba, Bolivia, support the hypotheses proposed by the theoretical model and raise questions about the unintended consequences of current policies affecting informal development.