The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of mentoring amongst administrative women in higher education from an appreciative perspective. In 1985, Kathy Kram published her book on mentoring entitled, Mentoring at Work. This seminal work provided an initial body of knowledge that helped scholars conceptualize mentoring and encouraged a proliferation of research, in what was then an emerging topic for academic inquiry. However, twenty years after Kram advanced her understandings of mentoring, Chandler and Kram (2005) reported that [t]o date, multiple definitions of a mentor have been advanced, but researchers in the field have not unconditionally accepted any specific one (p. 5).<p> Mentoring has suffered from a lack of definitional and conceptual clarity. This lack of clarity has hampered research efforts and rendered research vulnerable to criticism. This lack of clarity has also made implementation of mentoring programs difficult with respect to whom or what exactly is providing the benefit.<p> This study explored the concept of mentoring through focus groups with administrative women in higher education. The study was conducted within a qualitative paradigm, adapting elements from the work on grounded theory by Corbin and Strauss (2008). Focus groups were used to gather the data, with the questions based on the appreciative inquiry method. The worldview underlying the methodological orientation and study design is best described as constructionist. A constructionist worldview assumes that knowledge is constructed as persons explain or try to make sense of their experiences in the context of conversing with others.<p> I anticipated the findings of this study would be significant to mentoring research in three ways. In the study, I addressed the lack of definitional and conceptual clarity of mentoring that have presented academic and practical challenges; I employed a methodological orientation and study design that focused on understanding the participants recollected experiences of relationships that have worked; and the population of interest (administrative women in higher education) was one that had been understudied in mentoring research.<p> In addition to my academic interest in mentoring I was intrigued by the myth behind mentoring. References to the mythical figure, Mentor, in Homers Odyssey abound and yet two important points about Mentor have gone largely unnoticed. First Mentor was actually a woman. Mentor was Athena. That Mentor embodied both male and female characteristics may be interpreted to suggest that features of both sexes are necessary to mentoring. The second point is that Mentor was only one of the disguises Athena wore in order to provide advice and guidance to Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus. The second point may be interpreted to suggest that it takes more than one kind of person or relationship to provide the full range of support that an individual requires over the course of their career. It was my hope that this study would help reconcile the myth of Mentor with the reality of mentoring.

In December of 2002, an organization called Clonaid released the news that the first human clone had been born. This company is the offspring of an emerging religious movement, the Raelian movement. Whether the story is true or not, the emergence and growth of this movement suggest that people are looking beyond major world religions, creating a religious outlook (which is a hybrid of dominant religions) with the tenets of extraterrestrial intelligent design, human consciousness, and scientific and technological development. It is a new spin on science as religion, with components of science fiction.<p>To better understand the significance of this movement in contemporary North American culture, the following research is based upon a narrative analysis of the accounts of five members of the movement. The thesis will elaborate on such topics as the sociology of religion, science, biotechnology, social movements and cults, science fiction, and the role of stories in shaping meaning of our place and relationships in the world. The reason for this study is to ascertain characteristics of those participating in the movement: who is joining, why they are joining, and what they are getting out of it. The research uses narrative analysis to focus on the stories of individual members, to provide the best view of the movement, from the inside-out. What emerges is an elaborate depiction of the significance of the Raelian movement in the world through individual members interpretations.

The death of a spouse is one of the most profound and life-altering events adults will ever experience. While the experience of spousal bereavement is traumatic at any time, there is evidence to support the fact that young women who are widowed experience unique challenges. The purpose of studying young widows was to understand the meaning of spousal bereavement for individual participants. The research tradition of phenomenology was chosen to inform the study, and the guiding question became what is the lived experience of spousal bereavement for young women? The study participants were five women who were under the age of 45 at the time of their husbands death. The experiences of these young widows were illuminated through stories and reflections on the journey of a young widow. Five themes emerged from their experiences. Young widows grieve both the loss of a companion and the death of their dreams. Accompanying these losses can be the challenges of single parenthood, the need for career, financial and lifestyle changes, and the readjustment to life as a single adult. Increased understanding from the perspective of the bereaved widow, along with strategies and interventions for nurses working with this group of women, will provide nurses and health care professionals with skills to better assist this client population.

This dissertation describes a research study that investigated cooperative inquiry as a strategy for professional learning of inner-city school principals in a large urban centre in Western Canada. The study attempted to identify the central issues of concern and means of redress for school leaders in high-poverty communities, many of which focused on educational leadership, school management, the context of their schools within impoverished communities, and the challenges of personal well-being. The findings suggest that cooperative inquiry was an effective strategy in that the approach was participatory, democratic, empowering, life-enhancing, and fostered community-building among participants. The findings also suggest that the approach was effective in that it was grounded in the action research cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The study further examined the use of dialogue as a means of constructing knowledge regarding these issues, and identified the ways in which such knowledge impacts upon the professional practice of these principals. Findings suggest that participants gained knowledge from each other, offered knowledge from others, constructed knowledge together as a group, and developed deeper understandings of their own perspectives. Findings also suggest that meaning is lost when dialogic interactions are transcribed into print. Thus, dialogue is a form of communication in and of itself, one that cannot simply be transformed into the written word without losing part of that dialogic essence. Further, this study posits that dialogue has unique power to be both a process for meaning making, as well as an ontological means of clarifying one’s own sense of reality. / October 2008

This narrative inquiry explores the curriculum making experiences and stories of three teachers - Claire, an early childhood educator, Rita, a middle years teacher, and Leah, a primary grades teacher - who taught students with a chronic illness. The research wonders of this thesis asked the following questions: what does it mean to engage in the curriculum around chronic illness? How do the teachers influence such a curriculum? What is the teacher's position within it? Do they experience a shift in knowledge, awareness, perception, or practice while engaged in this curriculum making? Derived from individual semi-structured interviews ranging from 25 minutes to one hour, a narrative account of each teacher is presented and inquired into within the three dimensional inquiry space, defined to include temporality, sociality, and place. The concept of a curriculum around chronic illness is presented. This curriculum focuses on the active construction of lives shaped by a chronic illness. In this research, the curriculum around chronic illness required the negotiation, and sometimes renegotiation, of liminal spaces. Liminality, found in the making of a curriculum around chronic illness, brought the teachers of this research to the peripheries of their students' worlds, where they learned, in time, to perceive their students and themselves wholly. The three teachers, through their unique positioning of their stories to live by, created new forward-looking stories (Nelson, 1999) that guided their teaching; stories marked by inclusion, community, loving perceptions, and care.

The death of a spouse is one of the most profound and life-altering events adults will ever experience. While the experience of spousal bereavement is traumatic at any time, there is evidence to support the fact that young women who are widowed experience unique challenges. The purpose of studying young widows was to understand the meaning of spousal bereavement for individual participants. The research tradition of phenomenology was chosen to inform the study, and the guiding question became what is the lived experience of spousal bereavement for young women? The study participants were five women who were under the age of 45 at the time of their husbands death. The experiences of these young widows were illuminated through stories and reflections on the journey of a young widow. Five themes emerged from their experiences. Young widows grieve both the loss of a companion and the death of their dreams. Accompanying these losses can be the challenges of single parenthood, the need for career, financial and lifestyle changes, and the readjustment to life as a single adult. Increased understanding from the perspective of the bereaved widow, along with strategies and interventions for nurses working with this group of women, will provide nurses and health care professionals with skills to better assist this client population.

In December of 2002, an organization called Clonaid released the news that the first human clone had been born. This company is the offspring of an emerging religious movement, the Raelian movement. Whether the story is true or not, the emergence and growth of this movement suggest that people are looking beyond major world religions, creating a religious outlook (which is a hybrid of dominant religions) with the tenets of extraterrestrial intelligent design, human consciousness, and scientific and technological development. It is a new spin on science as religion, with components of science fiction.<p>To better understand the significance of this movement in contemporary North American culture, the following research is based upon a narrative analysis of the accounts of five members of the movement. The thesis will elaborate on such topics as the sociology of religion, science, biotechnology, social movements and cults, science fiction, and the role of stories in shaping meaning of our place and relationships in the world. The reason for this study is to ascertain characteristics of those participating in the movement: who is joining, why they are joining, and what they are getting out of it. The research uses narrative analysis to focus on the stories of individual members, to provide the best view of the movement, from the inside-out. What emerges is an elaborate depiction of the significance of the Raelian movement in the world through individual members interpretations.

The purpose of this inquiry was to retell and represent the life that I have lived as I explore how I adapted my professional practice for students in an alternative program. This naturalistic inquiry is positioned as a self narrative. Retrospection and reflection enabled me to bring together my construction of self and my journey of teaching as I attempted to explain how I know what I know about working with at risk students and alternative programming. <p>The collection of data comes from my personal experience; thus I am observer, participant, and narrator. Threaded throughout this thesis are interwoven stories which create the fabric of my teaching experience. Each narrative represents justification of teacher knowledge and a refocusing of the lens through which I viewed at risk students and their marginalized position in our education system. As teachers we must first establish a relationship with our students and develop an empathetic understanding of the circumstances of the life experiences each one brings to the classroom. By understanding their past, we can make the school experience a positive influence in their lives and hopefully smooth out their way to a successful future.

The goal of nursing is to promote health and alleviate suffering. Using Appreciative Inquiry, this study explored the possibilities for the nursing profession to reduce the health implications of poverty. Select Saskatchewan registered nurses (RNs) engaged in appreciative interviews that identified positive experiences working with low income clients. The participants were activists challenging the status quo through their practice. Analysis illuminated the best practices of these RNs, constructing a vision for change rooted in their understanding clients realities and communicating those realities through advocacy. By bringing their personal passions to client interactions, and connecting with a broader social justice context, RNs create an opportunity to respond to the effects of income inequities on health.

The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of mentoring amongst administrative women in higher education from an appreciative perspective. In 1985, Kathy Kram published her book on mentoring entitled, Mentoring at Work. This seminal work provided an initial body of knowledge that helped scholars conceptualize mentoring and encouraged a proliferation of research, in what was then an emerging topic for academic inquiry. However, twenty years after Kram advanced her understandings of mentoring, Chandler and Kram (2005) reported that [t]o date, multiple definitions of a mentor have been advanced, but researchers in the field have not unconditionally accepted any specific one (p. 5).<p> Mentoring has suffered from a lack of definitional and conceptual clarity. This lack of clarity has hampered research efforts and rendered research vulnerable to criticism. This lack of clarity has also made implementation of mentoring programs difficult with respect to whom or what exactly is providing the benefit.<p> This study explored the concept of mentoring through focus groups with administrative women in higher education. The study was conducted within a qualitative paradigm, adapting elements from the work on grounded theory by Corbin and Strauss (2008). Focus groups were used to gather the data, with the questions based on the appreciative inquiry method. The worldview underlying the methodological orientation and study design is best described as constructionist. A constructionist worldview assumes that knowledge is constructed as persons explain or try to make sense of their experiences in the context of conversing with others.<p> I anticipated the findings of this study would be significant to mentoring research in three ways. In the study, I addressed the lack of definitional and conceptual clarity of mentoring that have presented academic and practical challenges; I employed a methodological orientation and study design that focused on understanding the participants recollected experiences of relationships that have worked; and the population of interest (administrative women in higher education) was one that had been understudied in mentoring research.<p> In addition to my academic interest in mentoring I was intrigued by the myth behind mentoring. References to the mythical figure, Mentor, in Homers Odyssey abound and yet two important points about Mentor have gone largely unnoticed. First Mentor was actually a woman. Mentor was Athena. That Mentor embodied both male and female characteristics may be interpreted to suggest that features of both sexes are necessary to mentoring. The second point is that Mentor was only one of the disguises Athena wore in order to provide advice and guidance to Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus. The second point may be interpreted to suggest that it takes more than one kind of person or relationship to provide the full range of support that an individual requires over the course of their career. It was my hope that this study would help reconcile the myth of Mentor with the reality of mentoring.