As the population ages and income disparities increase, issues affecting older adults and marginalized individuals are examined more frequently. Despite this, little attention is paid to the community experiences of women over the age of fifty who face marginalization, criminalization and homelessness. This study is an institutional ethnography of older marginalized women in Ottawa, focusing on their identities, lives and their experiences of community life. Its findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork as well as interviews with 27 older marginalized women and 16 professionals working with this group. The women described their identities, social networks, daily activities and navigations of their communities as well as the policy and discursive framework in which their lives are situated. Regardless of whether the women had housing or were staying in shelters, upheaval, uncertainty and change characterized their experiences in the community, reflecting their current circumstances, but also their life courses. Their accounts also revealed how, through social support, community services, and personal resilience, older marginalized women negotiate daily life and find places and spaces for themselves in their communities. As an institutional ethnography, this research foregrounds participants’ responses, framing these with theoretical lenses examining mobilities, identity, social capital, governmentality, and stigma. Specifically, it uses the lenses of mobilities and identities to understand the nature of their community experiences, before moving outward to examine their social networks and the world around them. Governmentality theory is also used to describe the neoliberal context framing their community experiences. The study concludes with a reflection on the research and a set of policy recommendations arising from the study.

Orientador: Adrián Oscar Dongo Montoya / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como principal objetivo o estudo do desenvolvimento moral e da troca simbólica junto à crianças de bairros marginalizados, ou seja, crianças que vivem na pobreza e sofrem opressão social. Por serem crianças que vivem essa condição social, sofrem relações de opressão e vivem uma "cultura do silencio" que dificulta o desenvolvimento das suas capacidades cognitivas e dos seus sentimentos morais. Deste modo, nos perguntamos: de que modo esse meio social influi no desenvolvimento moral dessas crianças, particularmente dos seus julgamentos morais? Para responder a essa questão, estudamos as relações de crianças de 7 a 12 anos com os membros que as rodeiam. A pesquisa se cumpre em uma instituição social localizada em um bairro de periferia da cidade do interior de São Paulo. Por meio de entrevistas, verificamos os julgamentos morais em função da mentira das crianças, a partir de histórias elaboradas por Piaget e levantamos as trocas simbólicas no seio familiar e institucional. No ambiente familiar, estudamos o seu cotidiano onde se produz o cumprimento de obrigações e deveres, brincadeiras, conflitos com autoridades e iguais. No ambiente institucional, estudamos o modelo de relação existente, se há a possibilidade de trocas simbólicas e reflexão sobre as atividades feitas. O referencial teórico principal foi o de Jean Piaget. Nossas conclusões apontam para uma relação entre os julgamentos morais e as trocas simbólicas. As crianças que apresentaram uma tendência de ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This work has as its mainly objective the purpose of studying the moral development and the symbolic exchange among marginalized neighborhoods children, in other words, children living in poverty and suffering social opression. For being children living under this social condition, they suffer opression relationships and abide by what they call "Culture of the Silence", making things harder for the development of their cognitive abilities and their moral feelings. Thus, we ask ourselves: in which way this social enviroment influences these children moral development, particularly their moral judgement? To answer that question, we have been studying the relationships of children from 7 to 12 years old among the members surrounding them during daily life. The survey has been acomplished in a social institution located in a suburban neighborhood of a city in the countryside of São Paulo state. Through interviews, we have verified the moral judgements in function of the children's lies, as of histories elaborated by Piaget; we were able to bring up the symbolic exchanges among the family and institutionally. In the family enviroment, we have study their daily life where the acomplishment of obligations and chores, children's play, conflicts towards authorities and equals could be seen. In the institutional enviroment, we have study the relationship model existent, if there is the possibility of symbolic exchanges and reflection about the activities that just have been done. The m... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

As the population ages and income disparities increase, issues affecting older adults and marginalized individuals are examined more frequently. Despite this, little attention is paid to the community experiences of women over the age of fifty who face marginalization, criminalization and homelessness. This study is an institutional ethnography of older marginalized women in Ottawa, focusing on their identities, lives and their experiences of community life. Its findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork as well as interviews with 27 older marginalized women and 16 professionals working with this group. The women described their identities, social networks, daily activities and navigations of their communities as well as the policy and discursive framework in which their lives are situated. Regardless of whether the women had housing or were staying in shelters, upheaval, uncertainty and change characterized their experiences in the community, reflecting their current circumstances, but also their life courses. Their accounts also revealed how, through social support, community services, and personal resilience, older marginalized women negotiate daily life and find places and spaces for themselves in their communities. As an institutional ethnography, this research foregrounds participants’ responses, framing these with theoretical lenses examining mobilities, identity, social capital, governmentality, and stigma. Specifically, it uses the lenses of mobilities and identities to understand the nature of their community experiences, before moving outward to examine their social networks and the world around them. Governmentality theory is also used to describe the neoliberal context framing their community experiences. The study concludes with a reflection on the research and a set of policy recommendations arising from the study.

Infertile and childless women think about, live with, and defend their status as mothers and as nonmothers, arguably more so than other women for whom motherhood comes about accidentally or relatively easily in accordance with a plan. Within this group of infertile and childless women are those who are otherwise socially marginalized by factors like class, race, age, marital status, and sexual identity. This dissertation asks about the ways in which marginalized infertile and childless women in America make sense of their situations given the climate of “stratified reproduction” in which the motherhood mandate excludes them or applies to them only obliquely. While other researchers focus on inequalities in access to treatment to explain why many marginalized women eschew medically assisted reproduction and adoption, I emphasize women’s resistance to these attempts at normalization. I take a critical, poststructural, feminist stance within a constructivist analytical framework to suggest that the medicalization, commodification, and bureaucratization of the most available alternative paths to motherhood create the role of the “infertile woman”—i.e., the white, middle class, heternormative, married, “desperate and damaged” cum savvy consumer. By contrast, the women who participated in this study are better described as the “ambivalent childless” (i.e., neither voluntary nor involuntary) and the “pragmatic infertile.” These women experience infertility and childlessness—two interrelated, potentially stigmatizing “roles”—in ways that belie this stereotype, reject the associated stigma in favor of an abiding, dynamic ambivalence, and re-assert themselves as fulfilled women in spite of their presumed deviance.

SAMMANFATTNING Studien var en jämförande longitudinell studie där syftet var att undersöka om den självskattade hälsan förbättrades för personer (n=14) som deltagit i hälsokurs inom arbetsmarknadsprojektet Romano Zor. Frågeställningen var: förändras självskattad hälsa över tid för deltagare i ett arbetsmarknadsprojekt? Datainsamlingsmetod var Hälsoenkät SF-36 som mäter självrapporterad fysisk och psykisk hälsa, med åtta delskalor. Resultatet visar att romerna, i basmätningen (n=28), skattade sin hälsa sämre än personerna i normdata grupperna, i samtliga skalor. I fem delskalor skattar deltagarna (n=14), som svarade på enkäten även vid andra mätningen, sin hälsa sämre efter att de genomgått projektet (mätning över tid). Kvinnorna skattar generellt sin hälsa sämre än männen. Undantaget en fråga som rör förändring av hälsan över tid, där kvinnorna skattar bättre hälsa än männen. I denna fråga skattar majoriteten av deltagarna en bättre eller likvärdig hälsa i andra mätningen, jämfört med bas mätningen. Slutsats: personer med romskt ursprung som deltar i en hälsokurs i ett arbetsmarknadsprojekt, skattar en förbättrad  hälsa över tid i några hälsofaktorer, mätt med hälsoenkät SF 36. / ABSTRACT The study was a comparative longitudinal study where the aim was to investigate whether self-rated health improved for persons (n=14) who participated in the health course in a labor project Romano Zor. The issue was: changed self-rated health over time for participants in a social project? Data collection method was a health survey SF-36, which measures self-rated physical and mental health, with eight sub-scales. The results show that the Roma, in the base measurement  (n = 28), rated their health worse than their counterparts in standard data groups, in all scales.  In five sub-scales underestimate the participants (n = 14), respondents were also at the second measurement, their health worse after they completed the project (measurement over time). The women generally underestimate their health worse than men. The exception a matter related to changes in health over time, with women underestimating better health than men. In this case overestimate the majority of the participants a better or equivalent health in the second measurement, compared to base measurement. Conclusion: The people of Roma origin who participate in a health course in a labor market project, estimate health improvement over time in any health factors, as measured by the health questionnaire SF- 36.

ABSTRACT Providing equitable learning opportunities for all students has been a persistent issue for some time. This is evident by the science achievement gap that still exists between male and female students as well as between White and many non-White student populations (NCES, 2007, 2009, 2009b) and an underrepresentation of female, African-American, Hispanic, and Native Americans in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related careers (NCES, 2009b). In addition to gender and ethnicity, socioeconomic status and linguistic differences are also factors that can marginalize students in the science classroom. One factor attributed to the achievement gap and low participation in STEM career is equitable access to resources including textbooks, laboratory equipment, qualified science teachers, and type of instruction. Extensive literature supports authentic science as one way of improving science learning. However, the majority of students do not have access to this type of resource. Additionally, extensive literature posits that culturally relevant pedagogy is one way of improving education. This study examines students' participation in an authentic science experience and argues that this is one way of providing culturally relevant pedagogy in science classrooms. The purpose of this study was to better understand how marginalized students were affected by their participation in an authentic science experience, within the context of an algae biofuel project. Accordingly, an interpretivist approach was taken. Data were collected from pre/post surveys and tests, semi-structured interviews, student journals, and classroom observations. Data analysis used a mixed methods approach. The data from this study were analyzed to better understand whether students perceived the experience to be one of authentic science, as well as how students science identities, perceptions about who can do science, attitudes toward science, and learning of science practices were affected by participation in an authentic science experience. Findings indicated that participation in an authentic science experience has a positive effect on science identities, scientist perceptions, science attitudes, and learning of science and is one approach to mitigating the effects of marginalization in the science classroom. Additional findings indicated that a relationship between the authenticity of the experience and the outcomes (science identity, perceptions about who can do science, science attitudes, and learning of science). This study provides empirical evidence to support authentic science learning as a means of improving students' learning, attitudes, and identities with respect to science. This study endorses authentic science experiences for all students, marginalized included. This has implications for how we prepare future and support current science teachers. In addition, this study shows how this model can be used to effectively implement science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

The marginalization index for each municipality in Mexico confirms that the country is characterized by substantial economic inequality. Using this index as a tool to measure inequality in urbanization and data from the Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), this work first analyzes observed spatial patterns of the marginalization index. Next, this dissertation analyzes the association between marginalization and mortality patterns inside Mexico. Overall, there is evidence of high marginalization linked to high mortality rates. Factors that might influence marginalization like geographical differences do not seem to influence the relationship between marginalization and mortality. Factors like migration and indigenous population percentages show more relevance in explaining the association between marginalization and mortality as a social causation effect. / text

The prevalence rate of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Brazil has stabilized since the year 2000 at approximately 0.35 percent of the total population (600,000 people). Most researchers and political actors agree that the success in HIV management has been highly correlated with some of the policies that the Brazilian government has implemented concerning the HIV/ AIDS positive population (Levi et al 2002; Dourado 2006; Parker 2009). With worldwide recognition of this accomplishment, one must wonder why it is that the North and Northeast regions of Brazil have been experiencing trends of increasing HIV/ AIDS incidence in the past decade (Nunn et al 2009). This study concentrates on the spatial distribution of HIV incidence in the year 2000, as it uncovers how HIV distribution can be related to aspects of marginalization in the second-most populous Northeastern municipality; Fortaleza, Brazil. The central hypothesis of this research states that HIV incidence is positively correlated with rate of marginalization. Marginalization is considered as the sector of population without access to basic social services, such as education, running water, and appropriate housing. Spatial patterns of HIV and marginalization are examined and interpreted in the context of the Brazilian Model. This research suggests that although marginalization has a strong spatial pattern, HIV is not demographically or geographically discriminatory. / text

Airships and Angels is a faux Victorian travel journal created through collaboration with Kristina Krumholt and Rudy Ramirez. Ultimately, the goal of the thesis project is to disrupt traditional hierarchical creative processes by challenging the order in which artifacts are crafted during the creation of a narrative structure and, ultimately, a performance. The end product is a leather book that is shared in the manner of rare books (by appointment and in a controlled environment) for a week, and two special two-night readings with projected imagery at the end of the week. In this process I first created concept art and the text was created afterwards by Krumholt. Once the text was complete the two artifacts were brought together and developed further. Eventually all the images were drawn and the book was printed, bound, and performed. / text

Northern British Columbian Aboriginal mothers raising adolescents with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) face many challenges. This interpretive ethnography provides an understanding of how these mothers interpreted and responded to their adolescents' FASD. It affirms the experiences of Aboriginal mothers and acknowledges their life stories and those of their adolescent children.The concepts of vulnerability, marginalization, and mothering, conceptualized within the theoretical perspectives of postcolonialism, provided the framework for this study. Postcolonial perspectives were particularly relevant to this research: the explicit aftereffects of colonialism on the well-being of Aboriginal women have shaped the worldview of mainstream society resulting in marginalization and stigmatization. A postcolonial perspective suggests that FASD is a problem compounded by colonization; until the underlying compounding issues are addressed, the incidence of FASD among Aboriginal people will continue to increase.English-speaking Aboriginal women with one or more children between the ages of 14 and 18 years affected by FASD were recruited for the study. Appropriate measures were taken to ensure trustworthiness, verisimilitude, and legitimacy. Data collection included three sequential audio-recorded interviews with eight women over a specific time. Interview data were enhanced by document review, intervals of observation participation, and the examination of other historically and culturally relevant data.The interpretive theory derived from the data, Mothering from the Margins, explains how Aboriginal mothers raise their adolescent children who have FASD. The theory provides a perspective that enables nurses to view mothers with adolescents affected by FASD in an all-encompassing manner, and unifies the experiences of participants mothering adolescents with FASD. Aboriginal mothers of adolescents with FASD continue to experience societal blame and marginalization for consuming alcohol during pregnancy. This study extends the knowledge of how this blaming and marginalization experience plays out in the lives of both mothers and children. The findings debunk the stereotypical myth that Aboriginal mothers are not good mothers. In fact, the findings from this study demonstrate how, despite all the difficulties and challenges faced by study participants, they have demonstrated adaptability, confidence, and care in their mothering roles.