Women in general have been historically overlooked in society and, more recently, in research females with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) have been unnoticed (Rice, Merves, & Srsic, 2008). The purpose of the current study is to build a foundation of knowledge and practices for educators and researchers to better support and education this unique population of females. To better understand females with EBD, the researcher imposed a three-phase study, situated in two frameworks-the Culturally Responsive Theory Framework (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995) and the Participation-Identification Model (Finn, 1989), to look into the predictors of school engagement for females with EBD. In the first phase the researcher utilized quantitative data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 to build three structural equation models (SEM) on the predictors of school engagement for students with EBD. Results and procedures are discussed for each SEM created. During phase two the researcher shifted the focus to females with EBD and interviewed six current females with EBD, ages 14-17. The participants were engaged in separate interviews that allowed the researcher to uncover additional variables necessary for females with EBD to engage in the school setting. The third phase consisted of an intersection of phases one and two to create a newly developed SEM model for females with EBD merging the interviews and the SEM built in phase one. The newly developed SEM is provided for future research, as well as are the provision of recommendations and implications of the results from the study.

Civic engagement is a fundamental component of a healthy democracy, contributing to higher government accountability and overall improvement in "good governance". Civic engagement is particularly critical to subgroups which are under-represented in formal political structures, such as women, as it affords these groups the opportunity to voice their unique concerns. However, women participate less in many important forms of civic engagement. The United Nations and other international organizations have emphasized the importance of increasing women's voice and empowerment in an attempt to improve women's overall well-being, particularly in the developing world. Individual and contextual factors have demonstrated contributions toward influencing levels of civic engagement, but these effects only serve in partially explaining why women are less engaged. This study adds to this discussion by examining gender differences in the development and contribution of social capital (measured by networks and trust) to civic engagement within two young and developing democracies; Ecuador and Peru. The study finds that gender differences exist in how social capital is formed, but these differences don't explain women's decreased likelihood for engagement. Thus, social capital can be used to build civic engagement among both genders.

Although the commercially-popular construct of employee engagement has gained attention in scholarly work in recent years, several questions about the construct remain unresolved. In the current paper, I addressed several issues with previous engagement research by (a) meta-analyzing the relationship between employee engagement, task performance, contextual performance, absenteeism, and turnover, (b) using these meta-analytic estimates to fit a series of models in which engagement predicts both specific and broadly-defined work behaviors, and (c) estimating the unique predictive validity of engagement above and beyond job attitudes. Several regression equations and structural equation models were tested using a combination of previous meta-analytic correlations (k = 95) and original meta-analytic correlations (k = 12). Results of the study found that engagement does offer unique incremental validity over several work-related behaviors (task performance, ∆R2 = .037; contextual performance, ∆R2 = .025; turnover, ∆R2 = .083), however this incremental validity has been over-stated in previous research. Results also found that the A-factor (higher order attitudinal construct) is strongly related to behavioral engagement (higher order behavioral construct) (Γ = .62) suggesting that when attitudes and behaviors are examined on the same level of specificity there is a strong predictive relationship between the two. These results suggest that although engagement may not be as unique as previous research has implied it does offer utility in the sense that it acts as a proxy for the A-factor

This multiple-article dissertation explores institutional support for student academic engagement through the lens of the Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework. A literature synthesis explores the current research on teaching assistant (TA) support in online and blended environments in higher education, with a special emphasis on their role in providing support for affective engagement, in addition to supporting cognitive and behavioral engagement. The review suggests that additional research needs to be done in this area to better understand the role of TAs in online environments and how institutions can prepare them for this role through meaningful training. The second article provides insight into students' barriers to learning online and how the institution can support these students. Researchers gathered survey results of 1295 university students regarding the barriers they experience and the support they receive from the institution to support their academic engagement. Descriptive statistics and thematic coding revealed specific practices institutions could implement to help students overcome barriers to fully engaging in their learning. The third article presents how online teaching assistants (OLTAs) interact with students to support their engagement in online and blended learning courses and how a training course may influence their interactions. Researchers gathered data from a tracking instrument that documented OLTA-student interactions over a 2-week period and conducted interviews with 10 OLTAs. Descriptive statistics and thematic coding indicated that TAs supported students in several ways and that their training program most likely influenced how they approached these interactions.

No description available.

<p>Socioeconomic inequalities in health research comprises the investigation of the pathways through which differential access to resources affects the distribution of morbidity and mortality in the population. Because many of the factors that influence health are cumulative, researchers have incorporated a life course approach into their work by linking socioeconomic conditions in one stage of the life course to health at a later stage. The childhood period has acquired particular significance due to conflicting theories about the relative importance of early life events for health inequalities during adulthood.</p> <p>Using seven waves of the child component of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (1986-98), I employ generalized linear mixed models to examine the effect of household income on child physical and mental health over the entire childhood period. The results of this dissertation support the hypothesis that household income influences the physical and mental health of children, both concurrently and over time. In generalized linear mixed models, the stable component of household income, that is, the average household income for a given child over the period in which he or she is observed, exerts a strong influence on risk for child chronic health limitation, child anxiety/depression and antisocial behaviour, and to a lesser extent, child medically attended accident or injury. However, the dynamic component of household income, defined as deviations in household income over time from the observed average of that household, is mostly unrelated to child health.</p> <p>These findings have broader implications for life course theory and for the discipline of sociology as health inequalities researchers track the impact of socially significant events over time and reveal the long term processes underlying the social distribution of health.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

From changing consumer relationships to demands for new experiences, performing arts institutions are under increasing pressure to embrace digital transformation. Technology is altering how audiences engage with the arts. Preferences and consumption habits are rapidly evolving. Strategies to sustain existing formats, customers, and revenue models are unlikely to succeed. Cultural institutions in general and performing arts such as orchestras, ballets, and operas are rapidly adopting technology – with millions of social media followers, streaming services, and online ticketing. Yet, these initiatives are fragmented, hard to assess, and there is very little known on how to digitally transform performing arts institutions overall. This research asks: What are the mechanisms driving digital innovation in performing arts institutions, and specifically in orchestras? The research approach includes three qualitative studies, which use a semi-structured questionnaire with fifty performing arts organizations. Study 1 explores the overall practice of digital innovation in the performing arts. Study 2 more specifically examines the role of engagement as a mechanism to understand digital transformation in the performing arts in general, and orchestras in particular. Study 3 maps the mechanisms of digital engagement to uncover digital transformation in the performing arts and defines engagement. This research makes several contributions to theory and practice by identifying the performing arts as an important area for applying digital transformation. A research framework was developed through synthesis of performing arts, innovation, business model, and engagement literature. Engagement was defined and identified as an important construct for digital transformation. The components, development, instantiation, and impact of engagement were elaborated in a set of propositions that summarize the role of digital transformation in the performing arts. Finally, the research provides recommendations and action items for arts administrators. / Business Administration/Management Information Systems

The curriculum emphasizes the importance of social science teachers to affect students to be active, democratic and participating citizens. At the same time the interest in politics among students has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the 21th century. Apart from the diminishing interest in politics, studies have shown that students are given different civic skills and competencies depending on their choice of educational path. This study takes an interest to understand what affects students' engagement in democracy and politics, and how it differs between last-year students from study preparatory and vocational education. This study also aims to understand how the programs differ in the experience of social science teaching and how it has affected their civic engagement. This study utilized qualitative group interviews with students from both educational paths, the results of this study illustrate that differences in political engagement, depending on educational path, do exist. The differences in education of social science has given different prerequisites to be politically engaged for study preparatory- and vocational students. / <p>Godkänd 2024-04-05</p>

Yes / The current research is concerned with identifying and testing the role of three main predictors: consumer involvement, consumer participation, and self-expressive brand on the customer brand engagement (CBE). The customer brand engagement is treated in the current study as multidimensional constructs comprising three main aspects: cognitive processing (CP), affection (AF), and activation (AC). It was also proposed a direct influence for these three aspects of CBE on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Using online surveys, we gathered data from fans/followers of mobile phone service providers, via Facebook fan pages in Jordan. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Based on structural equation modelling analyses (SEM), it was supported that CBE aspects were largely predicted by the role of consumer involvement (INV), consumer participation (COP), and self-expressive brand (SEB). However, we find that activation impact one dimension of the CBBE dimensions, namely, brand loyalty. Further, we find that brand awareness/associations affect perceived quality but not brand loyalty. To validate the CBE scale, future studies could investigate the impact of the scale using other social media platforms for different brands. The limited amount of empirical research on CBE was the motivation behind this research. In particular, there is no study that has investigated the main predictors of CBE and its consequences over developing context by proposing and testing the association between the antecedents of CBE with the dimensions of CBE, which in turn affect the dimensions of CBBE.

The aim of this study is to learn more about how teachers experience student’s engagement and how they work to engage their students. The study focuses on teachers who teaches the lower grades. The essential method of the study is semi structured interviews with teachers who teach mathematics in grades 1-3. The study showed that teachers characterize student engagement in that students are positive, curious, involved, show interest and that they take initiative. This indicates a behavioural engagement. The teachers work with level adjustment and varying teaching to engage the students which indicates a cognitive engagement. Important prerequisites for a student involvement were smaller groups and to meet the students’ needs and interests. One condition that was considered to have a negative effect on student engagement was a lack of time in teacher’s planning and teaching. The conclusion shows that teachers look at student engagement through behavioural engagement but that they work to increase student engagement through cognitive engagement.