This thesis contributes to discussion surrounding the importance of reflexivity in social theory and sociology by illustrating some of the paradoxes involved in the development of a reflexive social science. It does this by focusing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, arguably the main advocate of relexive sociology. It is argued that Bourdieu's emphasis on a 'science of practices' limits his ability to be completely relexive because it excludes moral reflexivity. This is ironic, given that Bourdieu believes that reflexivity increases scientificity. The thesis argues that Max Weber's work on religious rationalisation offers an insightful understanding of these paradoxes. His work reveals how and why Modernity witnessed a separation and tension between moral reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity. It also reveals, despite Weber's best efforts to do so, that such a paradoxical tension cannot be overcome. The thesis uses these insights to show the dilemmas and tensions facing any relexive sociology / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This research account centers on the life history-inspired narratives of engaged teachers, parents, and community members associated with King Albert Public School (KAPS). Since early 2000 to 2008 staff at KAPS collaborated with students, community parents, businesses, and organizations to meet the needs of students and to make positive connections within surrounding neighbourhoods. In the process KAPS witnessed substantial transformation. Paramount in connecting with the community was the construction of a new school gymnasium. KAPS became a hub for students, parents, and community. In the process of construction and subsequent use of the gym, the school itself developed a new sense of meaning in the community. As I navigate the process of becoming a teacher I use a reflexive inquiry approach to parallel my process of development to the transformation that occurred at KAPS. Also, this project contributes to the rural and small-town Ontario research literature on poverty and schooling.

This research account centers on the life history-inspired narratives of engaged teachers, parents, and community members associated with King Albert Public School (KAPS). Since early 2000 to 2008 staff at KAPS collaborated with students, community parents, businesses, and organizations to meet the needs of students and to make positive connections within surrounding neighbourhoods. In the process KAPS witnessed substantial transformation. Paramount in connecting with the community was the construction of a new school gymnasium. KAPS became a hub for students, parents, and community. In the process of construction and subsequent use of the gym, the school itself developed a new sense of meaning in the community. As I navigate the process of becoming a teacher I use a reflexive inquiry approach to parallel my process of development to the transformation that occurred at KAPS. Also, this project contributes to the rural and small-town Ontario research literature on poverty and schooling.

In the wake of war, political disturbance, or civil strife, there is little doubt that refugees are exposed to highly traumatic experiences. However, despite these challenges, four out of five refugees never experience long-term mental health or stress effects. Most existing studies have been limited to focusing on negative aspects of refugee mental health. Little research has been conducted on positive aspects of refugee mental health. This research uses the salutogenic model of health developed by Antonovsky to evaluate factors contributing to positive mental health outcomes among refugees to Winnipeg, Canada. Using reflexive sociological interviews with eight refugees to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, I identify and analyze salutary factors associated with positive mental health and psychological well-being of refugees. Five thematic types of generalized resistance resources emerged from the interview accounts as salutary: support from macro and micro levels of interpersonal relationships; religious activities and spiritual beliefs/faith; hope for the future; educational opportunities; and employment prospects. Relevant salutogenic policy suggestions based upon this research may be incorporated into refugee resettlement programs and policies to promote refugee mental health in Winnipeg and also contribute to positive resettlement. / October 2015

The Ironman triathlon began in 1978, according to popular accounts the result of an argument among a group of athletes about who was the fittest. Thirty years later, participation in the Ironman has grown exponentially despite the physical and mental demands of the sport. In my dissertation I examine the ways different types of pain and pleasure function in the production of bodies and selves within this sporting practice and how these understandings of pain and pleasure intersect with neoliberal discourses. My study adds to an important body of literature in the sociology of sport that has explored pain and injury. This literature has revealed the normalization of pain and injury in sport, at the expense of athletes’ short and long-term health. Exploring pain and pleasure in a recreational sport and fitness practice and in light of neoliberal governmentality offers new insights. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 recreational Ironman triathletes and incorporated my own Ironman experiences into the project. Mediated representations of the sport helped to contextualize the interview and autobiographical materials. I subjected the information that I gathered to a critical discourse analysis informed by the theoretical perspectives of Michel Foucault. My findings reveal that there are multiple ways that people construct their experiences of pain and pleasure in the Ironman context. Athletes strive to negotiate “positive” and “negative” kinds of pain in an effort to produce skilled, disciplined bodies, capable of finishing the event and claiming an “Ironman identity.” Pleasure in this sport seems mostly connected to ideas of challenge, achievement, rewards, and recognition. The constructions of pain and pleasure largely reify dominant sport and exercise discourses which promote discipline, toughness, and achievement. Considering the Ironman in light of neoliberalism, it was evident that values of health, self-esteem, the use of pain, and the primary use of non-work/leisure time for training and racing were intricately connected to ideas about individual responsibility. I argue that as the “Ironman identity” becomes more normalized, our understandings of bodies and health shift in problematic way. This reinforces neoliberal ideologies of self-responsibility and makes diminished State responsibility for citizens more insidious than it is already. / Thesis (Ph.D, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2010-12-22 11:37:39.876

This study investigated dual-task processing in younger and older adults using a psychological refractory period procedure. The first task was to name the color framing a picture; the second task was to either press a button or tilt their body in the direction of the tilt of the picture. In the body-tilt condition, electromyography was used to determine the reaction time. The stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) between the onset of the color and tilting of the picture varied from 50 to 1000 ms. In contrast with the response selection bottleneck model, which claims that processing of a second task cannot be completed until the first task is finished, the mode of response for the two tasks directly impacted the ability to avoid the bottleneck. In the body-tilt condition the increase in reaction time to the second task with decreasing SOA was less than in the button press condition, suggesting that processing of the second task could begin before processing of the first task was completed. This was true for both younger and older adults. Contrary to previous findings that older adults cannot engage in simultaneous processing of two tasks, evidence was found that older adults, like younger adults, could bypass the cognitive bottleneck if the second task has a reflexive component.

Martinborough, a small rural settlement renowned for its Pinot Noir wines, is a popular holiday destination for many of the new middle class resident in nearby Wellington, New Zealand's capital city. Attracted by the prospect of a rural idyll experience and conspicuous opportunities for urbane consumption, Martinborough's wine tourists also typically desired highly idealised and personalised holiday experiences. My thesis therefore examines the tourists' performative displays and public narratives of social distinction and ideal reflexive individuality. I explore the collusive framing of Martinborough as a metro-rural idyll dedicated to urbane and leisured consumption, and how within this performative setting tourists attempted to reconcile their middle class distinction (general and hierarchical) with their simultaneous pursuit of a reflexive praiseworthy self (Howland 2004). My analysis arises from participant-observation fieldwork, interviews, and surveys in a number of public tourism and wine contexts in Martinborough and elsewhere. Social distinction is marked by the competitive struggle for, and deployment of, various capitals by individuals and groups (Bourdieu 1984). Bourdieu (1984, 2002) contends that within habitus various subconscious, durable, and transposable dispositions are generated. I argue that reflexive individuality is a pervasive habitus, especially for Martinborough's middle class tourists, and that this "reflexive habitus" (Sweetman 2003: 537) generates ideal dispositions, which are mediated through other habitus (e.g. occupational, ethnic etc), and which individuals variously enact, aspire to, narrate, or performatively display. These ideals include autonomy in thought and action, and dedication to self-improvement. In post-industrial societies reflexive individuality is an influential dynamic in social connectedness, occupational pathways, political movements, consumption, and in the individualised assembly of intersubjectivities (Beck 2002; Giddens 1991). The tourists' desire for ideal reflexive individuality is, however, routinely frustrated within their everyday domestic, occupational and consumerist experiences. The stratification mechanisms of social distinction also clearly possess the capacity to disrupt or invalidate the praiseworthy self. Individuals are thus drawn to fields of action where they perceive the greatest opportunities for personal autonomy and choice. For Martinborough's tourists this included various urbane and leisured consumption activities, their reflexive sociality, and the articulation of autobiographical narratives that affirmed personal tastes and individual orientations toward social distinction. Martinborough's tourists reproduced a mythology of an enduring vernacular rural idyll. This rural idyll provided the moral foundation for an equally romanticised metro-rural idyll which, in conjunction with the tourists similarly idealised notions of 'the French tradition' of fine wine, provided a corroborating setting for their leisured consumption of urbane commodities that performatively affirmed their middle class distinction. The tourists' pursuit of social distinction was also significantly enhanced by the democraticisation of the cultural capital of wine connoisseurship, the tiered production of wine, and by the provision of conspicuous opportunities to engage in singular, episodic, and performative wine consumption. The metro-rural idyll, in combination with a pervasive New World wine ethos that promoted personalised innovation and experimentation, also provided a validating locale for the tourists' pursuit of ideal reflexive individuality. Accordingly tourists' personal wine choices were conspicuously celebrated and many aspects of wine production, producers, purchasing, and consumption were reflexively biographised. The tourists' displays of reflexive sociality and their reflexive distinction narratives were also important components in their performative assertions of ideal reflexive individuality.

As an immigrant in Sweden, I connect this study to my embodied experiences in the labor market and reflect throughout this research as I discuss the experiences of other immigrants who struggle with labor market integration. This qualitative study focuses on the phenomenon of the integration of immigrants in the Swedish labor market from an intersectional perspective and from my position as an immigrant which enriches the discussions. I analyzed how immigrants are integrated into the Swedish labor market and how gender intersects with other human factors to influence labor market integration. The study was based on a reflexive ethnography methodology in which interviews and documentation studies were used in collecting the empirical data. A semi-structured interview guide was used during the interviews and the documentation study was focused on scrutinizing integration policy documents in Sweden. The findings provide a detailed account on the genesis of immigration policies and how they have evolved into integration policies in Sweden. It traces this from the 1950s when integration policies were intertwined with immigration policies. Also it provides an account of how the integration policies are implemented in Sweden focusing on the activities of two main organizations namely Arbetsförmedlingen and the Linköping’s municipality. Furthermore the findings highlights that, men and women experience labor market integration differently therefore there is the need for this subject to be studied from a heterogeneous perspective instead of a homogenous perspective. It also highlights that women’s gender intersects with other human endowments factors such as education, gender roles, marital status, language and skills that complicate their labor market integration. In addition the findings highlight the transnational lives of some of the participants who hold on to traditional ideologies from their countries of origin. Furthermore, immigrants conceptualized labor market integration according to their own understanding. The results shows that the conceptualization of some of the immigrants was similar to what is common in the literatures but there was one new conceptualization of the term labor market integration that can be added to the already existing conceptualizations.

A presente dissertação de mestrado teve como objeto de estudo a análise das compreensões dos alunos-professores em relação ao portfólio de aprendizagens e a síntese reflexiva no processo de aprendizagem do curso de Pedagogia a Distância da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. A observação das produções escritas dos alunos-professores foi realizada a partir do conceito de tomada de consciência de Jean Piaget. A coleta de dados ocorreu através dos registros escritos dos alunos-professores na plataforma Moodle e organizados com o apoio dos softwares NVivo e CHIC. Dessa forma, foi possível realizar dois estudos, embasados nas observações dos dados. Através do NVivo, foram realizados levantamentos e interpretações das informações. No CHIC, foi possível interpretar as relações de similaridades e implicações entre significado, aprendizagem e dificuldades compreendidas pelos alunos-professores sobre o portfólio e a síntese. Como desfecho da análise, foi possível verificar que os alunos-professores compreendem o portfólio de aprendizagens como ferramenta de fundamental relevância para a escrita da síntese reflexiva e que a produção escrita dos instrumentos de aprendizagem é vista como meio de substancial interesse para a articulação entre a teoria proposta no curso e a prática em sala de aula. / This Master’s thesis had as study object the analysis of the students-teachers’ comprehension in relation to the learning portfolio and the reflexive synthesis in the learning process of the Pedagogy Distance course of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The observation of the students-teachers’ written productions was done from Jean Piaget’s concept of awareness. The data collection was done through the students-teachers’ written records on Moodle platform and organized with the support of softwares NVivo and CHIC. In this way, it was possible to perform two studies, based on the data observations. Through NVivo, surveys and interpretations of the information were done. With CHIC, it was possible to interpret the relations of similarities and implications among meaning, learning and difficulties understood by the students-teachers about the portfolio and the synthesis. As a result of the analysis, it was possible to verify that the students-teachers understand the learning portfolio as a tool of fundamental relevance for writing the reflexive synthesis and that the written production of the learning instruments is seen as a way of substantial interest for the articulation between the theory proposed in the course and the practice in classroom.

Resumo: Essa pesquisa aborda o tema formação e atuação de monitores de um centro de ciências. Está inserida no contexto de divulgação e educação científica e tecnológica em espaços não-formais. São apresentados dados coletados junto aos monitores do Centro de Ciências de Araraquara (CCA), espaço de educação não-formal e divulgação científica de uma universidade pública paulista. Apresentamos um levantamento bibliográfico sobre a formação dos mediadores de alguns centros e museus de ciências do Brasil e do exterior, bem como o papel atribuído a esses sujeitos nessas instituições e também as contribuições do paradigma do profissional reflexivo para a formação dos monitores. Os sujeitos da pesquisa são os monitores do CCA que participam do programa de visitação escolar monitorada. Os dados nos mostram aspectos sobre as concepções iniciais dos monitores sobre o papel de um centro de ciências na sociedade e sobre os saberes e habilidades necessários a um mediados; sobre o comportamento dos visitantes, as interações sociais que ocorrem durante as visitas escolares, a função do monitor e o seu papel durante a visita, a aprendizagem dos visitantes, os questionamentos dos visitantes, dentre outros elementos, na perspectiva dos monitores. As entrevistas realizadas com os sujeitos forneceram informações significativas sobre o processo de formação de monitores, as expectativas criadas por eles antes da atuação, os momentos mais marcantes decorrentes das ações vivenciadas e sobre o aprimoramento profissional. Uma das ferramentas metodológicas utilizadas foi o Método da Lembrança Estimulada, com o uso de fotos digitais e vídeos das visitas monitoradas realizadas pelos monitores participantes da pesquisa. O Método favorece momentos de reflexão dos sujeitos, o que o torna muito indicado como um recurso metodológico para auxiliar no processo de formação... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present research is related to the formation and performance of monitors of a science center. The work is inserted in the context of scientific and technological divulgation and education in non-formal spaces. Data collected among the monitors acting on Centro de Ciencias de Araraquara (CCA), a space of non-formal education and scientific divulgation of a public university of the State of São Paulo, are presented. A bibliographic search about the formation of monitors in some centers and museum of science in Brazil and abroad, as well as the role attibuted to these monitors in these institutions and the contributions of the reflexive profession paradigm for the formation of these professional, are reported. The subject of the research is related to the CCA monitors that partipate of a scheduled monitored school visitation program. The data whow the aspects of the initial concepts of the monitors about the role of a science center in the society and the knowledge and abilities required for a monitor, about the behavior of visitors, the social interaction that occur during the visit, the learning process and questions of the visitors, among other subjects, in the monitors' perspective. The interviews carried out with the research subjects gave rise to significant informations about the process of monitor formation, their expectations before each visit, the most remarking moments of their actions during the visits and about their professional development. One of the methodological instruments used during the research was the Stimulated Remembrance Method (SRM), using digital photos and video records of the monitored visits in which the research subjects participated. This Method stimulates moments of reflexion on the research subjects about their actions during the visits, which makes it a powerful instrument in the process of professional development of the monitors in the perspective... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Orientador: Luiz Antonio Andrade de Oliveira / Coorientador: Martha Marandino / Banca: Douglas Falcão Silva / Banca: João José Caluzi / Mestre