Background: An understanding of the meaning of health is an integral component in the development of effective health promotion programs aimed at promoting health or preventing diseases such as childhood obesity. One group of Canadian children known to be at higher risk for obesity is those living in rural settings. The purpose of this current research was to explore the meaning of health of preadolescent children living in rural Saskatchewan. The following four research questions were addressed: (a) What are the general health characteristics of the study sample?, (b) What is the rural context of children participating in this study?, (c) What is the meaning (i.e. values, norms, beliefs, behaviors) of health from the perspectives of a group of preadolescent children?, and (d) Is the meaning of health thematically congruent from the perspectives of healthy weight and unhealthy weight children?. Study Design: Mixed methods explanatory sequential design (Participant selection model) with qualitative emphasis. Methods: Participants were recruited through classroom presentations and invitational letters sent out to all children attending a rural elementary school in Saskatchewan. Ninety-nine children (51.0% response rate) participated in the quantitative component [measurement of height and weight for purposes of determining healthy weight and unhealthy weight (overweight or obese) status and completion of health questionnaire examining dietary and physical activity patterns]. Of the children who met the selection criteria for qualitative follow up (Grade 4, 5, & 6 children who agreed to be interviewed and had a parent who agreed to be interviewed), twenty children and their parents were randomly selected to be individually interviewed for a total of 71 interviews. An observational assessment of the community was conducted by the researcher for the purpose of gaining a greater understanding of the rural context in which the study participants construct their meaning of health. Results: Prevalence of unhealthy weights in these rural children was high (34%) with gender differences evident at a very young age. Regardless of weight or health status, children described their cultural meaning of health as an integration of Knowing Stuff, Having a Working Body, and Feeling Happy. Of these three themes Feeling Happy was recognized as the most meaningful and children described that receiving encouragement and support from valued relationships contributed to their happiness and overall meaning of health. The rural environment appeared to provide a sense of safety, security, and freedom in which children frequently engaged. Significance of Findings: The high prevalence of unhealthy weights in this sample of rural children has the potential to negatively influence the present and future health of these children. Developing an understanding of the cultural meaning of health and how this culture may influence patterns of healthy behaviors may be a foundation to the development of successful interventions aimed at promoting healthy weights in rural children.

Background: An understanding of the meaning of health is an integral component in the development of effective health promotion programs aimed at promoting health or preventing diseases such as childhood obesity. One group of Canadian children known to be at higher risk for obesity is those living in rural settings. The purpose of this current research was to explore the meaning of health of preadolescent children living in rural Saskatchewan. The following four research questions were addressed: (a) What are the general health characteristics of the study sample?, (b) What is the rural context of children participating in this study?, (c) What is the meaning (i.e. values, norms, beliefs, behaviors) of health from the perspectives of a group of preadolescent children?, and (d) Is the meaning of health thematically congruent from the perspectives of healthy weight and unhealthy weight children?. Study Design: Mixed methods explanatory sequential design (Participant selection model) with qualitative emphasis. Methods: Participants were recruited through classroom presentations and invitational letters sent out to all children attending a rural elementary school in Saskatchewan. Ninety-nine children (51.0% response rate) participated in the quantitative component [measurement of height and weight for purposes of determining healthy weight and unhealthy weight (overweight or obese) status and completion of health questionnaire examining dietary and physical activity patterns]. Of the children who met the selection criteria for qualitative follow up (Grade 4, 5, & 6 children who agreed to be interviewed and had a parent who agreed to be interviewed), twenty children and their parents were randomly selected to be individually interviewed for a total of 71 interviews. An observational assessment of the community was conducted by the researcher for the purpose of gaining a greater understanding of the rural context in which the study participants construct their meaning of health. Results: Prevalence of unhealthy weights in these rural children was high (34%) with gender differences evident at a very young age. Regardless of weight or health status, children described their cultural meaning of health as an integration of Knowing Stuff, Having a Working Body, and Feeling Happy. Of these three themes Feeling Happy was recognized as the most meaningful and children described that receiving encouragement and support from valued relationships contributed to their happiness and overall meaning of health. The rural environment appeared to provide a sense of safety, security, and freedom in which children frequently engaged. Significance of Findings: The high prevalence of unhealthy weights in this sample of rural children has the potential to negatively influence the present and future health of these children. Developing an understanding of the cultural meaning of health and how this culture may influence patterns of healthy behaviors may be a foundation to the development of successful interventions aimed at promoting healthy weights in rural children.

This study examines the differential patterns of access to higher education of students from rural areas in transition from a planned to a market economy. In respect to college access, the research argues that market reforms have reproduced the advantages for students from the cadre’s and the professional’s families while simultaneously creating new opportunities for the children of the new arising economic elite. Yet, it has performed less for traditional peasant families whose children still fail to gain access to college in proportions higher than the size of the population. Based on the literature, this research places a special emphasis on how economic and cultural resources become the main influence on rural students? college access. The process dimension -- how families from different social backgrounds within rural society involve themselves in the schooling of their children and how this contributes to inequality of college access within rural society, are investigated. This research unpacks this process by examining the school involvement experiences of parents in Zong, a county located in the province of Anhui. Parental involvement is conceptualized in terms of how economic and cultural resources are converted to social capital as part of family strategies within the increasingly stratified social context of rural China. The research identifies the consequences of activating different types of social networks within family and community, and also between family and school to facilitate this process by gaining advantages in access to college. Household interviews and field notes were used as the main methods of data collection with a range of parents and teachers involved in this ethnographic study. The data analysis suggests that state, schools and teachers provide few formal and routine channels for rural parents to become involved in schooling. This raises the importance of family strategic initiatives to employ interpersonal social networks (guanxi) within family, community and between school and family. Parents from cadres and professional backgrounds are capable of maintaining these social networks that are useful for their children’s chances of entering higher education. Their counterparts from the new economic elites? backgrounds have developed the means to capitalize upon their families economic and cultural resources by converting them into social capital that creates advantages in college access for their children. Peasants, however, rely heavily on teachers and relatives in education and are substantially marginalized from those important interpersonal social networks of capital conversion. Although this research found the structure constrains interpersonal social network of peasant families, it also highlights the agency of parents from different families. For example, in some cases it found, that peasants actively use their kinships to create chances for school involvement to potentially improve the chances of their children’s college access. This research is one of the first empirical studies to inquire about the mechanism of capital conversion in affecting higher education opportunities in the post-socialist era, which will help to re-evaluate the influence of market reforms over rural education system in China. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The objective of the study was to determine whether diet diversity can predict the prevalence of infectious disease in children under 6-years in a rural African village. The study took place in Southern Madagascar. Dietary diversity, health and socio-economic interviews were administered to 77 mothers of children under 6 years old and who no longer breastfed. The diet diversity score was analysed along with socio-economic variables as predictors of the number of days a child had spent ill from an infectious disease in the past month. Meat and wild food variety, as well as education of the mother, childhood vaccinations and access to latrines and clean water were found to be important predictors of reduced disease risk in children. The study identifies conservation of natural resources and development of health and education facilities as priorities for the reduction of child mortality from infectious disease.

Thesis (Ph. D., Education)--University of Idaho, December 2008. / Major professor: Russell A. Joki. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 190-200). Also available online (PDF file) by subscription or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.A..)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Anthropology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

M.A. / This dissertation is about how poor households struggled to keep children in the school system during a protracted political and socio-economic crisis in post-2000 Zimbabwe. The setting of the research is Nyamande village in Murewa District, Zimbabwe. Fieldwork was conducted between May 2010 and July 2010, at a time that many believe to be past the peak of Zimbabwe’s crisis in 2008. In-depth interviews and observations were used to collect qualitative data from families and households in Nyamande village. My findings revealed that even when such households did not get surplus produce, they still sold what they had in order to obtain income to fund their children’s schooling. Households supplemented their farm produce with off-farm activities such as casual labour on plots, informal trading and sale of assets. Child labour was also employed as a means of supplementing family income in order to meet schooling requirements through activities such as casual labour on farms and roadside selling of produce. The introduction of the multi-currency system or dollarisation (as it was commonly known) in April 2009 improved the conditions in Zimbabwe to some extent; however complexities experienced in Nyamande village included access to the US dollar and Rand currencies. These challenges led to the re-emergence of the barter or exchange system during and after dollarisation as most households adopted this as a strategy to provide for their children’s schooling. Although households displayed various forms of resilience in their efforts to keep children in school, interventions regarding the viability and sustainability of some of these strategies should be considered. Various stakeholders including government, private sector and non-government organisations need to play an active role in uplifting rural communities in promoting children’s schooling.

No description available.