Socio-cultural activity theory (SCAT) was used to examine the nature of collaborative working in a case study of school-based occupational therapy (SBOT) in Ontario. Collaborative consultation has been widely adopted in SBOT practice. However, we know little about the impact of collaboration for students and lack understanding about how the organization of SBOT service contributes to collaborative working among educators and occupational therapists. Grounded in theoretical understanding about the distributed nature of group learning, SCAT was used as a conceptual and analytical tool in this study to describe SBOT collaborative consultation from multiple stakeholder perspectives. The research took place in two phases. Phase One involved case study research to describe SBOT for three students with disabilities from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Data were gathered using a combination of observation, document analysis, and interviews involving participants directly involved in the delivery of SBOT with each focal participant. SCAT provided a framework for describing the nature of joint effort. Dilemmas emerging from incongruence between elements in the activity system were identified and described. Common characteristics in two cases enabled cross-case analysis to also identify features of collaborative working that facilitated educational programming and outcomes for students with developmental disability. In Phase Two, program administrators participated alongside service recipients and service providers in a series of focused discussion workshops to reflect on case study findings and prioritize areas for program improvement. Developmental Work Research (Engeström, 2000) and Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2003) methods were used within a participatory action research approach to facilitate organizational learning among stakeholders. Engagement of stakeholders supported program administrators in critically examining decision-making for the delivery of SBOT service in the region studied. Combining practice-driven dilemmas with conceptual tools of analysis enabled a multiple-perspective understanding about the social, cultural, and historical work practices that have influenced collaborative interactions in SBOT practice and led to the development of principles for improving how work is shared. Program administrators used their shared understanding to propose a new model for delivering SBOT services. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-28 21:31:58.308

This research attempts to identify the factors which influence the choice of science subjects in Mauritius among girls at the end of the third year of secondary education, the level up to which science is a compulsory subject. This low uptake of science subjects by girls beyond the compulsory level is a matter of concern. The study was undertaken in four purposely selected schools in Mauritius, two mixed-sex and two girls’ schools. Using mainly a qualitative approach, data were collected through: (i) non-participant observations of 60 science and 20 non-science lessons, (ii) 16 semi-structured face-to-face interviews of teachers, and six group interviews with pupils and (iii) 135 questionnaires administered to the parents of the pupils in the classes observed in the four schools. Based on the results of a pilot study, modifications were made for the main study. The data provided insights into teachers’ teaching approaches, the behaviour and interest of pupils in the lessons and other factors such as pupils’ perceptions of science, their self-identity and role models, and the extent to which parents and peers influence the choice of subjects among girls. The findings show that teaching approaches were mainly traditional and that both girls and boys prefer hands-on activities and contextual examples reflecting real-life situations. The majority of the girls’ experiences of science were negative and this deterred them from taking science beyond the compulsory level although they were aware of its importance. Teachers had positive opinions about girls’ ability to do science but stated that lack of infrastructure facilities did not allow them to involve the pupils in practical work as much as they would wish. However, brighter girls’ decisions to study sciences were not outweighed by these factors. Parents felt that they did not influence their daughters in the choice of subjects or eventual careers though they held science in high esteem.

This research examines socio-cultural change and resilience resulting from holiday tourism and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. The unique cultural attributes of the Pacific region differentiates it from many other generic sea, sand and sun travel destinations worldwide, providing the region with a competitive edge. This research recognises these essential socio-cultural attributes using Samoa as a case study offering various levels of tourist and VFR interactions. The thesis investigated four communities, their culture and the impacts from holiday tourists and VFR travellers. The research methodologies guiding this research offer an innovative and credible mechanism to assess the resilience of the socio-cultural fabric of a Pacific Island nation with growing holiday tourism and a thriving VFR travel sector. A social and cultural capital approach was used to understand communities and their networks in a dynamic and comprehensive way. A combination of participatory action research techniques and critical ethnographic methodologies were used to interact with respondents. Analysis of data used both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results of this research have significantly furthered discussion of the socio-cultural fabric of those communities studied in Samoa and how individual socio-cultural elements are influenced by holiday tourism and VFR travel. Based on the analysis of these holiday tourist and VFR traveller impacts, the results can guide planning and policy oriented benchmarks for improved socio-culturally sustainable tourism.

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This study explores the complexity of teachers’ attitudes towards promoting their pupils’ mental health in Kuwait middle schools, teachers’ perceptions of the contextual factors that shaped those attitudes, the barriers they identify that might hinder the implementation of the promotion process, and changes required to put such a promotion process into practice. A mixed-methodological research approach is adopted within a complementary research design, consisting of two stages. A total of 497 Kuwaiti middle school teachers completed a systematic survey and twelve teachers were subsequently chosen purposely to take part in semi-structured interviews. The study’s findings suggest that Kuwaiti middle school teachers tend to hold moderately favourable attitudes towards promoting pupils’ mental health. However, a variety of personal, interpersonal, socio-cultural, and structural-organizational barriers were perceived by teachers, which could undermine positive attitudes and impact on the implementation of promoting pupils’ mental health. The study also showed teachers’ attitudes and perceptions as markedly embedded within their socio-cultural and religious context.

The impetus for this study was my own curiosity about how seasoned entrepreneurial women were able to stay the course. As someone who has experienced the world of the employee and that of the entrepreneur, my goal was to better understand how, within their varied personal contexts, the lifelong learning experiences of seasoned entrepreneurial women were shaped by socio-cultural influences, significant individuals, gender, and learning challenges. Theories and research on lifelong and biographical learning, entrepreneurial learning, women's learning, and entrepreneurial women's learning helped to frame the study. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus groups with eight women entrepreneurs between the ages of 40 and 60, with 16 to 30 years' experience in running their service-oriented enterprise were conducted. These women's stories illustrate how serendipitous their careers were, that is, they did not begin their working lives thinking they would become entrepreneurs, rather, it became the path that best supported their desires, independence and creativity. They were shaped by and sometimes resisted parents' messages about the role that education, work and marriage with children should play in women's lives. How they faced and learned from adversity and from the support of business mentors and friends were also significant. As they reflected back on their lives, they have a strong sense of mastery. Success for them did not focus on finances, rather, their autonomy, freedom, and control over the direction of their lives and the development of strong caring relationships with others, were key. Their learning was dynamic and experiential, it was both self directed and drew on others' knowledge. Women contemplating an entrepreneurial path may find this study of interest as they can learn how others, particularly family, shape their dreams, how they might meet challenges and learn from adversity, and overall, how central lifelong learning is to the development of their entrepreneurial careers. Educators and policymakers need to appreciate the serendipitous nature of entrepreneurship, how they can create entrepreneurial experiences for students, and expose the learners to not only essential skills required to run a business, but also to the stories regarding the self-development of successful entrepreneurs / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of the preschool teachers, working with the preschool bus, regarding challenges and children's interactions in different learning environments offered by mobile preschool. The metod used in this study is the qualitative semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers. The theoretical ground used to perform the analyse in the study is represented by socio-cultural perspective and hermeneutic research effort.  The study shows that the interaction between children is the same in all environments but that the interaction between children and the environment might be different depending on the development and intrests of the preschool children. The survey shows that this interaction between children and the environment begins before the bus week and that the starting point in the interaction can be expressed by intrest, bus destinations and preschool topic. The survey shows that one challenge might be that the preschool children need to be able to adapt to more environments than they are used to. The survey even shows that such challenge can be even greater if there are children with special needs in the group. The preschool bus can be also a challenge in bad weather days since the children have to share space and material.

Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Mental illness is one of the major health challenges that significantly contribute to the global burden of diseases worldwide. Several studies reveal that mental illness often triggers or prompts people to embark on some help-seeking pathways in order to ameliorate their condition. These help-seeking pathways are often not linear routes, but rather recursive and complex. The aim of the study was to explore the pathways followed by caregivers of mentally ill persons seeking mental health care services in Sinthumule Kutama area. The objectives of the study were: a) to examine the experiences of caregivers in caring for persons suffering from mental illness; b) to explore pathways that caregivers often engage in when they are seeking treatment options for mentally ill patients before and/or after they have been diagnosed with their condition; and, c) to find out whether or not caregivers make use of other forms of management in addition to the formal treatment interventions that they may receive from the health care facilities. A qualitative approach was followed; and participants were selected through a snowball sampling method. The sample comprised twelve participants (female=11; Male=1) residing in and around the Sinthumule-Kutama District area, Limpopo Province. The participants’ ages ranged from 24 to 88 years. The data was collected using in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The following themes emerged from the study: a) the perceived causes of the mental illness; b) the pathways followed in the management of mental illness; and c) the use of alternative forms of management interventions. The findings of this study revealed that the participants hold different perceptions and beliefs about the probable causes of mental illness. Secondly, the study further revealed that the participants visited a number of alternative management agencies to seek treatment for their mentally ill family members. Thirdly, the pathways that were followed were influenced by several factors such as the perceived cause of the illness, religious or cultural beliefs, severity of symptoms and/or advice from general practitioners and school teachers. This clearly suggests that participants have made use of more than one service provider to seek help for their family members. The path either started with the formal setting, then moved to the informal setting and vice versa. For instance, as soon as individuals with mental illness are discharged from the hospital, the caregivers consulted with other alternative service providers mainly to enhance the treatment they have received for protection from evil forces. The results suggest that help-seeking behaviour and the pathways chosen in the management of mental illness are largely influenced by socio-cultural factors and beliefs about the causes of the disease.

Collaborative work across different societal and multiple sectors has historically provided innovative solutions to address community development. It continues to be a crucial focus for funders and policymakers in all areas. This dissertation sought to extend organizational communication scholarship’s contribution by examining how collaborative work manifests at the meso level by interviewing 13 key informants who facilitate collaborations in various counties of Indiana and conducting a qualitative structural analysis of the ego-networks of nine community health workers (CHWs)situated in rural, urban and rural-urban counties of Indiana). The mesolevel communicative model of collaboration (Keyton et al., 2008) was applied to do so. The findings of this study support two key theoretical implications for collaborative work from an egocentric network perspective – 1) individual or personal ties of CHWs are perceived as close communicative relationships only when complemented by knowledge and social capital attributes, 2) While diverse ideas are essential for effective collaborations, lack of trust of new people and ideas, specifically in rural contexts may create tensions which can be navigated by finding common ground through close or dense relational ties with an individual already embedded in the socio-cultural context. Additionally, this dissertation extends the mesolevel communicative model to include examining socio-cultural contexts in their examination of communicative acts in assessing collaborative effectiveness. It also furthers the qualitative structural analysis to include case descriptive to understand an actor’s social embeddedness. Lastly, practical implications for those who fund and evaluate collaborative work are presented, including training funders (on local contexts) and collaborators (on determining their success metrics as a collaborative team).

Esta tesis propone modelos para cambios socio-culturales en Internet. Proyectos en red en colaboración fueran el objeto de este estudio. Fueran elegidos 100 proyectos para una base de datos donde se hizo un análisis detallado. Después de un estudio de los resultados de la base de datos, asimismo basándose en teorías de multitud, resistencia, tolerancia, controle y protocolo, cultura libre y realismo virtual, modelos emergieron. Los proyectos fueron divididos en 3 áreas: diseño, colaboración, y metas. Diseño como una manera de categorizar proyectos referente a su uso de elementos visuales. Luego, esbozase formatos de cómo las contribuciones son presentadas a los usuarios y cómo está estructurada la toma de decisión. Metas, como foco de esta investigación, apuntaron a cuatro modelos: discutir, reflexionar, expresar y actuar. Estos son útiles para la comprensión de cambios socio-culturales en Internet; además, plantean implicación en el espectro de relaciones y redes sociales. / This thesis proposes models for socio-cultural changes on the Internet. Network projects were the object of study, and through collaboration they achieve transformation. I selected 100 projects to be part of a database to a detailed examination. After an analysis of the results of this database, and based on theories of multitude resistance, tolerance, protocol and control, free culture, and virtual realism, models emerged. The projects were divided in 3 areas: design, collaboration, and goals. Design as a way to categorize projects in relation to their use of visual aesthetics elements. Shortly, it is outlined formats on how the contributions are displayed to users and how is decision-making structuralized. Goals, the focus of this investigation, suggested four models: discuss, reflect, express, and act. These models are helpful to the understanding of socio-cultural changes on the Internet; moreover, they have implication on the spectrum of social relations and networks.