This interpretive descriptive study explored the meaning and lived experience of breast cancer for 5 mothers and their 5 adolescent daughters, and for these mother-daughter relationships. Mothers had been diagnosed with breast cancer between 2 and 6 years ago, and their daughters were between 11 and 13 years old at the time of the diagnosis. A series of six in-depth interviews with mothers and daughters, conducted both jointly and separately, afforded a view of aspects of experience that were shared and privately held. Interview data were supplemented with participants' drawings of their experience, and the researcher's observations. The interpretive descriptive framework employed was augmented with the lens of portraiture in the conduct of study, data analysis, and composition of the product of inquiry. Portraiture utilizes five essential features: voice, relationship, context, emergent themes, and aesthetic whole. Individual and relational experience and meaning were described in four themes: (a) Inhabiting Another Landscape, (b) Intending and Acting, (c) Acquiring Wisdom, and (d) Enduring Mother-Daughter Relationships. The theme of Inhabiting Another Landscape described a trajectory of experience and meaning that began with diagnosis, persisted through prolonged effects of treatment, and continued in the present and into imagined futures. Mothers and daughters had privately held concerns about the mothers' breast cancer and the possibility that breast cancer might one day visit daughters as well. The most prominent reminder of vulnerability was recurrence among friends in the social networks of breast cancer. The theme of Intending and Acting described the mutual caring and protectiveness of these mothers and daughters. Mothers and daughters described actions and strategies to minimize the threat of breast cancer for themselves and for the other person. Actions included attempts by both persons to create and maintain a sense of normalcy. Conversations between mothers and daughters on the experience of breast cancer were limited, in particular around prognosis and the possibility of death. The theme of Acquiring Wisdom described personal growth and change after the diagnosis of breast cancer. For both persons, realizations of mortality brought a new perspective on what was important in life. Mothers passed on the wisdom gained from their experience either directly in what was said to daughters or indirectly in the attitudes and behaviours they modelled. The theme of Enduring Mother-Daughter Relationships described the quality of mother-daughter relationships and the import of breast cancer for these relationships. Mothers and daughters described their relationships as close. Daughters described their relationships as closer than most, in part because of their experience with breast cancer. Parenting and being parented was in some cases complicated by breast cancer. Friction between mothers and daughters was described as par for the course during the teen years, but one source of friction was the unexpected and prolonged effects of treatment. The findings in this study indicate the value in attending to the voices of teenage daughters, which remain largely absent in the literature. Mothers and daughters have needs for information and support that are not being met. The emotional landscape of breast cancer, which entails prolonged uncertainty for both mothers and daughters, deserves further study. Personal growth described by both mothers and daughters provides an alternative view of the largely problem-focused perspective in the literature of the meaning and experience of breast cancer.

The phenomenon of female teenage violence within the last decade has been receiving rapid social interest and concern. The present study is concerned with exploring causes for teenage girl violence. Specifically, this qualitative study seeks to explore and describe teenage girl violence from the experiences and perspectives of girls aged 16 to 19 years of age whom have been in the past arrested and/or incarcerated for violent crimes. Data was collected using a semi-structured interviewing format. Five teenaged girls having current or past involvement with the Child Welfare system were interviewed. Despite the study's limitations, findings indicated several variations on similar common themes. These themes are discussed using three main categories of findings: (1) entrance into the legal system, (2) social aspects and (3) cultural presence. The need for describing and understanding why teenage girls act out violently in the ways they do was evident from the perspective of the girls themselves.

Girls' participation in physical education, sport and other physical activity was examined relative to their levels of Perceived Sport Competence, Body Attractiveness, Physical Self Worth and Social Physique Anxiety. Two hundred and thirteen grade 11 girls from two co-educational and two single sex Toronto high schools completed questionnaires designed to assess physical activity participation and these psychological attributes. T-tests verified that there were no differences on the psychological measures between the two types of schools. On the basis of the girls' responses, they were divided into non, low, medium and high participant groups. The relationships between physical activity participation and the selected psychological measures were analyzed by Pearson correlations. Analysis of Variance's (participant groups x psychological construct) determined where differences existed among participant groups. The results revealed that high level participants had greater Perceived Sport Competence, Body Attractiveness, Physical Self Worth levels than the participants at the lower levels. Social Physique Anxiety was unrelated to physical activity participation. Perceived Sport Competence was the best predictor of participation.

American adolescents are no more sexually active than adolescents in other Western nations. Each year more than one million American teenagers become pregnant, which gives the United States the dubious distinction of leading the industrialized world in the highest rates of teenage pregnancy. With the number of adolescent pregnancies increasing yearly, the cost of healthcare has become a major concern for healthcare providers. Because the teen's viewpoint is different from that of an adult, this research study focused upon the issue of teen pregnancy through the eyes of the pregnant adolescent.Heideggerian phenomenology was used as the research methodology to acquire information regarding the lived experience of pregnancy for the single adolescent, with Heideggerdian hermeneutics used in the interpretation of interviews. A purposive sample of five single primipara adolescents living in a teen home, in a large metropolitan area of a Midwestern state was utilized. Each interview was given a number in order to protect the confidentially of the participant. Interviews were audio taped and were transcribed by the researcher. The audio tapes were destroyed at the end of the study. The data obtained were studied by the researcher and others familiar with Heideggerian hermeneutics. The data were analyzed according to the seven step method described by Diekelmann, Allen and Tanner (1989). The findings identified an overall constitutive pattern along with four common themes.The overall constitutive pattern which emerged was "Pregnancy as a diverse human experience." Along with the constitutive pattern identified were four other common themes: (a) Body image changes as being within oneself; (b) Being marked as a pregnant teenager; (c) Pregnancy as loss; and (d) Pregnancy as connectedness. Both the constitutive pattern and the common themes were validated by the adolescent interviewed. The conclusions of this study showed that teens were aware of the methods of contraception and pregnancy but were unaware of the impact pregnancy would have on the teen's being in the world. / School of Nursing

Studies in the United States suggest that girls are developing secondary sexual characteristics at earlier ages than in previous years, with non-Hispanic black girls in the United States experiencing menarche at an earlier age when compared to their peers. Early puberty and menarche may have multiple detrimental effects, including reduced adult height, increased risk of breast cancer, obesity, and endometrial cancer. In this thesis, data from published sources of height and skeletal information on non-Hispanic blacks dating from 1763 to 1861 in the United States are compared with modern population data from 1988 to 1994. The expected result is that the modern population should be taller than the historic population. This held true for males, but not for females. The sexes differed from each other in each population group. This could suggest that female maturation is under greater genetic control than male, compensating for harsh living conditions. / Department of Anthropology

Conduct disorder is the second most common psychiatric disorder in adolescent girls. In a secondary analysis of an existing data set from a study of pregnant adolescent girls, recruited from three different sites in a Canadian city (N = 252), possible predictors of conduct disorder were examined. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) was used to measure conduct disorder. To investigate possible risk factors, three instruments were used: (1) Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), (2) Parental Bonding Instrument, and (3) Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory (KIDI). In a stepwise regression analysis, conduct disorder was found to be significantly associated with four risk factors: high levels of overall abuse as children, placement in foster care, few years of schooling and lack of paternal care. A possible preventive program, to encourage girls with conduct disorder to stay in school and cope with past histories of abuse, is discussed.

In this thesis, ipek Ongun&rsquo / s three books on good manners and etiquette, which especially aim at teenage girls, are analyzed in detail. Born in 1943, Ongun is a popular Turkish writer in teenage literature who has sold over a million books since 1980s. It is necessary to investigate especially the cultural, social and aesthetic messages given in her books. The writer&rsquo / s non-fiction trilogy has been extremely influential on teenage girls in Turkey in the 1990s, and they still are. These are Bir Piriltidir YaSamak (Living Is a Glitter, 1991), Bu Hayat Sizin (This Life Is Yours, 1993), and L&uuml / tfen Beni Anla (Please Understand Me, 1995). The themes of major importance in the trilogy are social life, traditions, schools, parenting, beauty, and personal care. This study examines the content of this trilogy from a critical perspective, especially raising questions regarding Ongun&rsquo / s messages leading the construction of female identities from a feminist viewpoint. The qualitative research method has been adopted for the analysis and several comparisons have been carried out between Ongun&rsquo / s books and certain popular teenage etiquette books published in the US. The study concludes that although some of Ongun&rsquo / s messages might be found beneficial for certain segments of the teenage population, the fact that she is not an expert in teenage psychology and development, poses several critical questions about the validity of her messages. Besides, Ongun&rsquo / s target audience seems to be the upper-middle classes of the society also raises questions regarding the universality of her messages.

Thesis (MPsy(Clinical))--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (MPsy(Clinical))--University of South Australia, 2002.

Dissertation (Ph.D.) -- The Institute for Clinical Social Work, 2004. / A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Institute of Clinical Social Work in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.