The research literature documents the relative disadvantage of widows in coping with grief, both in a greater vulnerability themselves for mortality or ill health, but also for a sudden loss of resources from losing a spouse. Moreover, widowhood in the Canadian cultural communities may be an additional burden if met with service from mainstream care professionals and agencies at variance with their culturally-appropriate grieving practices and assumptions. Specifically, the meaning(s) of bereavement and grief for Hindu-Canadian widows are not well understood, and the goal of this study is to enhance transcultural understanding of this population in counselling and beyond. An inductive, descriptive qualitative method focusing on the subjective, lived experience of key co-researchers, using selective and nonprobability sampling was utilized to maximize the relatively small sample size typical of a phenomenological approach. This was used to describe and explain the meanings and experiences of grief for five older Hindu-Canadian widows within the context of their own cultural setting and world view. Data were collected from five female members of the Hindu- Canadian communities. An additional triangulation method of a general class of culmraUy-informed co-researchers was used to help corroborate the obtained themes. The co-researcher's responses were the data for this study, and a method of "constant comparative analysis" (I^ininger, 1985) was utilized in a search for themes through a process of higher abstraction. Data analysis of the verbatim transcripts occurred simultaneously with data collection and, guided by Leininger's (1990) 'Thases of Analysis for Qualitative Data," the process unfolded with: (a) collecting and documenting raw data; (b) identification of descriptors; (c) pattern analysis; and (d) theme formulation. Ultimately six themes were abstracted from forty-five sub-categories as a portrait of the meanings and experiences of widowhood for this group of Hindu-Canadian widows. Themes for this group of key co-researchers are as follows: First, status transition from wife to widow meant resignation to the husband's death, rather than acceptance through discrete stages of recovery: Second, meanings and expressions of grief centered on beliefs about the enduring and eternal quality of the husband's life force as intrinsic and essential to the widow's own lifeways: Third, the transition from wife to widow entailed a double affliction in status loss as well as in the personal domain of intimacy and partnership: Fourth, the meanings and expressions of both grief phenomena and status transition reflect an ethic of collective good and duty-based interpersonal morality, but with acculturation causing a nascent and generational transition in such moral orientation: Fifth, status transition can entail a degree of liminality, out of bicultural dislocation and transformational variables such as education: Finally, a fundamental meaning of their Hindu-Canadian widowhood experience is its spiritual opportunity. Despite some diversity in their Hindu diaspora and sect, the explicated themes illustrate a common experience and meaning attendant on widowhood for the co-researchers. This study investigated a portion of the underlying cultural logic of widowhood and grief phenomena for these constituents of Hinduism, and highlighted their cultural constructions of meaning and experience, allowing us to improve our transcultural knowledge and understanding of the unique needs of this population in the field of Counselling and beyond. As a phenomenological study, themes and suppositions abstracted from this relatively small sample are limited beyond the precisely-defined context of its five co-researchers. Nevertheless, a counsellor might well benefit from the potential offered here for finer-grained assessments and therapeutic relationships with widows in our Hindu communities.

This thesis examines the house as symbol of God, self, and body. This is a way to explore the expression of individuality both incorporated in, and invoked by the middle-class single family home, particularly for women. The theme, "the temple within," is intended to create a conceptual framework for the identification of activities which give the elements of the house meaning for the occupants. The elements of house, garden, hearth, entrance, windows, attic/stair/cellar, and walls and spaces, are identified through the analysis of primary sources. These are the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Competition Series stock plans from 1947 to 1963, as well as two suburban homes from the Carlington neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the appropriateness of these symbols of home as a vehicle for women's identity of self.

From the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the experiences of predominantly male Chinese migrants in Canada, their relationship with each other, and their interactions with Chinese and Canadian society were influenced by each society's patriarchal nature. Each society had a culturally-specific patriarchal system that perpetuated the interests of a few elite men over other groups and cultures, and each portrayed this group as the masculine ideal. Since each viewed events through this lens, racism frequently took on a gendered language. The construction of culturally-specific notions of gender helped maintain each community's culturally-specific patriarchal system. Furthermore, racialized gender constructs and gendered constructs of race legitimized existing patterns of domination both within each group and in these groups' interactions with each other. This thesis shows that the categories of race and gender were linked and that a feminist approach is useful for the study of immigration history.

Text in English / Rhythmic gymnastics is a demanding sport that requires the athlete to not only execute the moves and elements required with perfection, but also demands a very specific lean body type in order to compete and be successful within the sport. This study explores retired gymnasts’ experiences of competing in rhythmic gymnastics at an elite level, as well as, exploring their experiences in relation to personal body image satisfaction and eating habits when they enter into retirement from the sport. The aim of this study is to provide an understanding of the athlete’s experiences as a rhythmic gymnast, as well as aspects of body image satisfaction and eating habits, following retirement from rhythmic gymnastics. The study provided a semi-structured interview to seven retired elite rhythmic gymnasts from Canada that had competed at provincial, national, and international levels. The data for this in-depth phenomenological study was obtained through the means of the semi-structured interviews to allow for the researcher to obtain an understanding of each of the gymnasts own personal experiences in their retired years. The transcription of each interview was then analysed and coded, first manually and then electronically using the qualitative coding software program ATLAS.ti, into various categories as well as themes found within the data. Findings were interpreted utilising the method of phenomenology explored themes relating to negative body image and poor eating habits both during their athletic career and after they had transitioned out of the sport and into retirement. In addition, the themes suggested that most of the former athletes still related to their elite rhythmic gymnastics identity with respect to their body image even after years of being in retirement. Participants seemed to highlight difficulties with lower self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as struggles regarding the acceptance of their body type and body image, themes also spoke to some participants’ dissatisfaction towards their new body post gymnastics. Ethical approval was obtained and all ethical standards were maintained throughout the duration of the research. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The present research explores the process of coming to terms with the decision to divorce. The research was conducted with 20 women of North-American culture, divorced or separated a minimum of six months with no thought of reconciliation. The methodology employed retrospective accounts. A semi-structured interview using the critical incident technique pioneered by Flanagan (1954) was used to gather data. The subjects were asked to describe specific incidents which prompted them to reassess their marriage and eventually decide to separate or divorce. They were also asked to describe incidents which made it more difficult to come to that decision. A total of 175 incidents were collected illustrating a range of experiences which either precipitated or hindered the decision to separate or divorce. Using an inductive method of analysis, the data was organized in a classification schema consisting of three superordinate categories - feelings, cognitions, behaviours - and 33 subcategories. In addition, a summary of the marital problems highlighted in the critical incidents is provided, with examples of the marital dynamics involved. Finally, a four-stage model outlining the process of coming to terms with the decision to divorce was derived from the category system. The model focuses on the intrapsychic dynamics of the subjects in the decision-making process. The labels given to these stages are disillusionment, ambivalence, cognitive restructuring, and resolution. The findings of the present research are compared and contrasted to those of social exchange theorists (Albrecht & Kunz, 1980; Levinger, 1965), stage theorists (Duck, 1982; Kaslow, 1981; Ponzetti & Cate, 1988; Vaughan, 1979), and grief theorists (Crosby, Gage & Raymond, 1983, 1986; Wiseman, 1975). The issues raised in the present research are discussed from a gender role perspective, in light of the theories of Attanucci (1988), Eichenbaum and Orbach (1983), Gilligan (1982), Goodrich, Rampage, Ellman and Halstead (1988), Herman (1977), Lerner (1977), Miller (1976; 1983; 1984; 1986) and Rubin (1983). In conclusion, the category system and model delineated in the present research offer a comprehensive set of experiences of what facilitates and hinders the decision to divorce. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

In the past twenty-five years there has been a marked increase in the number of women in the paid labour force, especially among women with young children. Time studies have shown that when a woman has a young family plus a position in the paid labour force, she works a very long day and has little time for recreational or leisure pursuits. This thesis therefore poses the following questions: 1. Do women who participate in the paid labour force report poorer health status than their counterparts who are homemakers? 2. Do women who participate in the paid labour force exhibit lifestyle patterns significantly different from their homemaker counterparts? 3. Do women in the paid labour force exhibit health care utilization patterns significantly different from their homemaker counterparts? and 4. Do women's lifestyles, reported health status and health care utilization patterns differ from those of their male counterparts in the paid labour force? Data from the 1978-79 Canada Health Survey (C.H.S.), which had asked a wide cross-section of Canadians about their lifestyle, health status and use of the health care system, were used to explore these questions. A model was then developed for this study which linked health risk behaviours, health status and health care related behaviours, and which used the variables available in the C.H.S. data base. Multiple Classification Analyses were carried out to determine the best predictors of women's health risk behaviours, health status and health care related behaviours. The three study groups were then standardized using the top two predictors and the rates of the various states and behaviours were compared. First, in the prediction of women's health risk behaviours, the demographic variables included in the model were not effective as only 3-4% of the variance in the scores could be explained. Secondly, in the prediction of health status scores, the composite health risk scores developed for each subject plus the demographic variables were able to explain 4 - 11% of the variation. Thirdly, in the prediction of women's health care related behaviours the composite health risk scores, the health status scores and the demographic variables were together able to explain 14 - 27% of the variance. When the standardized rates for high health risk behaviours were compared, there were significant differences between the three groups but no group was consistently better or worse than any other. The men's group however, consistently reported better health and less use of the health care system. The women's groups reported similar health states but women in the paid labour force reported a higher use of medications and fewer days in hospital. The C.H.S. was designed to address issues which affect the whole population. The questions therefore, were not always sufficiently specific to describe the special circumstances of women, especially for example in their childbearing and nurturing years. The rapidly changing social and economic circumstances of women and their families, as women enter the paid labour force, plus the need for more information on their health risk behaviours - what these behaviours are, and what predisposes women to engage in them - point to the need for more research focused specifically on this section of the population. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate

The research literature documents the relative disadvantage of widows in coping with grief, both in a greater vulnerability themselves for mortality or ill health, but also for a sudden loss of resources from losing a spouse. Moreover, widowhood in the Canadian cultural communities may be an additional burden if met with service from mainstream care professionals and agencies at variance with their culturally-appropriate grieving practices and assumptions. Specifically, the meaning(s) of bereavement and grief for Hindu-Canadian widows are not well understood, and the goal of this study is to enhance transcultural understanding of this population in counselling and beyond. An inductive, descriptive qualitative method focusing on the subjective, lived experience of key co-researchers, using selective and nonprobability sampling was utilized to maximize the relatively small sample size typical of a phenomenological approach. This was used to describe and explain the meanings and experiences of grief for five older Hindu-Canadian widows within the context of their own cultural setting and world view. Data were collected from five female members of the Hindu- Canadian communities. An additional triangulation method of a general class of culmraUy-informed co-researchers was used to help corroborate the obtained themes. The co-researcher's responses were the data for this study, and a method of "constant comparative analysis" (I^ininger, 1985) was utilized in a search for themes through a process of higher abstraction. Data analysis of the verbatim transcripts occurred simultaneously with data collection and, guided by Leininger's (1990) 'Thases of Analysis for Qualitative Data," the process unfolded with: (a) collecting and documenting raw data; (b) identification of descriptors; (c) pattern analysis; and (d) theme formulation. Ultimately six themes were abstracted from forty-five sub-categories as a portrait of the meanings and experiences of widowhood for this group of Hindu-Canadian widows. Themes for this group of key co-researchers are as follows: First, status transition from wife to widow meant resignation to the husband's death, rather than acceptance through discrete stages of recovery: Second, meanings and expressions of grief centered on beliefs about the enduring and eternal quality of the husband's life force as intrinsic and essential to the widow's own lifeways: Third, the transition from wife to widow entailed a double affliction in status loss as well as in the personal domain of intimacy and partnership: Fourth, the meanings and expressions of both grief phenomena and status transition reflect an ethic of collective good and duty-based interpersonal morality, but with acculturation causing a nascent and generational transition in such moral orientation: Fifth, status transition can entail a degree of liminality, out of bicultural dislocation and transformational variables such as education: Finally, a fundamental meaning of their Hindu-Canadian widowhood experience is its spiritual opportunity. Despite some diversity in their Hindu diaspora and sect, the explicated themes illustrate a common experience and meaning attendant on widowhood for the co-researchers. This study investigated a portion of the underlying cultural logic of widowhood and grief phenomena for these constituents of Hinduism, and highlighted their cultural constructions of meaning and experience, allowing us to improve our transcultural knowledge and understanding of the unique needs of this population in the field of Counselling and beyond. As a phenomenological study, themes and suppositions abstracted from this relatively small sample are limited beyond the precisely-defined context of its five co-researchers. Nevertheless, a counsellor might well benefit from the potential offered here for finer-grained assessments and therapeutic relationships with widows in our Hindu communities. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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