Stress, a feeling of pressure, tension, strain or threat, is a problem for contemporary female participants in the primary and secondary educational milieus who automatically respond to stressors (causes of stress), in the same way as women and girls in the past, since human beings have not changed psychologically and biologically over the millennia. Like their ancestors many female educators, learners and caregivers today do not return to a calm mental and physical state after an initial stress reaction. They often remain under stress, which results in emotional, behavioural, physical and cognitive manifestations of stress. Moreover, females may be predisposed to stress because of psychological, biological and social factors that have underpinned their response to time-related stressors that have faced them throughout history. Yet, history has also shown that women and girls taught and learnt successful stress coping mechanisms. Insight into these universal truths may provide educational solutions to a universal problem / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)

Stress, a feeling of pressure, tension, strain or threat, is a problem for contemporary female participants in the primary and secondary educational milieus who automatically respond to stressors (causes of stress), in the same way as women and girls in the past, since human beings have not changed psychologically and biologically over the millennia. Like their ancestors many female educators, learners and caregivers today do not return to a calm mental and physical state after an initial stress reaction. They often remain under stress, which results in emotional, behavioural, physical and cognitive manifestations of stress. Moreover, females may be predisposed to stress because of psychological, biological and social factors that have underpinned their response to time-related stressors that have faced them throughout history. Yet, history has also shown that women and girls taught and learnt successful stress coping mechanisms. Insight into these universal truths may provide educational solutions to a universal problem / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alberta, 1997. / In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of Elementary Education. Also available online.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, prostitution policies in England have grown increasingly welfarist in tone, stressing the relative victimhood and vulnerability of women who sell sex. This thesis explores important facets of these emergent narratives. Using a qualitative multi-method approach, it investigates the manner in which 21 policy-actors and seven policy documents - principally originating from the English prostitution ‘policy subsystem’ - interpret and represent prostitution. From a methodological perspective, generated findings are explored through the dual interpretative frameworks of critical discourse analysis and sociological frame theory. These frameworks require that localised narratives be contextualised within, and explained by reference to, broader discursive and cultural conditions. In deference to this, findings are situated within rich bodies of academic literature which commentate on, promote and critique various political philosophies, ideological discourses, and critical social theories, such as (neo)-liberalism, a number of feminisms, and Bourdieusian sociology. More specifically, this thesis explores the way 21 policy actors, and four of the selected policy documents, represent the subjecthood of women who sell sex. It approaches this endeavour via discussions of vulnerability, subjectivity/choice, and gender. Here, it concludes that actors and documents draw on, and contribute to, a plurality of complimentary and contradictory ideological discourses, to interpret and represent certain facets of a woman in prostitution’s ‘self’. Substantively, it suggests that - whilst there is a broad consensus regarding the importance of the internal individualism of women who sell sex, and the instrumentality of externalities with regard to shaping her social spaces and ability to choose - questions of gender remain highly contested. Thereafter, this thesis explores the way the same policy-actors, and three distinct policy documents, discursively include/exclude prostitution from violence against women and girls (VAWG) narratives. It begins by exploring how documents and actors define violence in generic terms, and to what degree they adhere to a feminist sociological model when explaining the aetiology and causality of VAWG. It then discusses how prostitution’s relationship to VAWG is framed, and inclusion/exclusion is justified. Here, it concludes that whilst there is a general commitment to the feminist sociological model of VAWG, the question of whether or not prostitution should be included beneath its auspices is highly contentious – pitting classically oppositional coalitions of actors against one another and creating intramural disputes within coalitions themselves. Drawing these strands together, concluding chapters explore framing dynamics. In total, this thesis offers a number of contributions to the fields of prostitution and VAWG policy studies. It demonstrates that while debates in the English prostitution policy subsystem frequently appear to be comprised of two bitterly oppositional ‘advocacy coalitions’, the two groups share multiple areas of ideological consensus, at least with regard to how they understand prostitution. Indeed, more often than not, coalitions differ principally with regard to their prognostic frames and their judgments of material prevalence. In turn, this disrupts extant literature on advocacy coalitions, which suggests that policy-actors organise themselves into groups by reference to their core belief systems, whilst showing a willingness to compromise on secondary considerations. These areas of consensus by no means suggests that matters are straightforward, however. Indeed, this thesis provides evidence that many facets of the prostitution debate are nuanced, complex and ambivalent – that actors entertain and promote contradictory narratives, that coalitions suffer intra-mural fractures over discursive fault-lines, and that framing preferences are strategically engaged. With regard to the last point, this thesis makes a significant methodological contribution to the field of discourse analysis, insofar as it explores the manner in which respondents can be represented as both formed through, and active users of, discourse. It does so by bringing two distinct discourse theories/methods into dialogue with one another. Over and above this, this thesis seizes upon the theoretical opportunities presented when original findings and extant academic scholarship are used to elucidate and develop one another. Most notably it deploys the work of critical social theorists, Martha Fineman and Pierre Bourdieu, to explore new ways in which the harms of prostitution can be conceived.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cleveland State University, 2009. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Aug. 2, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-233). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.

Understood sociologically, denial is best conceptualized as a social practice. As a phenomenon, social denial refers to patterned behaviour where actors both know and do not-know about uncomfortable truths (Cohen, 2001). Put simply, social denial is a socially reproduced blindness in the face of traumatic events and processes. In opposition to social denial is a different social practice, bearing witness. Bearing witness is engaged when society’s actors give voice to those who would otherwise be silent. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Stanley Cohen’s work States of Denial and Fujiko Kurasawa’s work Global Justice, this thesis aims to critically reflect and explore the registers and mechanisms of both social denial and bearing witness. The exploration of social denial is sociologically relevant, and generally important, as a means for understanding the role it plays in society, and to further understanding what social denial is and how it works. The better actors understand an issue the more capable they are of addressing it. This thesis conducts a media frame analysis of selected published articles from the National Post and the Globe and Mail that speak to the issue of MMIWG. This analysis reveals social denial through the frames “culpable victim”, “poster child”, and “the extra”; and bearing witness through the frame of the “honourable victim”. The analysis and research of this thesis reveal how social denial covers up the relevance of colonialism with respect to MMIWG. Furthermore, it suggests that social denial acts to both camouflage the gritty details underlying MMIWG and erase the identities of MMIWG.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of K-12 Educational Administration, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Mar. 30, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-182). Also issued in print.

Thesis (MHSc--Health Science) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (ix, 152 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 613.7043 DIC)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-210) and index.