I define the youth respondent method as a process by which artists and/or producers involve children and/or young adults through planned theatre activities or discussions with the objective of answering specific questions about the development of the work and collect feedback to improve the text or further the production. This pluralistic practice grants agency for the target audience, while informing the creators of the possibilities of the play and answering challenging questions regarding the work. Considering a continuum that places creative dramatics and children’s theatre at its poles, the youth respondent method demonstrates a merger of the two genres affiliated with youth, theatre, and play. My dissertation documents the youth respondent method’s application in a number of mid-twentieth century and contemporary case studies from the U.S., all of which received national attention through festivals and professional productions at regional theatres throughout the country. These case studies include: Playwright Charlotte Chorpenning’s work with the Goodman Theatre (1940s), Deni Kruger’s play MUDDY BOOTS (2005), Jason Tremblay’s play KATRINA: THE GIRL WHO WANTED HER NAME BACK (2009), Lydia Diamond’s play HARRIET JACOBS (2008), and Duncan Sheik and Stephen Sater’s musical SPRING AWAKENING (2006). This diverse group of plays and musicals relied on variations of the youth respondent method at different stages of their development and production processes, in which youth took the reins to serve as collaborative creators. The child is another essential collaborator in determining how their generation can make a better future through the practice and art of theatre. I examine the dialectics between artists, scholars, producers, and children, applying the youth respondent method. This model strengthens Theatre for Young Audience (TYA) plays while it gives children the agency to learn, exchange ideas, and address subjects that are important to them. TYA is a continually expanding field, although there is a significant lack of scholarship documenting its growth and such important practices as this method. By documenting various forms of the best of this practice, I hope to educate other scholars and practitioners about its vitality. / text

Housing has ever been the major concern of Hong Kong people. The housing prices of Hong Kong have fluctuated up and down largely in the past two decades. Housing prices reached a new record high in December 2013. Although the housing prices slide down slightly in recent months, they remain at very high level. Private housing became more and more unaffordable to Hong Kong people including the middle class. Many Hong Kong people resort to public rental housing (PRH) to meet their housing needs. As at the end of 2013, there were about 122,200 for non-elderly one-person applicants under Quota and Points System (QPS) and that were even more than 121,100 for general waiting list applicants. This reflects the large housing needs of young singletons for one-person household flats and alarms the public and the government of the serious shortage of housing for young singletons. The housing needs and aspirations of young singletons have ever been marginalised by the government that can be indicated by the housing policy carried out in Hong Kong. Singletons aged 21 or over have only been allowed to apply for PRH since 1985. However, the priorities of allocating PRH are given to family households, elderly and the disadvantaged. The successful housed number of non-elderly one-person applicants in permanent public rental housing increased from only 125 in 1996/1997 to 3,700 in 2004/2005. The implementation of QPS since 2005 has greatly restricted the access of PRH by young singletons because the allocation of PRH is mainly on the basis of age and subject to the annual maximum allocation quota of 2,000 units. On the other hand, singletons have only been allowed to apply for purchase of subsidised sale flats and home purchase loans for purchase of self-occupied flat since 1998. All these are restricted by limited quota, size of flats to be purchased and half of the loans granted to general family applicants. Following the cease of various subsidised sale schemes and home purchase loans from end of 2002, the assistance to singletons to purchase their self-occupied flats also has stopped. From the perspective of housing policy in developed countries, government interventions in the housing market have been reduced for the past few decades especially after Asian Financial Crisis and Global Financial Tsunami. Governments of western countries and developed countries of Asia have shifted to adopt more market oriented housing policy and to encourage homeownership since 1990s. Governments emphasize provision of social rental housing to those in need. People living in social rental housing have then been stigmatized. Consequently, housing prices in these countries have been fluctuating up and down largely and supply of housing has not been matched by the needs of people. Accessibility to social rental housing by young singletons is dampened. Shortage of affordable housing affects young singletons seriously. Many young singletons tend to stay longer at parental home as what Yamada (1999) described as “parasite” single. Mckee (2012) finds that it is an international phenomenon of reducing self-occupied homeownership rates for young people as more young people staying with their parents, studying longer, having difficulty in getting employments, facing restriction on accessing state welfare benefit and in changing household formation. In acknowledging the housing needs and demands of young people, governments of Asian countries tend to adopt policy promoting self-occupied homeownership to assist young people in meeting their housing aspirations. Singapore government adopts housing policy encouraging homeownership by introducing different schemes to meet varied needs and aspirations of Singaporeans at different stages of life-cycle. In recognition of the housing aspirations and contribution of singletons, Singapore government has provided housing benefits of singletons aged 35 years or over to buy resale Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats in HDB estates and since 2013 they has been allowed to buy new flats of particular size in non-matures estates from HDB. In South Korea, the previous LEE Myung-bak administration introduced new housing policy to assist newly married couples by providing long-term self-occupied home financing with low interest rates and increasing supply of self-occupied homes for low-income newly married couples to solve the housing problems of young families. The Australian government has introduced various measures to deal with the housing affordability problem including a first self-occupied home owner savings account, a notional rental affordability scheme, national housing affordability fund and establishment of a land supply council. Many researches have found that housing pathways of young people in developed countries are similar in following a sequence that individuals move from the parental self-occupied homes through sharing accommodation, private rental housing and into self-occupied homes. Young singletons have different tenure preferences that may vary according to the educations levels, income levels, security of jobs, family backgrounds, gender, views on marriage and stages of life cycle. This paper attempts to understand the housing needs and aspirations of young singletons in Hong Kong, the reasons causing them to have different needs and aspirations and their expectations on the government in meeting their housing needs and aspiration. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to obtain the general information and views of young singleton respondents by questionnaires survey and to have better understanding of the relationship of young singleton’s backgrounds, reasons for moving out from parents, their preferences and affordability fro housing and expectations on government by in-depth interviews. The results indicate that nearly half (44%) of young singleton respondents had no plan to buy their self-occupied flats and chose renting and only 56% of young singleton respondents had plan to buy their self-occupied flats. To a certain extent, young singletons of Hong Kong change their housing needs and aspiration according to their stages of life-cycle. After leaving parental home, young singletons would choose sharing accommodation in private rental housing. They plan to buy their self-occupied flat when they get older or married. Factors such as age, education levels, income levels, gender, Chinese traditions, household size and present housing tenures of young singletons as well as government policy affect their housing needs and aspirations. Young singletons expect the government to provide them with more in-kind and in-cash housing subsidies in order to assist them meeting their housing needs and aspirations. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The housing demand of young people is important for the sustainable development of the housing market as a source of renewed liquidity. However, nowadays in Hong Kong, many of the young adults found difficulties in purchasing their own home in the booming housing market. By interviewing 14 young adults in Hong Kong for understanding their housing aspirations and housing constraints, this paper argued that the above situation is caused by a “gap” existing between the tenure preference of and the housing options available for the young adults in Hong Kong. It is further argued that the “gap” is constituted by the oligopoly housing tenures system in Hong Kong in which owner occupied housing is promoted as one of the dominating housing tenures, which is beyond the financial capacity of most of the young adults. This paper recommended that the Government should provide assistance for those in need of housing for marriage at top priority. Also, the Government should optimize the use of existing housing units by increasing the tenure opinions and enhancing the mobility of the housing market, particularly by energizing the role of private rental housing in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Background: In serious health conditions, like childhood cancer, parent proxy reports are used for obtaining information. Previous studies have shown controversial results on agreement between children’s and parents’ ratings. In addition, there is lack of proxy studies in research including young children. The aim of the present thesis is (a) to examine how young children as self-raters and mothers as proxy-raters report over time on cancer related health issues, and (b) to explore the factors that may affect the agreement of each mother-child pair. Method: A longitudinal quantitative research design was chosen. Eight young children with cancer aged three to six years and their mothers were followed with questionnaires every six months for four time points. One measure on children’s feelings about their health situation and one measure on perceptions of their everyday functioning were completed by children and mothers at each time point. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results: Higher frequency of agreement was found in T4 (18 months after the diagnosis) for both measures. Between the two measures, higher frequency of agreement was found for the functioning measure. The mother’s educational level was found to be correlated with higher frequency of agreement (functioning measure). Conclusion: The time progress, the mother’s educational level, the number of siblings, the specific shared experience, like preschool, and the concrete and observable issues, like “functioning” rather than “feelings”, were found to be correlated with higher frequency of agreement between young children with cancer and their mothers. The convenient and small sample imposes the need for further research.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the Swedish Young Conservatives related to Vietnam issue between 1965 and 1973 by studying the organization's own newspaper with the method qualitative text analysis as described in Esaiasson et al. (2007). In the absence of previous research which has studied the same topic we have chosen to relate the results of this study to previous studies, that have dealt with Svenska Dagbladet´s attitude to the Vietnam war, as it is the most well known conservative Swedish newspaper and can thus be considered representative of the conservative press in Sweden. In order to achieve the aim, we studied the association's view on the Vietnam conflict, on American policy and on the Swedish Government's policy as well as on Vietnam issue as discussed in Swedish public opinion.The results shows that Swedish Young Conservatives retains a positive image of the United States  for almost the entire investigation period, when the United States is seen as the good party in the conflict and as a symbol for democracy and freedom. A new and more negative image of the United States is emerging in 1972. The conflict is seen as the United States fight against communism until 1972, when a reassessment of the conflict takes place and the United States presence in Vietnam is beginning to be questioned. The result also shows that the Swedish Young Consevatives remains critical of the Government's policy of Vietnam during the entire investigation period, in line with the moderate party. Key words: Vietnam War, Swedish Young Conservatives, Swedish conservative press, Swedish foreign politics.

Not available / text

Adolescence is not experienced in the same way by all individuals or communities; individuals who cannot find harmony between their sense of identity and social norms often have a much harder time during this period. In this vein, there is an especially strong need for transgender adolescents to be able to locate themselves in the world around them. I examine current transgender representations available to (and specifically marketed towards) young adults through three venues—literature, television, and the Internet. The amount of material that deals directly with any instance of transgender or transsexual identity is minimal. I will argue at the very least that these representations are important for transgendered adolescents to find someone with whom they can identify but that more than likely, it is important for all adolescents to have exposure to representations of transgender individuals. I closely analyze the young adult novel, Parrotfish (Wittlinger 2007), and the CW television show, America’s Next Top Model, for narratives of success that are applied to transgender subjects. I also briefly analyze three websites and compare them to the previous texts, identifying key similarities and differences. I end with suggestions for future growth in all three areas. / text

The processes and patterns of collaborative strategies used by children when drawing on the computer with friends and acquaintances were investigated in a case study. The participants were five-and-six-year-old children and the study took place in their home settings. The data collection methods consisted of interviews, observations, audio recordings, video recordings, drawing artifacts, and screen capture. The analysis began with the selection of collaborative episodes, followed by the application of two theoretical frameworks, those of two play theorists Garvey (1990) and Vygotsky (1978) as analytical lenses through which to interpret those episodes. The young children in this study used four levels of collaborative strategies, listed from the simplest to the most complex: 1) division of labor, 2) pretend language use, 3) coherence and elaboration of pretend frames, 4) action games. The findings revealed a striking contrast between the collaboration of friendship pairs and acquaintance pairs. The friendship pairs exhibited a total number of 32 episodes while the acquaintance pairs engaged in only three episodes. The acquaintance pairs applied only the strategy of pretend language use while the friendship pairs used three other more collaborative strategies and their use of collaborative strategies showed unique paths of progression. Furthermore, the acquaintance pairs exhibited mostly uncooperative and uncollaborative behaviors, which were manifested in three major forms: 1) unengaged behavior, 2) over-reliance on the researcher’s technical support, and 3) disagreement and critique. Informed by these findings, five major points are discussed: 1) Friendship matters; 2) Young children have the ability to collaborate; 3) Pretend play serves as a starting point for collaboration; 4) Collaborative strategies progress as the collaboration proceeds; and 5) Computers can play a supportive role in collaboration for young children. / text

Consistent reductions in state and federal financial support for America’s public colleges and universities have resulted in an increased institutional reliance upon non- traditional revenue sources. Budgetary shortfalls precipitated by the loss of appropriations led many institutions to seek out alternative sources of revenue. While many of these strategies have proven to be controversial with institutional stakeholders (e.g., annual tuition rate increases), one appears to be both popular and effective: alumni giving. Colleges and universities rely heavily upon alumni to enhance the institution by subsidizing operational costs; this is especially crucial in times of great financial stress. In order to ensure strong, lifelong relationships between alumni donors and their alma maters, institutions must consistently evaluate the methods through which alumni giving is solicited. It is not enough to merely expect alumni to become philanthropically engaged upon graduation; institutions must create a culture of giving amongst its student body. The study explored how colleges and universities may foster increased alumni participation in institutional philanthropy. By gauging the perceptions of young alumni, institutions will be able to determine if existing efforts are effective in encouraging future alumni giving. Grounded in altruistic (i.e., prosocial), social exchange, student development, and donor motivation theories, this study utilized a quantitative survey methodology to uncover prevailing alumni perceptions toward contemporary institutional philanthropic efforts. Study participants were asked to reflect upon their undergraduate experiences and the relationships they maintain with their alma mater after graduation. The study found that specific variables (e.g., alumni association membership, gender, financial contributions, engagement in alumni activities, satisfaction with the undergraduate experience, and institutional connectivity post-graduation) were statistically significant in predicting membership within three distinct donor groups. After all data were collected and analyzed, recommendations were made to assist institutions in developing programs that are most likely to encourage active alumni participation and create a culture of giving amongst student bodies. / text

No description available.