Semi-structured interviews with 29 probation officers were conducted about their experiences addressing youths’ criminogenic needs in accordance with the Risk-Need-Responsivity framework. Probation officers discussed barriers they face at the individual, organizational, and systemic level (‘environmental’ issues that transcend – but impact on – the individual youth). Results revealed that challenges probation officers faced included ambiguity with respect to their role addressing certain risk-need domains, waitlist for services, having to prioritize certain noncriminogenic needs, involving parents, and the prevalence of mental illness (particularly concurrent diagnoses). Probation officers also discussed systemic barriers that they felt were out of their control but significantly impacted youths’ risk. Results are discussed in terms of implications for theory, research, policy, and practice.

The aim of this qualitative research was to contribute to a richer understanding of the everyday life music information-seeking behaviour of young adults. The objectives were (1) to uncover the strategies and sources young adults use to discover new music artists or genres, (2) to understand what motivates young adults to engage in information-seeking activities, and (3) to explore what clues young adults look for in music items to make inferences about the relevance or utility of these items.Fifteen young adults (18 to 29 years old) of the French-speaking Montreal Metropolitan community participated in this study. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Drawing on the research on shopping behaviour and music behaviour, Wilson's 1996 model of information behaviour has been revised and used to guide data collection and analysis. The data were analyzed inductively, using the constant comparative method.The analysis revealed that the participants had a strong penchant for informal channels (i.e., friends, colleagues, relatives) and low trust of experts (i.e., librarians, reviewers, music store staff). It also emerged that music discoveries were often the result of passive behaviour. When music was actively sought, it was rarely a goal-oriented activity. Indeed, it was mostly the pleasure they took in the activity itself – the hedonic outcome – that motivated them to look for music rather than an actual information need. Related to that, browsing, which is best suited for non-goal oriented information seeking, was a very common strategy among participants.The study also revealed that rich metadata, such as bibliographic information, associative metadata, recommendations, and reviews, were highly valued by the participants. In addition to allowing people to browse music in different ways, these metadata represent valuable information that is used to make inferences about the type of experience a music item proposes. Participa / Le but de cette recherche qualitative est de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension du comportement dans la recherche de musique des jeunes adultes dans la vie de tous les jours. Les objectifs étaient de comprendre (1) les stratégies et les sources que les jeunes adultes utilisent pour découvrir de nouvelles musiques; (2) ce qui les motive à entreprendre des recherches afin de découvrir de nouvelles musiques; et (3) la façon dont ils s'y prennent pour évaluer la pertinence ou l'utilité d'enregistrements musicaux.Quinze jeunes adultes (âgés entre 18 et 29 ans) francophones de la région du Montréal métropolitain ont participé à cette étude. Les données ont été collectées au moyen d'entretiens semi-structurés en profondeur. En s'appuyant sur la recherche sur les habitudes de magasinage et sur le comportement musical, le modèle de comportement informationnel développé par Wilson en 1996 a été modifié. C'est ce modèle qui a guidé la collecte et l'analyse des données. Les données ont été analysées de façon inductive, en utilisant la méthode d'analyse par comparaison constante.L'analyse a montré que les participants avaient une préférence marquée pour les sources d'information informelles (amis, collègues, famille) et une confiance limitée envers les experts (bibliothécaires, critiques, disquaires). Il est également apparu que leurs découvertes musicales étaient souvent le résultat d'un comportement passif. De plus, quand ils recherchaient activement de la musique, il s'agissait rarement d'une activité orientée vers un but précis. En effet, il s'est avéré que c'était davantage le plaisir qu'ils prenaient dans l'activité – le résultat hédonique – qui les motivait à entreprendre des recherches plutôt qu'un véritable besoin d'information. De la même façon, le bouquinage, qui constitue une méthode particulièrement appropriée pour rechercher de l'information sans but précis, était très populaire chez

Darbe atlikta teorine proto ir psichines negalios jaunuoliu lytines veiklos poveikio gyvenimo kokybes sampratos bei proto ir psichines neįgaliųjų veiklos ypatumų analize. Iškelta hipoteze, kad, taikant taikomąją vienas iš galimų specialiųjų poreikių vaikų lytinio iššūkio ugdymo kokybės vertinimo būdų – gali būti savianalizės metodas, taikomas remiantis standartizuotu klausimynu. Atliktas šio darbo bandomasis (taikomasis) tyrimas siekiant įvertinti jų informatyvumą ir galimybę taikyti šalies mastu. Hipoteze iškelta remiantis konceptualiu teiginiu: koki poveiki daro lytinis brendimas proto ir psichinei neįgaliam asmens vystymui. Anketines apklausos metodu buvo atliktas tyrimas, kurio tikslas – identifikuoti proto ir psichines negalios lytinio brendimo gyvenimo poveikio ypatumu aspektu. Atlikta statistine (aprašomoji dažnių, vidurkių) duomenų analize. Tyrime dalyvavo 60 proto ir psichines negalią turintis respondentas, iš jų 10 lengvas neįgalimas ir 10 vidutine negalia turintys asmenys,10 socialiniai darbuotojai, 10 socialiniai pedagogai, 2 psichologai ir 3vadovai. Dar anketas pildė 5 tėvai. Empirinėje dalyje nagrinėjami Tėvu anketine apklausa, interviu su socialiniais darbuotojais, vadovais ir lengva negalia turinčiu jaunuoliais, kuri padėjo atskleisti apie neįgaliu jaunuoliu ir vaiku lytinio ugdymo iššūkius: išsiaiškinti aktualiąsias ir opiausias paaugliu lytinio ugdymo problemas; turimas žinias, informacijos šaltinius, tėvų ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The work carried out in a theoretical sense and mental disability, young adult sexual activities on the quality of life and conception of the mind and mental disabled people in the analysis of specific activities. The hypothesis that the application of one of the possible application of special needs children in sexual quality of education Please login assessment methods - self-analysis method can be applied in accordance with a standardized questionnaire. In a trial of labor (applied) research to assess the informativeness and the possibility of the country. Hypothesis raised on the basis of a conceptual statement that the impact of sexual maturation and mental disabled person's mental development. Questionnaire survey method was conducted with the objective - to identify the mind and mental disability, sexual maturation aspect of life impact of featur. The statistical (descriptive frequencies, averages) data analysis. The study involved 60 mental and psychiatric disabilities with the respondent, including 40 with mild disability and 20 people with moderate disabilities. The empirical part deals with the Father questionnaire survey and interviews with social workers, leaders and young people with mild disability, which helped to reveal the number of disabled young people and children sex education challenges: to find out aktualiąsias and most urgent problems of teenage sex education, knowledge, information sources, as well as parent and child social workers and child... [to full text]

This study examines the contextual factors influencing polytobacco use behavior, or the concurrent use of two or more forms of tobacco, among young adult South Asians. Fifteen in-depth and qualitative case studies of South Asian college students were conducted in order to illuminate and understand the intrapersonal, social, cultural, and environmental determinants of polytobacco use. Results from the study highlight the dynamic and diverse nature of tobacco use, as patterns of consumption were found to be profoundly influenced and differentially distributed across lines of gender, socioeconomic status, age, nationality, situational context, and ethnic identity. Participants used two to five forms of tobacco, with 60% using more than two. In addition to cigarettes, several alternative tobacco forms, predominantly hookah, spliffs, and dokha, emerged as popular modes of tobacco consumption among this population. South Asian college students use multiple products intermittently in community settings, where use is normalized as a component of a social activity. The current cigarette-centered model for tobacco control must be adjusted to account for the variety of tobacco forms now accessible to and utilized by young adult South Asians, whose choice of product and frequency of usage is guided by the contextual factors identified in the case studies. Tobacco intervention efforts and cessation programs must develop cultural sensitivity that is attuned and responsive to unique patterns of polytobacco use in order to effectively combat the current tobacco epidemic.

This dissertation describes an emotion knowledge intervention which was designed and conducted with four year old children with behaviour problems. The children’s parents and preschool teachers kept daily records of the children’s noncompliances to determine if there was any change in behaviour throughout the duration of the study. The children’s emotion knowledge and vocabulary ability were assessed and their parents completed a child behaviour checklist both before and after the intervention. The emotion knowledge intervention consisted of six sessions over a three week period. During the sessions the emotions angry, happy, sad and scared were discussed with the use of storybooks and games were played that involved identifying the emotions on faces of emotion cards and the children also practiced making the faces themselves. Results indicated that the intervention did not result in an increase in the children’s level of emotion knowledge or result in a change the children’s behaviour. Possible reasons for this lack of effect may have included an insufficient number of sessions to result in a change of emotion knowledge or the intervention may have been ineffective at increasing the children’s level of emotion knowledge.

The war on poverty started in America in the early 1960s, and the poverty rate of 22.4 percent in the year 1959 decreased to 11.1 percent in 1973. Regrettably, this war did not last long enough, as poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent in 1993. In the year 2000 the US poverty rate declined, but always stayed above 11.1 percent. Kentucky also did not achieve success in this poverty war, and it resulted in growing numbers of poor people. Analysis of poverty has always aroused the interest of economists, sociologists and policy makers. Goal of this paper is to intricate appropriate strategies and invent effective prevention efforts to eradicate the young adult poverty. Estimation of Gini coefficients for various age groups indicates that the young adult population of Kentucky is at risk. The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors of young adult poverty, employing ZIP Code data in Kentucky. Data analysis reveals that rural young adults are more vulnerable than urban young adults in Kentucky. Some significant factors such as; male and female educational level, presence of minorities and type of employment are the primary determinants of poverty for this age group. Analysis of outcomes leaves suggestions for the policy makers to exterminate young adult poverty from Kentucky.

Psykisk ohälsa är vanligt bland ungdomar och unga vuxna, och mycket forskning stöder alliansens betydelse för utfallet av terapi (Shirk et al. 2011). Dock saknas en del kunskap om hur allians skapas i terapi med gruppen ungdomar och unga vuxna (Karver et al. 2008). Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var därför att undersöka hur psykologer beskriver att de går tillväga för att skapa och återskapa allians i psykoterapi med ungdomar och unga vuxna. Sju semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes och analyserades med hjälp av tematisk analys. Studien baserades på en tidigare studie av Binder et al. (2008a; 2008b) där terapeuter intervjuats om alliansarbete med tonåringar. Resultatet indelades i fem huvudteman utifrån resultatet i Binder et al.: Förstå problemet, trygg och förstådd, auktoritet och förtroende, motivation samt ambivalens. Att metakommunicera beskrevs som centralt både för att ungdomen ska känna sig trygg och förstådd och för att reparera alliansbrott. Psykologerna beskrev även hur de arbetar med motivation på flera sätt än vad de själva benämner som motivationsarbete. Dessutom beskrivs personkemi som betydelsefullt för att skapa allians. Svårigheten att konkretisera alliansarbete diskuteras, liksom hur resultaten kan förstås utifrån utvecklingspsykologiska teorier. / Mental health problems is common among adolescents and young adults. A lot of research supports the alliance's importance for outcome (Shirk et al. 2011) but there is a lack of knowledge about how alliance in therapy is created with adolescents and young adults (Karver et al. 2008). The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate psychologists’ descriptions of how they create and re-establish alliance in psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults. Seven semi-structured interviews were executed and analyzed using thematic analysis. The study was based on a previous study by Binder et al. (2008a; 2008b) where therapists were interviewed about working with alliance in therapy with adolescents. The result was divided into five main themes based on the result from Binder et al.: Understanding the problem, secure and understood, authority and trust, motivation and ambivalence. It was described that 'meta-communication' was central for youths to feel both secure and understood, and to re-establish alliance. The psychologists described how they worked with motivation in several ways that they themselves wouldn’t define as motivational work. Furthermore personal chemistry is mentioned as important for creating alliance. The difficulty to find concrete descriptions of alliance work is discussed, as well as how the results can be understood from the perspective of developmental psychology theories.

The purpose of this study is to find out how social workers in one medium and one small municipality in central Sweden perceive the need of financial support for young adults for more than one year and what the causes might be. To answer our research questions a qualitative research method was used and four social workers were interviewed. The result has been analyzed based of social exclusion, stigma, as well as on structural and individual level and linked to previous research. Our results show that although young adults are an exception for long duration for financial support, there are those who lack other means of support for a long time. The results also show that young adults often are recurring in the social services, and they are long-lasting. The reasons for the need have been shown to be similar in the medium and the smaller municipality, even if it appears differences seen to affect the clients. The result shows that the absence of school results, mental illness, security and organization of social services are causes of long- term need for income support. The study shows that the long-standing young adults often lack a secure social network and social workers perceive that they are often a security, a stable contact in the young adults' lives that may be difficult for these young adults to leave.

The young child’s experiences of living with cancer are crucial to providing evidence based care. The overall aim of this thesis was to explore and describe experiences of health and functioning in the everyday life of young children with cancer, over a three year period from diagnosis, to provide insights and suggestions to improve evidence based care. The first and second papers in the series of four for this thesis used a qualitative content analysis to describe the child’s experiences shortly after diagnosis and six and 12 months later. The third paper used mixed methods to identify a comprehensive set of ICF-CY codes describing everyday health and functioning in the life of the young child with cancer. The fourth paper used the identified comprehensive set of ICF-CY codes to follow changes in everyday health and functioning over the study’s entire three year period from diagnosis. Entry into the health-illness transition was characterised by trauma and isolation. Health and functioning in everyday life was utterly changed and physical difficulties were at their peak. The passage through transition was characterised by an active striving on the part of the child to make a normal everyday life of the cancer experience. Difficulties affecting health and functioning in everyday life decreased and changed during the trajectory, though feelings of loneliness prevailed. A new period of stability in the child’s post treatment life was seen from two years after diagnosis and onwards, with (re)-entry to preschool/school and other social activities. However, an increase in difficulties with personal interactions with others and access to, and support from healthcare professionals was seen. Variances were seen within individual children’s’ trajectories. In summary it can be stated that the everyday life of young children with cancer changes over time and health care services are not always in phase with these changes. Young children living with cancer want to be participatory in their care and to have access to their parents as protectors. They need access to and ongoing contact with peers and preschool. Although physical difficulties in living an everyday life with cancer reduce over time, new difficulties emerge as the child post cancer treatment re-enters society. A structured follow-up throughout the cancer trajectory and not just during active treatment is necessary. A child-centered philosophy of care would guide the child towards attainment of health and well-being. Both the child’s own perspective and a child’s perspective as described by adults caring for them should be seen on a continuum, rather than as opposites. This view could help ensure that young children become visible and are listened to as valuable contributors to care planning. Knowledge of health-illness transition can be useful in illustrating everyday health and functioning through long term illness trajectories.

This study uses two survey data - one conducted in Kyrgyzstan and another in the United States - to examine the effect of familial responsibilities, cultural expectations and tradition in Kyrgyzstan on young adults' decision to marry a foreigner. It predicted there would be certain gender and ethnic differences in migration of 18 to 30 years old young adults, citizens of Kyrgyzstan. Two assumptions were explored: 1) females, more than males, would like to marry a foreigner and stay in a foreign country and 2) Russian, more than Turkic respondents would like to stay in a foreign country if they found a mate who was a foreigner. These differences were expected due to contrasting familial responsibilities of females versus males and Russian versus Turkic young people. Familial responsibilities did not explain the gender and ethnic differences in marriage migration. The gender variable suggests further investigation whereas the ethnic differences show a stronger effect on the marriage migration. Russians, more than Turkic young adults, wanted to marry a foreigner since they wanted to emigrate from Kyrgyzstan eventually and did not want to return. / Department of Sociology