VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The river of radical imagination: community arts and the promise of integrative feminist values
Keywords: Community arts projects, Ontario
Feminism and art, Ontario
Feminist theory
Feminist ethics
Women's shelters, Ontario
Aesthetics

This thesis explores the often-unacknowledged promise of radical feminist values at the heart of progressive community arts practice. It makes visible feminist values that are central to community arts while proposing new levels of commitment to these values, informed by integrative feminist theory, lived community arts practice and scholarly reflection on that practice. As a contribution to an ongoing conversation between community-based artists and practitioners, this thesis offers a vision for community arts practices that aim to reinstate to the centre the multiple meanings and desires of our human lives: our beliefs; our ideas, inventions and artistry; our hopes and dreams, our loves; our ability to celebrate and mourn; our viable future on this planet.
Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony": An ecocritical approach for transformative learning
Keywords: Transformative learning
Ecocriticism
Environmental protection

Literary texts can be a powerful pedagogical tool within learning processes, for a story is a key to redirect our way of being and knowing in everyday life and to enhance both personal and social transformation. This thesis makes connections between literary analysis and transformative education. In particular, I demonstrate an ecocritical reading of Leslie Marmon Silko's (1977) Ceremony and examine the main themes, the plot, and the concepts of home, Mother Earth, and wholeness, which will help to create a transformative space and discourse across national and geographical borders. I further discuss the potential of this text in terms of exposing social and environmental injustice and structural and cultural violence. Finally, this thesis suggests transformative learning possibilities through critical reading practice as a way of developing inner reflection as well as intercultural dialogues, thereby exploring the value of a planetary consciousness that deepens our sense of self and place.
"Can't you be a man?": rebuilding wayward masculinities and regulating juvenile deviance in Ontario 1860-1930
Keywords: Male juvenile delinquents, Ontario
Male juvenile delinquents, Rehabilitation
Male juvenile delinquents, Ontario
Juvenile delinquency, History
Juvenile delinquency, Ontario
Juvenile delinquency, History
Juvenile delinquency, Ontario
Juvenile delinquency, Prevention
Juvenile delinquency, Ontario

During a period of tremendous change in the regulation and understanding of juvenile deviance (1860-1930) a working class "boy problem" plagued the streets of Toronto. This dissertation is about the construction of bad boys and the practices employed by various groups to control their wayward conduct. I trace the programmes, actors, legislation, and institutions of social governance that formed around, and latched on to, the problem of bad boys. Feminist historians have documented how wayward girls were arrested for violations of sexual mores. Far less attention has been given to the reasons why boys were institutionalized. As we will see, parents and juvenile justice officials dragged boys before the courts for other non-gender specific reasons (such as, crime, truancy, lack of self control, and unwillingness to fulfil breadwinner obligations). I argue that the delinquent conduct of bad boys outside of institutions invoked calls for rebuilding their masculinity. This dissertation highlights two institutional responses intended to curb the delinquent conduct of bad boys and turn them into men. First, the Victoria Industrial School (VIS) emerged in 1887 in response to a city wide crisis with truant boys. It boasted an education, religious, recreation, industrial training and drill agenda set in a carceral environment that promised to make men out of bad boys. Second, and by contrast, Toronto's Juvenile Court moved surveillance and governance of the boy problem from the confines of a carceral institution to the community through the programme of probation. Probation officers assembled knowledge about their charges that they used to create gendered reform strategies. I reveal the process through which three major programmes developed strategies for governing the boy problem between 1860 and 1930. Moral entrepreneurs, the Eugenics strategy, and the Environmental approach were not mutually exclusive or rigidly sequential. I argue that these distinct representations overlapped and never completely dominated the juvenile justice field. Each institution and each programme that converged on bad boys presented itself as the solution to the boy problem.
La resistance tranquille: decolonisation et postcolonialisme chez Hubert Aquin et Jacques Ferron
Keywords: French-Canadian literature, History and criticism

This study will examine how the concept of resistance manifests itself in the Qub̌čois novel of the Quiet Revolution (1960-1975) by analyzing two important novels of the period, Prochain p̌isode by Hubert Aquin (1965) and Les confitures de coings by Jacques Ferron (1972). The analysis alternates between the theoretical approaches to resistance provided by decolonization theory, which informed the initial reception of these novels, and by contemporary postcolonial theory, which offers important differences in the identification of sites and means of resistance. In reading the two novels within this dual theoretical framework, it is hoped that new perspectives can be gained on how resistance is inscribed in the literary text, as well as on how postcolonial theory can be used to provide new understanding of the Qub̌čois novel of this period. The objectives of this study are thus twofold: in the first instance, the ways in which two theorists, Albert Memmi representing decolonization theory and Homi Bhabha representing postcolonial theory, conceptualize resistance are compared in order to underline the fundamental differences between them. Secondly, Aquin's and Ferron's novels are read from both theoretical perspectives on resistance. The interpretations suggested by decolonization theory are supported by the existing criticism of the novel, as well as the authors' own stances in relation to decolonization theory. The novels are subsequently re-read in light of Bhabha's views of resistance. This comparative reading both illustrates the differences in conceptualizing resistance provided by the two theoretical approaches and offers new interpretations of how resistance is inscribed in the literary text. Some of the issues studied by the double theoretical readings are the role of cultural activities in resistance, the signification given to imitation of the colonizer by the colonized and the function of the stereotype in both colonial domination and anti-colonial resistance. By using the concepts provided by postcolonial theory, such as ambivalence, mimicry and hybridity, and by taking into account the insights afforded by decolonization theory, the richness and varietly of resistance strategies employed by writers of the Quiet Revolution will be brought to light.
Which way to insight?: a special educator's search or an ethical praxis in an era of liminality
Keywords: Special education teachers
Special education
Ethics
Teaching

Written in the space between the postmodern age and that as yet named region of the future, this thesis is an exploration of the complex connection between the theories and practices which mediate the author's work as a special educator. Specifically, it examines the discursive structures, challenges and benefits of three goals of theory; each of which is commensurate with a particular basic epistemology. The first goal belongs to the instrumental theories of the empirical-analytic sciences, and it is to allow for a measure of control and prediction (Habermas, 1971, p. 308); the second goal is owned by a critical social science, and it is emancipatory in nature, meaning the creation of a form of knowledge that leads to an overcoming of old modes of thought, affect, and action (p. 310); and the third goal is derived from Patti Lather's (1991) addition of the theories she names “poststructural” and “postmodern” and it is to “deconstruct”. The examination of each of these three theories is embedded in the author's memories of teaching a child who was identified as behaviourally exceptional and the complex web of social and institutional factors which mediated their relationship. The intent of this study is to generate the necessary insight (Sloan, 1983) for constructing an ethical pedagogical praxis, that is one which considers the “kind of person one must become in order to develop a nonviolative relationship to the Other” (Cornell, 1992, p. 13). Through this consideration of who the special educator is to be, the notion of identity formation becomes primary, as too does the necessity of understanding the dominant milieu in which these identities get negotiated. Consequently, this thesis discusses the historical and contemporary configurations of special education in terms of theoretical allegiances, practical allocations of occupational roles and distribution of power. The culmination of the thesis is a five-featured version of a hopeful, ethical pedagogical praxis which holds at least five interrelated and interdependent features. They are: (1) It juxtaposes a variety of theories and practices. (2) It deconstructs the general, special-education duality while challenging functionalist approaches to behavioural differences on several fronts. (3) It understands its historical context. (4) It has a decisive anti-sexist, anti-racist and anti-classist mandate which constructs the teacher as an action-oriented educational worker who strives to alleviate people's material suffering. (5) It attempts not to replace one authoritative discourse with another.
Managing polarities: the 'bias for action versus reflection' interplay in start-up technology firms
Keywords: Organizational behavior, Ontario
Computer software industry, Ontario
Chief executive officers, Attitudes
Chief executive officers, Ontario
Reflection (Philosophy)

The research examines the mechanisms by which the Founder/CEOs of a group of Ottawa-based start-up software firms manage the dynamics of the action/reflection polarity. It specifically examines two aspects of the issue. The first explores how the founder/entrepreneurs conceptualize and discuss reflection/action at an individual level and how industry changes in the past thirty-six months have affected their stated views. The objective was to understand if, and how, the study participants integrate reflective activity into their busy personal and organizational lives; how they cope and reflect on a major unplanned event; and to what extent those reflections have the effect of altering their views on the value of reflective activity. Second, the research looks at reflection as an adaptive, organizational mechanism level by examining the extent to which reflective practice is intentionally, or unintentionally embedded in the organizations' processes. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with a group of ten founder/entrepreneurs of Ottawa based software companies who shared certain common characteristics. The data were analyzed and results reported. The study found that a large number of environmental and cultural factors, dominated by the capital funding system, impels the entrepreneurs to be overwhelmingly action-biased. Furthermore, this orientation was largely unaffected by the industry meltdown. The study found that reflective activity was evidenced at the individual level only when environmental changes threatened the very livelihood of the entrepreneurs. The study also found some evidence of reflective activity built into the processes used by the companies in question as well as a direct correlation between the drive for predictability in the business and the increased reliance on said organizational processes. Finally, in light of the findings, the study evaluates the analytical usefulness of the polarity management framework. It concludes by proposing an alternative theoretical framework, one based on recursive feedback loops, as a more effective means by which to introduce reflective practice into organizations.
From mother, doctor, lawyer to ... glorified babysitter? The gendered nature of Ontario's welfare work reforms
Keywords: Technological innovations, Social aspects
Technological innovations, Ontario
Public welfare, Ontario
Women, Economic conditions
Women, Ontario
Sex discrimination in employment, Ontario
Women, Services for
Women, Ontario
Women, Employment
Women, Ontario

This paper examines the gendered nature of welfare reforms in Ontario, Canada. It situates the reforms within ideologically driven changes to legislation, administration, and technology required to delivery welfare services. It reports on findings of the Working IT project, which conducted interviews with front line women welfare workers to understand the impact of new Information Technology (IT) implemented within the context of a public-private partnership. It shows how women paid the price of these reforms---as welfare clients and as front-line welfare workers. It utilizes feminization of labour thesis and standpoint theory to identify a feminization of work phenomenon within welfare offices, where jobs are routinized, tasks sped up, and quality of work life diminished. It shows how front line women's expertise was devalued. Yet it also shows how women were not mere passive receptacles of technology but, rather, active agents making a complicated IT system work for their clients.
Free amino acids in arctic salt-marsh coastal sites and plant nitrogen acquisition
Keywords: Plants, Nutrition
Plants, Effect of nitrogen on
Plant-soil relationships
Amino acids
Salt marsh plants
Salt marshes

The importance of free amino acids as a source of plant nitrogen was examined in an Arctic coastal salt-marsh. Concentrations of inorganic nitrogen in salt-marsh soils were low relative to those reported for most temperate soils, whereas soluble organic nitrogen concentrations of salt-marsh soils were relatively high; the median ratio of free amino acid nitrogen as a proportion of ammonium nitrogen was 0.36 and amino acid concentrations exceeded those of ammonium in 24% of samples. Growth of the salt-marsh grass Puccinellia phryganodes on glycine in a continuous flow hydroponic medium was similar to growth on ammonium ions at an equivalent concentration of nitrogen. Furthermore, in short-term excised root uptake experiments, rates of glycine uptake were equal to rates of ammonium and nitrate uptake combined when roots were provided with all three nitrogen substrates at equal concentrations. Amino acid uptake relative to ammonium uptake was favoured at high temperatures, high salinity and low pH. Free amino acids turned over rapidly in the soil, with half-lives in the soil solution ranging from 8–23 h for glycine, compared with ranges of 6–15 h and 6–16 h for ammonium and nitrate ions, respectively. Plant incorporation of 15N tracer injected into soil cores was 56, 83, and 68% of incorporation by soil microorganisms for glycine, ammonium and nitrate ions, respectively. The simultaneous incorporation of 13C and 15N into plant roots following injection of 13C15N-glycine into soil cores indicated that at least a portion of this amino acid was absorbed intact. In a model of the dynamics of nitrogen movement in an Arctic salt-marsh grazed and grubbed by geese, the direct uptake of organic nitrogen by plant roots was required to obtain rates of mineralization consistent with empirical estimates. Overall, these results indicate that free amino acids are likely a substantial contribution to plant nitrogen nutrition in Arctic coastal marshes.
Capturing the chimera: designing trade law and policy for economic development in the Caribbean
Keywords: Economic policy
Commercial law, Caribbean Area

This thesis aims to explore the interface between trade and development for the small island and islanded states in the Caribbean Basin that make up the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). It is argued that the optimal trade policy for these states must promote development. The content of such a policy is explored and discovered to consist of two criteria; economic efficiency and social efficiency criterion. With this in mind, the legal regime established by the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas 2001 is then examined. The substantive provisions of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy is analysed and while minor deficiencies exist, it is argued that they are indeed supportive of development. Their efficacy however depends on the provision made for their enforcement, and with that in mind the final portion of this thesis examines the remit of the Caribbean Court of justice to determine its role in this development enterprise.
An analysis of marketing strategies for the recruitmen of students into baccalaureate nursing programs in Ontario
Keywords: Nursing, Study and teaching
Nursing, Ontario
Nursing services, Marketing
Nursing services, Ontario
Nursing, Marketing
Nursing, Ontario
Nursing, Supply and demand
Nursing, Ontario
Professional socialization

This thesis is a study about marketing strategies for the recruitment of students into baccalaureate nursing programs, within the context of the transition to the degree entry requirement for nursing practice and the new collaborative nursing degree programs in Ontario. Recruitment practices were examined in three Ontario universities that offer baccalaureate nursing education. Study findings pertain to the sequence of recruitment events, nature of participation from the baccalaureate nursing programs, processes for coordination between institutional and program divisions, enrollment objectives of the nursing programs, and some initial perspectives with respect to the impact of collaboration on student recruitment. This research has particular relevance for the nursing profession at the current time. The Canadian Nurses Association expressed concern regarding the future supply of nurses in A Statistical Picture of the Past, Present and Future of Registered Nurses in Canada (1997). Contributing factors to a projected severe shortage are the large number of predicted retirements, the increased health care demand due to an aging population, and the decreased applicant pools in the 1990s. The document Health Human Resources: A Preliminary Analysis of Nursing Personnel in Ontario (1998), prepared for the Ontario Ministry of Health Nursing Task Force, expressed the same concerns after in-depth analysis of the Ontario population, health services utilization, and health human resources. This study contributes to the recruitment literature by discussing issues pertaining to institutional strategy that have received limited scholarly attention and that are also relevant to other academic programs. The findings reveal that institutional promotion and recruitment have an important role in the achievement of qualified applicant pools and influencing applicants' decisions relating to university choice. Recruitment is organized and implemented primarily by the central liaison office, but that office also seeks participation from the academic units to most effectively promote the programs. Likewise, the School of Nursing cooperates with the institutional office by involving its faculty members and students in the recruitment function; however, there appears to be limited promotion that is initiated internally by the School of Nursing. This situation might change, however, if the collaborative degree nursing programs require more joint efforts between the universities and their college partners to attract sufficient numbers of qualified applicants to all program sites.
Transformative learning in undergraduate education
Keywords: Attitude change
Learning, Psychology of
College students, Attitudes
College students, Canada

This qualitative study examines student engagement in transformative learning in an undergraduate university setting. Although transformative learning using Mezirow's model (1975, 2000) has been described in adults, it has received little attention in relation to traditional age undergraduate students. This is surprising in light of developmental potential at this age and purposes attributed to undergraduate education. In keeping with concerns around Mezirow's adult transformation theory, Freire's philosophy of liberatory education, and other gaps in the literature, this exploratory study examines three main questions: (1) What are traditional age students' experiences of transformative learning in an undergraduate liberal arts university setting? (2) What factors contribute to transformative learning for traditional age undergraduate university students? and (3) What role do discrete student-centred courses have in the process of transformative learning? The empirical basis is the beginning of engagement in transformative learning for a volunteer sample of twelve traditional age students in three, 13-week undergraduate courses across disciplines at a small liberal arts university in Canada. For students in the study, engaging in the process of transformative learning involved seeing personal relevance in course issues; sensing tensions among perspectives; and digging deeper to explore underlying assumptions, agendas, and contexts. Rather than being an individual process as implied by Mezirow's model, student descriptions highlight a social process built on sharing experiences and working to understand the assumptions underlying the experiences. Students described changes in assumptions, as a result of their experiences, that involved cognitive-affective reflection and cognitive-behavioural action. Factors facilitating transformative learning included considering multiple perspectives (challenging traditionally assumed authority of the professor, discipline, and academic knowledge), shaping course experiences (challenging more traditional organization of courses), and developing relationships (focussing on interpersonal support). Through tapping into the power of experience, these student-centred courses moved beyond dichotomies critiqued in the literature to integrate emotion and cognition in learning, link individual and social learning and change, and offer students a different experience of power. The concept of power in transformative learning is developed further and implications for practice and theory around the role of universities in transformative learning and future research are discussed.