VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
An Examination of the Relationship between Childhood Maltreatment and Gambling in Emerging Adulthood

Although childhood maltreatment has been established as a risk factor for the development of problematic gambling, there are significant omissions in the literature regarding the investigation of mediating mechanisms underlying this etiological relationship. The purpose of the current study was to examine altered self-capacities (i.e., relationship difficulties, identity disturbances, and affect dysregulation) and gambling motives as mediating mechanisms underlying the link between childhood maltreatment and gambling, in a sample of emerging adults recruited from the community. It was hypothesized that childhood maltreatment would lead to impairments in the aforementioned self-capacities, which would subsequently predict greater endorsement of gambling motives. In turn, gambling motives were hypothesized to predict increased gambling frequency and gambling problems. The results revealed a pattern wherein altered self-capacities mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and gambling motives. However, gambling motives were not observed to mediate the relationship between altered self-capacities and gambling frequency or gambling problems.

Keywords: childhood maltreatment
gambling
emerging adulthood
Advisor: Goldstein, Abby
Re-valuing Revolution: Women's Rights Activism in Swaziland and Potentials for Transformative Non-violence

The patriarchal systems, stories, and powers that govern our world have made women extremely vulnerable to the threat of physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual violence. Despite efforts of millions of people working to end this attack, personal violation is a daily reality for many women and one that I believe will not change until efforts to end violence against women begin to address the very roots of dominant culture. This research will explore the personal experiences of five women’s rights activists in Swaziland who are engaged in a transformative practice to end violence against women. Through in depth open-ended interviews, I look at the ways each activist’s life journey reflects her changing understanding of formative values. Following this, I consider ways in which this personal development has led each woman to a deeply transformative, rather than simply a reactive, response to violence against women.

Keywords: women's rights
violence against women
Swaziland
transformative non-violence
Advisor: Miles, Angela
Physical Co-registration of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Ultrasound in vivo

The use of complementary non-invasive imaging modalities has been proposed to track disease progression, particularly cancer, while simultaneously evaluating therapeutic efficacy. A major obstacle is a limited ability to compare parameters obtained from different modalities, especially those from exogenous contrast agents or tracers. We hypothesize that combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Ultrasound (US) will improve characterization of the tumour microenvironment. In this study, we describe a co-registration apparatus that facilitates the acquisition of a priori co-registered MR and US images in vivo. This apparatus was validated using phantom data and it was found that the US slices can be selected to an accuracy of +/- 100µm translationally and +/- 2 degrees rotationally. Additionally, it was shown that MRI and US may provide complimentary information about the tumour microenvironment, but more work needs to be done to assess repeatability of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI and US.

Keywords: multi modality imaging
MRI
US
imaging
co-registration
mouse tumours
Advisor: Stanisz, Greg
Bai Juyi's Poetry as a Common Culture in Pre-modern East Asia

This paper applies a hermeneutic approach to analyze, and a comparative approach to examine, Bai Juyi’s poems referenced in Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, Tongguk Yi Sang-guk Chip by Yi Kyu-bo and Kyewŏn Pilgyŏngjip by Ch’oe Ch’i-wŏn. Through exploring Bai’s poetry in these texts, the author discovers how Murasaki, Sei, Ch’oe, and Yi contributed to transculturuation in Korea and Japan. Furthermore, the transculturation demonstrated by these literati shows a diversity of patterns: cultural mobilization from west to east; the emergence of overlapping histories in different eras and locations; a disappeared culture, recovered through being transmitted to other regions; cultural transplantation or transformation resulting from cultural contacts; and cultural products helped to stimulate economic growth. Subsequently, Bai Juyi’s works stand as a testament to the power of great poetry to improve and enhance cultures across a broad span of time and space.

Keywords: Bai Juyi
Haku Rakuten
Murasaki Shikibu
Sei Shōnagon
Yi Kyu-bo
Ch’oe Ch’i-wŏn
Poetry
A common culture
Pre-modern East Asia
Advisor: Sanders, Graham
Education as Social Transformation: Pragmatism, Philosophical Hermeneutics and the "Sea Change" in Contemporary Philosophy

In this thesis I characterize, through an analysis of some of the key themes and central insights of both Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmatism and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, what Bernstein (2011) has called a “sea change” in contemporary philosophy. I illustrate how their main insights are profoundly educational and how they offer us an effective means of reconceptualising what education means within the context of our world today. I will particularly stress two important elements of this ‘sea change’ that figure prominently in both Peirce and Gadamer’s work. First, the central importance of situated agency, and second, the affirmation of a relational process ontology. When taken together, these insights entail a conception of education that radically affirms the transformative potential of human agency based on the fecundity of educational experience. This ‘sea change’ will be presented in juxtaposition to the problematic modern/Cartesian framework that is current in educational thought today.

Keywords: Education, Pragmatism, Philosophical Hermeneutics, Philosophy, Sociology, Agency, Relational Ontology, Process, Social Transformation
Advisor: Norris, Trevor
Bredo, Eric
Teachers Writing about Math: Exploring Inquiry in an Online Community

This study followed three elementary-school teachers as they engaged in online discussions about inquiry-based mathematics teaching, and wrote and tested inquiry lessons for their own classrooms. In an inquiry lesson, students bring their own knowledge to open-ended problem situations, and build on that knowledge as they try out solutions and share their ideas with others. Evidence from the study suggests that teachers may turn to inquiry as an antidote to the way they learned about mathematics as schoolchildren, and that participating in an online community is a way for teachers to gain new mathematical and pedagogical knowledge and to change their conceptual understanding of inquiry-based teaching. The study results indicate that online professional development can help teachers improve their practice, but that care must be taken to build social ties within the group, and to structure tasks in a way that encourages collaboration and constructive criticism.

Keywords: mathematics
inquiry
professional development
problem solving
online
collaboration
three-part lesson
mathematics reform
constructivism
lesson study
student engagement
differentiation
constructive criticism
Advisor: McDougall, Douglas Emerson
An Analysis of the Ontario Health and Physical Education – Through the Eyes of Toronto Youth

This study examines discourse on youth health embedded in the current Ontario Health and Physical Education curriculum in an attempt to unveil any discrepancies between students’ beliefs regarding physical activity and body image and the curriculum they receive in physical education classes. This study will explore how students who participate in this curriculum narrate and experience their bodies to explore any contradictory or complimentary relationships that exist between the curriculum and the students it serves. Recent academic work in the area of health and physical activity has placed undue emphasis on obesity and on an individuating view of the inactive, unhealthy individual to be remediated by a corrective physical education program. This is not only damaging to the self-esteem of youth, but unrealistic as a program aligned with middle-class access to resources associated with ‘active living’ in the ways advocated for by proponents of this version of health promotion.

Keywords: Sociology
Health & Physical Education
Social theory
Curriculum theory
Feminist theory
Obesity studies
Healthism
Advisor: Connelly, Christine
Re-theorizing the Integral Link between Culture and Development: Exploring Ghanaian Proverbs as Theoretical and Practical Knowledges for Development

The current approach to African development is driven by Euro-Western material/physical approaches that fail to acknowledge the integral link between culture and development. For African development to truly speak to the realities and needs of African peoples, a reconceptualization of development is necessary, one which examines how Indigenous African knowledges can inform development. Using an anti-colonial, critical development and Indigenous discursive frameworks, this thesis examines how Akan, Gonja and Bogon proverbs, as Indigenous African knowledges, provide theoretical and practical knowledges for reconceptualising localized approaches to African development. Through interviews with local development practitioners and local Chiefs and the analysis of collected proverbs, the thesis reveals that proverbs, as linguistic, cultural and spiritual knowledges are deeply embedded in Ghanaian life and may function as excellent culturally relevant tools for a localized approach to African development.

Keywords: Proverbs
Endogenous Development
African Development
Indigenous Knowledges
Spirituality
Localized Development
Cultural Knowledges
Advisor: Dei, George Jerry Sefa
The Distinction between Morals and Ethics: Discourses of Sex that Reciprocate with Students’ Learning Needs within the Toronto District School Board and other Secular School Boards of Ontario

By analyzing surveys, census data, policies and curriculum, it is demonstrated that the Toronto District School Board’s policies for equitable, anti-heterosexist, and anti-homophobic curriculum become stymied by how students and sex are routinely treated as subjects of moral control in curriculum. According to Gilles Deleuze's (1988) interpretation of Baruch Spinoza's (1632-1677) philosophical works, the distinction between morals and ethics is also the difference between slavery and freedom. Together with theoretical perspectives of sex and sexuality from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin, the distinction between morals and ethics works to specify how particular discourses of sex can work to enslave or to empower students. Comprehension and circulation of the distinction between morals and ethics is proposed to increase the potential for curriculum to reciprocate with students’ individual learning needs, support the free and autonomous organization of desire, and promote the possibility of a democratic, inclusive, pluralistic, and secular society.

Keywords: sex
education
philosophy
ethics
schools
Toronto
curriculum
morals
Ontario
Deleuze
Advisor: Boler, Megan
Ford, Maureen
Salah, Trish
ELL Prereaders' Script Awareness: How Do They Know if a Script is English?

This study used an experimental script awareness task to measure the script recognition and metacognitions of 129 English language learners (ELLs) in Senior Kindergarten from Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish L1 backgrounds. Items formed two clusters: those involving the Latin alphabet and those involving symbolic script. Based on ability to name letters and read some words, children were divided into “readers” and “prereaders.” There were significant effects of home language and reading group: the Chinese ELLs were better at distinguishing items of symbolic script from the Latin alphabet items, but the Portuguese and Spanish ELLs were better at explaining their metacognitions. When the item was more similar to English, readers were more likely to accept it as English. Differences in script awareness development are discussed in relation to home language, reading ability, nonverbal ability, and vocabulary skills.

Keywords: Bilingualism
English language learners
Script Metacognition
Script Awareness
Concepts of Print
Symbolic Script
Advisor: Geva, Esther
Silence, Intercultural Conversation, and Miscommunication

Because of its ambiguous function and usage, silence is a major source of intercultural miscommunication, which frequently leads to negative judgments, and breeds stereotypes. Grounded in a cross-cultural and interactive framework, I conducted a five-month descriptive qualitative study, which explored silence perceptions among Chinese, Korean, Russian, Colombian and Iranian ESL speakers, and Canadian native-speakers of English (NS). Multiple perspectives were investigated using stimulated recall, in a context of intercultural mentoring sessions and interviews. Eight ESL 'silence producer' participants were asked to explain their silence use, and their interpretations were compared with the functions attributed to these silences by other participants, one from the same cultural background as the 'silence producer', and a NS. Participants' silence perceptions were described, and most negatively-interpreted silences were identified. Analysis revealed intra-cultural acrimony, that high language proficiency perceptions increase negative silence attributions, cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards fillers, and the systematic silencing of ESL speakers.

Keywords: silence
miscommunication
intercultural
ESL
intracultural
Advisor: Kerekes, Julie
Surveillance of Extended-spectrum Cephalosporin- and Carbapenem-resistance in Escherichia coli from the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and mechanisms of extended-spectrum cephalosporin- (ESC) and carbapenem-resistance in Escherichia coli from the GTA. A total of 526 non-duplicate E. coli clinical isolates were collected during March 1-5, 2010 from 13 participant hospitals. Among these, 71 isolates showed reduced susceptibility (rS, intermediate, and/or resistant phenotype) to cefoxitin (FOX) and/or ESC. No carbapenem resistance was detected. Extended-spectrum ß-lactamase genes detected (n=37; 52.1%) belong to the CTX-M-family, including blaCTX-M-15 (78.4%), blaCTX-M-23 (2.7%), blaCTX-M-14 (18.9%). The only plasmid-mediated ampC gene identified among FOXrS isolates (n=49; 69%) was blaCMY-2 (n=7; 14.3%). Seventeen strains (24%) were negative for all ß-lactamase genes tested. Analysis of the chromosomal ampC promoter revealed mutations associated with AmpC hyperproduction. Other mechanisms of resistance (e.g. impermeability and/or unidentified ß-lactamases) cannot be discarded. The most prevalent clone detected was ST131. IncFIA, FIB and Frep were the most common plasmid replicon types detected.

Keywords: E. coli
cephalosporin-resistance
Advisor: Melano, Roberto
"Turf Management Is Trumping Food Security": The Organization Of Access To Community Gardening In Toronto

In this study I explore the social organization of community gardening in Toronto. I have done this by: exploring (a) the experiences of community garden coordinators hired by non-profit organizations do to improve poor Torontonians’ access to food, and how this work occurs within and is affected by the larger framework of (b) the City of Toronto’s Community Gardens Program. This inquiry was carried out using institutional ethnography, with data collection occurring through open-ended interviews with garden coordinators and the analysis of non-profit and municipal documents. The results of the study are that garden coordinator’s work to improve access to food for poor Torontonians is at odds with the municipal understanding of community gardens and park space existing to attract economic investment to Toronto via “creative professionals.”

Keywords: community gardens
community gardening
urban agriculture
parks
recreation
public policy
poverty
non-profit organization
food security
food insecurity
hunger
creative class
urban development
social class
planning
community development
institutional ethnography
public space
Advisor: Ng, Roxana
Orthopaedic Surgery Residents Perspectives on the Roles and Tasks Effective to Becoming a Competent Physician: A Mixed Methods Study

In Canada, residents’ views on which roles and tasks are effective to becoming a competent physician is not yet part of the research discourse. Ensuring that competency-based curriculum (CBC) objectives are aligned with competencies and evaluation methods is critical to build a curriculum that will produce competent physicians. This research reports on the residents' views of the current Orthopaedic Surgery curriculum (UofT) which is solely competency-based. The residents' views were explored about which CanMEDS Roles and Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA’s) would be important to develop for them to become competent physicians. This study employed a mixed methodology. The individual interviews were from CBC orthopaedic surgery residents and the survey respondents were orthopaedic surgery regular time-based stream and competency-based stream residents. This research provides a better understanding of the resident experience so that educational practice and residency education can influence decisions around the curriculum design in postgraduate competency-based medical education programs.

Keywords: Postgraduate Medical education
competency-based education
Higher Education
CanMEDS
Advisor: Dietsche, Peter
Cracks and Opening, Murkiness and Unknowns: Dis/rupting Knowledge through Atelier/Atelierista Model of Timeless and Embodied Learning

This thesis interweaves the Reggio Emilia preschool model of atelier (art studio) and atelierista (artist educator), autobiography, timeless and embodied learning. I am interested in exploring approaches in which visual arts education in elementary schools disrupts traditional ways of knowing and learning about art. When an atelierista is embraced in the school environment, a rupture emerges in the landscape of education; one that recognizes the interconnectivity of things, and values difference and unknown. For this reason, I align my research with a form of inquiry – a/r/tography, which acknowledges intertwining roles of artist/researcher/teacher as integral parts of the research process. As such, my own art making is used as a form of inquiry and language in the text of this thesis.

Keywords: Reggio Emilia
Timeless learning
A/r/tography
Embodied learning
Advisor: Springgay, Stephanie
A Safety Valve to Modern Living: Antimodernism, Citizenship, Leisure, and the Environment in Toronto's Outdoor Education Centres, 1953-1997

In 1960 the Toronto Board of Education opened its first residential outdoor education centre, the Toronto Island Natural Science School, which signaled the beginning of an outdoor education movement in the city. By the mid-1980s the school boards and conservation authorities of Metropolitan Toronto had opened 12 residential outdoor education centres to serve Toronto public school students. This thesis seeks to explain why these programs were developed at this time and in this place. It finds that these programs fit into a broader ‘modernizing antimodernism’ paradigm which shaped many similar formal and informal educational programs in the twentieth century, and argues that democratic citizenship education was the major factor that was used to justify and shape them. This democratic citizenship education had three main components: education for democratic living, education for productive use of leisure time, and education for the environment, each of which is explored in depth.

Keywords: History of Education
Outdoor Education
Ontario Education
Leisure Education
Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
Toronto Board of Education
Island Natural Science School
Albion Hills Conservation School
Citizenship Education
Environmental Education
Metropolitan Toronto School Board
Conservation Education
Advisor: Sandwell, Ruth W.
Building Better Schools not Prisons: A Review of the Literature Surrounding School Suspension and Expulsion Programs and the Implications of such Programs on the Lives of Racial and Ethnic Minority Students

It has been argued, albeit with some degree of success, that the challenges facing the 21st century Canadian classroom are highly complex. A troubled economy riddled with cutbacks to the education system, ongoing enrolment decline and challenges in embracing a growth in the diversity of students are among the changes that have made classrooms increasingly difficult to navigate. Though the last assertion may be true, disciplinary policies and the tools used to address unwanted student behaviour have remained relatively unchanged within the education system. Using Critical Race Theory, the author examines the implications of school suspension and expulsion programs on students and provides an analysis of current literature on alternative disciplinary methods in public schools. Findings suggest that a mixture of strategies within various disciplinary programs can benefit some students, but more work must be done to address socioeconomic disparities plaguing the majority of students found in these programs.

Keywords: Critical Race Theory
disciplinary policies
public schools
socioeconomic disparities
Advisor: Olson, Paul
Challenges facing Volunteer-managed Nonprofit Organizations with Non-bureaucratic Governance and Non-hierarchical Structures

Volunteer-managed nonprofit organizations (VNPOs) are defined as nonprofit organizations managed exclusively by volunteers without paid-staff. There is no well-recognized theory describing how to govern or structure VNPOs, despite their significance in the social economy. This study argues non-bureaucratic governance and non-hierarchical structures are appropriate for some VNPOs. Rothschild-Whitt (1979) proposes six significant challenges for organizations with non-bureaucratic governance. Using multiple case-study methodology, the magnitude of these challenges was assessed in three VNPOs adopting non-bureaucratic governance and non-hierarchical structure. Four challenges, namely, time, homogeneity, emotional intensity, and individual differences, did not adversely affect the selected VNPOs. Two challenges, namely, nondemocratic individuals and environmental constraints, remained obstacles for the selected VNPOs. Five other challenges to non-bureaucratic governance specific to VNPOs were also identified and discussed, specifically, succession planning and recruitment, task completion, minimal socialization, pressure to achieve consensus, and administrative issues. Insights from such studies may help to better manage non-bureaucratic/non-hierarchical VNPOs.

Keywords: volunteer-managed
volunteer-run
non-profit
nonprofit
non-bureaucratic
non-hierarchical
governance
structure
collective
egalitarian
grassroots association
community group
Advisor: Quarter, Jack
Ryan, Sherida
Constructions of Autism in Education: Towards a More Radical Inclusion

Inclusion of children with autism in public education has become a pressing issue. As more and more children are diagnosed, schools are increasingly unable to provide individualized educational services and one to one aides for each of these children. In this master's thesis, the author describes the ways in which discourses around public education and the ideal neoliberal worker have in turn shaped discourses around students and workers with autism. Reimagining inclusion of students with autism pushes us to reimagine "autism" and "school" itself. Through discussions of the paradoxes of autistic speech and self determination, and the relationship between discourses of autism and discourses of education, the author suggests a new way to imagine autism, inclusion, and education.

Keywords: autism
equity studies
sociology
education
Advisor: Michalko, Rod