VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Polish Catholic Priests in Canada and Ireland: Migration, Leadership, and the Mobility of Strangers

Scholars investigating the relationship between migration and religion have tended to focus on the role of churches and the experiences of lay immigrants when conceptualizing assimilation and transnationalism. While the role of religious leaders has received some attention, scholars have rarely considered clerics a migrant population worth examining. In this study I draw on 30 in-depth interviews with Polish Catholic priests in Canada and Ireland, ethnographic research, and content analysis of Catholic Church documents in order to investigate the experiences and narratives of clerics in terms of their own personal migrations and the role they took on in their own ethnic communities and beyond. I find that leaving Poland enabled the priests to reflect on their on Polish identity, embrace pluralism, and embody the universalism of the Catholic Church that emphasizes shared faith rather than socially constructed categories of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, etcetera. I conceptualize the migrant priest as a Simmelian stranger who interacts with a diverse group of migrants, while at the same time undergoing similar processes of assimilation and transnationalism. A Simmelian lens is useful, I argue, because it draws our attention to the simultaneity of these processes, encourages us to consider the individual experiences of priests rather than focusing solely on church structures or immigrant communities, and gives us the language to talk about different ‘strangers’ at different stages of their migration. Moreover, this project underscores the importance of context and local migration histories. Specifically, while the highly integrated Polish community in Canada meant that priests there had to shed their cultural/ethnic identity so as to fit into other communities, the priests in Ireland, where the Polish community was less settled and perhaps not there for the long term, had to balance maintaining their Polish identity with a readiness to work in other communities. It is my hope that this research illustrates the utility and malleability of classical theory for migration and religion scholars and that the focus on the narratives of priests stimulates more discussion on the experiences of individuals and their “lived religion” which occurs outside of structures in everyday life.

Keywords: Georg Simmel
Lived Religion
Migration Theory
Polish Priests
Religious Leaders
Transnationalism
Advisor: Bodemann, Michal Y
Korteweg, Anna
NCS-1 Dependent Learning Bonus and Behavior Outputs of Self-directed Exploration

Animals explore a new environment and learn about their surroundings. â Explorationâ refers to all activities that increase the information obtained from an animal. For this study, I determined a molecule that mediates self-directed exploration, with a particular focus on rearing behavior and vocalization. Rearing can be either self-directed exploration or escape-oriented exploration. Self-directed exploration can be driven by the desire to gather information about environments while escape-oriented exploration can be driven by fear or anxiety. To differentiate between these two concepts, I compared rearing and other behaviors in three different conditions 1) novel dim (safe environment), which induces exploration based rearing; 2) novel bright (fearful environment), which elicits fear driven rearing; and 3) familiar environment as a control. First, I characterized the effects on two distinct types of environment in exploratory behavior and its effect on learning. From this, I determined that self-directed exploration enhances spatial learning while escape-oriented exploration does not produce a learning bonus. Second, I found that NCS-1 is involved in exploration, as well as learning and memory, by testing mice with reduced levels of Ncs1 by point mutation and also siRNA injection. Finally, I illustrated other behavior outputs and neural substrate activities, which co-occurred during either self-directed or escape-oriented exploration. I found that high-frequency ultrasonic vocalizations occurred during self-directed exploration while low-frequency calls were emitted during escape-oriented exploration. Also, with immediate early gene imaging techniques, I found hippocampus and nucleus accumbens activation in self-directed exploration. This study is the first comprehensive molecular analysis of learning bonus in self-directed exploration. These results may be beneficial for studying underlying mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disease, and also reveal therapeutic targets for them.

Keywords: Exploration
Hippocampus
Learning and memory
NCS-1
Novel environments
Ultrasonic vocalizations
Advisor: Roder, John C
Cordes, Sabine
Corporate Board Health and Safety Governance Committees: Do They Make Any Difference?

A three phase mixed methods study (records research, survey, case analysis) was undertaken to develop understanding of board of director health and safety governance committees (â BHSCsâ ) amongst large market capitalization Canadian public companies, and ascertain their impact on company health and safety performance outcomes. This goal was deconstructed into a series of 12 research questions. The study determined that as of 2010, 58 companies with market capitalizations of $1.5 billion or higher (out of 146) had BHSCs. Forty percent had BHSCs dating back to 2001, and 60% formed BHSCs between 2002 and 2010. Factors accounting for the emergence of BHSCs included legislative changes, liability concerns, risk reduction objectives, corporate social responsibility pressures, emulation of peers, and industry sector guidelines and standards. Approximately 2/3rds of the companies with BHSCs were in mining or oil and gas. Most companies with BHSCs published descriptive information on their structures and processes in annual sustainability reports, and / or in filings with securities regulators. Using those sources it was possible to characterize patterns over the 2001-2010 period in the evolution of BHSC mandates, terms of reference, member composition and characteristics, levels of activity, and governance practices. Information was also available for many companies on occupational health and safety program evolution and injury rates for all or portions of the period 2002-2014. A conceptual framework consistent with available empirical research and theory was created to describe mechanisms whereby BHSCs could be instrumental in the achievement of improvements in company injury rates. Evidence for the existence and operation of those mechanisms was obtained via review of company data, survey responses, and case analyses of three specific companies. The study found evidence of BHSC instrumentality in company health and safety performance improvements, and that the conceptual framework presents a plausible model of this phenomenon.

Keywords: Board
Canada
Corporations
Governance
Health
Safety
Advisor: Cockerill, Rhonda
On the Relations between Diet Violation, Self-perceptions and Attitudes, and Subsequent Dieting

Five studies examined the relations between diet violation and maintenance, diet-related self-perceptions and attitudes, and subsequent weight-loss goal pursuit. Using previous research in the areas of self-perception and eating regulation, we made several hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that diet-breaking behaviors should predict subsequent diet violation, whereas initially maintaining a diet should predict subsequent diet maintenance. Second, we hypothesized that diet violation should predict less positive views of the self as a dieter and less positive attitudes about dieting, whereas instances of diet maintenance should predict more positive or no change in self-views and attitudes about dieting. Finally, it was expected that self-perceptions and attitudes about dieting should predict subsequent diet-related goal pursuit and, moreover, that self-views and attitudes should mediate the relation between diet violation/maintenance and subsequent behavior. Additionally, we explored individual differences that may moderate the relations between diet violation, self-perceptions and attitudes, and subsequent behavior. In Studies 1 and 5, we found, contrary to our hypothesis, that diet violation predicted better weight-loss goal pursuit than did diet maintenance. In Studies 2 and 4, however, there was no significant relation between violation/maintenance and subsequent behavior. Studies 3 and 5 supported our hypothesis that behaving in diet-congruent ways predicted more positive self-views and attitudes about dieting, whereas behaving in diet-incongruent ways predicted more negative self-views and attitudes about dieting. This finding was not consistently found in our studies, however, because Studies 2 and 4 provided some evidence that diet-incongruent behaviors predicted more positive self-views and attitudes about dieting. Finally, the findings of Study 5 suggest that positive self-perceptions and attitudes may predict less subsequent likelihood of violation and that self-perceptions partially mediate the relation between diet violation and subsequent likelihood of violation. Study 5 also provided initial evidence that individual differences, such as perceived self-regulatory success, self-compassion, and diet valuation, may help to explain how diet violations influence subsequent behaviors, self-perceptions, and attitudes. Overall, the studies of this dissertation point to the complexity of the relation between diet violation, self-perceptions/attitudes, and subsequent behavior. In some studies, we found preliminary support for our hypotheses. The reasons behind contradictory findings are discussed.

Keywords: Diet goal pursuit
Dieting
Self-regulation
Self-regulation failure
Advisor: Polivy, Janet
The Metaphysics of Negative Action

Standard metaphysical theories of action assume that all actions are events. Such theories have trouble accommodating ‘negative actions’ – (intentional) omissions, refrainments, etc. – since these seem to be, not events, but absences thereof. We must apparently reject event-based theories, or deny that omissions and refrainments form any part of our agency. Some philosophers try to avoid the dilemma by distinguishing the category of action from the supposedly broader category of manifestations of agency. If ‘negative actions’ are not really actions, then the problem disappears. But this solution is illusory, since the distinction between actions and other manifestations of agency cannot be drawn in a satisfying way. The better solution is to reject the assumption that negative actions are mere absences, not events. We can do this on the grounds that negative action sentences, no less than ordinary ones, existentially quantify over events of certain kinds. Specifically, they quantify over events that play a certain role: x’s omission to φ, for instance, is not an absence of events in which x φ-s; rather, it is an event whose occurrence ensures that there is no φ-ing by x. This functionalist account of negative actions allows us to identify negative actions with ordinary, positive events: when x omits to φ, and so ensures that she does not φ, the event that plays this ensuring-role consists in the actual movement and position of her body. Negative actions are not negative in any metaphysically suspicious way. This account faces numerous objections from Leibniz's Law, since positive events and negative actions do not seem to share all of their properties – how can a negative action be identical to a positive event, when they have different locations, modal profiles, causal roles, etc.? Fortunately, such objections can be shown to be either invalid or unsound. My functionalist account of negative actions is thus metaphysically defensible, and stands as a powerful solution to the problem negative actions seemed to pose for event-based theories of action.

Keywords: Agency
Negative actions
Omissions
Advisor: Tenenbaum, Sergio
Wilson, Jessica
Examining Variation in Access to Long-term Home Care Services for Ontario Seniors

Background: As Canadaâ s population ages, a greater number of seniors will require formal and informal care to remain in their homes. To effectively maintain seniors in their homes, equitable access to home care services is required. However, variations in access to these services have persisted in Ontario for decades. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting access to long-term home care for seniors identified as at moderate risk of adverse outcomes and to determine whether variation in access to these services exists across Ontario. Methods: Administrative data were used to conduct a secondary analysis. A non-experimental design was employed. Factors associated with three dimensions of access to home care (propensity, intensity, wait time) were examined across four outcome categories: no home-based care, home-based nursing services alone, home-based supportive care services alone, and home-based nursing and supportive care services together. Results: Personal characteristics, caregiver characteristics and regional characteristics were found to affect all dimensions of access. Factors associated with propensity to receive services varied across outcome categories and included having a dementia diagnosis, dependence in performing activities of daily living, having a previous fall, previous health care utilization, and the region in which the patient resides. Similarly, factors associated with intensity of services were dependent on type of care received and included education, continence and living with a caregiver for nursing services and cognitive status, functional status, health status, and living with a caregiver for supportive care services. While, intensity of nursing services did not vary across regions, intensity of supportive care services was significantly different across the province. Factors affecting wait times included sex, functional status, health status, and receiving nursing care. Conclusions: Inequity in access to home care services persists across Ontario. Variation in propensity to receive services, intensity of supportive care services received, and wait times was evident across regions. Inequitable access to services could result in negative outcomes for those unable to access services. Equitable access to home-based care is vital to ensuring Ontario seniors are able to live and receive care in their preferred location, which for most seniors is at home.

Keywords: Access
Home care
Nursing
Personal support
Utilization
Advisor: Tourangeau, Ann E
Errors of Commission: Canada's Legacy of Indian Residential Schools

This dissertation examines contemporary discourses of Indigenous trauma, healing, and reconciliation in Canada, and explores their social and political implications for Indigenous-settler and Indigenous-state relations. Drawing on twelve months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, my study juxtaposes the proceedings of Canadaâ s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools with the lived experience of Inuit in Labrador, a region excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. My research responds directly to the Commissionâ s stated premise of creating a national memory of Indian residential schooling, in the hope that similar injustices will not recur, and problematizes these presumptions by making several interrelated arguments. Firstly, I show how Commission proceedings enact a pedagogy that pathologizes Indigenous anger and valorizes expressions of grief in the service of healing, in effect schooling survivors on the therapeutic nature of speech, and rescripting survivor testimonies to show evidence of reconciliation. Structuring truth-telling in this manner, I argue, hinders public recognition of the truths of survivor experience, and collective responsibility for their contemporary legacies. Secondly, I demonstrate that making Indian residential schooling the sole object of national redress obscures a broader range of colonial injuries with which it interlinks. I show how the residential school experience maps onto both older and ongoing colonial interventions, including missionization, forced community relocations, and continuing apprehensions of Indigenous children in the name of child welfare. These experiences demonstrate the recurrence of familial rupture, disruption in the intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge, and ultimately, Indigenous peoplehood, underscoring that corrective interventions in Indigenous kinship are foundational to settler colonial governance. Thirdly, I explain how the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement severely constrains Indigenous self-government, and coincides with a rise in trauma-based mental health interventions that devolve responsibility for healing onto individual Inuit, creating a form of self-government through governance of the self. Ultimately, my central contention is that the assimilatory spirit of the residential schools endures through the proliferation of new modes of reschooling Indigenous peoples, and I argue for the need to analyze pedagogy as a tool of settler colonial governance, and as a constraint upon Indigenous life and self-determination.

Keywords: Canada
Indian Residential Schools
Inuit
Labrador
Memory
Truth Commissions
Advisor: Lambek, Michael
Wardlow, Holly
Child-focused Psychosocial Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of previous studies that assess the efficaciousness of child-focused psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The specific outcomes that were examined were internalizing and externalizing symptoms and behaviours, social skills, peer relationships, and family functioning. Although studies solely evaluating core ADHD symptom outcomes were not eligible, when provided in an eligible study, data for core ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity) were extracted and analyzed. The aim was to provide clinicians with guidelines for treatment for children and adolescents with ADHD with specific associated symptoms, functional impairments, and comorbid disorders. In spite of identifying 26 studies that met criteria for this review, the data are insufficient to recommend, with confidence, any specific child-focused intervention to treat specific child problems. Results indicated that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness training, and social skills training (SST) interventions do not meet the criteria outlined by the American Psychological Association for an intervention to be considered as a well-established or probably efficacious intervention (APA Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice, 2006). Nevertheless, there is some evidence that some of the child-focused psychosocial interventions described in this systematic review and meta-analysis are promising and, as a result, that future research with high quality studies is needed to investigate whether these interventions are efficacious. Individual CBT with simultaneous parent treatment might be promising for improving externalizing and internalizing symptoms, parent-child relationships, and core ADHD symptoms in adolescents concurrently on medication. Furthermore, mindfulness training shows promise in reducing peer relationship problems, internalizing symptoms, and ADHD symptoms of adolescents, and might foster better parent-child relationships. Finally, there is evidence from strong and moderate quality studies that SST interventions are associated with improvements in social skills knowledge and assertion in school-age children. In addition, when SST is offered with concurrent medications, parent treatment and teacher consultation, lower doses of medication are required to achieve the same effect on internalizing symptoms, ODD symptoms, social skills, and personal closeness in parent-child relations.

Keywords: ADHD
adolescents
children
interventions
psychosocial
systematic review
Advisor: Wiener, Judith
Connected Speech Processes and Lexical Access in Real-time Comprehension

Connected speech can entail variability in the production of speech sounds. This can in turn create ambiguity at the lexical level. For example, the word bean in â bean boxâ can sound like beam due to the phonological process of coronal-to-labial place assimilation. Previous studies have shown that listeners can perceptually compensate for place assimilation, but the extent of compensation, as well as the factors that guide this process, are a topic of ongoing debate. This thesis explores listenersâ compensation for place assimilation from several novel perspectives. One specific concern involves potential differences across the sound classes affected by place assimilation (nasal versus oral stops), and whether these sound classes show similar patterns of compensation when the triggering phonological context (i.e., a word-initial labial consonant following the assimilated sound) is or is not present. A second issue is the extent to which effects of compensation are observed for these sound classes in the early moments of word recognition, and a third consideration is whether the English lexicon is structured in a way that minimizes confusion. An acoustic analysis, two word identification experiments, and two experiments using an eye tracking methodology combined with a priming paradigm are used to examine the production and perceptual processing of unassimilated and assimilated word-final nasal and oral stops. A corpus analysis is also conducted to explore the structure of the lexicon with respect to the cases where place assimilation might result in lexical ambiguity. I demonstrate that complete compensation for assimilation may be less likely to occur than previously assumed. However, the phonological context information clearly plays a role in compensation for assimilation even when the degree of assimilation is very strong. Further, the results of priming manipulations suggest that the precise nature of compensation may vary across sound classes. Finally, the structure of the lexicon seems to reflect the potential for confusion that results from coronal-to-labial assimilation in nasal and oral stops. Together, the findings suggest that, in addition to general auditory processing, inferential mechanisms and the statistical patterning of sounds within the lexicon play important roles in facilitating the recognition of assimilated words.

Keywords: Eye tracking
Phonological variation
Place assimilation
Process priming
Speech perception
Spoken word recognition
Advisor: Chambers, Craig