Learning experience and identity development as a research assistant /

What research learning experiences do current students have as research assistants (RAs) in the Faculty of Education at Brock University? How do the experiences of research assistants contribute to the formation of a researcher identity and influence future research plans? Despite the importance of these questions, there seems to be very little research conducted or written about the experiences of research assistants as they engage in the research process. There are few resources to which research assistants or their advisors can refer regarding graduate student research learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to understand the kinds of learning experiences that 4 RAs (who are enrolled in the Faculty of Education at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario) have and how those experiences contribute to their identities as researchers. Through interviews with participants, observations of participants, and textual documents produced by participants, I have (a) discovered what 4 RAs have learned while engaged in one or more research assistantships and (b) explored how these 4 RAs' experiences have shaped their identities as new researchers. My research design provided a separate case study for each participant RA, including myself as a research participant. Then as a collective, I studied all 4 cases as a case study in itself in the form of a cross-analysis to identify similarities and differences between cases. Using a variety of writing forms and visual narratives, I analyzed and interpreted the experiences of my participants utilizing arts-based literature to inform my analysis and thesis format. The final presentation includes electronic diagrams, models, poetry, a newsletter, a website presentation, and other representational arts-based forms.This thesis is a resource for current and future research assistants who can learn from the research assistant experiences presented in the research. Faculty members who hire research assistants to assist them with their research will also benefit from reading about RAs' learning experiences from the RAs' perspective. The information provided in this thesis document is a resource to inform future policies and research training initiatives in faculty departments and offices at universities. Consequently, this thesis also informs researchers (experienced and inexperienced) about how to conduct research in ways that benefit all parties and provide insight into potential ways to improve research assistantship practices.

Moral identity, youth engagement, and discussions with parents and peers /

The strength of adolescents' moral identity was examined in relation to their sense of social responsibility, frequency of community engagement, and interactions with parents and friends. Participants were 191 applicants to national youth conferences, ranging in age from 14-19, who completed a 40-minute survey. 76% of the participants were female. Social responsibility, community engagement, and discussion with parents and friends were measured using self-report questionnaires. Participants also reported on the importance of various values to themselves, their parents, and their friends, which were used to create an index of the degree of disagreement between the youth and their parents and friends. In addition, participants provided self-descriptions, which were used to measure moral identity with both a coding scheme and a ratings measure. Moral identity as measured by coding was not related to social responsibility, community engagement, or any other study variables, and thus did not appear to be a valid measure of moral identity. However, moral identity as measured by ratings was related to both social responsibility and community engagement, and thus appeared to be a valid measure. Neither disagreement nor discussion with friends was related to moral identity. However, disagreement with parents was positively related to moral identity ratings, and for girls only was negatively related to social responsibility. Furthermore, discussion with parents was positively related to moral identity for boys only. The hypothesis predicting a mediational model was not supported. Results were discussed in terms of theoretical positions on the role of parents and friends in children's moral development and suggestions for ftiture research were made.

The implications of being an international medical graduate (IMG) in Canadian society : a qualitative study of foreign-trained physicians' resettlement, sense of identity and health status

This qualitative research study used grounded theory methodology to explore the settlement experiences and changes in professional identity, self esteem and health status of foreign-trained physicians (FTPs) who resettled in Canada and were not able to practice their profession. Seventeen foreign-trained physicians completed a pre-survey and rated their health status, quality of life, self esteem and stress before and after coming to Canada. They also rated changes in their experiences of violence and trauma, inclusion and belonging, and racism and discrimination. Eight FTPs from the survey sample were interviewed in semi-structured qualitative interviews to explore their experiences with the loss of their professional medical identities and attempts to regain them during resettlement. This study found that without their medical license and identity, this group of FTPs could not fully restore their professional, social, and economic status and this affected their self esteem and health status. The core theme of the loss of professional identity and attempts to regain it while being underemployed were connected with the multifaceted challenges of resettlement which created experiences of lowered selfesteem, and increased stress, anxiety and depression. They identified the re-licensing process (cost, time, energy, few residency positions, and low success rate) as the major barrier to a full and successful settlement and re-establishment of their identities. Grounded research was used to develop General Resettlement Process Model and a Physician Re-licensing Model outlining the tasks and steps for the successfiil general resettlement of all newcomers to Canada with additional process steps to be accomplished by foreign-trained physicians. Maslow's Theory of Needs was expanded to include the re-establishment of professional identity for this group to re-establish levels of safety, security, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization. Foreign-trained physicians had established prior professional medical identities, self-esteem, recognition, social status, purpose and meaning and bring needed human capital and skills to Canada. However, without identifying and addressing the barriers to their full inclusion in Canadian society, the health of this population may deteriorate and the health system of the host country may miss out on their needed contributions.

Exploring exploration : career identity development and temperment /

Career identity exploration is a central component of the lives of undergraduate university students. Although students are encouraged to explore, it is unclear whether different methods of exploration are better suited for certain individuals. In the present study, quantitative data were collected to examine the relationship between shyness and various methods of exploration. Two hundred fifty-seven university undergraduate students (29 male), ranging in age from 17-25 years completed a 60-minute self-report questionnaire. Shyness, identity, identity distress, subjective dimensions of exploration (satisfaction with exploration, reasons for not exploring, helpfulness of exploration methods), foci of exploration (non-social, social, self, and environmental), approaches to exploration (breadth, depth), and moderating variables (social support, sociability) were measured. Shyness was positively correlated with moratorium (high exploration, low commitment) and uncorrelated with the other identity statuses. Shyness was also positively correlated with identity distress, and a predicted interaction between shyness and identity diffusion predicting career identity distress was supported. Shyness was negatively correlated with satisfaction with amount of exploration engaged in to-date. In addition, shyness was correlated with the likelihood of selecting too stressful and too anxiety provoking as reasons for engaging in less exploration than one would like. Expected relationships between shyness and beliefs about, and engagement in, various methods of exploration were largely non-significant. Exceptions to this were the negative correlations between shyness and engagement in social exploration, and beliefs about the helpfulness of social self-exploration, both of which were significant at a trend level. A predicted interaction between shyness and social support predicting total social exploration was supported, showing that high social support buffers the negative relationship between shyness and exploration; such a moderating relationship did not exist, however, between sociability, shyness and social exploration. Results suggest that although shy university students are engaged in career exploration, they are experiencing feelings of distress and dissatisfaction with their career identity exploration and development. Thus, to help shy students become successfiil in their exploration, it is important for counsellors, family members, and peers to be aware of the feelings the individuals are experiencing and help them reduce the anxiety and stress associated with the exploration process. One promising method, supported by the results in this study, is by encouraging shy individuals to explore with social support.

Buddy films and gender identity : representing the bonds of masculinity /

The study examines the buddy film genre and the representation of masculinity in relation to the homosocial and the homoerotic. As a genre, the buddy films focus on male relationships, thematically seeking to mediate the boundaries surrounding the homosocial continuum and the intimacy and eroticism implicit in male bonding. Theories of genre, gender and identity are used to analyze the construction of masculine identity within the films. By providing a qualitative analysis of films from the 1960s to contemporary times, the research establishes a relationship between social changes, attitudes toward men and depictions of men. The buddy films adapt to address changes in the representation of masculinity, embodied in the difference between the male couple in the films. The early films of the 1960s served as templates that deconstructed traditional representations of male identity through articulating the tension within homosocial relationships. However, in the later films this tension became a refle~ive convention, acting to undermine the eroticism onto a displaced Other. The buddy film genre highlights the tension inherent to the male masquerade. This tension is situated in the need to represent the protagonist's homosocial relationship, while disavowing the eroticism that surrounds homosocial bonding. The structure of the buddy film genre, which focuses on the exploration of masculinity and representing the bonds of homosocial intimacy, makes these films a significant site for investigating the cultural construction of masculine identities.

Electrophysiological and behavioural correlates of facial identity and expression perception deficits following a closed head injury /

A large variety of social signals, such as facial expression and body language, are conveyed in everyday interactions and an accurate perception and interpretation of these social cues is necessary in order for reciprocal social interactions to take place successfully and efficiently. The present study was conducted to determine whether impairments in social functioning that are commonly observed following a closed head injury, could at least be partially attributable to disruption in the ability to appreciate social cues. More specifically, an attempt was made to determine whether face processing deficits following a closed head injury (CHI) coincide with changes in electrophysiological responsivity to the presentation of facial stimuli. A number of event-related potentials (ERPs) that have been linked specifically to various aspects of visual processing were examined. These included the N170, an index of structural encoding ability, the N400, an index of the ability to detect differences in serially presented stimuli, and the Late Positivity (LP), an index of the sensitivity to affective content in visually-presented stimuli. Electrophysiological responses were recorded while participants with and without a closed head injury were presented with pairs of faces delivered in a rapid sequence and asked to compare them on the basis of whether they matched with respect to identity or emotion. Other behavioural measures of identity and emotion recognition were also employed, along with a small battery of standard neuropsychological tests used to determine general levels of cognitive impairment. Participants in the CHI group were impaired in a number of cognitive domains that are commonly affected following a brain injury. These impairments included reduced efficiency in various aspects of encoding verbal information into memory, general slower rate of information processing, decreased sensitivity to smell, and greater difficulty in the regulation of emotion and a limited awareness of this impairment. Impairments in face and emotion processing were clearly evident in the CHI group. However, despite these impairments in face processing, there were no significant differences between groups in the electrophysiological components examined. The only exception was a trend indicating delayed N170 peak latencies in the CHI group (p = .09), which may reflect inefficient structural encoding processes. In addition, group differences were noted in the region of the N100, thought to reflect very early selective attention. It is possible, then, that facial expression and identity processing deficits following CHI are secondary to (or exacerbated by) an underlying disruption of very early attentional processes. Alternately the difficulty may arise in the later cognitive stages involved in the interpretation of the relevant visual information. However, the present data do not allow these alternatives to be distinguished. Nonetheless, it was clearly evident that individuals with CHI are more likely than controls to make face processing errors, particularly for the more difficult to discriminate negative emotions. Those working with individuals who have sustained a head injury should be alerted to this potential source of social monitoring difficulties which is often observed as part of the sequelae following a CHI.

Mediated action, narratives of risk-taking, and identity formation in adolescents with a visual impairment

The purpose of this project was to discern the inherent tension present in narratives told by adolescents with a visual impairment as they attempted to make sense of their experiences, specifically those surrounding risk. Mediated action, based on the foundational work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, was used as both a theoretical and methodological approach; it is the theory that there are two components that constitute any human action: the "agent," or the person who is doing the acting, and the "mediational means" that he or she is using to accomplish the action in question. Tension ensues as neither is able to fully explain human behaviour. Ten adolescents with a visual impairment participated in a narrative interview, revealing numerous counter-narratives surrounding risk-taking, including "experimentation undertaken using good judgment." Participants offered examples of how they engaged, appropriated, resisted and transformed the dominant narratives of disability and adolescence in their identity formation.

Revisiting the Jewish American princess : Jewish girls, the J.A.P. discursive stereotype, and negotiated identity

This qualitative exploratory research investigates how Canadian Jewish girls understand the discursive stereotype of the Jewish American Princess (JAP), and how they take up these understandings of the J AP in relation to their identities. Three focus groups and six interviews were conducted with girls attending Jewish high schools in Toronto, Canada to explore these questions. From a third wave Jewish feminist perspective, and taking a mediated action approach to identity, two analyses were conducted. A thematic analysis of peer relations, gender, community, and religious understandings demonstrates how aspects of individual identities mediate interpretations of the JAP. A series ofpor t rai t s of JAP-related identity were constructed to analyze how the JAP discursive stereotype also functions as a cultural tool that is taken up by the participants to mediate expressions of their identities. These findings establish the contradictory ways these Jewish girls describe, interpret, and utilize the JAP discursive stereotype, and the complex roles it plays in their social worlds.

All of My Blood is Red: Contemporary Metis Visual Culture and Identity

This thesis explores notions of contemporary Metis identity through the lens of visual culture, as articulated in the works of three visual artists of Metis ancestry. I discuss the complexities of being Metis with reference to specific art works by Christi Belcourt, David Garneau and Rosalie Favell. In addition to a visual culture analysis of these three Metis artists, I supplement my discussion of Metis identity with a selection of autoethnographic explorations of my identity as a Metis woman through out this thesis. The self-reflexive aspect of this work documents the ways in which my understanding of myself as a Metis woman have been deepened and reworked in the process of conducting this research, while also offering an expanded conception of contemporary Metis culture. I present this work as an important point of departure for giving a greater presence to contemporary Metis visual culture across Canada:

Undergraduate Students' Experiences of Their Mathematical Identity

This research study explored how undergraduate mathematics students perceive themselves as capable mathematics learners and whether gender differences exist in the undergraduates students' perceptions. The research was framed by three approaches of understanding identity: self-efficacy, environment, and four faces of learner's identity. A mixed methods approach to the study was used where data were collected from interviews and an online questionnaire. Data analysis revealed that undergraduate mathematics students' perceptions of their mathematical identity as capable mathematics learners are influenced by their perceptions of their experiences such as: (a) perceptions of having previous knowledge of the course, (b) being able teach others and others understand it, (c) being recognized by their professors, (d) contributing and fitting in, (e) having opportunities to interact with their peers, and (f) being able to fit in with their image of a capable mathematics learner.

Insights Into the Remembered Educational Experiences of Male Caribbean Immigrants to Canada: Literacy and Identity in the Canadian Classroom

Abstract Past research has addressed the issue of male underachievement in literacy as an issue of global concern. This qualitative study focused on one subgroup of males which the literature highlighted as most at risk of educational underachievement in the Canadian educational landscape: male Caribbean immigrants to Canada. The research questions that framed the study sought to gain insight into the educational experiences of this group of learners so that ways through which their literacy achievement as measured by academic performance and classroom engagement could be projected. New literacy studies view literacy as socioculturally bound in social, institutional, and cultural relationships (Gee 1996). Literacy can therefore be thought of as an extension of self that Lankshear and Knobel (2006) assert is always connected to social identities. Central to the research questions as a result of this perspective was the discovery of the ideologies of reading held by the participants and their connections to literacy practice. Supplementary questions delved into socially valued literacy practices and ways in which learners saw themselves as Black males reflected in the Canadian educational framework. In this qualitative study with an interview design, data were collected through individual semistructured interviews with the 4 participants and through a focus group session with all the participants. The findings depicted that identity, interests, and ideologies of reading all influenced the literacy practices and engagement of Caribbean males. The findings documented are valuable as they provide a fresh perspective surrounding the educational experiences of the male Caribbean learner and can present insights which can lead to enhanced academic engagement and improved student achievement for this group of learners.

How are Girls' Attitudes Toward Cyberbullying Affected by Drama for Social Intervention?

This is a study exploring teenaged girls’ understanding and experiences of cyberbullying as a contemporary social phenomenon. Participants included 4 Grade 11 and 12 girls from a medium-sized independent school in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The girls participated in 9 extracurricular study sessions from January to April 2013. During the sessions, they engaged with Drama for Social Intervention (Clark, 2009; Conrad, 2004; Lepp, 2011) activities with the intended goal of producing a collective creation. Qualitative data were collected throughout the sessions using fieldnotes, participant journals, interviews, and participant artefacts. The findings are presented as an ethnodrama (Campbell & Conrad, 2006; Denzin, 2003; Saldaña, 1999) with each thematic statement forming a title of a scene in the script (Rogers, Frellick, & Babinski, 2002). The study found that girl identity online consists of many disconnected avatars. It also suggested that distancing (Eriksson, 2011) techniques, used to engender safety in Drama for Social Intervention, might have contributed to participant disengagement with the study’s content. Implications for further research included the utility of arts-based methods to promote participants’ feelings of growth and reflection, and a reevaluation of cyberbullying discourses to better reflect girls’ multiple avatar identities. Implications for teachers and administrators encompassed a need for preventative approaches to cyberbullying education, incorporating affective empathy-building (Ang & Goh, 2010) and addressing girls’ feelings of safety in perceived anonymity online.

University Faculty Members’ Understanding of Their Role: Identity, Power, and Silence

This qualitative study was conducted to explore tenured faculty members’ understandings of their roles as professors. Tenure is an institutional means to enact academic freedom, which allows tenured faculty members to investigate topics of their choosing free from external influence. Academic freedom also enables faculty members to be public intellectuals who shape and critique social policies and make knowledge assertions. In effect, the faculty members are institutionally protected to speak truth to power. Purposeful sampling of 9 participants from 2 universities yielded 3 major themes: professorial identity (shaped by such factors as career stage, university culture, and faculty affiliation), professorial power (powers that participants experienced as well as the ways in which they exercised power), and professorial silencing (as a response to fiscal realities coupled with numerous governance issues). While participants were cognizant of the powers that affected their freedoms, they were less aware of the ways in which their position afforded them powers. Subtle but more potent forms of power were at play for tenured professors, but the participants saw themselves as having to work within institutional and financial constraints that limited their freedom to speak out on controversial issues. Faculty members were, thus, silenced and at times chose to self-silence. The context of the present-day university, governance models, and the financial issues affecting universities and departments worked in concert to silence this critical voice in society.

Métis or Moniyâw: Explorative stories of decolonizing my Métis identity

This thesis explores my emergent processes of identifying as a Métis person through autoethnographic narratives. I provide an overview of Métis history, identification, and decolonization, especially written by and for Aboriginal peoples. Using a decolonizing framework of Indigenous métissage (Donald, 2012) – which brings together complex, and nuanced influences to build knowledge – and an autoethnographic methodology, I explore cultural knowledges through critical self-reflection. I collected autoethnographic data in the form of personal journals and family artifacts; additionally, I shared conversations with other Métis peoples, which I used to further inform my own processes of identification and decolonization. The study results are presented as narrative vignettes, offering conclusions about: a) cultural ambivalence; b) privilege; c) language and music reclamation; and d) building relationships with both people and land. This research builds upon literature by, about, and for the benefit of Aboriginal peoples and settlers and offers considerations relevant to decolonization and identification.

Le cyberpunk vernaculaire de l’Amérique latine : dystopies, virtualités et résistances

Héritière de la tradition fantastique borgésienne, imprégnée d’une réalité composée de mythes précolombiens et des résidus industriels de la modernité, et développée à l’ère de la mondialisation, du post-modernisme, des jeux vidéos, du cinéma numérique et d’animation, la tendance cyberpunk latino-américaine est cultivée du Mexique jusqu’en Argentine, en passant par Cuba et d’autres pays souvent méconnus dans le monde de la science-fiction comme le Paraguay et la Bolivie. Pressenti dans les œuvres de certains écrivains canoniques comme Ricardo Piglia, Carmen Boullosa ou Edmundo Paz-Soldán, le cyberpunk se manifeste avec force dans l’écriture de jeunes artistes interdisciplinaires et de collaborateurs assidus des fanzines. Cette adaptation du sous-genre dans un continent où la référence reste encore le réel merveilleux et le réalisme magique, malgré l’apport des générations plus récentes comme celle de « McOndo » ou celle du « Crack », essaie d’élaborer une série de réponses aux questions issues de la conjoncture historique et artistique dans laquelle nous vivons : comment situer l’identité latino-américaine dans la nouvelle cartographie culturelle mondiale à travers une littérature qui cherche à se renouveler par rapport au canon littéraire et à la marginalité de son propre genre? Quelles sont les stratégies d’assimilation et de résistance qu’adoptent des jeunes auteurs latino-américains devant le cyberpunk anglo-américain littéraire et cinématographique? Peut-on parler d’un impact esthétique et philosophique du cyberpunk sur la culture latino-américaine, perçue habituellement comme une consommatrice passive de ces produits culturels et non comme une productrice? Ce travail cherche à parcourir l’ensemble de ces questions à partir d’une réflexion sur les principaux dispositifs constitutifs du cyberpunk – la dystopie et la virtualité – dans les discours (post)identitaires en Amérique Latine. Représentation presque mimétique de l’espace socioculturel et historique latino-américain à travers la violence et la répression politique, militaire, ethnique ou sexuelle, la dystopie est un moyen d’articuler certaines figures spatiales aux mythes nationaux et à la politique identitaire dans le contexte de la mondialisation. Cette dernière réalité socioculturelle, ainsi que l’idéologie esthétique que véhicule celle-ci à travers le cyberpunk, crée un conflit avec ces discours identitaires nationaux, conflit qui est accentué ou dissous par la représentation de la réalité virtuelle. La réalité virtuelle, comprise ici comme la direction que le récit prend pour défaire ou consolider la figure dystopique, mène à réfléchir également sur les enjeux de la (post)identité. Penser à une (post)identité (en gardant bien à l’esprit cette parenthèse) à travers le cyberpunk signifie poser une question sur la résistance au passé identitaire des mythes nationaux, au présent de la mondialisation culturelle, et aux discours post-humanistes qui semblent marquer le futur. À l’appui de travaux sur la dystopie et la réalité virtuelle dans le cyberpunk anglo-américain, ainsi que des études culturelles latino-américaines, je parcourrai un corpus composé des romans écrits entre 1990 et 2005. Ce corpus comprendra La Primera Calle de la Soledad (1993) de Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, Santa Clara Poltergeist (1991) de Fausto Fawcett, Ygdrasil (2005) de Jorge Baradit, et les films argentins No muera sin decirme adónde vas (1992) d’Eliseo Subiela et La sonámbula (1998) de Fernando Spiner. Dans ces oeuvres, la dystopie se configure aux possibilités narratives de la virtualité et traverse des thématiques identitaires comme les mythes sexuels et nationaux, la mémoire et le traumatisme ainsi que les projets utopiques des minorités.