Theses, Dissertations, and other Required Graduate Degree Essays

Curious & Curiouser is a dual-part project where listening happens in two different “spaces”: the choral composition and in an artist book. Each uses as source material haiku that the artist discovered on her walks through the industrial waterfront area of East Vancouver; the haiku are engraved on red dog tags and nailed to the wooden power poles she encountered along her path. The haiku texts are translated into two spatial forms that make visible the patterns of order in music, braiding visuality with aurality. The choral suite is a kaleidoscopic word painting—a sound sculpture in five movements—staging the sight of sound through choreographic gesture, movement and theatre; a poetry of motion. Composed as a postlude to the suite, the artist book is a part-score for performing listening, the graphic scores and listening events map sound out of sight—a question of how we hear what we see.

Background: Although older adults may experience health challenges requiring increased attention and care, they often do not ask for help. This behavior is complex and not completely understood; therefore, further research into help-seeking behaviors of older adults and minority ethnic sub-groups is warranted. Methods: Guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework and the PRISMA-Scoping Review guidelines, a scoping review was conducted. Data were analyzed using a qualitative meta-synthesis framework. Results: Fifty-two studies meeting inclusion criteria were organized into six themes: interactions with formal healthcare providers, identity and independence, appraisal of symptoms and health, turning to social supports, accessibility and awareness, and cultural factors and lay/religious beliefs. A supplementary analysis of younger populations and Asian older adults was conducted to address the low number of minority studies captured by the inclusion criteria and to validate study themes. Discussion: Identifying how factors, such as symptom appraisal and social support, impact older adults’ help-seeking behaviors, may provide insights into how to address such barriers and how cultural dimensions of help-seeking contribute to unique challenges for minority ethnic populations.

Non-credit programs for older adults have had a peripheral but growing role in Canadian universities since the 1970s (Ratsoy, 2016; Findsen & Formosa, 2011). As the population ages, interest in such programs is increasing, but they remain relatively neglected in research (Findsen, 2018; Kops, 2017; Snyder & Taylor, 2012). Adding to the literature that takes older adult learning more seriously, this case study describes in depth the experience of learners in a continuing studies program for older adults in a Canadian university, anonymized as the “Seniors Program.” Through critical reflexivity and narrative inquiry, using insight from my perspective as a member of the Seniors Program’s administrative team, I tell a story of the program which includes: the problem of exclusion of so many from older adult learning at university; the persistence of older paradigms of learning; the contrast between passively accepting facts and actively exploring mystery as a learner; the question of whether older adult learners in general are significantly different from younger; and ageism and issues of gender. To illustrate these themes, I describe a specific initiative in the Seniors Program, the introduction of courses and events exploring end-of-life issues. I address the unacknowledged complexities of older adult learning, and the potential and challenges of programs for older adult learners in university settings.

Integrating Indigenous perspectives in British Columbia is a requirement for teacher education programs as well as in the K-12 school programs. This doctoral research aims to study the successes and challenges of integrating Indigenous perspectives specifically for French immersion teachers in the K-12 programs. Very little research has focused on the integration of Indigenous perspectives in French immersion programs in Canada. In British Columbia, in particular, there has been no research on this topic. In this qualitative multiple case-study research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six French immersion teachers. The theoretical framework informing this research is based on the following field of studies : White supremacy and privilege studies in the context of settler colonialism; antiracist education; curriculum studies and decolonization. For presenting this research, we chose a manuscript-based format thesis that includes three publications (Côté, 2019a, Côté, 2019b, Côté, submitted). First, the lack of research done in French is explored on two distinct levels: (1) decolonization, settler colonialism and White supremacy, and (2) the integration of Indigenous perspectives in the preservice teacher education program as well as in the K-12 school programs. Second, the similar challenges encountered by both French and English teachers are explored. Also, two challenges unique to the French immersion program are briefly presented.

The significance of teacher and student interactions in classrooms as a means of enacting curricula, analyzing learning gains and embedding classrooms into broader societal power relations needs to be emphasized. In the context of science classes with English language learners (ELLs) in Canadian high schools, language learning and content learning goals are intertwined. In this study, I focused on the question of how I can help ELLs master science literacy, ommunicative literacies, and knowledge-based critical reasoning skills without simplifying the curriculum. I designed and delivered lessons for an adapted (transitional) science class of fourteen grade 10 ELLs over two semesters. I video-recorded all class activities and analyzed the data using the Communicative Approach framework, the Genre Egg framework, the Cognitive Discourse Functions construct, the 5R Instructional Model, and the Teacher Language Awareness construct. My data showed that adopting pedagogical practices via dialogic discursive interactions that create room for different points of view benefited ELLs in acquiring academic literacy. Furthermore, language accommodation did not seem to hinder or shift dialogic discourses into presentation and lecture-style authoritative teaching. However, the data also revealed the challenges of advancing content and language objectives in the same lesson under time constraints and given the reality of teacher training for adapted teachers in science. I argue that raising the content awareness of language teachers and the language awareness of content teachers has the potential to promote a genre-based, dialogic pedagogical approach in legitimizing learners’ views while offering access to dominant science perspectives in order to help ELLs develop criticality and maintain science identities as valued members of a high school science community. I reflect on the challenges in doing this and some of the strategies to overcome them. I conclude that the future of adapted teaching needs to endorse rigour as opposed to simplifying content, promote dialogicity instead of unilateral information-giving, utilize learners’ diverse pools of knowledge and experiences rather than leave them out of the curriculum, teach text-in-context as opposed to isolated language lessons, and foster critical thinking via reasoning and argumentation of today’s global issues to truly benefit language learners in developing science literacy.

This thesis is composed of three essays on economics of education. The first chapter is co-authored with Ciro Avitabile and Jesse Cunha and investigates the medium-term impact of early-life welfare transfers on children’s learning. It studies children who were exposed to the randomized controlled trial of the Mexico’s Food Support Program (Programa de Apoyo Alimentario), in which households were assigned to receive cash, in-kind food transfers, or nothing (a control). The findings show that in-kind transfers did not impact test scores, while cash transfers led to a significant and meaningful decrease in test scores. An analysis of the mechanisms driving these results reveals that both transfers led to an increase in child labor, which is likely detrimental to learning. In-kind food transfers, however, induced a greater consumption of several key micronutrients that are vital for brain development, which likely attenuated the negative impacts of child labor on learning. The second chapter, jointly with Jane Friesen and Simon Woodcock, studies sorting, peer effects and school effectiveness under a universal voucher program. Using student-level longitudinal data for the population of students enrolled in private and public schools, we estimate a model of test scores that includes student effects, school effects and peer effects. Our results provide both the first estimates of the contribution of peer ability to private school effectiveness and a novel set of estimates of the effect of private school cream-skimming on the achievement of public school students under a mature voucher program. We find evidence of substantial sorting that contributes meaningfully to achievement at private schools via peer effects but has little effect on the average outcomes of those left behind in public schools. The third chapter investigates the effect of a policy-induced increase in public school competition on private school enrollment and budget outcomes. I exploit a natural experiment created by the introduction of an open enrollment policy that expanded public school choice opportunities and increased competitive pressure on private schools. Using a new data set constructed from mandatory nonprofit information returns and school enrollment records, I find that an increase in public school competition modestly reduces private school enrollment. Catholic school enrollment is most responsive to increased public school choice, whereas other private schools such as Christian and other faith schools experience no reduction in enrollment. The negative enrollment effects are concentrated among high school age students. I find no evidence that private schools respond to this increased public school choice by adjusting their revenue and spending choices.

With the acceleration of climate change, Canada's commitment to action on carbon emissions faces several vital contradictions. These tensions have economic, social, and communicative dimensions. This research seeks to investigate some of these manifestations by looking at how energy is understood and articulated through the lens of faith. Unique to the Canadian cultural/petrol landscape is that the physical geography of extraction and transport often overlaps with the cultural and spiritual geographies of protestant Christian faith. To date, few scholars have tackled this subject through this specific lens. While some scholars and Christian leaders have begun to address the overlapping relations of climate change, fossil fuels, and belief (Marshall, 2020; Dochuk, 2019; Jenkins, Berry, & Kreider, 2018; Hayhoe, 2018; Ghosh, 2017; Taylor, Van Wieren, & Zaleha, 2016; Franics, 2015; McDuff, 2012; Wilkinson, 2012; Peterson, 2010; Yergin, 2008), this has yet to be explored significantly within Canadian communications and energy scholarship. With the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, much of it located and transported through Western Canada’s Christian and Evangelical heartlands, (rural Alberta and the BC Fraser Valley and Okanagan), this research has much to add to a growing conversation around fossil fuels. In particular, it offers novel perspectives on the varied negotiations of labour, care, and identity that surround energy production, consumption, and transition. To do this, the thesis conducts a review of Canadian English language mainstream legacy media coverage of faith-based fossil fuel news stories, from 2016-2018, a period of significant public and discursive contestation over pipelines in Canada. This analysis is then paired with a series of one-on-one interviews and focus group conversations with faith leaders and believers in communities primarily along the Trans Mountain Pipeline route. These conversations explore how lived experiences of faith are constituted by, and also challenge, dominant narratives in Canada’s legacy media. Of particular focus is the way in which high carbon living is reflected in national news discourses of economy, wellbeing, and nation. Importantly, this is not intended to be a work of theology, but rather an examination of the way that particular religious identities and subjectivities mediate understandings of climate change and fossil fuels.

This report highlights the effects of the disruption in the magazine industry in recent years (pre the COVID-19 global pandemic) and explores how brand extension and diversification of revenue has been necessary in order for print magazines to stay afloat. It focuses on how Irish women’s lifestyle magazine Irish Tatler—at which I completed my 3-month professional placement—has employed external events as a means of both generating revenue and fostering a strong sense of community and loyalty amongst readers. It also explores ways in which the magazine could further extend its brand through implementing new reader events and partnerships.

Over the past two decades, the steady global popularity of South Korean pop music, known as K-pop, has brought with it a rise in scholarly inquiry surrounding not only the reception of the music itself, but also the potential it possesses in terms of soft power for the nation state. Much of the focus has been directed towards initiatives at the level of the government, the industry, and even the recognition of audiences across the world. Adding to this field of study, this project instead proposes to investigate how global fan labour in particular plays a role in the cultural diplomacy field through its inherent connectivity. More specifically, this project aims to elucidate the ways in which K-pop fan creation exists as a transcultural labour network that re sides within the affective spaces of attachment and exchange. Through employing a conjunct political economy and fandom studies lens, this thesis argues that it is the value of affective attachment constructed and promoted by the labour of fans that not only positions the fandom as active agents of soft power alongside industry and government but allows the work to be transformative in its position as a resistive experience and expression.

This dissertation is the author’s mourning diary. By way of discursive and poetic, epigraphic and fragmented, graphic and photographic modes of narrative inquiry, he marshals his grief in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths toward recasting broken and dysfunctional parental pedagogies—pedagogies that arrested his artistic aspirations and creative undertakings not only in childhood but over the vast terrain of his adult life—into a new and self-governed curricula; a curricula of self-love providing unencumbered throughways toward uninhibited self-expression and a fracture-free personhood by which to pursue new creative horizons in his senior years.