Mental Illness Prevention: Exploring Effective Coping Strategies for School-Aged Children

Anxiety Disorders are the most prevalent mental illnesses in Western society, affecting the population in multiple ways. Onset for many anxiety disorders is as early as childhood or adolescence. The earlier the onset, the more chronic or severe it may be; it is important to focus on preventing anxiety disorders before they are developed. Research has shown that adaptive coping strategies can work as a mediator between stress and mental health. The current study explored effective coping strategies for young children in the general population, in an effort to further expand our knowledge about coping in children, and increase the applicability of these coping strategies in real-world settings. Children between five and ten years of age participated in training sessions where one of three types of coping strategies was taught using a therapeutic board game: relaxation, positive self-talk, and coping behaviors. Children’s coping abilities were assessed using the Self Report Coping Scale (SRCS) before and after the training sessions occurred. Results revealed that the majority of children used coping behavior types of strategies prior to being trained on new adaptive coping methods, and adopted coping behavior strategies more easily than relaxation or self-talk techniques. Comparisons of the SRCS scores after the training sessions to the SRCS assessment conducted prior to the training revealed that males and females were influenced differently by participation in the training: females increased, and males decreased the likelihood of using certain coping strategies. Future research is needed to continue exploring how gender, and type of coping strategy taught, influence the likelihood that children will adopt new adaptive coping strategies. This vital information will help educators, therapists, and parents to prevent or decrease anxiety in young children

Critical Geopolitics and the Created Worlds of Post-9/11 Spy Film

Critical geopolitics seeks to understand how we view the world, and popular film can be a key source in unveiling common fears and hopes of a particular time. in this thesis, I explore the portrayal of the world world and themes in 21st century spy film franchises to understand what worldviews are being reinforced and created through these films. Using the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, as my chief historical event of influence, I analyze spy films in the James Bond and Mission: Impossible film franchises to get a sense of how these films reflected and reproduced the popular ideologies of their time. Through the frameworks of critical and popular geopolitics, I provide a reading of these films’ ideologies that they portray through their visual cues to place and their thematic focuses and dialogue. I propose that these post-9/11 spy films handle the actual events of September 11, 2001, through subtext and similar imagery and that themes of the Cold War are still present in these films. Finally, I examine the role that non-national threats embody in these films. This work promotes the study of spy film as a middle ground that can bring together critical geopolitical work on fantastical superhero films and more realistic films, thus illuminating the semi-realistic worlds that popular spy film creates and the ideologies that can exist within them

Responses to linguistic and cultural diversity in New Zealand state secondary schools : a qualitative study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Demand for English language learning (ELL) in New Zealand has intensified since the millennium, alongside marked increases in immigration to cater for businesses such as construction and agriculture, and the impacts of episodic earthquake damage. ELL assistance in state secondary schools in New Zealand is centred on the dynamics surrounding English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) departments. This study seeks to gain an understanding of the layered contexts surrounding and within ESOL Departments by using a conceptual framework of ecology and a qualitative, case study paradigm. It draws on data from interviews, observations, documentation and researcher journaling to examine ESOL Department systems and practices in three state secondary schools with differing locations, deciles and ESOL Department structures. The findings reveal the significant weight of wide-ranging regulatory and ideological interactions connected with ESOL Departments associated with colonial aspirations, ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ legislation and New Zealand’s bicultural status. Findings also highlight the affordances and constraints experienced in ELL by staff and students in the case study schools and explore the costs and benefits as set against the pressures of local, national and international dynamics. The study concludes with implications for personnel responsible for ELL at national and local levels. It calls for more professional development initiatives and specific ELL regulation of resources for educationalists to assist with ELL linguistic, social and cultural integration. Results are intended to enhance ELLs’ educational opportunities in schools as well as contribute to efforts for increased social cohesion between people of diverse ethnicities in this rapidly diversifying nation

“The Incest Plot” in John Banville’s Ancient Light

Ancient Light (2012), o terceiro e (até hoje) livro final da série Alexander and Cass Cleave de John Banville é um texto no qual os personagens que morreram nos livros anteriores são reciclados e trazidos de volta, como papeis em um filme, interpretado por personagens cuja caracterização em si se confunde com os papeis que estão interpretando. A preocupação estabelecida de Banville com o retorno ao passado e o retrocesso do passado adquire uma dimensão intrigantemente excessiva neste romance. Ancient Light apresenta uma versão mais acentuada do que Neil Murphy chamou de “mundo intertextual banvilleano entrelaçado” (86). Este artigo analisará o romance usando as ideias de Stephanie Insley Hershinow sobre “o enredo incestuoso”. Ela chama esta estrutura de “modelo de autoencerramento tautológico - o abraço da mansidão, da repetição, até mesmo da redundância, sobre a mudança” (150). Afirmo que a própria infra-estrutura do romance é um “autoencerramento tautológico”. As características de “auto-samudez, repetição [e] redundância” são inescapáveis neste romance, e a “mudança” convencionalmente oferecida por terceiros livros em trilogias simplesmente não deve ser encontrada na terceira parcela incessantemente auto-referencial de Banville. Em sua discussão sobre o incesto como forma, Hershinow afirma que “destacar a forma é a única maneira de ver as formas que o incesto excede suas manifestações literais” (156). Ela ainda sugere que o incesto “é uma forma de o romance explorar a quantidade mínima de diferença necessária para que a narrativa continue a funcionar como tal, para experimentar o minimalismo da narrativa” (ibidem). A estrutura da trama, assim como uma interpretação mais literal do “incesto” será minada, dado que o desejo do narrador por sua filha morta Cass é a principal força animadora por trás da narrativa.Ancient Light (2012), the third and (to date) final book in the Alexander and Cass Cleave series by John Banville, is a text in which characters who died in the previous books are recycled and brought back as roles in a film, played by characters whose characterisation itself blurs with the roles they are playing. Banville’s established preoccupation with returning to the past and retracing old ground takes on an intriguingly excessive dimension in this novel. Ancient Light presents a heightened version of what Neil Murphy has referred to as an “interlocked intertextual Banvillean world” (86). This article will examine the book using Stephanie Insley Hershinow’s ideas around “the incest plot.” She calls this structure a “model of tautological self-enclosure – the embrace of self-sameness, repetition, even redundancy, over change” (150). My claim is that the novel’s very infrastructure is one of “tautological self-enclosure.” The features of “self-sameness, repetition [and] redundancy” are inescapable in this novel, and the “change” conventionally offered by third books in trilogies is simply not to be encountered in Banville’s relentlessly self-referential third instalment. In her discussion of incest as form, Hershinow contends that “highlighting form is the only way to see the ways that incest exceeds its literal manifestations” (156). She further suggests that incest “is a way for the novel to explore the minimal amount of difference required for narrative to continue to function as such, to experiment with narrative minimalism” (ibid.). The plot structure, as well as a more literal interpretation of ‘incest’ will be mined, given that the narrator’s desire for his dead daughter Cass is the primary animating force behind the narrative

A study of sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for students of nursing in a program of rehabilitation of handicapped children

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit