Towards an Integrated, Liberal Theory of the Canadian State

L'auteure remet en cause la tendance à assimiler les notions d'État et de société qui existe dans les provinces canadiennes de common law. A la manière de Kenneth Dyson, elle avance l'idée que l'État occupe une sphère distincte, produit de l'interrelation de l'État-institution et du concept d'Etat. Ni simplement actif ou passif, ce concept d'Etat confronte action et réflexion, institution et idée. L'auteure analyse ensuite les valeurs publiques couramment véhiculées par le concept d'État canadien perçu dans une perspective libérale. Ces valeurs modulent graduellement l'exercice du pouvoir et inversement. Ce phénomène devrait conduire à distinguer l'État de la société, ce qui n'est pas aussi courant dans les provinces de common law.In this article, the author challenges the tendency in common law Canada to conflate the distinction between State and society. Following the analysis of Kenneth Dyson, the author contends that the State occupies a distinct sphere produced by or contained in the interconstitutive relationship of State institution, on the one hand, and State idea, on the other. The State concept is presented as neither merely active nor merely passive but as involving a relationship between action and reflection, between institution and idea. The author then analyses the broadly shared public values which are contained in the Canadian State idea when viewedfrom a liberal political perspective. That these values incrementally modulate the exercise of public power — and vice versa — argues for a State-society distinction which is not generally emphasized in common law Canada

Communication and health literacy in Dien Bien Province, Vietnam: experiences and perceptions of primary health care professionals and ethnic minority women

Background: An important element of improving patient-centred communication in resource-poor settings is improving health literacy. There has been little research about communication and health literacy in such settings. Ethnic minorities in Vietnam experience poor communication with health professionals, and there are considerable inequities in health outcomes. This thesis aims to investigate the communication experiences, and the factors underlying communication, between ethnic minority women with limited health literacy and primary health care professionals in the maternal health setting in a remote province of Vietnam. Methods: This qualitative study used a focused ethnography methodology. Data was generated from in-depth interviews with health professionals (n=22) and focus group discussions with ethnic minority women (n=42). Results: Primary health services were likely to be underutilised and were perceived to be of low quality. Health professionals perceived communication to be a one-way path for delivering information and perceived communication problems to be due to patient factors, placing the burden for improvement on patients. Ethnic minority women experienced communication with health professionals as didactic and paternalistic, with health professionals often relying on written information. Discussion: This thesis adds new knowledge to the limited amount of research exploring health literacy and communication in low and middle-income countries. This research applies a health literacy lens to thinking patient/health professional communication, and how communication can be improved. There is evidence to suggest that patient-centred approaches to communication can be successfully implemented in Vietnam. Adopting more patient-centred approaches to health communication with women from diverse ethnic backgrounds in Vietnam could help to increase the use of maternal health services and reduce inequities in maternal health outcomes

A computer administered version versus paper-and-pencil administered version of the MMPI-A

Within the context of a counterbalanced design, 102 students from a high school and a large university in the southeast were administered two versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A): a computer-administered version (CA) and a paper-and-pencil version (PAP). Time between testing sessions was approximately one week. Differences in individual scale means between the CA and PAP were calculated using paired t-tests, with the Bonferroni correction procedure; no mean differences were significant (p. \u3e .05). To determine if the scale distributions were similar, tests of homogeneity of variance were conducted using Hartley\u27s homogeneity of variance tests; there were no differences in the shapes of the scale distributions (p. \u3e .05). Pearson product-moment coefficients were calculated for each scale to determine if the relative rankings were similar; coefficients for every scale were positive and statistically significant (p. \u3c .01). Implications of the findings of this study are discussed

Risk Perceptions of Adults in the Town of Unicoi, Tennessee, Regarding the Possible Building of a Uranium Enrichment Plant.

A prolonged siting controversy for a uranium enrichment facility has occurred in the Town of Unicoi, Tennessee. One hundred-seventy residents of Unicoi were interviewed using a questionnaire regarding the building of a proposed uranium enrichment facility for Unicoi. The questionnaire sought to determine relationships between residents’ risk perceptions and 18 variables. When the Fisher’s exact procedure was applied at α\u3c 0.05, the results indicated several associations. Odds ratio measured the strength of association. Results are reported as crude measures of association. Risk perceptions were influenced by the choice of possible locations for the facility [p=0.0003; OR=32.6]. Residents\u27 risk perceptions were associated with a history of working with nuclear materials [p=0.0476; OR=3.2]. Finally, risk perceptions were associated with residents\u27 beliefs that the nuclear facility would affect their health [p=0.0001; OR=18.8]. These results are discussed in light of risk perception and communication theories

If You Stand On This Corner, People Know What You\u27re About : Powerful Geographies Of Airline & Goodwood in #JusticeForAlton

This thesis seeks to understand the multiple geographies of Airline & Goodwood, a site of protest occupied nightly during a part of summer 2016 in response to the police shooting of Alton Sterling. Through a methodology of observant-participation, interviews, and oral histories, I make the case that the politics of this site differed from other contemporaneous protest sites in the city through specific place-making activity which highlighted the site’s powerful contemporary and historical geographies. I connect protest at this site to the precarity of Black life and death in Baton Rouge through interviews and oral histories which discuss the historical geography of birth and segregation in Baton Rouge. Further, I examine the ways that the place of this site extended beyond its space, extending into flood relief and other organizing efforts post-summer 2016

FAULTY FOUNDATIONS: AN INVESTIGATION INTO TOXIC HOMES IN THE BLACKFEET NATION

In 2002, a class action lawsuit came out of the Blackfeet Nation. The plaintiffs were residents of a federally-funded housing project called Glacier Homes, and they were suing Blackfeet Housing and the Department of Housing and Urban Development because their homes were making them sick. The case got some local media coverage for a couple years. But it was ultimately forgotten and the plaintiffs never got a remedy. This long-form audio project revives this story and asks listeners to think about these plaintiffs’ arguments in a modern light. The Glacier Homes offer a lens through which to think about several social justice issues that are overlooked in Indian country: housing policy past and present, decades-old public health issues, poor construction practices and materials, Indian law at multiple levels of the court system, sovereign immunity, tribal sovereignty, and treaty responsibilities

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe purpose of this study was to examine hope both as a powerful discursive element in health-related literature and as a discursive practice in cancer research decision-making by patients, family caregivers, and physician researchers in a quaternary cancer research center. The practice of hope is an important activity for people diagnosed with cancer, but the unexamined, taken-for-granted practice of hope may exert undue influences on the decision-making/informed consent process for cancer research participation. A genealogy (systematic analysis that illustrates the complex and often contradictory historical influences that culminate in the construction of a concept) of hope was created using philosophical, theological, and literary resources. From these analyses, major discourse practices of hope were identified. Then a focused discourse analysis of representative articles on hope published between 1999 and 2008 in the journal Advances in Nursing Science examined how influential articles reify hope as an object-with the result that hope becomes something that can be given or taken away from patients, thus limiting the scope of how hope can be enacted. A secondary analysis of 109 transcripts from 25 cancer patients enrolled in Phase II clinical trials for hematopoietic stem cell transplants analyzed how patients, family caregivers (n=20), and physician researchers (n=10) used metaphors to construct and represent cancer, medicine, science, and agency. Rhetorical analysis was utilized to indentify patterns of persuasion present in the transcripts that reinforced the hope imperative for patients to enroll in cancer research. Metaphors used by study participants were not neutral, but rather were dynamic forces that demonstrated the discursive power and hope's centrality to decision-making for cancer research participation. Current discursive practices of the informed consent process allow researchers to meet federal and regulatory guidelines while ignoring a potential coerciveness in the underlying dynamics of hope-for-cure and the hope imperative. The implications of this work are significant for bioethics. This work will help cancer research professionals engage in informed consent processes that minimize the elements of coercion. The practice of hope may then be allowed to embrace outcomes beyond cure

Public Power and Private Obligation: An Analysis of the Government Contract

This paper analyzes contracts made by the Government in terms of political theory. From this perspective, it explores the assumptions, utility, and accuracy of the private law model which historically has governed the Government\u27s liability in contract. The paper\u27s overarching objective is to question the propriety of applying private law principles to a public entity, particularly within the context of liberal democratic values to which both the Canadian State and society are pledged. In accord with McAuslan, it regards theoretical inquiry as significant. It asserts that if the current model of State liability collides with fundamental Canadian political constructs, or falls into descriptive inaccuracy, or generates false conclusions, the model ought to be replaced with a more competent one