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Literature Review: The literature suggests that many adolescents with sexual offence histories (AWSOHs) have experienced adversity in their childhood which significantly impacted their psychosocial development. This review sought to systematically appraise the literature of 3 major data bases to explore to what extent maladaptive psychosocial development mediates the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and sexual offending in adolescents. Studies that met criteria were assessed for quality, summarised and critically evaluated; 10 papers were included for the final review. Three key findings were that emotion dysregulation (anxiety and depression), attachment (insecure) and development of offence themed fantasies mediate the relationship between childhood adversity and sexual offending in adolescence. Some papers were able to demonstrate whether and to what extent these variables mediate the relationship. Due to the methodological weaknesses of some studies, however, it is unclear how and to what extent the factors discussed in their papers mediate the relationship. The authors of the studies make suggestions for how the link could be mediated; these are evaluated in this review. The findings are discussed in the context of attachment theory and the stages of psychosocial development. The review is consistent with previous literature proposing etiological causes for sexual offending and pathways to offending. Implications for clinical practice include considerations for risk assessment, preventative measures in school and health environments and treatment options for adolescents. Future directions could include completing a qualitative review to add to this quantitative review and improving on previous methodology to make firmer conclusions. Empirical Paper: The evidence base suggests many persons with sexual offence histories (PWSOHs) have experienced adversity in their childhood. This study sought to explore the narratives of these individuals and how they believe adversity impacted on their offending behaviour. 12 men in the community who had childhood adversity, a sexual offence history and treatment within the prison and probation service volunteered to share their story. Key narratives elicited included: experiences of relationships, the absence of gendered socialisation, the internal struggle, the problem with current treatment and wider attitudes and moral issues. This analysis provides support for the developmental psychopathological perspective that suggests adversity and trauma directly impacts psychosocial and psychosexual development, creating a catalyst for later offending behaviour. Clinical implications include a need for change in societal attitudes to improve access to preventative support for at risk individuals, improved 1:1 therapy access for PWSOHs and a need for a trauma informed approach in prisons and probation. Strengths, limitations and future directions are considered. Future directions include conducting similar interviews in a prison population to explore contrasts and comparisons to the narratives from this study.

The recent changes in legislation and codes of practice expand the role of the educational psychologist to a wider age range: 0-25. Moreover, surveys suggest an increasing number of children and young people experience difficulties with mental health, including depression. A systematic literature review of what narratives young people use to communicate depression was undertaken in the first paper. Despite an abundance of literature about depression in clinical settings, only eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were incorporated in the synthesis. A number of issues were identified including ways and methods of communicating depression and the impact of normative pressures and gendered experiences. Findings have implications for practitioners working with young people and have been used to develop a tentative framework for effective practice. The second paper reports on qualitative research, adapting a phenomenological approach. The self-selected participant sample (three university students, aged 19-21) had experiences of living with depression. Each participant was interviewed three times, using focused semi-structured interviews. The data were subsequently transcribed and analysed using a framework of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). The themes were grouped into superordinate themes and interpreted in the light of researcher's own experiences and knowledge. Two reported themes 'the weariness of the world was upon me' and 'it all fell down to chance' discuss embodied experiences of living with depression and barriers and facilitators to accessing help, which was mostly coincidental. Finally, the third paper discusses evidence-based practice, ways of achieving impact in research, and dissemination of research at individual, organisational and academic level. Overall, the present research suggests that educational psychologists can play an important role in raising awareness of children and young people living with depression, as well as promoting mental health, wellbeing and resilience in a variety of educational settings and amongst practitioners working with children and young people.

Abstract: This thesis examined the narrative abilities of English L2 learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Typical Development (TD). Producing an effective story requires the interplay of linguistic and pragmatic abilities; narrative samples are useful in analyzing the linguistic abilities of children, including those from clinical populations. Narratives can be analyzed for macrostructure and microstructure components, as well as for components requiring perspective-taking abilities such as the use of terms reflecting story characters’ internal states. Compared to the monolingual research, there have been fewer studies examining narratives in clinical bilingual groups, especially bilinguals with ASD, and no study so far has compared bilinguals with ASD to bilinguals with DLD. However, studies with bilinguals are essential from both a theoretical and clinical perspective, especially in multilingual and multicultural societies such as Canada. This thesis addresses gaps in the existing research on bilingualism, ASD and DLD by looking at older school-age bilinguals, examining narratives rather than lexical development or developmental milestones in ASD, and by focusing on the input and language environments of different bilingual populations. The following theoretical questions were examined: (1) Is macrostructure an area of weakness in DLD? (2) Do children with ASD experience difficulties with structural language, i.e., morphology and syntax? (3) Are narrative skills requiring perspective-taking abilities equally vulnerable in ASD and DLD? (4) Do bilinguals with ASD and DLD use the second language input they receive to the same as bilinguals with TD? To answer the above questions, three studies were carried out with bilingual children from immigrant and newcomer families. Narratives were elicited using a story-generation task and demographic and linguistic input information were collected using parental questionnaires. In Paper 1, the narrative abilities of bilinguals with DLD were compared to those of bilinguals with TD. The participants were matched on age and length of exposure to L2 (mean=24 months). Both macrostructure and microstructure components were examined. In Papers 2 and 3, a 3-way comparison was conducted with bilinguals with ASD, DLD and TD matched on age, receptive vocabulary, and non-verbal cognitive scores, but crucially not matched on exposure to L2 English. Paper 2 focused on macrostructure measured in terms of global story grammar scores and individual story grammar components, as well as microstructure components such as MLU or the use of complex syntax. Paper 3 focused on the production of internal state terms. Taken together, the results revealed several important findings. First, macrostructure differentiated between the bilinguals with DLD and the bilinguals with TD (Paper 1). Second, the ASD and DLD groups patterned similarly for narrative macrostructure when global scores were examined, with only the bilingual ASD group differing significantly from the bilingual TD group (Paper 2). Third, both clinical groups patterned similarly for microstructure components and differed from TD (Paper 2). Fourth, bilinguals with ASD produced fewer narrative components requiring perspective-taking abilities such as the use of internal state terms (Paper 3) and unambiguous character introductions (Paper 2) than both the bilinguals with DLD and TD. In fact, the bilinguals with DLD did not differ from the bilinguals with TD on any component requiring perspective-taking abilities. Finally, exposure to L2 input or richer L2 environments did not predict performance in the ASD or DLD group. Going back to the larger theoretical questions, the findings from this thesis suggest that (1) macrostructure is an area of weakness in DLD when groups that have lower levels of L2 exposure are compared, but not necessarily when groups with more exposure are compared. Next, the findings for narrative microstructure indicate that (2) at least some children with ASD experience difficulties with structural language and overlap with DLD. They indicate that (3) narrative components requiring perspective-taking skills represent an area of weakness in ASD, but an area of strength in DLD when language-matched groups are compared. Finally (4), narrative deficits are well-entrenched in both clinical groups and cannot be attributed to differences in L2 exposure. The findings of this thesis have both theoretical and clinical relevance by helping identify targets for intervention.

For my MFA thesis exhibition in 2021, I created seven narrative driven prints that were displayed on a hand painted wall mural which acts as the framework or backdrop for a small field of corn stalks. These works and this paper examine the relationship between crops and humans through both visual and oral storytelling as well as the hopeful nature of my work as I continue to reflect upon what it means to engage in a practice of regenerative making and active listening. I explore the use of myself and my twin brother as a character who are each able to view the world through the others lens, color as a form of strengthening connection between the human and non-human figures, and the agency of materials who have equal value in our shared landscape. My inquiry into this relationship is bolstered through the arguments made by political and agricultural ecologists like Jane Bennett, Michael Pollan, Bill Mollison, and Robin Wall Kimmerer whose work speaks to the tethers that bind materials, persons, and all organic matter under one roof.

My thesis analyzes the role of narratives in the consolidation of a Dreamer identity and movement for undocumented youth. The Dream movement, which initially pushed for the DREAM Act, a bill that would grant undocumented youth a pathway to residency and citizenship, has evolved into a collective effort to protect and fight for rights-enabling legislation for the entire undocumented population. This investigation uses narratives to promote an understanding of the Dream movement, taking into account a long-standing strategy of Dreamers: Stories of self lead to a collective story of us that celebrates individual experiences of a common struggle to belong in spite of a lack of papers. This story of us, in turn, leads to a story of now, a narrative of mobilization and advocacy that speaks to Dreamers’ public quest for legal recognition. The articulation of narratives allows for a sense of belonging among Dreamers who, because they are not conferred citizenship, have struggled to find acceptance and recognition as members of the United States. In spite of not having citizenship, Dreamers have been conferred benefits, such as the right to a free K-12 public school education under the 1982 Supreme Court Plyler v. Doe decision and the right to work and remain in the country for a renewable two years under President Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) directive. These benefits, utilized by Dreamers to show that they are important members of the national polity, are important elements of their narrative. By adopting a Dreamer identity, undocumented youth have realized that lack of papers is not an impediment to civic and political engagement, even if they are not given the right to vote. Dreamers, in mobilizing and advocating, exercise rights such as the ability to testify and lobby that oftentimes the average citizen does not utilize. By becoming so engaged, undocumented youth have made an important claim to citizenship that has given them a newfound visibility and recognition as rights- bearing individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the influences of art style in the development of animated film. By observing animated films with period settings, we can draw comparisons between their art direction and the art styles of their time. By understanding the historical era and its culture, a creator can then begin to build a world that uses these elements as inspiration. For my animated short film, I use the history and culture of 19th century Paris to illustrate the story. By using influences of period artists such as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pissarro I must understand their techniques and incorporate their stylistic choices into the film using visual storytelling techniques.

Sometimes recurring stories are hidden from view and remain beyond the reach of law until they are brought to light because of a change in social or legal context. And sometimes recurring stories are readily available to serve as analogies to a present controversy. My paper suggests both types of stories can be categorized as “exemplary” narratives—that is, narratives that are capable of moving the law or legal decisions. To show how and why certain narratives attain exemplary status, I trace a series of self-defense cases involving women as defendants and the development of a closing argument in a famous trial. I conclude with a meditation on what “exemplarity” in law means and consider whether this is an aspect of the use of models in the social and life sciences.

This study examines what individuals of limited pecuniary resources in an urban society have to say about how they conceive of or interact with family, neighborhood, city, and society at large, as well as what some of the material and metaphorical boundaries are they meet, and how these function. The narratives they tell delineate ways, directly or indirectly, the consultants attempt to make sense of their lives, and explicate certain of their intertanglements with and perspectives on boundaries they encounter. When boundaries are placed, according to their characteristics, on a soft to hard continuum, an opening presents itself, signaled by specific, identifiable components, to reveal the constructions of empowerment and disenfranchisement that lie behind some seemingly unbreachable barriers. The consultants for this paper tell of skills and creativity they use to re-frame, ignore, cross, or otherwise get around many prevalent constrictive boundaries in order to conduct fulfilling lives. Since much of the success of ethnography, particularly that based on participant observation, hinges on capabilities to cross boundaries in order to understand different communities, the consultants' knowledge of ways to contend with boundaries can be applied productively to anthropological investigations.

This study interprets the stories told by eight couples about their experiences approaching marriage as a religious sacrament. The eight couples represented a purposeful sample selected using the following criteria: (a) They self-identified as having a sacramental marriage within the Roman Catholic tradition; (b) they appeared to be information rich sources who could provide an emic, i.e., an insider, view of the sacramental marriage experience; (c) they participated in the Catholic Cursillo movement; (d) they engaged in observable religious practices; and (e) they parented children. Research methods included guided conversation, participant observation, and a timeline activity that asked participants to plot their life histories, including significant marital and spiritual events, on paper prior to discussing the recorded events. Guided conversation was the principal research procedure. During conversations, the eight couples spoke openly about the meaning of sacramental marriage; the interaction between spiritual, marital and social dynamics; and the challenges and rewards of approaching marriage as a sacrament. Results of the study are presented in two forms: (a) reconstructed narratives of the couples' lives and experiences and (b) a more traditional social science discussion of emergent themes organized around the study's research questions. Key findings include the following: (a) faith was an all-inclusive paradigm by which the couples viewed the world and organized their lives; (b) service and ministry commitments expanded after a couple participated in a Catholic spiritual retreat; (c) ministry activities benefited each marriage; (d) faith, prayer, and an openness to change were common strategies to deal with life's challenges, and (e) the themes of covenant, consortium, and sacramentum appeared in the stories of each couple.

The rise of the new right in U.S. Politics from 1994-1996 is examined as a process of asymmetrical communication and informational deployments of signs constructed to appeal to a conservative political subculture. Lash and Urry’s analysis of the economy of signs and space is employed to trace the flow of these signs as they are “emptied-out” and recombined in ways that legitimate the conservative, pro-business agenda, or contract with America, unveiled during The 1994 congressional election. A re-reading of these signs seeks to replace the individual as a subject in the role of reflexive agent in a process of modernization which rejects the reassertion of the new right’s design for a social structure of moral values which maintain the distribution of risk. These risks, as managed by environmental policy, are one target of the new right’s deregulatory agenda and as such form, the central political issue examined in this paper using Lash and Urry’s theory of reflexive modernization.