Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Stigma awareness'

Every 19 minutes, someone dies from a drug overdose, with an estimated 130 Americans dying each day. In 2017, 70,200 lives were lost. The estimated cost to society is $78.5 billion dollars from expenditures related to law enforcement, health care, and lost productivity. The proliferation of the opioid crisis is rooted in stigma as individuals suffering with substance use disorder (SUD) have been invisible, marginalized, stigmatized, and criminalized. Stigma is a Greek word denoting a visual sign or mark that signifies a person as tainted and unfit for inclusion in society, a person to avoid. Sadly, the attitudes of health care professionals towards patients with SUD are largely pejorative, with nurses amongst the most punitive. Prognostic pessimism is a problem, as nurses may view patients with SUD as unlikely to recover. Across the literature, nurses struggle to view addiction as a chronic disease. Nurses noted a lack of addiction science education, preservice, and work related, leaving them feeling unprepared to care for this vulnerable population. For this reason, education is a strategy to raise awareness of the stigma that exists in spaces and places that are designated for healing. Employing artistic mediums such as visual thinking strategies may bring addiction to the forefront and facilitate a greater understanding of the detriment of stigma to population health. The root of stigma stems from personal beliefs, attitudes, and societal views, which then overshadow care delivery. The introduction of a talking circle as a place to share burdens, personal and professional, may facilitate awareness of stigma and its origins to construct a platform for change using a dialogic process. Reducing stigma has the potential to improve environments in which patients and nurses coexist as well as to improve treatment outcomes for patients suffering from addiction.

Historically, Appalachia has been stereotyped as being a culture bred in poverty and ignorance. Much research has shown that stereotyping reveals a pattern of behavioral change and an impact on psychological well-being for the stereotyped (e.g., Pinel, 1999; Woodcock, Jernandez, Estrada, & Schultz, 2012), and has largely been centered on race and gender (e.g., Byrnes, 2008; Tuckman & Monetti, 2011). Less is known about the development of culture-specific stereotypes such as those related to Appalachians – a highly stigmatized group (Daniels, 2014; Otto, 2002). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how adolescents in rural Appalachia develop awareness of stereotypes about Appalachia. Stratified random sampling was used to select twelve students (Grades 6-12) belonging to a small school district located in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky who were invited to participate in individual interviews. Eight of the participants self-identified as Appalachian, but for distinct reasons. Students characterized Appalachia for its strong sense of community, accessibility to nature, and lack of opportunities. All students readily identified negative Appalachian stereotypes, but most, particularly older students, were quick to defend the integrity of their culture and community. When discussing cultural stereotypes, the richness of student responses varied by grade-level.

My explorations and journey through life have led me to discover a connection in my work and responsibility as a visual communicator. My objective of communicating challenge, perception, and social stigmas through informed stories of individual lives is to provoke questions and spark moments of awareness in viewers. With this supporting manuscript, I hope to inform about my motivations through time including my personal, artistic, and historical influences. I will define graphic design as a fine art through the evaluation of artistic movements. I also intend to discuss design as a language and build a case for social awareness. Evaluating the process of my work will enlighten the technical aspects of my unique aesthetic and prove the success of my intention.

Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-07T19:02:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 000431124-Texto+Completo-0.pdf: 1093612 bytes, checksum: b6d8f141521fa7269aaa004a6941ab60 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011
Pragmatic features of the English language are likely to be ignored in the ELT classroom. The development of pragmatic awareness of English language is important due to the fact that it may decide whether communicative interaction is successful or not. In order to obtain a success in language teaching, teachers should not only address linguistic forms and syntactic rules, but also recognize language as socioculturally driven. The ambiguities of English language structures that appear during the second language acquisition process may possibly be solved by inference and the recognition of the implicitness of utterances – both pragmatic aspects that may be overlooked during teaching. For the second language acquisition to take place in learners, it might be necessary to incorporate pragmatic features into the teaching of English. Since the Relevance Theory by Sperber and Wilson (1986; 1995) deals with human communication, it is the theory chosen to integrate natural aspects of human cognition to the inferential process of utterances, in favor of promoting pragmatic awareness of English language through the teaching of inferential activities.
É provável que características pragmáticas da língua inglesa sejam ignoradas no ambiente escolar de ensino de língua inglesa. O desenvolvimento da consciência pragmática em língua inglesa é importante devido ao fato de que isso pode decidir se uma interação comunicativa é bem‐sucedida ou não. Com o objetivo de obter uma interação bem-sucedida no aprendizado de língua, os professores deveriam não só destacar formas linguisticas e regras sintáticas, mas também reconhecer a língua como socioculturalmente enraizada. As ambiguidades das estruturas em língua inglesa, que podem aparecer durante o processo de aquisição da língua, são possíveis de serem resolvidas por inferência e reconhecimento da implicitude de enunciados – ambos aspectos pragmáticos que podem ser negligenciados durante o ato de ensinar. Para a aquisição da língua inglesa acontecer, é necessário incorporar características pragmáticas no ensino. Devido ao fato da Teoria da Relevância de Sperber e Wilson (1986; 1995) lidar com comunicação humana, ela é a teoria escolhida para integrar aspectos naturais da cognição humana com o processo inferencial de enunciados, no intuito de promover consciência pragmática da língua inglesa através do ensino de atividades inferenciais.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T13:38:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 437305.pdf: 426541 bytes, checksum: 64e9c3f6149cf06c3e3dc83ede91bcfa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-01-03
Learning a language is not just knowing its vocabulary, grammar and phonology. These are undoubtedly important aspects of language. On the other hand, in order to be able to communicate efficiently the learner also needs to be familiar with the pragmatic aspects of language. Bearing this in mind, we will propose an analysis of two texts (one literary and other political). We will discuss Rhetoric considering it a subarea of Pragmatics and analyze its theoretical issues and application. Afterwards we will compare it to Speech Act and Conversational Implicature theories. The aim of this research is, then, to compare both theories and check if it is possible to work with both in the same analysis as complementary tools to promote a more complete analysis of texts and speeches. With the final considerations we intend to suggest for English as Additional Language (EAL) teaching, as well as for first language teaching, strategies aspiring to promote pragmatic awareness raising skills among students, being included the rhetorical awareness.
Aprender uma l?ngua n?o ? somente conhecer seu vocabul?rio, gram?tica e fonologia. Estes s?o, sem d?vida, aspectos importantes da l?ngua. Por outro lado, para se tornar apto a comunicar-se eficientemente, o aprendiz tamb?m necessita estar familiarizado com os aspectos pragm?ticos da l?ngua. A fim de demonstrarmos isto, faremos uma an?lise de dois textos (um liter?rio e outro pol?tico). A Ret?rica ser? discutida como sendo uma sub?rea da Pragm?tica, e analisando suas quest?es te?ricas e aplica??o. Posteriormente, ser? feita uma compara??o da Ret?rica com as teorias de Atos de Fala e Implicaturas Conversacionais. O objetivo desta pesquisa ?, ent?o, comparar ambas as teorias e verificar se ? poss?vel trabalhar com ambas na mesma an?lise como ferramentas complementares para promover uma an?lise mais completa de textos e discursos. Com as considera??es finais, pretende-se sugerir para professores de ILA, assim como para ensino de l?ngua materna, estrat?gias que visam promover a tomada de consci?ncia pragm?tica nos estudantes, nisto estando inclu?da a consci?ncia ret?rica.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T13:38:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 429369.pdf: 9852900 bytes, checksum: ee93c9994fc6e1329060d61ed167d4a5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-01-12
O presente trabalho dedica-se ao estudo do conhecimento morfol?gico de crian?as falantes do Portugu?s Brasileiro e ? sua rela??o com os n?veis de representa??o mental postulados pelo modelo de Redescri??o Representacional (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Os dados consistem em formas regularizadas, trocas de sufixos flexionais e inova??es lexicais, oriundos de fala espont?nea, os quais eu chamo de formas morfol?gicas variantes, e de tr?s testes de morfologia, os quais envolvem deriva??o de palavras inventadas, extra??o de bases inventadas a partir de formas derivadas tamb?m inventadas, flex?o de verbos inventados e julgamento de palavras, assim como explica??o de por que tais formas s?o incorretas. O levantamento das respostas mostra o conhecimento morfol?gico da sensibilidade formas morfol?gicas variantes ? consci?ncia lingu?stica testes de morfologia. Isso significa que todos os n?veis de representa??o mental Impl?cito, Expl?cito 1, Expl?cito 2 e Expl?cito foram, no m?nimo, sugeridos pelos dados. Eu acredito que este trabalho seja um primeiro passo em dire??o a uma explora??o das representa??es mentais que subjazem ao conhecimento morfol?gico e do conhecimento morfol?gico que as crian?as produzem.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
護理學研究所
91
Abstract Based on literature reviews about conception of stigma and it’s coping orientation,we drew up“Stigma awareness scale in schizophrenics”and“Stigma-related coping orientation scales in schizophrenics”. The purposes of this study were to develop above two scales and construct the reliability and validity of them. We intended to use two scales as a mean for understanding the experiences of stigma and how to face it, then to go back to clinical worker. This study included 102 schizophrenic patients who are followed up at outpatient clinic and rehabilitation ward of a teaching hospital in Taipei by purpose sampling. We developed structured questionnaires to collect data through schizophrenic patients’ self-report. The result of this study were as follows: 1. The“Stigma awareness scale in schizophrenics”was an effective rating scale in evaluating the degree of stigma awareness for schizophrenic patients. And finding that schizophrenic patients perceived stigma through the discrimination or rejection and different treatment from others. 2. The“Stigma-related coping orientation scales in schizophrenics”was an effective instrument in evaluating schizophrenic patients’ coping orientation when facing stigma. The questionnaires factored in four:“hided-secrecy”,“avoidance-withdrawal”,“education”and“accommodation -acceptance”. 3. The“Stigma awareness scale in schizophrenics”and Stigma-related coping orientation scales in schizophrenics”were evaluated Cronbach''s α coefficients and test-retest reliability. The internal consistency and stability of the scale were rather good. 4. The“Stigma awareness scale in schizophrenics”and Stigma-related coping orientation scales in schizophrenics”were both tested by using item analysis, and factor analysis. The construct validity of the scales were rather good. According to this finding, suggestions to medical clinical workers and inspiration to further studies were offered in this dissertation. Key words: schizophrenia, stigma, coping, and development of scale

Yes
Purpose: This paper describes a study which explored the knowledge and attitudes of university students towards people living with dementia, and developed and tested a dementia awareness workshop, Dementia Detectives: University edition, designed to improve knowledge and foster positive attitudes to dementia in students. Design/methodology/approach: Dementia Detectives: University edition was launched during Dementia Awareness Week and five workshops were delivered to university students. Forty-two participants attended and completed a knowledge and attitude measure before and after the workshop, as well as rating the workshop with regards to satisfaction, relevance, understanding and whether they would recommend the workshop to friends. Findings: Students perceived living with dementia to be a negative and stigmatised experience. The workshop scored highly in terms of satisfaction, relevance and understanding and all students stated they would recommend the workshop to others. Paired t-tests found significant improvements in self-assessed dementia knowledge. Research Limitations: This was a pilot evaluation and further testing with larger samples is required. Practical implications: The workshop meets the requirements for tier 1 dementia education and training as outlined in the Dementia Core Skills and Knowledge Framework published by the Department of Health. Social implications: The workshop has the potential to increase knowledge, change attitudes, improve empathy and contribute to the development of a dementia aware workforce through undergraduate education. Originality/value: Dementia Detectives: University edition is a novel interactive method of dementia education and training.

This study traces the evolution of motherhood discourses in 41 fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) public awareness documents produced in British Columbia from 1979–2015. These documents offer a window for understanding how dominant cultural values and motherhood norms are upheld and promoted via FASD prevention, with special implications for women marginalized by race, culture, and socioeconomic status. In order to deconstruct dominant discourses, this project is rooted in feminist post-structuralism and uses a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis as its method. Drawing on Carol Bacchi’s (2009) problematization framework, I analyzed the documents using two questions: 1) What is ‘the problem’ represented to be? and 2) What presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of ‘the problem’? Findings indicate that FASD public awareness-raising overwhelmingly positions maternal substance use as a woman’s individual choice. Alcohol abstention is framed as a duty to the fetus, although it is framed differently depending on the targeted audience. Findings show that documents present maternal substance use as a gauge of fitness for motherhood and unfairly focus on women who are racialized, low-income, and young. Uniquely, documents produced by and for Indigenous populations differed thematically than for the general population. In conclusion, this study highlights how FASD public awareness-raising promotes dominant cultural values and adheres to a neoliberal health promotion tradition.
Graduate

碩士
國立臺灣大學
心理學研究所
90
Background and purpose In the past, existing research has focused more on symptomatology and functional levels of patients with schizophrenia rather than their psychosocial adaptation process. Western literature have documented that patients with schizophrenia are associated with a higher risk for suicide and depression in comparison with general population. The issue of patients’ well-being and stigma have often been overlooked in our society and relevant research in Taiwan was scarce. Therefore, the present study made an attempt to explore the psychological adjustment in patients with schizophrenia. In order to clarify if patients with schizophrenia in Taiwan suffered from adjustment problems, this study used illness awareness, illness control beliefs, social stigma, and social support as predictors to examine their relation with psychological adjustment. Furthermore, this study integrated these factors to build a psychosocial coping model to depict psychological adjustment process. Based on the findings, the present study hope to provide a useful framework for future intervention. Material and methods The sample consists of 94 outpatients and 12 daycare patients recruited from the department of psychiatry as well as 75 college students as control group. In patient group, each patient received a semi-structured interview and was given a battery of inventories. Meanwhile, chart record was reviewed in order to collect clinical history of each patient. Results Results revealed that: 1) Patients with schizophrenia manifested significantly lower self-esteem and higher illness impact than control group. However, there was no difference in depression. Further analyses showed that patients with schizophrenia presented significantly higher hopelessness and suicide ideas rate than the control group. 2) Patients with schizophrenia had significantly higher social stigma and lower social support than control group. Concerning illness control belief, patients with schizophrenia were found to display significantly higher chance-external control belief than control group. 3) Regression analysis showed that illness awareness could significantly predict all psychological adjustment variables differently. Social stigma could significantly predict depression, self-esteem, active attitude, and loss attitude. Illness control belief could significantly predict self-esteem, active attitude, and loss attitude. Social support could significantly predict depression and self-esteem. 4) Path analysis showed that overall fit of adjusted model was acceptable, indicating that illness awareness affected social stigma and chance-external control belief, which, in turn, affected psychological adjustment. Social support affected psychological adjustment, internal control belief, and social-other control belief directly. Chance-external control belief affected psychological adjustment directly and was indirectly mediated by social stigma. Social-other control belief affected internal control belief and chance-external control belief directly. Conclusion The present study suggested that patients with schizophrenia had suffered from psychological adjustment problems and higher risk for suicide than general population. Their depressive symptoms pattern consisted of more psychological rather than somatic symptoms. Correlation analyses showed that their psychological features of depression, including depressed mood, hopelessness and suicide ideas were associated with illness impact. This finding implied that patients with schizophrenia might suffer from illness and thus trigger their emotional problems. From our theoretical model, psychological adjustment may be affected directly or indirectly by illness awareness, social stigma, illness control belief, and social support. Comparing patients with and without depression, it revealed that well-adjusted patients expressed significantly more internal control belief, social support, and illness unawareness than their depressed counterpart. They also expressed less social stigma and chance-external control belief. Based on these results, implication for intervention and future research are discussed.

碩士
國立臺灣師範大學
特殊教育學系在職進修碩士班
102
This study aims at investigating the self-concept, awareness of disabled situation and disability-related labels, perceived stigma and coping strategies of 8 vocational students with intellectual disability (ID) in a special school in northern Taiwan. The study was designed with qualitative research, conducting semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, participant observation and document analysis of the participants, and phone interviews of their parents or primary caregivers. The major findings of this study are as follows: 1)Most participants hold positive perceptions of themselves, which have been deeply influenced by their peers with disabilities, and keep a normal identity to a certain extent. 2)The participants tend to perceive disabilities as negative personal traits, and have limited awareness of their disabled situation; as for the attitudes towards disability-related labels, the participants evaluate labels less revealing their defects more positively, while ‘learning difficulties’ and ‘special students’ are the two most accepted terms. 3)The participants experience stigma mainly by being verbally or physically bullied from others, and the strategies they adopt to cope with stigma include: enduring discrimination, avoiding people likely to discriminate against them, and hiding the facts that they attend a special school or receive a disability identification card. At last, according to the findings and conclusions, practical suggestions are proposed for workers providing service for people with ID, parents of people with ID and all other members of society.

Yes
The development of dementia friendly communities is a current global and national priority for the UK. As a response to policy, there have been a number of dementia awareness initiatives disseminated with the aim of reducing the stigma associated with a diagnosis of dementia. The inclusion of adolescents in such initiatives is imperative in order to sustain dementia friendly communities. With this in mind, the aim of this study was to establish the dementia education needs of adolescents and effective dissemination strategies to convey key messages. A total of 42 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years participated in eight focus group discussions. Key themes to emerge from discussions included: the importance of dementia awareness, topics of interest within dementia, preferred methods of learning, the inclusion of the person living with dementia and the use of social media. The findings of the study will enable the development of appropriate dementia awareness initiatives for adolescents and thus facilitate the sustainability of dementia friendly communities.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Scope: Few studies have investigated distinctive interpersonal characteristics of retained awareness and social engagement observed when individuals at different stages of dementia interact with their family members. Influencing this relational engagement are the subjective interpretations of family caregivers as they experience: (1) the fluctuating psychosocial landscape of dementia pre and post aged-care; (2) perceived psychological consequences of supporting a family member with dementia; (3) the transition to, and navigation of a hierarchical health care system. Additionally, few studies explore the subjective interpretations of health care managers working in dementia including: (1) their perception of their work role; (2) how they interpret the impact of such work on their own psychological wellbeing; and, (3) how they position themselves as witnesses within a health care system that impacts, often authoritatively, on family relationships. Therefore, this thesis is concerned with the relational, psychosocial, and systemic domains of experiencing dementia. The triad of subjective expertise in experiencing dementia, and the relational and social engagement that occurs within this triad, underpins this research document. It seeks to advance our understanding of relational and social engagement throughout the stages of dementia, and inform models of care for optimising that engagement. Objectives: All who experience dementia, either through a diagnosis of dementia, or as a supporting family member or professional caregiver, are vulnerable to psychological distress from chronic and cumulative challenges to their psychological wellbeing. Therefore, this phenomenological interpretative thesis sought the subjective experiences of dementia from a multi-faceted perspective. It sought observational studies of family communicative-interactions seeking to advance our understanding of family adaptation for interpersonal awareness and engagement throughout the stages of dementia, complemented by the subjective lived experience of supporting family members and health care managers. This research sought both positive and negative interpretations of experiences of dementia and aged care. Methodology: Overall, fifty-two participants were involved in this thesis. Video-recordings of family visits, and individual, dyad, and focus group semi-structured interviews provided the thesis data set. Two methodologies were employed, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Smith, 1996) and Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). IPA sought reiterative subjective interpretations of the dementia experience from family and professional caregivers. It informed the semi-structured interviews, transcription, and analysis of collected interview data. IPA is an idiographic, hermeneutic, qualitative approach based on phenomenology and interpretative psychology. It aims to capture the idiosyncratic nature of each participant’s narrative and his or her interpreted experiences of rarely researched phenomenon (Smith, 1996). Symbolic interactionism explains the interaction between the researcher and the participant, as it posits that meaning can only be fully understood through the dynamic process of interpretation (Smith, 1996). A double hermeneutic allows both researcher and researched to engage in a reiterative meaning making process of understanding the lived experience. Thematic Analysis conducted on the video-recorded data collected during family visits sought to break down relational and social engagement patterns that included the individual with dementia, into interpreted themes by utilising non-obtrusive observation of families engaged in communication. Thematic Analysis goes beyond observable data to describe the phenomenon under investigation and explore latent patterns of meaning. This makes Thematic Analysis suitable for investigations of complex social phenomenology (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Joffe, 2012). From a critical realist perspective, Thematic Analysis maintains a focus on the individual yet also investigates the sociocultural context as it influences individual interactions (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Willig, 2013). Collectively, superordinate and subordinate themes emerged from all data sets following robust discussion between independent auditors. These provide the results in each relevant chapter. Results: Fifty-two participants across seven studies connect the supporting, close-up, and contextual perspectives on relational and social engagement across a triad of relational and social dementia expertise. As the overarching phenomenological enquiry of this thesis, it linked the individuals with dementia to their family members and the health care managers who support them. A continuum of positive and negative insider perspectives of relational, psychosocial, and systemic aspects of dementia revealed varying patterns of engagement. They also highlighted the psychosocial struggle, the impact of dementia on psychological wellbeing, and the opportunity for psychological growth in these participants. The construct Relational Social Engagement (RSE) developed from the studies in this thesis represents a complex and accessible set of relational interactions between the person with dementia and their family members, situated in distinctive familial bonds. It is manifest through family interactions, whereby individuals with dementia display optimal engagement within family groups and can be positive (in-step) or negative (out-of-step). Family caregivers experience in-step interactions as connected, familiar, meaningful, and trusting whereby spontaneous adjustment to developments, opportunities for spontaneous fun, and feeling included and socially supported can occur. Alternatively, out-of-step interactions describe feelings of frustration and opposition. When out-of-step, shame, blame, guilt, and hypervigilance spill over to interactions in which individuals seek to control, conceal, reject, and escape. As such, RSE highlights distinctive familial bonds that offer security and comfort for those with dementia to spontaneously enjoy common ground and express differences within the family group. Although RSE can be positive in-step or negative out-of-step, it occurs more often within family groups during in-step interactions. Conclusions: This thesis can inform future research, theory, and aged care practice concerning relational and social engagement throughout the stages of dementia. Additionally, it highlights the complex interweave of psychosocial and relational distress experienced by these families as they navigate a western medicalised system of care. However, it also offers insight into the novice and convoluted engagement with a hierarchical model of care and its health care managers that presented the opportunity for the co-existence of traumatic distress and psychological growth. Central to the outcomes of this thesis and the evidenced negative and positive family communication patterns within the observed interactions, complex levels of awareness were seen to occur in the family members with dementia in this study. Interpreted as RSE, and developed throughout the thesis and publications, RSE offers a construct for future research hypotheses that offer opportunities to preserve and optimise retained awareness and interpersonal skills in those living with dementia. For the supporting family members, refusal of shame, rejection of stigma, and meaning brought to relational loss appeared to facilitate hope, and eventual positive redefinitions of relational and social intimacy as the stages of dementia progressed. Although theories of growth posit social support as a necessary condition for growth following adversity, when social support was lacking or even antagonistic for family caregivers, findings of this thesis would suggest that seeking RSE with a family member who has dementia stimulates meaning making for psychological growth. Generating renewed moral integrity and authenticity in family caregivers, RSE appeared to motivate their advocacy and positive change across other domains in time. As a qualitative thesis, though these findings cannot be generalised to wider populations, the experience of these participants has provided hypothetical considerations for the researcher to critique. These include positive psychology approaches for living well with dementia and its impacts, and the emergence of qualitative philosophies to inform dementia practice and research. Implications for clinical psychologists seeking to facilitate RSE psychological growth in families are discussed at every level of investigation and summarised in Chapter 9.

Yes
Dementia friendly communities, in which people living with dementia actively participate and those around them are educated about dementia, may improve the wellbeing of those living with dementia and reduce the associated stigma. The Adopt a Care Home scheme aims to contribute towards this by teaching schoolchildren about dementia and linking them with people living with dementia in a local care home. Forty-one children, ten people living with dementia and eight school / care home staff participated in a mixed methods (questionnaires, observations, interviews and focus groups) evaluation to assess the scheme’s feasibility and impact. Data were analysed statistically and thematically. The scheme was successfully implemented, increased children’s dementia awareness and appeared enjoyable for most participants. Findings, therefore, demonstrate the scheme’s potential to contribute towards dementia friendly communities by increasing children’s knowledge and understanding of dementia and engaging people living with dementia in an enjoyable activity, increasing their social inclusion.
University of Sheffield's Faculty of Medicine Dentistry & Health Innovation Fund.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how school principals understand HIV/AIDS and how their knowledge, attitude and interpretation filter in the implementation of the HIV policy in schools. The study comprises a literature review and empirical investigation. The results of this study can be used in planning and implementing HIV policy in schools. The data were collected by administering semi-structured interviews. Ten school principals from the Dennilton circuit in Southern Region of the Limpopo Province were interviewed. The results show that the majority of the principals involved in the study confirm that HIV/AIDS is an incurable disease caused by a virus and is mainly sexually transmitted. Some principals regard their school safe from HIV infection. Their assumption is based on the absence of HIV positive learners and educators in their schools. The principals are aware of the rights of HIV positive learners and educators. Significantly, the research findings indicate that the majority of schools lack educators with HIV/AIDS training, rules on safety precautions and first aid kits. It is recommended that ongoing HIV/AIDS training programmes be provided for educators to enable them to educate the youth on HIV/AIDS. Additionally, schools should focus on strategies to implement universal safety precautions against HIV transmission and to obtain first aid kits. Lastly, school principals should involve parents and other stakeholders in creating a positive school environment for HIV positive learners and educators.
Dissertation (MEd (Education Management))--University of Pretoria, 2005.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted