VIURRSpace (Royal Roads University and Vancouver Island University)
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A seat at the table: Exploring treaty First Nation representation in a regional district
No full textIn 2011, the Maa-nulth First Nations Final Agreement became the first modern treaty on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (BC). As part of the treaty agreement, the Maa-nulth First Nations—which include Toquaht Nation, Huu-ay-aht First Nations, Uchucklesaht Tribe and Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Government—agreed to join the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District (ACRD), thus creating a co-governance relationship unparalleled in BC. This research explores the potential for regional districts as a form of co-governance between local governments and First Nations with modern treaty. Guided by Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRM), three of the Maa-nulth First Nations representatives were interviewed in this research project to understand the transition to ACRD membership and dis/advantages of regional district participation. The research found that the co-governance relationship on the ACRD Board since the Maa-nulth First Nations joined has positively impacted regional governance and found overall that regional districts are a viable form of co-governance for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/25732/GarnettThesis.pdf?sequence=3Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Community Planning in the Department of Community Planning, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vancouver Island University
Putting the S in Special Education: stories about sexual health education
No full textThis research study is designed to understand the barriers and pathways for teachers supporting their Secondary students with exceptionalities in learning about sexual health as they make the transition to adulthood. The purpose of this research is to build understanding of teacher practices, curriculums, goals, and needs to facilitate effective sexual health education programs for students with exceptionalities. Narrative inquiry is the chosen method to answer the central research questions: What makes it possible for one teacher to teach Sexual Health Education to Secondary School students with exceptionalities and what makes it less possible for another teacher? What are the stories of these teachers and in what ways can their stories inform and enhance the delivery of Sexual Health Education for BC Secondary students with exceptionalities as they transition to adulthood? A very specific group of teachers in British Columbia were recruited for this project: BC Teachers teaching and/or case managing Secondary students with low incidence designations (Secondary Special Education/Inclusive Education Teachers). Semi structured interviews were conducted to collect data. Through the process of narrative inquiry, interpretation and analysis are an interwoven symbiotic process. The data were reviewed through meticulous transcription, listening, re listening, journaling, coding, and categorizing. The two overarching themes of local systems and structures and professional identity emerged from the data and are the essence of the re storying represented by fictionalized vignettes. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations are made for teachers, case managers, and administrators at a local level; for structures and policy at a district level; and for potential ministerial review with attention to Sexual Health Education and Transition Planning.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/25757/Kelly.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=
An analysis of the Impacts of climate change on winter sports in British Columbia : a case study of Whistler and Revelstoke, British Columbia
No full textWinter sports and tourism are central to Canadian cultural identity and an important economic driver, contributing many benefits including for smaller and isolated communities. It is forecasted that climate change will contribute to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in Canada including flooding, wildfires, avalanches, heatwaves and drought. It is anticipated that the winter sport industry and the tourism industry, in general, will be significantly affected by climate change. Additionally, it is known that the Canadian tourism industry is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is important that stakeholders in the tourism industry understand the environmental impacts associated with their operations. The objectives of this research are to 1) explore the relationships between tourism and climate change in Canada, 2) assess how climate change may impact the industry and 3) explore the strategies that municipal governments and ski resorts are planning to adapt to climate change
Taking action to re-localise the global food system : if not now, when?
No full textThis dissertation reports on a three-year participatory action research (PAR) initiative aimed at re-localising the food system in a specific locale in Canada. It describes the process from theory to practice of building leadership and collaboration across the food sector—farming, fishing, processing, grocery, restaurant, institutional, policy, and investment—aimed at systematically developing a local food short supply chain. Emboldened by the immediacy of the intersection of a persistent pandemic with the climate crisis, participants are using an interdisciplinary lens to create a local food system based on a values proposition that takes the attributes of physicality, relationships, and scalability into account. In this context, the author suggests that locale is what matters most in considering what “local” means within the food system. Framed in critical social theory, this research reviews the literature that traces the global impacts of the green revolution from its origins to its present day concentrated corporate control, vertical integration, and financialisation of the industrial food system. It joins with others who understand that doing nothing to transform the food system is not an option. The dissertation provides a detailed description of the role of PAR in building shared meaning and sustainability in the dynamic process of food system transformation. The author offers a schematic of a local food short supply chain using a circular economy model that embeds participant values of diversity, equity, and sustainability. The research suggests that networking locale-based food systems may become a new globalising force that re-localises food culture and sovereignty.
Keywords: food system transformation, reterritorializing food, local food short supply chain, COVID-19 pandemic, climate action, critical social theory, PAR methodology, food sovereignt
Improving secondary literacy supports through collaborative inquiry and action
No full textProficient literacy skills have been correlated with not only academic achievement, but also with career outcomes and quality of life expectations. There is concern about the literacy skills of adolescents and young adults leaving high school. Response to Intervention (RtI) is one way school districts are choosing to address the literacy needs of their students, and although there is ample literature pertaining to the use of RtI as a system to support literacy at the elementary level, there is a need to examine the application of RtI at the secondary level. Collaborative Action Research (CAR) was utilized to explore the research question: How can we improve our literacy supports at the secondary level through the use of a whole-school Response to Intervention model? I, the researcher, and four participants from the participating school met for three collaborative action cycles to discuss chosen literacy support implementations within the context of a newly adopted schoolwide RtI system. Data was collected from pre- and postresearch questionnaires and the transcripts of the three collaborative action cycle meetings. The three emerging themes of time, resources, and collaboration were then analyzed using the Zone of Mediation framework to assess the forces at play in the equity-focused RtI system. Participants found collaborating beneficial and cited increased confidence and knowledge in providing literacy supports within an RtI system. Participants also noted their practice was positively impacted with instruction being more intentional, explicit, and accessible. Suggestions for the participating school and recommendations for further research are offered based on the analysis of the interpreted data and experienced collaboration.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/25748/Ylagan.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=
Phenomenological explication as teaching: an examination of lived experience notes taken while teaching secondary English language arts
No full textHow one teaches English language arts depends on one's experiences. My tenure teaching English was predicated on the model of how I was taught when I was in high school, teaching methods I learned during my professional year in education in university, and the language and literature theories I was exposed to in my undergraduate degree. It is the latter that had the most impact on my teaching practice. For this thesis I took the opportunity to review my 11-year proactive teaching secondary English language arts to examine the degree to which my understanding of post-structuralism and phenomenology underpins the practice I established. This thesis is also my effort to engage in a phenomenological research method. I conclude that teaching with a mind to phenomenology greatly influenced the way taught, what I taught, and the way I assessed student learning, and that it had a positive effect of their learning.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/26102/Cameron.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=
[Book review] How spaces become places: Place makers tell their stories
No full textThis is an Accepted Manuscript version of a book review published by Taylor & Francis in Cities & Health on April 29, 2022,, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2022.2067440Lindsay McCunn reviews How spaces become places: Place makers tell their stories edited by John F. Forester (New York: New Village Press, 2021).Post-print versio
Interrogating settler social work with indigenous persons in Canada
No full textThis article was originally published as: Morgenshtern, M., Schmid, J., & Yu, N. (2022). Interrogating settler social work with indigenous persons in Canada. Journal of Social Work, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680173211056823This article, towards decolonizing social work, reports on a study that
examined the record of Canadian social work regarding Indigenous Canadians through
the lens of the national professional association’s journal. Noting that the broad dataset
of over 1,500 journal articles represents legitimized knowledge within the discipline, the
study aimed to develop a history of the present to interrogate the discourses relating to
such practice. The study involved an analysis of the contents over the life of the journal
from 1932 to 2019.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/25703/SchmidJSW2022.pdf?sequence=3Financial support for this project has been provided by Trent University
SSHRC Explore Grant, File No. 26075
Molecular phylogenetics and systematics of two enteric helminth parasites (Baylisascaris laevis and Diandrya vancouverensis) in the Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis)
No full textThis article was originally published as: Barrera, M.A, Janes, J.K, & Gorrell, J.C. (2022). Molecular phylogenetics and systematics of two enteric helminth parasites (Baylisascaris laevis and Diandrya vancouverensis) in the Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis). International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 19, 301-310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2022.11.006Island biogeography can promote rapid diversification and speciation via geographic isolation and novel selection pressures. These same factors can threaten the persistence of island endemics by limiting gene flow and suitable habitat. Host-parasite interactions on islands introduce another dimension of complexity as both species must simultaneously adapt to exogenous and endogenous factors. One example of host-parasite island biogeography is the critically endangered Vancouver Island (VI) marmot (Marmota vancouverensis) which is endemic to VI, Canada, and hosts two enteric helminth parasites: Baylisascaris laevis, an ascarid nematode common in tribe Marmotini, and Diandrya vancouverensis, an anoplocephalid cestode endemic to the VI marmot. Here, we aligned novel sequences from B. laevis (six genes) and D. vancouverensis (two genes) with congeneric sequences from GenBank. Phylogenies reconstructed using Bayesian and maximum parsimony approaches consistently placed B. laevis in a morphoclade, and D. vancouverensis in a monophyletic clade sister to D. composita. Mean pairwise sequence divergence between D. vancouverensis and D. composita (9.06 ± 1.94%) surpassed commonly accepted thresholds for species delimitation, whereas divergence between VI and mainland populations of B. laevis (1.12 ± 0.78%) was comparable to (or sometimes greater than) pairwise divergence values between other Baylisascaris species. Disparity in the genetic divergence of each parasite may reflect differences in their life cycle, host specificity, virulence, and the chronological extent of their isolation. Detailed descriptions of the population genetic structure and effects of both parasites on their shared host are crucial next steps in understanding the history of B. laevis and D. vancouverensis on VI and informing conservation efforts for the VI marmot and its enteric helminth parasites.https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/26085/Gorrell2022IJPPW.pdf?sequence=3This research was funded by a
Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council (NSERC) of Canada (#RGPIN-2018-06764) and an Innovation
HUB grant from Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning
Canada
Urban Indigenous Two-Spirit womxn’s experiences with ceremony : a journey of witnessing, reflection, and convergence through story
No full textThe imposition of Western patriarchal norms on Indigenous peoples has created strict notions of gender binaries that categorize individuals as either male or female. This imposed binary has impacted how Indigenous womxn and gender fluid people are treated within communities and ceremonies. Indigenous ceremonial protocols have been reshaped by Christian and colonial influences that have impacted traditional roles of womxn and Two-Spirits. Through an Otipemisiwak Two-Spirit, tribal epistemology, and an intersectional feminist framework (IFF) (Morris & Bunjun, 2007), this research uses an Indigenous relational methodology (Kovach 2010; Wilson, S., 2008) of oral (digital) storytelling to explore the experiences of three Two-Spirit womxn with gender protocols in Indigenous ceremonies. Findings demonstrate the complexities of multiple gendered oppressions and “otherness” of Two-Spirit womxn and how imposed norms and roles have created negative experiences, displacement, confusion, rejection, and contribute to ceremonial avoidance or an inability to heal while participating. This research contributes to the growing grassroots movements to create more inclusive, safe, ethical, and open spaces for Two-Spirit people