Social research

Many middle-class families, according to Whiteman (2023) find it challenging to manage unless both parents contribute financially through employment. I chose to become a professional because I'd wanted better employment options. My academic research interests soon had me wondering what working-while-parenting experiences were like for other professionals. The overarching topic of my master's thesis was working-while-parenting. The study broadly explored how working experiences affect the parenting goals and/or family well-being of securely employed Trent faculty and/or staff.Trent working parents shared the experiences that working interferes with parenting; and that parents have specific work-life balance needs; they also shared the perspective that parenting accessibility is a working parent right. Trent working parents indicated that success in fulfilling their parenting goals, needs and responsibilities, requires priority, presence and at times, childcare. It was recommended that specific Trent Working Parent Representation be more broadly interpreted and purposefully approached.

Author Keywords: Family well-being, Parenting accessibility as a right, Parenting goals, Presence and childcare needs, Work-life balance, Working-while-parenting

This thesis explores environmental justice in Peterborough/Nogojiwanong, Ontario, focusing on how marginalized communities—including Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and low-income groups—experience and respond to environmental harm. Using Participatory Action Research and Photovoice, 22 co-researchers shared their lived experiences shaped by colonialism, systemic racism, and other intersecting forms of oppression. The study reveals widespread environmental injustices, including unequal exposure to harm, exclusion from decision-making, and limited remediation. Participants highlighted how race, gender, class, and (dis)ability compound these injustices, while also framing environmental harm as deeply connected to housing instability, economic precarity, and mental health. Although participatory methods fostered community dialogue and empowerment, institutional barriers continue to hinder transformative change. The findings underscore the need for long-term, community-driven strategies that center lived experience and promote distributive, procedural, and restorative justice. This research demonstrates how participatory approaches can support marginalized voices in advocating for more equitable environmental policies and outcomes.

Author Keywords: Environmental justice, Marginalized communities, PAR, Peterborough, Photovoice

This research explored how systemic barriers contribute to poverty among Black immigrants in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Using a qualitative approach, I explored how factors like race, immigration status, and other identity factors shape Black immigrants' experiences in the employment and housing markets and healthcare system, consequently predisposing them to experience poverty. A key driver of poverty is the non-recognition of foreign credentials, which pushes highly qualified Black immigrants into low-wage jobs, exacerbated by employers' demand for "Canadian experience." This marginalization severely limits their access to higher-paying opportunities, trapping them in cycles of poverty. Housing discrimination also causes poverty, as racial bias from landlords forces Black immigrants into overpriced or substandard housing conditions, worsened by Toronto's housing crisis. Participants generally reported satisfaction with healthcare. To cope, Black immigrants rely on support from religious institutions and social networks through material and non-material resources. The study concludes with policy recommendations to address these systemic barriers, aiming to reduce poverty and improve integration.

While hospitals were seen as high-risk zones during the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about how older hospital volunteers and volunteer-based programs navigated that period. Using the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) in Ontario, Canada as a case study, this thesis research explores the pandemic and post-pandemic challenges of older voluntarism in a regional health care setting. In-depth interviews and focus groups were held with 21 volunteers and two program managers. Data analysis was done thematically using NVivo 15 qualitative analysis software. The findings covered major themes encompassing older volunteers' experiences during and post pandemic, the dynamics of digital technologies adoption in hospital volunteerism, challenges faced by older hospital volunteers and the volunteer program, and long-term measures to sustain hospital volunteer programs post-pandemic. The findings demonstrate that sustaining a robust volunteer program post-pandemic requires recognizing volunteers' contributions while also addressing their evolving (technological) needs, ensuring workplace health and safety, and actively involving volunteers in decision-making.

Author Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, digital technology, hospitals, Older volunteers, volunteer experiences, volunteer-based program sustainability

Research indicates that approximately one-third of post-secondary students experience food insecurity. However, there is limited research on engagement with those who organize alternative food support systems which seek to address post-secondary student food insecurity. Past studies on student food insecurity prioritize the experiences of those experiencing food insecurity, the barriers to food security and the consequences of food insecurity. Although important, research leaves out the voices of those who are attempting to support students. In this study, I aimed to gain a deeper understanding of how alternative food support services (AFSS) within Ontario post-secondary institutions seek to address student food insecurity through their programs. From six semi-structured interviews, I found that the most common barriers and facilitators to running the programs connect to key themes of neoliberalism. Specifically, responsibilization, institutional inaction (hands-off approach), and dependency on altruism/charity are evident in the experiences of program operators.

Author Keywords: Campus food systems, Charity model, Neoliberalism, Student food insecurity

A new regime governing cannabis production, distribution, and access came into effect across Canada in 2018. With the passing of the Cannabis Act (2018) a new legal cannabis industry began taking shape across the country, with specific manifestations at the local and provincial levels. In this study, I take up the standpoint of people who use cannabis and explore how access is organized under this new regulatory regime. Following a new-materialist informed institutional ethnographic mode of inquiry, I draw on interviews, observations, and texts to describe the work processes through which three distinct materializations of cannabis are produced: cannabis for medical purposes, retail cannabis products, and cannabis as a corporate good. My analysis then reveals how these materializations are organized according to discourses of medicalization, commercialization, and corporatization in ways that curtail the full liberatory potential of this policy change.

At its core my research is an investigation into the operations of the cannabis industry in Ontario, Canada – currently one of the largest legal cannabis markets in the world. My intent is not to provide a view of the functioning of the industry as a whole. Rather, it is to tease out key operations, including medical access programs, product selection and testing practices, and knowledge practices, and explore both their impacts on people who use cannabis and what insights they hold for reorganizing access to other controlled substances. Importantly, my research demonstrates how state actors and corporate entities remain the main beneficiaries of legalization, which I argue is the result of an over-reliance on state regulation over community organization as the schema for enacting a public health approach to drug policy. While cannabis legalization may not have realized its full liberatory potential in this country, it has offered an invitation to reconsider the criminalization of previously controlled substances and how we might regulate these substances in new ways. In the conclusion to this work I take up this invitation, building on my findings to imagine what the organization of cannabis access outside current ruling relations could look like and how we might cultivate care-full relations of drug access more broadly.

Author Keywords: Canada, Cannabis, Drugs, Institutional Ethnography, New Materialisms, Policy

This thesis examines the ways in which body image is discussed in online settings. There are three different communities discussed: body positivity, proED (pro-eating disorder), and body neutrality. Both body positivity and proED content are fairly popular online, and both have found significant support and followers on various social medias. In this thesis, I argue that both of these types of content cause significant harm to those who engage with them, primarily because both communities (though different in their approaches to body image) work to uphold the thin ideal. I then bring up the third type of content: body neutrality. Body neutrality has not been given the same academic attention as body positivity and proED content, likely due to its relative infancy. In this thesis, I propose body neutrality as a much healthier way to frame body image online because of its completely neutral stance on fat, thinness, and general body image. Though any work relating to social media is quickly out of date, I hope that this thesis provides an overview of body neutrality and how, in its current form, it provides a more balanced approach to online body image discussions.

Author Keywords: body image, body neutrality, body positivity, eating disorders, social media

The present study investigated the lived-experiences of individuals with workplace mental health injuries to better understand the thoughts, emotions, and behavioural processes that promote or inhibit help-seeking. This research investigated the interactions and relationships with relevant stakeholders and how they influence help-seeking. Qualitative methodology was employed by conducting semi-structured interviews with individuals (n=12) from various occupational classes who had experienced a workplace mental health injury. Interpretative phenomenological analysis and thematic content analysis were combined to analyze the data. Three main themes emerged: 1) self-preservation through injury concealment or distancing from workplace stressors 2) fatigue relating to complex help-seeking pathways, accumulation of stressors, and decreased ability in treatment decision-making, and 3) (mis)trust in the people and processes involved. These findings may help inform the mechanisms behind help-seeking for workplace mental health injuries, which may have implications for future research, policy development, and workplace processes to better facilitate a path to help.

Author Keywords: help-seeking, mental health concealment, self-preservation, trust, workplace mental health, WSIB

Addressing the issue of food insecurity effectively within a region in a way where interventions reflect the variability of food insecurity levels across subgroups of the population is important. It is a unique challenge and requires specific data. This study took in this direction by conducting an exploratory statistical analysis of a community-representative dataset of Inuit Seniors' food (in)security. The analysis was theoretically sensitive as well as knowledge-user-directed.Results show that 52.7% of all Seniors in Nain and Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, are food insecure, and that food (in)security is associated with age group, education status, health status, mobility status and household financial situation. Further, younger Seniors aged 55-64 are more likely to be food insecure than their older peers. This study is among the first to provide an analysis of quantitative associations between variables that characterize food (in)security among a specific subgroup in the Inuit population.

Author Keywords: Arctic, Case study, Food security, Inuit health, Seniors, Vulnerability

The primary research question of this study was to explore the key factors influencing Indigenous health through an investigation of Inuit health in Nunavik.

This research used an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. The qualitative phase of this project employed interviews with Inuit health experts in Nunavik. The quantitative phase involved an analysis of the regional Inuit health dataset to identify predictors of Inuit self-rated health.

Qualitative results identified a number of key social, cultural, environmental, and individual determinants of health in the region. Analysis of the quantitative data identified significant associations between variables such as age, physical activity, and peacefulness of the community and self-rated health.

Considered in combination, the qualitative and quantitative results of this study indicate the potential value of determinants such as food security, education, and connection to land as important to Indigenous health. The analysis demonstrates that our understanding of health in an Indigenous context has to expand to include determinants beyond physical health.

Author Keywords: determinants of health, Indigenous, Inuit, Nunavik, self-rated health