Living with hope : a phenomenological inquiry of the experiences of teenagers heading an aids-orphaned home
- Authors: Wright, Cheryl Ann.
- Date: 2012-08-13
- Subjects: Adolescent psychology - Research - South Africa , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:9117 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/5574
- Description: M.Ed. , The HIV and AIDS pandemic is changing the nature of the traditional family structure, particularly in South Africa, where the number of child-headed families is escalating and more teenagers are forced to head the home. These teenagers, are traumatised: many have suffered multiple losses (a father, mother, siblings), not to mention the possible additional losses of schooling, their hope for the future and their remaining childhoods. Hope is unlikely to emerge in teenagers left to fend for themselves and their siblings. Therefore, an approach that is both Afrocentric and ecosystemic needs to be adopted in building support structures to instil the possibility of hope in their lives. Hope, as a protective phenomenon, builds resiliency empowering teenagers heading a home to rise above their harsh circumstances. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore and describe the essence of hope in the lived experiences of teenagers heading an AIDS-orphaned home in order to make recommendations for support within the emerging inclusive educational system in South Africa. A qualitative study with a phenomenological research design was used with three teenagers from a Non-Governmental Organisation which assists child-headed households in Soweto, Gauteng. The participants were purposefully selected as hopeful — teenagers who had managed to stay in school, despite their circumstances, as a way of securing a brighter future. Data was collected through two in-depth interviews with the teenagers and included writing and drawing exercises. A story thickening the counterplot of hope in their lives, which are filled with the challenges of orphanhood, was written for each of the teenagers. The coconstructed stories were then used as data for analysis to write their descriptions of hope. Textual, structural and textual-structural descriptions of hope were written June 2008 based on the four processes of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation and synthesis. The findings generated from their stories of hope indicate that the "hopeful self" is socially constructed evolving in the spaces between people and in the interaction iii of the person with his/her environment. Some of the findings suggest that hope emerges in the context of opportunities, support and education, and needs the African spirit of "ubuntu" to sustain it. School in particular, was seen as a way to future success. On the basis of these findings, a social constructionist model for nurturing the hopeful self was recommended to help professionals in their thinking and planning of psychological support programmes for all children and teenagers identified as vulnerable. The model embraces ecosystemic thinking and envisages the hopeful self as being nurtured in three nested domains of support: the emerging inclusive education system; a network of care under the facilitation of educational psychologists based in the District Based Support Teams; and a psychological support system that has not as yet been implemented in the care children orphaned by AIDS. Psychological support is seen as crucial to ensure the emotional well-being of teenagers at risk who who are faced with the reality of heading a home at such an early age as a result of the AIDS pandemic
- Full Text:
- Authors: Wright, Cheryl Ann.
- Date: 2012-08-13
- Subjects: Adolescent psychology - Research - South Africa , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:9117 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/5574
- Description: M.Ed. , The HIV and AIDS pandemic is changing the nature of the traditional family structure, particularly in South Africa, where the number of child-headed families is escalating and more teenagers are forced to head the home. These teenagers, are traumatised: many have suffered multiple losses (a father, mother, siblings), not to mention the possible additional losses of schooling, their hope for the future and their remaining childhoods. Hope is unlikely to emerge in teenagers left to fend for themselves and their siblings. Therefore, an approach that is both Afrocentric and ecosystemic needs to be adopted in building support structures to instil the possibility of hope in their lives. Hope, as a protective phenomenon, builds resiliency empowering teenagers heading a home to rise above their harsh circumstances. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore and describe the essence of hope in the lived experiences of teenagers heading an AIDS-orphaned home in order to make recommendations for support within the emerging inclusive educational system in South Africa. A qualitative study with a phenomenological research design was used with three teenagers from a Non-Governmental Organisation which assists child-headed households in Soweto, Gauteng. The participants were purposefully selected as hopeful — teenagers who had managed to stay in school, despite their circumstances, as a way of securing a brighter future. Data was collected through two in-depth interviews with the teenagers and included writing and drawing exercises. A story thickening the counterplot of hope in their lives, which are filled with the challenges of orphanhood, was written for each of the teenagers. The coconstructed stories were then used as data for analysis to write their descriptions of hope. Textual, structural and textual-structural descriptions of hope were written June 2008 based on the four processes of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation and synthesis. The findings generated from their stories of hope indicate that the "hopeful self" is socially constructed evolving in the spaces between people and in the interaction iii of the person with his/her environment. Some of the findings suggest that hope emerges in the context of opportunities, support and education, and needs the African spirit of "ubuntu" to sustain it. School in particular, was seen as a way to future success. On the basis of these findings, a social constructionist model for nurturing the hopeful self was recommended to help professionals in their thinking and planning of psychological support programmes for all children and teenagers identified as vulnerable. The model embraces ecosystemic thinking and envisages the hopeful self as being nurtured in three nested domains of support: the emerging inclusive education system; a network of care under the facilitation of educational psychologists based in the District Based Support Teams; and a psychological support system that has not as yet been implemented in the care children orphaned by AIDS. Psychological support is seen as crucial to ensure the emotional well-being of teenagers at risk who who are faced with the reality of heading a home at such an early age as a result of the AIDS pandemic
- Full Text:
Hope and ways of coping after breast cancer
- Authors: Rubin, Hayley Harriet
- Date: 2008-11-12T08:47:53Z
- Subjects: Breast cancer , Breast cancer treatment , Adjustment (Psychology) , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:14665 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/1638
- Description: M.A. , The aim of this study was to ascertain the coping methods of women in long term follow-up of breast cancer treatment. Furthermore, personality traits that deal with the spectrum of positive affectivity were introduced to determine whether these impact on women's appraisal of their situation and their subsequent choice of coping mechanism. Thus, a process approach to exploring coping strategies and a goal-attainment conceptualization of hope were used to determine whether hope is associated with coping appraisal in the long term follow-up of breast cancer treatment. Furthermore, high hope women were expected to use more problem focused coping methods and low hope women were expected to use more emotion focused coping skills. Women in cancer remission who attend yearly or six-monthly check-ups at the Johannesburg hospital were approached to complete the questionnaire and brief interview. Although the study did not confirm that low hope and high hope women use different kinds of coping strategies, the predicted relationship between hope and challenge appraisals was supported by significant correlations. However, it was found that hope may be analogous to positive affect, thus indicating the need for further validation of the Hope Scale. Finally, it was concluded that breast cancer need not be seen as a devitalising disease and that there are a variety of coping strategies which can be utilized to enhance patient's positive emotional state. The women in this study use the emotion focused coping skill of positive reappraisal which concentrates on the possibilities for mastery and growth that inhere in their long term follow-up treatment. Moreover, women are extremely positive and hopeful in their daily outlook and while this personality trait seems to suggest that denial is at play, it is more likely that women in long term remission have a strong belief in their own personal qualities and future. Women in this study choose to distance themselves from the implicit trauma of the threat of recurrence in favour of an active belief in their personal resilience to overcome any stressful event or outcome.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Rubin, Hayley Harriet
- Date: 2008-11-12T08:47:53Z
- Subjects: Breast cancer , Breast cancer treatment , Adjustment (Psychology) , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:14665 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/1638
- Description: M.A. , The aim of this study was to ascertain the coping methods of women in long term follow-up of breast cancer treatment. Furthermore, personality traits that deal with the spectrum of positive affectivity were introduced to determine whether these impact on women's appraisal of their situation and their subsequent choice of coping mechanism. Thus, a process approach to exploring coping strategies and a goal-attainment conceptualization of hope were used to determine whether hope is associated with coping appraisal in the long term follow-up of breast cancer treatment. Furthermore, high hope women were expected to use more problem focused coping methods and low hope women were expected to use more emotion focused coping skills. Women in cancer remission who attend yearly or six-monthly check-ups at the Johannesburg hospital were approached to complete the questionnaire and brief interview. Although the study did not confirm that low hope and high hope women use different kinds of coping strategies, the predicted relationship between hope and challenge appraisals was supported by significant correlations. However, it was found that hope may be analogous to positive affect, thus indicating the need for further validation of the Hope Scale. Finally, it was concluded that breast cancer need not be seen as a devitalising disease and that there are a variety of coping strategies which can be utilized to enhance patient's positive emotional state. The women in this study use the emotion focused coping skill of positive reappraisal which concentrates on the possibilities for mastery and growth that inhere in their long term follow-up treatment. Moreover, women are extremely positive and hopeful in their daily outlook and while this personality trait seems to suggest that denial is at play, it is more likely that women in long term remission have a strong belief in their own personal qualities and future. Women in this study choose to distance themselves from the implicit trauma of the threat of recurrence in favour of an active belief in their personal resilience to overcome any stressful event or outcome.
- Full Text:
The stories of hope by black primary school children : an exploratory study
- Authors: Makome, Gugulethu Bianca
- Date: 2011-12-12
- Subjects: Black children , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:1891 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/4245
- Description: M.A. , This research was undertaken to explore how Black South African children experience hope in general, and secondly, whether the constructs of pathways and agency are evident in their experiences of hope. The research was conducted in the hope that it will contribute to the existing theory of Hope in children and as no research could be found on hope in Black South African children. Specifically, the researcher wanted to gain insight into whether hope, as conceptualised by Snyder (2000), is experienced by Black South African children. Hope reflects individuals’ perceptions regarding their capacity to clearly conceptualise goals, develop strategies to reach those goals (pathwaysthinking), and initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency-thinking) (Snyder et al., 2003). Hope is a motivational construct that falls within Positive Psychology, a movement that has called for an examination of psychological strengths, rather than of pathology. Existing literature is largely focused on earlier positive psychology constructs such as coping, and there had been limited focus on children and the manifestation of psychological strengths in South Africa. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to explore strengths, like hope, in Black South African children. The dissertation first focuses on the review of the literature on positive psychology, hope, and the use of stories and narratives to facilitate the understanding of hope in children. The literature review provides a history of psychology and the development of positive psychology. Hope as conceptualised by Snyder is reviewed, as well as a focus on how hope affects children. In this study a qualitative approach was used to explore the stories of hope by Black primary school children. The participants consisted of six children who were interviewed. The narratives and data were analysed using thematic iv analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis are presented in the results chapter. It is evident from the narratives that some of the children experienced difficulties expressing what hope meant to them, as they did not have an understanding of the construct. Although some of the children experienced problems engaging with the construct, some of the children were able to talk about hope and what it meant to them, and also relate to past experiences where they displayed hopeful behaviour. The differences in how the children experienced hope could be attributed to whether their family and school experiences and environment enhance hope in the children. The results are discussed in terms of the literature, as well as in the South African context. Finally, a summary of the research together with the limitations and recommendations for further research is offered.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Makome, Gugulethu Bianca
- Date: 2011-12-12
- Subjects: Black children , Hope
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:1891 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/4245
- Description: M.A. , This research was undertaken to explore how Black South African children experience hope in general, and secondly, whether the constructs of pathways and agency are evident in their experiences of hope. The research was conducted in the hope that it will contribute to the existing theory of Hope in children and as no research could be found on hope in Black South African children. Specifically, the researcher wanted to gain insight into whether hope, as conceptualised by Snyder (2000), is experienced by Black South African children. Hope reflects individuals’ perceptions regarding their capacity to clearly conceptualise goals, develop strategies to reach those goals (pathwaysthinking), and initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency-thinking) (Snyder et al., 2003). Hope is a motivational construct that falls within Positive Psychology, a movement that has called for an examination of psychological strengths, rather than of pathology. Existing literature is largely focused on earlier positive psychology constructs such as coping, and there had been limited focus on children and the manifestation of psychological strengths in South Africa. Therefore, the aim of the present research was to explore strengths, like hope, in Black South African children. The dissertation first focuses on the review of the literature on positive psychology, hope, and the use of stories and narratives to facilitate the understanding of hope in children. The literature review provides a history of psychology and the development of positive psychology. Hope as conceptualised by Snyder is reviewed, as well as a focus on how hope affects children. In this study a qualitative approach was used to explore the stories of hope by Black primary school children. The participants consisted of six children who were interviewed. The narratives and data were analysed using thematic iv analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis are presented in the results chapter. It is evident from the narratives that some of the children experienced difficulties expressing what hope meant to them, as they did not have an understanding of the construct. Although some of the children experienced problems engaging with the construct, some of the children were able to talk about hope and what it meant to them, and also relate to past experiences where they displayed hopeful behaviour. The differences in how the children experienced hope could be attributed to whether their family and school experiences and environment enhance hope in the children. The results are discussed in terms of the literature, as well as in the South African context. Finally, a summary of the research together with the limitations and recommendations for further research is offered.
- Full Text:
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »