Ritual, Spirituality, and Occupation: A Phenomenological Inquiry into Women’s Participation in Women’s Circles
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Women’s circles have historically existed in many forms, ranging from support and teaching groups that connect generation to generation, to ceremonies honouring the sacred. They are spaces in which women gather to honour and connect to one another, to their environment, and to themselves. Women have claimed that participation in women’s circles replenishes them spiritually and provides meaning and support in their lives. From the available literature and discussion with women who participate in women’s circles, we believe that the occupations associated with participation in women’s circles, or possibly the overall occupation of women’s group participation, can contribute to overall wellbeing in the participants. We are exploring the phenomenon of women’s participation in women’s circles, along with the meanings that women derive from the occupations associated with circle participation.\nThis project examines women’s participation in women’s circles, with a focus on the associated rituals and spirituality from an occupational perspective. This project will add to the growing body of research on the role of ritual in occupation, as the women’s circles tend to be highly ritualized. We are investigating participation in women’s circles as a form of occupation in the lives of women. As such, we will examine the meaningfulness and purpose derived from participation in women’s circles and how these are tied to participants’ daily lives. We will also explore why the participants have chosen (and continue to choose) to participate in women’s circles. The deep meaning that women derive from their participation in women’s circles (Beaird, 2006; Kimmel, 1995; Neu, 1995; personal communications) and the associated rituals are a unique example of human occupation.\nWe are using a phenomenological methodology to explore participation in women’s circles, using semi-structured interviews based on the women’s participation in the circles. We are recruiting from two separate women’s circles in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The two different circles have slightly different purposes and structures, which will provide insight into diverse rituals and meanings held by participants.\nDiscussion Questions: Does ritual play a unique role in occupation and the meaning derived from participation? How can we as a research community promote the type of wellbeing gleaned from the women’s participation in circles to our communities? The Canadian Model of Occupational Performance had “spirituality” at it’s core, but how broadly do we define it? What does it contribute to people’s lives?
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.026 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".