Groen, Janet ElizabethDavid, Alisha2023-06-222023-06-222023-06David, A. (2023). There’s no place like home: post-secondary student stories of disaster-induced home loss (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.https://hdl.handle.net/1880/116638https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/41481In the iconic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland's character Dorothy exclaimed, "there's no place like home" (Fleming, 1939, 1:38:55). With the click of her heels, she awakes in her bed. Her wish to return to her most beloved place granted after a tornado turned her world upside down. Unfortunately, real life is often nothing like the films we view at leisure, and for many of us who have lost our homes due to a disaster event, our journey to find home again presents far more challenge and change than is depicted on the big screen. This difficulty is further compounded by concurring life factors, such as being a student. This research explores the transitional experiences of adult learners that navigated disaster-induced home loss in Alberta while enrolled in a full-time post-secondary program. Using a narrative methodological approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006) and guided by Schlossberg's Transition Theory (Schlossberg, 1981), the experiences of seven participants were storied from interviews and analyzed collaboratively. The findings of this endeavour suggest that the adult learners experienced a high degree of simultaneous transitions because of their disaster-induced home losses but noted that these transitions were often not recognized while they were occurring. When considered alongside their full-time post-secondary programming obligations, the participants noted that their educational experience had both a protective and inhibiting influence on their ability to manage the resultant change. This research has implications for policymakers and educators as they work to better support and understand adult learners in similar contexts, as well as implications for the adult learners themselves.enUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.disastersocio-natural disasterhomelossnavigatetransitionchangepost-secondarystudentnarrativegriefEducation--Adult and ContinuingEducation--Higherdoctoral thesis