This inquiry explored the everyday struggles of several women who worked as coordinators and instructors in three government-funded job-entry programs for women in the non-profit sector. The programs studied included an entry program for native women, a program which trained immigrant women in bookkeeping skills, and a program which trained women on social assistance to enter the construction trades. The work of the staff in these programs was considered in light of a theoretical framework developed by Nancy Fraser. Fraser has called for a different approach -- a more critical discourse-oriented inquiry -- to the study of social-welfare policies and programs. This approach focuses on the political struggle over the interpretation of needs, particularly women's needs, which she sees as central to social-welfare policy-making. In her study of the American system, she has found that "needs talk" is the medium through which inequalities are symbolically elaborated and challenged. She also has found that needs talk is stratified and differentiated by unequal status, power, and access to resources, and organized along lines of class, gender, race, ethnicity and age. For this study, information was collected through interviews with the staff in the three programs, observations of life skills classes, and examination of program proposals. Government and government-related documents were also examined. The analysis revealed that, in the official policy documents at the national level, women’s needs were interpreted within a dominant policy framework which focused on reducing spending, matching workers to the market and privatizing training programs. Programs for women were developed based upon a "thin” understanding of women's needs -- one which focused on women’s lack of training and job experience and ignored the structural inequalities of the labour market and women’s different racial and class struggles. At the local level, analysis of the interviews, observations and documents indicated that the staff struggled to respond to the trainees' diverse and complex needs which the official policy discourse addressed in only a limited way. In their negotiations with the state, the staff employed a plurality of needs discourses, engaging in a process which both challenged and reproduced the dominant policy orientation toward getting women "jobs, any jobs”. There were moments of resistance by the staff to the dominant policy orientation, most notably in the program for native women. The trainees also challenged the narrow interpretation of women's needs, particularly in the program training women to enter the construction trades. Generally speaking, the analysis indicated that the staff played a crucial role in mediating between women and the state and in producing a kind of discourse which tended to construct the trainees as subjects needing to be "fixed". The analysis also revealed that the relationships between staff, trainees and the state were organized around unequal access to resources based on gender, race and class. In order to transcend the limitations outlined in this study, efforts are required to democratize decision-making, collectively organize the non-profit private sector, challenge privatization and the exploitive practices of the state, and bring alternative approaches which support participatory and dialogical processes of need interpretation. The analysis brings to light the importance of studying the implications of state policies on adult education practice, particularly policies which promote privatization. It also reveals the explanatory power of a feminist theoretical framework which provides a more critical, discourse-oriented approach to examining policy and practice, and the usefulness of this framework for further research and political advocacy.

It is sometimes said that the Quebec model of cultural integration constitutes a third way between the French model (republican integration) and the Canadian model (bilingual multiculturalism) for addressing issues relating to immigration. The present thesis analyses that hypothesis by reviewing the history of laws related to language and religion, especially as they concern the integration of immigrants, in France, English Canada and Quebec. In parallel to those legal histories, the thesis presents some statistical data, notably to better understand the motivations of legislators and to assess the degree of conformity between social change and the policies these legislators have sought to pursue. / After having demonstrated certain weakness of the Quebec model of integration, this thesis proposes three reforms to improve it. The first one, which concerns language legislation, is of republican inspiration. The other two focus on laws concerning religion and are inspired by the Canadian model of integration.

This study applied Ethnographic Decision Tree Modeling (Gladwin, 1989) to the field of child abuse reporting to investigate the factors that influence decisions to report possible child abuse. Participants were licensed psychologists in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Using ethnographic interviews, participants were asked to discuss a recent case in which they reported possible child abuse and the factors that were influential in their decision making. Based on the data from 34 cases, six factors were identified: (1) Were there any signs of or risk factors for child abuse or neglect? (2) Did the signs or risk factors meet your threshold to report as you understand the law? (3) Was there some other value to report other than a legal one? (4) Were you concerned that reporting would cause harm? (5) Were you able to minimize the harm that would result from reporting? and (6) Did the reasons to report outweigh the reasons to not report? These six factors were presented in a decision tree to illustrate the relationship between factors and decision outcome. This preliminary group model was then tested using the case experiences of a separate yet similar group of registered psychologists in British Columbia. Results found that the preliminary model accurately predicted the reporting outcome of 93% (33 of 36) of the cases in the new sample. Errors in the model were identified, and suggestions were made to improve its predictive ability. The results are evaluated in light of the decision tree produced. Implications for theory building, naturalistic inquiry, clinical practice, policy, and future research are discussed.

This thesis makes the legal argument that certain histories of aboriginal child removals in Canada and Australia, that is, the residential school experience in Canada, and the program of child institutionalization in Australia, meet the definition of 'genocide' in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. My primary focus is on that Convention's requirement that an act be committed with an "intent to destroy a group". My first concern in formulating legal argument around the Convention's intent requirement is to offer a theory of the legal subject implicit in legal liberalism. Legal liberalism privileges the individual, and individual responsibility, in order to underscore its founding premises of freedom and equality. The intentionality of the subject in this framework is a function of the individual, and not the wider cultural and historical conditions in which the subject exists. Using a historical socio-legal approach, I attempt to develop a framework of legal subjectivity and legal intent which reveals rather than suppresses the cultural forces at work in the production of an intent to genocide. Having reacquainted the subject with the universe beyond the individual, I move on with the first limb of my legal argument around intent in the Genocide Convention to address the systemic means through which child removal policy was developed and enforced. In this, I confront two difficulties: firstly, the difficulty of locating in any single person an intent to commit, and hence responsibility for, genocide; and secondly, the corresponding difficulty of finding that a system intended an action in the legal sense. I respond to both of these difficulties by arguing for a notion of legal subjectivity which comprehends organisations, and correspondingly a notion of intent which is responsive (both on an individual and an organisational level) to systematically instituted crimes such as genocide. The second limb of my argument around intent confronts the defence of benevolent intent. In this defence, enforcers of child removals rely on a genuine belief in the benevolence of the 'civilising' project they were engaged in, so that there can be no intent to destroy a group. I reveal the cultural processes at work to produce the profound disjunction between aboriginal and settler subjectivities, especially as those subjectivities crystallize around the removal of aboriginal children. I locate this disjunction in the twin imperatives of colonial culture, those of oppression and legitimation. I argue that colonial culture exacts a justification for oppression, and that aboriginal people have been "othered" (in gendered, raced, and classed terms) to provide it. Intent to destroy a group, then, will be located via an enquiry which confronts the interests of colonial culture and aligns them firstly with the oppression of aboriginal people, and secondly with the discourses which developed to render that oppression in benevolent terms. The interpretation of the Genocide Convention is thus guided by the demands of context: and in context is revealed an intent to genocide by child removal.

South Africa is a country in a state of flux. It has many problems / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

This study investigates prevailing factors that impede the implementation of affirmative action in the Durban Automotive Cluster. This study will enable DAC affiliates to determine their obstacles and challenges with respect to the implementation of affirmative action. The service provider of the DAC CB and M Analysts) will also be able to advise companies through their development programmes and recommend what has to be done in order to bring blacks on board. This study relied on primary data. In-depth interviews were conducted with the senior managers ofDAC affiliates using unstructured questionnaires. Secondary data from the DAC database was analysed to strengthen the qualitative data. The data focused on the distribution of different population groups across the levels of occupations. The aim of the study is not to generalise about affirmative action but to obtain more in-depth clarity on the research problem. The findings have established that the pool of technically qualified and experienced blacks is very small and hence they are in short supply in the market. A number of factors such as direct ownership and low turnover of staff were raised as one of the aspects that hinder affirmative action. Constraints such as attitudes of white middle management appeared to have been addressed by these companies. The findings also clarified the role of human resources department in driving affirmative action. In most companies, the human resources department is part and parcel of management and actively involved in affirmative action. The study discovered that poaching also arises as a result of the shortage of skilled blacks. Retention of black employees is a problem for the majority of the companies. Despite these shortcomings, this study revealed that proper channels such as training, development and mentoring were followed for both internal and external recruits. This is being done to avoid window dressing. The other constraint of the affirmative action programme is government capacity. The key constraints to delivery are limited staff capacity, scarcity of human resources at governmental level; lack of coordination and integration with other spheres of national and provincial government labour departments and the lack of effective organizational, technical and managerial support for affirmative action. With respect to globalisation, the automotive sector is a dynamic and global sector which is changing fast due to technology and globalisation. As a result, the requirements of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) who are competing globally were seen as a hindering factor to the realisation of affirmative action. In conclusion, the achievements of affirmative action programmes amongst DAC affiliates were very modest in relation to both national expectations and their own stated goals due to shortage of skills, family and direct ownership and poaching. Implementation has proved far more complex and resource demanding than originally anticipated. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

The study aims to research the performance of past and present motor industry policy in South Africa - with special reference to Phase VI of the local content programme and the Motor Industry Development programme (MIDP) - in the light of the domestic macroeconomic environment and global developments in the world automotive industry. The overall objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate on motor industry policy which concerns what future policy would be appropriate for the development of a viable and competitive motor vehicle industry. Thus this study is primarily policy-oriented, and the empirical analysis produced deals with important developments in the local motor and component industries and attempts to examine key variables to establish the likely impact of industry-specific policy changes - both past and future. The method of investigation involves the study of relevant theoretical literature regarding domestic automotive policy, and considers policies of low-volume automobile producing economies, especially Australia, Philippines, India and Malaysia. Also, empirical data of various sub-sectors of manufacturing in South Africa were examined and compared to the motor vehicle sector in order to determine the extent to which the macroeconomic state of the domestic economy as distinct from automotive policy might explain the performance of the South African motor industry. The dissertation presents a review of the local content programme of motor industry policy in South Africa since the early 1960s. It examines the claim that import-substituting policy in the motor industry actually had a negative impact on the country's balance of payments. The study finds questionable whether local content policy contributed significantly to the large net foreign exchange usage by the motor industry in real terms. There is evidence that increases in the nominal industry trade deficit can largely be explained by the weakening of the Rand, especially during the mid-1980s. Also, empirical data was used to make an examination of the performance of automotive exports under Phase VI and the MIDP in the context of economy-wide trade liberalization. It was found that exports of automotive products grew significantly under both Phase VI and the MIDP in real Rand terms. Thus, it seems probable that industry-specific policy played a major role in the strong export performance of the sector since the late 1980s through to the 1990s. The study then reviews the revised version of the impact of the MIDP and considers the future of the industry. The state of the domestic macroeconomic environment and globalization of the international automobile industry, including the influence of Transnational Corporations' (TNCs') strategies, will undoubtedly determine the future direction of South Africa's automotive sector. In the short to medium term, we might expect an increase in imported vehicles and some rationalization of the industry. Over the longer term, the possibility of fewer OEMs and component suppliers, and automotive exports are likely to rise as trade and the inflow of foreign investment accelerates due to foreign collaboration and global competition. A simple theoretical model applicable to the South African automotive industry attempts to show the welfare implications of a protective automotive regime (similar to Phase VI) and compares it with that of a more liberal (tariffs-only) automotive regime that may be considered as a likely policy-option for South Africa post-MIDP. The theoretical analysis indicates that the tariffs-only policy is superior to that of a more protective regime in that static efficiency losses are lower. However, the dynamic effects of such policy changes and of possible TNC responses to them, which are referred to in the previous paragraph, are not included in this simple model. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

This research sought to investigate middle management‟s roles in implementing the new curriculum at grade 10 -12 levels; it involved a small qualitative study of two schools in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. At a policy level, the role of middle managers at school level in South Africa has changed. The transformation of the curriculum in South Africa placed a need in all spheres of the education system to be flexible and innovative in accepting change. In fact this need for change is mostly required by the middle management of the schools who bear the brunt of working with teachers and learners in implementing the new curriculum. Hence this qualitative study was undertaken to investigate their roles. In investigating the topic the following three questions were considered as of critical importance in understanding middle managers roles in the new curriculum. The first question explored middle managers‟ main roles in implementing the new curriculum. Secondly it explored how middle managers responded to the current reform process at the FET level, and lastly it investigated how middle managers intertwined assessment in implementing the new curriculum. The review of the literature focused on curriculum implementation internationally and locally and also explored the role of the middle managers as leaders and managers in the curriculum implementation process. The study took place in two rural schools and participants included four middle managers (three heads of department and one principal). Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. A selection of documents (planning and teaching documents) was also collected for analysis. In a nutshell analysis revealed that endeavours were made towards the planning process. There was a presence of the subject framework, work schedule and the lesson plan. This indicated that the initial process of designing the learning programmes was being done. However, data revealed that middle managers fulfilled a management rather than leadership function. Their roles consisted largely of curriculum implementation processes at the expense of curriculum innovation and change. Barriers included a lack of time for proper planning and innovation due to a full teaching load as well as a lack of training by the Department of Education in the area of curriculum development and innovation. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

Wildlife management in Moryambique has had a troubled history. The end of civil war and installment of a democratic Government provided opportunity to redefine policy and implementation of conservation. Weakened by civil strife and with wildlife decimated in many areas, Government sought approaches to conservation that would promote participation by investors and civil society, particularly rural communities. The intention is to acknowledge the rights of rural people to resources and the benefits that can accrue from their use. Partnerships are seen as a way in which Government can bring the required financial and human resources to bear whilst at the same time engendering positive attitudes to conservation in general, and to policy in particular. The purpose of this research is to examine, using two case study conservation areas, the consequences of Government's attempts to implement its policy. The philosophical basis for the research is that policy reform and implementation should be envisaged as a complex system comprising many interactions and that when this complexity is not acknowledged and addressed systemically, it predisposes the process of policy reform and implementation to failure. A principal cause of failure is considered to be that assumptions are not made explicit and this results in development and application of an approach that does not accord with reality. Further, because of the networked nature of the system, failure at one point can be magnified as its consequences are propagated through the system. A conceptual framework for policy reform and implementation is developed. This exposes some critical assumptions about Government's capacity to implement policy and the ways in which implementation is experienced by stakeholders, especially local communities. Context is provided by tracing the evolution of approaches to conservation in Moryambique from the pre-colonial era to the present. The findings are that Government does not have the capacity to implement its conservation policy and this is shown to have serious implications for how local people perceive and respond to Government approaches to conservation. Causal factors are analysed and assessed. It is concluded that the process of policy reform and implementation is complex but that a systems approach provides a simple and easily comprehended way in which this complexity can be interpreted and taken into account with potentially very significant benefits. Perceptions are shown to be a powerful determinant of response to policy reform and implementation. As these are commonly a basis for destructive tensions between parties, it is suggested that research directed at defining the principles that should underpin management of perceptions and tensions should be encouraged. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1978.