This thesis is an examination of the political and educational implications of environmentalism. This movement has been characterized by oversimplifications which have led to confusion about the proper role of humans with respect to the natural world. The modern world system was founded on the concept of human domination of nature, and this led to degradation of both the natural and the social environment. The radical ecological response to this view rejected any role for human subjects other than protection, and called for a rejection of technology and a return to pre-modern conditions. / This investigation proposes that citizens in a postmodern world should be characterized by ecological literacy: a comprehensive understanding of the natural and social environment, and the responsibilities of humans in it. It is argued that this will be possible only with political arrangements which are selectively decentralized, preserving local initiative and promoting community resilience.

No description available.

The environment of city planning practice includes increasing unemployment rates in the communities practitioners serve. There should be effects of this; however, there is little discussion in the literature of the relationship between high unemployment and planning. This thesis is an exploratory study of that relationship. It examines the effects of high unemployment on city planning as mediated by the political and fiscal environments. Three levels of planning are considered: strategic, normative, and operational planning. The subjective quality of the workplace is also considered. A preliminary review of the literatures on unemployment, on political participation and its economic antecedents, on planning, and on municipal fiscal stress, was followed by interviews with twenty-two planners, councillors, and administrators of nongovernmental services for the unemployed. The thesis describes the relationship between unemployment and political participation. (Canadian data on magnetic tape which can be used in quantitative work in this area are listed in the Appendix.) The implications of that relationship are then developed for city planning. The effects on planning of unemployment-related municipal fiscal pressure are also explored. A number of hypotheses are generated which take into account contextual effects. These are incorporated into four future scenarios which make different assumptions about the ability of left- and right-of-center governments to reduce the unemployment rate. The thesis concludes with directions for future research and some general issues. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework of attitude change under threatening conditions based on parallel updating. More specifically, I focus on public preferences for policies to address terrorist attacks, pandemics, climate change and natural disasters in periods when these threats are elevated. I test my argument with four original survey experiments, which include eleven interventions and draw on a nationally diverse sample of a total of 9,110 American citizens. These interventions identify the effects of factual information, partisan cues, incidental emotions, ideological and non-ideological framing, and memory priming. Evidence from these experiments provides consistent support that public opinion updating exhibits five characteristics. First, citizens change their views by a small amount. Second, citizens’ opinions move in the direction of information. Third, attitude change occurs regardless of political predispositions and individual attributes. Fourth, exposure to information about a specific policy area does not impact preferences for policies unrelated to this area. The only exception to this rule is when the treatment is emotionally strong. Finally, attitude- and identity-based cross pressures may introduce only minimal bias in the manner citizens update their opinions. These conclusions strongly challenge theories of public opinion which argue that individual differences in more-or-less enduring political and psychological characteristics can lead to political polarization. Although the persuasive techniques studied here are not equally potent in changing political views, the findings invite cautious optimism about the capacity of citizens to update opinions in a reasonable and accurate manner, even when the circumstances are unfavorable. Finally, the results suggest that the roots of polarization should be searched for more directly, notably in the increasingly fragmented political, social, and media environments.

Submitted to the Faculty of Education in Fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION in the Department of Philosophy of Education, University of Zululand, 2001. / This study sought to determine; "the extent and effects of politics on KwaZutu-Natal Secondary Schools". The study was influenced by the fact that politics is inescapable so are the consequences of politics. As an introduction the History of Politics and Education in South Africa was reviewed. It was determined how politics affected South African education in general. Literature also revealed that KwaZulu-Natal was affected by party politics. The study then explored the political effects on Culture of Learning and Teaching Services (COLTS); Provisioning; School Governance and Morale (discipline and confidence) of educators and learners. The study found that there is a considerable extent and a number of political effects that had a negative impact on a number of KZN-Secondary Schools. The most significant effects were: low morale among educators and learners; poor provisioning and distribution of resources; poor staffing; below average school governance; absence of the culture of learning and teaching. The study showed that the educators had been exposed to terrible political violence, intimidation and interference in their schools. The study found out that there is considerable dissatisfaction in that stakeholders fail to resolve political problem of the secondary schools. The findings of the study suggest that politics especially party politics affected KZN-Secondary School environments. Secondary Schools for Africans had been the target for political influence. They need the most conducive, disciplined learning and teaching environments; free of political interference in order to produce envisaged excellent academic results. The most aspects of the recommendations were aimed at addressing the effects of politics in KZN-Secondary Schools' Education - the underlying purpose of this study. Relevant stakeholders need to attend to these political effects in an unbiased attitude, for enjoyment in and culture of learning and teaching to be fully resuscitated.

No description available.

No description available.

Note:

This dissertation studies the creative practices of citizens who use cultural resources to engage in political criticism in contemporary Cuba. I argue that, in order to become visible as political subjects in the public sphere, these citizens appeal to cultural forms and narratives of self-representation that elucidate the struggles for recognition faced by emerging social actors. I examine blogs, garage bands, art performances, home art exhibits, digital literary supplements, improvised academies, and informal networks of publication that, as forms of aesthetic experimentation with stories of everyday life, disclose a social text. I suggest that their narrative choices emphasize their status as 'regular citizens' in order to distinguish themselves from both traditional voices of political opposition and institutionally accredited cultural producers--professional artists, academics, musicians. This recasts sites of cultural production as models of alternative citizenship where the concept of the political is re-imagined and where the commonplace, pejorative meaning of the term amateur is contested. On the fringes of the republic of letters, adjacent to traditional sites of cultural production, these oblique uses of culture consequently question legitimate forms of public speech. They demand that the way in which the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Cuba has been traditionally studied be reconsidered. Read in tandem with discourses against and about them from the lettered city--in literature, cultural criticism, film, and visual arts--I also follow the trope of the amateur under revolutionary cultural politics. I suggest that these contemporary voices have a contradictory genealogy in the cultural practices of the early decades of the Cuban Revolution. I try to show that these cultural practices become politically and socially significant because they try to resist--though not always successfully--cooptation by two forces: the remnant of bureaucratic, state-capitalist tendencies on one hand, and the rapid commercialization of popular culture for a foreign audience on the other. As a result, both the reconfigurations of the cultural field and the contested meanings of democracy in post-Cold War Cuba are re-examined through a reading of informal hubs of cultural production. The functions of culture in late socialism can be then comparatively studied by looking at an institutional framework in transition through the social and political subjectivities that are both expressed in, and constituted by, corresponding aesthetic practices and forms.

No description available.