Introduction: Appalachian women have high rates of preterm birth and low birth weight infants. A new format of group prenatal care, known as CenteringPregnancy, decreases the rate of preterm birth and low birth weight when compared with individual care. However, clinics in Appalachia often struggle to recruit women into group care. Theory & Methods: Using critical realism and the middle-range theory of motivation-ease as frameworks, this qualitative study had two research questions: ‘What influences Appalachian women’s choice of traditional prenatal care instead of CenteringPregnancy care?’ and ‘What are Appalachian women’s perceptions of prenatal care and their access to prenatal care?’. Twenty-nine Appalachian women, who had declined CenteringPregnancy care, were interviewed about their perceptions of prenatal care, what facilitated care, and their decision to decline CenteringPregnancy. Verbatim transcripts of these semi-structured interviews, in-depth demographic questionnaires, and field notes were coded and analyzed using conventional (inductive) content analysis. Findings: Two meaning units were identified, information concerning women’s reason(s) for declining CenteringPregnancy and facilitators of prenatal care access. The reasons women provided for declining CenteringPregnancy care fell into three overarching categories, preferred one-to-one care, experienced barriers to Centering, and did not know Centering was an option. The most common reason for declining Centering was a preference for individual care. This category had three subcategories: do not like groups, don’t want to put everything out there with other women, and no need for change from existing care. Women predominately named two facilitators of prenatal care access, insurance and compassionate care. Conclusions: Clinicians should decrease barriers to CenteringPregnancy utilization and should partner with the local community to better market this new model of care. In addition, small modifications in Centering may make the model more appealing and accessible. However, clinicians should continue to provide individual care for women who cannot access group care. Participants stated state-provided insurance greatly facilitated prenatal care which supports the need for ongoing Medicaid funding. Women also stated compassionate care enhanced their ability and desire to get prenatal care. Healthcare providers should renew efforts to provide personalized and unrushed clinical environments to assist women in obtaining needed prenatal care.

This thesis consists of two parts. The first is a series of photographic essays documenting the lived experience of a woman who is HIV positive and a group of young females who are socially marginalised. The written component attempts to underlabour in a philosophical sense for the artistic/creative element of the thesis. That is, it seeks to take on a range of theoretical issues that cluster around the practice of documentary photography. By clarifying these issues the thesis endeavours to act as a stimulus to artistic practice and also to explain and introduce that practice to a wider audience. Among the theoretical issues addressed is the ontological status of the documentary photograph. Here, the thesis draws upon Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism to suggest a rational alternative to postmodernist scepticism and naive realism. The thesis also takes on a range of ethical problems. Most important of these is the question whether the relationship between the photographer and her subject is inherently exploitative. The thesis attempts, in this case, to unite Emmauel Levinas' philosophy of the Other with Critical Realist Ethics. Here, the thesis advances a novel differentiation of the Other and combines this with the Critical Realist notion of ontological depth. The argument of the thesis is that the nature of the contract between the photographer and her subject depends on which Other the subject is regarded as. In addition, the thesis explores the social and gender dimensions of documentary photography concentrating in particular on the Farm Security Admininstration photography in America in the 1930s, and the radical self-imaging of the British photographer Jo Spence and the Pop Star Madonna.

Negative perceptions of being Aboriginal persist and policies such as self-determination are generally perceived to have failed despite many texts to the contrary. This thesis examines assumptions and presuppositions within contemporary writings and practices, determining in the process, conditions seeming necessary for decolonising ways of living and research. Much closer attention is required not only to developing better understandings, but especially to articulating explanations via the reality of deep structures, their powers and causal mechanisms underpinning social life generally and in particular, the lived experience of oppressed communities. Neo-Nietzscheanism and post-structuralism tend to see reality as merely constructed. Maximising movements of solidarity with the oppressed must express the freedom of everyone in any particular place. The thesis begins by exploring the nature and significance of philosophical underlabouring (clearing the ground) for decolonisation as self-emancipation. It then engages with issues of value, truth and power by means of establishing a critical realist dialogue between two sets of writings. Key works by Australian (Japanangka West, Yolnju) Maori (Tuhiwai Smith) and American (Moonhawk Alford, Taiaiake Alfred) First Nations thinkers in modernity's colonial context are retroductively analysed in order to suggest what must be the case (in terms of being and becoming) for decolonisation to be possible. Works by philosophers currently establishing and applying Bhaskarian transcendental dialectical critical realist and/or meta-Realist principles of self-emancipation are critiqued in relation to their compatibility with decolonisation. Terms of reference within this dialogue are then supplemented from within writings by a range of others (Fanon, Said, Otto and Levinas), selected for their perceived significance in developing a dialectical praxis of personal and social transformation through spirit within the domain of strengthening community and protecting children.

Abstract of Making Their Way—Making Art and Making Money: The working lives of visual artists with disabilities Susan Agatha Maley People with disabilities have marked lower rates of employment than people without disabilities in both Australia and the United States, the countries chosen for this research inquiry. That this is the case decades after the introduction of anti-discrimination laws in these developed democratic countries highlights the continuum of constraints people with disabilities still experience in securing work. Some of these constraints include socially discriminatory attitudes and perceptions, the lack of available accommodations and adaptations in work settings (and the misconception that they will be onerous and expensive to implement), lack of accessible transportation, the unavailability of work within established job markets and the restrictions of vocational rehabilitation and disability employment programs’ past focus on existing jobs in organisational settings. These constraints have a negative impact on the overall quality of life for many people with disabilities as employment is a key component to individual self-sufficiency and personal fulfilment and also crucial to inclusion in community and social settings. Among the notable initiatives to address these persistent inequities are research-informed projects focusing on self-employment as a viable alternative mode of employment to the established job market. Within the last decade, myriad research reports, model demonstration projects, and a US national research program, funded by the Office of Disability Employment Policy, have been demonstrating the success of self-employment in expanding self-determined income generation. Within this burgeoning and productive investigation on self-employment, one gap is that there has been little focused inquiry on creative work. Such a void is significant since the predominant work mode among visual artists is self-employment, albeit sometimes supplemented with other arts, and non-arts related work. This study addresses the lack of investigation of artists’ modes of work by examining the working lives of practicing professional visual artists with a range of significant physical, sensory and neurological disabilities. There are a number of reasons for this research study’s focus on the area of visual arts. Visual arts has been documented to be one of the largest groups among artistic disciplines in studies in both Australia and the US, as well as European countries. Within this sizable arts arena, there are established and emerging markets for sale of visual arts products. This discipline can also offer flexible work locations, hours and adaptations in art making. Thus, there may be numerous benefits to pursuing careers in the visual arts for creative people with disabilities. Yet, little is known about the lived work experience of practicing visual artists with disabilities and their career strategies. Thus, an exploration of visual artists with disabilities working in a range of mediums such as this research study can reveal new, and potentially useful, knowledge about their methods of art-making and marketing, adaptations in the design and execution of their work, their experiences of disability and the facilitators and obstacles they face when preparing for and pursuing their working lives as artists. This research study is based on the results of in-depth, face-to-face interviews of twenty-one visual artists, eleven in Australia and ten in the US, who used multiple artistic mediums. The conceptual lens for the analysis is intersectionality with an underlying critical realism foundation. These theories were used to explore the intersecting social positions of being a person with a disability and a practicing artist and the related interplay of agency and structure in shaping the careers of these artists. The main findings from this research focus on how the artists in this study made their way, made art and made money. These findings commence with an examination of the early shaping and continued sustaining influences in their artistic development and education. It continues with an exploration of the influence of their disability experiences on making art including their adaptive methods and conceptual process. The analysis continues with a focus on factors involving their means of making money, marketing and self-promotion methods and professional progressions. The findings conclude with an analysis of aids and obstacles these artists with disabilities experienced during interactions with a range of organisations including disability employment and vocational rehabilitation counselling and financial support agencies, arts educational institutions, art galleries and arts and disability agencies. Highlights of the findings are that the majority of the artists in the study earned their income from arts and arts related work, that they made active use of their own personal and collective agency to meet their artistic and professional goals and that their actions influenced structural change. They also positioned aspects of their social and personal identity to best suit their career progressions and some made artistic use of their conceptions of disability with innovative impact on social conceptions of disability. Implications of these findings are that artists experiencing disability developed strategic skills to negotiate difficult terrain while forging an income-producing arts practice. In addition, their creation of new options for themselves, and other artists with disabilities, has wider implications for improving equity for artists with disabilities.

This thesis examines the role of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) task analysis within the context of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) system design. It recognises and critically examines several carrefours that differentiate cognitive from sociocultural task analysis theories in Second Language Acquisition and Human-Computer Interaction. A study into the role of multimodal interaction and second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition revealed the need for an integrative approach to examining learner-computer interaction. In response, a conceptual, situated task analysis framework was developed that promotes (1) a common unit of analysis for principled theoretical investigation and methodological selection; and (2) a formative task analysis framework which considers both software engineering and human-computer interaction practices within CALL system design. / Understanding the extant relationships between learner, theory and practice has become increasingly important in light of recent criticisms of CALL software quality, and its influence on learning outcomes. To further develop our understanding of the role of HCI and Software Engineering in CALL, an empirical exploratory study was undertaken. The design of the study was influenced by research concerning (1) cognitive complexity and language learning; (2) social perspectives on learner-computer interaction; and (3) the intersection between system design, quality, and learner-computer interaction. / Computer-mediated activity in language learning environments can be categorised as a highly social process through its dependency upon a number of sociocultural and environmental contraints. As such, learner-computer interaction is likely to be highly fluid and dynamic. The distinction between static and dynamic environments is a critical determinant when selecting a particular HCI task analysis strategy. To evaluate competing task analysis approaches, a small qualitative study was established that considered the role of multimodal interaction in L2 vocabulary acquisition. Emerging trends from this study served to elucidate the appropriateness of existing HCI theories and their units of analysis within the context of CALL system design. / Participants for this study were selected from an undergraduate Computer Science degree at a major Australian university. Participants had little to no prior knowledge of the L2 used in the study. Participants conducted three sessions with a multimodal speech-enabled language learning tool. After each session, participants completed an immediate recall test and responded to a series of semi-structured interview questions. After an eight week period, participants were asked to take part in a delayed recall and recognition test. Findings from this study showed two distinct trends: (1) a relationship between the degree of multimodal interaction strategy and delayed L2 vocabulary recall and recognition; and (2) the limitations of existing HCI task analysis approaches with respect to analysing learner-computer interaction within the context of CALL system design. As such, this study provided key insights into the role of HCI in CALL, proposing several implications for further research. / Instructed by these findings, research was undertaken to develop an holistic, situated task analysis framework: C.A.S.E (Cognition, Activity, Social Organisation, Environment). Ontological, epistemological and methodological components of the framework are discussed in detail. C.A.S.E provides a conceptual framework for integrating cognitive and social theories on learning, interaction and system design. Consequently, C.A.S.E provides both theoretical and methodological support for bridging the divide between CALL, HCI and Software Engineering. Several applications of the framework relevant to CALL practitioners are described in this thesis. / The outcomes of this investigation establish an agenda for further research. The thesis concludes with a discussion related to CALL system design, specifically the role of Software Engineering in end-user developer CALL activities. To assist readers, additional discussions on Philosophy of Science and Software Engineering have been provided as appendix chapters.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "December 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-270). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Pharmacy)) - Rhodes University, 2009.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2009.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study attempts to explore aspects of the textual representation of Magadien Wentzel, the main character of The Number, a work of literary journalism by Jonny Steinberg. It sets out to respond to the following two central research questions: Firstly, what narrative decisions does Jonny Steinberg make in the text of The Number to convey aspects of the reality he experienced in relation to his main character, Magadien Wentzel; and secondly, what effect do these decisions have on the reader? As literary journalism is a genre with fluid boundaries and therefore various definitions, the thesis first presents the challenge of definition and lays out a broad history of the genre in its attempt to situate The Number as a work of social documentary and of literary journalism in South Africa. Taking realism as its theoretical point of departure, this study aligns itself with the view that there exists an independent, extra-textual real-world and that knowledge of this real-world can be produced and shared. In doing so, realism presents itself as a literary form associated with art that cannot turn away from harsh aspects of human existence – a characteristic mirrored by Steinberg’s (and thus his character’s) major themes. By means of a textual analysis which seeks to interpret aspects of Steinberg’s narrative decisions in his text, this study uses tools of literary realism, namely the empirical effect and the character effect, in its exploration. This research, conducted within the qualitative research paradigm, is informed in particular by the assumption that there exists an implicit communicative contract between author and reader which leads to narrative trust, seen as an indispensable quality to the non-fictional reading experience. In the case of Steinberg and The Number, this study finds that the writer’s representation of a particular reality relies to an important degree on the level of trust he is able to inspire in a reader. This is pertinent because, being factual, non-fiction demands that a reader not only imagine a world other than their own, but that they believe it too. One of the ways in which Steinberg enables a reader to trust his representation of his particular reality is by overtly placing his literary and authorial concerns alongside his reportage of Magadien Wentzel, the main character of The Number. This distinctive narrative approach results in a modification of the reader’s traditional contract with the writer, forged by the text between them, to one in which the text unites the reader with both Steinberg as narrator and Magadien Wentzel as character. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie poog om aspekte van die tekstuele voorstelling van Magadien Wentzel, die hoofkarakter in The Number, 'n werk van literêre joernalistiek deur Jonny Steinberg, te verken. Dit probeer om die volgende twee sentrale navorsingsvrae te beantwoord: Eerstens, watter narratiewe besluite neem Jonny Steinberg in die teks van The Number om aspekte van die werklikheid wat hy ervaar het met betrekking tot sy hoofkarakter, Magadien Wentzel, oor te dra, en tweedens, watter effek het dit op die leser? Aangesien literêre joernalistiek 'n genre is met vloeibare grense en daarom verskeie definisies, probeer die tesis eerstens die uitdaging van definisie te beantwoord. Daarmee lê dit ook 'n breë basis van die geskiedenis van die genre in sy poging om The Number te situeer as 'n sosiale dokumentêr en as literêre joernalistiek in Suid-Afrika. Met realisme as teoretiese vertrekpunt, vereenselwig hierdie studie hom daarmee dat 'n onafhanklike, ekstra-tekstuele regte wêreld bestaan, en dat kennis van dié “regte wêreld” geskep en gedeel kan word. So representeer realisme hom as 'n literêre vorm wat verband hou met die kunste, en wat sigself nie kan afwend van die harde aspekte van die menslike bestaan nie – 'n kenmerk wat deur Steinberg se hooftemas – en daarom ook dié van sy hoofkarakter – weerspieël word. Deur middel van 'n tekstuele analise wat poog om aspekte van Steinberg se narratiewe besluite in sy teks te interpreteer, gebruik hierdie studie aspekte van literêre realisme, naamlik die empiriese effek en die karakter-effek, in sy ondersoek. Hierdie navorsing, wat binne die kwalitatiewe navorsingsparadigma uitgevoer is, is veral geïnformeer deur die aanname dat daar 'n implisiete kommunikatiewe kontrak tussen die skrywer en die leser bestaan wat lei tot narratiewe vertroue, gesien as 'n onmisbare element van die nie-fiksie-leeservaring. In die geval van Steinberg en The Number het hierdie studie bevind dat die skrywer se voorstelling van 'n bepaalde werklikheid tot 'n belangrike mate berus op die vlak van vertroue wat hy by die leser genereer. Dit is belangrik, want synde feitelik, vereis nie-fiksie dat 'n leser nie net 'n wêreld anders as hul eie voorstel nie, maar dat hulle ook daarin kan glo. Een van die maniere waarop Steinberg 'n leser in staat stel om sy voorstelling van sy besondere werklikheid te vertrou, is deur die plasing van sy literêre en outeursbesorgdheid direk langs sy reportage van Magadien Wentzel, die hoofkarakter in The Number. Hierdie unieke narratiewe aanslag het ’n modifikasie van die leser se tradisionele kontrak met die skrywer tot gevolg, ’n kontrak wat gewoonlik deur die teks tussen hulle gesmee is, en wat verander in een waarin die teks die leser met beide Steinberg as verteller en Magadien Wentzel as karakter verenig het.

This study determined how stakeholders of heritage attractions apply strategic management for their business planning and development. A conceptual framework for strategic heritage planning was created and applied within the case of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The framework provided a new way of interpreting whether effective strategies were used within the heritage management sector. In addition to offering a lens to view policy planning, the framework led to a stakeholder analysis determining who was governing the heritage sites within thecity. The literature review revealed that studies about planning for heritage are neither prescriptive nor descriptive. Instead, they commonly reviewed challenges in planning with valuation, policy learning, implementation and maintenance for safeguarding sites. The new conceptual framework was created based on the gaps, challenges, issues and recommendations presented in the literature for heritage preservation. Each stage is operational and can be used as a guide for good practice or as an audit instrument. Critical realism was the most appropriate research approach because the study was practical and investigated how stakeholders process policy planning in the heritage sector. This study used purely qualitative methods and considered the stakeholders' experiences to give meaning to the situation. Purposive sampling was used and the questions created for the semi-structured interviews focused on stakeholder involvement throughout the phases of the framework. Accordingly, the Interview questions focused on assessment, creation and implementation of policy. Nine stakeholders were interviewed who were directly involved in the policy planning for heritage in Plovdiv. Document analysis was also used assessing the planning strategies highlighted in the Municipal Policy Document for Plovdiv 2014-2020.In terms of the strategic planning and development process of the heritage sites, the findings revealed that managers pay more attention to the assessment and 3 creation phases rather than the implementation phase. With regards to stakeholder involvement, the research showed that few of them were involved at certain stages of the process due to the hierarchy of governance. Academic andmanagerial recommendations are further discussed in the study.