Alternative educational settings that attempt to challenge Individualism are pervaded by Individualizing influences from the larger school system. This thesis examines the influences of Individualism in a school garden program at a Southern California continuation high school. Program members included high school students, college student interns, and two co-directors. Research was conducted during the spring semester of 2014. By providing an analysis of the Individualizing and non-Individualizing influences present in the program and the ways in which these influences interacted to inform the program structure and program members’ experiences and understandings, my thesis sheds new light on the complex ways alternative educational settings incorporate some aspects of Individualism, even as they challenge it.

The South African work environment is characterised by a highly differentiated labour force regarding culture, race, ethnicity, language, gender and school education. Since 1994 the focus has increasingly been on getting the labour corps to function at an equal level. As a result of the historic backlog with regard to training, social development and communication that prevails among the black labour corps, a breeding-ground for racial and/or ethnic conflict and stress can arise. Worldwide cultural differences within the same community are by no means an uncommon phenomenon. Die aim of this thesis was to establish what the nature and impact of values, attitudes, identity experiences and stress is among student groupings at the African School for Film and Dramatic Art (AFDA), as well as to determine the psychometric features of the distinctive measuring instruments. This study was undertaken after a decade of political transition in South Africa within a culturally diverse student population. A once-off cross-section population was used as sample (n = 247). The survey group consisted of two sub groups: black students (n = 80); white students (n = 160). Their terms of study at the AFDA ranged from one to four years. Values were measured by means of the Value Scale of Scholtz (1996). Attitudes were measured on the basis of Du Toit's Contact and Intercultural Perception Scale (1991). Group identity experience was evaluated by means of the Racial/Group Identity Scale of Helms (1993), and the Stress Scale of Van Gram (1981) was also applied. The statistical analyses were done by using the SAS-programme (SAS Institute, 2000). Cronbach alfa coefficients and inter-item correlations were used to determine the internal consistency of the measuring instruments. Exploratory factor analysis was used to establish the construct validity of the scales. Descriptive statistics were applied to analyse the data. Canonical correlation was utilised to analyse the relation between sets of variables. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was applied. Effect sizes rather than statistical inference were utilised to determine the significance of the findings. t-tests were also used. The results were presented in the form of four research articles. These results indicated that a diversity of values, attitudes, identity experiences and stress experiences are present among the two groupings of students. A discrepancy occurred more specifically regarding values as experienced by individuals (especially within group context) and regarding organisational values (Article 1). Within the white grouping, a value pattern came to the fore in which values such as honesty, dependability and respect were very important to the group. They also rated the values reasonableness and thankfulness high. A strong value pattern for the black grouping comes to the fore with values such as respect, honesty, dependability, thankfulness, politeness and hospitality. In both groupings uncertainty prevailed concerning the importance of value within the organisation such as mutual respect, honesty, religion and hospitality. These values will therefore predict how the individual in the group experiences his or her activities, relationship with others, nature and time. The bipolar attitude scale provides an account of how each grouping experiences its own as well as its external group (Article 2). In general, positive attitudes are present from the white grouping towards the black grouping (for instance kind-heartedness, goodness, pleasantness). However, cognitive growth is necessary in the white grouping concerning their perception of the dependability, wisdom, diligence and sense of responsibility of the black grouping. In the one field there seems to be an experience dimension in the white grouping with regard to attitudes, namely that the black grouping always turns up late. Within the black grouping, more negative-attitude tendencies occur towards the white grouping. Fields they find problematic are the dependability, fairness, honesty, helpfulness, sense of responsibility and peacemaking-attempts of the white grouping. The moderated attitudes of the white grouping toward themselves regarding being less ambitious and uncertain about their worth for the organisation, corresponds with how the black group experiences them. An assumption can be made that this attitude probably originates from the policy of affirmative action. Only three group identity phases manifested in the black grouping, while five group identity phases manifested in the white grouping (Article 3). The differences in the phases in the various groupings correspond with the impact of the South African political history on the identity moulding of the distinctive groupings. In the factor analysis, different factors from those in the theory of Helms (1993) were identified. In general, the white grouping is positive concerning their own identity - not shy of being white (90,63%) and feel at ease with other groupings (85%). These findings therefore indicate an established group identity that is developing positively. In the black grouping a positive to very positive tendency prevails that implies that they are experiencing positive identity-development growth. The uncertain vacuum of the black group identity has faded, and instead, internalisation and black self acceptance has crystallised. In both the groupings the impact that values, attitudes and identity experiences have on stress, was divided into the frequency of stress and the intensity of stress that the groups experience in different fields. Both groupings reported high stress frequencies on items such as frustration and anxiety, while the intensity of stress on dimensions such as anxiety substructure and boredom comes to the fore stronger in both groupings. The psychometric features of the measuring instruments were satisfactory. The construct validity of Helms' scale (1993) for the black grouping should be further investigated, seeing that the chronological development of identity moulding perhaps is embodied differently in South Africa with its unique history than elsewhere. Recommendations were made for future research. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

Philosophers who show interest in authenticity tend to narrowly focus on its capacity to help people evade conformity and affirm individuality, a simplistic reduction that neglects authenticity’s moral potential and gives credence to the many critics who dismiss it as a euphemism for excessive individualism. Yet when conceived ethically, authenticity can also allow for worthy human flourishing without falling prey to conformity’s opposite extreme—egoism. This thesis proposes a relational conception of authenticity that can help prevent the often destructive excess of egoism while also offsetting the undesirable deficiency of heteronomy, concertedly moving agents towards socially responsible living. It demonstrates how authenticity necessarily has ethical dimensions when rooted in existentialist and dialogical frameworks. It also defines egoism as a form of self-deception rooted in flawed logic that cannot be considered “authentic” by relational standards. Relational authenticity recognizes the interpersonal relationships and social engagements that imbue meaning into agents’ lives, fostering a balance between personal ambitions and social obligations, and enabling more consistently moral lifestyles.

Placed within the field of recent research concerning religion and contemporary religious landscapes, this thesis aims to show conceptions of human life and body displayed in ten Swedish health magazines. The analysis aims to demonstrate the appearance of body and bodily experience and in addition see in what way ”westernized” religious traditions and methods from east Asia may contribute to perspectives of health. The main theories for the study are objectified versus phenomenological understanding of the human body by Drew Leder (1992; 1990) and Kristen Zeiler (2010). The quote in the main title is from the empirical material (Hälsa & Fitness, 2014 (11), cover). ”Strong from inside and out” depicts the core of the outcome, indicating both biomedical and holistic perspectives. With science as a provable reference, the individual’s body seems to be an object to control and shape to optimize goals of esthetic or physical benefits. Here are many mental aspects involved as well as social factors, which shows that the human is a phenomenological creature. The thesis suggests that in order to accomplish health and a healthy relationship – not only towards the body but living through it – the human need to cultivate the sensation of wholeness. Having no clear counterpart, this aspect seems to be easily provided through eastern traditions and methods, treating the human as “one”.

This thesis follows debates about economic planning during the 1930s through the work of Lewis L. Lorwin; his organization, the National Economic Planning Association; and its journal, Plan Age, to recover a rich intellectual legacy. Economic historians have marginalized the economic planning movement, regarding it as an aberration and failure. Instead, the planners played a central role in many important transitions, including the shift from laissez faire to Keynesian economics, an essential ingredient in the U.S. ascendance to global power. Marxian class analysis is the method used to explore the contradictions of the economic planning movement, explain its successes and failures, and measure the extent and limits of its challenges to liberal economic and political theory, with special attention to the ways in which the movement simultaneously undermined and reinforced capitalism and imperialism. In the process new directions are suggest for contemporary critics and activists.

This study explores how social work approaches and methods developed and practiced in one context can be interpreted, transferred and implemented in another. Additionally it focuses on how cultures and societies are organised both in individualistic and collectivistic societies and its effects on different approaches and conditions for social work. The data was collected from Namibian social work students that have participated in the Linnaeus Palme exchange program, which is an ongoing cooperation between the Swedish University West and University of Namibia. The results show that what the Namibian students foremost learn during their exchange studies in Sweden has to do with client interaction, critical thinking and dimensions of increased self-awareness. The assimilation of knowledge and possibilities to transfer and implement what they have learned in Sweden in a Namibian social work context is understood with the help of the theoretical concepts of the marginal man and transferability of knowledge. Shaped by the Namibian hybrid society, where the respondents are part of an ongoing negotiation between different antipoles and mediation between various cultural contexts, I argue that they are marginal social workers. Through their marginal experience they are in possession of qualities that are crucial in their process of transferability of knowledge and further create conditions for implementing new knowledge in the Namibian work practice.

This research explores feelings of obligation to volunteer, which lie at the interface of volunteering as simultaneously individual and collective and challenge traditional understandings of volunteering as leisure. The study examined volunteering within the context of communitarianism, particularly how collective outcomes of volunteering are related to feelings of obligation to volunteer. Phase one of this research focused on scale creation of a measure assessing feelings of obligation in the context of volunteerism. Using exploratory factor analyses of data from a student sample, this first phase yielded two measures: an 18-item Obligation to Volunteer as Commitment measure (OVC), encompassing dimensions of reward, affective attachment, flexibility, and side bets; and a 14-item Obligation to Volunteer as Duty measure (OVD), encompassing the dimensions of expectation, burden, and constraint. In phase two, survey research was conducted with 300 volunteers at ten community organizations. These new measures were used to examine relationships between obligation to volunteer and the value orientations of individualism and collectivism, the experience of volunteering as serious leisure, and the community characteristics of sense of community and social cohesion. Both individualism and collectivism were associated with the commitment but not the duty dimension of feelings of obligation, and both value orientations, but particularly individualism, was linked to serious leisure. Serious leisure very closely aligned with the commitment aspect of obligation as well as sense of community and social cohesion, thus emerging as a possible pathway for nurturing sense of community in a culture of individualism. Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses link the commitment aspect of obligation to sense of community and social cohesion. Feelings of duty to volunteer, in contrast, were inversely related to sense of community. Thus, the nature of feelings of obligation related to volunteering as commitment or duty have significant implications for the collective outcomes of volunteering, particularly sense of community. Also notable are the strong theoretical and empirical relationships between the OVC scale and serious leisure, which suggest that the newly-developed commitment scale could be considered a measure of the agreeable obligation that accompanies serious leisure pursuits.

This essay focuses on gender roles, individualism and collectivism in Jack Kerouac’s classic road-trip novel On the Road. In order to put the discussion into a meaningful context, I look at the novel from a historical perspective and examine how it relates to post-war American society. I argue that the novel is, in many ways, representative of a society existing in a field of tension between individualism and collectivism, and that its notion of individual freedom, at the time revolutionary, can be seen as retrogressive with regard to the book’s portrayal and treatment of women. The essay features a discussion of what kind of individual freedom is presented in On the Road and how this freedom relates to typical American individualism as well as American post-war societal norms, the norm of the nuclear family in particular. This is followed by a brief analysis of how the novel influenced future generations, specifically in terms of sexual liberation. This analysis introduces a discussion of the way in which women are portrayed in the book and how this portrayal both represents collective progress in post- war America—women are often described as financially independent—and a phallocentric type of individualism. I then show that this individualism is connected to an unthinking optimism which, I argue, is one of the key causes of the retrogressive view of women exemplified by the book. My study ultimately demonstrates that the novel’s notion of individualism—an individualism which was highly influential for future generations and is usually viewed as progressive—can arguably be seen as retrogressive in terms of Kerouac's representation of gender roles.

La present tesi doctoral té com a objectiu delimitar, descriure i analitzar el discurs ideològic, en clau interna, de l'anarquisme individualista, una de les tendències minoritàries i més mal conegudes de l'anarquisme a Espanya entre 1923 i 1938.A la part preliminar de la investigació es tracta d'acotar les bases epistemològiques del subjecte d'investigació. I en aquest sentit, es realitza un esforç per tractar d'arribar a una definició sobre l'anarquisme individualista. També s'analitzen els antecedents historiogràfics, es duu a terme un estat historiogràfic de la qüestió i s'exposen els criteris metodològics emprats.La primera part de la investigació tracta d'analitzar, en capítols successius, els fonaments teòrics de l'individualisme anarquista, ressegueix i descriu els processos de penetració a l'estat espanyol i exposa i analitza la trajectòria de les principals vies de debat i difusió a l'entorn de la teoria individualsta. En el primer cas, l'autor es remunta als orígens ideològics, fonamentats en l'obra fundacional de L'Ego i la seva propietat, del filòsof bavarès Max Stirner. Posteriorment es comenta el substrat filosòfic individualista de procedència nord-americana, amb autors com Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Warren o Benjamin Tucker i es destaca la influència de l'individualisme d'arrel francesa, de finals de segle XIX, amb el rol jugat per anarcoindividualistes com Émile Armand o Han Ryner. En el següent capítol s'exposa l'absència d'un individualisme espanyol autòcton i la dependència ideològica dels corrents foranis, en especial del francès, donats els estrets contactes a banda i banda del Pirineu. També es planteja la qüestió de la diferent intensitat de la presència d'individualisme entre diferents sectors pertanyents al complex univers individualista. També es realitza una descripció de la trajectòria cronològica d'aquest corrent, remuntant-se des de finals del segle XIX, amb la irrupció de la filosofia de Nietzsche, fins a l'acabament de la guerra civil espanyola. El quart capítol enumera els diferents òrgans de propaganda des del qual s'expressa aquest pensament i es descriu breument les tendències individualistes de cadascun d'ells.La segona part de la investigació analitza, en clau interna, el pensament individualista, a partir del seu material imprès i publicat. Així es descriuen els principis generals, els intens associacionistes, o es comenta el paper dels individualisme al llarg de la guerra civil. Posteriorment es comenten aspectes més concrets, com ara la filosofia educativa del moviment, la extraordinària importància que té la qüestió de l'amor lliure i l'emancipació sexual per als seus seguidors, i altres aspectes complementaris que tindran una extraordinària presència i importància en l'anarquisme individualista com serà l'annacionalisme, l'antimilitarisme i el naturisme.Es conclou la tesi destacant les aportacions al panorama historiogràfic i a l'esforç realitzat pel seu autor per recuperar la memòria col·lectiva. / The present doctoral research aims to frame, describe and analize the ideological discurse of individualistic anarchism, one of the minoritary and also worset know of anarchism in Spain between 1923 and 1938 tendencies.The preliminary section of the research we have tried to delimit the epistemological basis of the subject. To this effect, an effort has been made to try to come a definition of individualistic anarchism. As well as this the historiographic background are analized a historiographic estate of the question is carried out the metholical criteria are put forward.The first part of the research this to analize, in firsts chapters, the theoretical foundations of anarchist individualism, it follows and describes the process of penetration into the Spanish state and put forward as well as analizes the cours of developement of the main means of divulging and debate around the individualistic theory. In the first case the author traces the ideological origins based on the work The Ego and his Own, by the Bavarian philosopher Max Stirner.Folowing that, a comment is made on the individualistic bachground, with authors in the United States of America, with authors such as Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Warren or Benjamin Tucker, and also on the influence of French individualism from the end of XIXth century, emphasing the role played by individualistic anarchists such as Émile Armand and Han Ryner, as the main representatives of the movement in that country.The folowing chapter explains the absence of a Spanish autochthonous individualism ant the ideological dependency of foreign corrents, especially those coming from France, given the narrow contacts on both sides of the Pyrinnes. The chapter deals also with the question of the variable intensity of the presence of individualisme among the different sectors/groups belonging to the complex individualistic universe.The author also describes the cronological evolution on this corrent, from the last decades of the XIXth century -with the irrruption of Nietzsche philosophy- up to the end of the Spanish Civil War.The fourth chapter numbers the different means of propaganda from which this ideology is expressed (and spread), and it provides a brief description of the particualr individualistic tendencies of each of them.The second part of the research analyses, from within, the individualististic thinking, drawing the information from the existing written and published materials and sources. This, theri general principles are described as well as theri efforts to create assotiations and the role of individualistic anarchists throghout the Civil War.Later the author draws the attention on more specific aspects such as the pedagogical principles of the movement, the extraordinary relevance given to the issue of free love and sexual emancipation and other aspects which cull also become of freat relevance fer the movement, such as anationalism, anti-militarism and naturism.At the end of the reserarch the autor points up his contribution to the historiographical scene and the effort carried out to summon up our conllective memorie.

The privatization of K-12 education in Canada is not new. The public and private sectors feel like natural elements of the Canadian education system because they have existed side by side since confederation. However, this thesis challenges that tradition and argues that private education undermines collective responsibility for education as a shared, public good by catering to private interests and isolating students from the public realm. Not only does private education reinforce the likelihood of socio-economic stratification, but the concept of a “public good” is increasingly destabilized as social services like education are privatized. Why, then, does the privatization of K-12 education continue to be an insignificant political issue in Canada? This question is particularly pertinent at a time when neoliberalism is in full swing in the United States, and all the time more apparent in Canada. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on the precedence of economic ideals over concerns for social welfare and democratic participation has transformed the way that we understand “value”. Drawing on a broad range of scholars including Charles Taylor, Richard Pildes, Janice Gross Stein, Henry Giroux, Francois-Lyotard and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the values involved in the very concept of private education reinforce, and are reinforced by, neoliberal views about the place of the individual within society, and that these values are detrimental to the concern for education as shared, public good.