<p>Many older adults in the developing world rely on their adult children for financial, instrumental, and emotional support. The People's Republic of China (PRC), which will experience rapid population aging in the current century, is no exception. Many scholars and policy-makers are concerned that rapid economic, social, and demographic change in China is leading to a decline in traditional support for aging parents. This study examines the impact of family ties and economic resources on the receipt of support and the health of older adults across communities in China at different levels of economic development.</p><p> I analyze data from the 2002 and 2008 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) as well as the 2000 and 2005 1% Chinese Census. Initiated in 1998, the CLHLS interviewed older adults residing in a random sample of counties and cities in 22 provinces and municipalities of China. Additionally, in 2002 a subset of adult children of CLHLS respondents were also interviewed in a separate survey. Furthermore, the 2008-2009 wave collected additional data from middle-aged and older adults residing in specially designated "longevity areas" in China. In addition to the standard questionnaire and health exam, samples of blood and urine were also collected by medical personnel. </p><p> The first empirical chapter of this dissertation examines the association between filial piety/altruism and financial transfers to aging parents from adult children using factor analysis, binary logistic regression, and linear regression. The second paper looks at the socioeconomic-status health gradient using biomarker data among older adults residing in longevity areas using binary logistic regression analysis. The third paper examines both individual-level and community-level determinants of non-normative intergenerational coresidence - living with an adult daughter instead of an adult son-- through multilevel binary logistic models analyzing both survey and census data. </p><p> I find that (1) adult children's attitudes towards filial piety and family values are associated with both presence and amount of financial transfers to older parents, net of controls for adult child's socioeconomic status, parental need, parents' earlier life transfers to children, and whether elderly parents' provide instrumental support to adult children. (2) Similar to previous research in middle-income countries, many biomarkers were not associated with socioeconomic status but those that were demonstrated a reversed gradient - higher socioeconomic status was associated with worse health. (3) Greater numbers of daughters, higher levels of individual socioeconomic status, and residing in a more developed community was associated with greater likelihood of coresidence with adult daughters versus adult sons.</p> / Dissertation

Our behaviour is not changing fast enough to stop the environmental damage that is occurring. Many people will not voluntarily change their behaviours if there is no immediate benefit to them - this creates the need for a source of authority to encourage behaviour change. Usually this authority is government in the form of laws, but there are few laws that demand the adoption of pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) like composting and recycling. An individual’s employer can be a strong authority within an influential milieu. This study focuses on the impact that four environmentally-aware employers in the Victoria technology industry have on their staff, as measured by the type and extent of PEBs practiced by staff at work and at home. Data is obtained through interviews and online surveys. Findings expose the workplace as an important leverage point that government and NGOs can use to encourage rapid social change.

Despite the existing fragmentation amongst social change agents serving women on Vancouver's downtown east side, they are seeking fresh and innovative ways to work together to communicate their social change needs and to alleviate social problems facing their clients. Using appreciative inquiry to elicit stories of successful collaborations with alternative media, I collected narratives from seven change agents and then employed narrative analysis to understand what agents considered positive experiences and expressions. I found that successful collaborations are primarily ad hoc and are driven by: the organization's source of funding, the organization's viewpoint towards media, and the trust held towards the media outlet. Enabling factors for successful collaborations with media include: a viewpoint that media coverage is integral to an organization's success, dedicated resources to pursue collaborations with the media, and a high level of respect and admiration for the intended media partner.

No description available.

Conventional and radical approaches alike to the anthropological study of social change and economic development have fallaciously attempted to examine complex and mutable underlying social and historical processes by means of abstract theoretical structures. Through a critical focus on the contemporary marxian debate over modes of production, a new and potentially more fruitful direction for economic anthropology and development studies is proposed here in the form of an hypothesis concerning imperialism. / Imperialism is hypothesized to constitute such a complex and mutable process inseverably bound to that of capitalist development throughout the latter's history. Attempting in a gradually maturing manner to accumulate capital by any possible means, metropolitan ruling classes have persistently been forced to intervene in and distort local processes of class struggle and transformation in other social formations. But continuously changing processes of so-called economic "underdevelopment" must therefore necessarily have been imposed on peripheral areas of metropolitan nations and regions just as they have on colonies and neo-colonies of the Third World. / An initial test of this hypothesis is thus afforded by the "domestic" case of the northern New England state of Vermont in the USA before 1870. Particular emphasis is placed on the crucial period of rapid U.S. capitalist development after 1830, as an incipient process of proletarianization was distorted and delayed in rural hinterland Vermont well beyond such processes taking place on the nearby northeastern seaboard. The initiation of peripheral capitalist development in Vermont is analyzed in terms of the substitution for native-born free peasants of an ethnically distinct, "super-exploited" immigrant proletariat in a few rural export enclaves, as the former direct producers began emigrating permanently instead to the established industrial cities on the seaboard. Vermont's changing relative economic "underdevelopment" within New England and within the USA as a whole from 1870 through the 1970's is discussed in a summary chapter. / The initial confirmation in the Vermont case of this hypothesis concerning imperialism and capitalist development suggests it must be seriously considered in cases of contemporary economic "underdevelopment" elsewhere.

No description available.

The need for an effective group programme to improve Black-White relations on desegregated university campuses in South Africa was identified as the focal area of concern of this study. A particularly urgent need to address the issue of Black-White relations in the University of Natal was shown to exist in view of its rapidly increasing multiracial student composition relative to other South African university campuses. Local and international literature was reviewed to provide guidelines for the construction and evaluation of appropriate programmes that reflected the dominant approaches that characterise group therapeutic strategies of improving intergroup relations. A significant absence of rigorous scientific evaluation of intervention strategies was noted. Two longitudinal, biracial group programmes were selected for evaluation viz. Group Programme A and Group Programme B. Programme A was reflective of a confrontational approach and Programme B was reflective of a non-confrontational approach. The programmes were based on the assumptions of humanistic psychotherapy, social psychological and sociological theories of prejudice formation and racism, and social learning theory. The project utilised an experimental before and after control group design. Forty five Black and 45 White students were randomly selected from a pool of first-year university students who fulfilled designated selection criteria. Fifteen Black and 15 White students were randomly assigned to Groups A, B and C. Groups A and B were subjected to Programmes A and B respectively while Group C was used as the control group. Four evaluation measures were used pretest and posttest viz. the Philosophy of Human Nature Scale, Heimler Scale of Social Functioning, Racial Discomfort Questionnaire and a Behavioural Interaction Change assessment. All four research hypotheses adopted were confirmed by the data analysis. The study highlighted the effectiveness of Group Programme A in improving Black-White relations. It was demonstrated that contact per se was not sufficient to improve race relations among university students. The central importance of developing insight into barriers in interracial communication was emphasised. While both Black and White students benefitted significantly from their participation in the Group Programmes, Black students derived fewer benefits than White students. Several recommendations were made for the utilisation of the research findings in university and wider communities. Further research possibilities arising from the present study were explored. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1990.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa1in 1987 totalled about $135 billion, roughly the equivalent of Belgium with its population of 10 million (World Bank, 1989). Africa's deepening crisis is characterized by weak agricultural growth, a decline in industrial output, poor export performance, climbing debt, and deteriorating social indicators, institutions, and environment" (World Bank, 1989; 2). The World Bank's report (ibid) concludes that ''post independence development efforts failed because the strategy was misconceived. Governments made a dash for "modernization", copying, but not adapting Western Models". These strategies, although often differing on ideological issues resulted in poorly designed government investments in industrial development; a lack of interest or attention to peasant/'grassroots" agriculture and interference by governments in areas where they lacked the managerial, technical and entrepreneurial skills. When the political dimension of the South African government's repressive policies over the decades are superimposed upon the dismal scenario sketched above by the World Bank report, large scale poverty, instability, exploitation, ethnic strife, corruption and inequality, can be expected to exact a high toll on the people of South Africa. This dissertation examines the parameters within which development interventions should be undertaken, given their poor track record in Africa. It also studies the role of non-formal education (NFE) as a development activity,which impacts upon and interacts with, many other development interventions. The importance of this study can be found in the faet that given the extremely hostile environment for sustainable development in South Africa, strategies need to be evaluated against very stringent and exacting criteria. Para-statal organisations (not to mention government agencies) are inclined to reflect the wishes of their masters, thereby often obfuscating the real issues of development i.e. the elimination of political imbalances. Not only does the dissertation therefore come at an opportune time for the KIT but also for the development of the people of the region, in the sense that given the urgent demands for reparation for the sins of the past, new energies and resources are being focused upon the needs of the disenfranchised. The dissertation departs somewhat from a two-dimensional conceptualisation of development which normally sees it as a continuum between underdevelopment on the one hand and modernity on the other (Coetzee, 1989B)The three-dimensional approach applied in both the theoretical and empirical of the research, and which also touches upon time as a fourth dimension, enables the researcher to analyse the inter-dependencies of the various dimensions, thereby creating a different (if not new) mind-set in the evaluation of the KTT's activities. This should consequently raise new issues for development agencies to consider as development is primarily related to the creation of meaning (Coetzee, 1989B). Interventions designed to develop others can thus only be assessed in terms of the totality of people's needs which must include issues such as respect, esteem, freedom and justice. The findings of the dissertation are characterised by a very strong acceptance by the respondents of KTI's interventions. Despite some strong criticisms relating to the KTI's follow-through after training, it is clear that change was brought about in especially the economic dimension. The findings do, however, also indicate that KIT's approach to its development task does not sufficiently take into account the socio-political needs of the people and that its outcomes were focused primarily on the income generating capacity of the target population. Given the theoretical multi-dimensional basis of the study, it is trusted that consideration can now be given by the planners of the KTT to issues relating to a holistic need to create meaning in all dimensions. The dissertation finds that NFE plays an important role in development it also finds that NFE is neglected in the region when assessed against the extent of poverty and inequality. New priorities need to be set in the compilation of a strategic agenda for the 1990's.The World Bank (1989) indicates that: • more account should be taken of social reforms; • increased funding of human resource development is required; • development strategies should be people-centred; • institutional reforms at every governmental level must be pursued; •The nexus of weak agricultural production, rapid population growth, environmental degradation and urbanisation must be overcome by innovative and thoroughly co-ordinated strategies; and • westernisation should be rejected as being synonymous With development. This dissertation adds to the pool of evidence that unless rapid and massive investments in the human resources of the region are made, the capital injected into infrastructure, industrial development, housing etc. will be suboptimised and not lead to sustainable self-reliance. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci)-University of Natal, Durban, 1990.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of former teen talking circle participant’s experience with the practice of compassionate listening in talking circles and to explore compassionate listening as a form of spiritual activism. This study explored the use and effect of compassionate listening within the facilitator training materials developed and used by the organization Teen Talking Circles as well as the use and experience of compassionate listening within the teen talking circles. For the purpose of this study, I interviewed seven former female teen talking circle participants. Open ended semi-structured interviews were the means of data collection. Data were analyzed thematically and after reviewing the transcripts from all seven interviews, the five strongest themes to come out of the interviews were: increased communication skills, increased awareness, less judgment of self and others, deeper relationships and an increased sense of empathy.