Despite all the legislative efforts regarding child protection and campaigns to prevent and combat early marriage and maternity, Mozambique was ranked 9th globally in terms of the prevalence of early marriage, with 48% of girls aged 20-24 marrying before the age of 18 years. The aim of this study was to develop a strategic alignment framework for the prevention and combat of early marriage and maternity in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. This study used a two-stage equal-status concurrent sequential mixed-method design. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey, administered to 383 early married, maternity and pregnant girls; life story interviews with early married, maternity and pregnant girls (25) aged 10-19 years; semi-structured interviews with professionals from the education and health sectors, local authorities, families of the early married, maternity and pregnant girls (37), and group discussions with members of a child committee (16). The results indicated that the majority of early married, maternity and pregnant girls only completed primary education (55.9%), followed by secondary education (39.9%), and higher education (2.9%). About 65% of adolescent girls became pregnant at the age of 15-17. Among adolescent girls, 18.8% had their first baby before the age of 15 years and 99.2% had their first baby before they were 18 years old. Among the early maternity girls (362), 24.3% responded “yes” to the questions about health complications during their first baby’s birth and 75.7% of the respondents said “no”. Socio-cultural meanings, such as socialisation into roles, legitimising having children, the value and benefits of the bridewealth, the role of initiation, the social meaning of the first menstruation, geographical and transport issues were the main drivers for school dropout, forcing adolescent girls to marry. Engaging in sexual practices was found to provide the girls a sense of meaning and purpose, or as a result of poverty. Physical aspects, interpersonal relations, education, work, and emotional distress were some of the negative consequences of early marriage and maternity. There were some relevant interventions and efforts to prevent and combat early marriage and maternity in Maganja da Costa and Morrumbala districts in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. However, the alignment of the activities implemented by different NGOs and CBOs to MNSPCM (2016-2019) was still a challenge. Only World Vision was implementing programmes aligned to the National Strategy. Based on the results, I developed a strategic alignment framework for the prevention and combat of early marriage and maternity in Zambézia Province, Mozambique. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

In this dissertation, the researcher presents the findings of a discourse analytic enquiry on the construction of femininity within a contemporary South African magazine. It is argued that gender is a social construction and that women’s magazines provide a channel through which discourse of femininity reaches women. These discourses in women’s magazines are often narrow and stereotypical in nature which may limit the development of women’s feminine gender identities. A discourse analytic approach was utilised to reveal the different discourses of femininity within a contemporary women’s magazines, Cosmopolitan, as well as to indicate how they may contribute to the construction of femininity. From the magazine, relationship-focused articles were selected, from which three predominant discourses of femininity were identified which includes femininity as heterosexual, nurturing, and managerial. An important finding is that competing discourses of empowerment and traditional femininity were evident. This points to the highly complex ways in which gender, specifically femininity, is constructed in the magazine under study. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

This thesis is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part deals with two separate realms which are then interconnected in the practical part. The first realm is narrative therapy, its description, function and implementation. One of the tools of narrative therapy is a therapeutic narration, which is discussed therein and is set into the field of social work. Next comes the second realm which is the topic of a divorce and children. There we discuss the influence of a divorce on children, the participants, and we are presented with the potentiality of how to diminish the negative influence. In the following practical part, we fist find a draft of a narration with therapeutic features from narrative therapy for children from divorced and divorcing families; the draft is supposed to alleviate the complications during and after a divorce. The other section of the practical part describes the research which verified whether the composed narration really helped alleviate the negative impact of a divorce on children. Evaluation of the state of the problematic areas performed both before and after the cooperation showed that narrative therapy helped to significanly decrease the number of serious problems in monitored areas. KEYWORDS Narrative therapy, narrative metaphor, social...

Le but de cette recherche est d’évaluer l’importance du paysage culturel dans la résilience des communautés urbaines post-catastrophes. Ce travail se concentre sur le quartier du Lower Ninth Ward dans la ville de La Nouvelle-Orléans (États-Unis) après le passage de l’ouragan Katrina en 2005. Les catastrophes naturelles prennent une envergure et causent des dommages considérables lorsqu’elles touchent des villes. La reconstruction post -désastre est donc très dispendieuse pour les villes et les gouvernements, d’autant que certaines régions sont dévastées au point qu’elles doivent être reconstruites au complet. Cependant, le coût le plus lourd à assumer reste celui en vies humaines et si rebâtir les éléments concrets d’une ville est une tâche difficile à entreprendre, reconstruire une communauté est considérablement plus complexe. Dans le but de comprendre une telle démarche, cette recherche se concentre sur les éléments intangibles, comme l’attachement au lieu et les réseaux sociaux, dont une communauté a besoin pour se reconstituer de façon durable et résiliente. Le concept de résilience est très contesté dans la littérature et plusieurs chercheurs se sont essayés à le mesurer. Cette recherche adopte une perspective critique sur le concept et le revisite d’un point de vue holistique pour mettre en lumière sa complexité. Cette démarche permet de remettre en question l’importance de mesurer un concept finalement en perpétuelle redéfinition dans le temps et selon les échelles géographiques. De plus, en établissant une relation entre résilience et paysage culturel, il a été possible de mieux comprendre la complexité de la résilience. Touchant à plusieurs disciplines (architecture de paysage, urbanisme et sociologie), cette recherche utilise une méthodologie qui reflète son aspect multidisciplinaire : les méthodes mixtes. Ces dernières permettent la collecte de données quantitatives et qualitatives qui produisent une vue globale de la situation post-Katrina à travers le regroupement de recensions statistiques, d’observations de terrain et d’articles de journaux. Parallèlement, des entretiens ont été réalisés avec des résidents du quartier ainsi qu’avec des professionnels pour mieux comprendre les différents points de vue. Cette méthodologie a permis de produire des résultats au niveau du cas d’étude autant qu’au niveau théorique. La recherche valide l’importance de prendre en compte le paysage culturel dans les situations post-catastrophes, (en particulier) dans la mesure où il s’agit d’un élément souvent négligé par les urbanistes et les acteurs locaux. En effet, les éléments constitutifs du paysage culturel tels que l’attachement au lieu et les réseaux sociaux, participent d’un sentiment d'appartenance (« home ») et d’une volonté, pour les résidents, de reconstruire leurs habitations, leur communauté ainsi que leur quartier. Toutefois, il faut reconnaître que ces éléments ne suffisent pas à retrouver ce qu’ils ont perdu. Ainsi, l’étude du paysage culturel permet non seulement de mieux comprendre la complexité de la résilience, mais démontre également que cette dernière est une construction sociale. / The purpose of this research is to determine the importance of using the cultural landscape in evaluating the resilience of an urban community after the occurrence of a natural disaster. The focus is on the neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in the city of New Orleans. Natural disasters are gaining significance and magnitude when they hit cities, which are becoming more and more populated over the years. The damage these disasters cause is colossal. It is very costly for cities to undergo major disasters and sometimes, large sections of cities need to be entirely rebuilt. The costliest price is the human life, and as history marks it, too many lives have perished due to disasters. While rebuilding is a challenging task, yet feasible, rebuilding a community is not as tangible as rebuilding the infrastructure. This research focuses on the many intangible aspects, like place attachment and social networks, a community needs to rebuild itself in a sound and resilient way. The concept of resilience is very contested in the literature and many have attempted to measure it. This research takes a step back and scrutinizes the concept of resilience from a holistic perspective, which highlights its complexity. This leads to questioning the importance of measuring the concept, especially that it changes with time and with the different scales of geography. In addition, a relationship between the cultural landscape and resilience is established, which allows for a better understanding of this complexity. Taking a little from multiple disciplines (Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning, and Sociology), this research resorts to a methodology that reflects its multidisciplinary aspect. The methodology is the mixed methods research design, which allows the collection of quantitative and qualitative data. The focus is to gather census data, newspaper articles, and observations to give a general perspective on the post-Katrina situation. Interviews are collected from residents and from professionals so as to tackle the research from different angles. This allows reaching results at the case study level as well as the theoretical level. This research validates the importance of using the cultural landscape in post-disaster situations as planners and government officials overlook it. Some of the elements that constitute it like place attachment and social networks motivate people to return to their original neighbourhoods and rebuild their homes and community. These elements, however, cannot by themselves give people back what they lost in the disaster. By relating the cultural landscape to the concept of resilience, it implies that resilience is a social construction.

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Studiens syfte var att undersöka pedagogers uppfattningar av och kunskaper kring att arbeta med genus och drama samt att belysa vilka eventuella utmaningar de möter i arbetet. Studien präglas av kvalitativ metod och utgår ur ett socialkonstruktionistisk perspektiv. Vår ambition var att samla in pedagogernas erfarenheter och uppfattningar i relation till hur normkritisk pedagogik och genusfrågor synliggörs i barns dramalek därför har vi använt intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod. Resultatet visade att samtliga intervjuade pedagoger uppfattar och använder drama som en pedagogisk kontext för att undersöka jämställdhet tillsammans med barn på ett lekfullt sätt. Detta, i sin tur, belyser dramas kraft som ett normbrytande pedagogiskt verktyg. Resultatet visade även hur pedagogernas förhållningssätt i relation till normer och stereotyper påverkar och utformar sättet barn upplever normer och stereotyper samt hur dramapedagogik bidrar till barns normkritiskt tänkande. Till sist, tydliggjordes hur viktigt pedagogernas medvetandegörande och närvaro är för att styra lärandet utifrån barns behov, medan olika utmaningar som uppstår bör lösas genom en god kollegial och föräldrasamverkan. / The purpose of the study was to investigate educators' perceptions of and knowledge about working with gender and drama and to shed light on the possible challenges they face in their work. The study is characterized by a qualitative method and is based on a social constructionist perspective. Our ambition was to collect the educators' experiences and perceptions in relation to how norm-critical pedagogy and gender issues are made visible in children's drama play, which is why we have used interviews as a data collection method. The results showed that all interviewed educators perceive and use drama as a pedagogical context to investigate gender equality with children in a playful way. This, in turn, highlights the power of drama as a norm-breaking pedagogical tool. The results also showed how the educators' attitudes in relation to norms and stereotypes affect and shape the way children experience norms and stereotypes and how drama pedagogy contributes to children's norm-critical thinking. Finally, it was clarified how important the educators' awareness and presence is to guide learning based on children's needs, while various challenges that arise should be solved through good collegial and parent collaboration.

Based on society's established norms, girls and boys are expected to behave differently. Certain behaviours are also differently accepted due to gender. This makes it possible to question if the principle of the best interests of the child in cases regarding The Compulsory Care of Young Persons Act (1990:52) (LVU), applies in the gender-neutral way that it's intended to do. To answer this, we have collected data through “collection of materials''. More specifically, we have used cases from a sample of administrative courts and courts of appeals which all deal with 3§ LVU. The data has been analysed through the method “qualitative content analysis” in which different patterns could be read out. The main conclusion of our study is that girls tend to be judged more harshly than boys. The courts assessments in girl cases/judgments includes factors that in boys cases/judgments goes unnoticed, like factors related to mental illness and self-harm. Another conclusion is that the principle creates space for many different interpretations which includes gender norms upon application of the 3§ LVU. When the principle is gender neutral, like it's intended to do, a discrimination because of sex can be hidden.

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I present the dissertation web as a montage of a postmodern inquiry of my doctoral internship and research experiences—concerns and jubilation—positioned within the discourses of <a href="site_map2.htm#2">postmodern</a>, dissertation, academia, experimentalism and cyberspace innovations among others. I create a <a href="site_map2.htm#3">social constructionistic</a> interactive interplay, using <a href="site_map2.htm#5">hypertext</a>, among my various voices of an intern, a researcher and a person. In the dissertation web—my inquiry—I practice the characterization of postmodernism on numerous fronts—subject of study, context of study, methodology and re-presentation of the inquiry. Implicitly and explicitly, I articulate the various characterizations of postmodernism in my inquiry by challenging the traditional research practices (meta<a href="site_map2.htm#4">narratives</a>). I challenge the traditional praxis by alternate per<b>form</b>ances of research practices such as studying myself in a cultural context of an internship using the methodology of <a href="site_map2.htm#11">autoethnography</a> and performance. The <a href="site_map2.htm#5">hypertext</a> docuverse is a further characterization of postmodernism in the styles and structures that are used for re-presentation of the narratives. The styles of narration I use—such as words and graphics, prose and poetry, first person conversational texts, narratives and collages—blur the boundary of "academic" writing, literature, and art. The hypertext is intended as a <a href="site_map2.htm#6">metaphorical</a> experiential, intertextual journey of an <a href="site_map2.htm#12">intern</a> and a <a href="site_map2.htm#14">researcher</a>. Rather than a fixed structure, I create numerous structures of possible structures to privilege the readers' <a href="site_map2.htm#1">navigational</a> choices. I anticipate that the reader's choices in the virtual space might create a sense of meaning-transformation as one traverses through the dissertation web, thus, valuing <a href="site_map2.htm#8">fragmentation</a> and connection as aspects of sense-making, which are contextualized (among others) by the reader's meaning frames and my hypertextual <a href="site_map2.htm#7">performances</a>. The dissertation is submitted in three formats—exclusive dissertation web.pdf, intertextual dissertation web.pdf, and xml version. The<b> <i>exclusive dissertation web.pdf</i> </b>is a web capture in pdf format of all the "files" that compose the dissertation web created in html. The <i><b>intertextual dissertation web.pdf</b> </i> is a web capture of my dissertation along with the capture of external web resources that contextualize my dissertation web, thus illustrating the intertextuality of hypertexts by making the dissertation part of the larger textual web. Due to the web capture, the "docuverse" is nonlinear and the pages do not follow any particular or author predefined sequences. So, <i>please use the internal links or the bookmarks to read or browse the dissertation web</i> rather than scroll from the first "page" to the last "page" of the pdf formatted docuverse. The third version in xml will be made available at a later date. An html version of the dissertation is available directly from the researcher-author. CAUTION! The links from the abstract may be broken due to archiving of the dissertation web. / Ph. D.

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Despite the fact that many people in South Africa are affected by divorce, not much research is done on divorce recovery. This study on divorce recovery is shaped by a feminist theological perspective and a postmodem social constructionist discourse. As qualitative research, narrative group work was embarked on over a period of a year with five women who went through divorce. Through therapeutic letters different themes emerged. These themes formed the focus for each chapter and are enriched by relevant literature reflections. In the first chapter the stark reality of divorce in South Africa, the discursive positioning, epistemology and research methodology are discussed, and the stories of the participants are told. Divorce is deconstructed by the participants as resistance to patriarchy and not only an interpersonal crisis. The majority of claimants in divorce cases in South Africa are women. The dominant oppressive biblical discourse that divorce is always sin is reconstructed. An alternative religious discourse is co-constructed amongst the participants: that divorce under certain circumstances is God's will for women who are caught in humiliating and oppressive marriages. The various spheres of life that women reconstruct after divorce are discussed. These include: • practical matters such as the legal proceedings, housing and finances • emotional reconstruction where emotions such as fear. senses of guilt, and rage from a feminist perspective view are discussed. • reconstruction of social relations which includes aspects such as the relation with the former husband, family, new male friends and children • spiritual reconstruction which includes a feminist perspective on the Bible, sin, the will of God, and also a divorce ritual • the reconstruction of identity. Finally the five participants' reconsructed stories are told. / Ten spyte daarvan dat baie mense in Suid-Afrika deur egskeiding geraak word, word daar nie veel navorsing oor egskeidingsherstel gedoen nie. Hierdie studie oor egkeidingsherstel word gedoen vanuit 'n feministies teologiese perspektief en 'n sosiale konstruksieteorie diskoers. Oor 'n tydperk van 'n jaar is deur middel van kwalitatiewe navorsing saam met vyf vroue wat deur egskeiding geraak is, groepswerk gedoen. Uit die terapeutiese briewe wat geskryf is het verskillende temas uitgekristalliseer. Hierdie temas het die grondslag gevorm vir elke hoofstuk wat deur 'n relevante literatuurstudie aangevul is. In die eerste hoofstukke word die harde werklikhede van egskeiding, die diskoersposionering, epistemologie en navorsingsmetodiek bespreek. Die verhale van die deelnemers word vertel. Egskeiding word deur die deelnemers dekonstrueer as weerstand teen patriargie en nie net 'n interpersoonlike krisis nie. Die meerderheid eisers in egskeidingsgedinge in Suid-Afrika is vroue. Die onderdrukkend dominante Bybelse diskoers dat egskeiding altyd sonde is word rekonstrueer. 'n Alternatiewe godsdienstige diskoers, dat egskeiding vir vroue wat in vernederende en onderdrukkend huwelik vasgevang is, onder sekere omstandighede die wil van God kan wees, word saam met die deelnemers rekonstrueer. Die verskillende lewensterreine wat vroue na egskeiding rekonstrueer, word bespreek. Dit sluit in: • praktiese aangeleenthede soos die regsproses, behuising en finansies • emosionele rekonstruksie wat emosies soos angs, skuldgevoelens en woede word vanuit 'n feministiese perspektiefbespreek • spirituele rekonstruksie wat 'n feministiese perspektief op die Bybel, sonde, die wil van God en 'n egskeidingsritueel insluit • die rekonstruksie van identiteit Ten slotte word die vyf deelnemers se nuwe verhale vertel. / Practical Theology / D.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)