While political scientists know much about roll call voting, we still have much to learn about the way perceptions of constituents, personal priorities, and other factors shape the way legislators prioritize their voting preferences. This research is qualitative and interpretive in nature, making use of elite interviews and supplemented with archival materials when possible. These data include six semi-structured interviews with members of the Illinois congressional delegation representing Southern Illinois. Service to constituents has continually been an indicator of how effective an elected official is within their home district, their decisions concerning who to listen to, and what they will allow to influence them also shape what is, arguably, the most important action they take on behalf of their constituents, i.e., vote on legislation. Despite different approaches to leading, the legislative needs of Southern Illinois are matters of great importance to the individuals interviewed in this research. The interviews also indicate that the passions outlined by the members of Congress are things that have a direct link to Southern Illinois.

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a more focused understanding of the role of substance use and burglary. The data for this effort comes from interviews that were collected by Richard T. Wright and Scott H. Decker. The data was obtained through extensive interviews with 105 active offenders, specifically offenders who were active at the time of interview, but also who were residential burglars. The interviews were informally conducted on an individual basis, and participants were assigned nicknames or aliases rather than using real names. The findings of this thesis revealed that substance use plays a modest role in burglary, as does the perception of how drugs altered the mental consciousness. In a test of drug-crime nexus arguments, this study examined this relationship through disinhibition, motivation of drug use, the existence of a shared space, and the association of a delinquent subculture. The role of narcotics and alcohol use are included in the analysis, as there are notable effects described by participants.

No description available.

Youth civic engagement literature has suggested that the consistently low voter turnout among the youth demographic is because they are either apathetic to the world around them or they participate in other forms of civic engagement that they deem more practical, such as volunteering. Moreover, to build trust with the community, police services have turned to community policing programs and community consultation to establish a collective responsibility for community well-being and safety. This thesis project explores the dynamics and characteristics of the Ottawa Police Service’s Youth Advisory Committee as a youth engagement program. Further, these dynamics are analyzed regards to its potential to implement a democratization of the police service. In this way, the project uncovers the bureaucratic tensions that may impact the program’s full potential to involve the youth community in the police service. This project has the practical goal to learn more about the characteristics and dynamics of the Youth Advisory Committee within the Ottawa Police Service as a powerful police institution in order to improve other similar initiatives.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA (DVS) / The Reconstruction Development Programme (RDP) housing program was instituted to provide South Africans with quality housing that meet their basic needs. For people, fortunate enough to receive RDP houses, numerous complaints were raised. With government's focus on quantitative housing delivery, there have been qualitative shortcomings and the perceptions are that the constructed houses are of very low quality and do not meet the needs of the occupants. Consequently, the quality of housing constitutes the physical condition of housing as well the perceptions of occupants. However, since perceptions of housing quality are context specific and differs from one person to the other and across cities/countries, what therefore constitutes as housing quality is highly subjective. Also, despite the increased discussion on the quality of housing and people's perception of it, most empirical research on housing has been undertaken in the larger metro areas while there is not much focus on housing in small towns. The purpose of this the study was to explore the perceptions of RDP beneficiaries on the housing quality in the small community of Nollothville, Northern Cape. Since housing is important as it satisfies many different human needs, a case study approach was adopted and Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs was used as a theoretical framework to guide this study. Research conducted in Nollothville reveals that the RDP houses especially the first phase of the RDP houses are of sub-standard quality. Both primary and secondary resources were used to obtain data. The study used a semi-structured interview guide as a data collection tool while the questionnaire was used to solicit the magnitude of RDP beneficiaries' perceptions of the RDP houses and, lastly, observations were conducted to validate these findings. Findings revealed that although the RDP houses were well received by the recipients, many complained about the substandard quality of these houses and that the houses do meet the criteria for quality housing. The following perceptions raised by most of the study participants regarding the quality of the houses included unstable foundation, poor quality roofing; poor quality doors or no doors inside the house; cracking floors; no bath or shower, weak and poor-quality toilets. Also, since many of the houses were in such bad conditions there was a struggle to cope with the financial upkeep of the houses. Based on previous research conducted in other provinces, the study concludes the RDP houses are the of the same sub-standard quality as the houses found in the other provinces.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-06-24Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:12:44Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 francisco_mv_me_prud.pdf: 625284 bytes, checksum: bc090fe3e3db5b4749417eea6a1c2174 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente estudo encontra-se vinculado à linha de pesquisa intitulada: Processos Formativos, Diferença e Valores, junto ao programa de Pós Graduação em Educação, e ao Laboratório de Desenvolvimento Humano da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Estadual Paulista. Nesse sentido, o nosso objeto de estudo é o bullying que vem ganhando destaque dentro do cenário acadêmico nacional, como uma dentre várias dimensões da violência dentro do ambiente escolar. Adotamos como perspectiva teórica compreender o bullying para além de determinismos biológicos que justificam a condição tanto de indivíduos perpetradores dessa violência e daqueles predispostos a sofrerem suas consequências. Assim, os nossos objetivos foram identificar as percepções de adolescentes e as propostas de enfrentamentos por eles indicadas frente ao bullying, em escolares de 8as séries do Ensino Fundamental. A pesquisa foi dividida em duas fases, sendo que na primeira procedemos à aplicação do questionário SCAN-BULLYING elaborado pelas autoras portuguesas Almeida e Caurcel (2005), junto a 37 alunos de duas escolas públicas estaduais. Alguns dos termos do instrumento original foram traduzidos para a grafia utilizada no Brasil, bem como foram contextualizados a partir de aplicação do questionário piloto. O questionário versou sobre o entendimento que os alunos têm sobre o bullying, bem como as formas de enfrentamentos por eles indicadas, a partir de uma prancha que ilustrava dez situações de perseguição a um (a) aluno (a), e que serviu para que os mesmos refletissem acerca das questões propostas. Na segunda fase realizamos uma entrevista com 03 alunos de cada turma, que concordaram participar dessa fase da pesquisa, totalizando assim uma amostra de 06 sujeitos. O roteiro de entrevista foi o mesmo para todos os sujeitos, e consistiu... / This study is connect to the research line “Formative processes, difference and values”, at the Program of Graduate Studies in Education, and it is linked to the studies carried out by the research group “Laboratory of Human Development” (LDH) at FCT/UNESP. The focus of this study is the bullying, it is standing out in the national academic scenario, as one of the various dimensions of violence in the school environment. We adopt as theoretical approach the comprehension of bullying beyond the biologic determinism that justifies the condition of the individuals in this violence and those individuals that might suffer consequences from it. This research has as a main purpose to identify the perceptions of teenagers and their ways about how to confront bullying. The participants of the research were students of Junior High School (9th grade). The research was divided into two parts, the first one we applied the survey SCAN-BULLYING, developed by the Portuguese researchers Almeida and Caurcel (2005). There were 37 students of two state public schools who answered the questions. Some of the words written by the researchers were translated into Brazilian Portuguese keeping the original context of the survey. The survey talked about the understanding that the students have about bullying, and also about the way they confronted it. It illustrated ten situations of a persecution to a student, and that illustration was used for them to reflect about the questions provided in the survey. On the second part, we made an interview with 03 students of each class, that agreed to participate in this part of the research, it was a total of 06 students. The interview was the same for everybody, and the questions were about their interpretation of the illustrated story, and they had to answer about what they could have done according to the facts... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

It has been widely accepted that information is an asset and it needs to be protected. Many types of countermeasures were developed and implemented to ensure continuous protection of information where it is deemed necessary. Unfortunately, in many cases, breaches of security are the result of non-compliance behaviours of users or stakeholders of the system. These non-compliance behaviours increase the vulnerability of such system. Organisations are trying to improve their stakeholders compliance behaviour through different ways for example by providing necessary awareness, education and training and to the extent of providing rewards for healthy behaviours and reprimanding and penalising stakeholders for breaches of security. Despite all these efforts, information security breaches are still on the rise and many types of research have been done to understand this issue. It is postulated that an object is protected if it is appreciated. Appreciation of an object might relate to a value perceived by the owner in association with the object. For the similar reason, this thesis investigates the role of perceptions of information value in the context of its security. It is postulated that perceptions of information value could become an alternative way to understand information security compliance behaviour. Utilising a conceptual framework deduced from current literature to structurally analyse a list of research objectives, empirical evidence of the potential role of information perceived value in promoting better compliance behaviour have indeed been discovered. There is evidence that a perception of information value is developed through a systematic process of value assignment or information value assignment process. These processes are significant to the development of stakeholders intention to behave. The finding of this process has provided a platform for the organisation to understand the casual behind the information security behaviours displayed by stakeholders in the organisation. Further evidence has also suggested that the information value assignment is fuelled or influenced by several factors. These factors have provided a unique opportunity for the organisation to manipulate and nurture to have maximum impact on their information value assignment process, resulting in a possible improved intention to behave, thus, subsequently might affect the actual information security compliance behaviour.

For teachers, being able to provide feedback that learners can act upon is paramount for making learning how to write possible. A questionnaire was sent out to students in Swedish Upper Secondary School. The intent was to identify how students perceive feedback, as well as how they react and interpret the feedback they receive on written texts. The results are then used in a discussion that aims to draw attention to the potential implications that feedback may have on students’ motivation to write. In this study, Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s seven principles for feedback serve as a measurement for what constitutes good feedback. The results suggest that when a certain form of feedback is not commonly used by teachers or is used differently by different teachers, then the feedback becomes difficult to interpret for students. The respondents consider themselves regular recipients of feedback but struggle with interpreting feedback when there are variations in teachers’ practices in applying feedback.

abstract: Perceptions of climate variability and change reflect local concerns and the actual impacts of climate phenomena on people's lives. Perceptions are the bases of people's decisions to act, and they determine what adaptive measures will be taken. But perceptions of climate may not always be aligned with scientific observations because they are influenced by socio-economic and ecological variables. To find sustainability solutions to climate-change challenges, researchers and policy makers need to understand people's perceptions so that they can account for likely responses. Being able to anticipate responses will increase decision-makers' capacities to create policies that support effective adaptation strategies. I analyzed Mexican maize farmers' perceptions of drought variability as a proxy for their perceptions of climate variability and change. I identified the factors that contribute to the perception of changing drought frequency among farmers in the states of Chiapas, Mexico, and Sinaloa. I conducted Chi-square tests and Logit regression analyses using data from a survey of 1092 maize-producing households in the three states. Results showed that indigenous identity, receipt of credits or loans, and maize-type planted were the variables that most strongly influenced perceptions of drought frequency. The results suggest that climate-adaptation policy will need to consider the social and institutional contexts of farmers' decision-making, as well as the agronomic options for smallholders in each state. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Sustainability 2015

abstract: Cultivation theory states that consuming television cultivates a social reality in the real world which aligns with the reality present in television. When the television show CSI was released, researchers studied a form of cultivation stemming from the show titled the "CSI Effect." One of the components of the CSI Effect is the tendency of those who watch CSI to be more likely to overestimate the presence of forensic evidence present in a trial and place more trust in such evidence. In recent years, several true crime documentaries that examined controversial cases have been released. In a similar vein of research conducted on CSI, the current study examines true crime documentaries and their possible impacts on viewers’ judgments and beliefs about the criminal justice system. In the current study, participants were provided with a mock case and asked about their perceptions of the case along with their viewership habits. While overall true crime documentary viewership did not influence judgments of evidence manipulation or perceptions of police, findings point to viewership of the targeted documentaries being associated with feelings of mistrust towards the criminal justice system overall, while the lesser-viewed documentaries correlated with judgments of strength and responsibility of the defendant in the case. One possible explanation is that individual characteristics may serve as the driving factor in how individuals choose what to watch when the popularity of the show is not as well-known. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2018