This is a comparative study of the conceptions that rural and urban black pupils hold with regard to the concept "animal". The study recognises the fact that the concept animal is important to the study of biology and that effective learning of the subject may be hampered if pupils hold different conceptions from those accepted in the subject. It was envisaged that the pupils would as a result of the different cultural milieu from which they come, hold different conceptions. This notion is based on the idea that one's conceptions are derived from one's conceptual ecology. It was also expected that pupils would have idiosyncratic conceptions based on their individual attempts to explain reality and that this would be a reflection of their cognitive development. The method of interview - about - instances developed by 0sborne(l979), was used in the study. This method is based on Piaget's method of clinical interviews. The subjects - 30 rural and 30 urban pupils, were presented with 19 cards depicting some familiar instances and no instances of the concept "animal". They were then asked to classify each picture and state the reasons for their classification. They were later asked to choose four reasons from a list of 26 which they consider best for classifying an animal. - V - A science reasoning task designed by S

Thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universität Berlin, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-143).

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (May 25, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In 1967 this study was initiated to evaluate the self-guided visitor tour of Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. A 20 page visitor information booklet and tour guide was prepared and published for distribution at the refuge, and its effectiveness in telling the refuge story was evaluated. To gain a measure of the self-guided tour in terms of quality, visitor use patterns and satisfactions were critically examined. To gather data on visitor use of the refuge, the visiting public was directly sampled by three methods: mail questionnaires, on-site interviews and candid tower observations of groups on the tour. The information and tour guide booklet was not as effective as it should have been in telling the refuge story. Only one-fourth of the visitor groups purchased the guide, and only about half of these groups used it to any degree at the refuge. Based on expressions of visitor satisfaction, the self-guided tour at Bear River Refuge should be termed a quality recreational activity. The continued quality of the tour depends upon sustained proper management and development of the refuge area to maintain it as a prime nesting and feeding area for migratory birds.

Despite growing academic interest in the human–animal relationship, little research has been directed toward the political regulation of animal treatment. Even less attention has been accorded to the emergence of the long dominant paradigm in this policy area, namely, the ideology of animal welfare. This book attempts to address this gap by chronicling the early history of animal politics in Sweden with the aim of producing a critical, deconstructive genealogy of animal cruelty and animal welfare. The study ranges from the first political debates about animal cruelty in 1844 to the institution of Sweden’s first comprehensive animal protection act in 1944. Taking a post-Marxist and psychoanalytically informed approach to discourse analysis, the study focuses on how the “problem” of animal cruelty was articulated in the parliamentary debates and government documents throughout the period: What was the problem of animal (mis)treatment represented to be? What kinds of animal (ab)use were rendered uncontroversial? What kind of affective investments and ideological fantasies underpinned these discursive constructions, and how did the problematizations change over time? The book contains six empirical chapters that deal with the most important legal revisions in the period as well as the parallel debates about animal experimentation and slaughter. Two major discursive regimes—an early “anti-cruelty regime” and a later “animal welfare regime”—are identified in the material, and the transition between them is theorized in terms of discursive antagonism and dislocation. Focusing on the conflict between competing discursive logics, the study charts a century of ideological struggles through which our modern attitudes toward animals were born. The book also offers a critical reinterpretation of the success story of animal welfare. Against the assumption that modern animal welfarism progressively grew out of the preceding anti-cruelty regime, the central claim of this book is that the “welfarist turn” that took place in the 1930s and 1940s also functioned to re-entrench society’s speciesist values and de-problematize the exploitation of animals for human purposes.

The experience of pain is something that most people are extremely familiar with. However, once we begin to examine the subject from an ethical point of view, and particularly when we examine so-called marginal cases such as nonhuman animals, we are quickly confronted with difficult questions. This thesis, through an examination of a particular feature of moral language and a description of recent research on pain, provides an analysis of how pain fits into ethical theory. It is argued that universalizability is an important feature of ethical systems and provides a basis for claiming that an agent is acting inconsistently if he or she evaluates similar situations differently. Though the additional features prescriptivity and overridingness provide an important connection between moral judgment and action in Hare’s two-level utilitarianism, it is argued that they ultimately lead to claims incompatible with lived moral experience. Arguments by Parfit and Sidgwick are discussed which tie acting morally to acting consistently, and it is concluded that selfinterest theory is not a tenable position. After the features of moral judgment are discussed, the necessary features of a moral subject are examined. It is concluded that sentience, or the ability to feel pleasure or pain, is a sufficient condition for being a moral subject. Arguments are examined that attempt to show which animals likely consciously experience pain. Difficulties for these arguments are discussed and an original argument is presented that at least partially addresses these difficulties. It is concluded that from an ethical perspective our current practices such as factory farming are probably not justified. It appears especially likely that our treatment of other mammals is unethical, but the answers are not as clear with other animals. However, all of the conclusions are tentative, as no doubt future scientific investigation will shed more light on our knowledge.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 403-448). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ33541.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Animal Science, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-200).

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / Political Science Dept. Includes bibliographical references.