Magister Artium (Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science) - MA(SRES) / Despite government’s formation of financial support grants such as the Operational Excellence Programme to provide much needed assistance, South African elite athletes have not been performing to expectation at recent international championships, such as the Olympic Games. International experiences demonstrate the importance of a well-structured and implemented funding support system to improve elite athlete performance at international levels. This has led to questions of how to improve this situation for elite South African athletes who receive funding support from the South Africa Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee and to revisit the implementation of the funding support for elite athletes. This study will take, experiences of South African elite athletes as well as sport managers into consideration and will also look at international lessons of experience of the funding support of elite sport to provide improved options for financial support and elite athlete development. Using qualitative research methods, this study explored the underlying factors regarding funding support of elite athletes in South Africa based on experiences and perceptions of elite athletes. Within the context of the study, elite athletes would refer to senior track and field athletes and senior swimmers who had been a part of Team South Africa and represented the nation at international competitions. Data was collected in three ways: a) A literature review in the form of an analysis of the high performance policies of: the National Olympic Committee of South Africa and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee that has governed elite sport in South Africa post 1994 and the policies that govern high performance funding support within Athletics South Africa and Swimming South Africa; b) interviews with eight preselected elite athletes to discuss career performances and funding support received and c) interviews with four coaches/managers of the preselected elite athletes to discuss their perspectives on the funding support their athletes received. Strict ethics considerations were also adhered to insofar as written consent was obtained from all participants beforehand, as the intended interviews would be either audio recorded or video recorded. Pseudonyms were also used for participants with the assurance that participation was voluntary. The eventual findings of the study brought to light that the implementation of the funding support provided by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee was good in theory but not necessarily so in practice. Overall, participants were grateful for the support received but felt that certain changes needed to be considered going forward for the improvement of future performances.

This is a study comparing the existing industrial arts housing and equipment facilities in the state of Texas with: first, housing standards within ad tentative Texas Education Agency publication entitled A Guide for Planning Industrial Arts Facilities; and second, apparent equipment needs for implementing the programs described in Texas Education Agency Bulletin 615, Principles and Standards for Accrediting Elementary and Secondary Schools and Description of Approved Courses Grades 7-12.

This thesis will explore the utility of translocal approaches in understanding the lived experiences of white, native English-speaking men working in the hospitality industry in Stockholm. This thesis takes the form of a qualitative case study, relying primarily on 10 in depth interviews and observations. The participants in this study are identified as highly mobile. The embodied, emotive interactions of mobile individuals with place are investigated and their experience of place and mobility is discussed in relation to agency and the normative structures in a local and global context. The research participants interviewed for this research project are demonstrated to be agentic, privileged actors at a global scale through their normative whiteness and nationality. This privilege underlies their identity as mobile. At a local scale, the utility of the deployment of the English language is shown to be dependent on the discursive position of the speaker, due to the monolingual norm present in Sweden. The English language workplace is shown to be a translocal place at the intersection of local and translocal linkages.

Suicide is a prevalent and international problem which has substantive economic and psychological consequences. This has led to governments placing prevention of suicide as a priority on healthcare agendas. Recognition has been given to vulnerable groups in society that have been identified as being at particularly high risk of self-harm and suicide. This includes those in contact with mental health and forensic services. There is a great deal of literature that has considered the risk factors, processes and mechanisms associated with suicide. Comparatively only a small amount of literature has looked at the concept of suicidality within restricted samples such as psychiatric inpatients and prisoners. This may be as a consequence of extensive ethical and procedural processes that are involved in conducting research in such settings. This results in it being necessary to continually make generalisations from community based literature, meaning that factors relating specifically to such settings may be overlooked or underestimated. In the first paper, the initial sections consider existing risk assessments and models of suicidality. Predominantly being structured around static risk factors, means they are often criticised for lacking predictive utility and specificity. Literature examining dynamic psychosocial factors of suicidality in restricted samples was reviewed and 20 articles were identified. A wide range of dynamic correlates are presented. These form a theoretical model of suicidality specific to restricted samples. The clinical and theoretical implications are discussed in terms of risk assessment procedures and adapting and shaping interventions in accordance with the findings. Developing risk assessments around more dynamic factors will allow for greater sensitivity and prediction of those at greatest risk of imminent harm. The second, empirical paper supports the promotion of recovery focused practice and explores the relationship between suicidality and perceived personal agency in patients in secure mental health settings; Personal agency having previously been suggested as conferring resilience to suicidality. Psychometric measures and experience sampling methodology were utilised to examine the relationship. Perceptions of personal agency were found to confer resilience against suicidality. Change in perceptions of personal agency was not associated with suicidality but the overall level of personal agency was. Implications for service delivery are discussed with emphasis given to fostering perceptions of agency, control and self-efficacy and promoting inclusion, empowerment and person centred care. The final paper provides a personal and a critical reflection on the research process. It highlights and discusses clinical and theoretical strengths and limitations of the two papers and considers the methodological processes of both papers in more detail. Further reflections on how practice could be adapted in line with the findings are given. Future directions for research within secure settings are considered, in the hope of maintaining the drive for research with this vulnerable and often overlooked population.

This project is primarily exegetical in nature and aims to provide a rational reconstruction of the concept of moral responsibility in the work of Immanuel Kant, specifically in his Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GR), and Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR). It consists of three chapters – the first chapter interprets the concept of freedom that follows from the resolution to the Third Antinomy in the CPR. It argues that Kant is best understood here to be providing an unusual but cogent, compatibilist account of freedom that the author terms meta-compatibilism. The second chapter examines the GR and CPrR to interpret the theory of practical reason and moral agency that Kant develops in these works. This chapter concludes by evaluating what has been established about Kant’s ideas of freedom and moral agency at that point in the project, identifying some problems and objections in addition to providing some suggestions for how Kantian ethics might be adapted within a consequentialist framework. The third chapter argues that, for Kant, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions (in addition to a compatibilist definition of freedom) that must obtain for an individual to qualify as responsible for her actions.

This qualitative study explores how youth in Tanzania, with low levels of basic education, manage their personal lives and seek opportunities in the workplace or in post-basic education training programs. In Tanzania, Education for All (EFA) has served as a key focal point of coordination between the government and the international donor community. While substantial attention has centered on the challenges of ensuring the sustainability and quality of EFA, there is relatively little known about the socio-economic circumstances of young school leavers and their perceptions of education and its relation to their post-school life trajectories. Using structuration theory as the theoretical framework to illuminate the dynamic interconnectedness of social structures and youth agency, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 young male and female school leavers. Disturbing patterns of social reproduction and a fundamental discontinuity between basic education and post-school challenges were revealed in the research. Yet, in view of their resilience, orientation to the future and entrepreneurial resourcefulness, findings suggest that despite profound qualitative shortcomings, aspects of basic education and the structuring effects of economic liberalization may be contributing to enhanced youth agency. The dissertation contributes to the theoretical discourse in the study of youth phenomena by adapting and advancing Klocker’s (2007) use of the notion of thinners and thickeners of agency within structuration theory. Exploring factors like educational quality and attainment level, in addition to those already established by Klocker (tribe, gender, age, and poverty), my research shows how young people’s agency can be attenuated or accentuated in space and time. This dissertation contributes empirical, hermeneutic and narrative data to illuminate the educational experience and post-basic education realities for a group of Tanzanian youth, reducing what has heretofore been described as a paucity of such qualitative accounts of marginalized African youth and the challenges they face.

Climate change is an issue that is increasingly being adopted into various NGO campaigns. Drawing on a theoretical framework that is grounded in post-colonialism and subaltern studies, this thesis investigates representations of agency in the climate change discourse of Oxfam International. The central research question guiding the study is: To what extent do developing world people and countries have agency in Oxfam International’s 2009 climate change campaign? The methodological approach used to address this question combines content analysis and critical discourse to analyze 105 documents published by Oxfam in the lead up to the 2009 U.N. Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The findings reveal that that developing world subjects tend to possess less speaking space and to be represented with less agency than their developed world counterparts.

Main point of this work is to describe known aproaches to strategic brand management and to implement this aproaches on the real data from automotive industry. This whole topic is analyzed from media agency point of view.

Thesis discusses the aplication of marketing activities within the marketing management in a small travel agency SANTINI Tour. The first part of the work is intent on the formulation of basic theoretical background. Marketing and process of marketing management is described below with regard to the specific product - services in tourism. In the second part of the work there is briefly described the selected travel agency - SANTINI Tour. The process of marketing management is applied to this travel agency. The main part is focused on analyzing the process of marketing management in CK SANTINI Tour. It is expected, there is not whole spektrum of processes that have been described in theory in so small travel agency. The owner adapted this system during the years to their own needs. At the end of this thesis, there is suggested several proposals, which solved the most serious embarrassment in the process of marketing management in CA SANTINI Tour. The clear and distinct strategy is completely missing. The product is unchanged for a long time. So it does not reflect the new requirements of customers. The absence of control is the major deficiency. Because of that, the travel agency does not have valuable feedback.

The aim of the thesis was to create the business plan of a newly rising travel agency. The Theoretical part targets the basic conceptions related to the issue. It contains the definition of a business plan and it mentions who its users are and which form and appurtenances should the correct business plan have. The Practical part includes the concrete business plan of the new travel agency. It includes the explication, if its foundation in future is feasible and if the calculation of the capital intensity of the project is realistic.