Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New South Wales, 1997. / Also available online.

Black Americans experience poverty at disproportionately high rates that are concerning both because of the perils of poverty as well as the belief that one’s race should not affect one’s opportunities in life. This paper extends the Capability Approach and argues that basic needs play an important economic role in providing people with a minimum level of opportunity that allows them to avoid poverty. Using MSA-level data on basic needs access and poverty rates, this paper finds that increasing rates of homeownership, high school graduation, and car access as well as decreasing rates of disability are all significantly associated with lower poverty rates for Black Americans. However, the empirical results also show that higher rates of high school graduation and car access for White populations are associated with higher rates of Black poverty, likely due to spillover effects in the labor market that crowd out Black workers.

D.Ed. (Sociopedagogics) / Many students attend school throughout the year. These students vary from being happy to unhappy individuals. The reason why some of these students are unhappy gave cause to the undertaking of this study. Therefore, the essence of happiness, as well as the needs for happiness of the school student, had to be determined, all within the limits of responsible educational standards. It was furthermore a problem to determine the reasons for the unhappiness of students at school and what had to be done to keep the happy students happy and make the unhappy students happy. The ultimate problem to be solved, was to determine the extent to which a change in attitude or simply a slight change in educational approach would influence the happiness of students at school. The methods used in this study were firstly an intensive literature study, with a socio pedegogical perspective on the task of the school. This was followed by a literature study to determine the essence of happiness, with the perspective on the Bible, as well as the perspective on the meanings of several theorists. Secondly, an empirical study involving secondary school students, was done. They were asked to state their own meaning on happiness in a single paragraph. They were also asked to evaluate and arrange, ten needs of happiness determined beforehand, in order of importance. Some of the most important results that came forth from the literature study, in addition to the Biblical message, that happiness causes joy and peace of mind to the human being, are that happiness is a longing and highest aspiration of all mankind, that happiness is future directive, is permanent and is experienced with fellow men and that happiness is incomplete. The need for security and the need for self-realization are the two essences of happiness that received highest priority. The results from the empirical study show that the student has a need to be acknowledged as a person for self-realization and to be able to lead a good life. Intellectual development, human relations and communication with fellow men received less priority, while the needs for freedom, discipline and especially the need for food and clothing, received the least priority. The reason for this tendency, can be that the basic needs of these students have already been satisfied -and the fullfilment for less basic needs still excist. In the light of all these results attention must be given to the criteria for an "ideal" school that can attend to the satisfying of the needs for happiness of the school student. The ideal school must strive to meet the needs of the student in its education and training. atmosphere of security and give the student thorouh It must educate the student in an pedogogical love to self-realization, intellectual and moral education and secure order and discipline. The ideal school must guide the student to overcome his failures, teach the student what happiness is all about and brief him on how to be a happy student, now and for years to come.

This study explores the perceptions, and life experiences of formerly gang-involved young adult refugee men living in Winnipeg. In doing so, this study examines both the negative experiences and challenges of these young men that led to their involvement with gangs, and the positive and life changing events that provided the catalyst for these young men to leave their gangs. If positive support mechanisms are insufficient, and if their basic human needs cannot be satisfied, refugee young people become at-risk of involvement in antisocial behavior and criminal activity. In order to assist refugee young people in their successful transition into a foreign culture and society it is essential to understand how their perceptions and experiences inform their identity and behavior. This study contributes to this understanding, which will inform policy and future approaches by government and community-based organizations to assist them in their transition.

This study explores the perceptions, and life experiences of formerly gang-involved young adult refugee men living in Winnipeg. In doing so, this study examines both the negative experiences and challenges of these young men that led to their involvement with gangs, and the positive and life changing events that provided the catalyst for these young men to leave their gangs. If positive support mechanisms are insufficient, and if their basic human needs cannot be satisfied, refugee young people become at-risk of involvement in antisocial behavior and criminal activity. In order to assist refugee young people in their successful transition into a foreign culture and society it is essential to understand how their perceptions and experiences inform their identity and behavior. This study contributes to this understanding, which will inform policy and future approaches by government and community-based organizations to assist them in their transition.

This thesis examines the relationship between property and freedom in both the continuous sense of the word and the status sense of the word. Status freedom concerns the distinction between a free person and an unfree person. Continuous freedom concerns the continuum of liberties that make a person more or less free, whether they affect her status as a free person or not. Part One defines a status freedom as effective control self-ownership - the effective power to have and to refuse active cooperation with other willing people. It argues why this concept of freedom is important, situates it among the recent theories of freedom, and examines the conditions necessary to secure it. It concludes that a free person requires at least some unconditional access to property and that basic income is one way to secure that access. Part Two considers what kind of property-rights regime provides the greatest freedom in the continuous sense. It argues that Lockean and right-libertarian property theories fail to establish that full liberal ownership rights are consistent with the greatest freedom for all. It concludes that a payment from property owners to the propertyless in the form of an unconditional basic income from is necessary to establish property rights consistently with maximal equal freedom. Part Three examines whether social duties can take precedence over the commitment to effective control self-ownership and basic income proposed in the first two sections.

This thesis is about so-­‐called consensual exploitative transactions: transactions to which all parties agree voluntarily, and which are beneficial for all parties, but which are still widely considered exploitative, and for that reason legally restricted in many countries. The thesis asks two main questions: 1. What is wrong with consensual exploitation? 2.What implications does the answer to this question have for the legal restriction of consensual transactions that are regarded exploitative in modern liberal societies? In answer to the first research question, the thesis starts by distinguishing and analysing five competing views of the wrong in consensual exploitation that exist in the present-­‐day philosophical debate on exploitation; and rejects all five answers. Next, the thesis offers an alternative answer, which is that the wrong in consensual exploitation can best be understood as a matter of greediness—a failure of the virtue of generosity. The thesis then turns to the second research question: what understanding exploitation as greediness implies for the legal restriction of exploitative transactions. It discusses and rejects the view that law ought only to be used to regulate ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour, and not to promote virtues or discourage vices, such as generosity and greediness. The thesis argues that legal restrictions on consensual exploitative transactions can be justified as a means to prevent greediness, and to promote a certain other-­‐regardingness, and illustrates this argument with two examples of laws that regulate consensual transactions which are widely regarded exploitative: minimum wage laws and payday loan laws.

Sjukfrånvaro till följd av sociala och organisatoriska orsaker ökar, varje år kostar den arbetsrelaterade ohälsan Sverige 70 miljarder kronor i form av förlorade arbetsinsatser och utgifter för vård och omsorg. Trots att ledarskap antas spela en central roll i anställdas sjukfrånvaromönster är tidigare forskning på området begränsad. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka det longitudinella sambandet mellan behovsfrämjande ledarskap och sjukfrånvaro, samt om tillfredsställelse av de grundläggande psykologiska behoven av autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet medierar relationen mellan ledarskap och sjukfrånvaro. Enkätdata insamlades med självskattningsformulären Need Support at Work scale och Need Satisfaction at Work scale från anställda inom en kommun i norra Sverige (N = 589, 58% kvinnor, åldersspann = 19-66 år) och relaterades till sjukfrånvaro. Resultaten visar att ett behovsfrämjande ledarskap har en indirekt effekt på anställdas sjukfrånvaro genom behovstillfredsställelse samt en direkt effekt på anställda som är sjukskrivna längre än 40 dagar. Dessa resultat bidrar med en teoretisk förståelse för hur chefer påverkar anställdas sjukfrånvaromönster och kan ligga till grund för organisatoriska interventioner. / Sickness absenteeism due to social and organisational reasons is increasing and the total cost of work-related illnesses in Sweden amounts to 70 billion krona each year in form of loss of production and health care expenses. Though leadership is assumed to play a central role in follower’s absenteeism-patterns, research exploring this relationship is scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal relationship between need-supportive leadership and sick leave, and to explore whether satisfaction of the basic psychological needs is related to and mediate the association between leadership and sickness absenteeism. Self-assessment data was collected with Need Support at Work scale and Need Satisfaction at Work scale from municipal employees (N = 589, 58% women, age span = 19-66 years) in a town in northern Sweden and was related to records of absence. The results show that need-supportive leadership is indirectly related to absenteeism through the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs. They also indicate a direct negative effect of need-supportive leadership on absence-spells over 40 days. These findings contribute with a theoretical understanding on how leaders affect follower’s absenteeism-patterns and can be used to guide organisational interventions.

The aim with this study was to give awareness about the school situation for students living in the slum areas of Nairobi. The purpose was to raise the teachers’ perspectives about working with these students. Previous researches around the topic were studied to gain a better knowledge for the subject. The focus was put on Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs, trauma with its effects and possible treatments in school and the home environment effects on the student´s learning. Since this was a qualitative study, the method used was open aimed interviews. Eleven teachers working in the slum areas in Nairobi were interviewed with these two main questions in mind; What do teachers think is important when working with students who come from the slum areas of Nairobi and how do teachers work with these students? All schools were located in or close to a children home in order for the teachers to have a wide range of experiences when working with students from the slum area. Some of the results that came up were that teachers saw it as important to provide students with their basic needs in school. The teachers also said that students had different reactions towards trauma and it was of great importance for students to be able to both channel their expressions after the trauma but also to forget the trauma for the moment to be able to concentrate in school. The teachers were disagreeing about whether to treat students equally or individually. Some of the teachers said that the student´s home environment affects their learning due to the quality and quantity of help that they can get with their homework. Some teachers felt adequate due to the extra work put on their shoulders in their work with the students from the slum areas.

This Bachelor thesis is a study of collective political violence in the context of the Chechen conflict which continues to this present day. The information gathered and analysed as well as the frameworks used in the analysis are taken from numerous academic texts written on the subjects of Chechnya, Terrorism and theories on conflict and conflict resolution. The Chechen conflict is a decade long intra-state conflict which has its roots in a separatist movement for secession following the breakup of the Soviet Union. The dynamics of the conflict has evolved throughout the years, maintaining many of its fundamental elements whilst at the same time transforming as new actors and dimensions emerge. Following an abductive approach, the analytical frameworks of John Burton and Ted Gurr as well as a theoretical perspective derived from Bruce Hoffman’s understanding of terrorism, have been used to recontextualise to information gathered through the selected academic texts relevant to the conflict. The aim of this recontextualisation is to attempt to identify hidden mechanisms that could be responsible for the occurrence of collective political violence in the context of Chechnya. Numerous deprivations of the Chechen people’s basic human needs can potentially lead to frustration being perceived through a sense of shared group interest identity. Elites can then use this identity to mobilize the discontented masses in order to obtain political power for themselves whilst achieving the goals of the group they claim to represent. Russia’s Counterterrorism strategy does not seek to address these grievances and therefore violence is likely to continue to occur.