Zugl.: Dortmund, Universiẗat, Diss., 1994.

No description available.

In the early days of HIV/AIDS in North America, those most directly affected by the crisis created a social movement to respond to the virus when no one else would. The legacy of activists’ efforts can be seen in the more than seventy-five AIDS service organizations (ASOs) that provide prevention, support, and education to communities across Ontario today. While these organizations were once an important site of advocacy and resistance for people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs), ASOs are now often viewed as professionalized, bureaucratic and impersonal spaces. Linking theoretical understandings of public pedagogy and the pedagogical potential of space with HIV/AIDS scholarship, I offer a conception of ASOs as more than simply impersonal service providers, but vibrant spaces of community learning. Drawing on interviews with people who work, volunteer, and use services at a small ASO in Kingston, Ontario called HIV/AIDS Regional Services (HARS), I identify three pedagogical assets within the agency’s space that tend to go unrecognized as such. The agency’s drop-in space, artworks created by PHAs that decorate the walls of the office, and HARS’ storefront design are not usually counted as elements of the kind of formal “HIV/AIDS education” that ASOs provide. However, by exploring the learning experiences that are incited by these assets, I argue that we may broaden our understandings of what counts as HIV/AIDS education and of the value of ASOs in their communities. These unacknowledged assets not only enhance peoples’ understanding of issues related to HIV/AIDS, they also work to develop a sense of community and belonging for visitors to the space. In conclusion, I reiterate that while today’s ASOs are surely different than the organizations that activists created in the 1980s, the learning experiences that arise in agencies like HARS demonstrate that community-building and mutual support can remain as integral aspects of ASOs. / Thesis (Master, Cultural Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-20 14:39:55.828

Life in a bidonville (poor urban slum) is portrayed in this study using the lens of learning. This contribution to the generally sparse literature and knowledge on communities in Haiti, discusses elements of informal and non-formal learning in this difficult context. The process of qualitative observation over the period of six months revealed many "community-based assets." These assets contributed to learning by providing spaces of calm, safety and respect, emerging from strong shared values of mutual assistance. In equal proportion, however, mawonaj (deceit or hiding the truth) and silence, as well as the social and cultural challenges of listening at many levels reinforced traditional hierarchies and prevented or interfered with changing mental models, making these obstacles to learning. / In the-heart of this neighbourhood, the focal point of social and economic activity, a community-based development organization served as the vantage point for observation and interviews. Primary information sources included observation and interviews largely involving this organization's personnel, volunteers and the people that frequented it for many different reasons. / The unit of analysis for this study is the adult learner, observed within a community development organizational context. Using the adult learner in situe (at a community centre) as the focal point, this study attempts to gain insights on how community learning takes place. It posits that changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes which take place at an individual level---learning---which bring about transformations in the social and interpersonal context, is the basis of community development. Revealing this context, the content and how the behaviour and mental modeling are controlled at a community's epicentre, gives insights into understanding the process of how the community learns more broadly, giving value to phenomena which take place in and around it. Understanding elements of this process, community learning, can usefully inform approaches to community development intervention.

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M.Ed. / The focus of this study is a community's response to and readiness during the occurrence of a natural disaster such as a flood. The particular emphasis is on the preparations for the continuation of 'emergency education'. The reason the study was undertaken was that floods have occurred in southern Africa with more frequency lately, and the readiness of communities to deal with the effects is questioned in this study. My personal experience as community member of the greater Giyani area and as school principal has shown me that most people, least of all the members, schools and the Education Department, have thought about emergency measures. I am referring not only to those measures that pertain to the immediate needs of a community, such as safeness, food, water, medical help and shelter, but the continuation of schooling in some format. The reason I focus on this is that I believe natural disasters can result in large-scale social disasters if all sections of society are not geared to continue life as 'normally' as possible. Youth, especially, need to be assisted not to become deviant in these times. That is why I undertook this study - to find out what happened to social life, and specifically schooling, during and in the aftermath of the great floods of 2000. I conducted the inquiry because I argued that the findings may reveal a way of dealing with regular schooling in the event of a repeat of the disaster. I based my study partially on some theory of community education, emphasising that community values and community cooperation are essential for dealing with such a disaster. In the field study I used a design that allowed me to capture people's experiences and views directly, using interviews. I had also observed what happened in the sampled villages during the floods, prior to the study. In addition, I had insight into some documents at government departments. I integrated these sources of information. I found that the way of life of the Tsonga-Shangaan people in this rural area was of such a nature that they are prone to great loss in the event of such a disaster. Not only are aspects of their traditional way of life, especially the way their huts are constructed, a barrier to coping, but the way they value school also plays a role. I found that there were no measures in place to assist learners to stay on track, and that some of them and also some teachers, viewed the floods as a license to stop teaching and learning. I also found that there were individuals who tried their utmost to help to get learners to remaining schools. The most important suggestion that comes from this inquiry is that some form of emergency schooling needs to be in place for times of natural disasters.

No description available.

The author’s previous research into the learning experiences of mature, workingclass students undertaking a professionally endorsed qualification in Community Education, was overly negative in its view of the students whilst underplaying the role of curriculum in their learning. Reinterpreting their undergraduate experience more positively leads to thinking about how their educational needs could be reconciled with the programme’s aim to produce critically competent graduates. Four principles derived from the Habermasian concept of communicative action can inform thinking about an appropriate pedagogical approach. The first directs attention to the acts of reciprocity that underpin learning. The second focuses attention on how knowledge can be constructed through redeeming claims. The third signals the necessity of safeguarding participation and protecting rationality in argumentation, and the fourth points to the idea of competence as a constructive achievement. Taken together, the four principles express the ideal of a discursive pedagogy in which teachers and students socially construct knowledge appropriate to the subject area. Because it involves active participation based on a commitment to open communication and argumentative reasoning, approximating the ideal conditions of a discursive pedagogy could address the student’s learning needs whilst meeting the programme’s aim. Anticipating and considering the likely issues and challenges involved in attempts to realise these idealised conditions suggests ways in which a discursive pedagogy could be given practical form.

This thesis examines and interprets a social movement organization, the Regina Native Women's Group, as an organization that uses liberating community education as a method of improving the social, economic, cultural and political conditions of Native women and their families in the city of Regina. The study focuses on the issues of the housing and community-living crises that developed in Regina during the 1970's to portray the Group's utilization of liberating community education. The study examines factors such as racial and gender oppression, co-option by the state and dilemmas within the Regina Native Women's Group that often hindered it from obtaining social change. As well, the support that the organization received from grassroots organizations and society's institutions that enabled change to occur is also examined.

This thesis examines and interprets a social movement organization, the Regina Native Women's Group, as an organization that uses liberating community education as a method of improving the social, economic, cultural and political conditions of Native women and their families in the city of Regina. The study focuses on the issues of the housing and community-living crises that developed in Regina during the 1970's to portray the Group's utilization of liberating community education. The study examines factors such as racial and gender oppression, co-option by the state and dilemmas within the Regina Native Women's Group that often hindered it from obtaining social change. As well, the support that the organization received from grassroots organizations and society's institutions that enabled change to occur is also examined.