<p>The purpose with this essay has been to describe and understand why youth community service became a penalty in Sweden. The political discourse in which youth community service was established has been analyzed with Laclau & Mouffe´s discourse theory. A social constructivist onset and a discourse analysis were the methodological tools of the essay. The result is two folded. Youth community service was created to strengthen the constitutional state, combined with high beliefs of the social services competence. Furthermore the images of the youth offenders had an impact on the argumentation, as well as an ambition to keep the youths outside of the correctional treatment system. The evaluation ten years later showed good results from the new penalty, and wanted to increase the legal security for the youth offenders by making youth community service prescribed by law. The content as well as the intended group the penalty was designed for, has been changed a lot since 1997 when the idea was born.</p>

The purpose with this essay has been to describe and understand why youth community service became a penalty in Sweden. The political discourse in which youth community service was established has been analyzed with Laclau &amp; Mouffe´s discourse theory. A social constructivist onset and a discourse analysis were the methodological tools of the essay. The result is two folded. Youth community service was created to strengthen the constitutional state, combined with high beliefs of the social services competence. Furthermore the images of the youth offenders had an impact on the argumentation, as well as an ambition to keep the youths outside of the correctional treatment system. The evaluation ten years later showed good results from the new penalty, and wanted to increase the legal security for the youth offenders by making youth community service prescribed by law. The content as well as the intended group the penalty was designed for, has been changed a lot since 1997 when the idea was born.

Passage of the Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009 led to wide support for service-learning programs in high schools. The effectiveness of these programs on future volunteerism in college, however, has not been established. In the absence of research clarifying the variables that might influence programming effectiveness, it is difficult to design and adapt such programs to increase their impact. This study explored how high school service-learning programs could be improved to encourage greater student participation and to motivate continued volunteerism in college. A multiple case study methodology was used that included face-to-face interviews with 7 teachers and service-learning coordinators from private, public, and faith-based high schools in the Los Angeles area. Also, phone interviews were conducted with 6 experts in the field of service learning who were identified in a review of the literature. Interview data were coded based on findings from the service-learning literature. Data analysis included a comparison of the 3 types of schools as well as identification of strategies for effective service learning in high schools, areas of improvement, and obstacles that may be encountered while implementing improvements. Each of the schools integrated only some of the identified practices, which included increasing student reflection, giving students a stronger voice in the program, and tying service learning with standardized test outcomes. Recommendations from this study provide high school administrators and service-learning teachers with ideas and tools to enhance their programming. Thus, the results of this study can be used to improve the likelihood that high school students will have high-quality service-learning experiences and will continue volunteering in college.

Mémoire (M.P.M.O.)--Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1995. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Unemployment, particularly if long-term, represents a serious economic and social problem, which brings along negative effects on the unemployed individual, his/her family and the society as a whole. This unfavorable situation may be addressed by a pro-active employment policy through its tools. One of the tools is the community service. I have selected Evaluation of community service from the viewpoint of employers as the subject of my thesis as it is very topical and it has not been explored by student works at our faculty. The objective of the thesis was to map opinions of employers about community service as one of the tools of the pro-active employment policy. Another objective of the thesis was to compare different levels of unemployment in the regions of České Budějovice and Havlíčkův Brod. In the theoretical part I focused on the national employment policy and on the community service in detail. Further, I covered the significance of work for the individual, unemployment and its economic and social consequences. In order to achieve the outlined objective and to confirm the set hypotheses I used a quantitative research, specifically a questionnaire survey among selected employers in the regions of České Budějovice and Havlíčkův Brod. As a complementary method I performed a secondary analysis of the data. The hypothesis ``Community service may help to find prospective employment for problem categories of job applicants `` has been confirmed; the hypothesis ``Community service is used more in regions with a poor situation on the labor market `` has not been confirmed. The thesis proposes potential solutions of problems and shortcomings, based on the evaluation of community service from the viewpoint of employers. The conclusions of the thesis may also serve as a feedback for Employment Offices as the administrative authorities that conclude agreements with employers about creation of jobs in community services and provide financial contributions to the employers for such jobs within the pro-active employment policy.

Community service learning, when integrated into the modules of academic learning programmes, has the potential to contribute to the value and effectiveness of learning by offering hands-on experience and placing the learners in real-life situations as part of their learning phase. Most of the research done on community service learning has investigated the benefits, outcomes and learning experiences of students engaged in service-learning programmes. As there is little or no research on students' attitudes to and perceptions of service learning before it is integrated into an academic programme, the purpose of this study was to determine teacher training students' attitudes to and perceptions of community service learning before it became integrated into their academic programmes. The research was quantitative in nature and followed a descriptive design, in which a survey employing a questionnaire as instrument was used for measuring the attitudes and perceptions of third-year teacher training students at the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria. A purposeful or non-probability sampling strategy was used, yielding a sample size of 168 students (n=±168). The results of the study indicate that students with prior knowledge of and/or participation in a community service programme showed greater willingness to enrol for such a programme, especially if it would add value to their career development and bear credits. The conclusion is that teacher training students are career focused and need to know more about community service learning before such courses/modules are integrated into their curriculum, to ensure their positive participation and enhanced learning. Recommendations are made with the intention of providing information to academic staff, to assist them with the successful design and implementation of courses/modules which include community service learning and would be meaningful to the community and of value to the student. The recommendations are also intended to encourage students to participate more willingly in community service learning courses/modules. These recommendations include a discussion on a thorough introduction to the pedagogy before integrating it into their curriculum. / Dissertation (MEd (Education for Community Building))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Curriculum Studies / MEd / unrestricted

The problem with which this study is concerned is the analysis of the status of continuing education-community service programs within the public junior-community colleges of the state of Texas as these programs are viewed (1) from the areas of funding, faculty and facility allocations, (2) from the areas of the educational and professional preparation and responsibility of the leaders who are assigned to direct these programs, and (3) from the area of community involvement in program planning. Based on the problem a survey was developed; 142 administrators responded (61.2 per cent).

No description available.

No description available.

Penology / (M.A. (Penology)