Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree in Master of Technology: Education, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / This study investigated key factors impacting on blended learning delivery with particular focus on socio-cultural and human-computer-interface issues, in the hope that the outcome of this enquiry might contribute positively towards the empowerment of learners and facilitators alike. The study involved a group of first year students enrolled in a Communications Skills Course offered by the (then) Department of English and Communication at the Durban University of Technology. The PRINTS Project, a webquest around which the course activities were based, provided an example of a blended delivery course in practice. While the teaching paradigm used in the course was constructivist, the research orientation employed in this project was critical realist. Critical realism focuses on transformation through praxis and also lends itself to modelling, which provides a way to understand the factors at play within a social system. In the preliminary stages of the research, an exploratory empirical (i.e. applied) model of blended learning delivery was formulated from a theoretical model of course delivery in order to assess which factors in blended learning were systemic and which were variables. The investigation then sought to uncover key factors impacting on the blended delivery system, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The findings were analysed in terms of the empirical model to gain an understanding of any factors that might be seen to either enhance or inhibit learning in blended delivery mode. The result was that certain core issues in blended learning and teaching could be clarified, including the use, advantages and disadvantages of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a learning environment. The notion of the digital divide could also be reconceptualised, and the relationship between literacy (be it academic, professional or social), power and culture could be further elucidated, drawing specific attention to the South African educational environment. The notion of iv culture and its relevance in a blended delivery environment was also further clarified, since the findings of this research project suggested how and why certain key socio-cultural factors might impact, as both enhancers and inhibitors, on the blended learning delivery system.

This dissertation is an empirical study of the scientific literacy of 28 young adults (aged 18-26 years) in the context of their decision making about the health risks of mobile phones. The issue of possible health effects is one of a number of socioscientific issues now confronting adults in the 'knowledge/risk' society where scientific knowledge plays an increasingly significant role in people's lives. The focus of interest is the young people's responses to the uncertain science of 'science in the making' (Latour, 1987) and their positioning of this scientific knowledge in their risk assessments. The study is based on an interactive model of the public understanding of science and applies a critical realist and moderate social constructionist methodology. Data construction included focus groups and semi-structured individual interviews. The stimulus for discussion in the focus groups was a recent television news report presenting contradictory scientific research findings about whether mobile phones pose significant health risks. In the individual interviews understanding of the nature of science and risk judgments were explored. Data analysis involved a coding of the discourse in terms of themes and issues and interpretation of these in terms of the theoretical framework of the thesis. A major finding was that these young people interpreted the uncertainty of the scientific knowledge mainly in social terms and with limited understanding of the role of theory in interpreting data. They talked spontaneously of risk but did not draw on scientific knowledge or risk estimates in their judgment about mobile phone safety. Findings have important implications for science education and suggest a broadened conception of scientific literacy which includes critical dimensions and risk literacy. It is argued that this functional scientific literacy is essential for effective citizenship in contemporary society.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental impacts of Business Social Responsibility (BSR) of the tourism industry in South Africa with a special focus on the Western Cape region. The study was based on the premise that little is known regarding the role and contribution of BSR of the tourism sector to the three critical challenges: poverty, unemployment and inequality that South Africa is facing. The effectiveness of South African tourism policies in guiding the industry and the extend of compliance were assessed. Extensive relevant literature was reviewed, providing a framework for the analysis and interpretation of the research findings. Different types of tourism businesses, 307 in total, were surveyed in the Western Cape Province using stratified sampling. Government tourism departments and community organisations were identified as the key informants. Mixed research methods were applied, allowing for various tools and techniques to be used. Research data was analysed using qualitative and quantitative techniques. The research findings were analysed and interpreted using theoretical realism and neoliberalism frameworks. The findings indicated that the government developed a series of regulations and procedures to guide the tourism sector. Key role players and international investors design and implement BSR activities with complete disregard of intended community stakeholders. There is little or no significant participation in the design stage of intended stakeholders. Targeted communities are not able to raise critical issues largely because of poverty and unemployment. Though there are regulations such as B-BBEE, employment equity, BSR policies governing various tourism businesses have largely ignored these regulations. Attracting investors has been a major concern for the government with little concern of the nature of activities, impacts and their contributions on reducing the triple challenges in the country. This study contends that the current policies and regulatory frameworks are much too market friendly. Hence, the tourism industry has largely been able to implement policies that favours market goals. Some tourism BSR policies are aligned to the province’s institutional framework while others are not, indicating a lack of sustainable development. A model is proposed to improve the implementation of tourism BSR activities and policies / Geography / Ph. D. (Geography)

This research addresses the effect of pedagogical ways-of-knowing in higher education design programmes such as Graphic Design, Interior Design, Fashion, and Industrial Design. One problematic aspect of design studio pedagogy is communication between teachers and students about the aesthetic visual meaning of the students’ designed objects. This problematic issue involves ambiguous and divergent ways-of-knowing the design meaning of these objects. The research focus is on the design teacher role in design studio interactions, and regards pedagogical ways-of-knowing as the ways in which teachers expect students to know visual design meaning. This pedagogical issue is complicated by the fact that there is no agreed-upon corpus of domain knowledge in design, so visual meaning depends greatly on the social knowledge retained by students and teachers. The thesis pursues an explanation of pedagogical ways-of-knowing that is approached through the philosophy of critical realism. How it is that particular events and experiences come to occur in a particular way is the general focus of critical realist philosophy. A critical realist approach to explanation is the use of abductive inference, or inference as to how it is that puzzling empirical circumstances emerge. An abductive strategy aims to explain how such circumstances emerge by considering them in a new light. This is done in this study by applying Luhmann’s theory of the emergence of cognition in communication to teacher ways-of-knowing in the design studio. Through the substantive use of Luhmann’s theory, an abductive conjecture of pedagogical ways-of-knowing is mounted. This conjecture is brought to bear on an examination of research data, in order to explain how pedagogical ways of-knowing constrain or enable the emergence of shared visual design meaning in the design studio. The abductive analysis explains three design pedagogical ways-of-knowing: design inquiry, design representation and design intent. These operate as macro relational mechanisms that either enable or constrain the emergence of shared visual design meaning in the design studio. The mechanism of relation is between design inquiry, design representation and design intent as historical knowing structures, and ways-of-knowing in respect of each of these knowing structures. For example, design inquiry as an historical knowing structure has over time moved from ways-of-knowing such as rationalistic problem solving to direct social observation and later to interpretive cultural analysis. The antecedence of these ways-of-knowing is important because communication about visual meaning depends upon prior knowledge, and teachers may then reproduce past ways-of-knowing. The many ways-of-knowing that respectively relate to design inquiry, design representation and design intent are shown to be communicatively formed and recursive over time. From a Luhmannian perspective, these ways-of-knowing operate as variational distinctions that indicate or relate to the knowing structures of design inquiry, design representation and design intent. This is the micro-level operation of pedagogical ways-of-knowing as relational mechanisms in design studio communication. Design teachers’ own ways-of-knowing may then embrace implicit way-of-knowing distinctions that indicate the knowledge structures of design inquiry, design representation and design intent. This implicit indication by distinction is the relational mechanism that may bring design teachers’ expectation that this and not that visual design meaning should apply in communication about any student’s designed object. Such an expectation influences communication between teachers and students about the potential future meaning of students’ designs. Consequently, shared visual design meaning may or may not emerge. The research explanation brings the opportunity for design teachers to make explicit the often implicit way-of-knowing distinctions they use, and to relate these distinctions to the knowing structures thus indicated. The study then offers a new perspective on the old design pedagogical problem of design studio conflict over the meaning of students’ designs. Options for applying this research explanation in design studio interactions between students and teachers are therefore suggested.

The research aims to study how the communication context within the Arab cultures influences the employees' perception of equity and reaction to inequity. Specifically, the study explores how employees from Arab cultural backgrounds communicate with each other within the Saudi working context; and how they collect, interpret and use the different contextual information - from the contexts in which they live and work - in order to make judgements about issues related to the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. In order to study the research topic, a conceptual framework is developed to reconcile between Equity Theory, Social Comparison Theory and Hall's Context Model; and as a base serving the process of designing/choosing the methods of collecting and analysing the data. Three main research questions are developed which are about (i) how the communication context is related to employees' willingness and ability to react to inequity (ii) how the communication context shapes the nature of inequity reactions executed by employees and (iii) how the communication context is related to the way equity is perceived among employees. A modified version of critical realism is adopted to focus on exploring the mechanisms, within the communication context, which influence the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. A combination of retroduction and abduction is developed in a sense that retroduction is used to direct the research toward exploring the structure and mechanisms within the research setting, while abduction is used to draw conclusions about how the phenomena studied in the research are evolving by the structure and mechanisms. A mixed methods approach is adopted in the research. The research includes data from thirty-five semi-structured interviews which are conducted in mainly three Saudi private-sector organisations located in Jeddah with twenty-nine male employees and six male managers of six different Arab nationalities. Template analysis is used to analyse the qualitative interview transcripts and field notes, while cluster analysis is used to group the research participants based on their quantitative responses. The research finds that there are no clear-cut areas separating the activities linked to the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. I also conclude that the perception of equity norms and equity comparison components can sometimes be separate activities. Some factors such as the religious interpretation, face-saving, and contextual norms and powers influence the employees' willingness to react to inequity by altering the way in which those employees perceive equity norms. Here, unwillingness decisions are often made not as a result of personal conviction but as a compromise based on the personal evaluation of the surrounding context, realising the inability of the self to react to such situations in the first place. Thus, it can be concluded that inability to react to inequity can reduce the employees' willingness to react against under-rewarded situations. The process of perceiving equity comparison components is found to be related to the type of reaction adopted to re-establish the equity; this relationship is represented by groups affiliated by a hidden factor or factors, which is more influential than the ethnicity/nationality of the group's members. The research makes a methodological contribution to knowledge by suggesting a new approach to study human relations through the communication context; a conceptual contribution by combining the concepts of equity perception, social comparison and communication context in one conceptual framework; and an empirical contribution by providing a fresh insight to contextual themes in the Saudi working environment.

Discourse has the power to organize thought—and therefore, to limit imagination. The purpose of this project is to trace the contours of climate change discourse constructed by transnational fossil fuel corporations, to make visible the ideological barriers it creates to imagining post-capitalist alternatives. It is undertaken in the context of a well-established urgency for global collaboration to halt, mitigate, and adapt to the social, economic, and ecological impacts of climate change, and takes as its point of departure the fundamental link between ecological degradation and the capitalist mode of production (with its accompanying imperatives of accumulation and profit), as well as the necessity of counter-hegemonic praxis to pursuing system-transformative change on the scale required for humanity to negotiate the looming crisis in a just and ecologically viable way. Conceptualizing popular media as a discursive battleground in which the voices of corporations (through the evolving mediums of advertisement) are privileged, I employ critical discourse analysis to explore the framing of climate change messages by five major transnational oil and gas corporations, toward developing an analytical framework for the burgeoning climate change movement grounded at the intersection of global corporate capitalism and ecological degradation. Climate change messages included images, videos, and narratives intended for public consumption which spoke to the source, resolution, and/or future of human-induced and climate-related ecological problems. These were drawn from corporate websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and YouTube channels over the course of 2016. As action research, I have undertaken this project with the explicit aim of empowering climate movements – of which I count myself a part – to imagine alternative futures. To contribute to this aim, I have created a media literacy toolkit that links corporate climate change messages with the interests they represent to make visible the dynamics of power that mobilize those interests. / Graduate

The environment in which higher education institutions operate is changing, and these changes are impacting on all aspects of higher education, including postgraduate levels. Changes wrought by globalisation, heralded by rapid advances in technology have inaugurated a new era in which there are long term consequences for higher education. The shift towards more quantitative and measurable "outputs" signifies a fundamental change in the educational ethos in institutions. Effectiveness is now judged primarily on numbers of graduates and publications rather than on other aspects. The drive is to produce a highly educated population, especially through increasing postgraduates who can drive national innovation and improve national economies. This affects academics in a range of ways, not least in the ways in which they engage in teaching, what they are willing to do and how they do it. Such changes influence the kinds of research done, the structures and funding which support research, and thus naturally shapes the kinds of postgraduate programmes and teaching that occurs. This study, situated in the field of Higher Education Studies, adopting a critical realist stance and drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and the concepts of expert and novice, explores the experiences of postgraduate supervisors from one South African institution across a range of disciplines. Individual experiences at the level of the Empirical and embodied in practice at the level of the Actual allow for the identification of possible mechanisms at the level of the Real which structure the sector. The research design then allows for an exploration across mezzo, macro and micro levels. Individuals outline their own particular situations, identifying a number of elements which enabled or constrained them and how, in exercising their agency, they develop their strategies for supervision drawing on a range of different resources that they identify and that may be available to them. Student characteristics, discipline status and placement, funding, and the emergent policy environment are all identified as influencing their practice. In some instances supervisors recognise the broader influences on the system that involve them in their undertaking, noting the international trends. Through their narratives and the discourses they engage a number of contradictions that have developed in the system with growing neo-liberal trends and vocationalism highlighting tensions between academic freedom and autonomy, and demands for productivity, efficiency and compliance, and between an educational focus and a training bias in particular along with others. Especially notable is how this contributes to the current ideologies surrounding knowledge and knowledge production. Their individual interests and concerns, and emergent academic identities as they take shape over time, also modifies the process and how individual supervisors influence their own environments in agentic moves becomes apparent. Whilst often individuals highlight the lack of support especially in the early phases of supervision, the emergent policy-constrained environment is also seen as curtailing possibilities and especially in limiting the possibilities for the exercise of agency. Whilst the study has some limitations in the range and number of respondents nevertheless the data provided rich evidence of how individual supervisors are affected, and how they respond in varied conditions. What is highlighted through these experiences are ways pressures are increasing for both supervisors and students and changing how they engage. Concerns in particular are raised about the growing functional and instrumental nature of the process with an emphasis on the effects on the kinds of researchers being developed and the knowledge that is therefore being produced. As costs increase for academics through the environments developed and with the varied roles they take on so they become more selective and reluctant to expand the role. This research has provided insights into ideas, beliefs and values relating to the postgraduate sector and to the process of postgraduate supervision and how it occurs. This includes the structures and cultural conditions that enable or constrain practitioners as they develop in the role in this particular institution. It has explored some of the ways that mechanisms at international, national and institutional levels shape the role and practices of supervisors. The effects of mechanisms are in no way a given or simply understood. In this way the research may contribute to more emancipatory knowledge which could be used in planning and deciding on emergent policies and practices which might create a more supportive and creative postgraduate environment.

Globalisation, internet and digitalisation has given cause to vast changes in society, where the individual is to an ever greater extent extradited to oneself through individualisation, flexibilisation and informatisation. Taken together this known as institutional individualisation. Globalisation, internet and digitalisation has facilitated a plethora of possibilities for remote work, i.e. white collar work that is not confined to a dedicated office area, but rather being undertaken on the go, at home or in a hotel lobby. As the global spread of Covid-19, office work has taken on new dimensions forcing employees to conduct their work within the context of the private sphere, thus altering working fromhome (WFH) into working athome (WAH). This is here researched, using a combination of critical theory and social critical realism.            In this master’s dissertation, WAH full time due to Covid-19, has therefore been set in relation to institutional individualisation and its incusing on contemporary society. Thus, against the background of individualisation, flexibilisation and informatisation, and how they together comprise our everyday working lives in the organisations where we, by means of making a living, every day partake, the changed nature of the relation between the private and the professional sphere has here been investigated. Eleven semi structured in-depth interviews, in addition to four confirmatory interviews, have served to give new insights on the social im­pli­cations of WAH. These are presented in six verified hypo­thesises, with subordinate clauses. Taken together, these in turn serve to illustrate a catalysed institutionalised individualism, and a usurpation of the private sphere, by the pro­fessional sphere, while simultaneously instigating a perceived free will, making the trans­formation a choice of the employee him- or herself. / Globalisering, internet och digitalisering har givit upphov till stora samhälleliga förändringar, där individen i allt större utsträckning utlämnas till sig själv genom individualisering, flexi­bilisering och informatisering. Sammantaget kallas detta för institutionaliserad individ­ualism. Globalisering, internet och digitalisering har också faciliterat en pletora av möjligheter till distans­arbete, dvs tjänstearbete som inte är begränsat till den dedikerade kontorsytan, utan snarare utförs på språng, i hemmet eller i en hotellobby, alltså på distans. Med den globala spridningen av Covid-19, har kontorsarbete tagit nya dimensioner och tvingat de anställda att utföra sitt arbete i kontext av den privata sfären, och därmed förändrat arbete frånhemmet (WFH) till arbete ihemmet (WAH). Detta har här beforskats medelst en kombination av kritisk teori och social kritisk realism.            I denna magisteruppsatsen har heltidsarbete i hemmet, med anledning av Covid-19, därför satts i relation till institutionaliserad individualism och dess prägling av det samtida samhället. Mot bakgrund av individualisering, flexibilisering och informalisering, och hur de tillsammans utgör våra vardagliga arbetsliv i de organisationer där vi, genom förtjänandet av vårt levebröd, varje dag deltar, har förändringar i relationen mellan privat och professionell sfär således undersökts. Elva semistrukturerade djupintervjuer, har tillsammans med fyra bekräft­ande intervjuer, tjänat nya insikter om sociala implikationer av arbete i hemmet. Dessa presen­teras genom sex verifierade hypoteser, med tillhörande under­klausuler. Samman­taget tjänar dessa i sin en illustration av katalyserad institutionaliserad indi­vid­ualism och den profess­ionella sfärens usurpering av den privata sfären, samtidigt som en uppfattad egen vilja konstituerar transformationen som själv­vald.

The purpose of the study is to explore past and current professional nursing organisations by means of historical inquiry and to explain the factors that influenced the development of such organisations, as well as the contribution that these organisations made to the professional development of South African nursing in the period between 1914 and 2014. The researcher conducted a literature review and collected data from archival primary and secondary sources. A priori codes provided structure and historical context, yet allowed flexibility. Philosophically critical realism guided the research and enabled the researcher to explain and critique the social world in which South African nursing organisations historically functioned and exerted their professional influence. The findings revealed that in the past one hundred years political, economic and cultural factors present in the social world influenced the nature of South Africa’s professional nursing organisations. Determined to create a female professional image, status and educational exclusivity, South African nursing leaders of the 20th century opted to establish the South African Trained Nurses’ Association (SATNA), a professional nursing association. Influential associations such as SATNA and the South African Nursing Association (SANA) guided the profession to develop a nursing culture based on philosophical and ethical principles of practice. The result was a recognised, respected and trained nursing corps. Over time, however, a social class system, religion, political ideology and nurses’ economic needs reshaped South Africa’s nursing associations and consequently the profession. By the end of the 20th century, South African nursing leaders accepted that nurses needed their socio-economic welfare to be prioritised and therefore the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA), a professional organisation with a trade unionist stance, was established. The result was a trained, politicised, fragmented nursing corps struggling to find its collective professional voice. The greatest legacy bestowed on South African nursing by its first influential organisations is the professional associations evident today. Over time, the South African Nursing Association’s discussion groups that had been established in the 1950s to discuss nursing-related topics evolved into the specialist groups and associations that were present in 2014. / Health Studies / D. Litt et Phil.

HRM-Pリンクの存在を解く鍵を追求する試論を展開した論文。HRMにせよPにせよ，組織内の事象であること，そしてその中にある「計画・管理」というプログラムがあることに着目することが肝要である。しかし，果たして「計画・管理」が企業組織内でスムーズに展開されるかどうか。それを下支えするコンテキストもあれば妨げるコンテキストもある。HRM‐Pリンクを考察するには、各国のコンテキストを探ることが重要であることを、新制度学派の議論を援用して論じた。 / Does the HRM-P(Performance) link exist? The aim of this thesis is to try to seek answers to this question. It is important to notice that both HRM and P represent events inside organizations, which have "administration and planning" programs. However, can these programs develop smoothly inside organizations? Organizations may have constraining as well as enabling contexts, which must be explored in order to consider the HRM-P link. This thesis addresses the matter while making some references to new institutionalism. / 博士(産業関係学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial Relations / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University