Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The thesis explores the role of semiotic structuring of health information in relation to language, multimodality and health literacy and the affordances for agentive participation among consumers of two leading South African medical schemes - Discovery Health Medical Scheme (Discovery Health) and the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS). The focus is on who has access to health information, how this information is constructed and what the semiotic health habitat looks like for citizen-consumers. Through a virtual ethnographic approach the thesis explores the design of genres of health information artefacts: application forms, application guides, a comic book, and a variety of website images. The choice to study the commercial package of a private health industry is aimed at finding and defining codes of practice in health communication that could be replicable in the public health sector. A new perspective emerging out of the thesis is how semiotic structuring of style, stance-taking, and choice of registers affects reading positions, and how these determine with what voice citizenconsumers can engage with this information.

Faculty citizenship and institutional culture are critically important to the health and success of any college/school of pharmacy. This commentary describes the current relevance and importance of faculty citizenship in the broader context of institutional culture and provides a definition of faculty citizenship for use across all aspects of faculty roles in the pharmacy academy. The definition includes two key components (engagement and collegiality) that can be used to measure citizenship behaviors. Continued discussion and study of faculty citizenship will further the academy’s understanding and use of the concept

Despite decades of research on environmental behavior, it is unknown how various political actors aid in the development of ecological citizenship (EC). The purpose of this correlational study was to determine the relationship between environmental worldview (NEP) and willingness to take action (WTTA) among political actors within 5 states: Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The overarching research question examined how EC can be increased within the 5-state region by identifying the similarities and differences in NEP and WTTA between state legislators, state partners, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model provided the theoretical framework for the study. Out of 1,800 invited participants, 117 state legislators, 328 formal partnership directors, and 237 NGO administrators from the 5-state region participated in an online survey that measured their NEP, WTTA, and endorsement of EC principles. Nearly 20% of all respondents endorsed EC indicated by a high NEP and a high WTTA. Results of correlational analyses found a significant positive relationship between NEP and WTTA for each group. Further regression analysis found variation in group WTTA attributable to NEP varied from 32% for partnership directors and 36% for NGO administrators to 61% for state legislators. These findings indicated that EC can be affected by both private and public stakeholders. The implications for positive social change include demonstrating how state governments, in partnership with NGOs and other agencies, can increase EC within their states, and how improved partnerships can increase local opportunities to foster EC.

In the last decade, the Commonwealth Government has relied increasingly on policy-induced consortia to implement its education policy initiatives. The study focused on education policy pertaining to citizenship education, and specifically on the recommendations of the Civics Expert Group's 1994 report Whereas the people...Civics and Citizenship Education. The then Commonwealth Government called for policy-induced consortia to submit applications as a means to implement the report's recommendations. As a result, the Western Australian Consortium for Citizenship Education was formed. The Consortiums submission for a grant to assist teachers to prepare curriculum materials for citizenship education was successful. The study examined the decisions made by the Consortium members in relation to the curriculum materials project.The study was informed by an examination of literature pertaining to citizenship and citizenship education, the implementation of public policy, and group and curriculum decision-making. The review of the literature concerning the constructs of 'citizen' highlighted the contested nature of citizenship. In turn, this is reflected in the debates about the nature of citizenship education. As well, the literature review revealed many models of policy implementation and group curriculum decision-making do not adequately reflect the complexities and realities of group decision-making processes. The models often ignore the socio-political dynamics of the group, particularly in a policy-induced consortium, which exists for a specific and limited purpose, where members owe allegiance to their institutions rather than the consortium and where the consortium is accountable to a government department for the management of the project.A case study approach using qualitative methods was used. These methods and approaches are most likely to capture and interpret ++ / the humanness of group decision-making. Moreover, they take into account the importance of the values each member of the Consortium brought to the group and recognise that each member constructed his/her meaning as a result of social interaction with other Consortium members.The case study focused on a detailed examination of the work of the Western Australian Consortium for Citizenship Education and especially on the sub-group of the Project Management Committee over eighteen months. The notion of 'critical decisions' was used to analyse the Consortium's decision-making. Each critical decision had significant consequences for the ongoing work of the Consortium. The nature of the Consortium's decision-making highlighted the overwhelming importance of social dynamics over curriculum decision-making.The intentions of the study were to build towards a more complete understanding of the socio-political nature of group curriculum decision-making; to contribute to theorising about the humanness of group curriculum decision-making; and to provide an informed perspective about the significance of the Commonwealth Government's intervention in education through the mechanism of policy-induced consortia.The thesis makes a contribution to the socio-political dimension of group curriculum decision-making in federations. It illustrates that curriculum policy delivery is a socio-political process focussing on interpersonal relationships rather than a rational or deliberative process based on educational outcomes.

The managers of professional performing arts organisations are faced with a unique dilemma. They must support their artistic personnel, who are typically driven by the quest for new, challenging and experimental works, while achieving the economic success necessary for the continued viability of their organisations. Failing to effectively manage this artistic-economic dichotomy can result in a conflict between artists and managers that threatens the long-term survival of these organisations. There is a clear need, therefore, for arts managers to foster an organisational climate that minimises conflict, while promoting organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) such as sportsmanship (a willingness to tolerate less than ideal circumstances without complaining) and courtesy (a willingness to show sensitivity towards others and actively avoid creating problems for co-workers). The main aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which factors such as organisational structure, organisational culture and employees’ motivational orientation influence people’s perceptions of their job scope (as indicated by high levels of task variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback from the job), a construct which has been found to reduce organisational conflict and increase employees’ propensity to display OCBs. While these relationships have been suggested in previous research, they have not been tested in a performing arts industry context. The data analysed in the present study suggested an enjoyment motivational orientation, a challenge motivational orientation, an organic culture and formalisation positively influenced perceptions of job scope, which, in turn, positively influenced both OCBs (sportsmanship and courtesy). A challenge orientation also had a positive impact on sportsmanship, while sportsmanship positively and directly influenced courtesy. Centralisation was negatively related to perceived job scope and sportsmanship, although it had a positive impact on courtesy. Conflict was negatively influenced by formalisation and by an organic culture, but was positively influenced by a hierarchal culture.

Work-life balance is a dominant discourse in contemporary Western society. It has been built on a language of large organizations, hence has not been widely considered in relation to the small-medium enterprise sector. As a consequence, scant research has been conducted on the experiences of immigrant entrepreneurs and work-life balance within the small-medium enterprise sector in New Zealand, a country largely populated with migrants and small businesses which account for 96 per cent of the total enterprises. This study aims to fill this gap by firstly exploring the interpretations of the concept of work-life balance by Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and, secondly, the main challenges they face in achieving work-life balance. This is done by drawing on literatures including those on work-life balance, small-medium enterprises, and immigrant entrepreneurship theories. Primary research was conducted using a critical interpretive approach where the researcher is an insider to the study. This philosophical and methodological approach makes it possible to give a minority group a voice to effect social change and gain further research attention. Fifteen Chinese business owners, chosen from a variety of industries within the Auckland region, participated in this study. A qualitative methodological technique and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data for the case study on these entrepreneurs. The results indicate that the majority do not enjoy a sense of work-life balance because they take on filial obligations important for their own culture. They need to work hard to generate financial profit for the benefit of family. About half of them work more than 60 hours per week and three works longer than 70 hours weekly. The motivation for them to work in this way is to provide their family with desirable housing and to enable their children to meet higher education goals. This study challenges the applicability of the work-life balance discourse among the immigrant entrepreneurs who perceive the concept differently based on their cultural values. The results emphasise the need for business case studies from Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and research attention on contemporary human resource topics to be given to minority groups.

<p> </p><p><em>The universal citizenship rights can not protect the interests of national minorities by systematically excluding them from social, economic and political life. It does this by denying national minorities access to their own societal cultures-a choice enabling background conditions. In order to enable meaningful choice, such cultures needs to be developing. The societal cultures of national minorities will, instead of being a living and developing ones, be condemned to an ever-increasing marginalization if the state follows a hands off approach to ethnicity. Thus the state must give a positive support to national minorities to help them develop their cultures in their own homeland. This can be done by drawing the boundary of the state in such a way that the ethnic minority can constitute a local majority to form a nation, and thus can be entitled to group-differentiated citizenship rights. This inevitably creates mutual-indifference among various nations, and seems to threaten the territorial integrity of the state. But as far as the multinational federation is the result of voluntary union of nations, though the social tie among these nations is weaker than the one found in a nation-state, it can nonetheless be enduring.</em></p><p>                              </p>

This thesis is focused on two phenomena: normative citizenship ideals and onto-logical notions of man. The study is an inductive search for different attributes to describe a variation of these phenomena. The search is conducted from several different perspectives: Current research within citizenship theory, history in a material sense, the history of political ideas, the philosophy of science and thematic analyses of important aspects of the two phenomena. Throughout the thesis attributes are collected and sorted in order to build typologies that can define the variation. In the end the attributes of normative citizenship ideals are sorted into three groups. The ideals are explained in three ways: why they came in to existence, how the transition from one ideal to another took place and how the idealistic content of the ideals were transformed. The attributes of ontological notions of man are sorted into sex types and four of them are defined to have relevance for an existing variation today. Finally the relations between the two typologies are analyzed and ten combinations are found to be possibly useful in studies of contemporary societal contexts. Together, the results are contributing to theories of citizenship. Apart from the results of the study it is argued for a broader definition of politics in political science, for more specific ways to handle egalitarian questions in the field rights of man / citizenship rights and finally against the possibility of a neutral order, for example a neutral state.

The universal citizenship rights can not protect the interests of national minorities by systematically excluding them from social, economic and political life. It does this by denying national minorities access to their own societal cultures-a choice enabling background conditions. In order to enable meaningful choice, such cultures needs to be developing. The societal cultures of national minorities will, instead of being a living and developing ones, be condemned to an ever-increasing marginalization if the state follows a hands off approach to ethnicity. Thus the state must give a positive support to national minorities to help them develop their cultures in their own homeland. This can be done by drawing the boundary of the state in such a way that the ethnic minority can constitute a local majority to form a nation, and thus can be entitled to group-differentiated citizenship rights. This inevitably creates mutual-indifference among various nations, and seems to threaten the territorial integrity of the state. But as far as the multinational federation is the result of voluntary union of nations, though the social tie among these nations is weaker than the one found in a nation-state, it can nonetheless be enduring.

This thesis discusses the politics of conscientious objection in Turkey within a framework of citizenship. In this study citizenship is identified with being political and conceived as a process comprised of acts and practices. According to this conception, while practices reproduce the discourse of citizenship in a given context, acts are the deeds that challenge this discourse. Conscription, within this framework, is defined as a citizenship practice which re/produces the militaristic, nationalistic and gendered content of the Turkish citizenship. Conscientious objection is approached as an act of citizenship that contests and challenges the established citizenship regime in the country. This challenge and contestation is presented through the interviews with the conscientious objectors and activists as well as a review of the already published material by and on them. Conscientious objection challenges the citizenship regime in Turkey on three inter-related grounds: 1. It challenges and exposes the militaristic content of the discourse of citizenship in Turkey. 2. It challenges the political content of &lsquo / Turkishness&rsquo / &ndash / that is the nationalistic content of Turkish citizenship- with particular reference to Kurdish issue / and 3. It challenges the prevailing gender roles and the values of hegemonic masculinity in Turkey.