My Kind of Music: Two New Orleans Stories is written in two parts, a fictional story about Mickey, an eleven year old white girl, growing up in New Orleans in 1954 and a non-fictional story of my experience as a teenager in New Orleans in 1959. Part I is Mickey's personal coming of age story influenced by the forbidden music of rhythm and blues. Since Mickey's story is set in the same year of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, it is also a coming of age story of a new social consciousness. Part II is a non-fiction recounting of an integration incident from my own teen years which serves as a fictional element later in Mickey's story when she is a teenager.

A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Degree of Master of Public Health Johannesburg, June 2017 / Background The disparities in health outcomes between the poor and the rich are increasingly widened, with conditions like stunting still dominating the public health agenda. Policy-makers and researchers need to investigate and inform policies that are aimed at reducing inequities and implement interventions based on available evidence. Objectives The study aimed to investigate the relationship between household socio-economic status and stunting in children younger than five years in Zimbabwe using the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). The specific objectives were (i) to describe the different levels of stunting in children under-five years of age; (ii) to determine the association between socio-economic status and stunting in the under-five year age group; and (iii) to determine other factors associated with stunting in children under-five years of age in Zimbabwe. Methods Data from the 2010 Zimbabwe DHS was used for a cross sectional analysis. A modified Poisson regression was used to compute the crude and adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) and the 95% confidence interval (CI) of the association between socio-economic status and stunting. For multivariate models, variables that were identified a priori, those that had a p-value <0.20 in bivariate analyses and inclusion of variables that resulted in a change of 10% or more in the estimate of outcome, were included in the multiple regression models as potential confounders. Results A total of 1,080 children (25.3%; 95% CI: 23.8-26.8 %) of the 4,761 included in the sample were stunted. In univariate analysis, children in the richest households were shown to have a 43% significantly reduced prevalence of stunting as compared to the poorest households [crude PR=0.57, 95% CI (0.45 – 0.72)]. In multivariate analysis, the richer households had less stunted children than the poorest households (adj PR 0.63; 95% CI: 0.47 - 0.84), richer (adj PR 0.79 95% CI: 0.63 - 0.97 ;), middle (adj PR 1.01; 95% CI: 0.87 – 1.17 ;), and poorer (adj PR 0.85; 95% CI: 0.74 – 0.97). Other factors associated with stunting were the child’s anaemia status, age, sex, weight, living with mother or other, the mother’s height and the mother’s body mass index (BMI). Conclusion This study showed that household socio-economic status is associated with stunting in children under the age of five years in Zimbabwe. Stunting is still an immense challenge for most economically unindustrialized nations, Zimbabwe included, and threatens the possibility of many of these countries meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore there is need for multi-sectoral interventions that include poverty alleviation, social welfare, educational and health policies that will enhance the socio-economic status of the household in order to improve children’s nutritional status in Zimbabwe. / MT2017

Cheung Kai-chee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves [32]-[36] (2d group)

Investigating the (possible) emergence of a ‘New Squirearchy’ in rural England, this research considers the extent of a practical appropriation of the discourse of the country gentleman within the milieu of a specific community in the South East. A process commonly attributed to the middle class, this study engages with those debates on class and class analysis which continue to play out as a key theme in rural studies, and argues for the incorporation of concepts of performance in providing more nuanced accounts of society in the countryside. Drawing on theories of embodiment as developed in the wider disciplines of sociology and geography, and considering them in direct relation to consumption and cultural capital, this research details the existence of the ‘New Squirearchy’ as a discernable community of practise at work in – and dependent upon – the routine operations of other collectives in rural space. Mapping out the movements of those seeking to fulfil the roles and lifestyle historically accredited to the landed elite in detail, this empirically driven enquiry comes out of an intensive tract of in-situ ethnography. Centred on the act(s) of ‘gentryfication’ in the fabric of ‘village England’ and ‘Eamesworth’ more specifically, this story questions the apparent becoming of the ‘New Squirearchy’ through such institutions as the public house, the Parish Council and the village fete.

This study examines the intersections of class, social exclusion and education policy during New Labour’s time in office, with the bulk of its focus falling upon secondary schooling. Working against wider political, academic and popular effacements and recodifications of class, and with a particular focus upon its marginalisation within both political and academic discourses of social exclusion, both concepts are mapped out in ways which allow them to be understood in tandem and as rooted within the structures, processes and relations of society and its constitutive institutions. Qualitative in approach, and set within the ebb and flow of long running educational struggles heavily imbued with issues of class, the study uses semistructured interviews with 21 education professionals to explore the impact of the current market-based education policy regime upon the institutional structures, processes and professional practices which confront working class pupils on a daily basis. In turn, it examines the ways in which working class pupils and the shaping of their educational experiences are understood by those trained and charged to teach in an education system intimately bound to the re/production of class inequalities and social exclusion. Parallel to this, the project uses biographically orientated interviews with 17 working class young people in order to explore the variegated ways in which class and social exclusion intersect within their schooling careers as they are shaped along shifting axes through, within, and against the kinds of contexts and conditions mapped out by education professionals. The study provides key insights into the contemporary circulation of class within schools: invoked through crosscutting narratives of ‘ability’, ‘deficiency’ and ‘social constructivism’ by education professionals caught within systemic pressures to perform, and a ubiquitous facet of working class educational experience which is continually stirring, settling, straining to be re/made, and wrought through shifting layers and dimensions of in/exclusion.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / This service-paper consists of a series of demonstrations in high school physics tor the purpose of building up clearly defined understandings of particular scientific concepts, principles and applications. Although the five new demonstrations presented are not expected to cover a full course in physics, they, as a unit, can be used as a model or suggestion as to how the demonstration method can be used as an effective teaching device in physics.

This thesis explores how 'home', as both an idea and a physical space, operated in the formation and expression of popular political radicalism in late-eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. With a regional focus on London and the South Pennine areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the thesis intervenes in a rich historiography of popular radicalism in this period to argue for the importance of everyday practice in bringing together and sustaining a beleaguered movement, especially during periods of repression. In doing so, it offers new perspectives on the importance of the intersections of class and gender within radicalism, and sheds new light on the crucial and underappreciated role of women. Home could offer opportunities for political involvement, but could also restrict the emancipatory possibilities open to women in particular. The thesis unpacks ideas and practices associated with the home, including family relationships, consumer practice, and the use of objects, to expose it as an insecure and unstable site from which to launch a campaign for political legitimacy. Because 'home' was embedded in so many moralistic and political discourses, its deployment could be politically powerful, but could also hinder attempts to thoroughly rethink the social norms which underpinned classed and gendered inequalities. Throughout, however, the thesis stresses the continued unknowability of many aspects of working-class domestic life and the problematic nature of the sources we use to interrogate it, arguing for continued sustained work to unpick the diversity in the nature and meanings of home for working-class people in this period.

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The increase in direct personal investment in capital market assets by Australians over the past two decades represents an unprecedented engagement with that sector of Australian economic life. This dissertation critically investigates claims that this engagement heralds a shareholder democracy. Increased economic participation based on private direct ownership of corporate securities could be interpreted as a weak form of democratisation. Using a class-theoretical framework, the dissertation conceptualises the private shareholder phenomenon as a process of embourgeoisement and argues that the development of a macro-level mass consumer financial products market is the result of capitalist class development and expansion. A thesis of strong democratisation proffers the notion that the private shareholder, as an ascendant class of financial actor, engages with real democratic processes in addition to simply owning securities. To test this thesis the dissertation measures the extent to which small shareholders control the objective conditions under which they accumulate greater wealth by seeking evidence of potential or actual engagement with macro-market and meso-corporate level social processes. The dissertation assesses macro-level practice by drawing on the work of Bourdieu and on notions of the social field. It considers the entry of the new class of financial actor to the financial field and analyses their capacity to accumulate and deploy informational capital, and compares their ability to influence a state-sponsored economic reform process (CLERP) with that of other actors. The dissertation analyses longitudinal ownership and shareholder voting data from a set of over 30 major Australian companies. It finds that the new class of economic actor is most prevalent in privatised state-owned enterprises and mutuals. In the context of an ideal Habermasian public sphere, the study considers the potential for small shareholders to participate in meso-level, corporate agenda-setting and deliberation. Using the ideal political space of Arendt, it searches for methods of achieving democratic outcomes. The dissertation finds that while the personal ownership of tradable financial assets may constitute a weak form of economic democratisation, small shareholders?? inability to influence real outcomes, even in companies in which they constitute the majority, places substantial restrictions on the overall strength of the share ownership-as-democracy thesis.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / The Working-Class Experience in Contemporary Australian Poetry Contemporary Australian poetry neglects its working-class voices. Literary journals rarely publish poetry that focuses on working-class life and there is little analysis of the poetics of class in contemporary Australian scholarship on poetry. It may well be argued that notions of class are outdated and no longer relevant in literary criticism; alternatively, working-class poetry might be seen to lack the kind of literary merit and linguistic innovation that invites scholarly review. It may even be the case that working-class poetry is seen as closer to propaganda than art. However, this thesis takes a different view. It argues that there is a strong and vibrant body of contemporary Australian working-class poetry that merits greater public attention and more incisive critical review. We need to know if and how this poetry builds on important Australian literary traditions; we need to evaluate whether working-class poets have earned a rightful place in the contemporary poetry field. We need a poetic for analysing the cultural discourse of the working class. Therefore, this thesis offers an analysis of the content and poetics of contemporary Australian working-class poetry and of the context in which it has been produced. It presents works that to date have been ignored or dismissed by the literary mainstream. It proposes that working-class poetry can be regarded as a distinctive genre of poetry, distinguished by its themes, use of language and authors’ intentions. It argues that working-class poetry is not unsophisticated but rather a specific expressive form that provides important insights into the ways in which class relations continue to reproduce inequalities. This argument is developed by reference to literature from the discipline of working-class studies in Australia and overseas. It is supported by the literature on class relations in Australia and there is also a small body of scholarship on working-class writing that contributes to the discussion. The main body of the thesis presents the work of individual working-class poets and provides detailed readings of their works that highlight the ways in which the poems exemplify the proposed category of working-class poetry. In short, this thesis creates a poetic for approaching the academic analysis of working-class cultural discourse. The conclusions I have drawn from my analysis of poetry and lyrics are that working-class poetry displays significant literary and artistic merit, and functions not only as a way for working-class people to express themselves creatively, but also provides a valuable insight into the ways in which class affects Australians on a daily basis. It is an important cultural achievement to give full and meaningful voice to disadvantaged Australians at a time of political and cultural upheaval where class cleavages and notions of identity are in a state of flux.