The purpose of this study was to explore and describe parents' and caregivers' retrospective experiences of a higher education-rural school partnership providing educational psychology services. The study aimed to inform knowledge on community engagement with schools and forms part of the broad FLY (Flourishing Learning Youth) community engagement initiative that has been ongoing since 2006. The current study utilised interpretivism as metatheory and qualitative research as methodological paradigm. An instrumental case study design was utilised, with a specific higher education-rural school partnership conveniently sampled. Subsequently twelve parents or caregivers to a child/ren who participated in the relevant community engagement initiative at any time since 2006, were purposefully selected. Two field visits were taken for data collection purposes; the first included Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) discussions between participants, whilst the second visit entailed member checking. I relied on written recording of the participants' dialogue on PRA posters, audio recordings of their poster presentations, observations throughout the process, photographs taken and a reflective journal as data collection and documentation strategies. From thematic data analysis two main themes emerged. Firstly, participants identified the partnership as a platform of educational opportunity, which allowed for children's development on a cognitive and socio-emotional level. Secondly, participants emphasised their hope for the continuation and growth of the partnership in the future. Participants expect the partnership to broaden in multiple ways, such as involving parents and caregivers, providing them with a safe space to voice their opinions, and incorporating a parental guidance element. Based on the findings of the study I can conclude that according to parents and caregivers, community engagement with schools provides an opportunity for the mobilisation of children assets to result in their positive development. Furthermore, when additionally activating the assets of the parents, community engagement can be strengthened. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

In contrast with mainstream Canadian youth, First Nations youth experience many health disparities. Researchers recommended that interventions designed to promote First Nations youth development use a strengths-based lens that recognizes contextual challenges. Furthermore, leadership programming for First Nations youth has begun to show promising outcomes. The overall purpose of this research was to examine the Youth Leadership Program (YLP) program to gain an understanding of program implementation and perceived outcomes related to both individual and community development. Two studies were conducted to fulfil the research purpose. The first study applied a qualitative approach that examined contextual dynamics, implementation issues (Article 1) and perceived impacts (Article 2). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Overall, 12 program staff (5 females), one Elder (male) and 10 youth (8 females) participated in semi-structured interviews. In addition, 11 youth (7 females) participated in two focus groups. The data from the youth and staff were included in the first study. The focus group data was included in the second study. In Article 1, findings were categorized into strategies for success and challenges. The following six themes were identified within the strategies for success: (a) designing youth engagement strategies, (b) being creative and adaptable, (c) being a positive presence, (d) applying experiential learning techniques, (e) balancing the integration of culture with youth voice and (f) identifying partnerships and developing relationships with the community. The three themes relating to challenges were (a) community diversity, (b) social issues and (c) staff burn-out. In Article 2, data analysis resulted in three themes that describe the perceived program effects at the participant, staff and community levels. The three major themes include: a) progressive leadership development, b) enhanced relationships and c) increased community participation. Within the second study (Article 3), methods were based on youth participatory evaluation and Photovoice and the design included capacity building, stakeholder analysis, photo exploration and utilization-focused activities. Using a thematic analysis, five themes were identified: (a) fun and fulfilling to engage the children, (b) positive outcomes for youth leaders, (c) community impacts, (d) challenges and (e) opportunities for improvement. Findings for each study are discussed in relation to current theory and practice, and recommendations are provided for future research and programming. This research makes contributions to applied positive youth development programming, community-based research with First Nations youth, youth-led participatory research and developmental systems theory.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the formal institutionalization of Chicana/o Studies programs in four-year colleges and universities between 1970 and the present, and of how variations in institutionalization create different community engagement dynamics for Latina/o populations both on- and off-campus. This research examines the impact of program and university-level characteristics on the formal institutionalization of these programs and the embedding of community engagement within program mission statements. Moreover, the dissertation examines tensions, balancing acts, and trade-offs between achieving program stability and satisfying legitimizing demands of academic labor. Program-level characteristics include formal classification as either a Chicana/o Studies program or cognate (e.g., Mexican American Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American Studies, etc.) or a more generalist ethnic studies program (e.g., ethnic studies, cultural studies, American Studies, etc.). University-level characteristics include locus of control (i.e., public or private universities), institutional wealth, total student body and minority enrollments, histories of campus protest, and regional diffusion. The findings indicate complex and distinguishable relationships among program classification, formal program institutionalization, and community engagement prospects; and that predictors for institutionalization partially predict efforts to work with minority populations off-campus. Complicating these relationships suggests a need to consider variations in program-level institutionalization and dedicate future work to this level.

The waterfront community of Sydhavn in Copenhagen, Denmark is architecturally praised, but also criticized for its lack of public green space. Residents in the area have self-organized a community gardening initiative to combat this lack of greenery. The thesis aims to explore this occurrence by providing an analysis of the attitudes and behaviors towards social and environmental aspects of sustainability and individual residents’ resistance or support towards community gardening initiatives. The research design is based on quantitative methods with an exploratory purpose, using an online survey methodology. The main findings show that there is an association among knowledge of sustainability concepts, sustainable attitudes and behaviors, and interest in community gardening participation in the study population. Moreover, individuals who indicate no interest in community gardening lack a desire to join in the future, although they may be encouraged to do so with more education and advertisement. Generally, the study population feels positively towards community gardening and feels there is a need for it in the area. Further research may investigate aspects such as politics and policies related to community gardening and replicate a similar study in a different sociodemographic context to see how the results differ. The results of this study have practical implications for academics, built environment practitioners, and community gardening organizers.

In the field of planning, there is widespread consensus that the mechanisms in which most planners use to engage with the public are ineffective and exclusive. Although there has been much work done on the techniques planners can adopt to reach out to underrepresented segments of the community, few municipalities have adopted them. This thesis seeks to advance the conversation on public participation beyond the mechanisms and into a discussion of why only certain communities are implementing these more progressive, efficient, effective, and equitable measures. By depicting how public participation functions as a system of interconnected paths and feedback loops, the author identifies twelve places in the system (i.e. leverage points) that could make participation more inclusive. The author tested the applicability of the leverage points by applying this Systems Theory framework to two inclusive participation initiatives in Amherst, Massachusetts and Vallejo, California. Through interviews and documentary research, the author found the framework to be effective in conceptualizing how communities become more inclusive and how participatory mechanisms can help shift the roles citizens, public managers, and planners have in the planning process.

abstract: Urban heat is a growing problem that impacts public health, water and energy use, and the economy and affects population subgroups differently. Exposure and sensitivity, two key factors in determining vulnerability, have been widely researched. This dissertation focuses on the adaptive capacity component of heat vulnerability at the individual, household, and community scale. Using a mixed methods approach and metropolitan Phoenix as a test site, I explored how vulnerable communities understand and adapt to increasing extreme urban heat to uncover adaptive capacity that is not being operationalized well through current heat vulnerability frameworks. Twenty-three open-ended interviews were conducted where residents were encouraged to tell their stories about past and present extreme heat adaptive capacity behaviors. A community-based participatory research project consisting of three workshops and demonstration projects was piloted in three underserved neighborhoods to address urban heat on a local scale and collaboratively create community heat action plans. Last, a practitioner stakeholder meeting was held to discuss how the heat action plans will be integrated into other community efforts. Using data from the interviews, workshops, and stakeholder meeting, social capital was examined in the context of urban heat. Although social capital has been measured in a multitude of ways to gauge social relationships, trust, and reciprocity within a community, it is situational and reflects a position within the formal and informal aspects of any issue. Three narratives emerged from the interviews illuminating differentiated capacities to cope with urban heat: heat is an inconvenience, heat is a manageable problem, and heat is a catastrophe. For each of these narratives, generic adaptive capacity is impacted differently by specific heat adaptive capacity. The heat action plan workshops generated hyper-local heat solutions that reflected the neighborhoods’ different identities. Community-based organizations were instrumental in the success of this program. Social capital indicators were developed specific to urban heat that rely on heavily on family and personal relationships, attitudes and beliefs, perceived support, network size and community engagement. This research highlights how extreme heat vulnerability may need to be rethought to capture adaptive capacity nuances and the dynamic structure of who is vulnerable under what circumstances. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019

The present study was inspired by Human-Vogel and Dippenaar’s (2013) research, which examined pre-service teachers’ commitment to community engagement in their second year of study. Human-Vogel and Dippenaar 2013 found that personal justice beliefs were independent of the pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards service learning. These puzzling findings necessitated further investigation and formed the basis of the rationale for my study. I was furthermore intrigued by the number of mentions made of social justice in connection with community engagement, evoking my interest in this concept and the role that social justice plays in service learning. In the present study I explored pre-service teachers’ experience with social justice during their service learning activities, examining the ways in which they dealt with social justice issues during their interactions in the different settings. A qualitative research approach was applied guided by an interpretivist paradigm. I made use of an ex post facto instrumental case study design and four pre-service teachers were conveniently and purposively selected for the present the study. The criteria for selection was that the participants must have been involved in the Human-Vogel and Dippenaar’s (2013) research and were willing and available to participate in the present study. The data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis was utilized during the data analysis. In the present study five themes emerged as a result of the thematic analysis and interpretation. Firstly the pre-service teachers were able to provide their individual conceptualisation of justice. Under this theme they gave their individual definitions of personal and social justice and also provided examples of these concepts. Secondly, the pre-service teachers reported on their overall service learning experiences and these included the negative and positive aspects. Thirdly, there were barriers faced by the pre-service teachers during service learning activities. These included a lack of preparation and structure in the service learning activities, expectation versus reality of the service learning experiences, language barriers, lack of resources in the community, security concerns, and issues of stereo-types and assumptions. Fourthly, the pre-service teachers discussed issues of justice and social change. They were able to discuss issues related to social injustices experienced in the community, the availability and accessibility to justice structures as well as their being a voice to the voice-less. These aspects were discussed with the aim that such could be examined and used to bring about social change in the community. Lastly, the pre-service teachers provided recommendations in the form of Support structures needed by pre-service teachers in future service learning activities. They suggested that in future other pre-service teachers could benefit from preparation for the service learning module, monitoring of the service learning activities, guidelines and structure in the service learning and debriefing during and after the service learning. / Mini-dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

The purpose of the study was to explore researcher experiences of community engagement as part of a long-term higher education community engagement (HECE) partnership with rural schools. The theoretical framework that guided the study was grounded in the construct global citizenship. The instrumental case design followed the qualitative approach from a constructivist epistemology. Semi-structured questionnaires were used for data collection with purposively sampled researchers (n=16), comprising male (n=3) and female (n=13) researchers, including local (n=14) and international (n=2) researchers, who completed their research in the conveniently sampled HECE project. Following thematic analysis, two main themes emerged, namely: researcher perspectives on capacity development in higher education community engagement, and researcher perspectives on higher education community engagement as a core function of higher education institutions. Findings indicated, from researchers’ perspectives, that HECE benefits from collaborative partnerships, and that researchers have opportunities for personal and professional development. Researchers felt that such capacity development was necessary to ensure project sustainability. According to researchers, HECE project challenges or barriers need to be addressed to ensure project sustainability. Higher education requires a community engagement policy that guides the establishment of platforms for knowledge generation, human capacity development and collaborative partnerships in order that the core functions of higher education institutions could be performed. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

The music business is one of the industries most affected by digitalization of content and distribution channels. As industry revenue shifted from principally physical to digital channels in 2015, while being the business with the largest presence and most popular accounts in virtually all social media platforms - the current state of the music industry is change. This has led industry professionals into searching for new and innovating ways of reimagining the business model of music distribution. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the potential of video live-streaming as an addition to the current social media channels used to market artists. This was done through looking into what industry professionals think of the subject in terms of strategic reasoning and potential, observing an interactive live-stream with a Swedish boy band, and a questionnaire directed towards end-users and listeners of Swedish popular artists to define what their stance is towards music-related social media in general, and live-streaming in particular. The findings show that live-streaming certainly has a gap to fill in the social media tool-box at music companies through facilitating the defining process of superfans based on data analysis gathered from live-stream consumers, and that the channel has potential to create engagement beyond that of other social media platforms. Furthermore, end-users want to consume more live-stream content from Swedish artists. They want content that feels more personal and revealing, while utilizing the abstract feeling of “here and now” in order for it to be more interesting than other content on social media - something that the music industry professionals agree is important in live-streamed music content. / Musikbranschen är en av de branscher där digitaliseringen av innehålls- och distributionskanaler haft störst påverkan. Industrins inkomst skiftar från att huvudsakligen komma från fysiska till digitala kanaler samtidigt som musikbranschen har den största närvaron och de mest populära kontona i praktiskt taget alla sociala medier - musikindustrins nuvarande tillstånd är förändring. Detta har lett branschfolk in i letandet efter nya och innovativa sätt att återuppfinna affärsmodellen för musikdistribution. Således är syftet med denna studie att undersöka potentialen för video live-streaming som ett tillägg till de nuvarande sociala media-plattformar som används för att marknadsföra artister. Detta gjordes genom att titta på vad branschfolk tycker om ämnet vad gäller strategiska resonemang och potential, observera en interaktiv live-stream med ett svenskt pojkband, samt en enkät riktad till användare och lyssnare av svenska populära artister för att definiera vad deras inställning är till musikrelaterat innehåll i sociala medier i allmänhet, och live-streaming i synnerhet. Resultaten visar att live-streaming har en lucka att fylla i musikföretagens sociala medier-verktygslåda genom att underlätta definitionsprocessen av superfans baserat på dataanalys som samlats in från lives-streams, och att kanalen har potential att skapa engagemang utöver det som genereras av andra sociala medierna. Dessutom vill användare konsumera mer live-stream-innehåll från svenska artister. De vill ha innehåll som känns mer personligt och avslöjande, samtidigt som man utnyttjar den abstrakta känsla av "här och nu" för att det ska vara mer intressant än annat innehåll på sociala medier - något som musikindustrins yrkesverksamma också tycker är viktigt i live-streamat musikinnehåll.

This thesis focuses on areas prone to inland floods and more specifically on the municipality of Acharnes, Attica, Greece. Usually, flood risk management strategies are treated as an engineering problem. Here, the floodplains/wetlands are going to be addressed as an asset and reveal the role of the landscape as a dynamic way for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, such an approach can also offer potentials not only for water quality and management but also for benefiting the public spaces and open a discussion concerning awareness and engagement. Within the context of Attica, flood prone areas are not only ecologically deprived but also places of inequalities and loose social capacities. Acharnes is not an exception. Thus, the vision of this thesis is to investigate an alternative way for flood resistance by incorporating tools and methods capable of strengthening local communities. The thesis will investigate the following questions: •How can cities adapt to water issues and how can public space be used towards this end? •Can design for flood management be incorporated into a greater strategy connected to building relations?