The purpose of this paper is the development of a model to investigate possible causal relationships among some of the commonly reported risk factors for the development of osteoporosis and consequential hip fracture. Comparison of hip fracture incidence between women of primarily European descent, referred to in the literature as Caucasians, and Japanese women is made. Studies report the incidence of hip fractures among Japanese women is lower than among Caucasian women. Numerous factors related to the development of osteoporosis are significantly different between Japan and the United States. The model helps explain the interrelationships among the variables involved in this observed geographical variation in hip fracture incidence. / Department of Anthropology

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the perceptions of urban parents of two countries concerning standards of selected criteria of high quality standards of early childhood programs developed by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs (NAECP).Two hundred and forty nine parents ( U. S. = 129, Taiwan = 120) participated in the study. The effects of country, sex, and educational background were examined.The study was conducted by using the questionnaire survey. The instrument was constructed by the researcher based on the Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs.A three-way.MANOVA on 10 dependent variables with independent factors of country, sex, and educational background was used to test Hypothesis I at the .05 level of significance. The Hypothesis I was rejected.To test Hypothesis II, a Spearman's Rho rank order correlation coefficient was computed using the mean ranks of the 10 criteria. Significance was examined at the .05 level. The Hypothesis II was accepted.These findings leading to the following conclusions:1. American and Taiwanese parents shared the similar perceptions that supported the quality standards developed by the NAECP. Most of the statistically differences that existed between American and Taiwanese parents were the differences of the degree of acceptance of the quality standards.2. The only criterion that caused parents' selections to lean toward negative responses was the staffing standards.3. Whenever there was a statistically significant difference between American and Taiwanese parents, the Taiwanese parents were always agreed more than the American parents.4. Regardless of factors of sex and educational background, both American and Taiwanese parents shared similar values in that they ranked health-and-safety and teacher-child interactions as the first or second important factors.5. Regardless of the factors of sex and educational background, both American and Taiwanese parents shared the same values in that they ranked administration and evaluations as the two least important factors when selecting an early childhood program for their children. / Department of Elementary Education

This thesis expands on primary field research conducted for my MMus degree. Undertaken in the Saharaui refugee camps of southern Algeria (2004-2005) that research - based on ethnographic data and the analysis of Saharaui music, known as Haul ¹- focussed on the musical system, the social context of musical performance and the music culture in Saharaui refugee camps. This doctoral research examines Saharaui Haul music as practised in Spain and is particularly focussed on its entry, since 1998, into the global market by way of the World Music label, Nubenegra records. The encounter between Saharaui musicians and Nubenegra records has created a new type of Saharaui Haul which is different to that played in the refugee camps. This phenomenon has emerged as a result of western music producers compelling Saharaui musicians to introduce musical changes so that both parties may be considered as musical agents occupying different positions on a continuum of tradition and change. Nubenegra undertook the commodification of Saharaui music and disseminated it from the camps to the rest of the world. A musical and social analysis of the relationship between Nubenegra and Saharaui musicians living in Spain will form the basis of the research in this thesis. In particular, Mariem Hassan is an example of a musician who had her music disseminated through the relationship with Nubenegra and she is promoted as the music ambassador of the Western Sahara. I collaborated with her as a composer and performer on her last album, El Aaiun egdat (Aaiun in fire), in 2012² and gained first hand insight into the relationship between Mariem and Nubenegra. This thesis reflects on this relationship and my role in facilitating this encounter.

M.Ed. (Educational Linguistics) / This research project has two primary focuses. The first focus explores home literacy practices of Turkish immigrant children in South Africa, who are learning the English language in the school context to be able to carry on their education in the country, and how congruent these home literacy practices are with the school literacy practices. To be able to discover this, I studied their experiences with family members in their homes, as well their experiences in the school setting. The second focus is the parental involvement of Turkish immigrant parents’ in the schooling of their children and how their being involved can be facilitated for more effective communication between parents and the school. To explore this area, my project is framed by two broad theories of literacy: literacy as social practice and immigrant literacies. In this study two sets of data were collected: the primary data were interviews conducted with immigrant children, their parents and the teachers, while observations made up the secondary component of my data. The data was analysed by using content analysis. This helped me code the data into six manageable themes, which produced a collection of findings regarding immigrant children’s home literacy practices which are different from the school literacy, their experiences at school in their process of adaptation, and parental involvement in the school activities. The acknowledged themes of this research are clearly interrelated: feelings of Turkish immigrant children before coming to South Africa, their experiences regarding language learning, home literacy practices, the school’s view on immigrant children, segregation between local and immigrant children and parental involvement. The results of this research project were stimulating and displayed that how the literacy practices of immigrant children differ in different contexts such as home and school and in what ways the school can build on them to facilitate adaptation and language learning for them, as well as the new ways to promote immigrant parents’ actively partaking in the school activities.

M.A. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. (Political Science) / Recent studies in a diversity of social science disciplines indicate the growing importance of cross-cultural attitude surveys; and the central theme of this dissertation is the methodological implications thereof. This study aims (1) to make a contribution to the relatively small number of studies ,in South-Africa on the subject of Political Science research methodology, and' (2) to analyze systematically the methodological problems of cross-cultural research into political attitudes. The research problem was formulated as follows: How should cross-cultural survey research of a political nature be planned, structured and conducted to ensure reliability, validity and objectivity? The focus throughout the dissertation, was on two dimensions of the research process namely (1) research design and (2) data-collection, the latter being further divided in two main categories: instrument construction and instrument implementation. A theoretical framework (Chapter 2) was developed incorporating the different methodological factors to be taken into: account when designing and implementing a research project. This framework was applied to (1) survey research in general (Chapter 3), and (2) cross-cultural political attitude surveys (Chapter 4), Special attention was given to research conducted in South Africa. The last chapter contains (1) a summary of the most important considerations relevant to cross-cultural attitude research, and (2) an overview of the main problems of cross-cultural political attitude research in South Africa. The main finding of the study is that in cross-cultural attitude research in South Africa, too little attention is given to methodological issues - both in designing and implementing research projects. In particular, the explication of methodological issues and procedures in research articles and reports is recommended.

A comprehensive battery of commonly used neuropsychological tests, including the WMS Associate Learning and Visual Reproduction subtests, forming the focus of this study, were administered to a southern African sample (n = 33, age range 18-40). This sample composed of black South African, IsiXhosa speakers with an educational level of Grade 11 and 12, derived through DET and former DET schooling. The gender demographics were as follows; females n = 21 and males n = 12. This sample was purposefully selected based on current cross-cultural research which suggests that individuals matching these above-mentioned demographics are significantly disadvantaged when compared to available neuropsychological norms. This is due to the fact that current norms have been created in contexts with socio-cultural influences; including culture, language and quantity and quality of education distinctly dissimilar to individuals like that composed in the sample. Hence the purpose of this study was fourfold namely; 1) Describe and consider socio-cultural factors and the influence on test performance 2) Provide descriptive and preliminary normative data on this neuropsychologically underrepresented population 3) Compare test performance between age and gender through stratification of the sample and finally to 4) Evaluate the current norms of the two WMS subtests and assess their validity for black South Africans with DET and former DET schooling with comparisons to the results found in the study. Information derived from the statistical analyses indicated that a higher performance in favour of the younger group over the older age range was consistently found for both WMS subtests. With regards to gender, some higher means were evident for the male population in the sample than was produced by the female group. Lastly, due to the fact that most scores derived from the sample were considerably lower when compared to the available norms, it is felt that socio-cultural factors prevalent to this population are a significant cause of lower test performance and thus warrant the development of appropriate normative indicators.

The purpose of this study was to compare the WISC-R subtest score scatter patterns and obtain preliminary normative data on the WISC-R Adjunctive tests (Digit Span Forward; Digit Span Backward; Digit Supraspan; Coding Immediate Recall and Coding Delayed Recall) on a non-clinical population of South African English (n= 15) and Xhosa (n= 12) speaking, standard six children, studying in English medium schools. Tests were administered to 27 subjects, both male (n=19) and female (n=8), with a mean age of 14.1 years (range = 13.3-15.3). The results show that White English speaking children outperform Black Xhosa speaking children on Verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQs and all subtests, but that these differences tended to disappear when Full Scale IQ and school grade average were controlled for. No subtest score scatter was present for either group although more specific test items appeared to be more difficult for Xhosa speaking subjects and may have contributed to generally lowered scores. Results suggest that caution must be employed in assigning Xhosa speaking South African children to absolute IQ categories. However, the WISC-R has validity for diagnostic use on both White English speaking and Black Xhosa speaking South African children as there was no evidence of a significant Verbal IQ/Performance IQ discrepancy, or significant low subtest scatter for either group. Normative tables are presented for the use of WISC-R Adjunctive tests. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Cross-cultural assessment in South Africa has become more prominent since the first democratic elections held in April 1994, as stronger demands for the cultural appropriateness of psychological tests have been made. The use of psychometric testing, including personality assessment in the workplace, is now strictly controlled by legislation, among others the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996), the Labour Relations Act (66 of 1995), and the Employment Equity Act (55 of 1998), and the Health Professions Act (56 of 1974). The present study forms part of the development process of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI), which seeks to explore the indigenous personality structure of all the 11 official language groups found in South Africa and to then develop a personality inventory based on this. The present study aimed to explore and describe the personality facets and clusters that were found among a sample of 95 Xhosa-speaking South Africans. An exploratory descriptive research method was used and participants were selected by means of non-probability purposive sampling. Data were gathered by administering a biographical questionnaire and a tape-recorded 10- item interview questionnaire. Content analysis was used to analyse and reduce the data obtained from interviews into personality descriptors. Of the 1872 personality-descriptive words obtained from the interview questions, 164 facets of different personality characteristics were finally configured as a consequence of a data-reduction process. These facets were further categorised into a total of 37 personality sub-clusters and nine personality clusters which were labelled as Extraversion, Soft-heartedness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Intellect, Openness, Integrity, Relationship Harmony and Facilitating. These clusters and their sub-clusters resonate well with significant aspects and values of the Xhosa culture (e.g., Ubuntu). There also seems to be a moderate correspondence between the clusters and sub-clusters identified in the Xhosa-speaking sample and factors of the Five-Factor Model, especially with respect to the six clusters of Extraversion, Soft-heartedness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Intellect, and Openness. Nonetheless, differences in the composition of the clusters/facets were found, some of which are due to the more unique facets and sub-facets of personality identified in the Xhosa-speaking sample. The limitations of the study are identified and suggestions are made for further research.

The present study focused on changes over time in university-level Japanese students' sociocultural perceptions of social status during their year abroad in Canada, and the impact of such altered perceptions on their perceptions at subsequent time points. The sociocultural perception to be examined was perceived "social status" which Brown and Levinson (1987) discussed as a contributory factor in the perception of social asymmetry, power and authority. The study attempted to examine (1) whether (and to what extent) Japanese students, before they came to study in Canada, had recognized English native speakers' understanding of social status and had learned how to offer advice appropriately in English to individuals of various social statuses, (2) what proportion of differential pragmatic development among Japanese students in Canada was accounted for by their English proficiency and amount of exposure to English, and (3) whether (and to what extent) living and studying in Canada facilitated Japanese students' pragmatic development, which was assessed by the degree of approximation to native speech act behavior in various advice-giving situations repeated during the course of an academic year. To this end, the study compared the development of Japanese exchange students' pragmatic competence during their year abroad in Canada with peers in Japan who did not undertake a year abroad. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate