Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

D.Litt. et Phil. / Although PMS has been described almost since the beginning of the written history of medicine, it is still not completely understood. There are many theories about its causation and treatment, and a proliferation of symptoms are ascribed to it. The prevalence of PMS in relation to the total population is still unknown, because premenstrual symptoms or a combination of these range from almost 25% to 100% amongst women. Furthermore, different criteria for the assessment of the prevalence of PMS are used by different researchers. Researchers are in agreement, however, that no single definition for PMS exists. Some women experience mainly psychological symptoms, while others present predominantly physical symptoms. Very little is known of the prognosis of the natural history of PMS. The precise causes of menstrually-related distress is not known, although much has been written about the role that nutrition plays in PMS. A direct relationship has not been identified between individual levels of, and changes in, oestrogen and progesterone alone, and the reported psychological, behavioural and physical changes associated with the cycle. Certain observable behaviours are associated with the premenstrual phase of the cycle, such as aggressive and illness behaviour. An important aspect is the link between premenstrual changes and psychopathology, especially mood disorders. Many researchers report a positive association between premenstrual changes and mood disorders, especially depressive disorders. Women suffering from depressive disorders are reported to frequently experience a premenstrual exacerbation of symptoms and a deterioration in functioning. Most studies have found that women report both psychological and somatic symptoms. The psychological symptoms are, owever, more commonly reported and have also been found to be more distressing for women. In respect of aetiological theories, the literature shows a major subdivision between the biological causes and the psychological basis. Potential causes, according to a biological approach include abnormalities in gonadal steroids, excessive fluid retention, hypoglycemia, abnormalities in prostaglandin metabolism, allergy to endogenous hormones and endogenous opiate withdrawal. Research results in each of these areas are conflicting and conclusions reached are speculative. Most psychological aetiologies originate from the psychoanalytical school and include a rejection or resentment of the feminine role, as well as a repressed wish for a child. At present, the psychoanalytical theories have not been supported by controlled studies and, therefore, still remain speculative. The uncertainty of the causes of PMS is reflected in the numerous treatments proposed in the literature. A review of the literature shows that treatment for PMS is generally given indiscriminately for a divergent group of symptoms, without regard for the fact that growing evidence suggests that the Syndrome is made up of a variety of distinct, but related, symptoms. A girl's first menstruation is a developmental milestone with psychological and physiological concomitants. Adolescents of both sexes tend to view menstruation negatively. Many adolescents associate menstruation with dysmenorrhea. Studies have shown that up to 91% of girls report dysmenorrhea, and it is also the leading cause of recurrent short-term school absenteeism among adolescent girls. Dysmenorrhea cannot be ignored, as it leads to a loss in self-esteem, with all the accompanying problems. If an adolescent does not get help with her PMS symptoms, she may be negatively affected. The purpose of the present study was to cross-culturally investigate the psychological concomitants of the premenstrual symptomatology in adolescent girls. Four hypotheses were tested: In an analysis of symptoms associated with PMS, a single factor reflecting will emerge to account for a significant percentage of the variance observed; Dysmenorrhic adolescents will experience a greater number of negative premenstrual symptoms than non-dysmenorrhic adolescents; Adolescents experiencing a number of negative premenstrual symptoms will report lower self-esteem; Adolescents of different cultural groups will report PMS symptoms that are IV commensurate with their culturally-based health beliefs. In order to test these hypotheses, one hundred and twenty five adolescent girls of all race groups, between 13 and 18 years of age, who were not taking any contraceptive, participated in the study. The Premenstrual Assessment Form (PAF) and the Index of Self-Esteem (ISE) were used. Physical and emotional discomfort emerged as two clear interpretable factors. It would appear that for this sample, PMS is not a unitary phenomenon, but consists of dual factors which are depended on cultural expectations. By observing dysmenorrhic and nondysmenorrhic adolescent girls, it was found that dysmenorrhic girls manifested a significantly higher degree of low mood and loss of pleasure, "endogenous" depressive features, lability, "atypical" depressive features, hysteroid features, hostility and anger, social withdrawal, anxiety, impulsivity, organic mental features, general physical discomfort, water retention, autonomic physical changes, fatigue, impaired social functioning, impaired miscellaneous mood and behaviour changes and miscellaneous physical changes than non-dysmenorrhic girls. Non-dysmenorrhic girls showed a significantly higher degree of well-being when compared with dysmenorrhic girls. Thus, the present study supported the findings of previous research which suggested that dysmenorrhic girls will experience more negative premenstrual symptoms than nondysmenorrhic girls. In respect of self-esteem, girls reporting a number of negative premenstrual symptoms were found to have a lower self-esteem than those reporting fewer negative premenstrual symptoms. In respect of culture, it was found that culture seemed to play a role in the girls' perceived experiences of PMS. The present study indicates that adolescent girls do experience many negative symptoms and, if these are not adequately dealt with, they may adversely affect them in adulthood.

M.A. / Although all forms of apartheid control legislation have been repealed and the Constitution and Bill of Rights adopted, it is questionable in what way these principles of equality and non-discrimination are effectively implemented and whether changes have occurred in practice. Chapter one therefore provides an overview of the study. The discussion of legislation viz. the Constitution, the Equality Clause and Employment Equity Act urges the elimination of discrimination and the implementation of equality. The legacy of policing also provides the challenge to change. Several SAPS policies and directives such as the SAPS Policy Document on Affirmative Action and Fundamental Equality Directives in theory indicate the movement towards change and initiatives to implement equality and eliminate discrimination. It is therefore impressive to have legislation, policies and directives, but the question is in what way these are effectively being implemented and whether one can notice a change in the actual behaviour of police officials. Equality and non-discrimination, which are at the heart of effective policing, underpin good community and human relations. It is important to assess in what way the SA police culture and working climate have changed from a traditional partisan and discriminatory approach to a service provider that celebrates diversity and human rights. The research therefore investigates in what way the rhetoric of equality and non-discrimination have been implemented and its effect on individuals in a policing environment. The perceived gap between policy legislation and reality in practice was a further motivational aspect of the study, as policy alone will not ensure the implementation of equality principles. The goal and objectives of the study narrow the focus and the presentation of definitions provides further clarity. The research nature for this study was primarily explorative, and also descriptive. The goal of the study was to explore and describe police officials' experience and behaviour in the implementation of equality and the elimination of discriminatory practices in the working environment at police station level during the period 1996-7. This research was primarily of a qualitative nature and a single embedded case study design strategy was used. The unit /item of analysis or sampling element was police officials working under the jurisdiction of one specific police station in Gauteng. The demographic profile and characteristics of the police officials in the study sample was presented and analysed quantitatively (SSPS descriptive statistics according to frequency counts and cross tabulations) and achieved the first secondary objective of exploring and describing the level of representivity at the police station being studied. A non-probability sampling method - based on convenience and reliance on available subjects - was the primary sampling strategy used. Other secondary types of sampling used in this study were snowball or chain, confirming and disconfirming cases, opportunistic, and a combination or mixed strategies.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Research reveals that the level as well as the quality of education plays a role in the determination of an individual's intellectual capacity. Substantial differences in quality of education for black and white individuals were experienced in South Africa due to Apartheid. Compared to the traditionally white Private and Model C schools, Township/ DET schools had limited resources, as well as a separate syllabus and examination system, a situation that has not improved substantially since democratisation in 1994. Research on black South African adults with the WAIS-III has confirmed significant influences on IQ in association with exposure to either such advantaged (Private/Model C) schooling, or disadvantaged (Township/DET) schooling. However to date there has been no published research on the use of the Wechsler intelligence tests on a black South African child population similarly stratified for quality of education. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, the latest Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV) was administered to a sample of 36 Grade 7 learners between the ages of 12-13 (mean 13.01 years), stratified for quality of education to form three comparative groups. Data analyses revealed significant differences on the WISC-IV Factor Indices and Full Scale IQ with the English speaking Private/Model C school group performing the best, followed by the Xhosa speaking Private/ Model C school group, and the Xhosa speaking Township/ DET school group performing the worst. This continuum of lowering is understood to occur abreast of a continuum of decreased exposure to relatively advantaged education. These normative indications are considered to have vital implications for the use of the WISC-IV in the South African cross-cultural situation where vastly differential educational opportunities continue to exist.

Chinese presence in Africa has been rapidly increasing in the past few years and has been speculated to be mainly due to China seeking Africa’s political alliance and access to Africa’s natural resources and growing consumer markets. The growing presence of Chinese organisations in Africa, however, has not been without its challenges. In particular, Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) in search of consumer markets in Africa have been cited as facing human resource (HR) challenges which may affect their organisational performance. In this regard, literature on human resource management has already established the important role of organisational culture, HR practices and organisational commitment in enabling organisations to achieve superior organisational performance. Given the fact that there is currently little research knowledge of Chinese presence in Africa at the organisational level, this research aimed to contribute empirical knowledge to the growing body of research in this area. Specifically, the main purpose of this research was to examine how the organisational culture of a Chinese MNC’s South African subsidiary has shaped the nature of its high commitment work system (HCWS) and to assess the consequences thereof on organisational commitment. In alignment with the phenomenological paradigm, the research applied a descriptive and explanatory case study methodology in order to generate rich, qualitative data which was required for in-depth descriptions and to uncover the underlying interactions of the researched phenomena at the subsidiary. The selected case for the research was, therefore, a Chinese MNC operating in the personal computer (PC) industry, which had expanded its operations to South Africa in order to reach Africa’s growing consumer markets. In particular, the South African subsidiary served as a PC sales and distribution organisation for the Chinese MNC. There were about 40 employees at the subsidiary who were all South African employees. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve employees from different job functions and across different job levels. Data collection was guided by the theoretical frameworks by Cameron and Freeman (1991) for organisational culture and Xiao and Bjorkman (2006) for the HCWS and organisational commitment. The data collected from interviews was then analysed through a qualitative, content analysis process. The findings of the research thus pointed to the market culture as the dominant organisational culture type at the South African subsidiary of the Chinese MNC; characteristics of the adhocracy and clan cultures were also discovered. The externally oriented market culture was found to be the most relevant for the high performance and market leadership aspirations of the subsidiary. The market culture also appears to be the most appropriate organisational culture that would enable the subsidiary to deal with the competitive nature of the PC industry. Furthermore, it was found that certain cultural values emphasised by the Confucian and Ubuntu value systems could have had a part to play in the formation of the subsidiary’s organisational culture. The market culture was also found to have had the greatest influence in shaping the primarily performance oriented HCWS practices. Of the investigated HR practices at the subsidiary, all were found to be consistent with HCWS practices, with the exception of ownership practices and the performance appraisal system. Finally, although there were generally high levels of organisational commitment reported at the subsidiary, other job and organisational context factors besides the HCWS practices were found to be the major contributors to those feelings of organisational commitment. By investigating the organisational culture, HCWS and organisational commitment of a Chinese MNC in South Africa, this research has added to the body of knowledge concerning the growing presence of Chinese organisations in Africa. Based on the empirical findings of this study, several recommendations have been made in an attempt to assist the Chinese MNC manage the organisational commitment of its South African employees towards superior organisational performance.

his study builds on South African cross-cultural research which demonstrated the importance of careful stratification of multicultural/multilingual normative samples for quality of education in respect of English and African language (predominantly Xhosa) speaking adults and children tested with the WAIS-III and WISC-IV, respectively. The aim of the present study was to produce an expanded set of preliminary comparative norms on the WISC-IV for white and coloured Afrikaans, white English and black Xhosa speaking Grade 7 children, aged 12 to 13 years, stratified for advantaged versus disadvantaged education. The results of this study replicate the findings of the prior South African cross-cultural studies in respect of quality of education, as groups with advantaged private/former Model C schooling outperformed those with disadvantaged former DET or HOR township schooling. Furthermore, a downward continuum of WISC-IV IQ test performance emerged as follows: 1) white English advantaged (high average), 2) white Afrikaans advantaged and black Xhosa advantaged (average), 3) coloured Afrikaans advantaged (below average), 4) black Xhosa disadvantaged (borderline), and 5) coloured Afrikaans disadvantaged (extremely low). The present study has demonstrated that while language and ethnic variables reveal subtle effects on IQ test performance, quality of education has the most significant effect – impacting significantly on verbal performance with this effect replicated in respect of the FSIQ. Therefore caution should be exercised in interpreting test results of individuals from different language/ethnic groups, and in particular those with disadvantaged schooling, as preliminary data suggest that these individuals achieve scores which are 20 – 35 points lower than the UK standardisation.

The increase in teenage pregnancy among school going learners is reported in the media as a crisis. Politicians and other stakeholders have also raised their views and concerns about pregnancy. In particular, these views and concerns perceive teenage pregnancy among school going learners as a cancer that needs a remedy because it has negative consequences for the learners, in particular the girl child. However, for all the sense of public crisis concerning sexuality and schooling, the voices of young people themselves regarding their own sexual subjectivity are seldom heard. This study focused on how girls in a former model C all girls high school negotiate and make sense of the meaning of the messages that they receive from the formal curriculum. The concept of student sexual cultures was employed in this study. Student sexual cultures are the informal groups that exist in the school and the girls take part in it. It is in these groups that the girls learn about sexuality and also make sense of their own gendered identities. This study employed ethnographic techniques of classroom observation coupled with in-depth interviews, focus groups and solicited narratives in order to understand how the participants experience and "take up" the messages they receive in the formal sexuality education component of the Life Orientation (LO) curriculum. The data was collected over a period of three months and was analysed using a directed content analysis. Four dominant themes emerged from the study. Firstly, the data reveals the school is a space of competing and conflicting discourses of sexuality and the learners are involved in a constant negotiation of the meanings of the messages. Secondly, the data shows the contested and confirmations of learners subjectivity. It shows that learners are regarded as sexual beings both in the formal and informal school cultures but there are limitations around one's sexual subjectivities. Thirdly, the data reveals that the school is a site in which a variety of femininities are reproduced, contested and struggled over. Femininities are constructed in the complex context of the school thus the school emerges as a site in which multiple femininities intersect with class, race and sexuality. Lastly, this study argues for the incorporation of the discourse of erotics in the formal curriculum which allows young people's voices to be heard. This approach (discourse of erotics) can be seen as a process of becoming, which focuses on possibilities of improving sexuality education as opposed to an imposed sexual model that is applied to young people and assumed to be the solution to young people's sexuality.

Managing cultural differences in today’s work environment has received the attention of researchers all over the world. What has received far less attention is the managing of the cultural differences between service provider workers and customers and how this is perceived to lead to achieving great service quality. This research project focuses on the cultural differences between culturally diverse South African service provider workers and South African customers, with some reference to international customers. The questionnaire used in this research includes questions embodying the service quality instruments developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988) and Hofstede’s (1991) cultural dimensions. The questionnaire was completed by 81 students of the East Cape Midland College in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. A Pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated for each service quality instrument and each cultural dimension. The resulting correlation coefficients were analysed and a positive or negative correlation between each service quality instrument and each cultural dimension is shown. The implications of each positive and negative correlation are shown and how it impacts on perceived service quality delivery. The implications for service quality management are shown, followed by recommendations for the management of a culturally diverse workforce.

This study explores the cultural adjustment of the domestic partners of German expatriates working in the Nelson Mandela Bay automotive industry of South Africa. The data was collected by distributing pre-interview questionnaires to the participants and conducting in-depth interviews with them. Grounded theory was used in the data collection and analysis and an auto-ethnographic approach was employed, allowing for reflexivity. The findings suggest that the expatriated domestic partners did not necessarily experience much difficulty in adjusting to South African culture as they did, for example, adjusting to not being able to work for the duration of their stay. The research has also shown that the unmarried domestic partners of expatriate employees are at a disadvantage compared to their married counterparts; receiving less assistance from the companies of their partners. Based on the findings, it has been recommended that companies refine and streamline the assistance they offer to the domestic partners of their expatriate employees, providing all domestic partners with the same pre-departure training and entitling them to the same benefits.