Este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar, duma forma geral, a produção de conhecimento em Moçambique, tendo em conta fatores educacionais e sócioculturais, perceber de que forma os mesmos influenciam a produção de conhecimento no país. O trabalho não pretende avaliar as políticas educacionais e de ciência e tecnologia, mas partindo delas buscou-se elaborar uma análise sociológica da relação que existe entre o papel da educação e os fatores sociais e culturais na produção de conhecimento e da relevância da ciência e tecnologia para o desenvolvimento do país. Apesar da ênfase dada, em termos de políticas, à importância da ciência e tecnologia para o desenvolvimento, as ações práticas demonstram que o habitus existente no sistema de ensino, condicionado por uma herança colonial onde o conhecimento era transmitido de forma limitada e, pela ausência duma cultura científica que afeta o sistema de ciência e tecnologia e certos segmentos da sociedade moçambicana, contribui para a manutenção duma visão de pouca relevância da atividade científica e tecnológica para o desenvolvimento do país. / Este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar, duma forma geral, a produção de conhecimento em Moçambique, tendo em conta fatores educacionais e sócioculturais, perceber de que forma os mesmos influenciam a produção de conhecimento no país. O trabalho não pretende avaliar as políticas educacionais e de ciência e tecnologia, mas partindo delas buscou-se elaborar uma análise sociológica da relação que existe entre o papel da educação e os fatores sociais e culturais na produção de conhecimento e da relevância da ciência e tecnologia para o desenvolvimento do país. Apesar da ênfase dada, em termos de políticas, à importância da ciência e tecnologia para o desenvolvimento, as ações práticas demonstram que o habitus existente no sistema de ensino, condicionado por uma herança colonial onde o conhecimento era transmitido de forma limitada e, pela ausência duma cultura científica que afeta o sistema de ciência e tecnologia e certos segmentos da sociedade moçambicana, contribui para a manutenção duma visão de pouca relevância da atividade científica e tecnológica para o desenvolvimento do país.

Magister Public Health - MPH / This is a cross sectional survey study that explored determinant factors contributing to home child delivery and influence of traditional birth attendances on place of delivery in Rungwe District, Tanzania.The study focussed on three main aspects namely factors (socio-economic, cultural and knowledge) that influence women to deliver at health facilities and those who deliver ta home. Reasons/factors associated with the acceptability of health services and influence of traditional birth attendaces on place of delivery and whether accessibility to health services and traditional birth attendants influence women to decide the place of delivery. The study was descriptive cross-sectional in nature where a multistage random sampling procedure was used to select 8 wards and 16 villages. A systematic sampling was used to determine household interval in each village. Only one woman with at least one child was chosen in a household using a random sampling. In case of the absence of a woman with at least one child in a house falling in the interval, then the next house was considered. A total of 400 women with at least one child were selected at random from household cluster sample from all four divisions in Rungwe district. They were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. The participation rate was 100 % in both divisions. The age of the women ranged from 19-49 years with the mean age of 31 years (Std dev 7.5). Data entry and analysis were done using the quantitative statistics with Epi Info 2002 software. Results were presented using descriptive statistics, figures and tables, and analytical statistics, using Student’s t-test and chi-square. A total of 400 women were interviewed, among them, it showed that there were good attendance for antenatal care 395 (98.75%) and only 5 (1.25%) did not attend antenatal care. However, 243 (60.8%) of women interviewed had incidence of home delivery and 157 (39.3%) had incidence of health facility delivery. Home deliveries in a surveyed area are commonly assisted by unskilled persons, and consequently carry increased risks to the mother and to the new-born baby. Improvement of quality and accessibility of health care services by the health facility should involve harmonic balance between health service provider and beneficiaries in order to change the attitude towards minimizing the practice of home child delivery in Rungwe district, in Mbeya region, in Tanzania as awhole and elsewhere in the world.

African American women (AAW) suffer from disproportionately high death rates due to coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to Caucasian women. Although there have been a number of studies targeting African American adults with CHD in clinical interventions, very few studies have addressed the social determinants of health and the influence of AAW's perceptions of health factors on health outcomes. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to fill the gap in the existing knowledge base by examining the lived experiences of 10 AAW diagnosed with CHD with a focus on the perceptions of environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural factors related to their disease. The framework for this study was Stokol's socioecological theory. Data were collected through individual semi structured interviews that were audio recorded, transcribed, inductively coded, and organized into themes. Results confirmed an expected connection between CHD and key external factors such as smoking, poor nutrition, and low exercise. The findings also indicated that financial considerations were a factor, including the affordability of healthy foods, although the historical cultural connections to cooking and eating were a greater impediment. The financial burden of medical treatment was less troublesome for the participants of this study, as all had access to private or public insurance plans. Other significant barriers included the inability to schedule appointments with physicians due to work and home commitments. The findings from this study contribute to social change by providing insight into the need for public policy that encourages a more culturally-competent health care system to better educate people about CHD, amend AAW's perceptions on CHD, and aid in the possible reduction of CHD.

Bakgrund: ADHD-diagnostisering hos barn och ungdomar har de senaste åren ökat i snabb takt. Problematiskt beteende hos barn och ungdomar har alltid uppmärksammats men har de senaste 20 åren i allt högre utsträckning kommit att förstås som ADHD. Diagnosen ADHD ses idag som en neuropsykiatrisk funktionsnedsättning som riskerar att försämra livskvalitén och skapa lidande inom flera aspekter av livet. Den främsta behandlingen är farmakologisk. Det dominerande perspektivet på ADHD är det biomedicinska där orsakerna ses som ärftliga och biologiska och prevalensen av diagnosen anses vara jämnt fördelad globalt. Trots att barn växer upp med olika förutsättningar i vitt skilda miljöer så är diagnoskriterierna universella, och baseras dessutom på subjektiva bedömningar. Syfte: Att undersöka hur socioekonomiska och kulturella faktorer relaterar till identifiering och behandling av ADHD-symptom hos barn och ungdomar. Metod: En systematisk litteraturstudie med innehållsanalys har genomförts baserad på 20 vetenskapliga studier. Resultat: Resultatet genererade två huvudkategorier och fem underkategorier. Den första huvudkategorin Tolkning av barnets beteende visade att kulturella och socioekonomiska faktorer påverkade hur omgivningen upplevde barnet och i vilken utsträckning beteendet tolkades som ADHD. Förälderns kulturella bakgrund påverkade förklaringsmodeller till barnets beteende och förhållningssätt till behandling där föräldrar med ursprung utanför den västerländska kulturen var mer benägna att använda andra förklaringsmodeller. Den andra huvudkategorin Stressorer som påverkar barnet visade att låg socioekonomisk status var förknippad med hög sannolikhet för barnet att få en ADHDdiagnos och tillhörande av etnisk minoritetsgrupp var förknippat med låg sannolikhet att få diagnosen trots ekonomisk utsatthet. Slutsats: Subjektiva faktorer som förklaringsmodeller, syn på normalitet och stereotypa föreställningar, liksom kontextuella faktorer som fattigdom och utanförskap samverkar och påverkar vem som får en ADHD-diagnos. Vita pojkar tillhörande majoritetsbefolkningen är överrepresenterade gällande ADHD-diagnos. Det finns ett behov av att vidga perspektivet och utveckla förklaringsmodeller och behandling vid barns och ungdomars dysfunktionella beteende för att bättre möta upp behovet av hjälp och stöd. / Background: Diagnosing ADHD in children and adolescents has rapidly increased over the last years. Historically, problematic behavior in children and adolescents has always drawn attention. However, over the last 20 years it has become conceptualized, to a great extent, as ADHD. Today, ADHD is seen as a neuropsychiatric disability that could endanger quality of life and cause suffering in different aspects of life. The main treatment is pharmacological. The dominating perspective on ADHD is the biomedical perspective where causes are seen as inherent and biological, and the prevalence of the diagnosis is considered evenly distributed globally. Even though children grow up in different conditions in diverse environments the diagnostic criteria are universal and based upon subjective assessments. Aim: To examine how socioeconomical and cultural factors relate to identifying and treating ADHD symptoms in children and adolescents. Method: A systematic literature review with content analysis based on 20 articles was conducted. Result: The result generated two main categories and five sub-categories. The first main category, Interpretation of the child’s behavior, showed that cultural and socioeconomic factors affected how the child was seen and to what extent the behavior was interpretated as ADHD. The parent’s cultural background influenced explanatory models of the child’s behavior and approach to treatment. Parents originating outside of Western culture were more likely to use other explanatory models. The other main category Stressors affecting the child showed that low socioeconomic status was associated with high likeliness of receiving an ADHD diagnosis, and children from ethnic minority groups had a low likeliness to receive the diagnosis despite economic vulnerability.  Conclusion: Subjective factors, such as explanatory models, view on normality and stereotype ideas, as well as contextual factors such as poverty and exclusion interact and influence who receives an ADHD diagnosis. Caucasian boys from the majority population were overrepresented regarding receiving an ADHD diagnosis. There is a need to broaden the perspective and develop explanatory models and treatment for children’s and adolescent’s dysfunctional behavior to better meet the need for help and support.

Humans, like all animal species, are subject to Bergmann's (1847) and Allen's (1877) environmental rules which summarize physical adaptations to the natural environment. However, humans are in addition cultural animals and other bio-cultural factors such as social, economic and political status, general health, and nutrition, have a noticeable influence on stature and body proportions. Importantly, socio-economic status has a powerful influence on stature, which has been used to elucidate status differences in past societies (Bogin and Loucky, 1997; Floud et al., 1990; Schutkowski, 2000a). Furthermore, bio-cultural factors influence all dimensions of the human body, including weight, relative limb length, and relative length of the different limb segments. Given minimal migration and shared natural environments, all populations in this study, coming as they do from the last 2000 years of English history, should demonstrate similar morphology (c. f Ruff, 1994) if climatic variables were the only influence on stature and body proportions. In order to assess such bio-cultural factors in individuals from archaeological populations, skeletal populations from sites such as known leprosaria and medieval hospitals, rural and urban parish cemeteries, victims from the battle of Towton in A. D. 1461, and individuals from monastic cemeteries were analysed. The osteometric data from these populations were assessedfo r within and between population variability and indicate effects of bio-cultural factors on attained body proportions and stature. The results indicate a strong relationship between bio-cultural factors and body proportions, body mass index, prevalence of pathologies, sexual dimorphism, secular trend, and general stature from Roman times to the post-medieval period. The usefulness of stature, weight, and physical indices as markers of the bio-cultural environment is demonstrated. The main findings include: a greater sensitivity to external stressors in the males rather than the females of the analysed populations, rendering male statures more susceptible to varying bio-cultural conditions; a potential for very tall stature has existed in the analysed populations but was only realised. in very high status individuals in medieval times, and from the beginning 20'h century with better socio-economic conditions for the population at large; a less stratified socio-political environment, as in the late Anglo-Saxon period resulted in taller average male statures that a more stratified one, such as the medieval Nation-States; and medieval monastic institutions could have high status, e.g., the Gilbertines, or lower status, such as the mendicant orders, while leprosaria had the lowest status of all. / Ministere de la Culture, de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche, Luxembourg; Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford; Andy Jagger Fund; Francis Raymond Hudson Memorial Fund

Although the development of small businesses is generally considered important for income generation and job creation, there has been relatively little research in developing countries such as Ghana on understanding why some small firms succeed and grow rapidly while others do not in. This thesis investigates the influences on small firm growth rates in Ghana using data from a random sample of 252 manufacturing and services firms from the database of the Association of Ghana Industries. The general hypothesis is that, growth is a function of the characteristics of the entrepreneur; characteristics of the firm; strategic factors; environmental factors; and cultural factors. Consequently, the research tests 36 hypotheses drawn from the five main categories of variables using the turnover and the employment growth measures. It also uses logistic regression analysis to isolate significant factors differentiating rapid-growth firms from slow-growth firms. Overall, the research finds strong evidence which suggests that, perception of a market opportunity; university education; multiple founders; entrepreneurs with marketing skills; workforce training; new product development; presence of a clear vision and mission statement; majority non-family members in management and membership of professional or business associations were associated with rapid-growth firms. iv Factors which were significant in discriminating between rapid-growth and slow-growth firms but were more likely to be associated with slow-growth firms included threat of unemployment or actual unemployment as a motivation for starting a business; production skills; legal form (limited liability companies); access to external equity (post-formation); exporting; access to public or external aid; unionization and frequent management meetings.

No description available.

Linguistic fossilization is a prevalent phenomenon in adult ESLA and presents a perpetual pedagogical challenge to teachers. Despite controversy about the theoretical concept, research is increasingly showing that persistent erroneousness cannot be attributed to single causal factors. This single case study examines controversial aspects surrounding the concept and formulates criteria for identifying fossilization. The study investigates the conversational output of an independent adult learner over a period of nine months and presents a holistic exploration of causal influences. The findings substantiate that fossilization arises from changing combinations of factors, and that such combinations are unique to the situation of each adult learner. The key to the successful treatment of fossilized errors may lie in identifying their roots, which can be achieved by analyzing output and through discussion with learners in order to gain insight into their experience of the learning process. Results also suggest that a critical perspective on the theoretical construct is needed in order to investigate the phenomenon in adult second language acquisition. / Linguistics / M.A. (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL))

Research has it that students in institutions of higher learning the world over evidence stifled critical thinking dispositions in their studies. Some researchers in countries like the United States of America have come up with findings about critical thinking dispositions peculiar to their contexts and hence not universally applicable. Factors that stifle critical thinking dispositions of students in Zimbabwean institutions of higher learning had not been studied per se. This research focuses on factors that stifle critical thinking dispositions of third year students at Morgenster Teachers’ College in Zimbabwe. Both the qualitative and the quantitative research approaches were employed in this research. Focus group interviews and questionnaires were used to generate data. Third year students at Morgenster Teachers’ College were studied. The research findings reveal that the factors that stifle critical thinking dispositions in the students are individualistic, structuralistic, socio-cultural and political. In this study, it is recommended that the lecturers can alleviate the effects of the factors that stifle critical thinking dispositions by exposing students to critical thinking situations. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Philosophy of Education)

This study was an attempt to investigate the influence of socio-cultural factors on HIV prevention strategies among HIV discordant couples in Harare, Zimbabwe. HIV sero-discordance is a scenario whereby one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. HIV sero-discordant couples are a unique and vulnerable population that encounters many peculiar challenges. When dealing with this population, researchers have to deal with contradictory ideas and perceptions presented by each partner making up the couples and also understand the relationship in the context of cultural values, norms and the dynamic of power and oppression. In addition to this, the concept of HIV sero-discordance and the frequency of its occurrence are poorly understood in most African communities. Despite the growing evidence of HIV discordance, HIV prevention strategies have largely focused on clinical aspects at the expense of socio-cultural issues that impact on HIV prevention strategies targeted at HIV sero- discordant couples. The study seeks to contribute to the conceptualization and design of intervention programs dealing with sero-discordance. The study is underpinned by the symbolic interactionism theory and was qualitative in design involving 13 HIV discordant couples in heterosexual relationships enrolled in the HIV Preventions Trials Network 052 Study (HPTN 052 Study) being undertaken by the University of Zimbabwe’s department of medicine. The study utilized 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and 10 in-depth interviews (IDI) to collect data. The study’s findings indicate that discordant couples are in fact critical stakeholders in the uptake of all the available HIV prevention strategies. Failure to acknowledge this tenet is self-defeating as evidenced by the perception of viewing condom use within a marriage as humiliating for a woman. The study further noted that practitioners in the HIV prevention domain must guard against over-relying on the scientifically demonstrated efficacy of the strategies. The study recommends that HIV prevention strategies must be socially and culturally acceptable and embedded for them to be more efficacious. / Sociology / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV and AIDS)