Text in English / The Student Self-Empowerment and Enrichment Programme (SSEEP), formed a resourceful context for this study, which was action-oriented and experience-based. The aim of the SSEEP was to disseminate knowledge, and to create a domain for dialogue that facilitated connection with others and created spaces for the telling and sharing of stories. The philosophy which informed this study was that individuals interpret their experiences and make sense thereof through narratives or stories, which are socially constructed through language. Qualitative research methods were used to interpret the data. Facilitators' and students' experiences in the SSEEP were recorded in field notes, and photographs and 'memory boxes', which were analysed using a hermeneutic method. Personal interviews with four students were analysed using narrative analysis. The purpose of this study was to identify the processes, themes and meanings that contribute to the enhancement of students' personal resources. Facilitators and/ or students co-constructed alternative stories to ones that thwarted their growth, or subjugated them, which led to the creation of new realities that individuals could 'perform', and to recreating themselves in new ways. They could not but be changed by the encounter, and moved from the anonymity of silence to the healing of affirmation through narrative. The promotion of healing, the provision of support or education, and improvement of self-understanding and personal efficacy, were goals that seemed to have been attained. It was also hoped that personal growth would bring life-enhancing contributions to other contexts as well, such as the students' personal, family and community contexts. The guidelines proposed in this study could be of value to those who wish to become involved at grassroots level in designing and implementing their own programmes in the tertiary-education context. They are particularly relevant within present day South Africa taking the diversity of the population into account. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:26:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcelo Albuquerque.pdf: 2272309 bytes, checksum: 4ef1b740690562a0f669d11d82ad977e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-27 / The transformation of societies due to globalization presents a new challenge to organizations, as diversity has placed side by side people from different origins, races and cultures to work together in increasingly heterogeneous environments. Hence, a successful management of diversity requires that managers understand the differences among people at the workplace. Therefore, to know managers' attitudes in relation to diversity is an essential condition for a good management. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the Universal Diverse Orientation (UDO) of Brazilian managers, regarding the dimensions gender, race, age, time of experience as manager, and country s region of work, and also to validate the M-GUDS S scale in Brazil. A descriptive and quantitative research was carried out using a sample of Brazilian managers. Until now, no studies about UDO in Brazil were identified, and research in other countries were performed only with university students. The results showed acceptable levels of validity and reliability, and validated the M-GUDS S scale for Brazil. However, when comparing the survey results with the theoretical framework, a limitation was perceived, related to the sample profile. Although the literature has pointed to the possibility of a higher level of openness toward diverse by women, non Caucasian individuals, older individuals and more experienced ones, the statistical results did not go in this direction. What could be inferred was that the sample, composed by managers from a single company, was homogeneous and might have influenced the results. For this reason, we recommend that future studies use samples from different organizations. The information gathered by this study will be useful for future studies that may deepen the knowledge about UDO in Brazil. / A transformação das sociedades decorrente da globalização apresenta um novo desafio para as organizações, visto que a diversidade tem colocado, lado a lado, pessoas de diferentes origens, raças e culturas, em ambientes de trabalho cada vez mais heterogêneos. Dessa forma, uma gestão bem sucedida da diversidade exige dos gestores a compreensão das diferenças no ambiente de trabalho. Portanto, conhecer as atitudes dos gestores em relação à diversidade é uma condição essencial para a boa gestão. O objetivo do trabalho foi investigar a Orientação Universal ao Diverso (Universal Diverse Orientation UDO) de gestores brasileiros, em relação às dimensões sexo, raça, idade, tempo de experiência e região do país em que trabalha, bem como validar a escala M-GUDS S. Foi realizada pesquisa quantitativa descritiva e com uma amostra de gestores brasileiros. Até o momento não foram identificadas pesquisas sobre UDO no Brasil, e as pesquisas em outros países envolveram somente estudantes universitários. Os resultados evidenciaram níveis aceitáveis de validade e confiabilidade, e validaram a escala M-GUDS S para o Brasil. Contudo, ao confrontar os resultados da pesquisa com o referencial teórico, foi identificada uma limitação relacionada ao perfil amostral. Apesar de a literatura ter sinalizado para a possibilidade de maior abertura ao diverso para mulheres, indivíduos não brancos, indivíduos mais velhos e para aqueles com mais experiência, os resultados estatísticos não foram nesse sentido. O que se pôde inferir é que a amostra de gestores de uma única empresa possa ter sido homogênea e influenciado os resultados. Por essa razão, recomenda-se que, em novos estudos,sejam utilizadas amostras de diferentes organizações. As informações levantadas pelo trabalho serão úteis para futuros estudos que aprofundem os conhecimentos sobre a UDO no Brasil.

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MEd (Educational Management) / Department of Educational Management / This study set out to investigate the state of readiness for the implementation of inclusive education in Nzhelele West circuit secondary schools in Vhembe district. The aim of the study was to explore the state of secondary schools’ readiness in the implementation of inclusive education and suggests strategies that can contribute to the effective implementation thereof. The study is qualitative in nature and the focus of the study was Grade 8. Purposive sampling was used to select ten participants which include five principals and five Grade 8 teachers. Interviews and observations were used as data collection tools. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The study findings revealed that the participants were aware of the importance of implementing inclusive education in secondary schools. The participants explained their roles towards the effective implementation of inclusive education. However, the study identified various challenges facing the teachers in effectively implementing inclusive education such as physical challenges, lack of support services and impracticable policies. The study further provided solutions to the challenges of implementing inclusive education in secondary schools. / NRF

Safe airspace of airports worldwide is crucial to ensure that passengers, workers, and airplanes are safe from external threats, whether malicious or not. In recent years, several airports worldwide experienced intrusions into their airspace by unmanned aerial vehicles. Based on this observation, there is a need for a reliable detection system capable of detecting unmanned aerial vehicles with high accuracy and integrity. This thesis proposes time redundant triplex parallel diverse convolutional neural network architectures trained to detect unmanned aerial vehicles to address the aforementioned issue. The thesis aims at producing a system capable of real-time performance coupled with previously mentioned networks. The hypothesis in this method will result in lower mispredictions of objects other than drones and high accuracy compared to singular convolutional neural networks. Several improvements to accuracy, lower mispredictions, and faster detection times were observed during the performed experiments with the proposed system. Furthermore, a new way of interpreting the intersection over union results for all neural networks is introduced to ensure the correctness and reliability of results. Lastly, the system produced by this thesis is analyzed from a dependability viewpoint to provide an overview of how this contributes to dependability research.

<p>STEM education is a top priority in the educational development of youth across the United States as the country tries to address the need of having a more well equipped, prepared, and educated workforce. Agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) has the ability to provide a relevant context for engaging students in STEM education through experiential learning. Tragically, both STEM and AFNR struggle to reach and engage more diversified audiences, especially students of color. AFNR education provides an authentic avenue to center STEM engagement around addressing societal grand challenges like food and nutritional security, childhood-obesity, and climate change; issues faced by all communities. The approaches and steps taken to address these AFNR related grand challenges can all be explored through the lens of food systems. Food systems is a concept within AFNR that encompasses the interdisciplinary components of AFNR, STEM, and social sciences that provides a breakdown for the process and system involved in getting food from farm to fork. In an era where youth are more disconnected from understanding where their food comes from, food systems education has the ability to reconnect youth to the root of this issue and the potential to lead them to explore finding solutions to the grand challenges facing their generation. Furthermore, food systems education provides a context to engage youth in authentic learning experiences in nonformal and formal classroom settings around relevant issues with the potential to enhance their interests and concerns around these topics.</p> <p><a>The purpose of this study was to explore and describe elementary school students’ interests and concerns about the food system, and their overall engagement in the learning experience after participating in an authentic learning based Virtual Agri+STEM Camp focused on food systems education, AFNR, and STEM activities. The convenience sample for this study was made up of elementary school students between grades 3^rd and 8^th grade (<i>N</i> = 99) who were either in the classroom or participating in an at-home Agri+STEM session. The majority of these students were from rural communities and most of them were African Americans. Quantitative data was collected before and after participation in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp experience that using the research developed Food System Interest and Food System Concern instrument. Previous AFNR related experiences were also reported by students. The researcher also used an adapted version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) and STEM Semantics survey to measure student engagement and attitudes after participating in the experience. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, which included means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages. To explore the relationships between each of the variables, correlations were also computed. </a></p> <p>There were four conclusions for this study. First, students that participated in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp were motivated and engaged in the learning process while doing the Agri+STEM Camp activities. Second, students that participated in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp were interested and concerned about the food system before and after participating in the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp. Third, African American student participants reported less previous AFNR experiences, yet they reported more interests and concerns in the food system than Caucasian American participants before and after completing the Virtual Agri+STEM Camp. Lastly, Students that felt more competent, saw the value, and were interested/enjoyed the Agri+STEM experience were more likely to be interested and concerned about the food system. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice and policy were discussed.</p>

Since the 1980s, intercultural dialogue has become increasingly recognized as a way to reduce prejudice, improve relationships, increase intercultural understanding, manage diversity, and contribute to democratic processes. Similarly, civic engagement has emerged as a key priority of municipalities to effectively serve and meet the needs of a culturally diverse public. I conducted an exploratory qualitative research study using focus groups with 13 ethnocultural community leaders in Edmonton, Alberta. The main goals were to understand from their lived experiences and perspectives how intercultural dialogue could contribute to meaningful and culturally appropriate civic engagement for ethnocultural communities. The findings indicated that ethnocultural community leaders are passionate about and committed to improving the lives of their communities, identify strongly with Canada and Edmonton as their home, and appreciate being meaningfully involved in civic affairs. The findings indicated that intercultural dialogue is meaningful if it takes place in a larger framework of civic engagement practices. This framework of meaningful practices is presented along with recommendations that can be adapted and implemented by municipalities, institutions, and organizations that wish to engage meaningfully with and respond effectively to diverse ethnocultural communities.

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I svenska läromedel för religionskunskap på högstadienivå är det vanligt att de “abrahamitiska religionerna” behandlas för att ge eleverna en ökad förståelse för religiös mångfald och främja interreligiös tolerans. Tyvärr finns det dock tendenser där islam och judendom framställs som "den andre" i förhållande till kristendomen. Denna framställning varierar beroende på författare och förlag, vilket kan leda till att negativa betoningar får större utrymme i böckerna då skillnader lättare uppmärksammas än likheterna mellan de tre religionerna. Som en följd kan eleverna få en förenklad och stereotypisk bild av religionernas innehåll, historia och praktik. Eftersom kristendom ofta framställs som den samhälleliga normen, blir judendom och islam ofta jämförda i omfång och innehåll, vilket leder till att de hamnar i en position som "den andre" och oftast blir offer för stereotypiseringar och förenklingar. Ibland kan islam porträtteras och tolkas som “bakåtsträvande” och “sexitiskt” då författarna medvetet fokuserar på kontroversiella aspekter som kvinnoförtryck, utan att ge en djupare bild av religionens historiska helhet. Detta kan skapa en ensidig och negativ bild av islam i klassrummet och förstärka fördomar och missuppfattningar som redan finns i samhället. På samma sätt förminskas judendom till att handla enbart om historiska händelser som Förintelsen och den israeliska staten, vilket inte rättvist representerar religionen och det judiska folket. Detta kan förstärka uppfattningen om judendomen som stagnant och gammalmodig, samtidigt som dess många nyanser ignoreras. För att undvika att porträttera islam och judendom som “den andre” i kontrast till kristendom är det viktigt att läromedel ger en rättvis och balanserad bild av de “abrahamitiska religionerna” i deras helhet. Det bör betonas att alla religioner har många olika tolkningar och utövare runt om i världen, och det är därför viktigt att undvika generaliseringar och stereotyper. Genom att presentera religionerna på ett ödmjukt och respektfullt sätt kan läromedel bidra till ökad förståelse och tolerans bland eleverna, samt främja en mer givande interreligiös dialog.