The present study aims to explore in what ways teachers work in a heterogeneous classroom with particular focus on the students’ diverse knowledge of the English language – a diversity caused by the fact that there are numerous students who learn English in an informal context outside of school, at the same time as there are those students who do not. In order to explore this aim, a study was conducted where five teachers at upper secondary level were interviewed. The results show that this diversity is the most challenging part of working as an English teacher today as experienced by four of the five teachers. It thus adds to other factors, such as, multiculturalism, multilingualism, difficulties with reading and writing etc. and makes it an even more difficult task for the teacher to support every student’s individualised learning.

Oneness within the Diversity of Music is a four-movement suite with world music and jazz influences. The suite includes world music elements from Asian folk sources, as well as Hungarian gypsy, Hindustani, Brazilian and Argentine music. The underlying concept -- the goal of this suite, is to combine jazz language with world music elements. The musical arrangement of Oneness within the Diversity of Music integrates Asian and jazz styles. Two main styles characterize the musical arrangements throughout the suite: the Asian-influenced style, which incorporates non-harmonized linear melodic lines and multiple counter-lines in unison simultaneously, and the jazz style, with chamber strings, wind section, and piano harmonized using jazz language. / text

This report explores the intersection between public management and workplace inclusion. At its core, workplace inclusion refers to an individual's ability to participate meaningfully and access opportunities within an organization, regardless of his or her unique identity (Mor Barak, 2005 & Prime et. al, 2010). The public sector is of particular interest to this author because of the types of services provided, populations served, and people employed by government agencies. Structural constraints, high expectations of transparency, and broad accountability to the public at large also make public sector organizations a unique management setting. Hill and Lynn (2009) developed a three-dimensional approach to public management that is one of the foundations of this report. In their framework, the three dimensions of public management are structure, culture, and craft. This framework is used in this report because it captures the complex environmental and individual factors that influence a public manager's ability to achieve organizational goals. Mor Barak's (2005) model for an inclusive workplace serves as the second foundation for this report because it is on the cutting edge of social work research. Her model combines both business and social work perspectives to capture the multidisciplinary nature of workplace inclusion. Supplementing these models, private sector research is discussed to illustrate the potential examples, benefits, and limitations of creating an inclusive workplace. The purpose of this report is to create a foundation for future empirical research and to offer an inclusive public management perspective to practitioners. It attempts to integrate models from different disciplines and apply private sector research to a public management context. This report operates under the premise that management practice can be enhanced when the strengths and unique perspectives of different disciplines--such as social work, business, and public management--are shared and integrated. An effectively implemented inclusive public sector workplace model has the potential to mitigate social injustice at the organizational level and enhance an agency's ability to fulfill its mission. / text

Taxonomic diversity, biology and ecology of leaf endophytes were studied from some evergreen plants including Arbutus unedo, Buxus sempervirens, flex aquifolium, Laurus nobilis, Ligustrum vulgare, Prunus lusitanica, Rhododendron ponticum, Rhododendron sp., and Skimmia sp. from England, and some others from China. It was found: 1. A great number of fungal species, including several new species and new British records, have been isolated. Distribution patterns of endophyte assemblages and their variations between plant species and geographical locations are described. 2. Comparisons of leaf endophytes and saprobes of R. ponlicum at the same locality showed they belonged to two different ecological groups. This was further confirmed by study on endophytes and saprobes from a number of plant species growing in the same locality. 3. Host specificity of endophytic fungi at the species level was rare and this was supported by comparisons of endophyte assemblages from both taxonomically related (same family) and unrelated (different families) plant species. Molecular characterisations of Phyllosticta species confirmed this. 4. Infection and colonisation studies during a two year period showed that leaf endophytes of R. ponlicum were horizontally transmitted. Internal bud material was sterile and became infected by aerial spores. The infection and colonisation level of endophytes were strongly affected by environmental conditions. 5. Phylogenetic studies of Phyllosticta based on ITS 1-5.8s rDNA-ITS2 sequences concluded there was no evidence to show that the evolution of host plants of Phyllosticta species and ITS were related. Most Phyllosticta species from the same locality were found to have a broad host range and occurred on many taxonomically unrelated plants in the same locality. P. concentrica was separated into 4 species including P. concentrica on Hedera, P. arxii on Ilex, P. maxima on Rhododendron and P. taxi on Taxus.

Habitat fragmentation is often regarded as a biodiversity threat associated with habitat degradation; however, research has also revealed beneficial effects on biodiversity as well, depending on the ecosystem and species community. This study examined the biodiversity of small nekton residing in seagrass meadows characterized by three levels of habitat fragmentation, and as a habitat gradient comprised of measures such as habitat amount, connectivity, patch shape, and proximity. Landscapes were mapped using recent advances in GPS and GIS technology, and analyzed using established methods from research in terrestrial ecosystems. Species richness was not significantly different as a function of fragmentation regardless of season, suggesting that the amount of habitat and configuration of several patches in fragmented habitats is sufficient to support comparable numbers of species in several patches compared to communities in large, continuous seagrass meadows. Species evenness declined significantly in fragmented habitats versus continuous ones in both seasons. Within fragmented landscapes, evenness progressively declined as habitat amount and connectivity decreased and patch isolation and density increased, suggesting that changes in landscape qualities can differentially impact processes supporting metapopulations such as dispersal and reproduction in certain species, thereby influencing community structure. Analyses that included measures of habitat connectivity, proximity, and patch density in addition to habitat amount accounted for more variability in species evenness than those just containing percent cover, and showed that fragmentation’s impacts can differ geographically. These data suggest that community resilience to fragmentation can differ between similar animal communities residing in separate locations, and that landscape configuration plays an important role in determining how communities respond to fragmentation after a threshold of change in habitat amount has been exceeded. / text

Principals and instructional coaches from four high-performing and equitable-performing elementary schools stratified by socioeconomic level were interviewed. The main concern of participants was meeting student performance challenges set by accountability systems and measured by mandated tests. This concern was manifested in a focus on the needs and educational progress of individual children. Other participant concerns included investing in teachers, analyzing test data collaboratively, intervening on behalf of struggling students, dealing with the current accountability environment, building productive learning environments, achieving educational equity, and maintaining identity as a leader. Participants demonstrated a rather low knowledge of accountability system mechanics and ambivalence about accountability system features; however, they fully embraced the spirit of "leaving no child left behind." They also emphasized many elementes of leadership that predate the current accountability environment, including instructional leadership, professional learning communities, and high expectations for students. Although categories were consistent among the schools, other factors co-vary with school size (performance unit of analysis) or school socioeconomic status (future vs. present orientation). A statistical measure for evaluating the educational equity of schools is introduced.

In Chapter 2, we present a model that allows us to study the effect of increased competition among charities for donations, and show that it will result in a lower provision of public goods. When charities get donations, they must pay two fundraising costs: a travel cost and an extra cost, a "premium" in our terminology. This premium arises from the extra time, effort, or incentives a charity must provide to garner a contribution from a donor who is solicited by other charities. Increased competition raises this premium, which leads to deadweight loss, so that revenue net of fundraising costs falls after a new firm enters into the market. A problem with public goods markets is asymmetric information between charities and donors, such that donors do not know which charities will cheat. In Chapter 3, we show that honest charities can get more donations than dishonest charities by investing in a capital stock. We study a two-period model under two assumptions, one where first-period investment does not affect the provision of public goods in the second period, and one where first-period investment does affect the provision of public goods in the second period. In the first case, we prove the existence of a separating equilibrium where honest charities make an investment and dishonest charities invest nothing. Thus, donors will donate more to charities that make investments, even if the investment is not used to produce public goods. In the second case, honest charities may invest the efficient amount, overinvest, or underinvest, depending on the donors' beliefs. In Chapter 4, we borrow parts of the models in the previous two chapters in order to see what effect the signaling cost has on the number of firms and average revenue. In our model, donor utility increases when they give to a charity that matches their ideology. We are interested in the long-run equilibrium, so unlike in Chapter 2, we assume there is free entry in the market. The two important results are that the number of firms decreases and average revenue increases if the required signaling cost increases.

Questions surrounding the causes and consequences of diversity lie at the centre of community ecology. Understanding the mechanisms by which species diversity is maintained motivates much experimental and theoretical work, but this work often focuses on fluctuation-independent mechanisms. Variability in habitat suitability is ubiquitous through space and time however, and provides another important path through which species diversity can be maintained. As a result, considering environmental variability has value for conservation and management. Finally, differences through space and time in the mechanisms that promote and maintain diversity produce spatially varying patterns of diversity. Spatial variation in different forms of diversity (species (SR), phylogenetic (PD), and functional diversity (FD)) creates difficult decisions about prioritization and reserve locations. This thesis uses experimental, observational, and theoretical methods to explore the causes and consequences of diversity. I show that variation in space and time has important implications for species coexistence and diversity maintenance. In microbial nectar communities, temperature variation through space and time alters the importance of priority effects on community assembly. Using models of warming temperatures in annual plant communities I show that considering temporal partitioning of flowering (a strategy to minimize competition) introduces constraints on phenological shifts: this has implications for phenological monitoring programs. Finally, I show that variability in the timing of fire events in Mediterranean shrublands contributes to coexistence between life forms, suggesting that it should be considered for fire management. In the final two chapters, I focus on conservation prioritization. Comparisons of species richness and evolutionary diversity through space in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa show that existing reserves protect Proteaceae richness, but fail to capture evolutionary distinct species. More generally, in the final chapter I suggest that SR and PD should be congruent through space when species are of similar ages, regions are depauperate, or ranges are discontinuous.

Less diversity and more homogenization in the media`s news range is the subject for our bachelor thesis. By analyzing and comparing three separate weeks in two of Sweden's largest evening newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen we wanted to discoverhow the diversity between the two newspapers had changed over the years, more precisely from 1993 until now. Had there been a homogenization or not? We wanted to study this because it is a long going debate about the news stories becoming more and more the same. An important debate because less diversity in news events and news presentation may lead to less diversity in public opinions and knowledge. When it comes to our result we found out that the diversity in the week of 2013 in comparison tothe week of 1993 was better for Expressen, but not for Aftonbladet. At the same time, our second analyzing week took place in 2003 and in comparison to that week both newspapers had greater diversity in 2013. So when we make a conclusion after looking at these three weeks we could say that homogenization was a problem in 2003, but is not anymore. Except for when it comes to public affairs. When we divided the news intodomestic, foreign, public and non-public affairs we discovered that the foreign news for every week had less diversity than domestic news, we found the same result in public affairs in comparison to non-public affairs. But unlike foreign news where the diversity increased in 2013, the diversity of public affairs kept decreasing. If the weeks we selected reflects the two newspapers news range on a greater scale this could be a democratic problem, because if there are some news that can contribute to more public opinions and wider knowledge it is public affairs.

For the first time ever, there are four (soon to be five) generations of nurses working side‐by‐side in the workplace. Within the generational cohorts there are differences in age as well as dissimilarity in education, ethnicity, and work values. We examined the complex linkages between diversity among nursing workgroups, professional burnout and the mediating effects of conflict (relationship and task). Diversity was defined as the degree of relative difference or dissimilarity between an individual and other workgroup members on demographic attributes (age, education and ethnicity) and work values. Data were collected from a population‐based sample of 600 nurses (80% response rate) employed by two hospitals in British Columbia. Using latent variable modelling, the findings from this study show the importance of differences in work values in creating conflict, which in turn leads to burnout. To a lesser extent, differences in education also predicted nurses’ displaying a negative and distant attitude as well as having a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. Addressing work stressors associated with diversity is an important step in the management of the healthcare workplace, the development of a healthy workforce, and the retention of nurses (organizational and professional). Interventions are needed to effectively manage diverse workplaces and to nurture teamwork; these strategies are crucial to improving the workplace environment, the quality of nurses’ worklife, and possibly patient care.