Current learning support in an effort to address the learning needs of learners with learning disabilities tends to focus on their language abilities (reading and writing), without enough emphasis on the cognitive manifestations that could contribute to barriers to learning, if not addressed appropriately from within the school system. In this study the organisation skills of learners with learning disabilities were studied to determine their true nature. The research was undertaken with Grade 8 and 9 pupils in a private school for learners with learning disabilities. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, assessment data of the learners with learning disabilities were analysed. Three different categories of learning needs regarding the organisation skills of learners with learning disabilities were identified. In the second phase, these categories of learning needs were explored using an Ethnographic Approach with Action Research as design. The outcomes of the action research were examined by analysing behaviours and written products of the learners, consistently within the context of the learning situation. It was established that the barriers to learning regarding the organisation skills of these learners are at least in part intrinsic and therefore make a strong appeal to the learning system for support. Learning support should be seen as an integral part of the teaching and learning process in all schools. It was therefore clear that a Systemic approach should be used to address the barriers to learning that learners with learning disabilities experience. A different perspective than that of the fragmented medical model was taken in exploring and addressing these needs. It was a shift towards a more holistic Ecological Systemic Approach. / Thesis (PhD (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Although much research has been conducted on violence, its effects, and which circumstances put an individual at risk of becoming a potential victim, there is a paucity of studies that focus on the perpetrators of violence. Much of the literature available on this subject is dated, providing information which is already dated and, frequently no longer relevant. This research has sought to explore and understand violent crimes from the psychological and emotional standpoint of the individual who perpetrated them. One objective of the study was to facilitate the development of a profile of youths who chronically commit crime, and more specifically crimes of violence. This study utilised the qualitative research design of Phenomenology, which allows for the exploration of the phenomena from the perspective of the participants. The sample for this study consisted of five male individuals who are currently incarcerated in a correctional institution situated in the Eastern Cape. The sample was chosen according to the non-probability purposive-sampling technique, based on their relevance to the study. The selected male offenders from the correctional institution ages ranged between 18 and 31. Specific criteria were identified against which participants were measured in order to be selected to participate in the research. Data was obtained from the participants via a questionnaire, a journal, and semi-structured interviews conducted by the researcher. Other data for the study was obtained from official documents. The study was embedded in the ecological theory of Bronfenbrenner, which provided the psychological framework in which to explain and understand the results of the study and the development of violence. The major findings of this study include; growing up violently, the reasons for violence, justificationa and perseptions of violence, society and the culture of 10 violence, and the environmental impact. These findings will contribute to the development of treatment programmes, which better facilitate the reformation and rehabilitation of criminals.

Drinking water supply insecurity is globally on the rise, and prevalent in most low and middle-income urban areas. Multiple responses have emerged to cope with the lack of a reliable and equitable supply of safe and sufficient drinking water in cities, which presents a wide range of social-ecological implications. Yet, many of the analyses to date are focused on predominantly technological, ecological, and economic perspectives, overlooking broader cultural and political dimensions. What are the elements and the interrelationship between them that sustain the lack of drinking water supply security at an urban scale? The empirical case study is located in Mexico City, the capital city of one of the most drinking water-insecure countries globally and among the world’s five largest metropolitan areas. Qualitative data is elicited from a literature review and semi-structured interviews with key experts and urban stakeholders. The results provide an integrated understanding of the proposed system structure that created and maintain the water supply problem in the long-term. Hindrances include knowledge lock-ins and critical dynamics that inhibit the political support to transition towards a drinking water security scenario. This study shows that drinking water supply crisis in the study area and other cities with similar conditions need to be understood as multi-dimensional and from a system perspective, by challenging underlying assumptions and embracing interconnectedness. Key feedback mechanisms are presented in causal loop diagrams, allowing the exploration of higher-order leverage points to reduce existing path-dependencies as one increasingly important research area, and potentially relevant for decision-makers.

No description available.

Uppsatsens syfte var att öka förståelsen för hur utredande socialsekreterare i arbetet med barn och unga förhåller sig till insatsen kontaktfamilj och vad som påverkar deras bedömning av den. I studien användes en kvalitativ metod och sammanlagt genomfördes nio intervjuer med yrkesverksamma socialsekreterare som arbetar med barn och unga. De teoretiska perspektiv som använts i studien är utvecklingsekologi och gräsrotsbyråkrati. Studiens resultat visar att kontaktfamiljsinsatsen är en insats med blandade åsikter och erfarenheter av. Det skiljer sig emellan socialsekreterarna vad som bedöms vara barnets bästa och det finns även en delad bild gällande om barnen har nytta av insatsen om den är riktad till barnets vårdnadshavare. Resultaten visar också att det saknas kriterier för när insatsen ska användas samt att de få riktlinjer som finns belyser när insatsen inte ska användas. / The purpose of the study was to increase the understanding of how Child welfare social workers address the intervention contact family and what factors impact their assessment of it. The study uses a qualitative method, and nine interviews were made with social workers who work with children and youngsters. The theoretical perspectives used in the study is ecological systems theory and street-level bureaucracy theory. The result of the study shows that the contact family is an intervention with divided views and experiences. What is seen as the best interest of the child differs between the social workers and there is also a divided opinion regarding the benefits for the children if the intervention is targeted at the parents. The results also show a lack of criteria of when the intervention should be used, and the few existing guidelines highlight when the intervention should not be used.

abstract: Sustainability research and action in communities should be holistic, integrating sociocultural, biogeophysical, and spiritual components and their temporal and spatial dynamics toward the aim of co-creating thriving living systems. Yet scientists and practitioners still struggle with such integration. Regenerative development (RD) offers a way forward. RD focuses on shifting the consciousness and thinking underlying (un)sustainability as well as their manifestation in the physical world, creating increasingly higher levels of health and vitality for all life across scales. However, tools are nascent and relatively insular. Until recently, no empirical scientific research studies had been published on RD processes and outcomes. My dissertation fills this gap in three complementary studies. The first is an integrative review that contextualizes regenerative development within the fields of sustainability, sustainable design and development, and ecology by identifying its conceptual elements and introducing a regenerative landscape development paradigm. The second study integrates complex adaptive systems science, ecology, sustainability, and regenerative development to construct and pilot the first iteration of a holistic sustainable development evaluation tool—the Regenerative Development Evaluation Tool—in two river restoration projects. The third study builds upon the first two, integrating scientific knowledge with existing RD and sustainable community design and development practices and theory to construct and pilot a Regenerative Community Development (RCD) Framework. Results indicate that the RCD Framework and Tools, when used within a regenerative landscape development paradigm, can facilitate: (1) shifts in thinking and development and design outcomes to holistic and regenerative ones; (2) identification of areas where development and design projects can become more regenerative and ways to do so; and (3) identification of factors that potentially facilitate and impede RCD processes. Overall, this research provides a direction and tools for holistic sustainable development as well as foundational studies for further research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2019

As spatial properties that systems theoretically have, Socio-Ecological Systems are characterized by dynamism and mobility, therefore, are subject to changes in the space they occupy in the biosphere. In land ecosystems, these changes are understood as processes of evolution over time, or the result of extreme natural events, or transformation of the natural space induced by human activities. These spatial changes produce effects on the land surface and groundwater of ecosystems colonized or penetrated by elements, individuals or populations belonging to other ecosystems. These are the so-called Transitional Spaces between ecosystems. Throughout the continuous geographical space, these spatial transitions affect human and not human ecosystems in different ways. Given their ambiguous characteristics and their indefinite temporal location between urban, rural or natural spaces, transition spaces deserve to be investigated in order to know their properties and functions within the cartography that represents complex socio-ecological systems. The research is conducted from a particular perspective of Political Ecology. For this I proceed to develop an epistemological exercise on the political ecology syntagma in order to approach its concept and object of study as a hybrid discipline between social sciences and natural sciences. Interdisciplinarity as a practice, a dialectic vision regarding anthropocentrism, environmental perception as a method for an ontology of human ecology, The ecosystem as a unit of spatial analysis. These would be some of the characteristics of my ecological-political perspective. But what does transitional space mean for political ecology and what does it add to its theory? The question led me to seek the integral concept of ecosystem and to support myself in the General Systems Theory to analyze the notions of boundary and external environment as part of the classic concept of system. At that point, the notion of transitional spaces emerges implicit when recognizing the dynamic spatiality of other existing systems. v Since the research is not linear but interdisciplinary and convergent, a brief anthology of geographic and socio-spatial political thought is presented in order to connect the issue of transitional spaces with the point of view of the social sciences. Various socio-geographical, deterministic, anthropocentric, Darwinian, Marxist, modernist theories give an overview of the issues related to space and nature. With the emergence of the spatial turn, new concerns for political sociology, geography and environmental sciences are explained by the phenomenon of urban growth at the global level. In the same way, I introduce the topic of ecological spaces, specifically the concept of Ecotone, the space of transition between diverse natural ecosystems. The use of the notion of ecotone is based precisely on the perspective of the concept of political ecology developed previously. This, in turn, will allow me to introduce the FLACAM methodology into the research, which among its components has the virtue of identifying and analyzing the spatial phenomenon of physical and social Interfaces, that is, spaces of transition within human ecosystems. Several graphics and charts show the potential properties and functions of different kind of existing interfaces and ecotones. My proposal converges in using these concepts as planning tools for transitional spaces identified as Rurban Regions and metropolitan areas. A final reflection on the need for spatial research on global urban expansion and the theoretical and pragmatic advantages of the concept of intermediate cities closes the main body of the investigation.

Current approaches of anthropogenic impact on the ecosystems and ecosystem services are within the scope of this master's thesis. The aim of the thesis is, on the basis of current landscape classifications, landscape typologies, and their combination with approaches of ecosystem services classification, to appoint socio-ecological units as functional socio-ecological types of the territory. In other words, on the basis of classification listed, this thesis attempts to prove, that socio-ecological units are functional socio-ecological types of the territory, which should be given proper attention. Socio-ecological landscapes are defined according to degree of anthropogenic impact, selected socioeconomic characteristics, and selected ecosystem services. The thesis focuses on three of four categories of ecosystem services defined in Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services. As a methodology, the quantitative research was chosen. The research was carried out by data collection and the analysis of statistical data of Czech Statistical Office, Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre, and Statistical Yearbook of Soil Services. The thesis main finding is that social and ecological components of socio-ecological systems are in mutual...

The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyse how professionals within school and social services experience collaboration between them when working with children and youth who are abused or are thought to be at risk of being abused. Furthermore, the intention was to illustrate which factors that teachers and social workers consider to be successful for collaboration, and how they consider that the existing law of confidentiality affects the collaboration. Qualitative interviews with six respondents were conducted, three teachers and three social workers. The six respondents who took part in the study worked in two different municipalities of different sizes. This enabled us to make comparisons between smaller and bigger municipalities. The content of the interviews was coded and analysed using a thematic analysis. The ecological systems theory was applied during the process of the thematic analysis, to create an understanding around how different systems affect the child’s development. The result of the study illustrates which factors teachers and social workers, who work with youths, experience are critical for success, although it also emerges what they experience to be obstacles to collaboration and how they would like to change the collaboration. All the respondents’ raised that collaboration was facilitated by having personal relationships to the professionals they were collaborating with, since this benefited communication and trust. Moreover, the respondents brought up that collaboration is more easily accomplished in smaller municipalities, since this can make it easier to establish personal relationships between different professionals. Furthermore, the teachers experience the law of confidentiality as very frustrating, they argued that it restricted their work since it stopped them from getting information about the particular student and the support the student was gaining from the social services. Lastly, it emerged that all respondents wish for a closer connection between school and social services, but several respondents express that it is not possible due to insufficient resources. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka och analysera hur yrkesverksamma inom skola och socialtjänst upplever samverkan som rör barn och unga som far illa eller som riskerar att fara illa. Intentionen var att synliggöra vilka faktorer som lärare och socialsekreterare för fram som framgångsrika i arbetet samt hur de beskriver att den rådande sekretessen påverkar samverkan. Med en kvalitativ utgångspunkt genomfördes intervjuer med sex respondenter inom skola och socialtjänst, tre lärare och tre socialsekreterare. Urvalet representerar sex yrkesverksamma från två kommuner av olika storlek i syfte att få en jämförelse kring hur samverkansarbetet upplevs i en mindre respektive större kommun. Innehållet i intervjuerna kodades och analyserades med hjälp av en tematisk analys. Det utvecklingsekologiska perspektivet applicerades under processen av den tematiska analysen för att skapa förståelse kring hur olika system inverkar på barnets utveckling. Studiens resultat synliggör vad lärare och socialsekreterare som arbetar med barn och unga upplever är såväl hinder som framgångsfaktorer för samverkan mellan skola och socialtjänst. Studien presenterar också hur yrkesverksamma inom skola och socialtjänst önskar utforma samverkan utifrån deras erfarenhet och kompetens. Samtliga respondenter lyfter att samverkan underlättas av personliga relationer mellan de samverkande aktörerna. De personliga relationerna underlättar kommunikationen och bidrar till ökat förtroende mellan verksamheterna. Samtliga respondenter för fram att samverkan gynnas av att arbeta i en mindre kommun, då det kan vara lättare att forma personliga relationer där. Vidare menar lärarna att sekretessen skapar frustration och hinder för samverkan. Lärarna säger att det är svårt att samarbeta kring ett barn när dem inte delges information om barnets situation, information som de även uttrycker är nödvändig för att de ska kunna ge de stöd och hjälp som barnet behöver. Slutligen, framkommer det att samtliga respondenter önskar en tätare kontakt mellan skola och socialtjänst, vilket de uttrycker inte är möjligt för tillfället på grund av tidsbrist och otillräckliga resurser.

Urbanisation is a global trend and in the year 2050 a big part of the world's population is expected to be living in urban areas. With this demographic change comes challenges. Biodiversity is the foundation for ecosystems to create services that human welfare depends on. The so called ecosystem services create functions that have provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting values för humans. The expansion of ecosystems is threatened around the world because of the increased urbanisation and more paved areas and less green spaces that are available for species to settle in. Green infrastructure is a management system that has become popular mainly in urban areas as a tool to conserve biodiversity and manage ecosystems in a sustainable way. By re-creating habitats and ecosystem functions a higher resilience is created in cities and through that it becomes easier to face challenges that come with a changed climate. In Sweden green infrastructure is an important component to reach global and national environmental goals. The capital of Sweden, Stockholm is growing rapidly. Because of the growing population the design of the city and the amount of green spaces is even more important to improve the ecological, economical and social aspects in society. In this study a qualitative content analysis has been made to examine how Sweden works with the implementation of green infrastructure on a national, regional and local level. By analysing three relevant policy documents an analytical framework has been used to look closer at how ecosystem services are expressed in the different levels. The result shows that ecosystem services are given a large place in the guidelines and the action plan for green infrastructure in Sweden. It is even more clear on a local level because a big part of the planprogram over the formation of the new district Årstafältet concentrates on creating ecological solutions to help ecosystem services to create its functions. The result also shows that the implementation of green infrastructure should be overarched by cooperation and transparency where more participants are included for the best possible decisions to be made. / Urbanisering är en global trend och år 2050 förväntas en stor andel av världens befolkning vara bosatta i urbana områden. Med denna demografiska förändring kommer utmaningar. Den biologiska mångfalden är en grundsten för att ekosystem ska kunna skapa de tjänster som människans välmående är beroende av. Ekosystemtjänster skapar funktioner som har försörjande, reglerande, kulturella och stödjande värden för människor. Ekosystemens utbredning hotas världen över på grund av ökad urbanisering då många ytor hårdläggs och färre gröna ytor blir tillgängliga för arter att bosätta sig i. Grön infrastruktur är ett förvaltningssystem som har blivit populärt framförallt i urbana områden för att bevara den biologiska mångfalden och förvalta ekosystem på ett hållbart sätt. Genom att återskapa livsmiljöer och ekosystemfunktioner skapas en högre resiliens i städerna och det blir på så sätt lättare att stå emot de utmaningar som kommer i och med ett förändrat klimat. I Sverige är grön infrastruktur en viktig komponent för att nå upp till globala och nationella miljömål. Sveriges huvudstad Stockholm växer i snabb takt. I och med den växande befolkningen blir utformningen av staden och andelen gröna ytor än viktigare för att förbättra de ekologiska, ekonomiska och sociala aspekterna i samhället. Denna studie har utgått ifrån en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att undersöka hur Sverige arbetar med implementering av grön infrastruktur på nationell, regional och lokal nivå. Genom att analysera tre relevanta policydokument har ett analytiskt ramverk använts för att undersöka hur ekosystemtjänster kommer till uttryck på de olika nivåerna. Resultatet visar att ekosystemtjänster får en stor plats i riktlinjerna och handlingsplanerna för grön infrastruktur i Sverige. Än tydligare blir det på lokal nivå då en stor del av planprogrammet för utformningen av den nya stadsdelen Årstafältet inriktar sig på att skapa ekologiska lösningar för att underlätta för ekosystemtjänsterna att utveckla sina funktioner. Resultatet visar även att implementeringen av grön infrastruktur måste genomsyras av samarbete och transparens där flera aktörer involveras för att bästa möjliga beslut skall fattas.