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The creation of professional development that provides ongoing support to teachers so that they can continue to develop has been increasingly promoted in past years. With the onset of No Child Left Behind and Reading First, teacher professional development gained renewed interest in many school districts. One key component of professional development that received increased attention is professional development through instructional coaching. In a Reading First setting, coaches were supposed to provide teachers with ongoing support in implementing high quality reading instruction for teachers in grades K-3. However, little research on teacher perceptions in this setting has been undertaken. This study sought to discover teacher perceptions of the role, contribution, and value of coaching in grade levels K-3 by answering the following research questions: 1) How do teachers understand the role of instructional coaching? 2) What changes do teachers perceive in their practice as a result of instructional coaching? 3) Which components of instructional coaching do teachers believe they benefit from most? 4) Do teachers perceive a relationship between student learning and instructional coaching? A cross-case analysis was performed on two elementary schools. Data came from the perspective of eight teachers through personal interviews and focus group interviews. Coaching logs provided by instructional coaches were also used. Data collection and analysis was guided by Dewey’s (1938/1998) theory of experience, focusing on continuity and interaction. The results of this research revealed perceived diverse benefits of coaching on teacher practice in a Reading First setting, as well as issues and challenges within the coach-teacher relationship. Teachers’ views and attitudes regarding coaching were similar in some ways. Teacher interaction with coaches varied by experience and grade level. Most of the teacher participants wanted more interaction with the instructional coach assisting, modeling, and observing in the classroom. / text

Southwest University, a pseudonym for a Tier One 4-year public institution in the Southwest United States, introduced major curricular reforms in 2005. The most prominent of these reforms was a course required of all first-year students with the goal of transforming them from high-school students to college students. Research for this dissertation asked a group of first-year students about their experience in all of their courses but focused on the perceptions of this new first-year course. Currently, universities are devoting a great deal of resources and energy to curricular reform, but students are not often asked how they experience those curricular changes. First-year students discussed the role this course played in their first-year college experience. In order to assess student perceptions and reactions to the course, first-year students were interviewed twice. Additional qualitative data in the form of surveys and journals were also analyzed with an inductive analytic approach to provide supportive evidence for the themes that emerged in the interviews. The findings suggest that student perceptions of the course were positive and that the course had helped them achieve their first-year goals. However, the findings also suggest that additional research or a cost-benefit analysis of the program needs to be conducted to determine if the high cost of the program is worth the outcomes it is achieving. / text

States are the traditional focal point of democratic legitimation. In the standard model, the institution of the state is normatively privileged: it is the primary object of democratic legitimation, and the national political community is the primary subject. How, I ask, should the standard, state-centric model of democratic legitimation be transformed in light of the presence of substantive jurisdictional conflict and plural political identity? Substantive jurisdictional conflict describes a challenge to the state’s authority from non-state institutions that represent a territory which overlaps with a part of or extends beyond the state’s territory, make jurisdictional claims that are grounded independently from the state, and do not seek to form states themselves. Plural political identity describes the attachment of individuals to multiple political communities. Under these circumstances, I argue that non-state institutions can be important supplementary objects of democratic legitimation alongside states. The normative rationale for this transformation to the standard model is that adding non-state institutions as additional objects of democratic legitimation will enhance the ability of individuals and political communities to rule themselves. The basic shape of the model I develop is that the strength of competing jurisdictional claims can be assessed by comparing the primary roles of institutions. An account of an institution’s primary role describes its contribution to the production of democratic legitimation on behalf of a particular political community or political communities. The primary role of the state, for example, is to enable a project of democratic constitutionalism on behalf of the national political community. I then develop a criterion to guide state citizenries when considering how to respond to the claims of non-state institutions: they should distribute the jurisdiction necessary for non-state institutions to play their primary roles, subject to the qualification that their state’s primary role of enabling democratic constitutionalism is not negatively impacted. This approach pluralizes the meaning of democratic legitimation away from a strict association with the state towards multiple institutional locations.

The increasing tendency of youth getting involved in crime, globally as well as in South Africa is an indication of the comprehensive problem and the duty that is resting upon professionals dealing with the youth. It is therefore important that in South Africa attention will be given to the young first offender. Various intervention methods such as drama-based intervention can be used as service delivery for the young first offender. Drama based intervention hold various therapeutic values for the young first offender. This program can make use of various methods for intervention such as, dance, movement and theatre. The objectives of the program, the need of the participants as well as the background of each individual participant are determining the choice of the intervention method. A drama-based intervention program was used for the study. The aim of this study was to examine the nature of a drama-based intervention for young first offenders. The aims were to: • Through an intensive literature study the various intervention methods was studied. The finding of the literature study was that the involvement of the first young offender within any creative activity has a lasting effect on the social development of the client resulting in a decrease in anti-social behaviour such as crime. Experimental exercises that is based on social learning-; role- and cognitive-behavioural theory are very effective in working with young people • To develop, implement and evaluate a drama-based intervention program through an intensive literature study and empirical research. This program needs to focus on the decreasing and prevention of recidivism with young first offenders. This goal was achieved as the program was developed according to guidelines of the GEESE theatre, which was adapted for South-African circumstances. The program was implemented and evaluated with a group of seven young first offenders. The research showed that the most effective intervention program for young first offenders should be more experimental and based upon creative arts, rather than a structured goal-oriented program, creating opportunities for in-depth exploration of the inner self. The program would then also help the respondent to develop resiliency by building on protective factors, identifying risk factors and developing skills to manage factors such as low self esteem, family relations, peer pressure and poverty. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

An examination of contemporary English-Canadian novels and poems that depict Native characters in ways that support a claim to Canada, making what Fee calls a "literary land claim."

In 2005, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada – Saskatchewan Region initiated a comprehensive community planning (CCP) pilot project with 11 different Saskatchewan First Nations (and their affiliated Tribal Councils) that ran until March 2011. It consisted of three phases (2006, 2008, and 2009) where 11 First Nations participated in the planning process with professional planners from the Cities and Environment Unit (CEU) from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Comprehensive community planning was chosen because it is a holistic planning model that involves community members participation and decision-making in determining the future direction within each community. It is becoming more prominent within First Nation communities across Canada so it was timely to reflect upon the planning process undertaken during the pilot project to determine promising factors or areas of improvement. This study utilizes interviews to gather the reflections of First Nations, Tribal Council representatives, planners, and government officials about the current state of comprehensive community planning in Saskatchewan and what, if any, changes need to be considered. This thesis research indicates strong attempts to perform Indigenous Planning within First Nation communities; however, improvements can be made in certain areas. In order to promote Indigenous Planning more prominently within First Nations, it is important to have strong leadership and community support, continuous experience and skill building opportunities, thorough incorporation of the First Nations culture into any future development by attempting to be comprehensive and holistic, and by reevaluating the role planners play when working with First Nations and their comprehensive community plans.

This thesis argues that the First Nations and their material culture have been used as tropes in the construction of national symbols on Canadian money. The twenty dollar bill from the 2004 series of Canadian banknotes, Canadian Journeys, was the impetus for this inquiry. The art of Bill Reid is featured on this banknote. Reid is an artist who identifies, on his mother's side, with the Haida First Nations and his art takes its themes and style from the Haida crest imagery. The implications of utilizing a First Nations artist on a Canadian banknote becomes problematic when considering the antagonistic historical relationship Canada has had with the First Nations and the multiplicity of unresolved land claims. Therefore, I ask, how this Bill Reid banknote should be read. In answering this question I have divided this thesis into three parts. First, I analyze a historical precedent for this contemporary banknote. The 1870 two dollar bill is useful for it both gives an example of the use of First Nations as a trope in representing the nation and it helps expose the importance of money as a national symbol at the time when Canada was struggling to come together as a modern nation. In the next section I analyze the Bill Reid bill as both a part of a symbolic construction of nation and as a material practice which has regional or territorial implications. In the final section I argue that Bill Reid utilized the language commonly used for colonial justification to elevate his own practice. While carving out a market for his work Reid helped to reify nationally accepted histories concerning the First Nations—namely that they are culturally dead.

Schizophrenia is among the most debilitating mental disorders, yet the pathophysiology remains unclear. The basal ganglia, a region of the brain involved in motor, cognitive, and sensory processes, may be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Some, but not all, neuroimaging studies suggest abnormalities of the basal ganglia in schizophrenia. However, previous studies have examined whole basal ganglia nuclei as opposed to using a unified basal ganglia complex that incorporates anterior-posterior divisions, dorsal-ventral divisions, and gray-white matter segmentation. The hypothesis for the present study was that basal ganglia sub-regions forming functionally relevant subdivisions might be different in schizophrenia. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 25 first-episode schizophrenia subjects and 24 healthy subjects. Using manual and automated neuroimaging techniques, total and segmented (gray-white matter) volumes were obtained for the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus. For the striatum (caudate and putamen), total and segmented volumes were obtained for their respective sub-regions. These sub-regions were restructured into associative, limbic, and sensorimotor subdivisions. Schizophrenia subjects had 6% smaller gray matter volumes for the caudate and 8% smaller gray matter volumes for the associative striatum relative to healthy subjects. Basal ganglia function was studied by examining performance on a neuropsychological test that assesses frontostriatal functioning. For male subjects there was a significant negative correlation between volume of the associative striatum and performance on the neuropsychological test (r=-0.57, p=0.03). Smaller volumes of the associative striatum were associated with more errors on the neuropsychological test. This test was specific to the associative striatum, as another neuropsychological test did not reveal any correlation. In schizophrenia subjects, the relationship between basal ganglia volumes and motor symptoms severity was examined. For antipsychotic-naive subjects there was a significant negative correlation between volume of the motor striatum and severity of Parkinsonism (r=-0.65, p=0.03). The present study suggests that total basal ganglia nuclei volumes are not different in schizophrenia, but gray matter volumes of total basal ganglia nuclei and subdivisions forming functional units may be different in schizophrenia. Structural abnormalities involving the basal ganglia may lead to disrupted functional circuits in schizophrenia.

This thesis examines Dene engagement with the diamond mining economy in Canada’s Northwest Territories. While historic treaties, policy and regulation create situations of powerlessness, the space for the negotiation of a bilateral relationship between Treaty mining companies and communities exists, formalized as Impact and Benefit Agreements. An initial emphasis on socio-cultural impacts and vulnerability of the communities in relation to the mines illuminated variable outcomes. This led to a central focus on how outcomes are negotiated, with the outcomes strongly related to forms of community and cultural resilience. Surprisingly, the ability to bounce back, or be resilient (not vulnerable), as defined by the Tåîchô and Yellowknives Dene communities is central to community response and well being in this new economy. The possibility of self determination and the potential to be in relationships of reciprocity are found to be fundamental drivers of community health and thus resilience. Study of the Tåîchô Cosmology surfaces the centrality of reciprocity to cultural resilience wherein the quality and nature of the relationships as inscribed in past and present agreements themselves are of defining importance. New relationships with mining companies are entered with the expectation of reciprocity by communities, so that the exchanges are economic, social, cultural, spiritual and symbolic. This thesis outlines this process as it plays out in the mining economy and as it is manifest in spaces of negotiation, each of which invokes social capital and reciprocity. These include negotiations between: diamond mining companies and the communities; government and communities; diamond mining companies and the workers, and miners and their families and communities. Each of these negotiations is vital in creating the possibility of employment and business. However, relationships with the settler government and with Treaty mining companies are constrained. Many of the limitations identified relate to the assumption by settler society of the universality of their particular values, practices and culture. The thesis argues that Treaty mining companies can shift approaches, both in the orientation to relationship and in the implementation of agreements through the lifecycle of the mine.