Throughout the early 20th century, eugenics discourse came to colour many facets of social policy making across Canada. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways by which eugenics and the mental hygiene movement impacted the practice of child protection during the early 20th century. I argue that the construction and propagation of the term and classification of ‘feeble-mindedness’ was used by child protection workers to exclude an increasing number of children from both care and society. During this period, social workers were complicit in the sorting, classifying and segregating of children deemed ‘feeble-minded’ with the expressed purpose of eradicating certain classes of people from society and moreover the gene pool. Women shouldered the burden of the social reform movement, as they were considered both the solution to, and the cause, of social ills. Controlling women’s reproduction was seen as the best way to ensure ‘race betterment’. Women at the intersection of race, class and ability were often constructed as ‘feeble-minded’ and segregated for fear that they would reproduce ‘their kind’. Initially, the child protection system blatantly excluded those deemed ‘unworthy’ or ‘unreformable’. Under the rubric of eugenics, however, child protection’s role shifted and the system became complicit in the application of eugenic principle to child and family life and women’s reproduction under the auspice of ‘race betterment’ and nation building. Through this exploratory study, it is evident that the normative structures of child protection policy remain unchanged. Extricating children from troubled environments at the least possible cost continues to trump a more insightful look at how policy and resources should engage with structural concerns, such as poverty. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Worldwide, a greater and more diverse student population participates in higher education now more than ever before as the literature suggests an increase in 'nontraditional' students commonly regarded as adult students, part-time students, working college students, widening participation students, new wave students, millenial students and undocumented students, as examples. Policy imperatives, such as widening participation and flexible provision, have influenced new kinds of student identities beyond the familiar and fixed student categories, of 'traditional' and 'nontraditional', conventionally in use. Problems of 'nontraditional' student identity are compounded when the language and nomenclature in higher education perpetuate only certain kinds of 'nontraditional' student constructs, denoting mainly an increased numerical presence for certain student groups while underarticulating blended student identities and corresponding educational needs for what is arguably a new and growing segment of 'nontraditional' students in higher education today. While 'nontraditional' students are widely reported in the literature as having both an increasing and prevailing presence in higher education internationally, scholarly interest in students constructed in this way appear to be relatively recent and disproportionate when compared with the literature pertaining to higher education students regarded as 'traditional'. But who are these 'nontraditional' students in higher education currently, and are their identities by definition distinct from each other? What is currently denoted by this 'nontraditionalising' nomenclature when the literature progressively regards 'nontraditional' students as the 'new majority', the 'new traditionals' and the 'new normals' in higher education presently? And how different are they from students who may still be conventionally categorised as 'traditional'? This study’s central research question led to the beginnings and continuities of 'nontraditional' students at one South African university, and probed the reasons for what comes into view as varied and uneven institutional portrayals of students historically constructed as adult learners, lifelong learners, recognition of prior learning (RPL), after-hours and part-time students. Recommendations from this study, therefore, encourage awareness and possibly a review of the use of all student nomenclature at the University towards better understanding the 'traditional-nontraditional' range of student. For higher education ecologies worldwide, this study suggests that generalisations about 'traditional' and 'nontraditional' higher education students provide a window only on two main 'types' of student participating in higher education. However, new and transitioning student constructs must also be reflected in the language of higher education presently. When this is not done, the educational identities of all students in higher education are only partially understood and their educational experiences may be compromised. Re-imagining nontraditional student constructs is recommended alongside discourses that make possible teaching and learning arrangements for all higher education students, who find themselves shaping their studenthood along an increasingly blended 'traditional'-'nontraditional' continuum in higher education presently. Finally this study puts forward that perpetuation of jaded nomenclature and misnomers for 'nontraditional' students in higher education may be an indication that the more fundamental and necessary re-imagining of the higher education curriculum for current times is not yet underway.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T18:50:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ACF1C.pdf: 692387 bytes, checksum: 4d5171613a08a1a237a6c54471f4ac2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003 / The research aimed at analysing the political and discursive practices of the metanarrative of employability in the contemporary organizational field, heading for the understanding of the social and micropolitical devices which happen to produce some especific kinds of subjectivities within organizations. From a post-modern epistemological perspective (Weltanshauung), the research focused on the issues concerning the production of subjectivities in the existing organizational society beyond the traditional theoretical standpoints whose common assumptions are due to the modernist approaches of organizational analysis. A deconstructive theoretical approach was emphasized across the whole text and it was mainly inspired and intellectually based upon Michel Foucault's genealogical démarche. His original conceptualization of power-knowledge relations informed the development of a methodology so as to analyse the discursive practices which determine many of the human resources policies concerning employability. The main thesis presented employability as a grand-device of micropolitical control towards the production of subjectivities whose main operation technologies are: an economic modernizing rhetoric, a moralistic dietetics and an instrumental education. Several discursive fragments from different academicists, journalists and some authors from the managerial litterature were taken into account so as to carefully deconstruct their speeches. This analysis revealed the mechanisms of production of pasteurized, mercantile and erratic subjectivities. Some inquietudes of heuristic nature are featured in the domain of organizational, psychological, sociological and political perspectives heading for new studies. / A pesquisa teve como objetivo fundamental analisar as práticas discursivas e políticas da narrativa da empregabilidade na seara organizacional contemporânea rumo à compreensão dos dispositivos de produção de subjetividades nas organizações. A partir de uma perspectiva epistemológica pós-moderna, buscou-se recolocar a questão da produção de subjetividades na sociedade hodierna para além dos marcos teóricos tradicionais, comuns às abordagens modernistas da análise organizacional. O referencial teórico encontra na genealogia de Michel Foucault sua inspiração fundamental para a construção da metodologia empregada na análise das práticas discursivas que informam muitas das políticas de gestão de recursos humanos praticadas nas organizações atuais. A tese defendida é a de que a empregabilidade constitui-se em um macrodispositivo de controle micropolítico na produção de subjetividades, operando mediante três tecnologias fundamentais: uma retórica modernizadora e economicista, uma dietética moralizadora e uma andragogia instrumental. A desconstrução de diversos fragmentos discursivos, tanto acadêmicos quanto jornalísticos e de autores da literatura gerencial, enseja um conjunto de conclusões, de metamorfoses, rumo a compreensão de subjetividades pasteurizadas, mercantis e erráticas. Algumas inquietações de natureza heurística são levantadas no âmbito das epistemes organizacional, psicológica, sociológica e política rumo a novos estudos.

This thesis examines how cultural competency operates as a regime of governmentality. Inspired by Foucauldian genealogy, institutional ethnography, and Said’s concept of contrapuntality, this thesis problematizes the seamless production of racialized bodies in relation to mental disorder. I begin by elaborating a theoretical framework for interpreting race and madness as mutually constructed ordering practices. I then analyze what cultural competence produces and sustains in a position paper published by the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction Programs. I argue the Federation dismisses ongoing institutional violence—suggesting it is simply the perception, as opposed to the everyday reality, of discrimination that causes problems such as low educational attainment among youth of colour. To further support this claim, I deconstruct narratives of low self-esteem, maladaptive coping, depression, and denial of mental illness in the community needs assessments of two of the Federation’s member organizations: Hong Fook and Across Boundaries.

This thesis examines how cultural competency operates as a regime of governmentality. Inspired by Foucauldian genealogy, institutional ethnography, and Said’s concept of contrapuntality, this thesis problematizes the seamless production of racialized bodies in relation to mental disorder. I begin by elaborating a theoretical framework for interpreting race and madness as mutually constructed ordering practices. I then analyze what cultural competence produces and sustains in a position paper published by the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction Programs. I argue the Federation dismisses ongoing institutional violence—suggesting it is simply the perception, as opposed to the everyday reality, of discrimination that causes problems such as low educational attainment among youth of colour. To further support this claim, I deconstruct narratives of low self-esteem, maladaptive coping, depression, and denial of mental illness in the community needs assessments of two of the Federation’s member organizations: Hong Fook and Across Boundaries.