published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

國內最近幾年來，警察人員遭「強制扣薪」問題，隨著國內社經多元因素交互激盪，呈現逐年增加趨勢，身居為社會之一環，不論個人、家庭、職場、社會等各層面誘因，均一而再的衝擊影響渠意識，致使衍生各種深重困擾的風紀問題；以台北縣警察局所屬警察人員為例，遭法院裁定強制執行扣薪計有二百七十五人，佔全局人數百分之四點二，鑑於其發生過程多元複雜，且種種慘痛案例迄今仍重複發生，實值得深入加以探討；研究者因忝為台北縣政府警察局一員，乃僅就台北縣警察人員為例研提報告。 本論文從問題背景開始、以研究員警為何被扣薪原因，被扣薪後對員警家庭生活及職場意識為目的、研究方法則由相關文獻回顧著手，以參與觀察法、訪談法、多元方法（三角交叉檢視法）等研究方法，再經以問卷，設計以個人基本資料、強制扣薪原因、扣薪後對您自己及家庭生活、職場生活影響及對策等等項目，期建構出維護警察風紀之「最佳模式」。來瞭解對家庭生活、職場等二個面向之影響，並透過量化與質化方式，理論與實務並重進行探討分析，就整體形象、工作職場、家庭生活、長官互動、同儕關係、生活影響、其他各方面說明，深入研究問題之類型、成因、影響，針對問題提出結論之重點，獲致如下之研究發現、貢獻。 一、本論文從問題背景、相關文獻資料皆係唯一，研究問題之類型、成因、工作、家庭生活之影響，亦屬首創。 二、本研究有助警察團隊愈加堅實，以台北縣警察局所屬警察人員為例，本案經防制輔導措施實施，從93年9月迄94年1月已減57名。 三、就扣薪發生錯綜複雜過程，種種慘痛案例，迄今仍重複發生，本研究可予實務界立即參酌；亦提供可續研究發展的空間，有a.擴及五大都會區研究發展、b.台、澎、金、馬地區之探索、c.先進工業國家情況之探討。期望有利來者後續之研究，並冀求有關警察行政當局對本案現象之關注及作為。 四、依本研究發現，警察人員遭受法院強制扣薪，對於該員警本身之生理、心理、家庭、職場、生活、上司與下屬、同儕、親朋好友，皆有若干影響，提供未來改善可行參考方向。

Die Magisterarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der politischen Förderung der geringfügigen Beschäftigung sowie der Inanspruchnahme haushaltsnaher Dienstleistungen und deren Bedeutung für eine gleichstellungsorientierte Familien- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik. Als Ausgangspunkt wird die Frage gestellt, ob geringfügige Beschäftigung und haushaltsnahe Dienstleistungen einen Arbeitsmarkt für Frauen im Niedriglohnsektor schaffen oder ob sie eine Perspektive zur besseren Vereinbarkeit von Erwerbsarbeit und Carearbeit bieten. Dazu wird die Perspektive der Beschäftigten in sogenannten Minijobs als auch der NutzerInnen haushaltsnaher Dienstleistungen analysiert. Als theoretischer Rahmen liegt der Arbeit die These der geschlechterkritischen, vergleichenden Wohlfahrtsstaatforschung zugrunde, dass Policies familialisierende und defamilialisierende Wirkungen haben können. Auf Grundlage dieses Rahmens werden zwei Gesetze und deren gleichstellungspolitische Wirkung analysiert (Familienleistungsgesetz und 2. Gesetz für moderne Dienstleistungen am Arbeitsmarkt – Hartz II). Die Arbeit gelangt zu dem Ergebnis, dass trotz der engen Verflechtung der beiden Politikfelder Arbeitsmarkt- und Familienpolitik ein Mismatch zwischen den analysierten Gesetzen besteht. Insbesondere hinsichtlich der geringfügigen Beschäftigung gelangt die Arbeit aus einer gleichstellungspolitischen Perspektive zu dem Urteil, dass sie sich am modernisierten Ernährermodell orientiert und Frauen auf die Rolle als Zuverdienerin festlegt. Auf diese Weise werden Anreize für eine geschlechterspezifische Arbeitsteilung gelegt. / The M.A. thesis deals with current political reforms in the field of family and employment policies. The main question of the analysis is if employment in household and care services is helping to better facilitate work and life balance of women or if they are merely creating feminized jobs in the low wage sector. Based on theories of feminist welfare state research, the policy analysis is looking at recent legislation in Germany promoting employment of domestic workers on the one hand and on the other hand combating irregular employment in private households („Hartz II“, a labour market reform promoting service sector jobs and „Familienleistungsgesetz“ a family policy reform). Focusing on the macro-level the author raised the key question how labour policies regulated domestic work and care work. The analysis concentrates on the objectives of the two recent laws, their implementation and concrete outcomes as well as the political debate. Therefore data from the German employment bureau and the Federal Statistical Office is analysed. Since domestic work mostly affects women - be it as domestic workers to earn a living, or be it as their employers in order to facilitate work and family life – a perspective that allowed investigating the gender equality in Germany is adopted. Therefore the thesis focused not only on domestic workers but also on their employers. In Germany employing domestic workers has become an individual female solution for a general societal problem, the still difficult reconciliation of work and family life.

L’histoire de la famille musulmane est née au début des années 1990 d’un souci commun d’éviter les généralisations hâtives et d’accumuler les faits élémentaires de la vie familiale et résidentielle. Or, le discours scientifique actuel, aussi bien que celui qui l’a précédé, restent fondés sur une même série de postulats qui conduisent à voir dans les modalités de la vie résidentielle et familiale propres aux sociétés de l’Islam la prégnance d’une mentalité collectiviste, la persistance d’une volonté ancrée dans l’esprit des individus de vivre « entre soi » dans la promiscuité d’une maisonnée nombreuse et complexe. Dans l’esprit d’une critique positive, cette thèse s’attache à illustrer la pertinence d’une perspective « atomiste » au regard des Ammeln, à savoir un groupe de paysans berbérophones natifs des hautes terres de l’Anti-Atlas, dans le Sud du Maroc. Cela se fera à la lumière d’une multitude de sources ethnographiques, démographiques et archivistiques, grâce auxquelles il sera possible de remonter le fil du temps et de suivre les processus de formation et de transformation des maisonnées établies par les habitants du pays des Ammeln depuis l’époque précoloniale jusqu’à nos jours. Ainsi, il apparaitra plus clairement que, dans les sociétés de l’Islam, aussi petites et isolées soient-elles, les noyaux familiaux sont enclins à vivre « chacun chez soi », et qu’ils n’acceptent de faire autrement qu’en raison d’un ensemble de forces et de contraintes sociales particulières les empêchant d’atteindre l’autonomie résidentielle et de bénéficier de la liberté d’action qui en découle. / Family history in the Islamic Middle East was born in the early 1990s from a shared concern to avoid sweeping generalizations and accumulate the basic facts about residential and family life. However, both the current scientific discourse and the one that preceded it are based upon a common set of assumptions that suggest that members of Islamic societies share a collectivistic mentality and a common desire to live amongst themselves in the promiscuity of large and complex households. In the spirit of positive criticism, this thesis aims to illustrate the relevance of a new “atomistic” perspective by studying the case of the Ammeln, a group of peasants from the Berber highlands of the Anti-Atlas, in Southern Morocco. This research is based on a variety of ethnographic, demographic and historical sources that make it possible to go back in time and follow the process of formation and transformation of households in this small village community, from pre-colonial times to the present day. As such, it will become clearer that, in Islamic societies, as small and isolated as they may be, elementary family units are inclined to live on their own, and that they choose to do otherwise only because of a given set of forces and constraints preventing them from attaining residential autonomy and benefiting from the resulting freedom. / Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris).

This dissertation examines the character, conditions and change of peasant stratification in early modern Sweden. Wherever and whenever one looks, one finds that resources were unevenly spread among peasant households. In the literature, there are different, and conflicting, views compatible with this finding. In order to explain its character, this study places peasant stratification into a broader system of resource reproduction. Resource holding, families, and individuals are studied over time. The study is based on an extended family reconstitution comprising the landholding peasants in the Mid-Swedish parish of Björskog between 1620 and 1820. Data has been compiled from cadastres, poll tax registers, parish registers, court records, and maps, and has then been related to the information on resource holding as given by tax lists and probate inventories. Six elements and three general principles are identified as fundamental to systems of resource reproduction among peasants. Starting from these, the book argues that the resource holding of a Swedish peasant household was relatively independent of family demography; that wealthy peasants were able to retain large surpluses even during the period of high rent pressure in the seventeenth century; that the reproduction of poorer peasant households was imperfect whereas the reproduction of wealthier households was extended; that wealthy peasants dominated the local community; that economic inequalities within the class of landed peasants did not increase during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; that land accumulation and cyclical mobility became important features of peasant society, but not until the decades around 1800: and that the peasant community was characterized by a large degree of geographical and downward social mobility.

The aim of this dissertation was to analyse the effect of socio-economic factors on poverty in Nyakallong. Nyakallong is a former Black township in the Free State Province of South Africa. The effect of the socio economic factors on poverty was analysed using an econometric model. The analysis was based on data collected by the researcher and three fieldworkers who conducted a survey of 412 households in Nyakallong in 2009. To calculate poverty rates and the effect of socio-economic factors, data relating to the area was used. Poverty was defined and then measured for the township, and the profile of both the whole and the poor population was determined. The following poverty lines are used in South Africa – PDL, MSL, MLL, SLL, HSL and HEL. The HSL, which is defined as an estimate of the theoretical income needed by an individual household to maintain a defined minimum level of health and decency in the short term, was used as a measure of poverty in the area. The headcount index, poverty gap ratio and the dependency ratio were also used to measure poverty. The headcount index was found to be 0.472 for Nyakallong, meaning that 47.2% of all household’s income is below their respective poverty line. Poverty rate in Nyakallong was found to be 48.5% which is almost similar to the poverty rate of 49.1% for the Free State province, while poverty rate in Kwakwatsi was found to be 62.1%. The analysis of the sources of income of the poor showed that government grants constitute 64% of household income, with the old state pension grant alone contributing 16% to household income for a poor family. In Kwakwatsi, government grants contributed 38.4% of poor household’s income, with the old state pension grant having contributed 40.6%. On average, the whole population has a monthly income of R2 938, 35 compared to R1 140 which is received by the poor population; while in Kwakwatsi, the poor population received a monthly income of R688 and the whole population received an average of R1401.01. The expenditure patterns for the whole sampled population show that 39.7% of household income goes to buying food, compared to 44.3% for the poor sampled population of Nyakallong. In Kwakwatsi, poor population spent 49.2% of income on food and the whole population spent 33.4%. In Nyakallong, 50% of the whole population and 53% of the poor population was found to be economically inactive. In Kwakwatsi, 44% of the whole population and 56% of the poor population was found to be economically inactive. The unemployment rate of the poor in Nyakallong is 95.6% compared to 69.9% of the whole population. In Kwakwatsi 86.9% of the poor population and 79% of the whole population were unemployed. The dependency ratio was found to be 6 among the poor population and 2 for the whole population of Nyakallong, while in Kwakwatsi it was found to be 7 among the poor population and 4 among the whole population. The study analysed the socio-economic determinants of poverty in the area. The data was evaluated using hypothesis testing for statistical significance of the parameters. It was established that there is a positive relationship between education and the poverty gap ratio although it is statistically insignificant. It was also found that there is an inverse relationship between employment and poverty ratio. This complies with theory. The results also showed a positive relationship between household expenditure and the poverty gap – this is what was expected, because expenditure is the reduction of resources. On gender, the results confirm the generally held hypothesis that female headed households are poorer compared to their male counterparts. The results show that poverty is high among female headed households compared to male headed households. Household size was measured by the number of people staying in a given house. The household size was found to range from one to eleven members per household. The average household size was found to be 4.2 in Nyakallong, 3.9% in Kwakwatsi and 3.4% in the Free State. Household size is an important variable in determining poverty – increasing the household size by 10% is likely to increase the poverty gap of the household by about 1%. This might seem not significant, but this is a result that must be noted and handled with caution. More people in households also mean more expenditure on food items, medical expenses, clothing and education. In order to reduce the level of poverty in Nyakallong, job creation and employment opportunities should be targeted. The nearby university of technology and FET College should inform learners at secondary schools about funds (NFSAS) available to help them in furthering their studies. Educators should also engage learners to realise the disadvantages of large household size. Large organisations such as ESCOM and Harmony Gold could help by means of skills development, especially among youth and females, in order to make them employable. Unemployment can also be reduced by putting back into operation the closed mine shaft and Allanridge Sanatorium hospital. A food garden community programme should be established in order to reduce the level of poverty. People who are involved should be trained on how to manage and develop the programme. / MCom, Economics, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Paper [I] Using a unique and highly detailed data set on energy consumption at the appliance-level for 200 Swedish households, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR)-based end-use specific load curves are estimated. The estimated load curves are then used to explore possible restrictions on load shifting (e.g. the office hours schedule) as well as the cost implications of different load shift patterns. The cost implications of shifting load from "expensive" to "cheap" hours, using the Nord Pool spot prices as a proxy for a dynamic price, are computed to be very small; roughly 2-4% reduction in total daily costs from shifting load up to five hours ahead, indicating small incentives for households (and retailers) to adopt dynamic pricing of electricity. Paper [II] Using a detailed data set on appliance-level electricity consumption at the hourly level, we provide the first estimates of hourly and end-use-specific income elasticities for electricity. Such estimates are informative about how consumption patterns in general, and peak demand in particular, will develop as households’ income changes. We find that the income elasticities are highest during peak hours for kitchen and lighting, with point estimates of roughly 0.4, but insignificant for space heating. Paper [III] In this paper, I estimate the price elasticity of electricity as a function of the choice between fixed-price and variable-price contracts. Further, assuming that households have imperfect information about electricity prices and usage, I explore how media coverage of electricity prices affects electricity demand, both by augmenting price responsiveness and as a direct effect of media coverage on electricity demand, independent of prices. I also address the endogeneity of the choice of electricity contract. The parameters in the model are estimated using unique and detailed Swedish panel data on monthly household-level electricity consumption. I find that price elasticities range between −0.025 and −0.07 at the mean level of media coverage, depending on contract choice, and that households with monthly variation in electricity prices respond more to prices when there is extensive media coverage of electricity prices. When media coverage is high, for example 840 news articles per month (which corresponds to the mean plus two standard deviations), the price elasticity is −0.12, or 1.7 times the elasticity at the mean media coverage. Similarly, media coverage is also found to have a direct effect on electricity demand. Paper [IV] I explore how households switch between fixed-price and variable-price electricity contracts in response to variations in price and temperature, conditional on previous contract choice. Using panel data with roughly 54000 Swedish households, a dynamic probit model is estimated. The results suggest that the choice of contract exhibits substantial state dependence, with an estimated marginal effect of previous contractchoiceof0.96, andthattheeffectofvariationinpricesandtemperatureonthechoice of electricity contract is small. Further, the state dependence and price responsiveness are similar across housing types, income levels and other dimensions. A plausible explanation of these results is that transaction costs are larger than the relatively small cost savings from switching between contracts.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse how space heating for single-family houses, and energy system conversion has been constructed and discussed at national, municipal and household levels. Political documents have been studied, and interviews have been carried out with politicians, civil servants and householders in the municipality of Falun. In order to study and analyse similarities and differences between these three political levels, the following main questions were asked: In which sense is the use of electrical heating formulated as problematic? How are the causes of these problems presented, and which solutions are suggested? What are the effects of how problems, causes and solutions are constructed? At the national level, the use of electricity produced by nuclear power was considered a problem. Initially the municipality’s policy documents present the same problem, but there is a change of focus to the problem of imported electricity produced by fossil fuel, and the resulting emissions. At household level, the problem was often an old and badly functioning space-heating system. But some households did not formulate a problem before they converted. Instead they were influenced by their neighbours and thereby convinced. At all three political levels, there is consensus on the households’ responsibility concerning energy transition. While industry tends to be considered incapable of cutting down its energy consumption, households are expected to take the responsibility seriously. Furthermore, within the household, the heating system tends to be constructed as a predominantly male concern. At all three levels, households are perceived as dependant on economical subsidies when taking the decision to convert from electrical heating. Although it is interesting that the interviewed householders only apply this view to others than themselves. They are convinced that other households need subsidies to act in an environmentally correct way. The discourse concerning the Swedish energy transition illustrates a shift away from a definition of ecological modernisation where environmental considerations influence economic development. The thesis clearly shows how economic arguments repeatedly influence environmental concerns. However, the tension between the two is played down and concealed through the lack of problematisation of the responsibility of industry, and through the focus on the need for education and future opportunities. Political dialogues concerning the use of electrical heating and the conversion of energy systems towards more renewable energies are dominated by economic arguments at the three levels. One effect of this is an assumption that energy policy instruments such as information and economic subsidies are essential for the energy transition. However, if householders rather are influenced by their neighbours should the government use economic subsidy as the main energy policy instrument?

In this thesis, I report the results from the first randomized field experiments conducted in collaboration with party-affiliated candidates and campaigns in the United Kingdom. The papers presented as part of this thesis test both the limits and possibilities of campaign influence, in a partisan political environment. During election campaigns parties provide signals to voters, voluntarily or involuntarily imposing a structure, and thereby constraints, on individuals’ electoral decisions. By integrating insights about heuristic and social decision-making into the experimental campaign literature, I formulate testable hypotheses about the direct and indirect effects of party cues on campaign mobilization and persuasion. The first paper, The Heuristic Function of Party Affiliation in Voter Mobilization Campaigns, addresses how the provision of party cues, used during campaign phone calls, affects turnout among party supporters, opponents and unattached voters. The second paper on Household Partisan Composition and Voter Mobilization, explores the spillover effects from the previous experiment, testing whether campaign-induced mobilization between household members is conditioned by the partisan composition of a household, and the partisan intensity of a campaign message. Paper three investigates if candidates who are Reaching Across The Partisan Divide can win over supporters of rival parties. In the fourth paper, I test if Impersonal, But Noticeable methods of voter contact, such as door hangers and text messages, affect the turnout decisions of partisans and unattached voters. The final paper, The National Effects of Subnational Representation, highlights the importance of local party organization for the outcomes of national elections. The results of this thesis show the electoral consequences of direct and indirect interactions between campaigns and voters of different partisanship, and point to strategies that allow constituency campaigns to successfully navigate challenging partisan environments.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.