Thesis (M.Ed.(Science and Technology Education)) -- University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-144) Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-109).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-109). Also available in print.

Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2008.

Diss.--Universität Köln, 2008/2009. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (S.J.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

"September 1999" / Also available via the World Wide Web.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This dissertation analyzes public-intellectual work that deploys crisis tropes in its treatment of literacy, arguing that such work provides insight into the influence that intellectual engagement might exert on discourse in the public sphere. From A.S. Hill’s lament that freshman entering Harvard in 1874 could barely construct a legible sentence to Stanley Fish’s charge that millions of college graduates earning degrees in 2005 did so without learning what a sentence was, the relationship between literacy and the communicative skills required of productive citizens has been a constant source of concern. Between these two historical moments, this relationship has been an undertheorized feature of debates surrounding racial uplift, feminist protest, and America’s role as a world power. When interlocutors in such debates minimize the significance of literacy practices, they encourage rhetorical action driven by a coercive conception of social crisis that limits critical engagement on the part of the public. I argue that the public intellectual’s capacity to facilitate rhetorically literate discursive exchange at the level of the mass public can transform the paralysis of crisis into possibility. I reframe well-known debates between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, and Mortimer Adler and Glenn T. Seaborg in terms of the rhetorical models they offer for responsible public-intellectual work.

To date there have been few studies that have explored the relationship between life events and challenging behaviour( CB) in people with intellectual disabilities (ID). The present study is preceded by a literature review that first introduces the literature devoted to the understanding of risk factors associated with the development and maintenance of CB in people with ID. It then provides a flavour of the extensive venereal life events literature, by presenting meta-analytic and review studies that examine how life events impact on psychological well-being. It finally reviews life event studies that have so far occupied ID research. The literature review concludes with implications for future research and clinical interventions. This is followed by a research study that aims to explore the range of life events encountered by people with ID residing in a long stay residential hospital and ii. explore potential associations between life events and CB. To do this a correlational design was employed. Key respondent(nursing staff) well known to the participants provided information on known correlates of CB and life events experienced by the service-user over the previous 12 months. Results suggest that for the study population the life event domains of relationship issues and staff change provided a significant additional contribution to the prediction of CB once known 41 correlates of CB were controlled. The results are discussed in light of the findings. Limitations of the study are also discussed together with the future clinical and research implications of such findings. Finally the research paper is followed by a critical review that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the study, as well as the process issues arising during the course of the research. Clinical implications and future directions are further discussed.