The purpose of this study was to determine the influence discipline has on teaching at public schools. In chapter 2 of the literature study, the researcher focused on aspects that influence discipline at school. In chapter 3, she also looked at education law aspects that have a direct influence on education. Two structured questionnaires were used in the quantitative research. These questionnaires were distributed separately between educators and learners at nine schools of the Free State Department of Education's Fezile Dabi District. From the findings of this study, it is clear that discipline indeed has an enormous influence on teaching at public schools. The Constitution (1996) and Schools Act (84/1996) make the application of effective discipline at schools possible. / Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Law))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence why students attend or do not attend the fitness and recreation centers provided to them on campus. With the obesity epidemic growing substantially over the past several decades, it has consequentially affected a vast majority of the nation, including the college-age population. In response to this, the use of fitness and recreation centers on college campuses and universities has become a focal point for administrators and recreation center managers as a focus on student recruitment and retention. The study utilized an online questionnaire which was adapted and revised from a prior survey and corresponding research that assessed fitness and recreation center usage within the college population (Zizzi, Ayers, Watson & Keeler, 2004). The survey used for collection of data in this study assessed factors related to college students’ usage or non-usage of campus recreational facilities by college students. It was distributed to a random sample of 1,100 undergraduate students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania through their student e-mail account. Results from the data collected in this study revealed that users were more likely to be male, Caucasian, non-smokers, and have no health concerns, which is representative of prior research on fitness and recreation center participation. Factors related to usage of the recreational facilities included maintaining one’s current weight as well as weight loss. Factors that influenced occasional non-usage in the user group were lack of time and energy, too much schoolwork, and inadequate facility operational hours. A factor related to non-usage included proximity of the recreational facility in relation to the students’ living arrangements. University administrators and fitness and recreation center managers need to be conscious of the factors that influence usage for the purpose of encouraging student recruitment and retention. Higher levels of usage will increase physical activity and influence health and wellness in the college population. / Dr. Robert Kostelnik Dr. Robert Alman Dr. Joshua Castle

This study explores how bilingualism impacts lexical selection within spontaneous spoken language production. The particular analysis focuses on the choice between synonymous verbs in English. The main hypothesis predicts that, as a result of crosslinguistic influence, bilingual speakers of French and English will opt for the English synonym which has structural correspondence to the French translation equivalent more often than monolingual speakers, who do not experience an influence from French. Structural correspondence exists in two distinct ways: in the form of cognates (e.g., applaudir/applaud vs. clap) and in terms of the number of free morphemes used to convey the same semantic information (e.g., lever/raise vs. put up). The language production data was generated by participants viewing video scenes and describing the action as it progressed. The frequency with which the different verbs were used was then compared across the different participant groups: monolingual English speakers and bilingual speakers of both French and English. The bilingual group was also subdivided based on language dominance. A range of different analyses were conducted. A framework is established for interpreting the data. Bilingualism can have one of three main effects on the speech of bilinguals relative to monolinguals: (a) an expanding effect, in which bilinguals use a wider range of lexical forms than monolinguals, (b) a limiting effect, in which bilinguals use a more limited range of lexical items than bilinguals, and (c) a modifying effect, in which the range of lexical items is basically the same between bilinguals and monolinguals but varies in terms of the frequency with which those lexical forms are used (a type of CLI labeled covert). These effects interact with certain speaker variables such as which language is the speakers dominant language. The stage(s) within the language production process at which CLI impacts ultimate lexicalization is also explored. Current models of language production which focus on lexical selection are discussed. The results of this study are most compatible with specific notions such as lexical access being target-language non-specific (see Costa, 2004, for example) and the Weaker Links Hypothesis (e.g., Gollan and Silverberg, 2001; Gollan, Montoya, & Werner, 2002).

The aim of this study is to explore how young people act and the organisation of school practice, and what possibilities they have of influencing the content and the forms practiced. The study focuses on how the pedagogic practice is organised in two classes in their first year of upper secondary school, one Social Science programme class and one Vehicle programme class. This embraces questions as: How, where, when and for what cause do students act to influence, and then with what result? Are students offered influence, and in that case which students? How does the organisation of and the content in the pedagogic practice prepare students to act in order to be able to exert influence in the future? These questions have been studied with focus on differences between the programmes with regard to social background and gender. The thesis has its theoretical base in Bernstein’s theory of pedagogy and code (1990, 2000), feminist perspectives (Arnot, 2006; Arnot & Dillabough, 2000; Connell, 1987; Gordon, 2006; Gordon, Holland & Lahelma, 2000) as well as theories of structuration (Giddens, 1984). The empirical material of the thesis was ethnographically produced during one school year, through classroom observations, individual interviews with students, teachers and head teachers, and the gathering of school and teaching material. The main results in the analysis are that actions taken to gain influence were rare, that the organisation of and the content in the pedagogic practice was mainly focused on students as becoming, i. e. it focused students possibilities to be able to influence in the future and not the present. Furthermore, changing of pedagogic content or pedagogic forms was dependent on students’ own actions.   There was a lack of teacher organisation to promote student influence. Finally, what was evaluated in the pedagogic practice, i.e. factual learning, did not promote student influence. The thesis demonstrates how pedagogic practice was gendered and classed, which had consequences for how students could influence and how students were prepared to influence in the future. Since the Social Science programme mostly attracts students from a middle-class background and the Vehicle programme those with a working-class background, the content in the programmes contributed to reproducing hierarchical social relations. The content for the Vehicle students proved to be simplified, personal and context dependent, whereas the content of the Social Science programme was more advanced, general and context independent, knowledge which, in argumentation for influence, is usually highly valued. In previous research, working class masculinities have often been associated with opposition towards study-oriented   subjects.   However, the current  study indicates that there is an interest in studying Swedish, English and maths. The students argued that it was necessary for future employment, and that the Vehicle industry is now asking for this kind of knowledge.

This project is a comparative study of three elementary schools in India and two elementary schools in Sweden. The purpose of this project is to study if Indian and Swedish students have the possibility to have influence on their English lessons. The research involves values conveyed in the socialisation and their consequences for student influence, democracy and society in the two countries. National and international research and literature concerning socialisation, language didactics, democracy and student influence were used as a foundation of this study. Furthermore, the study investigates the Swedish and the Indian curricula, and makes use of observations of English lessons, questionnaires and interviews with teachers in both countries. The method for this research is qualitative with some features of quantitative research and based in the method of Grounded theory. The results of this project is that the teachers in both countries controlled the students in different ways during the lessons and practiced student influence only when letting the students choose between preselected materials. Exclusion, inclusion and the hidden curriculum were aspects that appeared, which are likely to teach the students about their individual values in society. The lack of student influence consequently leads to the students being discouraged to be partaking citizens. Instead, the students will learn to follow the rules of society, be loyal to authorities and to carry established values with them and thus reproduce the society in each country and make it remain the same.

People with certain types of disabilities have the legal right to ask for an individual plan. The idea is that the plan should be a tool for the disabled to get more power and influence over the planned actions that involves their lives. The aim of this thesis was to study the individual circumstances of interpersonal power and influence in the work of individual plans. The study was done with a qualitative approach, where three executing officers and three individuals were interviewed. The results show that the conditions for the individual’s influence are far more complicated than at first glance. The influence depends on a number of parameters, from the executing officer’s response and inclusion of the individuals, to how the staffs of the operators receive and implement the individual plan. The shortcomings in the implementation were due to the staff having different views than the individual, representatives and executing officers on what to do and what the individual wanted. The thesis conclusions were that the individual's influence depends on the discourse about disability and the work culture prevailing in the workplace. Influence is given from the person that has the power position in the relationship.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur lärare på Hantverksprogrammets Frisörinriktning uppfattar och arbetar med elevinflytande för att skapa mening i undervisningen. Arbetet begränsades och preciserades genom följande frågeställning: Vilka aspekter av elevinflytande ges av lärarna till eleverna? Vilka faktorer påverkar elevinflytandet enligt lärarna? Arbetet har en kvalitativ ansats där lärare från Frisörinriktningen på Hantverksprogrammet ger sin syn på elevinflytande. Materialet insamlades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare verksamma på Frisörinriktningen och transkriberas utifrån en basmodell av Linell för att analyseras utifrån en teoretisk grund vilande på Dewey. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att lärare arbetar på liknande sätt med att involvera sina elever i elevinflytande i skolan oavsett om de undervisar i så kallade praktiska eller teoretiskt klassade ämnen. Undersökningen visar att det avgörande för elevinflytandet är viljan hos lärarna i kombination med elevernas vana att ta ansvar och av att ha fått utöva elevinflytande från tidigare stadier. Eleverna får i undersökningen mer inflytande i klassrumsfrågor än på de övergripande skolfrågorna. Slutsatser: För att elevinflytande skall vara möjligt krävs det att läraren är positivt inställd och lämnar plats och avsätter tid för eleverna. Samt att eleverna tar vara på sin möjlighet och har förståelse för varför de bör utnyttja sin rätt att involvera sitt elevinflytande över skolarbetet.

I dagens svenska samhälle är motion och matvanor aktuella ämnen. Forskning i ämnet har bedrivits med kvantitativ ansats där fokus ofta ligger på hälsoproblem som övervikt eller ätstörningar. I kontrast till fokuseringen på ohälsa syftar föreliggande studie till att undersöka uppkomsten av positiva hälsobeteenden genom att belysa moderspåverkan på sina döttrars mat och motionsvanor. Tidigare forskning har påvisat att modern har en betydande påverkan på dotterns hälsobeteenden genom att fungera som en modell samt genom socialisationsstrategier. Kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med nio unga kvinnor som alla motionerar regelbundet. Intervjuerna analyserades med meningskoncentrering. Resultatet visade att det finns en koppling mellan mor och dotters mat- och motionsvanor men att sambanden inte alltid upplevs så starka av döttrarna.

Ledarskapets utformning såväl som medarbetarens individuella förmåga till kompetensutvecklande insatser utgör centrala aspekter för organisationens konkurrensmöjligheter. Dessa externa och interna faktorers inverkan har kommit att belysas i allt högre grad i syfte att skapa förutsättningar för arbetsrelaterad motivation. Syftet med studien utgjorde att utforska samvariationen mellan medarbetarens uppfattning om ledarens förmåga till interaktion och socialt inflytande i kombination med den anställdes individuella upplevelse av self-efficacy och locus of control i syfte att därigenom studera den påverkan dessa faktorer medför för upplevelsen av arbetsmotivation. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med 127 individer som arbetar inom detaljhandel, vårdsektorn och skolväsendet. Resultatet visade att socialt inflytande och interaktion inom arbetet påvisade starkast signifikant samvariation. Även self-efficacy och locus of control uppvisade ett signifikant samband.

This essay is about personal assistance for persons with considerable intellectual disabilities. The purpose with the study is: to examine personal assistance for individuals, who can`t speak for themselves, to examine how the individuals can determine and get influence into their assistance and how they can get help with it, to examine the role of an representative in relation to the serviceuser´s assistance and examine if there are factors of gender in the interviews. The chosen method is qualitative interviews. The interviews has been analysed through earlier research about personal assistance and theoretical perspectives like: influence, integration and citizenship and discussed through perspectives of social psychology. The main conclusions are: the influence the serviceusers can have is through persons who know them very well, the role of the representatives are indistinct, the serviceusers can´t determine their assistance themselves and need help with it from relatives, representatives, personal assistants and managers, the persons who know the serviceuser intimately are best to transform the needs to assistance. The factors of gender, are that there are more men as personal assistants than in the care of elderly, and the representatives are mostly men. The personal assistants appreciates the time they have for the serviceuser, the work can be lonely and demanding.