How come that people with disabilities still do not have the same opportunity to receive a job offer as the rest of the population? Who represents these disabled people’s interests in labormarket-related discussions? This thesis aims to evaluate the representation of the disabled within the labor market by comparing interest groups to trade union organizations based on thedebate between the Power resource approach (PRA) and the New politics (NP) perspective.There is limited research on this area related to disabled people; therefore, this thesis adapts the two theories in a new way when trying to apply the perspectives on disabled people. To empirically investigate the representation between interest groups and trade union organizations, qualitative and quantitative data are collected and analyzed using a framework for representation based on Hanna Pitkin’s definition of substantive representation. The results show that the trade union organizations do participate to a large extent, though not to the same extent as interest groups. Thereby the thesis gives some empirical support for Pierson’s New politics perspective, but this area is still in need of future research.

In a time of expanding globalization and worldwide interconnectedness through the Internet, the need for a better understanding of diverse cultures has taken on a new urgency. One way people learn about cultures other than their own is through the news media. Yet journalists have long been criticized for their inability to represent the complexities of cultures. The concept of cultural competence has been used to enhance cultural understanding in a variety of professions, including health care, social work, psychology, business and public relations. This dissertation applied the concept of cultural competence to journalists, using as theoretical frameworks the social construction of reality and concepts related to social cognition. The study explored factors that contribute to or hinder the cultural competence of journalists, including multimedia journalistic practices that influence the cultural competence of reporters and their news coverage. To answer the research questions posed in this dissertation, an extensive case study was conducted in a multimedia journalism laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, in which student reporters produce news pieces about urban neighborhoods. The research involved 223 surveys, 28 observations of students reporting in the field, and 71 in-depth interviews with student reporters, news sources, neighborhood representatives, and lab professors. A textual analysis also was conducted of selected multimedia news packages produced by the student reporters. Five key factors were found to influence the cultural competence of journalists: awareness of self; awareness of the complexity of "insider" or "outsider" status; use of journalistic ethics, norms and routines; knowledge of the other, and skills and attributes that influence knowledge of the other. New multimedia journalistic practices were found to provide the potential to move journalists and their news texts toward more cultural competence. This study provides new meaning for what it means to be a journalist as one who dwells in the borderlands, occupying liminal spaces and promoting understanding over current norms of objectivity. This new meaning could be supported by journalism education programs that encourage future reporters to strive for a culturally competent approach to reporting and news production that promotes understanding for themselves and their audiences. / Mass Media and Communication

Community-based ecosystem management (CBEM) is increasingly advocated as a way to conserve biodiversity, monitor, and maintain ecosystem functions in the context of local land use practices through an inclusive management approach. However, while CBEM is based in principles of inclusion, there is very little attention in environmental management and education literature directed to the role of youth in stewardship activities, and the environmental learning outcomes and other meanings that may result from these practices.<p>The purpose of this thesis is to describe participatory and experiential environmental learning carried out in the Frenchman River Basin, Southwestern Saskatchewan. Here, I investigated how students participation in an ecological monitoring program contributed to their understanding of their local environment and to their sense of place, and considered how the development of a learning community among students, teachers, community members, and academic researchers influenced these processes.<p>This research adopts a mixed methods approach, employing knowledge-based tests to explore student learning outcomes and using interpretations of place through student photographs and interviews to examine their sense of place. I take a phenomenological approach to defining what constitutes place for students, as well as how sense of place is formed for them, elucidating how their experiences participating in the ecological monitoring program entered the process of meaning construction.<p>This case study found that both experiential and participatory approaches to learning helped foster environmental understanding as well as place appreciation and attachment. The Frenchman River, previously described as a taken-for-granted feature of the familiar landscape and largely associated with its agricultural importance, was re-negotiated as a social space, a place of play, learning, and biological significance. Research findings also suggest that place meanings are deeply rooted in students rural identity, and that this influenced their participant experience, independent of environmental learning outcomes. <p>The creation of a learning community was a mobilizing force for school-based ecological monitoring and information sharing, while acting as a source of symbolic significance for student participants, helping students to see their place from the perspective of an outsider.

Community-based ecosystem management (CBEM) is increasingly advocated as a way to conserve biodiversity, monitor, and maintain ecosystem functions in the context of local land use practices through an inclusive management approach. However, while CBEM is based in principles of inclusion, there is very little attention in environmental management and education literature directed to the role of youth in stewardship activities, and the environmental learning outcomes and other meanings that may result from these practices.<p>The purpose of this thesis is to describe participatory and experiential environmental learning carried out in the Frenchman River Basin, Southwestern Saskatchewan. Here, I investigated how students participation in an ecological monitoring program contributed to their understanding of their local environment and to their sense of place, and considered how the development of a learning community among students, teachers, community members, and academic researchers influenced these processes.<p>This research adopts a mixed methods approach, employing knowledge-based tests to explore student learning outcomes and using interpretations of place through student photographs and interviews to examine their sense of place. I take a phenomenological approach to defining what constitutes place for students, as well as how sense of place is formed for them, elucidating how their experiences participating in the ecological monitoring program entered the process of meaning construction.<p>This case study found that both experiential and participatory approaches to learning helped foster environmental understanding as well as place appreciation and attachment. The Frenchman River, previously described as a taken-for-granted feature of the familiar landscape and largely associated with its agricultural importance, was re-negotiated as a social space, a place of play, learning, and biological significance. Research findings also suggest that place meanings are deeply rooted in students rural identity, and that this influenced their participant experience, independent of environmental learning outcomes. <p>The creation of a learning community was a mobilizing force for school-based ecological monitoring and information sharing, while acting as a source of symbolic significance for student participants, helping students to see their place from the perspective of an outsider.

This thesis deals with the labour market reforms in Spain that were adopted in order to increase the labour market flexibility and decrease the extraordinarily high unemployment persisting in Spain over decades. The thesis focuses especially on the latest labour market reform adopted in February 2012, which is considered the most impactful one, especially regarding dismissals and their cost. After introducing the main characteristics of the Spanish labour market including, among others the historical circumstances that have led to the current situation, an analysis of several labour market indicators is performed, aiming to find out whether the objectives of the 2012 reform were fulfilled or not. Furthermore, the thesis investigates the performance of the German Hartz reforms adopted in 2003-2005 and attempts to quantify the cost of potential application of their measures on the current Spanish labour market situation. This provides a valuable insight useful for the proposal of recommendations to improve the Spanish labour market.

No description available.

In this exploratory thesis project, I consider what emerging approaches we can take as social scientists to showcase and critically engage self-representations of diasporic individuals, who often lack visibility and legibility within the dominant cultural archive. Filmmaking as a social research practice can provide rich audiovisual data, physical and social access to materials for nonacademics, and opportunities to document and share subjects' comments and settings without the limitations of transcription. This is especially salient in the emerging media landscape of Web 2.0, where digital communications technology applications (such as Facebook, Skype, and Snapchat) are accessible by a global audience, and can act as tools for cultural identity production by diasporic individuals. This project documents the experiences of several first- and second-generation Bangladeshi American immigrants in relation to digital communications technology advances within the past decade, for the purposes of collecting and sharing stories of diasporic individuals, offering a venue for self-expression through empathetic interviewing and collaborative oral history methods, and contributing to the American cultural archive in the context of emerging media and academic landscapes. The full project is comprised of this text document, alongside a short documentary film containing portions of audiovisual data from interviews which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh9puazpdrw. / Master of Science

No / The Silences Framework and its underpinning concept of ‘Screaming Silences’ was originally presented with the invitation for further peer review and utilisation in other contexts in order to test its usefulness and enable critique by a wider audience. This paper reports the use of the framework in a study researching nurse-led interventions for released ex-offenders. Screaming Silences were situated in how an issue, as experienced by ex-offenders, screams out to them in relation to their health and its impact on their reality while remaining silent in the consciousness of society and the application of practice. In addressing these Screaming Silences, we associated the Silences Framework within marginal discourses as they are less prioritised by policy and frequently positioned as far removed from what society considers as normal. Screaming Silences were situated in the subjective experiences of ex-offenders known as the ‘listener’ and the social and personal context in which these experiences occurred. We affirmed that the framework is ideally suited for researching issues which are under-researched, silent from policy discourse and excluded from practice, as it is oriented towards exploring individual experiences by valuing individual interpretations of events.

Universiẗat, Diss.--St. Gallen, 2000.

No description available.