This study sets out to interpret pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions about learning in visual arts in the context of the third year visual art class of one of the three specialist arts schools in Greece. The rationale for the research was to understand how pupils and teachers in this type of specialist arts school perceived the learning process, which could have some transfer value to other contexts of learning in the visual art subject. The research may contribute to the body of knowledge and the practice of art education in Greece, and possibly inform future curriculum development in the subject. In Greece, since 1985, the development of art education and pupils’ aesthetic understanding has been one of the five fundamental aims for secondary and primary education. To improve art education at the primary and secondary level, the Greek Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs has undertaken several initiatives. One such initiative has been the development of specialist arts schools. These alternative specialist schools exist in several European countries. In 2003 the Greek Ministry of Education announced the establishment of the first arts school of the country. The year the research was conducted 2008-2009, three arts schools were operated in Greece. The research endeavoured to understand issues related to the learning process in one of the new specialist arts schools, as perceived by third year pupils (aged fourteen and fifteen years old) and their visual art teachers. The research used the interpretive research paradigm, as it is the most suitable method to explore the socio-cultural reality in which the pupils and teachers are situated. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations, and focus groups. The analysis of findings revealed a learning experience very closely related with the philosophy and the content of the Greece’s national curriculum of visual art. However, according to the findings of this study further attention needs to be given to the issue of developing imaginative thinking, within the framework of the art curriculum. The study proposes an alternative version of the art curriculum, with a view to facilitating imaginative thinking, in the art curriculum of specialist arts schools in Greece as well as the teaching of art in normal secondary schools. It is hoped that the results of the study will offer ground for discussions and oppositions in the area of art education in Greece, in which area not much research has been undertaken. The study’s proposal for the revisions to the existing art curriculum for the specialist arts schools, as they are resulted from evidences embedded in pupils and teachers views, stress on the significance and the originality of the findings and for this reason it is hoped to concern the writing aspect of Greece’s future curriculum writers. This will add to the development of art education in Greece and further will foster relationships between the members of the particular school where the research was carried out.

Faith-based initiatives have the potential to alter church-state relationships as they remove barriers to the public funding of human services in organizations that promote the role of values, beliefs, and other characteristics of faith. In seeking to "level the playing field" for these faith-based organizations, faith-based initiatives suggest moving away from past practices, where "religious" organizations utilized public funding for the delivery of "secular" human services, and toward the public funding support of organizations whose human service activities are based on faith in a more thoroughgoing manner.This research inquires into meanings assigned to opportunities and risks related to the public funding of faith-based organizations, as articulated by a variety of stakeholders, from government officials to the leaders of faith-based organizations. The guiding research question, What are the meanings of church-state relationships for faith-based organizations?, asks the leaders of faith-based organizations in one Virginia locality, as well as other local, state, and national stakeholders, about their understandings of various aspects of the church-state relationships that develop when faith-based organizations utilize public funds for the provision of human services.The findings of this inquiry, presented in a narrative case study report, and the implications of this case study provide a richer understanding of the multiple meanings that faith-based organizations assign to relationships with government programs, government agencies, and the use of public funds. The multiple meanings of church-state relationships that are offered by diverse research participants provide valuable insights into the complex phenomenon of faith-basis organizations providing human services with government monies. The interpretations offered in this dissertation provide greater knowledge of the role of faith as a basis for publicly funded human services, and furthermore, this knowledge may find value in its recognition of the implications of faith-based, publicly funded human services.

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The advances in online technology has revolutionised online communication. As a result of new emerging web technologies virtual interactions have taken a much more interactive structure. These improvements in technology provide richer communication experiences for the users. Online communities, with the aid of new web 2.0 technology, provide the ideal environment for knowledge sharing. It is the interaction and communication between users of such communities that triggers information and knowledge sharing. Knowledge and information sharing sets the foundation for knowledge creation and co-creation. Meanwhile knowledge is known to be one of the greatest assets of any company or organisation. A significant amount of research has been dedicated to knowledge management. Nevertheless little research has been done to explore knowledge creation and co-creation, particularly in an online community setting. This research is investigating the idea of knowledge co-creation within an online community environment. Knowing that knowledge itself is a subjective entity, which cannot be objectively measured or quantified, the research takes an interpretive approach to finding out how this knowledge is co-created by the users of online communities. One of the main significant factors of this study is that it has used a unique and novel research method to tackle what appears to be a difficult subject. The research uses an interpretive case study method, however without any data collection. The investigation will be exclusively interpretive and philosophically evaluated based on the relevant literature and a set of principles introduced by Klein and Myers (1999). These principles were introduced as a guideline for conducting and evaluating interpretive studies in information systems. Using Klein and Myers’ principles has the advantage of being based on a well-established contemporary literature in information systems (IS) research methodology. The principles have not been used in an exclusively exploratory and interpretive research before. This itself is a major methodological contribution for future researchers to utilise as a practical example. The study develops a conceptual framework around knowledge co-creation, online communities and the technology. This framework is based on a proposed RECI model offered for knowledge creation in online communities. It also investigates the role of technology in the co-creation process. Finally it proposes a set of characteristics and guidelines that facilitate knowledge co-creation in online communities. These characteristics and guidelines would help design and implement future knowledge co-creating online communities, for example, e-learning and knowledge management systems. Furthermore the research lays the foundations for introducing the knowledge co-creation theory within online communities by proposing the initial hypothesis. Subject to appropriate future research and testing, the hypothesis can be developed into a practical theory.

This dissertation explores the ways in which media, visuality, and politics intersect through an analysis of contemporary war photography. In so doing, it seeks to uncover how war photography as a social practice works to produce, perform and construct the State. Furthermore, it argues that this productive and performative power works to constrain the conditions of possibility for geopolitics. The central argument of this project is that contemporary war photography reifies a view of the international in which the liberal, democratic West is pitted against the barbaric Islamic world in a ‘civilizational’ struggle. This project’s key contribution to knowledge rests in its unique and rigorous research methodology (Visual Discourse Analysis) – mixing as it does inspiration from both quantitative and qualitative approaches to scholarship. Empirically, the dissertation rests on the detailed analysis of over 1900 war images collected from 30 different media sources published between the years 2000-2013.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) came into the power when banking institutions started to become more and more competitive. The focus on CRM increased banks' abilities to understand their customers' current needs more precisely and also helped them to understand their customers' behaviours, such as what they have done in the past, and what they plan to do in the future. Such practice further helped banks to design strategies based on each customer's preferences in order to meet their customers' demands (Xu, et al., 2002). The adoption of the CRM within the banking industry chiefly depends on the overall adoption of IT culture within the country. Today, developed countries like the UK are enjoying innovative technologies, tailored-made systems, and have a high level of IT maturity within their banking industry. On the other hand, developing countries such as Pakistan are still dealing with several technological issues and the biggest one is the lack of IT alignment within most of their organizations especially within their banking industry (Kundi and Nawaz, 2006). Therefore, it is essential for researchers to further investigate the major IT-related problems faced by the banking industry, especially problems with the current use of the CRM system within the banking industry of developing countries i.e. Pakistan compared to banks in developed countries i.e. UK.This research has investigated and covered the overall operational issues of the CRM system within the banking industry of both developed and developing countries i.e. UK and Pakistan by using a qualitative case study research approach with two case studies, in which the Pakistani banking sector is selected as the developing country for case study one; for a developed country, the UK banking sector is selected as case study two. From the several existing UK and Pakistani banks, the researcher has selected some leading banks from the two countries and conducted several semi-structured interviews with different bank employees. Furthermore, the obtained interviews' results from both case studies are analyzed, compared, and discussed using an in-depth cross-case analysis approach and uncovered the similarities, differences, and several CRM operational issues within the banking sectors of both Pakistan and the UK.

Even before software engineering was formally defined as a discipline, software projects were notorious for being behind schedule and over budget. The resulting software systems were also often described as unreliable. Researchers in the field have, over the years, theorised and proposed many standards, methods, processes and techniques to improve software project outcomes. Based on allegorical evidence, however, it would seem that these proposals are often not applied in practice. This study was inspired by a desire to probe this general theme, namely of the extent to which (if at all) software engineering theory is adopted in practice. The core of this research is an interpretive case study of a software project in the financial services industry that ran from end 2006 to mid 2008. I was one of a team of approximately 20 developers, analysts and development managers working on the project, until I left the company in 2009. Results are reported in a two-phase fashion over several themes. Firstly, the literature of recommended software engineering practices relating to a particular theme is reviewed. This is regarded as the "theory". Thereafter, the observations and evidence collected from the interpretive study in regard to the relevant theme is presented and discussed. The first theme investigated is the notion of "project outcome". Definitions of successful and failed software projects are considered from the perspective of the various stakeholders. Also considered are factors that contribute to project success or failure. After examining how case study participants viewed the project’s outcome, it is argued that the project could neither be labelled as a complete success nor as a complete failure. Two areas were identified as problematic: the requirements gathering process; and the system architecture that had been chosen. Improvements in these areas would arguably have most benefitted the project’s outcome. For this reason, recommended practices were probed in the literature relating both to requirements engineering and also to software architecture design. The case study project was then evaluated against these recommended practices to determine the degree to which they were implemented. In cases where the recommended practices were not implemented or only partially implemented, a number of reasons for the lack of adoption are considered. Of course, the conclusions made in this study as to why the recommended practices were not implemented cannot be naïvely generalized to the software engineering field as a whole. Instead, in line with the interpretive nature of the study, an attempt was made to gain in depth knowledge of a particular project, to show how that project’s individual characteristics influenced the adoption of software engineering theory, and to probe the consequences of such adoption or lack thereof. The study suggested that the complex and individual nature of software projects will have a substantial influence on the extent to which theory is adopted in practice. It also suggested that the impact such adoption will have on a project’s outcome will be critically influenced by the nature of the software project. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Computer Science / unrestricted

abstract: Medical policies, practices, and definitions do not exist solely in the clinical realm; they show up in the lived experiences of patients. This research examines how people with the chronic illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) define their own illness experiences. They have situated knowledge about their illness onset, search for care, and clinical encounters. Their knowledge complicates and challenges the existing norms in clinical practice and medical discourse, as the experience of searching for care with ME reveals weaknesses in a system that is focused on acute care. Patient narratives reveal institutional patterns that obstruct access to medical care, such as disbelief from clinicians and lack of training in chronic illness protocols. They also reveal patterns in physician behavior that indicate the likelihood of receiving effective care. These patient narratives serve as a basis for continued examination of ME as well as further reconstruction of medical practice and procedure. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Justice and Human Rights 2019

Citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation fight for justice with their bodies at the frontlines of environmental catastrophe. This dissertation employs a biopolitical and interpretive analysis to examine these struggles in the polluted heart of Canada’s ‘Chemical Valley’. Drawing from a discursive analysis of situated concerns on the ground and a textual analysis of Canada’s biopolitical ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship, this dissertation examines how citizens and public officials respond to environmental and reproductive injustices in Aamjiwnaang. Based upon in-depth interviews with residents and policy-makers, I first document citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s activities and practices on the ground as they cope with and navigate their health concerns and habitat. Second, I examine struggles over knowledge and the contestation over scientific expertise as the community seeks reproductive justice. Third, I contextualize citizen struggles over knowledge by discussing the power relations embedded within the ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship and Canadian jurisdiction for on-reserve environmental health. From an interpretive lens, inspired by Foucault’s concepts of biopower and governmentality, the dissertation develops a framework of “ecological citizenship”, which confronts biopolitics with a theoretical discussion of place to expand upon existing Canadian citizenship and environmental studies literature. I argue that reproductive justice in Aamjiwnaang cannot be separated from environmental justice, and that the concept of place is central to ongoing struggles. As such, I discuss “ecological citizenship’s double-edge”, to contend that citizens are at once bound up within disciplinary biopolitical power relations and also articulate a radical form of place-based belonging.