Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / Digital inclusion, through the development of appropriate e-skills, is widely recognised as an essential means of capitalising on the opportunities presented by the information age for social and economic advancement. However, South Africa has not yet clarified its policy of digital inclusion. It has only just begun to tackle the challenge of developing an e-skilled society. As yet there is not an enabling e-skills framework and national implementation strategies are still at an early stage. The conceptual framework for the delivery of e-skills for digital inclusion specifically in the Western Cape of South Africa, which was developed as part of this study, could therefore make a substantial contribution to local research. Certain areas surveyed in this study have been overlooked, underestimated or have yet to be explored by local researchers, while existing research on related areas is generally fragmented and studied in isolation, despite the high interrelationship between the various areas. The conceptual framework that has been compiled offers a coherent holistic perspective, and depicts the logical flow from digital exclusion to inclusion in the Western Cape context. It identifies: (i) the groups most in need of focused inclusion efforts; (ii) significant barriers to inclusion; (iii) specific e-skill clusters for digital inclusion; (iv) guidelines for delivering these e-skills; and (v) the objectives of digital inclusion that the Western Cape should strive to attain. Each of these research areas has been investigated in the context of an on-going provincial e-skills for digital inclusion initiative, focused on training (largely marginalised) community e-centre employees. The qualitative research used semi-structured interviews with ten recently trained individuals, as well as three programme facilitators. Overall, digital inclusion in the Western Cape is conceived as a gradual process, initially concerned with achieving relatively basic objectives such as enabling citizens to access information and increasing the use of ICT in the province. It is envisioned that these short-term outcomes will eventually translate into longer-term advantages for individuals as well as the larger society. Having the appropriate knowledge and attitudes is as important for digital inclusion as having skills. Therefore the term ‘digital competence’ is preferable to ‘e-skills’. The competence areas include combinations of technical and cognitive abilities, the latter being more relevant to the broader inclusion impacts, yet more challenging to instil. These findings, which have been combined with strongly learner-centred guidelines, are presented in the conceptual ‘Digital Competence for Digital Inclusion’ framework. It is hoped that curriculum developers will give serious consideration to this framework and the recommendations contained in this study. It could form a useful basis for the development of digital inclusion throughout the country and e-skills related academic research.

Yes / Background: To contain the spread of COVID-19 within the UK over the past year, there have been a series of local and national lockdowns. These restrictions are likely to have impacted upon the health and well-being of marginalised groups who rely on now closed social and community support services to stay healthy. An understanding of the experiences of marginalised people is important; therefore, this study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the health and well-being of marginalised groups in the UK. Methods: In summer 2020, a rapid telephone survey was conducted by trained, trusted volunteers with 76 participants who were from marginalised groups. As part of this survey, 64 participants consented to describe their experience of lockdown. These case studies were thematically analysed to identify patterns of meaning. Results: Findings indicate that lockdown led to the deterioration of health of participants, impacted adversely on their socio-economic positions and affected access to food and essential supplies. In addition, government public health messaging was considered confusing and inadequate. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for pathways into services which support marginalised groups to remain accessible during periods of restrictions and essential supplies and food to be mapped and protected for marginalised individuals within our local communities. / NHS England; Improvement

This study explores how international and South African community psychology has studied HIV in the past twenty years, emphasising the methodological and theoretical aspects of research being produced. Concurrently, this study situates itself within an empowerment theory framework and has sought to comment upon marginalised groups and their presence in published community psychology-based HIV research. The research made use of data generated from a content analysis of selected journal articles from the South African Journal of Psychology, the American Journal of Community Psychology, the Journal of Community Psychology, and the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology over the period 1990-2009. The results reflect a dearth of community psychology research concerning HIV and a reliance on positivistic methodologies across contexts, as well as a predominant focus on epistemologies relating to risk and prevention. It was found that whilst interest in marginalised groups within community psychology based HIV research has increased particularly in the last decade, the voices of some of the most vulnerable groups remain relatively silent. It is understood that a move away from more traditional health psychology methods and understandings of HIV, to a more critical conceptualisation is imperative for the field of community psychology with regards to this prominent social problem.

This case study examines the manifestations and role of exclusionary architecture in Kungsträdgården park and its relation to marginalised groups and undesirable behaviours. Utilising the methods of non-participatory observations in Kungsträdgården and a qualitative content analysis of documents relevant to the thesis aims, the thesis has answered its two research questions. The thesis show that exclusionary architecture is a complex phenomenon in which groups in a space can be simultaneously included and excluded based on the local context of social relations, materialities and actors. The analysis of exclusionary architecture in Kungsträdgården reveal how actors have different rationales and methods and that not all exclusionary architecture is intentionally targeting marginalised groups. In conclusion, the thesis proposes viewing inclusion and exclusion in a continuum rather than as dichotomous and proposes more research in order to further the knowledge available for decision-makers in creating more inclusive cities.

This study offers the reader an opportunity to glimpse the world and narrative of a gay man recently come out of the closet and to be invited to participate in his search for improved understanding of his sense of identity. It is a study of autobiographical works in order to gain insight into the changes occurring in the author’s sense of identity but is also in itself an autobiographical work. It is a reflection on the author’s story and an interpretation of aspects of that story, using selected documents written by him over a period of time, in order to highlight specific changes that occur in his sense of identity. The aim of this study is to generate some insight into the sense of identity of a gay man, and optimistically other marginalised groups of people, with specific focus on the changes that have occurred over. This study will be approached from a social constructionist paradigm using qualitative and interpretative methods to analyse the various autobiographical works. This will provide information on the changes that occur over time in a gay man’s sense of identity. / Dissertation (MA (Counselling Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / MA / unrestricted

Technological advancements and affordability enable voicing of social injustice, feelings of deprivation, and oppression. Spatial barriers no longer pose obstacles to connecting with like-minded (or dissimilar) others to define and refine ingroup and outgroup. Some scholars anticipate that the internet liberates the discussion of opinions, others claim social networking platforms play a role in the polarisation of the public by creating echo chambers. However, it is recognised that ideas, ideologies, and social movements spread across the internet at an unprecedented pace. Connecting with others with whom one shares deprivation in a support network offers a sense of belonging. Broad scholarly literature addresses opinion polarisation and potential radicalisation in online social media platforms. However, quantifying radicalisation trajectories in fringe online communities like the misogynist incels are still to be done. In this thesis I study the online presence of the incel community. Incels are mostly young men who feel stigmatised and need to hide their incel existence. Incels voice their feelings of deprivation of a relationship and sex with a willing partner. This unfulfilled masculinity and sense of entitlement to sex cause frustration and anger which are vented in online forums blaming primarily women and feminism. Calls for action to social change, even for violence is common. However, incels do not unanimously consider violence a solution, many demonstrate the tame side of the so-called blackpilled mindset, the acceptance of powerlessness, and nihilism. Regardless, some scholars view the community as potentially dangerous to society, labelling them as terrorists. This study investigates whether participating registered users of the Incels.is website display increasing tendency toward expressing utterances with the themes of misogyny, harassment, nihilism, and moral outrage in their posted messages, and whether users gradually become more aligned with the general perception of incels in previous scholarly work. In other words, this work tests whether active participation increases the frequency of utterances of misogyny, harassment, and moral outrage, thus demonstrating a radicalisation tendency or increased nihilism. To answer the research question, I first scraped the Incels.is website, and retained ~5.38M posts published over 4 years for analysis. Next, a subset of posts was manually labelled to train a supervised text classification model (BERT). Finally, the results of the classification task were complemented with Ordinary Least Squares regression (n = 4623). The analyses uncover temporal user-level radicalisation trajectories, and increased nihilism. More specifically, the duration of active participation (in days) and the number of posted messages positively predict the count of moral outrage, misogynistic, harassing, and nihilistic content.

This thesis addresses indigenous groups agency in trade governance to enhance their ability to affect international decision-making that benefits their capability to sustainable development. It conducts a case study of Articulation of Indigenous People Brazil (APIB) in the EU-Mercosur Agreement and utilizes Eimers (2020) theory of subaltern social movement theory to establish: what strategies the APIB have used in the decision-making processes of the “Mercosur Agreement?  This theory allows consideration of indigenous agency and the effect of post-colonial structures on their capability to keep control over their realties. To collect data on this topic the author uses qualitative semi-structured interviews and qualitative thematic text analysis. The thesis finds that framing strategies of claims enabled alliance-building in Brazil and Transnational Advocacy Coalitions, which used international norms to enhance indigenous interests. However, has post-colonial structures hindered APIB´s ability to enhance interest in Brazil and silenced indigenous interests in governmental representation in the making of the EU-Mercosur.

African curricular reforms indicate major inherent structural defects because only the contents of the curriculum were changed. As a result, the Western cultural influences embedded in the curriculum foundations are transmitted to the students, causing the curricular material to be irrelevant and unrelated to their culture and philosophy. The focus of this study was on making the basic education curricula relevant to the socio-cultural and structural context of the Gamo ethnic group of Ethiopia. The main aim of the study was to critically analyse how the indigenization approach is conceptualized and reflected in the policies and curricula, and in the implementation of the curricula at basic education level since the adoption of the 1994 Education and Training Policy, and to produce a model suited to indigenizing the basic education curricula for the Gamo ethnic group. To this end, the study employed a critical perspective to investigate the problem. The approach and design consists of a qualitative multiple case study. The country‟s constitutions, policies and strategies were treated as one case, while two cases, one from the Gamo Gofa Zone and another from the Addis Ababa City Administration, were treated similarly, so as to study the basic education curriculum planning and implementation process. The findings of the field study disclosed that the indigenization from the ethnic group‟s perspective has some strength, but major deficiencies. In order to keep the strengths up and avoid the weaknesses, a stand-alone indigenization approach, which calls for rooting the curriculum on indigenous foundations, theories, principles and ideas derived from the culture, and a blending approach, which allows for intercultural dialogue, were suggested as feasible. The researcher believes that this approach is an alternative that could contribute towards ensuring the relevance of the basic education curriculum for the Gamo ethnic group. A model which will assist in materialising the curriculum indigenization from the Gamo ethnic group‟s perspective was suggested. The salient features of the constitutional, policy and strategy provisions were outdone by their favour for a standardization approach. They will have to be revisited, either in favour of indigenization, or the standardization thesis, since these paradigms are opposite poles. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

African curricular reforms indicate major inherent structural defects because only the contents of the curriculum were changed. As a result, the Western cultural influences embedded in the curriculum foundations are transmitted to the students, causing the curricular material to be irrelevant and unrelated to their culture and philosophy. The focus of this study was on making the basic education curricula relevant to the socio-cultural and structural context of the Gamo ethnic group of Ethiopia. The main aim of the study was to critically analyse how the indigenization approach is conceptualized and reflected in the policies and curricula, and in the implementation of the curricula at basic education level since the adoption of the 1994 Education and Training Policy, and to produce a model suited to indigenizing the basic education curricula for the Gamo ethnic group. To this end, the study employed a critical perspective to investigate the problem. The approach and design consists of a qualitative multiple case study. The country‟s constitutions, policies and strategies were treated as one case, while two cases, one from the Gamo Gofa Zone and another from the Addis Ababa City Administration, were treated similarly, so as to study the basic education curriculum planning and implementation process. The findings of the field study disclosed that the indigenization from the ethnic group‟s perspective has some strength, but major deficiencies. In order to keep the strengths up and avoid the weaknesses, a stand-alone indigenization approach, which calls for rooting the curriculum on indigenous foundations, theories, principles and ideas derived from the culture, and a blending approach, which allows for intercultural dialogue, were suggested as feasible. The researcher believes that this approach is an alternative that could contribute towards ensuring the relevance of the basic education curriculum for the Gamo ethnic group. A model which will assist in materialising the curriculum indigenization from the Gamo ethnic group‟s perspective was suggested. The salient features of the constitutional, policy and strategy provisions were outdone by their favour for a standardization approach. They will have to be revisited, either in favour of indigenization, or the standardization thesis, since these paradigms are opposite poles. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)