Collaboration between the parents, the schools and the community has a powerful influence on a child’s development, academically as well as behaviourally. Such partnerships benefit the students, the educators and the families alike. However, home, school and community partnerships are weak in Kenya’s Child Friendly Schools (CFSs) at primary school level, particularly in Kakamega County. This study, therefore, was designed to assess the effectiveness of family-school-community partnerships in these schools. A literature study of local and international sources regarding family-school-community partnerships and the CFS initiative in Kenya was done to frame the sequential mixed method inquiry used in this study and also to inform the design of the data-collecting tools. The study was done in two phases. Phase 1 constituted the quantitative component (a survey) and Phase 2 the qualitative component (interviews). In Phase 1 a sample of 361 primary school teachers in 34 schools were selected from a population of 8 964 teachers in 848 primary schools, distributed across the 12 districts in the county, by means of stratified random sampling. In Phase 2 thirteen parents, twelve Parent Teacher Association (PTA) chairpersons and ten District Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (DQASOs), as being information-rich informants, were purposively sampled for the interviews. The parent participants and the PTA chairpersons were nominated by the head teachers of the 34 schools indicated in the stratified random sample. A self-designed paper and pencil questionnaire was used to gauge the teachers’ views of home-school-community partnerships in the CFSs. The data were analysed and presented by means of descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and mean. Similarly, the researcher made use of semi-structured individual interviews, guided by interview schedules, in interviewing selected parents, PTA chairpersons and DQASOs. The presentation of the relevant data was done in a narrative format substantiated by verbatim quotations. The findings indicated inadequacies in parenting skills, home-school communication, volunteering, home-learning, decision-making and collaboration with the community as the key areas of focus in this study. It was ascertained that the family-school-community partnerships in the county were largely ineffective. The findings could be used to improve practice involving these partnerships and implementing the CFS initiative with a view to attaining meaningful learning among the children. / Educational Foundations / D. Ed. (Comparative Education)

No description available.

In light of recent surveys on gender equality and English proficiency in Sweden, this study examines the adjectives and adverbs which describe the women and men in two EFL-textbooks for English 6 in the upper secondary school, namely Blueprint: Version 2.0 B and WWE: World Wide English. Textbooks are often integral for language learning, and considering that students of Swedish upper secondary school are required to take English 6, the exposure of EFL-textbooks are significant. Thus, it becomes relevant to analyse how the language of EFL-textbooks depicts women and men. The actions, social roles and occupations of the female and male characters are analysed to find any discrepancies in how women and men are portrayed and whether these agree with the guidelines of the Swedish National Agency for Education. These guidelines require teaching to be carried out with consideration to fundamental democratic rights and should strive to promote equality between groups. In addition, the study builds upon previous research within the field of linguistics as well as social sciences carried out by Fairclough, Foucault, Lucy, Butler and others which concerns discourse, linguistic relativism, gender theory etc. The hypothesis of this study is that there is still a discrepancy in how women and men are depicted in EFL-textbooks. By employing a mixed method approach which includes quantitative data and statistics and qualitative discourse analysis which highlights indications of unequal description of gender, it can be concluded that women and men are described differently, and often in terms of dichotomies, with adjectives, adverbs and the social roles that they are assigned. These descriptions may consequently result in that students that use these textbooks as part of their learning process may adopt these values. Thus, some descriptions violates the goals and guidelines for gender equality, prescribed by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket).

The thesis explores the reasons why states cooperate rather than fight over transboundary water resources. Through a mixed-method research involving both quantitative and qualitative analytical tools, the research shows that states tend to cooperate with one another when (a multidimensional conceptualisation of) interstate power relations are more symmetric, amongst other power-asymmetry arguments. They also tend to cooperate more than others when there exist a high disparity in the level of development between riparian states, and when their relations are characterised by high levels of economic interdependence. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / A literature study focusing on teaching and learning in higher education in South Africa was conducted. Theories relevant to adult learning were also examined. These included behaviourist, cognitive, humanistic and social learning theories which were found to be relevant for the adult learner. The learning styles, which form the foundation for this study, were explored. Nine learning style theories and instruments were examined for possible adaptation in the South African higher education context. These were: Kolb Learning Style Index, Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Index, Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire, Felder and Silverman Index of Learning Style, Gregorc Style Delineator, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Grasha Reichmann Student Learning Styles Scales, Vermunt Inventory of Learning Styles, and the Centre for Innovative Teaching Experiences. From the nine learning style instruments, the Centre for Innovative Teaching Experiences instrument was selected for adaptation for the South African higher education sector. / South Africa

The design of a country’s tax system is important because of the critical role played by taxation in financing public spending towards economic and social development. In this regard, there is need to enhance the understanding of whether current tax systems in the SADC provide sufficient tax revenue to meet public spending needs. This study provides empirical evidence on the outcomes of existing tax systems in the SADC with the aim of offering a basis for normative evaluation of the regions’ tax policies. Literature posits that there are numerous economic and institutional factors that limit the amount of taxes that a country can actually raise. Against this background, the substantive aim of this study was to assess the determinants of tax capacity and tax effort in the SADC in view of providing a pragmatic approach to tax policy design. The methodology of this study involved the use of both quantitative and qualitative analysis (mixed methods approach) where the latter was used to augment the findings of the former. The first phase involved the use of a multi-step procedure to estimate determinants of tax capacity and tax effort using stochastic tax function and unbalanced panel data for 13 SADC countries. The study disentangled the error term to estimates the random-effects separately from tax effort in order to capture the time- invariant country-specific effects. Further, tax effort was classified persistent (long-run) and transient (short-run). The study was able to estimate the determinants of tax effort and to rank each member state according to its tax effort. The second phase involves a narrative analysis of tax legislation in the SADC over the period 2002-2016. The study used budget statements and Acts of parliament as the major sources of information to identify significant changes in tax legislation over this period. The findings of the quantitative analysis indicate that financial deepening, economic development and trade openness influence tax capacity, while corruption and inflation influence tax effort. In addition, the findings show that the region has low persistent tax effort than transient tax effort, implying that improving tax administration has superseded tax policy reforms. This result is augmented by the narrative record which seemingly shows that tax legislation efforts were largely successful in tax administration but rather limited in view of tax policy. In this regard, the study recommends that tax policy design should be informed by the conditions of a country and policy considerations relating to peculiar circumstances to obtain robust tax policies. / Economics / D. Com. (Economics)

Sexuella trakasserier inom vårdbranschen är vanligt förekommande, och kan ha allvarliga konsekvenser för både individen och arbetsplatsen. Enligt tidigare studier är patienter en vanlig förövare för sexuella trakasserier, men trots det har arbetsgivaren ingen åtgärdsskyldighet utifrån Diskrimineringslagen. Däremot kan sexuella trakasserier ifrån patienter röra sig om en allvarlig arbetsmiljöfråga, vilket arbetsgivaren har yttersta ansvaret för. Det saknas generellt kunskap om sexuella trakasserier ifrån patienter, och i synnerhet kunskap i hur chefer på sjukhus upplever sitt arbete med att förebygga samt hanterar sexuella trakasserier ifrån sjukhus, vilket motiverar genomförandet av föreliggande studie. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka första linjen-chefers upplevelser av att arbeta emot sexuella trakasserier ifrån patienter mot vårdpersonal på sjukhus. Studien är en mixed-method studie med kvalitativ ansats, som består av två delstudier: policystudien och intervjustudien. Policystudien bestod av en kartläggning över policydokument om sexuella trakasserier ifrån patienter inom en specifik region. Endast en relevant policy fanns och denna analyserades med hjälp av en policyanalys av Carol Bacchi: WPR. Data till intervjustudien samlades in via intervjuer med tio första linjen-chefer på sjukhuset som hade den relevanta policyn. Intervjuerna analyserades med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet av studien visar att den analyserade policyn i liten utsträckning handlar om sexuella trakasserier, och framställer patienter som inte har förtroende för en arbetsgrupp kännetecknad av mångfald som ett problem. Första linjen-chefer i föreliggande studie upplever en viss mättnad i hur mycket som fenomenet går att förebygga, och de tror att de flesta incidenter hanteras av vårdpersonalen själva. / The aim of this study was to examine first line managers experiences of working against sexual harassment from patients against clinicians in hospitals. The study was qualitative using mixed methods gathering data. The study was conducted in two substudies. The first by mapping out policys on sexual harassment from patients within a specific region, then analysed by using the policy analysis method What’s the problem represented to be? The second substudy was carried out by conducting interviews with ten first line managers in a hospital, and analysed by a qualitative content analysis. The results show that the analysed policy does not include sexual harassment to a great extent, and presents patients distrust to a workgroup characterized by diversity as a problem. First line managers experience some saturation in how much they can prevent sexual harassment from patients, and feel that most incidents are handled by the clinicians themselves. First line managers experience the policy as some what “black and white” but at the same time a good basic support tool, and therefore the managers experiences of preventing and handling sexual harassment from patients could give a more nuanced picture of the phenomenon.

For most people social media has become a natural part of everyday life and there are probably few who have missed the rising popularity of selfies, but perhaps the rising popularity of photo manipulation is less obvious. Although studies have shown that selfies can have positive effects, there are still a general agreement that the development is concerning, and since the selfie seems to be here to stay, it is important to gain more knowledge about the phenomenon. The study used a mixed method to describe who photo manipulates selfies, what in the selfie that gets corrected, how the correction is performed and why someone chooses to photo manipulate selfies on social media. Using a web-based questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, quantitative data could be collected which were analysed using descriptive statistics, additionally the qualitative data were interpreted using a thematic analysis. The results showed that younger women photo manipulated selfies more often than younger men, but the difference levelled out with age, that the time spent on social media did not lead to a higher frequency of photo manipulation and that the most frequently used photo manipulation was filters and photo effects. In addition, the driving forces of impression control, the selfie-self, digital culture, and self-encouragement could be identified, and affected what was corrected, how the correction was performed and the frequents of photo manipulation on selfies. The result showed that photo manipulation of selfies on social media can have positive effects which can help to nuance the discussion about digital editing of selfies. / Sociala medier är idag en naturlig del i livet för de allra flesta och det är nog få som har missat den stigande populariteten hos selfies, men det är kanske inte lika uppenbart att även fotomanipulering av selfies har en stigande popularitet. Trots att det finns forskning som visar att det kan finnas positiva effekter av selfies verkar ändå de flesta vara överens om att utvecklingen är oroväckande och eftersom selfien verkar vara här för att stanna är det högst angeläget att få mer kunskap om fenomenet. Studien använde en kombinerad metod för att beskriva vem som fotomanipulerar selfies, vad i selfien som korrigeras och hur korrigeringen utförs samt att öka förståelsen för varför en person väljer att fotomanipulera selfies på sociala medier. Genom att använda ett webbaserat frågeformulär och semistrukturerade intervjuer kunde kvantitativ data samlas in och analyseras med deskriptiv statistik samt kvalitativ data som tolkades med tematisk analys. Resultatet visade att yngre kvinnor fotomanipulerade selfies oftare än yngre män men skillnaden planade ut med åldern, att den spenderade tiden på sociala medier inte innebar en högre frekvens av fotomanipulering samt att den vanligaste fotomanipuleringen var filter och fotoeffekter. Dessutom kunde drivkrafterna intrycksstyrning, selfie-jaget, digital kultur och självuppmuntran identifieras som i sin tur påverkade vad som korrigerades, hur korrigeringen skedde och hur frekvent selfies fotomanipulerades. Det visade sig att fotomanipulering av selfies på sociala medier kunde ha positiva och resultatet hjälper till att nyansera diskussionen kring digital redigering av selfies.

Text in English / The destructive nature of conventional analytical techniques, coupled with the finite nature of ancient/historical artefacts, has long restricted technical examinations of museum collections, mainly due to ethical constraints. However, over the past few decades, the application of Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques has become increasingly popular within the fields of archaeology and cultural heritage diagnostics. The application of such techniques has facilitated the examination of objects that have long remained uninvestigated. However, this positive development also held a slight drawback, in that researchers tend to now focus on technical analyses alone, while excluding more traditional means of analyses, such as comparative stylistic analysis and surface investigation. By employing a combination of stylistic analysis, visual surface investigation (by means of SLR photography and digital microscopy) and nuclear imaging (by means of Microfocus X-Ray Computed Tomography), the thesis sets out to justify the application of mixed methodologies as part of a more holistic integrated authentication approach. Thus stated, the thesis presents a mixed-methodological approach towards the analysis of selected metal objects from the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria, South Africa. The objects under investigation include a small collection of ancient Egyptian bronze statuettes, a Samurai helmet (kabuto) and mask (menpó), a European gauntlet, and an Arabian dagger (jambiya/khanjar). While all the objects are curated as part of the museum‘s archaeology and military history collections, the exact production dates, manufacturing techniques and areas of origin remain a mystery. By using a combination of techniques, the thesis aims to identify diagnostic features that can be used to shed light on their relative age, culturo-chronological framework and, by extension, their authenticity. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

The purpose of this study was to find out if there is a relationship between teacher-learner interactions and laboratory learning environment in Chemistry practicals in Namibia. Literatures and questionnaires from 1383 learners and 12 teachers have proven that the interactions between teacher and learners have great impact on the performance, understanding and the environment that prevail in the laboratory. The main data collection methods used was the mixed method research through the use of questionnaires and interviews. The results from the study show that good teacher-learner interactions have contributed to the positive learning environment that prevails in Namibian schools. Although the majority of the learners especially the girls have negative connotations towards Chemistry in terms of content, calculations and assessment generally learners look forward and are excited to do experiments in practical work. The impact of the excitement and willingness of learners to do practical investigations has not proven to improve learners‘ performance in Chemistry practical work in Namibia. The majority of the learners rated their teachers as good in subject knowledge, good leaders, helpful and friendly during practical investigations. The shortage of chemicals, equipments in laboratory activities that should have inspired involvement of learners in handling equipments is one of the factors that contributed negatively to the learning environment and teacher-learners interactions. Teachers mostly resolve to demonstrations due to lack of chemicals and equipment. Some schools show low/poor level of learner-learner interactions because some learners tease, laugh and discourage others during practical investigations. Chemistry laboratories in Namibia are characterised by lack of equipment, chemicals, poorly behave learners while on the other hand there are good behaviours from the teachers‘ side with most learners showing that their teachers always try to make the best out of the prevailing situations in the laboratories. The laboratory environment in Namibia closely resemble laboratory environment in other studies in Asia, Africa and Europe. From empirical evidence it can be therefore concluded that there is a relationship between teacher-learner interactions and laboratory learning environment in Chemistry practicals in Namibia. Although the relationship is not as harmonious or congruent as it ought to be, the government of Namibia can play a greater role in creating positive, productive and enjoyable learning environment by supplying secondary schools‘ laboratories with the needed equipment and chemicals to support the practical work as stated in the Physical Science syllabi. The three questionnaire used were rated by learners and teacher as effective; easy to understand; covering most areas of the Chemistry environment; not time consuming, statistically valid and consistent. The changes made to the questionnaire fit well to the Namibia Chemistry environment and it produced nearly the same reliability and validity when compared to the pilot study questionnaire and other similar questionnaires used in other country. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics of Education)