This thesis examines child death data in an effort to assist in prevention and intervention, as well as, to provide quantitative and qualitative analysis to improve and enhance policy development around child deaths due to abuse and neglect in florida. The data reviewed consisted of aggregate data for all incidents of child deaths (N = 266) in Florida where the primary caregiver was the alleged perpetrator of a child fatality for children under age 18. All data examined were recorded and stored in the Department of Children and Families' Child Safety Assessment database between 1998 and 2000. According to national and state data on maltreatment deaths, the number of physical abuse deaths are slightly higher than fatalities categorized as due to neglect (51% and 43%, respectively), and the remaining 6% are attributed to both abuse and neglect. The data suggest that mothers account for the greatest percentage of child deaths due to neglect, while fathers and other male careg ivers are responsible for the greatest percentage of child fatalities due to physical abuse. There was no significant difference between child fatalities committed by biological fathers as opposed to other male caregivers, which suggests that policies around caregiver relationship has had limited impact on child safety. Describing and defining different kinds of maltreatment requires that attention be paid to historical and cultural environments. Policies for preventing or reducing child deaths requires understanding of risk factors and protective factors at the level of the individual, the family, the community, and the society. Whereas men and women differ in types of maltreatment they are likely to commit, the difference in rate of child fatalities committed by biological fathers as opposed to other male caregivers is insignificant. These findings suggest that policies that focus on caregiver relationship have limited impact on child safety. Anthropological holistic insight on the d omains and factors that contribute to the increase in child deaths due to maltreatment may help to develop new policy initiatives. Until research advances our knowledge and that knowledge is used to set policies, and those polices properly implemented, children will continue to fall victim to maltreatment fatalities.

No description available.

This study involved surveying 649 families in Livingston Union School District in Livingston, California, to ascertain parents' motivating factors which led them to enroll their children in a dual-language program at school and to see if there are different motivating factors for English-speaking parents and Spanish-speaking parents. A dual-language program involves integrating students who speak two different languages into a class or program where students learn in both languages. The survey return rate was 41.2%. Of the 268 respondents, 52.9% indicated that they spoke to their children at home in Spanish, 41.4% indicated that they spoke to their children at home in English, 2.6% spoke to their children in Punjabi, 0.3% said they spoke to their children in Urdu, and 2.6% of the respondents declined to answer this question. When asked what motivated the parent to enroll their child in a dual-langauge program, the responses from Spanish-dominant parents were as follows: 90.11% of the respondents enrolled the child in the program because they wanted their child to be able to speak, read, and write in two languages, 67.10% enrolled because they wanted their child to be successful in a global economy, 62% said they enrolled because they wanted their child to be more successful in school, 59.60% said they wanted their child to be comfortable relating to different people and cultures, 57.70% said they wanted their child to be able to relate to his/her heritage, 36.30% enrolled their child because they wanted the child to be with teachers that spoke their language. Approximately 11% wrote in other reasons for enrolling their child in a dual-language program. English-speaking parents chose their reasons for enrolling their child in a dual-language program in almost the same order as the Spanish-speaking parents. However, there are significant differences in the percentage of parents that chose those answers. For example, though the desire to see their child speak, read, and write in two languages was the top choice of both sets of parents, 94.5% of the English-speaking parents chose this answer while only 86.60% of Spanish-speaking parents chose this as their top answer. In addition, there was a significant difference between the two sets of parents when analyzing the choice of wanting their child to be comfortable relating to different people and cultures (English-speaking at 54.90% and Spanish-speaking at 63.3%) and the choice of wanting their child to be with teachers that spoke the same language (English-speaking at 25.20% and Spanish-speaking at 45%). The study ends with recommendation for practice and recommendations for further studies.

Cette étude de recherche s’intéresse aux attitudes envers la langue gaélique en République d’Irlande. Le gaélique, tout comme l’anglais, est la langue nationale officielle et est enseignée comme matière obligatoire de l’école élémentaire au lycée. Bien que le nombre de personnes utilisant le gaélique dans la vie quotidienne reste faible, il existe depuis les années soixante-dix une résurgence d’intérêt dans cette langue. Celle-ci se traduit, entre autres, par une demande croissante du nombre d’écoles d’immersion en gaélique, tout particulièrement dans les régions où le gaélique n’est pas pratiqué au sein de la communauté. Cette étude cherche à éclaircir ce phénomène en analysant les attitudes envers le gaélique des parents d’élèves d’écoles primaires d’immersion en zone urbaine, et plus précisément, dans le comté de Dublin. En effet, peu de recherches ont été effectuées sur les attitudes envers le gaélique au sein des familles ayant choisi une éducation par immersion pour leurs enfants.Les personnes participant à cette étude se composent de parents d’élèves avec une expérience plus ou moins longue de l’enseignement en immersion, ainsi que d’enseignants des écoles participantes. Les données recueillies pour cette étude proviennent d’un questionnaire auto-administré ainsi que d’entretiens suivis.La question sur la motivation des parents à choisir un enseignement en immersion est centrale au thème des attitudes envers le gaélique, puisque dans ce contexte, l’anglais est la seule langue utilisée dans la communauté ainsi que dans la plupart des foyers. Les résultats d’analyse révèlent que les parents participant ont choisi ce type d’éducation car ils considèrent d’une part que le gaélique est un marqueur d’identité culturelle voire ethnique pour certains, et d’autre part qu’il permet d’acquérir du capital culturel. En effet, les participants s’intéressent de près à la qualité de l’éducation de leurs enfants et valorisent le bilinguisme additif. Ainsi, ils attribuent au gaélique une valeur culturelle importante. Cette étude montre également que les parents d’élèves ont une attitude positive envers la langue gaélique. Ceci s’explique de par leur enclin naturel mais aussi de par leur contact avec ces écoles d’immersion, environnement dans lequel le gaélique est mis en valeur. Cependant, malgré les efforts des parents à intégrer la langue gaélique à la maison ou dans les activités récréatives de leurs enfants, ce milieu ne semble pas être déclencheur de pratiques bilingues au sein de la famille. Néanmoins, cette étude indique que les écoles d’immersion favorisent la création de liens entre quelques familles communiquant entre elles en gaélique. / This study explores attitudes towards the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish language—alongside with English—is the national official language and is taught in school as a compulsory subject from primary school through to the end of secondary level. Despite the low percentage of daily Irish-speakers in the country the demand for Irish-medium education as an alternative means of education has been growing since the 1970s, especially in English-speaking areas. This current study focuses on the language attitudes of parents whose child attends an urban Irish-medium primary school in County Dublin and analyses the reasons for choosing such an education. Although there has been a considerable number of research studies conducted on language attitudes towards Irish in the Republic of Ireland, very few have recently concentrated on families involved with Irish-medium education. Participants included parents with both short term and long term experience with immersion education through Irish. The main research instruments included a self-administered questionnaire and follow-up interviews with a sample of questionnaire respondents as well as teachers from the participating schools. One of the main focuses of this study is parental motivation for sending their child to an Irish-medium school. Results reveal that participants selected such education for their child for two main reasons: identity and cultural capital. Firstly, most participants regarded Irish as a strong cultural identity marker while others also considered the language as a strong marker of ethnic identity. Secondly and most importantly, participants expressed a strong interest in both education and additive bilingualism thus attributing a high cultural value to the Irish language. Findings also show that participants have very positive attitudes towards the Irish language. This is mainly due to their natural favourable disposition to Irish but also to their exposure to the Irish-medium school environment which tends to enhance this positive attitude. But despite participants' efforts to include some Irish in their child's life, either during recreational activities or at home, self-reports did not indicate the emergence of bilingual families. However, there is some evidence that the school facilitates the creation of Irish-speaking social networks between a few families.

The overall purpose of this thesis was to explore the program “Bredsands Brobyggare,” which aims to increase immigrant parents’ involvement and participation in their children’s schooling. This was achieved by studying how the “bridge builders” experience relationship building with the parents and what strategies they use while working with the target group, as well as how these strategies are considered to affect the parents’ involvement in school. In the thesis, four semi-structured interviews were conducted with service providers working in the investigated program. The results were analyzed from a hermeneutic abductive approach through a thematic analysis. Dempsey and Sandler’s theoretical model of motivational sources for parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling is the theoretical framework underlying the analysis. The results showed that the bridge builders used their cultural-understanding ability to build a relationship with the parents and increased other professionals’ awareness and understanding of their difficulties and needs. Furthermore, after establishing a relationship with the parents, the bridge builders used other approaches, such as a strength-based approach and the implementation of individualized support according to the parents’ needs, aiming to create a stable line of communication between school and home, which in turn can potentially develop parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling. / Det övergripande syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska programmet "Bredsands Brobyggare" vars syfte är att öka utrikesfödda föräldrars engagemang och delaktighet i sina barns skolgång. Detta genom att studera hur yrkesutövarna, de så kallade "brobyggarna", upplever relationsbyggandet med föräldrarna och vilka strategier de använder i arbetet med målgruppen, samt hur dessa strategier anses påverka föräldrarnas delaktighet i skolan. I uppsatsen genomförs fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer med yrkesutövare som arbetar inom den undersökta verksamheten. Resultatet analyserades utifrån en hermeneutisk abduktiv ansats, genom en tematisk innehållsanalys. Den teoretiska ramen som ligger till grund för analysen är Dempsey and Sandlers teoretiska modell om motivationskällor för föräldrars delaktighet i barnets skolgång. Resultatet visar att yrkesutövarna använder sig av relationsskapande och andra förhållningssätt vid arbete med föräldrar som har en invandrarbakgrund. Specifikt indikerar resultatet att brobyggarna använder sig av sin kulturell-förståelse förmåga, både för att bygga en relation med föräldrarna samt för att öka övrig personals medvetenhet och förståelse av föräldrarnas svårigheter och behov. Efter etablering av relation med föräldrarna, använder brobyggarna andra förhållningssätt till exempel som ett styrkebaserat förhållningssätt samt implementering av individualiserat stöd enligt föräldrars behov, detta i syfte att skapa en stabil linje av kommunikation mellan skolan och hemmet som i sin tur kan tänkas utveckla föräldrars delaktighet i sina barns skolgång.