Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2003. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: p. [1-23].

Univ., Diss.--Köln, 2003. / Literaturverz S. XXII - XXXVII.

The Refugee Act of 1980 established the first comprehensive U.S. refugee policy. It codified a refugee definition and created the annual consultation process, which requires the president to consult with Congress before determining annual refugee ceilings and resettlement plans. While the Refugee Act of 1980 remains intact, the annual refugee admissions and resettlement plans have changed considerably. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze this policy to explore its changes from 1980-2018 through the lens of social construction theory. According to this theory, the social constructions of target populations affect policy designs that are adopted with respect to these populations. Policy designs can create and legitimize divisions among different target populations causing some to be perceived and treated as more deserving than others. This dissertation uses a qualitative research design to analyze narratives within presidential proposal documents and congressional hearings that are held as part of the annual consultation process. These documents serve as the data for this dissertation. I undertake a detailed analysis of the documents of one annual consultation process and related congressional hearings for each president in the period between 1980-2018. In these documents and hearings, different policy actors (congressional members, representatives of the executive branch and state and local governments, and other experts) provide testimony and expert opinions on refugee admissions and resettlement. It is in this context that refugees as a target population are constructed and policies to deal with refugees are debated and discussed by various policy actors. To understand these constructions and the context in which they are created, the narrative analysis elements offered by the narrative policy framework are used as a method. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Yes / This paper addresses groupwork processes with a group of prisoners advising a research project in a maximum-security prison in England. The research project (Appreciative Inquiry into the Diversity Strategy of HMP Wakefield. RES-000-22-3441) was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and lasted 9 months. The research explored the experiences of prisoners in diverse minority groupings and the strategies of the prison to accommodate the complex needs of these groups. The Prisoner Advisory Group (PAG) was made up of representatives from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) prisoners; older prisoners (over 60s); Disabled prisoners (with physical disabilities, learning difficulties; and mental health problems); Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender prisoners; and prisoners affiliated to Faith groups. It met regularly during the research. The paper considers the forming norming and performing aspects of establishing an effective participant voice in a prison-based project. It considers the contribution of the PAG to developing a research strategy that engaged prisoners in the research. It reflects on the nature of ‘participative research’ in general and whether such research is possible within a high-security prison environment.

This thesis describes my artistic practice as essentially project-based, site-responsive and hypermediating. Hypermediacy—i.e. the tendency of certain media or objects to keep their various constituents separate from their structure—is to be understood as opaque, juxtaposed and after a recurring contiguity with different kinds of interfaces. Accordingly, and within the context of the various projects that constitute this thesis, it is demonstrated how, in response to the particular places I work and to the various people I collaborate with, different kinds of materials and methodologies are incorporated in broader hybrids that are mediated (interfaced) in miscellaneous ways to this way result in original works of art. Materials and methodologies are shown to be intertwined and interdependent with each other as well as with the different ways in which they are interfaced, which accounts for an explicitly projectbased, rather than artwork-based, approach which, on its turn, de-emphasises the finished artefact in favour of process, performance, research and exploration. Projects are, then, shown to be explicitly site- or situation- responsive, as they are not implementations of preexistent ideas, but rather emerge as my original response to the particular sites, materials, people and the various other constituents that are involved in their very production. Interfaces to such hybrids as well as their very material and methodological elements are also shown to be hyper-mediated. It is finally argued that such an approach essentially accelerates multi-perspectivalism in that a project may spawn a number of diverse, typically medium-specific and/or site-specific, artworks that all exemplify different qualities which are congenital to the particular nature of each project.

User experience with public products needs special attention considering the specific context. Different from other consumer or personal products that users own, public products do not belong to the user / they are shared with and used in front of other people. Thus, different concerns and problems are incorporated affecting the user experiences. This thesis dwells on the effects of presence of other people on user-public product interaction. The relationships between social context, users&rsquo / feelings, and task performances constitute the basis of the thesis. These relationships were investigated by consulting to the literature, but mainly by conducting three empirical studies. All these studies revealed that the presence of other people affects the users&rsquo / feelings and task performances greatly.

Employees at Statoil Canada participated in an action research, cooperative inquiry-based program that was designed to facilitate the reduction of their office environmental footprint. The program was designed using a combination of techniques that have been shown in previous studies to produce pro-environmental change. Almost 90% of participants that were offered the program opted to take part. During a 4-month period, participants set up individualized programs to reduce their environmental footprint in a manner of their own choosing. Results were collected both formally, through self-report data from a web-based Action Tracker, through 1 on 1 interviews and through a facilitated discussion and informally, through impromptu conversations, emails and observation. The data suggests that the program was effective in reducing environmental footprint, although it remains to be seen if the changes will be long lasting.

This research explores how community leaders could use Corbett’s Spectrum of Environmental Ideologies (2006) to analyze the ideologies of communication campaigns before adopting one into a community. In this research, a mixed age class of elementary students and local artisans created two “parks” in public parking spaces and participated in an arts contest in Nelson, BC. This action research used analytic coding to reflect on participants’ relationship with nature based on their response to: international Park(ing) Day and Transition Nelson. Additionally, participant recommendations for greening Nelson’s downtown core were compared with four models of social change for generating ecocentric solutions. Ecocentric solutions stem from the belief that humans and nature are interdependent. Found to be key were nurturing participants’ nascent ecocentric values and investigating the campaign materials deeply. Additionally building motivation, exploring alternatives, problem-solving, partnerships and improved organizational communication are important elements of social change.

This richly descriptive qualitative study examines the ability of a Grade 11 outdoor education program to transform student environmental worldviews. This exploratory research investigates the current environmental attitudes and beliefs of a random sample of eight graduates of the G. P. Vanier Secondary School Explore program from the years 2003 through 2006. The research also examines the long-term reflections of these graduates on their experiences in the Explore program. This qualitative research utilizes open-ended interviews to ascertain the depth and breadth of the students‟ experiences. Qualitative findings indicate that a reaffirmation, rather than transformation, in environmental attitudes occurs for the participants in this study. The findings of the study corroborate the results of earlier studies on the positive impact of outdoor education programs and support the notion that outdoor education programs can provide a variety of meaningful experiences for their participants.

Anecdotal information indicates a resistance to change from federal fish hatchery staff regarding environmentally sustainable infrastructure renewal and hatchery operations. Qualitative research was conducted to investigate this phenomenon, using face-to-face interviews with nine hatchery staff across British Columbia. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim, and participants‘ responses remained confidential, due to the relatively small hatchery community. Responses were grouped under two headings, Barriers to Change and Embracing Change, and four distinct themes emerged: Governance, Benefits, Education and Research, and Culture and Personal Beliefs. Barriers to change related to governance emerged as the dominant theme during interviews. This research examines the culture of hatcheries and their perceived governance structure, identifies barriers to implementing change, and makes recommendations to foster effective governance. Characterizing hatchery staff responses to change is a significant step in moving towards environmentally sustainable infrastructure renewal and environmentally sustainable program operations.