This thesis aims to point out poverty from several perspectives that are part of human life. The focus of the thesis is not only a problem of poverty in terms of material shortage referred to social policy but also it tries to uncover other possible types of poverty that can threaten human life. A human is from its nature a creature of biological, social, psychological and spiritual components. Therefore, it is defined as a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual being. For this reason, as with other human-related topics, it is not possible to deal with one of these components but data from all these areas need to be used to provide a complete explanation of the issue. The first chapter defines poverty and associated terms. Moreover, it names different approaches to poverty and affected persons. From chapter Two to Five the author specifies particular types of poverty-physical, cultural, relationship, spiritual and mental poverty. In comparison to previous chapters, chapter Six is explaining the state's attitude to poverty and possible measures that can be conducted. The last seventh chapter deals with Christianity and its history of poverty.

Schools in England have undergone huge change since neoliberal ideologies introduced notions of choice and competition. This study seeks to understand how teachers rationalised their roles alongside the demands of performativity associated with managerialisation and marketisation. As such, this research explores the lived experiences of teachers within a neoliberal hegemony. Methodologically, I used a social constructionist paradigm and an interpretative phenomenological analysis after Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009). I conducted six in-depth semi-structured interviews with teachers in primary, middle and secondary school settings. My interpretative phenomenological analysis used Wenger’s (1989) concept of a community of practice as well as concepts from social theorists such as Habermas (1979, 1996), Giddens (1986, 1991) and Bourdieu (1984, 1994) to frame my thinking. The research found that the changes being experienced by teachers are not aligned with their understandings and beliefs concerning education, either for themselves as a professional body or for the pupils in their care. As such, the teachers express notions such as the suppression of their voice and the oppression of their autonomy. Furthermore, teachers’ descriptions include philosophical and practical resistance to change. The descriptions of change and resistance show alignment towards notions of welfare education not neoliberal managerialisation and marketisation. The nature of the new knowledge concerns changed forms of organisational experiences, from changed forms of organisational communication to changed forms of learning. It is this change, brought about by managerialisation and marketisation, that the teachers describe as resisting, both philosophically and practically. As such the participants describe a clash of lifeworlds and a clash of doxa, such that they experience ontological insecurity. Furthermore the managerialisation and marketisation of schools is at odds with Wenger’s (1989) notion of a community of practice and as such, is degrading organisational learning and practice.

Há um consenso na literatura de que a criança que trabalha tem um rendimento escolar menor, e atingirá um nível de escolaridade final mais baixo do que o alcançado por aquelas que não trabalham. Conseqüentemente, quando adultos, terão salários menores do que os indivíduos que começaram a trabalhar mais tarde, e esse mecanismo é o que também se conhece como ciclo de perpetuação da pobreza. Partindo da hipótese de que as crianças trabalham para complementar a renda da família - ou seja, trabalham porque são pobres - as iniciativas que visam o combate ao trabalho infantil ajudam a diminuir as diferenças entre pobres e não-pobres, uma vez que atua numa de suas causas. Enfim, são ações capazes de quebrar o ciclo que mantém pobres várias gerações de uma mesma família. Os programas Bolsa Escola em geral não exigem formalmente que a criança seja afastada de atividades laborais para que o benefício lhe seja concedido. Porém, como existe a obrigatoriedade da freqüência escolar, que reduz o tempo disponível para outras atividades, e é realizada transferência em dinheiro que substituiria a renda do trabalho da criança, entende-se que a saída do mercado de trabalho é um efeito colateral ou transbordamento (spillover) de um programa cujo objetivo explícito é incentivar a demanda por educação formal e aliviar a pobreza corrente. Avaliou-se o impacto dos programas de bolsa escola sobre o trabalho infantil no Brasil, utilizando os microdados da PNAD 2001, por meio de duas estratégias complementares: i) modelo próbite em que a variável dependente é um se a criança trabalha e zero se não trabalha; e ii) regressão por mínimos quadrados ponderados, para as crianças que trabalham, em que a variável dependente é o número de horas semanais trabalhadas por mês. É possível concluir que o programa é eficiente na redução do número de horas mensais de trabalho das crianças, e que uma bolsa adicional diminui jornada das crianças que trabalham em duas horas na área urbana e três horas na área rural. No entanto, os testes realizados não foram conclusivos em relação à decisão da família de inserir suas crianças no mercado de trabalho. / There is a consensus in the literature that if a child works his/her level of schooling will decrease and consequently he/she will receive lower wages in adult life, forcing their children to work to guarantee family subsistence. Based on the hypothesis that children work to complement family income, the initiatives to eradicate child labor helps to diminish the differences between the poor and non-poor. The minimum income for school attendance programs - like bolsa escola in Brazil - in general do not request formally that the child quits his/her job to receive the benefit. However, since school attendance is mandatory, which reduces the available time for other activities, and there is a cash transfer that substitutes the child’s income from work, the decrease in the labor market participation is a spillover effect of the program, whose objectives are to stimulate the demand for formal education and to alleviate current poverty. As a way to evaluate the impact of the bolsa escola programs on the child labour in Brazil, based on microdata from PNAD 2001, a regression model was estimated by weighted least squares for the weekly hours worked by children and a probit model for the family’s decision of children’s participation in the labor force. It is possible to conclude that the program is really efficient to decrease children’s weekly hours of work, but the test for participation in the labor force was inconclusive. An additional bolsa has diminished in two hours the weekly hours worked by children in rural areas and in three hours in urban areas.

No description available.

This thesis examines the impact of social policies on child mortality. It argues that structural factors explain most of the variation in child mortality across countries and time. But that in Vietnam the state implemented effective social policies; leading to this country having low child mortality for its structural factors (income, income equality and women’s power). This thesis uses panel data econometrics to investigate the structural determinants of child mortality. Our model shows that national income and women’s power reduce, and income inequality increases, child mortality. These independent variables are significant at the 1% level and explain over 90% of the variation in child mortality when our dependent variable is under-five mortality from the World Development Indicators dataset. These results are robust to changes in the functional form, lag structure, dataset and measure of child mortality used in our model. Vietnam is an outlier in our model; it has low child mortality for its structural factors. We consider that Vietnam’s effective social policies may explain why it is an outlier. This thesis also undertakes a detailed case study of Vietnam’s social policies. We argue and provide considerable evidence that in Vietnam the government implemented effective family planning, child immunization and female education policies and that these reduced child mortality. Developing countries are currently committed through MDG4 to reducing under-five mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015. Our results show that developing countries are unlikely to achieve this goal because social policies have a small impact on child mortality relative to structural factors.

Having largely achieved the goal of "controlling population quantity," and faced with slowing economic growth, serious demographic problems, and the changes brought about by the deepening marketization of Chinese society, China's central-level leaders have, in recent years, turned their attention to the lesser known twin objective of their population policy, "improving population quality." To this end, they have introduced program reform aimed at improving the quality of services. They have adopted an eclectic approach to program reform, drawing selectively on global discourses and practices on sexual and reproductive health and rights and at the same time relying on their own model of experimental governance, namely, conducting "pilot experiments" in carefully selected sites. Developments at the central-level have been a subject of scholarly attention, but until now, relatively little attention has been paid to grassroots implementation, making it difficult to assess the degree to which practice has in fact changed. This dissertation examines how global discourses and practices on sexual and reproductive health and rights, articulated in global forums and consensus documents, have been taken on, interpreted, and experienced by people at the grassroots level in China. It is based principally on six months of fieldwork, July - December 2009, in Deqing, a rural county, located in the northern part of Zhejiang Province, in the Jiangnan region of China. Deqing is a pilot site for the introduction of "client-centered" approaches to implement the population program. Data were derived from participant observation, analysis of documents, semi-structured interviews with 17 local-level providers working at the county, township, and village-levels in clinical and administrative capacities, and 17 married women of reproductive age residing in three townships. I documented many innovative approaches that the local program developed to promote "quality service" and its various components, such as "information," "choice," and "rights," as they understood them. I also found that the range of services that the program now provides extends well beyond birth planning and that in addition to its core demographic, married women of reproductive age, the program now targets new populations including those that have been a focus of global attention in recent years such as migrants and adolescents. For the populations that the program targets, migrants being a notable exception, the mode of governance has begun to shift from direct to more indirect means, the latter being considered a more efficient way to implement the program in the current environment. Unlike earlier efforts to "control population quantity," which were often forcefully implemented and fiercely resisted, efforts to "improve population quality," have received a warm reception by providers and clients alike in Deqing. While there are some continuities, overall, the changes that have been introduced are an explicit departure from past practice. Taken together, these findings contribute to ongoing debates regarding the dynamics and effects of globalization.

This study aims to understand the factors and dynamics that influenced a major social policy change. This is undertaken by unravelling the policymaking processes involved in the largest public pension scheme in Korea, the National Pension System (NPS). Changes to the NPS followed a very different direction to other expansionary welfare developments either in Korea or in similar East Asian welfare systems. This research set out to explain how and why this happened. This is examined via a case study approach with a particular focus on the role of policy actors. This provides an analysis of this single policy change across three time periods, which are characterised by different political and economic regimes: authoritarian rule; democratisation in the midst of a financial crisis; and finally a democracy in recovery from the financial crisis. Data was gained from 44 interviews with the actual policymakers and major policy actors involved, and was complemented by extensive archival data. The findings suggest that, first, although authoritarian governments in Korea may pursue social policy to harness economic development in order to legitimise their non-democratic rule, subtle yet crucial policy competition can still exist among key policy actors. Second, democratisation does not necessarily lead to a dominant view favouring welfare system expansion. Third, new major policy actors - strengthened by a democratic, centre-left government - may not always favour an expansive welfare system. The analysis suggests that, despite the emergence of an increased range and number of policy actors as the democracy matured, there was a marked continuity in policy development in the case of the NPS. Key policy actors pursued a reform in line with liberal economic policy that had been the dominant tendency during the authoritarian era. This suggests that the major mechanism contributing to this continuity was the role of a persistent and powerful epistemic policy community, members of which continued to influence policymaking throughout its development. The conclusion points to how incremental changes in the pension system led to the path dependency of the original policy ideas. We suggest that future research could apply a similar analytical approach to understanding change processes in various policy domains and to other East Asian welfare systems.

Wu, Shujun. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leave 31). / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

This paper offers a complex view on the German economic policy, from the theoretical as well as the historical point of view. It discusses the current challenges and problems of the German economy, whose common factor are the negative demographic changes. One part of the paper also covers the actions aiming on minimalizing the influence of the financial crisis. The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the sustainability of the welfare state as well as the global competitiveness.

This thesis comprises three chapters; a literature review, an empirical paper, and a commentary and reflective review. The literature review critiques stress management interventions for staff working in adult intellectual disability services. There is recognition that working in intellectual disability services can be stressful for staff members. Stress management interventions tended to focus on reducing stress rather than on preventing it. Interventions were categorised as cognitive-behavioural approaches, acceptance and commitment approaches or collaborative approaches where staff members were involved in developing person-centred interventions. Considerations and implications for future stress management interventions are discussed. The empirical element of this thesis focused on investigating predictors of burnout in 86 staff working in intellectual disability services. The paper explored the role of emotional intelligence, exposure to violence and self-efficacy in burnout development. The findings from the empirical paper demonstrated that low self-efficacy and high exposure to violence predicts burnout as measured by the emotional exhaustion (EE) and depersonalisation (DP) components of the burnout measure. Self-efficacy was found to moderate the relationship between violence and burnout (EE and DP). Emotional intelligence was found to predict personal accomplishment (PA) which can protect against burnout development. Emotional intelligence was not found to moderate the relationship between exposure to violence and burnout. Lower levels of emotional intelligence did not predict EE or DP. The commentary and reflective review provides an account of the research process critiquing the decisions made throughout. This includes the process of the literature review searches and topic selection; the empirical paper design, variables, method, data collection and measures. Reflective discussion in this review includes consideration of the ethical issues, clinical and theoretical implications and personal reflexivity.