Makerspaces are fertile grounds for students to develop innovative products infused with STEAM principles and cross disciplinary content knowledge; build technological fluency; and support positive developmental growth. Yet, rarely do Makerspaces prioritize these outcomes. Rather, they tend to revolve around the creation of novel objects using cutting-edge technology; craftwork unhinged from their historical, social, political, or academically-relevant underpinnings; and/or the hacking of so-called “black boxes”. What happens when an educator designs and implements a research-based and content-driven in-school Makerspace? Drawing on field observations, interviews, artifact analysis, and the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP) survey, this mixed methods study explored the experiences of students from two urban middle school classes (n=51) who participated in a social action themed Makerspace called the “Tech Café.” Working from a transformative research perspective, the Tech Café also sought to address the “participation divide”— a term suggesting that higher socioeconomic status students have more opportunity to produce media creatively than students of low socioeconomic status. Qualitative results indicated that students reported increased agency in their ability to effect positive change in their world. They engaged in powerful collaborations with diverse members of the school’s learning community as they worked toward solutions using low- and high-technology tools. Their products included a cigarette smoke detecting shirt, an edible insect bug stand, and a stationary making kit utilizing recycled paper. Student profiles incorporated their chosen social issue; steps and challenges in product creation; and outcomes pertaining to technological fluency and sense of agency to affect change. Findings showed that students may have benefited from scaffolding to deepen their understanding of important social issues through research. Quantitative results of the DAP were statistically analyzed according to measures of Positive Identity, Positive Values, Commitment to Learning, Empowerment, and Social Competencies and indicated that no statistically significant differences existed in the pretest-posttest survey scores of participants (n=30). However, a descriptive analysis of score improvement showed that students who successfully created products in the Tech Café moved to higher DAP score ranges more often than those who did not create products. The study concludes with recommendations pertaining to the implementation of Makerspaces in schools.

This study sets out to explore how people who took part in mass protests in Russia produce and negotiate accounts of their protest involvement in talk. Although there has been a proliferation of research on protest in Russia, especially after the first mass demonstration in December 2011, the existing literature tends to prioritise the role of structural and demographic factors in mobilising dissent. However, there has been little investigation into how protesters themselves account for protest involvement and how they make such factors relevant. In addition, no in-depth social psychological exploration of protesters’ views has been conducted in Russia to date. This thesis addresses these gaps by offering a detailed empirical investigation of autobiographical accounts produced by Russian protesters regarding the reasons and motives for taking part in active protest and the subjective interpretations of what being a protester means. Semi-structured interviews with 48 Russian participants were collected, transcribed and translated. The data were analysed within the framework of discursive social psychology (DP). The analysis focused on how particular descriptions were used by protesters in talk to justify and contest certain versions of reality, and on the social actions thereby accomplished. The analysis led to novel insights into how protesters in Russia construct the causes and motives of their dissent, negotiate problematic identity categories and manage issues revolving around accountability and blame. For example, the analysis illustrated the potentially problematic nature of defining protesters’ interests and objectives as ‘political’. That is, when asked about their political attitudes, the interviewees actively justified these as not intentional. They mobilised various discursive resources to imply that they did not intend to become interested in politics and protest, but rather experienced situations that ‘naturally’ led to the acquisition of political interest. Similarly, when talking about motives for active protest participation, protesters tended to downplay explicitly political motivations. Instead, they portrayed their actions as a logical consequence of the deteriorating situation: some participants justified their involvement in terms of duty to defend their loved ones and the country in general, while others defended the appropriateness of active resistance through invoking powerful negative emotions. Such accounts functioned to protect protesters from being seen as motivated by personal or economic concerns, and warranted active protest as the only available means to address the unjust state of affairs in the country. Furthermore, I have shown that identifying with the label of ‘opposition’ is problematic for protesters, with oppositional membership being either denied or delimited in a number of ways. For example, the analysis demonstrated how respondents accomplished denials by making claims about the activities and attributes associated with the category of ‘member of the opposition’ and by invoking the negative connotations of the very term ‘opposition’. The instances of self-ascription of opposition membership further illustrated the sensitive nature of the topic: affirmation accounts were often modified to delimit the extent and nature of membership, with it being portrayed as a logical consequence of a speaker’s views, rather than in terms of emotional or psychological basis, such as shared identity or desire to belong. Finally, my study focused on the arguments relating to the people who do not protest. Interestingly, I found that, despite routinely warranting rationality and necessity of active protest, respondents portrayed the passive members of the public as not blameworthy. The behaviour of non-protesters was justified through attributing it to various practical hindrances and to specific cultural/generational mindsets, thereby placing it outside of peoples’ control. Overall, my thesis contributes to the social psychological literature on protest, by providing a complementary model of contention through the prism of protesters’ own orientations. The study demonstrated that, for protesters in Russia, protest experiences appear to be closely linked with interpersonal and normative considerations, with dissent being manufactured as a necessary and inherently moral act aimed at protecting Russia and its people. The study thus illustrated the utility of putting people’s accounts at the forefront of the analysis and treating them as valuable in their own right. In adopting a novel methodological approach to exploring protest realities as products of interaction, this thesis created an opportunity for a better understanding of the complexities and challenges of popular protest in Russia.

M.A. (Public Management and Governance) / This study seeks to deal with a variety of ethical challenges that programme evaluators encounter when undertaking evaluations. In order to find the origin of programme evaluation ethical dilemmas, the study begins with a description of how programme and policy evaluation emerged as a professional field. A chronological approach has been used to outline how different governments and nongovernmental organisations across the world decided to adopt programme evaluation as a mechanism that can be employed to judge the worth and effectiveness of public and private sector policies and programmes. The historical context has also provided foundations for various purposes of evaluation and roles that must be assumed by programme evaluators. The study identified various challenges that arise during different phases of programme evaluation. Political issues are known challenges that programme evaluators encounter. A link between obstacles and the various roles of programme evaluators have been investigated and analysed. The study also shows how programme evaluators, commissioning agency staff, programme recipients and participants might contribute to unethical conduct in various stages of the evaluation. The study assessed different principles and guidelines that programme evaluators use to guide their evaluations. It also assessed the usefulness of policy instruments in terms of covering the challenges that arise throughout the life cycle of programme evaluation. Furthermore, the study focused on the limitations of the current policy instruments regarding ethical obstacles in evaluation. In response to these limitations, the study proposes various measures that programme evaluation institutions can put in place in order to address the inadequacies that are found in current principles and guidelines.

This paper presents findings of an exploratory study to evaluate the impact of humanitarian photography on the generation of sympathy and donation behavior. Considering the large amount of money spent each year by charity organizations on marketing strategies, it seems crucial to shed light on the persuasive impact of images in this context. The overarching purpose of this study was to discern what impact, if any, a number of features in a photograph have on sympathetic reactions. Specifically the author examined facial expressions (sad vs. happy), eye contact vs. no eye contact and total number of subjects portrayed. Findings supported the hypothesis that sad expressions in photos would have greater sympathetic responses than happy expressions. The author hypothesized that direct eye contact would be more persuasive than indirect eye contact, but the data supported the inverse result: indirect eye contact elicited more sympathy than direct gaze. The third hypothesis, that single subject images would be more persuasive than multiple subjects, was not supported. The author concluded that results draw attention to sympathy-generating attributes of charity appeals that have been overlooked.

This thesis proposes that feminist social and political theory adopt the epistemology inherent in Jurgen Habermas's communicative ethics in order to more coherently work toward the goal of freeing individuals from social oppression. This thesis first examines the fundamental differences that exist between the particular claims for knowledge made by the three major schools of feminist theory; the empirical feminists, the standpoint feminists, and those allied with postmodernism. After illuminating the specifics of these feminist claims, the conception of knowledge central to Habermas's thought is explored and shown to be split into three distinct realms; the objective, the social, and the subjective. It is shown that the three realms of Habermas's knowledge account for the underlying claims of the differing groups of feminist theory, and provide a basis for reconciling the differences between them. Habermas's objective realm of knowledge corresponds to the concerns of empirically oriented feminists. A need for an accurate description of the events and conditions of the actual world is shared by both, as is a trust in the human potential for grasping these objects and events accurately. Standpoint feminism's concern for interpersonal relations, accounting for the context of an individual's or group's existence, is reflected in the type of knowledge that Habermas considers social in nature. Habermas's conception of our capacity for social knowledge, which guides our actions with other human beings, is shown to be dependent upon both social existence and communication. Finally, Habermas acknowledges the human potential for critical knowledge to explain the individual's ability to differentiate herself from the group, a task which a postmodern feminism demands to avoid essentializing any aspect of women. If feminist theory is able to move beyond the entrenched differences that it now finds itself locked within, perhaps then it will be able to continue with the project shared with Habermas, that of providing a meaningful emancipation for human beings.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Dec. 3, 2007). PDF text: xi, 213 p. ; 11 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3271913. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

This thesis is an articulation of how the principles of socially-engaged Buddhism, a spiritual practice rooted in the teachings of the historical Buddha that integrates Buddhist practice and social activism, can enrich and enhance contemporary educational practice. It discusses Buddhist epistemology, metaphysics, ontology, psychology, ethics, and practice and relates these things to holistic education, critical pedagogy, SEL, and global education. On the basis of the theoretical understanding represented by that discussion, it articulates several theoretical principles that can be practically applied to the practice of teaching and learning to make it resonate with the theory and approach of sociallyengaged Buddhism. In integrating the implications of Buddhist teachings and practices with teaching and learning practice, it draws from bell hooks’ notion of “engaged pedagogy” in order to articulate a transformational, liberatory, and progressive approach to teaching called “socially-engaged pedagogy.” Socially-engaged pedagogy represents the notion that teaching and learning can be a practical site for progressive social action designed to address the real problem of suffering, both in the present and in the future, as it manifests in the world, exemplified by stress, illness, violence, war, discrimination, oppression, exploitation, poverty, marginalization, and ecological degradation.

Texte remanié de: Thesis Ph. D.--University of Cambridge. Titre de soutenance : Social service and the culture of association in North India, 1900-1920. / Bibliogr. p. 224-242.

Various forms of resistance are emerging in Human Geography in response to human caused environmental degradation and climate change. One such example is the Natural Change (NC) project, a World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) initiative about social change through a facilitated wilderness experience. Wilderness is seen as an affective quality, acting as a catalyst for an empirical embodied experience of the integral human connectivity to Nature. This connectivity is seen to inform the subject's framing of distanciated environmental issues and intends to re-territorialise their positionality as an ecological Self. The NC seeks to create an embodied connectivity with Nature, which desires immunising others as a form of self-protection. The WWF NC project began by selecting influential individuals from large organisations in Scotland. After two groups completed the NC, the project was deemed highly successful by the WWF and was then terminated by a change of leadership at the WWF. The creators of the NC went on to create the Natural Change Foundation (NCF) and offer the program to eco-facilitators so that they might integrate the NC experience into their work. This research explicates the changing positionality of individuals, before, during and after the NC course. The research showed that two spaces emerged after the NC course. In one space the subjects attempt to structure a diffluence of feelings and ideas and struggle to act, while in another space the subjects combine influence and agency with a grounding element of experiential connectivity, to move to a confluence of feelings that result in action. The research identified that a specific type of efficacy and agency is needed to empower individuals after the NC course, to enact social change through action. The research highlights the importance of access to, or the creation of situations, which are supportive of efficacy and agency. These findings have profound implications for Human Geographers interested in enacting policy in relation to climate change and environmental degradation, that results in social action for an ecologically sustainable future.

Dažniausiai neįgalumas siejamas su kažkokiu trūkumu, o tuo pačiu ir su priklausomybe, tam tikrų socialinių vaidmenų apribojimu, kadangi dauguma socialinių vaidmenų reikalauja tam tikro aktyvumo, kuris neįgaliajam dažnai tampa neįmanomas. Todėl neįgalieji dažnai atleidžiami nuo tam tikros socialinės atsakomybės, iš jų nesitikima, kad jie patys save prižiūrės. Tokiu būdu žmogus gali pasijausti menkavertiškesnis už kitus, prarasti atsakomybę už save, atsidurti aktyvaus socialinio gyvenimo užribyje. Žmonės, turintys sunkią proto negalią dėl įgimtų defektų, pasižymi ribotais arba net labai ribotais sugebėjimais mokytis ir išmokti ar susivokti naujoje situacijoje. Tačiau jie gali ir turi būti ugdomi. Vidutinės ir sunkios proto negalios asmenų užimtumas – viena iš šių asmenų socializacijos priemonių. Magistro baigiamajame darbe užimtumas pristatomas kaip veiklos alternatyva tiems asmenims, kurie dėl sveikatos lygio praktiškai neturi galimybės įsidarbinti ir kuriems užimtumo paslaugos teikiamos globos įstaigoje. Tyrimo tikslas – i��tirti socialinio darbuotojo veiklos kryptis teikiant užimtumo paslaugas proto negalios žmonėms globos institucijoje ir numatyti teikiamų paslaugų plėtros galimybes. Tyrimo uždaviniai 1. Apžvelgti visuomenės požiūrio į proto negalios asmenis ir jiems teikiamas paslaugas kaitą. 2. Įvertinti kaip socialinio darbuotojo veikla, teikiant užimtumo paslaugas, atliepia proto negalios asmenų poreikius. 3. Nustatyti svarbiausias socialinio darbuotojo veiklos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Often handicap is associated with certain drawbacks and at the same time with dependency, limitations of certain social roles, as the majority of social roles require certain activity, which is often impossible for the handicapped. Therefore the handicapped are often released from certain social responsibilities, it is not expected that they will take care of themselves. In this way a man may feel inferior to others, lose responsibility for himself, find himself outside the limits of active social life. People who have a serious mental disability due to inborn defects are characterized by limited or even very limited abilities to learn or orient himself in a new situation. However they can and should be developed. Employment of people with average and serious mental disabilities is one of the means for socialization of such persons. In the present master degree paper employment is presented as an alternative activity for the persons, who practically do not have the possibility to get employed due to the state of health and for which employment services are provided in care establishments. The objective of research is to analyze the direction of the activities of social workers in providing employment services to people with mental disabilities in care establishments and to anticipate the possibilities for the development of the provided services. Tasks of the research 1. Review the change of the attitude of the society towards people with mental disabilities and the... [to full text]