Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco with the University of California, Berkeley, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 71-02, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Vincanne Adams.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 7, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-10, Section: A, page: 4076. Adviser: Robert V. Robinson.

This thesis examines how, in a rural New Zealand ‘area school’, successful democratic parental and community voice was able to bring about the creation of an education alternative. While the parental initiative was in line with the rhetoric of Tomorrow' s Schools (1988) the contention in this thesis is that initiatives such as this were not intended by the legislation. Despite the fact that the initiative was stimulated by and explicitly invoked the rhetoric, the spirit of the legislation was philosophically opposed to this particular kind of innovation. The ‘Kiwi’ initiative emerged in 1993, five years after the legislation. The initiative centred around a request for an alternative education programme to be set up within ‘Takiwa School’. This alternative was modelled on Playcentre, a New Zealand Early Childhood Education model, which encompasses aspects of progressivism. Kiwi parents and Takiwa School personnel achieved a ‘school within the school’ for a segment of Takiwa community. Parents became fully involved in all aspects of their children's curriculum, from planning, through to delivery and assessment. This thesis examines the politics of the change process within Takiwa School. Three questions are central to this case study examination of change. These are: What were the parents asking for? How were the parents able to achieve what they were asking for? and What were the effects of the process on what it was that the initiative ultimately became? These three questions are examined in a sociological manner, from a critical realist approach. A range of theoretical tools are utilised; the central theoretical windows are a combination of Exit, Voice and Loyalty-which is provided by Hirschman (1970)-and the theories which are encompassed in the New Institutionalist approach. The central argument of the thesis is that it was a particular combination of conditions and motivations which made the Kiwi innovation possible. The possible replicability of the initiative is discussed. A key concern of the thesis as a whole is whether the set of circumstances in which the innovation transpired was unique. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

This thesis examines the ways in which women assess and seek resources in their urban contexts. I argue that the struggles of daily life in local communities and institutional groups can produce ideological spaces into which new practices, arising from increased consciousness of issues, can be developed. My aim has been to uncover women's experiences in a way that not only interprets meanings from their practices, but also encourages such practices to be seen as valid renderings of women's understandings. I examine women's initiatives through the analysis of varying contexts. While I acknowledge the historical importance of the domestic situation as a threshold for much historic activism, women's proactivity requires a broader situational analysis. I therefore present cases of proactivity within the domestic, public and business spheres, within the two cities of Waitakere and North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. Through the search for new progressive social identities, women's activities at the inter-personal level are a prime source of social change. It is through the recursive relationship between women as agents and the social structure, that changing interpretations of social expectations are produced, allowing for creative activism. While women's initiatives may aim to transform particular social environments, they become part of the incremental process of change that alters the experience and structure of women's lives. The thesis has four parts. The first outlines the scope, objectives and theoretical framework, while the second conceptualises women's agency and its positioning within social gendered structures. Part Three presents the investigative processes linking the theoretical framework and the empirical analysis. Part Four submits the thematic interpretations of the thesis, concluding that women can be agents of social change in a diversity of ways. I acknowledge my feminist stance, one with layerings of objectives and motivations. I view women's circumstances as resulting from the interweaving of structural forces and personal capacities. The resulting awareness of women's experiences can challenge the values and concepts of masculine discourses. This is viewed through the concept of multiplicity. On a political level this means creating a resistance to hierarchies and a commitment to a plurality of voice, style and structure. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Patrick Akard / This study examines the mythology of rock and roll stars in film. To accomplish this the narrative structures and ideological components of films about rock stars were identified and analyzed. There were two reasons for choosing this film genre. First, these films are specifically produced for a youth-oriented audience, an age demographic making the transition to adulthood. Because of this, these films provide commentary about social institutions and cultural values about finding a place in a market-based economy that is not as clearly transparent in other genres. Second, these films deal with society across historical time periods, starting with the inception of rock and roll in the 1950s through the present time. Because they cross multiple decades it is possible to analyze how the narrative structure and content of the films change across time and how these changes reflect changes in social conditions. The narrative structure of these films were identified and analyzed following the methodology laid out by Will Wright in Sixguns and Society (1975). The five narrative structures that were identified included, in chronological order, the reconciliation plot, the personal revival plot, the personal revival plot tragedy variation, the self-destruction plot, and the rejection plot. The journey the heroes in each plot take, along with the obstacles they face and how they find their place in society, coincide with historically situated cultural values and social conditions. Film content was analyzed through assessing how binary oppositions were resolved and the core themes represented. Both components, the narrative structures and binary oppositions, changed in ways reflective of the historical context in which the films were produced and reinforced particular ideological positions about cultural values, the youth, and the marketplace. While the hero's journey took different direction within each of the identified plots, they all contained a common thread – the rock star always finds a place in society by conforming to structural conditions instead of working to alter them.

Abstract not available.

Chapter one: Revisiting the issues: Free trade and demographic transition. Over the next several decades, countries around the world will experience varied degrees of population ageing. Their population growth rates are also projected to be unequal across countries. Meanwhile, the accelerating process of globalization is making national markets more and more integrated through international trade. This paper uses an overlapping-generations computable general equilibrium model to investigate the evolution of trade and its welfare implications for two open economies during demographic transitions. Initially, the two economies are assumed to be identical except for the population growth rate. Two scenarios are considered for different patterns of demographic transition. Under both scenarios, one of the two economies becomes comparatively older than the other. The resulting changes of relative factor abundances give rise to different comparative advantages across economies and create incentives for trade. The Armington assumption is applied into the trade model and the two economies are assumed to export and import both capital-intensive and labour-intensive goods. Opposite to the result from related literature, our model shows that the older economy becomes better off and the younger economy becomes worse off after opening to trade. Furthermore, we find that the gap between the welfare levels of two economies is positively correlated with the steady-state population growth rate. Our results cast some light on the continued welfare gap between the developing and the developed world during globalization. Chapter two: International migration, skill composition and population ageing: An OLG-CGE study. Major industrial countries are facing varied degrees of slowing down of labour force growth resulted from population ageing. To fix this problem, many of them are considering adopting more immigrants. Migration is also taken as an option to accommodate other negative impacts of ageing including to alleviate possible fiscal pressure. This paper uses an overlapping-generations general equilibrium model to analyze the impacts of different patterns of international migration on ageing economies. Based on the findings from recent literature, this paper introduces an aspect important in the analysis of migration: international trade is used to investigate the interactions between good mobility and labour mobility. The emphasis has also been put on the heterogeneity of labour and skill composition of immigrants. GTAP6.0 data is applied to calibrate the developed region, the developing region and the rest of the world. Simulation results in this paper suggest migration from the younger developing countries to the older developed countries may not be a win-win game for both of them. An older country could benefit from the inflow of immigrants with higher skill composition. However, the welfare gap between the developed and the developing world will be enlarged as the result of migration of skilled labour. In the paper, the effort of combining international trade and migration proves that good mobility is critical in analyzing international migration: the impacts of migration are well explained by the changes of comparative advantages across countries and terms of trade. This paper also shows that in the context of ageing, trade may be complementary, instead of being substitutable, to migration across countries. International trade increases with the scale and skill composition of migration. Chapter three: An OLG-GE modeling framework for endogenous migration. The new era of international migration is accompanied with accelerating process of population ageing and deeper degree of globalization. Despite more aged developed countries' effort to adopt more immigrants to combat possible negative impacts of ageing, the demand from emerging economies for foreign intelligence is also increasing with the outspread of multinational enterprises and outsourcing. Based on a two-country, three-input and three-generation OLG general equilibrium (GE) model, this paper introduces the concept of endogenous migration into a dynamic OE framework. In the model, the developed and the developing countries are calibrated based on real data and have different paths of population growth. Labour stock in each region is differentiated both by their skill levels and their countries of origin. For the first time in the dynamic OE modeling, we introduce a series of CET (constant elasticity of transformation) equations to capture the supply side of labour market. Population growth has also been endogenized in the model, and each region's population is recalculated based on bilateral migration in each period. Simulation results from our model suggest some stylized facts as observed in the process of globalization. For example, it is shown that more people migrate from the younger countries to the older countries. There will also be wage differentials between native and immigrant workers. Finally, there will be a more significant tendency for workers to move from the developed countries to the developing countries, as a larger economy, with the booming of bilateral trade.

The United Nations has become progressively involved in peacebuilding activities in post-conflict countries over the last two decades. A general formula has emerged for the design of these interventions which includes ceasefire, disarmament and demobilization and democratic elections. The key component to these missions is the democratic transition, which is presumed to increase stability in the country. The current transition paradigm assumes that the participation of local leadership in the process will result in their transition to democratic leaders. Previous research primarily focused on the impact of the international community on the transition, while little attention is given to the role of the local leadership. This study evaluated the current transition model in order determine its applicability. The study used embedded multi-case study analysis to evaluate the role of the local leadership in three case countries: Cambodia, Liberia and Burundi. The threes cases demonstrated that the local leadership had significant impact on each component of the transition and were in fact directing the process. Furthermore, the outcomes of the transition were predictable based on the behavior of the local leadership throughout the phases of the conflict and peace process. The results of the analyses were utilized to correct the post-conflict transition model. The corrected model highlights the significant impact that the local leadership has on each component of the process and the influence of the context in which the leadership is operating. The corrected model was applied to three secondary cases in order to verify its general applicability. The results of this study will assist policymakers in the improved design and implementation of post-conflict interventions / acase@tulane.edu

The political behavior of peasants in four Paraguayan communities is studied in monographic detail. The communities were selected to measure the influence of two variables on political behavior--economic location and the history of elite-peasant relationships. This arrangement permits me to make conclusions concerning the impact of capitalist development and local history on community political responses The study analyzes peasant efforts to obtain and secure access to land, favorable agricultural policies, defense from abuse, and respect for the peasant ideal of social relationships. Some communities are able to achieve relatively greater success in forcing state agents to recognize the peasants' claims and demands The study concludes that the local history is the stronger determining variable for discerning which communities are more likely to achieve relative political efficacy. There seems to be little correlation between capitalist development and communal patterns of political behavior. However, capitalist development is the stronger determining variable in predicting what issues are central to peasant demands and what survival strategies individuals use / acase@tulane.edu

Utilizing survey data collected in four communities in the State of Utah, this study examined the extent to which rural resident perceptions and attitudes toward local community circumstances influence their own expectations and attitudes subjectively toward future community development alternatives. Understanding perceptions of community and community development, as well as the patterns of localized community development, is crucial and needs to consider residents' opinions and attitudes toward unique rural economic, environmental, and social conditions in order to help preserve the unique characteristics of the way of life while continuing economic improvement and social betterment in rural areas. Three conceptual frameworks of development (economic, environmental, and social) are applied in this study to explore the relationship between local residents' general attitudes toward the current conditions in their community and their attitudes toward development alternatives. I examine how these three development frameworks guide rural scholars to understand whether the pattern of community development is consistent across the region or localized from community to community. Four different types of rural communities were selected in a Utah-wide community survey in the summer of 2008. These communities are facing four different change patterns: an increasing senior community, an energy-development community, a recreational community, and a constant community that has remained stable over the last five decades. Each type of community has its unique economy, lifestyle, culture, and environment, in which local residents have developed a way of life in response to these changes in social and economic structures. Research findings indicate that the local residents' self-perceptions of community economic situation are not significant indictors to support the arguments of the economic development framework. However, indexes of environmental and social development frameworks are found to have strong associations with locals' environmental and social development alternatives. Also, different types of rural community show different demands for community development strategies, implying that a single development framework would not be sufficient to explain the complex of local residents' perceptions and attitudes toward community development unless the researchers integrate other perspectives into the model.