With the momentum of previous Emperors, Haile Selassie steered Ethiopia on the path to modernization. One of his greatest obstacles was the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC), which, being steeped in sixteen centuries of tradition, was accustomed to being the primary hegemonic power. Pierre Bourdieu's generative structuralism will be employed in this thesis to analyze the EOC's symbolic power as well as Selassie's efforts to dispossess the Church of its cultural power and make it an arm of the state. Controlling the rural periphery of Ethiopia, however meant introducing the basic structures of modernity to ethnic groups who had historically resisted Selassie's Amharic culture. Selassie permitted foreign missions, such as the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) and Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM), to function as his subcontractors for civilization by building schools, establishing medical stations, and evangelizing the non-Orthodox populations. Selassie failed to anticipate how mission structures contributed to the formation of resistant identities for Maale and Oromo converts. In analyzing these processes, the thesis also employs Robin Horton's theory of conversion while refuting Horton's broader claim about the superficiality of Christianity in Africa. / Religion

As international pressure for multiparty reforms swept Africa during the early 1990s, long-time incumbent, such as UNIP in Zambia, KANU in Kenya, and the MCP in Malawi, were simultaneously challenged by widespread domestic demands for multiparty reforms. Only ten years later, after succumbing to reform demands, many long-time incumbents were out of office after holding competitive multiparty elections. My research seeks an explanation for why this pattern did not emerge in Tanzanian, where the domestic push for multiparty change was weak, and, despite the occurrence of three multiparty elections, the CCM continues to win with sizable election margins. As identified in research on semi-authoritarian rule, the post-reform pattern for incumbency maintenance in countries like Togo, Gabon, and Cameroon included strong doses of repression, manipulation and patronage as tactics for surviving in office under to multiparty elections. Comparatively speaking however, governance by the CCM did not fit the typical post-Cold-War semi-authoritarian pattern of governance either. In Tanzania, coercion and manipulation appears less rampant, while patronage, as a constant across nearly every African regime, cannot explain the overwhelming mass support the CCM continues to enjoy today. Rather than relying on explanations based on repression and patronage alone, I locate the basis of post-reform CCM dominance in a historical process whereby a particularly unique array of social and economic policies promulgated during single-party rule culminated in comparatively affable social relations at the onset of multiparty reform. In Tanzania, this post-independence policy mix included stemming the growth of vast regional wealth differentials, a rejection of ethnicity as a basis for organizing collective action, and the construction of a relatively coherent national identity. By contrast, in most other African cases, policies under single-party rule acted to reinforce many of those economic and ethnic divisions inherited at independence. These divisions in turn, acted as material and moral capital for organizing dissent against incumbency, and the consolidation of opposition parties following political reform. / Political Science

The purpose of this study was to examine educational strategies of mainstreaming at-risk students into regular classes and to determine if the strategies had an impact on students' academic and social adjustment. The study was conducted in two parts. Part 1 included a program description and critique, results from two surveys, and trend data for the QS and GAP programs. The teacher perception survey was designed to assess teachers' opinions about mainstreaming. A Learning and Study Strategies Inventory was used to assess a select group of tenth graders' learning skills and how they could be altered through educational interventions. Trend data were used to determine the impact of the program. / Part 2 consisted of qualitative analysis of data gathered through a series of interviews with teachers, students, and a counselor. Validity and reliability of data was established by member checks, and triangulation. / Most teachers surveyed and interviewed had positive opinions about mainstreaming. However, students in the program disagreed with the idea of mainstreaming. The results of the LASSI provided support to the idea that students needed additional help with learning strategies. Trend data revealed a decrease in the mainstreamed students' grade point average, an increase in the number the number of disciplinary referrals, and hours missed from class. / Based on the findings, it was concluded that four important elements are necessary in mainstreaming at-risk students. First, teachers must be provided with inservice training to insure some classroom success of at-risk students. Second, the needs of the students require a caring and supportive environment. Third, instructional techniques for helping students achieve success involves active teaching techniques, cooperative learning, use of learning strategies, and eliminating time as a factor for deciding grades. Last, there must be support from the administrative staff, which includes provision of necessary funds for operating a successful program. The conclusions are congruent with the ideas of humanistic theories of education and support the position that every child can learn. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-12, Section: A, page: 4344. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

Commentators on U.S. health care policy have noted that the relative weakness of government institutions has left the allocation and financing of health care services to powerful interest groups. Until recently, the actions of state organizations as a major explanation for the organization of the market was seldom used. This dissertation evaluates the efficacy of a state centered approach to explaining Florida's health care politics. / Florida is used as a case study because of the dynamics of its economy, politics, and demography and its effect on the state's health care issues. Four questions guide the research. First, what are the State of Florida's interests in the market? Second, what strategies have state organizations pursued in Florida's interests? Third, to what degree do non-state organizations influence the development of the legislation? Finally, what conditions facilitate the involvement of Florida's state organizations in the health care services market? / Legislation regarding the enactment and continuance of Florida's Medicaid program, Florida's strategy for financing uncompensated hospital care, the financial arrangements for purchasing services, Florida's certificate of need licensing program, and Florida's regulation of hospital budgets is examined over a 28 year period, 1965 to 1993. / The investigation found that the interests of the State, defined by well accepted principles of its appropriate role, were strong enough to enable state agencies to successfully promote legislation authorizing and expanding Florida's Medicaid and indigent hospital care programs. Furthermore, on behalf of Florida's economic interests as a payer in the health care market, state agencies were successful in promoting legislation for alternative financial arrangements than fee for service and legislation regulating the capacity of the industry to produce health care services. / State agencies were successful in promoting these strategies when the interests of influential health care provider organizations were fragmented and, in some circumstances, when these organizations were united in their opposition to legislation promoting state strategies. In these circumstances, state agencies' efforts, influenced by federal monetary incentives, federal policy examples, and other state policy examples, set the agenda for the development of these strategies, not policy initiatives developed in the Legislature. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1344. / Major Professor: Allen Imershein. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

The topic of this thesis is how computer applications can support knowledge sharing between individuals in an organization. The thesis particularly focuses on solutions that facilitate for people to find other persons to share knowledge with, rather than solutions where information is stored in some kind of database for the purpose of being reused by other persons. The thesis describes one shorter and one longer ethnographic study about information and knowledge sharing in two different settings. The studies have shown that what actions people take when they search for information and knowledge depends on the problem itself, and on the situation in which the problem occurs. The results from the studies indicate that supporting people in knowing about others’ activities and availability would be more important when supporting knowledge sharing, than a specific knowledge system with the purpose of storing information to be reused as knowledge. This awareness can be supported in a number of different ways, some based on social activities, and some based on technical solutions. Social activities involve supporting the development of social networks, communities of practice, and other kinds of social activities that facilitate for people to get to know each other and get an opportunity to talk to each other. There exists many technologies that can support people’s knowledge about others’ activities and availability. Awareness systems focus on collecting and presenting information about, for example, where a person is located and how busy a person is. Some awareness systems collect such information automatically using, for example, sensor technology or electronic calendars, while others require the user to enter the information by him- or herself. It is more difficult to get the second kind of systems to work in practice because it requires that the time a user spends on supporting the system is also returning a benefit in the end. Ordinary information systems may also contribute to supporting people’s knowledge about others’ activities and availability, but they need to be structured and searchable in a way that fulfils this purpose. Also, there usually exist more than one documentation repository in an organization among which some may be structured and some not. Based on the studies that have been conducted a number of prototypes supporting knowledge sharing have been developed and evaluated. The technologies focused on are notification systems including mobile solutions to communicate with others, awareness systems focusing on activities and availability, and information management to make already existing written documentation structured and searchable. These prototypes have been evaluated using video recorded scenarios, based on the studies conducted, and focus groups in a medium sized consultancy organization. The results from the evaluation show that the suggested prototypes in the large fulfil the purpose of supporting knowledge sharing in an organization. Based on the three field studies conducted within the work of this thesis, a framework for supporting knowledge sharing through computer support is suggested. The framework focuses on issues such as annoying interruptions, platform independent communication, privacy aspects, and how the information can be presented. / QC 20100609

In Marxist and Dependence theories, revolution has been prescribed as a panacea for developing countries' social evils. However, there is little work dedicated to evaluation of the results of those events that permit the validation of theory. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to assess the outcomes of the Nicaraguan Revolution (1979-1990) and test this assumption. The assessment was made according to Edward Muller's theoretical framework. It is centered in the idea that revolutions destroy social capital. Their successes depend on the skill of revolutionary leadership in distinguishing obsolete from other forms of valuable social capital. The latter has to be fostered as the base of the revolution's future development. The indicators used were: (1) The extent at which the revolutionary leadership keeps its promises and delivers public goods; (2) The evaluation of power, strength, and centralization of the revolutionary state vs. the ancient regime; (3) The performance of the revolutionary economy; (4) The extension of the policies of land distribution, and; (5) The effects of the revolutionary policies in income distribution, inequality, and the creation of new opportunities for the citizenry. The conclusions were: (1) The Sandinista leadership did not deliver the promises of mixed economy, political pluralism and on alignment; (2) The revolutionary state was: strongest, more centralized and powerful than the Somoza regime; (3) The economic performance was poor, and unable to meet the needs of the people; (4) The policies of land reform were effective in distributing land, but failed in the creation of a new social class of farmers. It became a counterinsurgency land reform directed to create an available political clientele for the ruling party; (5) The contradiction between macroeconomics and distributive microeconomics policies, canceled out the effect of the latter, inducing a process of income concentration; (6) The insertion of the Nicaraguan crisis in the East-West confrontation accentuated dependence; (7) The empirical evidence supports Moller and Weede's theoretical assertion (1995) in the sense that the Sandinista leadership was not able to discriminate between obsolete social capital from valuable social capital, that existed embedded in pre-revolutionary institutional structure. Its attempt to subordinate civil society and substitute it with a spurious civil society ended with the destruction of valuable social capital needed for growth and development.

Affirmative action policies have been a popular topic in U.S. media since their inception in the Civil Rights Act 1964. Previous studies note that race, gender, and political identity are known influencers of support for affirmative action policies; however, this dissertation analyzes the mediating effects of perceived experiences of discrimination in the workplace on a person's level of support for the preferential hiring and promotion of Black Americans based on the intersection of the race, gender, and political identity. Through social dominance theory (SDT), this dissertation highlights the motivations people may have in support or opposition of affirmative action, especially for Black Americans. Due to the historical lineage of African Americans in the U.S., stereotypes about Black people's work ethic have continued to be mostly negative-which inform hiring, promotion, and admission procedures today. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) to conduct regression and mediation analysis, this dissertation found significant support for mediation of perceived experiences to increase support for affirmative action among white females, and Black people regardless of gender or political identity. While race and gender discrimination were thought to be the most influencing forms of discrimination experienced, age discrimination showed to transcend racial, gender, and political barriers. Accordingly, appealing to experiences of age discrimination may be a helpful approach to closing the implementation gap of those who voice support for equality yet constantly vote in support of inequality.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4529. Adviser: Paula Treichler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-304) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-08, Section: A, page: 3111. Adviser: Arthur S. Alderson. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 5, 2006).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2774. Adviser: Winifred Poster. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-194) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.