Scholars agree that global climate change is a major threat to the physical environment, affecting all aspects of life on the planet. However, the general public do not feel that climate change is a major risk or threat, especially to humans. It is important to understand the public’s perception and opinions of climate change as it affects and influences the creation and passing of climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. Specifically, little is known about public perceptions in regards to the greater health risk imposed by global climate change. This study examines the public's perception of health risks related to climate change in Broward County, Florida by using mixed methods. An online survey was conducted along with in-person interviews with the general public and a physician. The study found majority of respondents to believe climate change affects health, but lacked an understanding of how it is harmful to their health. It also found that gender affects their perceptions and political ideology appears to have an effect, but the effect of socioeconomic status on their perceptions were unable to be determined at this time. Broward is just developing policies to adapt and mitigate the health effects of climate change. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Aux alentours de 2008, un genre littéraire nommé « zhichang xiaoshuo » suscite l’engouement en Chine : des best-sellers avec leurs adaptations engendrent quelques centaines d’œuvres dans la même veine. Ce phénomène que nous désignons par la « littérature des cols blancs », est à la fois littéraire, socio-économique et culturel. Inédite dans l’histoire littéraire, cette littérature est atypique par le statut de ses auteurs, par ses formes hybrides, et aussi par ses modes de production. Quatre œuvres, englobant les plus médiatisées et les plus originales, constituent notre corpus noyau, et forment un échantillon qui permet de rendre compte de la richesse du phénomène. Notre travail relève d’une double approche socio-historique et littéraire. Pour les œuvres du corpus, nous procédons à l’étude de l’intrigue, des personnages, de la structure textuelle et des techniques narratives. Nous examinons en parallèle deux romans d’écrivains reconnus ayant mis en scène le monde du travail respectivement au début et à la fin des années quatre-vingt, ainsi que des œuvres de fiction relevant des genres « guanchang » et « shangchang », écrites au tournant du siècle ou contemporaines des« zhichang xiaoshuo ». Le contexte économique, politique et culturel dans lequel est apparu le phénomène, est largement étudié. Nous analysons également les adaptations en tant que variantes de l’œuvre littéraire, et tentons d’expliquer leurs différences. Enfin, nous explorons les fonctions de cette littérature « grand public » dans la société chinoise du XXIe siècle, une société affichant sa prospérité et jouissant de nouveaux moyens technologiques d’une part, et d’autre part marquée par le traumatisme du passé et par la perte de repères. / Around 2008, a literary genre called "zhichang xiaoshuo" arouses enthusiasm in China: bestsellers with their adaptations generate several hundred works in the same vein. This phenomenon that we call "white-collar literature" is literary, socio-economic and cultural at once. New in the history of literature, this literature is atypical due to the professional identity of its authors, its hybrid forms, and also its production methods. Four works, including most publicized and most original, constitute our core corpus, and offer a sample of the richness of the phenomenon. Our work takes a two-pronged approach, both socio-historical and literary. For works of the corpus, we first study the plot, the characters, the textual structure and narrative techniques. We examine in parallel two fictions by renowned writers who portrayed the working world of the early and late 1980s, respectively, and two fictions in the “guanchang” and the “shangchang” genres at the turn of the century or contemporary with “zhichang xiaoshuo”. The economic, political and cultural context in which the phenomenon appeared is widely studied. We also analyze the adaptations as variants of the literary work, and try to explain their differences. Finally, we explore the functions of this popular literature in twenty-first century Chinese society which is, on the one hand, proud of its prosperity and enjoying the benefits of new technologies; and on the other hand, marked by the trauma of its past and by a general loss of bearings.

This thesis considers how religious diversification has shaped the roles of clergy and seminaries. The focus of this qualitative, interview-based study is seminaries and clergy affiliated with various denominations of Judaism and Protestant Christianity in greater London and New York City. Religiously diversifying societies in the US and England have brought forth new challenges for clergy and seminaries, prompting new questions about how or why a faith community should or should not engage with diversity in the public square. This study investigates how seminaries and individual members of the clergy, as sources of religious authority, are responding to religious diversification in different ways - the former sluggish to recognise the impact of religious diversification in curriculum and pedagogical structures and the latter seeing it as a resource for social action initiatives, local networks, and political activism. This has created a gap between training and practice whereby clergy have assumed greater religious authority in religious life. Beyond contributing to the field of sociology of religion, this thesis concludes by allowing the experience of clergy in interreligious engagement to inform appropriate pedagogies that could be employed by seminaries.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:57:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rosangela Aparecida Cemino Moura.pdf: 1486940 bytes, checksum: e700e30efd0a7c26edf3322c4288f00e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-06-30 / The objective of this study is to analyze the social representations of the concepts, purposes and triggered actions on the teacher s graduation processes to preventive education and health promotion, from a graduation project, going by on State Public Net. The perspective abstract was a link between the social representation abstracts and the social change, under Professional ID vision. The used approach was qualitative, and the procedures were: a) documents study of graduation Project; and b) semi-structured interview with the proposal coordinators. The social representations were researched, from communication processes feeling between them and the teachers on building on a new health and prevention Idea. About the organization and datas analysis, it was used 3 conceited categories: Me (graduator), the Other (teacher) and the Object (the graduation), inspired by Marková (2006) and, from these, the results were: On the net, the teacher s graduators in health prevention belong to several hierarchical levels and this difference is not considered by graduation Project. The graduation objective is to establish the self-care as the graduation for the student in the social-constructivist perspective, and wish that the teacher manages this process, constituting and reconstituting their professional of identifying traces including the preventive education as an item of their educative task, assuming the co-authorship of this process. However, on teachers education if it opts to the formation in cascade, from the multiplication of expert s concepts, adopting the transmissible perspective, without revision of the graduators of identifying traces, that is kept on the ¨of what¨ standardization and how it must me taught. The graduator s work social representations are based on functionalist vision, where the authority is verticalized, guided by the hierarchical logic, aiming at to consist as orientation for the behavior of the teacher. The relation between groups emphasizes the dependence, and the action model affirms itself for the carepaternalistic position / Este estudo teve por objetivo analisar as representações sociais subjacentes aos conceitos, propósitos e ações desencadeados nos processos formativos de professores para educação preventiva e promoção de saúde, partindo de um projeto formativo, em decurso na rede pública do Estado. A perspectiva teórica foi uma articulação entre as teorias das representações sociais e da mudança social, sob a ótica da identidade profissional. A abordagem utilizada foi qualitativa, tendo por procedimentos: a) estudo documental do projeto formativo; e b) entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os coordenadores da proposta. As representações sociais foram analisadas, a partir das tensões nos processos de comunicação entre os coordenadores/propositores do programa e os professores, na construção de uma nova concepção de saúde e prevenção. Para organização e análise dos dados, três categorias conceituais: Eu (formador), o Outro (professor) e o Objeto (formação), inspiradas por Marková (2006), foram utilizadas e, a partir dessas, chegou-se aos seguintes resultados: Na rede pública de ensino, os formadores de professores em educação preventiva pertencem a vários níveis hierárquicos e essa diferença não é considerada pelo projeto formativo. A intenção formativa visa constituir o autocuidado como formação para o aluno, na perspectiva sócio-construtivista, e pretende que o professor conduza esse processo, constituindo e reconstituindo seus traços identitários profissionais, de modo a incluir a educação preventiva como parte de sua tarefa educativa, assumindo a co-autoria desse processo. Entretanto, na formação do professor se opta pela formação em cascata, a partir da multiplicação de conceitos de especialistas, adotando a perspectiva transmissiva, sem clara intenção de revisão dos traços identitários dos formadores, que se mantêm aprisionados à padronização do quê e como deve ser ensinado. As representações sociais do trabalho do formador se enraízam na visão funcionalista, na qual a autoridade é verticalizada, orientada pela lógica hierárquica, visando se constituir como orientação para a conduta do professor. A relação entre grupos enfatiza a dependência, e o modelo de ação se afirma pela postura assistencial-paternalista

Through the evolution of digital media technology, social networks and more recently Web 3.0 (e.g. Cloud-based) technologies, culture and memory is being transformed, both in relation to how memories are represented, and how they may be engaged with or re-accessed. As digital technology alters ways in which knowledge is produced, stored, connected and shared, new terrains, tools and artefacts are formed; new cultural practices alter the ways in which we remember and the ways in which memory is processed, destabilising traditional “historically encoded social habits: religion, authority, morality, traditional values, or political ideology” (Diamantaki 2013). This doctoral project consists of two parts exploring questions of memory in contemporary time. The practice work submitted develops various imaginaries and investigates how to enable mnemonic practices so that works function as memory palaces where bodies and ‘collective' and ‘networked memories' (Hoskins, 2010) can be realised. The work, briefly summarised, includes communal activities in public spaces (a series of workshops and heritage day events, Rendezvous, centrally social activities organised between Fabrica and various charitable organisations in Brighton). It includes a series of installation works, as a transitional process of memory between body, object, an investigation of ubiquitous technology, are investigated – iremembr (2009-15); Rendezvous (2010-15); Untitled#21 (2012). And it leads to the development of an installation piece, 200.104.200.2 (2013-15), that seeks to offer or extend the possibilities of the act of remembering, of memory, as a post-Internet experience; a complex temporal, social, spatial and material, overlapping and merging human and silicon memory. In this, the written component of the combined and larger project, questions concerning memory and digital technology, and how to explore them, are taken up in theoretical terms, and the works I have produced returned to and explored in these contexts. A central project here has been to locate new forms of qualities of ‘digital' memory in a memory map or topology that builds on adapts, and develops other models. Aspects of zones of memory are explored centrally in each of the later thesis chapters each of which also takes up a particular aspect of my practice. The intention – and the contribution to the development of critical thinking around the digital – particularly critical thinking that comes through digital media art practice, is to question how digital technology intervenes in the process of memory; how the concept of digital memory is being thought about; leading me to investigate what does this new digital terrain do as it overlaps and re-writes to some extent the older ones? How does it change ‘how memory happens'.

The purpose of this study was to investigate two underlying questions related to welfare reform and its impact on participants in the Cumberland Plateau Region: (1) What are the training and other noneducational needs of the participants in the VIEW program? and (2) What is the projected success of the impact of the training on the lives of the participants? The research study included 47 interviews with four distinct groups of individuals--VIEW participants, case managers, administrators, and trainers. Three focus group interviews were conducted with individuals who were participants in the VIEW program or professionals actively involved in the administration and implementation of the program. All the individuals interviewed in the study identified four difficulties to the successful implementation of the VIEW program: (1) the lack of economic development in the region, (2) the abbreviated time frame for the implementation of VIEW, (3) an excessive amount of paperwork, and (4) the lack of transportation. The participants cited the following difficulties: (1) child care, (2) inappropriate dress for interviews, (3) attitudes and busyness of case worker, (4) penalties associated with securing employment, and (5) limited opportunities for training. The training personnel identified three areas posing difficulties for participants: (1) motivation, (2) attitudes of the participants, and (3) leadership development. In summarizing the responses of all the individuals interviewed in this study, the two viable remedies emerged as options available to assist participants: (1) seeking additional help from family members or friends, and (2) taking the initiative to investigate other avenues of assistance outside the scope of the Departments of Social Services. The training component of the VIEW program was considered the most favorable among all the individuals interviewed in this study. The-proposed outcome of the training received for all participants in the VIEW program was the attainment of full-time or part-time employment. All the interviewees felt to varying degrees that the VIEW program would assist participants in securing employment. The administrators and case managers ultimately viewed the employment as the measure of success of the training. However, most of the participants were very unsure if they would secure employment in the Cumberland Plateau Region.

No description available.

This project explores the agricultural heritage and current social landscape of the Stinking Creek community of Knox County, Kentucky, and the legacy of the local nonprofit organization the Lend-A-Hand Center. Through participatory research, this project presents a reflexive account of the Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Gardening Program examining the diverse economy of the Stinking Creek watershed and possibilities for new economic imaginings and post-coal futures for central Appalachia. This dissertation includes an oral history project, a theoretical examination, and an ethnographic reflection, bridging several literatures in the fields of agricultural history, Appalachian Studies, Participatory Action Research, research within the diverse economy framework, and feminist political ecology. For three years I coordinated the Grow Appalachia program through the Lend-A-Hand Center, developing agricultural initiatives in Knox County, working to re-localize food systems through home gardens, community gardens, and the establishment of the Knox County Farmers’ Market, and gathering stories through oral histories on the Creek. Problematizing the 1967 book Stinking Creek, by John Fetterman, this account of the community seeks to call attention to the importance of critical analyses of representations of people, processes, and places. In the face of pressing social issues in central Appalachia and renewed interest in the discourses of development, local food, and post-coal transition, this work seeks to intervene in region-wide discussions and suggest avenues for change and possibility. The Lend-A-Hand Center Grow Appalachia Gardening Program illustrates the potentials for community-based agriculture projects in the region to promote a variety of economic processes, foster and preserve agricultural traditions, and impact the conversation about outlooks for the region. This research provides policy and programmatic suggestions regarding the importance of relocalization of food systems and different (re)presentations of community narratives as part of a multifaceted agenda toward a just, sustainable future for eastern Kentucky and the region.

Native American women and children suffer from domestic violence at an alarming rate on and off Indian reservations in the United States. Often these families that are impacted by domestic violence are involved in the state/county child welfare system. This study was to gain knowledge about Native American tribal child social workers experiences and challenges with co-occurrences of domestic violence and child maltreatment cases. This study used an exploratory, qualitative design with a phenomenological approach by collecting data through face-to-face and over the phone interviews with four Native American tribal child social workers from four different tribes across the nation. This design allowed participants the opportunity to provide a more in-depth explanation from their own personal experiences regarding their experiences and challenges working with domestic violence and child maltreatment cases. The study found that there is a need for state/county social workers to have a better understanding of the historic and current experiences of Native people from a cultural, spiritual, and socioeconomic perspective through effective and consistent training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The study also found, that there is a need for state/county administration and social workers to build relationships with tribal child social workers in order to provide culturally competent and effective policies and services to serve Native American communities.

Human Trafficking is the modern-day equivalent of slavery. Those who perpetuate it do so because it is lucrative to invest in a product that can be resold multiple times (Ellis, 2017). The recent advancement of technology has tremendously helped traffickers thrive in the illicit business of Human Trafficking. Social media websites, online classifieds, and mobile applications are quickly becoming some of the major mediums perpetrators utilize to traffick their victims (Latonero, 2012). The purpose of this study was to examine social service workers’ knowledge on the use of technology for Human Trafficking. Face-to-face interviews were conducted and the participants were asked a series of open-ended questions. Participants in this study were recruited from a social service agency in San Bernardino County that frequently serves survivors of Human Trafficking. The study found that all of the participants felt confident in their ability to serve survivors of Human Trafficking. The study also found that most participants had little to no training in regards to the topic, and did not have any knowledge of the kind of language used by perpetrators for Human Trafficking. In order to address the different components of the issue, social service workers should advocate for trainings in order to stay competent in regards to the issue. Social service agencies who serve the community must offer appropriate interventions and services for Human Trafficking survivors. Finally, social service workers should continue to advocate for legislature and policy that will help survivors recover versus legislation and policy that is punitive.