The social and economic structures in western societies are changing and with them are the political values of their citizens. This study investigates the nature of post-materialist value orientations in the United States and West Germany. The research aimed at determining whether the indicators that Ronald Inglehart developed almost twenty years ago for explaining value-shifts are reliable tools to predict the nature of post-materialist values. These factors are: rising levels of education, a distinct cohort experience, and increased levels of economic security.With the help of mass-survey data from 1974 and 1980 that were collected in the United States and west Germany it was shown that there are other factors that are more powerful for predicting post-material values than the ones specified in Inglehart's theory. Moreover, the predictors are of a different explanatory power in the two countries under consideration. A preliminary attempt was made to find the reasons for the phenomenon of national differences. / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Many non-metropolitan areas in British Columbia experienced chronic instability in the resource extraction economy on which they traditionally relied. Beginning in the early 1980s, shifts in employment and the organization of work led to persistent socioeconomic turbulence. Despite the range of development, education, and training programmes available, efforts to return these regions to stability had only sporadic success. In the late 1980s, policy reviews led to the introduction of initiatives for greater local self-direction over development, complemented by partnering in programme delivery, and shifts in educational funding towards targeted groups. This study examines certain interactions between post-secondary education and development programmes in non-metropolitan British Columbia from 1980 to 1996. Using a living systems view, and drawing on studies in geography and adult education, a model of resources needed by outlying regions for successful development was constructed. The model was used to examine socioeconomic changes, policy changes designed to foster sustainable development, and shifts in emphasis in post-secondary education and training programmes, as they affected the study areas. The main conclusions were: (1) there were distinct socioeconomic differences among non-metropolitan regions; (2) in some, significant internal migration resulted in opportunities to create new work, and so achieve more self-directed development, and (3) the implementation of local sustainability and partnering did not reach levels expected, in part due to contradictory demands for innovation and cost cutting. Supporting evidence was derived from combining (a) an extensive review of census indicators over the province and in four selected case study regions, with (b) a series of some 100 semi-structured interviews with resident stakeholders who were involved in directing, managing, and delivering educational, training and community development services, and (c) a review of contemporary socioeconomic plans and profiles. The empirical data was analyzed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, which featured the application of principles of grounded theory and the method of triangulation, widely used in social sciences. Case study communities were those that were successfully returning to stability by means of the benefits flowing from internal migration combined with opportunities to create new work. The methods of investigation developed here can be applied to other situations where communities are trying to change their prospects from within. The living systems view is appropriate for broadly-based research into local community development.

The literature on the Quiet Revolution tends to present this important moment in the history of contemporary Quebec as resulting from the actions of an enlightened class, the new middle class, who wished to make Quebec a modern society. The objective of this thesis is to criticise this elitist and essentialist interpretation of social change. It proposes a conceptual alternative that could take into consideration the profound mutation in state and society relations between 1944 and 1960, a mutation that facilitated the advent of the welfare state in Quebec. Based on a theory of civil society as a sphere of interaction between the state and the individual, the thesis demonstrates that the Quiet Revolution was the result of the development of a new ethos that favoured the values of social justice, participation and equality which contributed to undermining the foundations of the Duplessis regime.

Many non-metropolitan areas in British Columbia experienced chronic instability in the resource extraction economy on which they traditionally relied. Beginning in the early 1980s, shifts in employment and the organization of work led to persistent socioeconomic turbulence. Despite the range of development, education, and training programmes available, efforts to return these regions to stability had only sporadic success. In the late 1980s, policy reviews led to the introduction of initiatives for greater local self-direction over development, complemented by partnering in programme delivery, and shifts in educational funding towards targeted groups. This study examines certain interactions between post-secondary education and development programmes in non-metropolitan British Columbia from 1980 to 1996. Using a living systems view, and drawing on studies in geography and adult education, a model of resources needed by outlying regions for successful development was constructed. The model was used to examine socioeconomic changes, policy changes designed to foster sustainable development, and shifts in emphasis in post-secondary education and training programmes, as they affected the study areas. The main conclusions were: (1) there were distinct socioeconomic differences among non-metropolitan regions; (2) in some, significant internal migration resulted in opportunities to create new work, and so achieve more self-directed development, and (3) the implementation of local sustainability and partnering did not reach levels expected, in part due to contradictory demands for innovation and cost cutting. Supporting evidence was derived from combining (a) an extensive review of census indicators over the province and in four selected case study regions, with (b) a series of some 100 semi-structured interviews with resident stakeholders who were involved in directing, managing, and delivering educational, training and community development services, and (c) a review of contemporary socioeconomic plans and profiles. The empirical data was analyzed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, which featured the application of principles of grounded theory and the method of triangulation, widely used in social sciences. Case study communities were those that were successfully returning to stability by means of the benefits flowing from internal migration combined with opportunities to create new work. The methods of investigation developed here can be applied to other situations where communities are trying to change their prospects from within. The living systems view is appropriate for broadly-based research into local community development. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

This study investigated the production of literary themes as cultural products in two historical periods: The French Romantic Movement and the Beat Generation in America during the 1950's. The study defined the fundamental literary themes of the French Romantic Movement and examined the sociological factors which led to the development of this system of ideas. In turn, the French themes were used as an analytical device to determine if these themes existed in the Beat Generation and if the Beat Generation could be viewed as a social and literary movement in the tradition of French literary history. Following a comparison of essential ideas of each movement, the study investigated the sociological factors which led not only to French Romanticism, but to the Beat Generation as well. The project provided a thorough, systematic content analysis of the literary themes of the Beat Generation, and concluded that the Beat Generation may be considered a system of ideas in the tradition of French Romanticism. In addition, several similar abiding sociological factors were present in both historical periods. The study projected the possibility of vanishing alternative Bohemian sub-cultures in modern society and the advent of the twilight of romanticism. / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of History

Dans quelle mesure les traditions de l’Église orthodoxe, héritière d’un modèle byzantin imprégné de césaropapisme qui ignorait donc la séparation des pouvoirs temporels et spirituels, ont-elles influencé les comportements démocratiques dans les pays d’Europe où elle est dominante ?Le cas particulier de la Roumanie depuis 1948. / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished