Da investigação de um grupo de alunos do ensino médio de uma escola pública no município de Porto Alegre, RS, procuramos identificar e analisar zonas de interesse e práticas sociais que pudessem dar início a uma atividade de ensino de Matemática. Do interesse/necessidade demonstrados em relação aos projetos pessoais de futuro, especialmente a orientação profissional, elaboramos uma sequência e um experimento reduzido de ensino nesta direção, respeitando o programa da escola. Utilizamos, tanto na sequência quanto no experimento, mecanismos virtuais, que são construções da geometria dinâmica, e poderiam ser objeto de interesse dentro de algumas profissões escolhidas pelo grupo de alunos. As atividades desenvolvidas demonstraram ser propicias ao estudo de conceitos da Matemática escolar e para a transformação dos esquemas usuais de assimilação utilizados, pelos alunos, nas aulas de Matemática. / The investigation of a group of high school students in a public school in the city of Porto Alegre, RS, sought to identify and analyze areas of interest and social practices that could initiate an activity for teaching math. Of interest / need demonstrated in relation to personal projects in the future, especially the professional guidance, we developed a teaching sequence and a reduced teaching experiment in this direction, respecting the school program. We use both in the teaching sequence as in the experiment reduced teaching, virtual appliances, which are constructions of dynamic geometry, which could be the object of interest within some professions chosen by the student group. The activities proved to be conducive to the study of concepts of mathematics and for transforming the usual schemes of assimilation used by students in mathematics classes.

Da investigação de um grupo de alunos do ensino médio de uma escola pública no município de Porto Alegre, RS, procuramos identificar e analisar zonas de interesse e práticas sociais que pudessem dar início a uma atividade de ensino de Matemática. Do interesse/necessidade demonstrados em relação aos projetos pessoais de futuro, especialmente a orientação profissional, elaboramos uma sequência e um experimento reduzido de ensino nesta direção, respeitando o programa da escola. Utilizamos, tanto na sequência quanto no experimento, mecanismos virtuais, que são construções da geometria dinâmica, e poderiam ser objeto de interesse dentro de algumas profissões escolhidas pelo grupo de alunos. As atividades desenvolvidas demonstraram ser propicias ao estudo de conceitos da Matemática escolar e para a transformação dos esquemas usuais de assimilação utilizados, pelos alunos, nas aulas de Matemática. / The investigation of a group of high school students in a public school in the city of Porto Alegre, RS, sought to identify and analyze areas of interest and social practices that could initiate an activity for teaching math. Of interest / need demonstrated in relation to personal projects in the future, especially the professional guidance, we developed a teaching sequence and a reduced teaching experiment in this direction, respecting the school program. We use both in the teaching sequence as in the experiment reduced teaching, virtual appliances, which are constructions of dynamic geometry, which could be the object of interest within some professions chosen by the student group. The activities proved to be conducive to the study of concepts of mathematics and for transforming the usual schemes of assimilation used by students in mathematics classes.

Natural Flood Management (NFM) is promoted as part of sustainable flood management (SFM) in response to climate change adaptation. Stakeholder engagement is central to this approach, and current trends are progressively moving towards a collaborative learning approach where stakeholder participation is perceived as one of the indicators of sustainable development. Within this methodology, participation embraces a diversity of knowledge and values underpinned by a philosophy of empowerment, equity, trust and learning. To identify barriers to NFM uptake, there is a need for a new understanding on how stakeholder participation could be enhanced to benefit individual and community resilience within SFM. This is crucial in the light of climate change threats and scientific reliability concerns. In contributing to this new understanding, this research evaluated eight (8) UK NFM case studies towards improving understanding of opportunities in involving communities in catchment-based working. An NFM strategy for participatory planning was developed from literature, findings from the UK studies and refined through a scenario development for a case study application in Taraba state, Nigeria using the constructivist model. Stakeholder and inter-agency collaboration for flood management in Taraba were investigated through interview methodology: 8 governmental agencies and 32 community leaders in Potentially Vulnerable Areas (PVA’s) of the state. Findings show some institutional weaknesses, which are seen to inhibit the development of adequate, flood management solution locally with damaging implications for vulnerable communities. The existences of weak institutional structures with poor coordination of the lead agency to effect change are identified as problematic within this context. Findings highlight a dominate top-bottom approach to management with very minimal public interactions. Current approaches are remedial with less emphasis on prevention and mitigation. The targeted approach suggested by the constructivist risk model is set against adaptive flood management and community development. The finding of the study suggests different agencies have different perspectives for “community participation”. It also shows communities in the case study area appear to be least influential, denied a real chance of discussing their situations and influencing the decision. This is against the background that the communities are located in the most productive regions, contributing massively to national food supplies. Stakeholder engagement and resilience planning underpin this research. The study explores dimensions of participation using the self-reliance and self –help approach to develop a methodology that facilitates reflections of currently institutionalised practices and the need to reshape spaces of interactions to enable empowered and meaningful participation. The results are discussed concerning practical implications for addressing interagency partnerships and conducting grassroots collaborations that empower local communities and seek solutions to development challenges.

This thesis investigates the rise of lads’ mags and the wider sexualisation of British popular culture, with a specific focus on the ways in which gender and sexuality are socially constructed and how such constructions work to inform a broader ideology of patriarchy. As a consequence of this, postfeminism and new sexism are critically analysed and it is argued that they hinder progress towards gender equality and serve to justify sexism. Body theory, feminist theory, Foucauldian theory and a Foucauldian Feminist approach underpin the theoretical framework of this research and are used to examine how the body is politicised in lads’ mags and wider popular culture. Notions of gender, sexuality and identity are analysed and revealed as naturalising gender divisions. The methodological framework this research draws upon includes semi-structured interviews, an online survey, content analysis and critical discourse analysis, which collectively contribute an in-depth exploration of people’s perceptions of lads’ mags and the content of the magazines. Ten men and ten women were interviewed, complementing this research with respondents’ observations, assessments and experiences from a broad range of ages. Further to this, an online survey provides over 2,000 responses on public perceptions of lads’ mags and is thus the largest piece of empirical research on this topic to have been conducted. This thesis studies the female body as a site of social and political contestation and concludes that the representation of women in lads’ mags reflects a conflict about sexuality and identity which feeds into the normalisation of patriarchy in British society. How we come to embody the discourses prescribed to us by popular culture is examined through drawing upon empirical data, public debate and wider research on sexualisation. This thesis subsequently argues that the way in which we embody discourses becomes a part of our reality and lads’ mags thus exist as part of a wider cultural story that upholds patriarchy as both normal and desirable.

Da investigação de um grupo de alunos do ensino médio de uma escola pública no município de Porto Alegre, RS, procuramos identificar e analisar zonas de interesse e práticas sociais que pudessem dar início a uma atividade de ensino de Matemática. Do interesse/necessidade demonstrados em relação aos projetos pessoais de futuro, especialmente a orientação profissional, elaboramos uma sequência e um experimento reduzido de ensino nesta direção, respeitando o programa da escola. Utilizamos, tanto na sequência quanto no experimento, mecanismos virtuais, que são construções da geometria dinâmica, e poderiam ser objeto de interesse dentro de algumas profissões escolhidas pelo grupo de alunos. As atividades desenvolvidas demonstraram ser propicias ao estudo de conceitos da Matemática escolar e para a transformação dos esquemas usuais de assimilação utilizados, pelos alunos, nas aulas de Matemática. / The investigation of a group of high school students in a public school in the city of Porto Alegre, RS, sought to identify and analyze areas of interest and social practices that could initiate an activity for teaching math. Of interest / need demonstrated in relation to personal projects in the future, especially the professional guidance, we developed a teaching sequence and a reduced teaching experiment in this direction, respecting the school program. We use both in the teaching sequence as in the experiment reduced teaching, virtual appliances, which are constructions of dynamic geometry, which could be the object of interest within some professions chosen by the student group. The activities proved to be conducive to the study of concepts of mathematics and for transforming the usual schemes of assimilation used by students in mathematics classes.

Piracy has a big mysterious stamp. In the west, we have a clear picture of the 17th and 18th century pirates through stories about prostheses, planks, parrots and eyepatches. These stories come from one source, Captain Charles Johnson's legendary work that addresses a large number of pirates and their lives on the seven seas. This study investigates how modern historians relate critically to Captain Charles Johnson's work and how they interpret his stories about the fictional pirate utopia, Libertalia. What are their purposes and what have they been affected by? By applying a social-constructive theory, the purpose of course becomes evident by seeing what truths these historians created and carried on and how Charles Johnson's work was used in history. Through a social constructive study influenced by source criticism of the works of Marcus Rediker, David Cordingly and Philip Gosse, their interpretations have been perceived as very different. The different historians seem to have their own personal agendas and perceptions and have through their expertise created perceptions and stories that may characterize future generations' perception of the golden age of the piracy and, in particular, their image of Libertalia as a fair society without rulers.   The researchers' source-critical approach varies from seeing Johnson's work as narrative stories for future generations to the fact that Johnson primarily had a profit interest in the authorship. These ideas, however, are something that the historians themselves have concluded and thus become part of the social construction we call reality, in which we exist.

Significant criminological attention has been given to the relationship between immigration and crime. However, this relationship has not been researched in the UK to any great extent, and consequently the information on the UK context is limited. This research investigates how the criminality of foreign nationals have been constructed by examining the nature of immigration policy, foreign criminality discourses, and the media in the UK to understand how crime in particular has been used to define, refine, and inform control of immigrants. This study refers to the legislative, policy, and political factors that underpin this process, and particularly explains how immigration policy and political debates have emphasised the criminality of foreign nationals in the UK. In order to achieve these goals, this research reviews a brief history of British immigration policy and legislation and outlines the connections made between foreign nationals and non-immigration criminal offences. In addition, secondary data from different British institutions and data collected via the Freedom of Information Act 2000 have been used to illustrate the level of foreigners’ criminality as well as the type of crimes compared to the British representation. Finally, Parliamentary debates and related political discourses have been used to examine the role of politics has in reinforcing the relationship between foreign nationals and crime and elevating negative public sentiment and the relationship with media reports. This research highlights the limitations of existing data relating to the criminality of foreign nationals in offending records in England and Wales, partly due to the disorganised recording of offender nationality. This study reveals that nationality is the new racism; whilst immigration has become a central focus in political and public discourses on crime they as a group in statistical terms exhibit low levels of offending but are more likely to be imprisoned for less serious crimes. The relationship between foreign nationals and crimes is thus a political issue rather than a legal one. As such, foreign nationals supposed criminality has been used to control immigration, avoid the blame of failing policies, gain electoral votes, and facilitate changes in immigration and crime policies.

Pendant longtemps, l’erreur était considérée comme l'effet de l'ignorance. Etant donné l’omniprésence de l’erreur dans l’apprentissage, elle occupe une place importante au centre de la didactique moderne. Cette thèse vise à étudier le rôle de l’erreur en production écrite dans l’apprentissage du français chez les étudiants persanophones qui apprennent le français comme langue étrangère. Elle se matérialise autour de la conjugaison du verbe et l’emploi des formes temporelles. Il s’agit d’une expérimentation didactique dans laquelle des pédagogies différentes apparaissent traitant l’erreur chacune d’une manière différente. Le résultat obtenu montre que les erreurs sont moins persistantes dans une méthode basée sur le modèle socioconstructivisme où l'enseignant les prend en compte de façon spécifique, y accordant un statut qui ne dévalorise pas l’auteur, alors que les mêmes résultats dans les méthodes traditionnelles montrent que la réitération de l’enseignement des règles ne suffit pas à résoudre des difficultés qui relèvent davantage du maniement que du savoir. Nous nous sommes proposée de modifier de perspective et de partir des productions des étudiants et de leurs stratégies et faire participer l’étudiant dans une activité réflexive. Le résultat de cette expérimentation nous a permis de corroborer l’hypothèse de cette recherche, selon laquelle les étudiants soumis à une pédagogie de la découverte feront moins d'erreurs que ceux qui sont soumis à une pédagogie traditionnelle. / In a long period of time, we discovered that error was caused by ignorance. Although errors are always in learning, they do big play role and locate in an important aspect of modern didactic. The purpose of this research for educational students in learning French foreign language is to study the role of error at writing. In this instructional method, we worked on conjugation and the use of different forms of the tense. The main subject is this: there is an experimental didactic instruction for us which encounter impressive action toward error. The recent consequences demonstrated that in some method which coded in terms of social-constructivism model, the error can be disappeared easily rather than other models. That means the persistence of the errors were considerably low. In this method, teacher treats significantly with error, she confers it a particular status, in this way student fells less downgrading. In compeer to traditional methods which focuses on teaching repetitive grammar, as a result it cannot entirely guarantee student’s weaknesses and help them enhance, because the problem was not related to knowledge, it related to handling. We proposed to modify our perspective and study student’s writing, in addition their strategy and finally force them to participate in some mental activity. These results of research let us certify these hypothesis according to our experiment, those students who participated in this new pedagogy caused less errors rather than those students in traditional pedagogy.

This thesis aims to describe how Western tourist websites represents India. Although there has been much research on tourism and Western representation of India, no literature is available on how Western tourist websites represents India. This thesis uses three theories, social constructivism, post-colonial theory, and representation theory. Social constructivism is the base for this thesis. Post-colonial theory is used to find out whether the representation of India includes colonial stereotypes or no. Moreover, the representation theory is the center and the main tool to know and explain how Western tourist websites represents India. The design used is a 'case study' as case study design is compatible to explore the representations of India. The method used is a 'qualitative discourse analysis' which helps to provide a critical analysis of the description of India. Main results of this thesis are that Western tourist websites describe Indian economy as a backward economy. It is unclear whether Indian politics is described as undemocratic or democratic. Indian people are described as a mix of traditional, modern, unfree as well as free people. Indian culture is described as ancient and collective.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Student performance have decreased from 2008-2013 in the Kgatleng District, Botswana, despite efforts to encourage parents to actively be involved in their children‘s school. It is apparent that parents are not involved and leave the responsibility of child nurturing and development to the school with the teachers. Contributing factors to un-involved parents at school are communication; employment; single parenting, and poverty. This lead to the research question: What are the perceptions of teachers about factors that contribute to parental involvement/non-involvement in Public Schools? The aim of the study was to determine teachers‘ perceptions on factors that contribute to parental involvement/non- involvement in public schools. The objectives to arrive at the aim was to explore and describe teachers‘ perceptions on factors contributing to parental involvement in public schools; to explore and describe teachers‘ perceptions on factors contributing to parental non-involvement in public schools and to make recommendations for improving parental involvement in public schools to the Ministry of Education. Social constructivism was used as theoretical framework because teachers‘ perceptions are shaped by their contexts and language. The study used a qualitative research approach and an exploratory, descriptive design. The population was teachers who teach standard seven in all primary schools in the Kgatleng district. There are 35 primary schools in the Kgatleng district. The sample was a non-probability, purposive sample consisting of four (4) urban and four (4) rural schools in Kgatleng district of which from each school, two (2) participants were purposefully selected. Data was collected by in-depth interviews and analyzed by using a thematic approach. The research findings presented key factors that affect teachers and made recommendation on how they can work with the parents and the community to successfully address the issue of non-parental involvement in schools. Tools for identifying specific needs and challenges for the uninvolved parents have to be developed and implemented. All relevant stakeholders should be included. A strong relationship with the social workers to address social challenges faced by the students, yielded positive results, hence recommending the need to have school based social workers. Recommendations include a partnership between the community, schools, teachers, parents and the Ministry of education to improve parental involvement in school