Published Article / This study focuses on the impact of societal change and related societal problems on the black youth of post-apartheid South Africa. It is argued that adolescents' perspectives on their future in this country could be negatively influenced by the extent of societal problems which are currently experienced in South Africa. Other findings indicate that the influence of traditional cultural norms and values on the black youth is slowly but surely diminishing. Middle class Black adolescents tend to share the general consumerism of South Africa's wealthy classes, and many are detached from the history of the struggle for political freedom. Amidst severe societal problems such as poverty, unemployment, HIV / AIDS and violent crime, the findings of an empirical investigation into the views of 391 black adolescents from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds indicate that a general spirit of optimism and independence exists, paired with a strong desire to escape the trappings of poverty and to fulfil their career and social expectations.

For the past decade the attainment gap in college admission and graduation rates between Black males and their White counterparts has continued to grow. A growing body of research has held that there is a negative correlation between educational attainment and the decline of the Black family structure. As the structure of the Black family has deteriorated due to the lack of a male presence, so have participation rates in higher education for African American males. It is established that environmental and cultural factors have a profound influence on human behaviors, including academic performance. What is less understood is how environmental and cultural factors influence the way in which Black males come to perceive education and how those perceptions influence not only their behavior but their performance in school. It is unknown why being African American and male causes this segment of the population to stand out in the most negative and disheartening ways, both in school and in society. This study measures the perceived influence of four factors (societal dissonance, self-efficacy, African American male mentorship, and institutional support) on the academic success of African American male students at a predominantly White institution of higher education.

For the past decade the attainment gap in college admission and graduation rates between Black males and their White counterparts has continued to grow. A growing body of research has held that there is a negative correlation between educational attainment and the decline of the Black family structure. As the structure of the Black family has deteriorated due to the lack of a male presence, so have participation rates in higher education for African American males. It is established that environmental and cultural factors have a profound influence on human behaviors, including academic performance. What is less understood is how environmental and cultural factors influence the way in which Black males come to perceive education and how those perceptions influence not only their behavior but their performance in school. It is unknown why being African American and male causes this segment of the population to stand out in the most negative and disheartening ways, both in school and in society. This study measures the perceived influence of four factors (societal dissonance, self-efficacy, African American male mentorship, and institutional support) on the academic success of African American male students at a predominantly White institution of higher education.

Since the end of cold war, Europe have been suffering non-military security issues, such as migration, competing identity, which attract attention of Barry Buzan and Ole Waever who are named for Copenhagen School. They observer the evolution of new security issues and work out a specific explanatory concept Societal Security and Securitization to analysis why does societal security come out and become a serious issue in European. The main tasks of this thesis is try to figure out what does Societal Security and Securitization work and how to use these conceptual tool to analysis European migration issue, which are the basis for further reflection. After that, this article will also adduce critical opinion to demonstrate the deficiency of the theory of Societal Security and Securitization.

This dissertation is about the tension produced by competing value orientations in the nonprofit and voluntary sector (NVPS). Historically, American nonprofit organizations (NPOs) were imbued with an ideological privilege rooted in the utopian, religious beginnings of the sector and premised on existence of the NPVS as a “special set-apart place,” an arena of human action uncontaminated by both government and the market. Today, major financial, institutional, and cultural forces exert tremendous pressure on NPOs and, as a result, these groups have been thrust into a more competitive social system. How might nonprofits cope with these new challenges? In a review of the NPVS literature, I identify two suggestions commonly advocated by researchers and practitioners: (1) That NPOs remain true to the traditional, societal value orientation, or that (2) NPOs adopt a more market-oriented approach. The values and related assumptions of these orientations are detailed and this conceptual model is applied to the newsletters of twenty-one diverse nonprofit organizations. In what follows, I describe the clash of societal values and market values, explain the effects of the struggle between these combatants on contemporary NPOs, and demonstrate that this battle left rhetorical scars now evident in how nonprofits discuss four common organizational concerns—identity, trust, hierarchy, and mission. My overall finding is that nonprofit organizations have lost their presumptive ideological privilege as a result of the constant strain between societal and market values. In examining the implications of this thesis, I hold that the halcyon days of NPOs are not forever gone and, to that end, five communication strategies for modern nonprofit and voluntary organizations are offered. / text

Introduction: This study compared societal costs of care between two settings of palliative care delivery and death (home versus hospital) in an integrated palliative care program in Toronto. Methods: 186 terminal cancer patients participated in the study. Total societal cost of end-of-life care was compared between patients who died in the home and patients who died in the hospital. Total societal cost of end-of-life care was modeled as a function of the number of days the patients spent at home during the palliative trajectory. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in total cost of end-of-life care between home death and hospital death patients (p>0.05). Furthermore, an additional day the patient spent at home led to a significant increase in the total cost of end-of-life care (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results demonstrated that from a societal perspective, providing palliative care under an integrated palliative care program at home may be just as expensive (if not more expensive) as caring for them in the hospital.

This thesis explores the significance of gender as an overlooked element of context in understanding the provenance of archival records. The relevance of gender to archival provenance is demonstrated through a case study analysis of the gendered contexts of record creation, use, and meaning. The analysis is grounded in an examination of the archival photographic and textual records of Mary Schäffer Warren, an amateur photographer, traveller, and explorer of the Canadian Rocky Mountains during the years 1888 and 1939. This thesis argues that gender is an important context in a record’s provenance providing nuanced understandings of socio-cultural relations and processes of record creation, use, and meaning. Gender as context further empowers the principle of provenance by more fully reflecting how and why records are created which accordingly allows archivists to appraise, acquire, and describe records in ways more sensitive to gender as a socio-cultural reality.

Introduction: This study compared societal costs of care between two settings of palliative care delivery and death (home versus hospital) in an integrated palliative care program in Toronto. Methods: 186 terminal cancer patients participated in the study. Total societal cost of end-of-life care was compared between patients who died in the home and patients who died in the hospital. Total societal cost of end-of-life care was modeled as a function of the number of days the patients spent at home during the palliative trajectory. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in total cost of end-of-life care between home death and hospital death patients (p>0.05). Furthermore, an additional day the patient spent at home led to a significant increase in the total cost of end-of-life care (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results demonstrated that from a societal perspective, providing palliative care under an integrated palliative care program at home may be just as expensive (if not more expensive) as caring for them in the hospital.

This thesis explores the significance of gender as an overlooked element of context in understanding the provenance of archival records. The relevance of gender to archival provenance is demonstrated through a case study analysis of the gendered contexts of record creation, use, and meaning. The analysis is grounded in an examination of the archival photographic and textual records of Mary Schäffer Warren, an amateur photographer, traveller, and explorer of the Canadian Rocky Mountains during the years 1888 and 1939. This thesis argues that gender is an important context in a record’s provenance providing nuanced understandings of socio-cultural relations and processes of record creation, use, and meaning. Gender as context further empowers the principle of provenance by more fully reflecting how and why records are created which accordingly allows archivists to appraise, acquire, and describe records in ways more sensitive to gender as a socio-cultural reality.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, cultural policy in Scotland was dominated by the political ideas and priorities of New Labour. Post-devolution government in Scotland, in line with wider British policy, encouraged a new role for the heritage and culture sector, with a new insistence on the language and implementation of a ‘social inclusion’ agenda. However, more than a decade after devolution, changes in government and economic crisis have reconfigured the priorities of the Scottish museum sector. Central questions posed in this thesis are: Has the Scottish museum’s societal role (as promulgated by Labour) been disrupted and altered by recent political and economic shifts and by the threat of future upheavals? And if so, how? What is the current direction of reform within the Scottish museum sector? What are the current narratives of education promulgated within the sector? What symbolic traits are projected by the contemporary museum in Scotland? Building on previous research and theory in museological studies, this thesis offers a fresh perspective on the educational and social role of the contemporary museum in Scotland. Following on from Hewison (1987), I argue that museums in Scotland are responding to post-industrial malaise and fear of decline. Unlike Hewison, however, I argue that this response carries little nostalgia or naïve adoration of the past, but instead seeks to position the museum as an exemplar of stability, business sense and creative thinking in a context of societal anxiety. The National Galleries of Scotland provides an appropriate case study to explore the role and response of the Scottish museum sector to the economic and political uncertainty of the modern era. NGS is one of Scotland’s most prominent and oldest ‘heritage’ institutions, attracting over one million visitors a year. It is also a multisited, national institution, directly supported by government and closely aligned to official cultural policy. This thesis uses archival research and ethnographic methods such as interviews and observation to reveal shifts in educational and reform narratives within the Scottish museum sector as well as underlying ideas that shape these narratives. Conducted over the course of three years, from 2011 to 2013, this research is situated at an interesting time for the Scottish museum sector, as Scottish society wrestles with the economic uncertainty of the early twenty-first century.