The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how pre-tenure female faculty members perceived their socialization experiences into the culture of higher education. This study viewed higher education as a distinct culture where members underwent socialization processes such as enculturation and acculturation throughout the pre-tenure years. Participants were eight pre-tenure female faculty members from Midwestern land grant institutions. Women were interviewed for 90-120 minutes on one occasion. Data was analyzed using the Constant Comparative Method (CCM).The women's perceptions resulted in four emergent themes: Balance, Place, Support, and Trust. Balance contained the themes of Workload, including promotion and tenure and time, and Roles, including sub-themes of personal and professional roles. Place described women's feelings of fit regarding age, sex, their student response and their personal response to their culture. Support highlighted people, groups and mentoring perceived as influential in their socialization. Lastly, the theme of Trust emerged as a key element of their cultural understanding regarding higher education. These pre-tenure female faculty members perceived socialization as filled with incongruency, uncertainty and rejection, and political astuteness. The women felt incongruence in terms of their personal values and those values rewarded professionally. The women's socialization was shaped by uncertainty in the promotion and tenure process and in where to put their time and energy. In addition, the women described the need for political astuteness in their professional communications and actions during their pre-tenure years. These perceptions werefurther examined through post-colonial feminist theory. The emphasis post-colonial feminist theory places on power and voice in the historically male-dominated system of higher education informed the analysis. This led to the argument for Boyer's (1990) reconstruction of scholarship as an opportunity for women to become co-creators of an environment which better promotes congruency between their personal values with elements evaluated for professional success.Embracing Boyer's (1990) concepts for re-conceptualizing scholarship may offer a potential solution which would allow the women to experience more integrated lives instead of disparate circles of personal and professional activity. Integrated lives would ease their adjustment in these pivotal pre-tenure years. / Department of Educational Studies

The objectives of this work are to: - Explore the concept of adolescent vulnerability; - Establish easily administered, reliable means of early identification of the most vulnerable; and - Suggest some school level interventions. This research focuses on adolescents in a socially deprived area. The thesis contains two parts: Part I explores the theoretical contexts, examining the social, educational and moral climate, and concludes that potential vulnerability is not being identified early enough in young people's lives for effective interventions to be implemented. The phenomenon and experience of adolescence is explored from a variety of perspectives, and various definitions of adolescence examined. The broad range of experience representing both typical and atypical adolescence is considered. A range of socio-economic factors and psychometric measures are reviewed for potential use as early indicators of vulnerability. The four screening measures chosen from the range reviewed are social deprivation, selfesteem, locus of control (LoC) and coping strategies. Social deprivation indicators establish background levels of life chances and prospects. Selfesteem is used to identify the most vulnerable; locus of control adds information about the nature of their vulnerability, and coping strategies informs potential practical interventions. Part 2 focuses on practical research. The prospects of the subject population are explored using a range of indicators, including the social and educational alienation and dysfunction of its young adolescents. Six hypotheses are defined and the selected psychometric tools piloted and administered on all of Year 7 of the subject school. Pupils are identified as either vulnerable or not identifiably vulnerable. Case studies using semi-structured interviews are conducted, adding a qualitative, experiential dimension to the statistical, psychometric findings. Based on this research conclusions are drawn which have academic application and directly inform practical interventions which, if implemented in early adolescence, would potentially alleviate the identified vulnerability.

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The study focuses on the important issue of young adult female sexuality in an age of HIV/AIDS. The research question explores the influence of the parental home, the church and young black women's own belief on their sexual behaviour. Sexuality is influenced by societal voices that override religious and parental voices. Parents are hesitant to speak out, the church is burdened with an antiquated and unworkable sexual ethics and the young women's belief is overpowered by social discourses. Male domination and infidelity exacerbate female vulnerability and contribute to the powerlessness of young women in sexual relationships. Feminist theology puts forward an embodied theology that demands integrated embodiment and full humanity for women. This can be achieved when relationships are mutual, reciprocal and empowering. This study proposes an accountable sexual ethics that will renew and recreate the lives and relationships of young people in a confusing and perilous environment. / Sys Theology and Theol Ethics / MTH (SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY)

The early 1990s saw a major change in the Ethiopian history in so far as Ethiopian media consumption practices was concerned. With the change of government in 1991, the ‘Iron Curtail’ prohibiting the dissemination of Western symbolic products within the country was lifted which in turn led to a surge in demand for Western predominantly American media texts. In order to supply this new demand, informal video houses showing primarily American action movies were opened in Addis Ababa. There was a significant shift in Ethiopians’ films consumption practices which were previously limited to watching films produced by socialist countries mainly the former Soviet Union. This study set out to probe reasons for the attraction of American action movies shown in video-viewing houses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia amongst the urban unemployed male youth. Particularly, it examines how the meanings produced by and embedded in the cultural industries of the West are appropriated in the day-to-day lives of the youth. The importance of video houses as a shared male cultural space for Ethiopian unemployed youth and the watching of American action movies in this space are the main entry and focus of this study. Using qualitative methods such as observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the study explores what happens in this cultural space and how one makes sense of the impact of American media on local audiences. The findings of the study point to the embeddedness of viewing practice in everyday life and the importance of local contexts in understanding text-reader interaction. This is shown by the male youth’s tendency to use media messages as a mode of escape and a symbolic distancing from their lived impoverished reality. The study also seeks to highlight that the video houses as cultural space have contributed to the creation of marginal male youth identities in the Ethiopian patriarchal society. As such, these and other findings, the study argues, highlight the deficiencies of the media imperialism thesis with its definitive claims for cultural homogenisation as effect of globalisation of media. As such, this study should be read as emphasising the capability of local audience groups in Third World country like Ethiopia to construct their own meanings and thus their own local cultures and identities, even in the face of their virtually complete dependence on the image flows distributed by the transnational culture industries.

This study investigates Zambians’ construction of identities based on their following of the English soccer premier league. The study seeks to understand how Zambian supporters of this league construct their identities based on their encounter with foreign teams/players and how they appropriate the meanings obtained through such viewing in their daily lives. The study is informed by the theories of fandom. Using an ethnographic critique of the media imperialism thesis, the study attempts to explore the meanings that the fans of the English soccer league in urban Lusaka make of the mediated soccer games, while in and outside the viewing spaces – the bars – where the games are ritually watched in groups. Based on the qualitative methods of focus group discussions, individual in-depth interviews and observations, the study probes the phenomenon of the consumption of English premier league football in countries abroad, focusing specifically on the experiences of fans in Lusaka, Zambia. Observation of this phenomenon in Lusaka reveals that fans find pleasure in the tactics that the teams in the league display, the professionalism of the players, goal scoring and self-empowerment for the few women supporters. This study probes these issues in greater depth. The foremost conclusion of the research is that it neither completely rejects nor accepts the media imperialism thesis. Instead, meanings should be understood within the context of the lived experience and reality of the fans.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A partir da década de 80 do século passado no capitalismo se inicia um amplo processo de reorganização estrutural comumente denominado reestruturação produtiva. Desta forma imprimiu-se um conjunto de medidas no sentido de recuperar o padrão produtivo alcançado em anos anteriores assim como recrudescer o domínio político-ideológico sobre a classe trabalhadora. Podem-se realçar dois processos nesse contexto: o crescimento do setor de serviços e a maciça inserção de micro tecnologias e tecnologias de informação; a ascensão dos serviços tanto em ocupação como em importância econômica e social conduziu Antônio Negri a descartar o arcabouço teórico-metodológico marxiano, fortemente associado ao industrialismo por esse pensador, além de creditar ao desenvolvimento das forças produtivas um papel protagonista nas transformações sociais, negligenciando, por vezes, abandonado a noção de classes sociais. Analiso nessa dissertação, baseado na teoria do valor de Marx, a interpretação do capitalismo contemporâneo de Antônio Negri, que tem em seu cerne a noção de trabalho imaterial, pretendo avaliar a consistência teórica desse conceito e nesse percurso demonstrar à vitalidade da crítica marxiana a economia política.

Cultural heritage events as a tourism product have increased in recent years, both globally and in South Africa. Within the sphere of cultural heritage tourism, people construct and present their heritage and traditions to tourists in a reconstructed setting. To the visitors and people who are directly involved with the planning of the event, a sense of belonging and group identity are experienced by linking the present to the past in a celebratory mood. The annual ‘Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging’ (ATKV) Riel Dance Competition in South Africa is an example of such an event, which celebrates a threatened cultural heritage in the form of a competition. The idea of a dance competition in order to preserve cultural heritage started in response to a feeling of marginalisation of culture among certain segments of the Coloured community of South Africa after the establishment of democracy in 1994. This dissertation used the constructivist-interpretivist approach in geographical enquiry to explain the role of cultural heritage events. Multiple sources of evidence and information were used in this study, including focus group interviews, observations, audio-visual materials, questionnaires and participant observation. The participants and visitors alike felt that the ATKV Riel Dance Competition serves an important role in preserving and protecting the cultural heritage of the Coloured community. The competition played a role in fulfilling the need of a large percentage of its participants and visitors for a group identity. There was no significant financial benefit for the communities who participated in the ATKV Riel Dance Competition. However, on a political level the competition played an important role in nation-building and cultural expression in South Africa. / Geography / M.A. (Geography)

Sociology / M.A. (Sociology)