The aim of the current study was to determine the occurrence and effects of corporal punishment in the South African environment. Special attention was paid to themes that were derived from the literature. These themes were immediate compliance, aggression and the parental influence of corporal punishment. This was a quantitative study which utilised a survey developed by the researcher using previous literature on the topic of corporal punishment. The sample was taken from four different schools in the Johannesburg area. The sample consisted of one hundred and twenty one children within middle childhood (N=121). It was found that corporal punishment is occurring in South African homes. It was also found that children do not feel indifferent about the use of corporal punishment. When it came to the use of corporal punishment and socio-economic status, it was found that there is a significant correlation between the two. / Social Work / M.Diac (Play therapy)

"The problem of this thesis is a comparative study of the educational and economic status of fifty government-aided men in Denton, Texas and fifty employed laborers in the same city. The term 'government-aided men' refers to men who receive direct aid from Federal relief in order to live and to support their dependents. Many are members of the CCC camp; but others receive their aid from the old-age pension fund, from W.P.A. projects, or other Federal organizations. Laborers are interpreted as men who do not hold 'white-collared' jobs...educational status is used to indicate the highest grade completed in school...the term economic status means the income of the men under consideration..This study is confined to certain men in Denton, Texas, and deals with only male whites between the ages of 21 and 65 years. The problem is not concerned with what the state should do or should not do, nor does it lead to any solution of existing conditions. It is only hoped that the findings may shed some light on whether or not the educational and economic status of these men under consideration appear to have any correlation." --leaves 1-4.

The major findings of this study include: (1) poverty resulting from being laid-off is the direct reason for help-seeking and help-receiving to take place, and the lived experience of the research participants is the result of their interpretation of the causes of their poverty; (2) the actions of help-seeking and help-receiving are due to the fact that basic needs not being fulfilled and have demonstrated a task-centered characteristic; (3) help-seeking and help-receiving have different meanings, and cultural value is the root of this difference; (4) the research participants' willingness or readiness and their actual practice in seeking and receiving help show a ranking structure. Amongst formal and informal social support systems, the State ranks the first preference while the family and informal social networks are considered to be their second choice. However, in reality they have to resort to depend on informal social networks, they would seek and receive help in an order determined by the relatedness in blood relation and psychological distance; (5) in the transition period of inadequate social security system in China, social solidarity is based on the family which has been the major source of help; (6) the major support of the participants is from family members, relatives, former colleagues, friends who could only provide limited help due to their own limitations in resources and power; (7) participants' idea of the responsibility of the State under the market economy system is the result of their subjective interpretation of their relationship with their family, society and the State under the situation of restricted resources of the family and informal social network; (8) the social and psychological costs arising from help-seeking and help-receiving are found to have derived from their concept of honour and dignity based on traditional Chinese cultural values. / The significance of this study are: (1) it is a break-through from the traditional positivist objective analysis framework and has presented the subjective experience of help-seeking and help-receiving of the impoverished laid-off female workers in China; (2) it has summarized and conceptualized the research participants' help-seeking and help-receiving action as "an experience of Confucianism-Socialism-Communalism ethical practice", and thus provides an analytical framework for the study of help-seeking and help-receiving behaviour in the Chinese context so as to develop indigenous social work theory of helping; (3) it has put forward suggestions to eradicate social exclusion of the impoverished laid-off female workers and improve their social participation in regard to social policy and social welfare services. / Using narrative analysis of the qualitative approach, this study explores and describes the subjective interpretation of the help-seeking and help-receiving experience of 15 impoverished laid-off female workers in urban China. This study reveals how these impoverished women make meanings for their lived experience in the context of drastic social and economic changes in China. / 馬鳳芝. / 呈交日期: 2006年5月. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 368-403). / Cheng jiao ri qi: 2006 nian 5 yue. / Adviser: Lam Mong Chow. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4337. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 368-403). / Ma Fengzhi.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-45).

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / See the attached abstract below

This thesis studies the social history of the poor in Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe, between 1960 and 2005. This is accomplished by focusing on the housing and unemployment crises they faced and the manifest reluctance of authorities to either provide enough housing or to accept mushrooming informal housing and economic activities in response to these acute shortages. I attempt to highlight the fragility of the poor’s claim to the right to permanent urban residency emphasizing inadequate state funding and poverty and continuities in some discourses from colonial to the post colonial era as factors responsible for spreading and sustaining the discrimination against low income earners in the city. These included authorities’ perceptions that all Africans belonged to rural areas, have access to land, and that low income Africans were immoral and unclean. While these perceptions tended to be fuelled by the racial divide between whites and blacks during the colonial period, class and gender dynamics among Africans crisscrossed that racial divide. After independence, while these perceptions were still alive, central government policy ambitions and failures were instrumental in influencing the welfare and fate of the urban masses and their relations with the former middle class Africans and nationalist leaders who assumed power in 1980. It becomes clear that there was a misunderstanding by authorities on how most of the rural land was not able to support some families because of infertility or lack of resources to successfully till the land by most some families. The overall conclusion is that poor people’s rights to permanent residency were elusive up to 2005 and their living and survival space has been continuing to shrink in the city.

Att studera arbetslöshet hos män 55-65 år i en mellansvensk kommun har här varit i fokus. Syftet var att se hur de upplevde att bli arbetslösa, hur de såg på sina möjligheter på arbetsmarknaden samt var de la kontrollen för det som hänt dem, vilket avsåg orientering i locus of control. Tidigare genomförd forskning kretsade mycket kring hälsa. Män i åldern mellan 55 och 65 år fanns inte representerade. Kunskap kring vad som hände mentalt vid arbetslöshet saknades. Tillgänglighetsurval användes i ett mellansvenskt samhälle. Nio personer intervjuades och besvarade ett locus of control-test. Resultaten visade att de kände utanförskap, några trodde sig kunna få jobb igen, några längtade efter pension, de flesta kände sig diskriminerade pga. åldern. De intervjuade kände av problem med ekonomi och stress. Upplevd åldersdiskriminering kunde bero på att det då var hård konkurrens om de jobb som fanns att söka.

The research conducted in this thesis examines the relationship between forms of worklessness (both active unemployment and inactivity due to sickness and disability) and mortality for working age men. Previous research has shown that being out of work is associated with a greater risk of mortality relative to being in work. However, there remains debate as to whether this association is the result of a causal pathway leading from worklessness to mortality or whether it reflects the ‘selection' of individuals who are already at greater risk of mortality from pre-existing poor health or other characteristics. In the UK, many studies rely on the use of ‘wear-off' periods in which mortality events occurring within five years after the observation of employment status are ignored to allow the confounding effects of selection to diminish. Generally these studies concluded in support of a causal relationship. In contrast, more recent studies making use of innovative methodological designs such as natural experiments and linked register and health datasets have found less evidence for this explanation with many emphasising the role of confounding and selection. The thesis aims to firstly, examine the effectiveness of wear-off periods and secondly, to develop an alternative counterfactual approach to examine the relationship between worklessness (both active unemployment and health related inactivity) and mortality. These questions are addressed in three stand-alone papers. In the first paper, data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study and the England & Wales Longitudinal Study was used in logistic regression models which estimated the odds of death in a given time period after the 1991 Census for those aged 35–64 in 1991. The odds ratios for the different economic positions (in work, unemployed, retired, permanently sick and other inactive) were compared, as well as the changes in risk associated with cumulatively increasing the length of wear-off prior to follow-up. No evidence was found of health related selection for the unemployed in 1991 suggesting that the use of the five year wear-off period in many studies of mortality and unemployment may be an ineffective and unnecessary technique for mitigating the effects of health-related selection. The second paper examined men aged between 35 and 54 who were in work in 1991. Subsequent employment status in 2001 was observed (in work or unemployed) and the relative all-cause mortality risk of unemployment between 2001 and 2007 was estimated. To account for potential selection into unemployment of those in poor health, a counterfactual propensity score matching framework was used to construct unbiased and comparable samples of in work and unemployed individuals. Matching was based on a wide range of explanatory variables including health status prior to year of unemployment (hospital admissions and self-reported limiting long term illness) as well as measures of socio-economic position. The findings showed that unemployment was associated with a doubling (hazard ratio 2.1 95% CI 1.30 - 3.38) of the subsequent risk of mortality from all causes relative to employment. This scale of effect was consistent across different samples and was robust controlling for prior health and socio-demographic characteristics. These findings were interpreted as evidence that the often observed association between unemployment and mortality may contain a causal component. The second paper implemented a similar analytical design to address the lack of evidence for the independent mortality effect of inactivity due to sickness. The results showed that the mortality risk of economic inactivity due to sickness relative to active employment was significant (HR. 3.18, 95% CI 2.53-3.98) and suggest that economic inactivity due to sickness poses a mortality risk that is independent of prior health. The findings could be interpreted in two ways; either economic inactivity due to sickness is worse for health than actively seeking work or previous studies of unemployment and mortality have underestimated the true effect of being out of work generally. Across the three studies, the main contribution of the thesis is to reassert the importance of worklessness as a determinant of individual mortality. In doing so the studies also found little evidence of systematic confounding by either health or other characteristics. The thesis concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the wider implications of the findings in relation to both general methodological issues in observational epidemiology and possible policy interventions that could be implemented to tackle work-related inequalities in male mortality.

Thesis (M. Ed. (Community and Continuing Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / The purpose of this study was to investigate the survival strategies used by unemployed rural women in Calais village. The study was conducted at Calais village in Maruleng Municipality in the Limpopo Province. The aim of the study was to investigate the survival strategies used by unemployed rural women at Calais Village. In order to achieve the aims outline above, I have formulated the following research question:  What are the survival strategies used by unemployed rural women at Calais village? With the study I wanted answers to the above question so that the department of social welfare can help in investigating further how unemployed rural women survive. In order to answer the question above, I decided to conduct a qualitative research by doing fieldwork at Calais village. I will also discuss about how to identify unemployed rural women, causes of unemployment and the challenges women from rural areas are faced with. I will also discuss the history of education in South Africa. In chapter two I outlined the theoretical framework of the study. The following key concepts were defined: unemployment, empowerment, social exclusion, strategy, and social grant. From the relevant literatures, I found out that the issue of survival strategies used by the unemployed rural women need to be taken into consideration. I also defined the following concepts, unemployment, empowerment, social exclusion, strategy, and social grants. The study found that unemployed rural women are surviving from child grants and hand-outs, food security, subsistence farming, EPWP and street vendor. Chapter three has to do with the design of the study. The main focus was to discuss i the fieldwork as a track I used for data collection. The fieldwork track was divided into four phases of data collection. I gave an explanation and discussion of the instruments that were utilised when the data was collected from the different role play players in various phases of data collection. The data was analysed by using qualitative method. I concluded the chapter by discussing the stages of data collection. In chapter four I presented the findings of the study. The strategies that might be useful for unemployed rural women to survive were discussed. I have also outlined in detail the views of the interviewees in relation to the assumptions of this study. I concluded the chapter discussing the findings of the observations based on the study. I also discussed about issues to be considered in ethical considerations. In the final chapter which is chapter five I presented the final conclusion and recommendations of the study. I also discussed about the recommendations for further studies. In the chapter I further integrated the information from the previous chapters in discussing the survival strategies that can be employed by unemployed rural women. I concluded the chapter by discussing the reflections, which are to do with my difficulties and learning experiences when I conducted the research.

Youth unemployment and environmental degradation are two critical issues facing Australia today. This action research study concerns learning and teaching with participants in a government labour market program which was established to address these two issues. The study was based on three cycles of action research with six groups of participants. The main objective of the research evolved to consider whether critical thinking and action learning can enhance self-concept and environmental education for unemployed young people. The research provides a positive response to this problem, although certain limitations are noted. Conclusions are drawn in five areas. Three of these are from the first cycle of action research. These relate to environmental attitudes, knowledge and action; approaches to environmental education and learning; and the impact of unemployment, peer pressure and mass culture. Two conclusions are drawn from the second cycle of action research. These relate to the integration of action learning and critical thinking strategies into the learning and teaching; and the individual participants' life history and prior knowledge and experience of environmental issues. Recommendations are made concerning professional development and support for staff working in the area, and the planning and implementation of programs. The major recommendation is for the integration, where appropriate, of integrated critical thinking and action learning strategies, through all aspects of the training and project work. This recommendation draws on evidence from a number of areas where these approaches are shown to be beneficial. These include the potential for emancipation and improved selfconcept, and the contribution to environmental education.