M.Com. (Business Management) / The purpose of this study is to determine whether affirmative action can be regarded as ethical, given the circumstances in South Africa. The need for the study arose after various political parties indicated that affirmative action would be introduced in the "New South-Africa". Organisations need to know whether affirmative action is ethical so that these programs can enjoy the support of management. If these programs do not enjoy management support, they will not succeed. The history of South-Africa clearly indicate that whites discriminated against blacks from as early as 1660. The first law that reserved work for whites was introduced in 1911. In 1912 the Native Land Act was introduced. This can be regarded as the beginning of apartheid. Blacks were prevented from starting their own businesses and from participating in the employment market. In the 1970 a start was made to remove these obstacles. A new era began in the history of this country with the appointment of FW de Klerk as state President on 15 September 1989. Today, in 1993 no more discriminatory legislation exists. Affirmative action is a positive step to remove the backlog that was caused by discrimination. The disadvantages of affirmative action are: it is reverse discrimination against whites; it lowers productivity; increases racial conflict; the blacks who need it the least receives the greatest advantages and affirmative action causes blacks to loose pride and self respect. The advantages of affirmative action are: affirmative action rewards blacks for damages caused by apartheid; affirmative action works against discrimination; affirmative action improves and creates wealth; lowers social unrest; lowers the shortage of skilled labour and creates role models. The study concludes that affirmative action is ethical in the South-African context. The personal freedom of whites, which is effected by affirmative action, is a result of their own actions. Affirmative action is necessary to reward the blacks for damages suffered as a result of apartheid. This will lift blacks out of poverty and will work against discrimination.

M.Com. (Business Management) / The recent historical changes in South Africa resulted in an outcry for affirmative action programmes. The concept of affirmative action is foreign to many businesses in South Africa. Corporate South Africa sometimes lacks focus on how to deal with this trend. Workers, with new political freedom, are not prepared to waft for a gradual introduction of affirmative action. In order to avoid crisis management, business needs to accelerate the pace in adapting to the challenge in organisations of absorbing large quantities of personnel. Affirmative action legislation in future may force employers to implement these programmes. This must be done without sacrificing quality and profitability. In order to achieve this goal, this study aims at setting strategic guidelines for implementing affirmative in an effective manner.

Magister Legum - LLM / This paper evaluates s 42 of the South African Employment Equity Act (EEA) with specific focus on the application of the demographic profile of the national and regional economically active population by designated employers. The comparative analysis considers how the law of affirmative action in the United States of America and in Namibia, international conventions and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in relation to South Africa’s Constitution and the EEA promote affirmative action. While international law holds that affirmative action measures should be of a temporary nature with an individualistic focus on formal equity, the EEA granted affirmative action measures which are permanent, group based and substantive in nature.Given South Africa`s discriminatory past, it became an accepted principle that affirmative action needs to be implemented to redress the imbalances caused by apartheid. In broad terms, the EEA provides for the advantage of persons or certain categories of persons who were disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. As a result the EEA focuses on race, sex and people with disabilities to determine those who are to be the beneficiaries of affirmative action. International Law also embraces the notion of affirmative action and place a duty on all member states to act pro-actively to correct the effects of unfair discrimination. The mini-thesis also evaluates the powers of the Director-General of Labour with specific focus on the enforcement of measures and how it relates to the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) in compliance with the provisions of the EEA. It is concluded that s 42 of the EEA (with the exception of s 42(a)(i)) provides sufficient measures to redress the inequalities of the past by providing equal opportunities for suitably qualified people of the designated groups. That the Constitution and the EEA does not provide for differentiation amongst “Black people” (African, Coloureds and Indians). That the application of both the national and regional demographics are compulsory in formulating an equity plan, that the one cannot be ignored in favour of the other, and that the Director-General of Labour is sufficiently empowered to ensure compliance with the provisions of the EEA.

Teachers are key figures in the English First Additional Language learning process, their influence is fundamental to their learners‟ progress, or lack thereof. I am of the opinion that literacy in itself is not sufficient, as success lies in the learners‟ application of appropriate learning techniques. The purpose of my study was to reflect on and improve my own teaching practice, improve my learners‟ participation and enhance their academic outcomes in the poetry classroom. My study required that I reflect on my classroom practice to facilitate the improvement thereof. Successful learning within the classroom therefore involves interaction and collaboration between the learner, the materials, the teacher and the context. Scaffolding is a technique I used to actualize my learners‟ potential. I chose action research, because I wanted to research an educational problem (as experienced by my learners and myself), critically reflect on my classroom practice, evaluate my teaching methods, and consider practical solutions. Action research allowed me to record the events and happenings in my location, my reflection, beliefs and teaching philosophies, my ideas and my insights about my practice. In my journal I reflected on the events that took place during my poetry lessons. Both positive and negative comments were noted and I tried to closely monitor my learners during the lessons. After marking my classroom assessments, I immediately shared my thoughts regarding the assessment outcomes. My reflections gave me a better understanding of my teaching practice. I used photovoice as a data collecting strategy which is the intermingling of images and words. The actions taken through photovoice, taking photographs and telling stories as they relate to the photographs, were empowering. My study enabled me to understand the many challenges of teaching poetry. I learnt that if I teach well, poetry can add important aspects to my learners‟ language skills, including understanding metaphors, connotations and symbolic meanings. The teaching of poetry should promote a pleasurable understanding of language. This means that the language of the poem is as important as the content of the poem.

Alors que le nombre de personnes sans-domicile n’a cessé d’augmenter depuis les années 1980, la « question SDF » a fait l’objet d’une réponse sociopolitique de plus en plus spécialisée. Afin d’analyser cette réponse, la thèse étudie la professionnalisation de la prise en charge des personnes sans-domicile en France. Elle s’appuie sur une enquête ethnographique et par entretiens (n=77) réalisée dans divers dispositifs d’accompagnement et de soins : accueil de jour, centre de santé, dispositifs de veille sociale et sanitaire, hébergements médicalisés ou non, réunions et commissions partenariales. Des analyses statistiques et archivistiques complètent l’analyse. L’étude restitue d’abord le rôle déterminant des professionnels de santé dans la formation d’un espace pluridisciplinaire et spécialisé de prise en charge. Elle se focalise ensuite sur le quotidien du travail d’accompagnement et de soin : à travers une division du travail originale, travailleurs sociaux et professionnels de santé sont engagés dans des relations de coopération et de concurrence pour répondre aux problèmes qu’ils ont à traiter. L’analyse se concentre finalement sur les modalités de régulation et d’harmonisation des pratiques et des représentations professionnelles. La formation d’une culture professionnelle commune facilite les échanges et les passages de relais entre professionnels, tout en réaffirmant les domaines de compétences de chacun. Inscrite au croisement de la sociologie des groupes professionnels et de la sociologie des politiques sociales, la thèse montre la multiplicité des mécanismes et des processus à l’œuvre dans la professionnalisation de la prise en charge des sans-domicile. Celle-ci forme une juridiction partagée entre les professionnels du travail social et de la santé qui luttent, coopèrent et se coordonnent selon des modalités et des temporalités diverses pour prendre en charge la question SDF. / While the number of homeless people keeps rising, homelessness has been tackled as a specific issue since the 1980’s. In order to study the political response that has been drawn to solve it, this dissertation analyses the professionalization of health and social care to the homeless in France. It relies on an ethnographical inquiry within various medical and social institutions, which is completed with statistical and archival materials as well as interviews (n=77). The dissertation first details the making of a multidisciplinary field addressing the issue of homelessness. It highlights the specific role of health professionals in the making and development of such a field. The study then focuses on the day-to-day medical and social work that takes place within dedicated institutions. Through a specific division of labor, medical and social workers are involved in relations of both cooperation and competition in order to solve the problems that they face. Eventually, the study addresses the issue of regulation and harmonization of professional practices and representations. Such processes depend on the making and diffusion of a common professional culture which both facilitates the exchanges between professionals and reminds them of the limits of their own expertise. Drawing on the sociology of professional groups and the sociology of social policies, this dissertation highlights the various mechanisms and processes that participate in the professionalization of health and social care to the homeless. Homelessness forms a shared jurisdiction within which social and medical workers cooperate, coordinate and compete through various ways and temporalities.

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Driving is a complex task that is highly reliant on attention. Research states that distractions cause performance errors thus it is important to find ways to reduce driver distraction or assist drivers with ways to improve their cognitive resources if distraction is unavoidable. Moreover, research indicates that action video game players outperform non-players on labbased tests of visual and cognitive abilities. However, research also exists that is contrary to these findings. Some researchers suggest that methodological deficiencies could be the cause of the significant findings in the literature. With such fervor of debate on the subject, the question remains of whether players acquire skills through playing action video games and if so can these games be used as research or training tools to enhance performance on realistic tasks. To answer this question, 45 male participants were tested using psychometric measures of spatial ability (Spatial orientation and visualization) and failures of attention (Cognitive Failures Questionnaire), and then all participants drove four 10-minute drives in a driving simulator. The first drive was a practice, followed by a control drive. Participants were then distracted using a hands free phone conversation. Following that, participants completed a final control drive. Both overall video game experience and action video game experience was positively related to higher spatial ability scores. Additionally, participants with higher action game experience exhibited fewer lane deviations during driving overall, but not during the distraction condition. On the other hand, participants with higher spatial ability scores exhibited fewer lane deviations during the distraction condition, but not during the control drives. Furthermore, action video game experience was not significant on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. Therefore, it was concluded that individuals who have higher action game experience do not show improvements on any iv abilities of attention tested in this study. However, higher experience action video game players may perform better in simulated environments than those with less experience.

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