The purpose of this study ­is to identify social workers’ perspectives on the barriers and motivating factors impacting Latino men in seeking mental health services, and to seek ways to overcome the barriers. Research has established that Latino men suffer from mental health problems at a similar rate compared to other populations, yet they underutilize mental health services. Given the rapid growth of the Latino population that continues to need mental health services, the findings of this study may influence the social work field to develop programs and interventions that are geared towards encouraging Latino men to seek services. They may also assist in preparing clinicians entering the field. This qualitative study used individual interviews as a tool to find themes from social workers’ point of views on the subject. The results from interviews were transcribed to written document. Major themes identified include barriers, motivating factors, and recommendations for change.

Interruptions to juvenile detainees' education often delay their progress toward high school completion. Implementing an individualized learning plan (ILP) has been suggested as a solution to this problem. The purpose of this case study was to explore how ILPs facilitate attainment of graduation among incarcerated youth. The study was guided by the Washington State legislative framework for individualized learning plans and the efforts of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency to increase educational opportunities. Three research questions were formulated to explore perceptions of local juvenile detention center educators and administrators regarding their experiences in the development, implementation, and effectiveness of ILPs. Qualitative data were collected from interviews with 5 detention center educators, field observations, and document reviews. The examination of the data through the coding process using a matrix enabled descriptions and themes to emerge. Results indicated that ILPs are collaboratively developed and implemented in the detention center, there is a need for professional development related to ILPs, and ILPs have impacted students' education completion. Results from this study may influence social change by supporting development of ILPs which can result in a higher graduation rate and a reduction in recidivism among the incarcerated youth population.

Research that shows the need for letter-writing fluency as a foundation for being able to attend to higher-level thinking skills in writing calls for more research as to what the components of letter-writing fluency actually are and how they are related to writing efficiency. This hierarchical multiple regression study entailed two parts. First, results of assessments of three selected subskills of letter-writing fluency were analyzed to determine how much variance they contribute to the task of letterwriting fluency in 49 kindergarten students in December of their kindergarten year. The first assessed subskill was letter-naming fluency (LNF), which has previously been shown to be predictive of reading ability. The other two subskills that were assessed focus on critical features of letters: (a) letter construction of lowercase letters using physical manipulation and placement of critical features, and (b) critical feature production (CFP) in the form of writing pseudo-letters made up of the same critical features as Roman alphabet letters. As LNF was suspected to be a strong indicator of letter-writing fluency, the other two subskills of critical feature identification and CFP were also analyzed to see how much variance they accounted for in LNF. LNF, CFP, and letter construction were shown to account for a total of 49% of the variance in the skill of letter-writing fluency. LNF accounted for 39% and thus most strongly correlated with writing fluency. Letter construction using critical features and writing of pseudo-letters together added 10% more to the variance of letter-writing fluency. Critical feature identification and CFP were shown to account for 20% of the variance in LNF. This study has implications for letter-writing instruction in early childhood education classrooms, including a strong emphasis on letter-naming activities in the early stages of letter writing. Exploratory, developmentally sensitive instruction may be beneficial involving early writers in activities that require identification, manipulation, and writing of basic critical features of letters. These instructional options are worthy of further research.

Common discourse concerning the educational trajectories of African American males consists of dismal future outcomes due to defective schooling experiences in kindergarten through twelfth grades. There has been a disregard of counter narratives of high academic achievement and overall school success coupled with a highlighting of failure through deficit-based research practices. Consequently, African American males are positioned as delayed or troubled, which serves to perpetuate educational inequity. This study attempts to increase the scarcity of literature by giving voice to the experiences of high achievement among African American adolescent males attending a school designed to support the achievement of impoverished youth of color. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to investigate the lifeworlds of nine African American males in seventh and eighth grade at a private, college preparatory middle school in southwestern Florida. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted regarding their experiences of academic success. The results indicate that these young men developed positive scholar identities through a process that included the cultivation of academic achievement, sacrificing to succeed, trailblazing, striving for the good life, and planning for success while simultaneously rejecting deficit-based and peril portrayals of Black males. Practical implications for school psychologists, educators, and parents are discussed.

Disturbance has been recognised as a presence in Yeats’s poetry for some time, although its discussion has not been extensive. The purpose of this thesis is to explore a particular type of disturbance in Yeat’s poetry that has not yet been investigated: disruption, and its relation to the Bible. I argue that disruption, in its meanings of interruption, disorder, fracturing, and division, is a distinct presence in a number of Yeat’s poems, and that it manifests in three key categories: disruption relating to Yeatsian poiesis, Yeat’s interest in and use of instances of disruption in the Bible, and disruption of the Bible itself. / I begin by considering “The Second Coming” as a notable instance of disruption and its religious and biblical resonances. I argue that this work, in reference to an instance of disruption in the Bible, undergoes textual disruption close to its centre. I develop an account of the poem as divided into opposing texts, identities, and prophetic currents, all in close relation to the Bible. I then turn to a range of contextual matters raised by the discussion of “The Second Coming”. Starting with a consideration of religion and the Bible in Yeat’s artistic vision, I argue that these two factors are important to Yeat’s envisioning of art and that disruption is deeply involved with both. Following this I investigate the relation between disruption and the Bible itself, demonstrating that disruption is a strong presence in the biblical narrative. I then consider Yeat’s reception of the Bible, focusing on Yeat’s perception of the Authorised Version and on Blake as a precursor. I argue that the Authorised Version was significant for Yeats, and that Blake was influential in demonstrating the poetic possibilities of biblically-related disruption for Yeats. / After discussing these contextual matters I embark upon a wider survey of biblically-related disruption in Yeat’s poetry. First, I consider a group of poems from one of Yeat’s earlier poetic books, The Wind Among the Reeds. I argue that these works, through the figure of the biblical wind, explore the conjunction of disruption and the Bible in each of the three categories of disruption outlined above. I then turn to a second set of poems that I group together due to a shared theme of inspiration. I argue that these works also engage with disruption and the Bible, particularly in relation to the category of disruption relating to the act of poiesis. The last group of poems that I consider are concerned with central events in the life of Christ. I argue that these works demonstrate a dynamic exploration of disruption and the Bible in relation to these events, focusing particularly on the nature of Christ as God and Saviour. I then proceed to a consideration of disruption in Yeats apart from its expression in the poetry. Seeking to gain a deeper insight into disruption as an element of Yeatsian poiesis, I consider some relevant theoretical perspectives before suggesting that disruption in Yeats can be constructively interpreted in terms of potentiality.

<p>The meaning that Justice has after a conflict in a society might vary regarding the political development and cultural and shared values of a certain society.</p><p>Rawls, in his Theory of Justice gives his idea of what justice is and presents two principles of justice that he argues are required to live in a good society: a first principle that secures equal rights and liberties for all individuals and a second egalitarian principle that restrains the consequences of economic inequalities within societies. He also introduces the concept of “overlapping consensus” which I will use regarding the idea of Reconciliation, at the end of this paper.</p><p>In the cases presented in this paper (i.e. Argentina and South Africa), essential human rights were violated, therefore wrongdoers made the society unjust.</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to elucidate the conditions that are necessary to re-establish justice when a society goes through a conflict. I will introduce some ideas concerning that issue: ideas of retribution, reparation and reconciliation. These are seen as different paths for several countries when trying to tackle to the matter of achieving justice.</p><p>In my view, this question can be answered appealing first to an intuitive conception of moral justice that may exist at an individual and collective level, as well.</p><p>The ethical dilemmas both levels have are in relation to the harm done, punishments and how to balance them, limiting, for instance, the punishment in order to accomplish a just and a better society. I will also present how shared values can result from a process of reconciliation, which is considered as the ideal alternative to achieve justice.</p><p>However, when the equilibrium between members of a community is broken, some people claim that punishment can restore that lost equilibrium that existed before in the community.</p><p>Nevertheless, peace, reconciliation and justice cannot be constructed under the basis of silence. One way to keep memory alive is to let survivors, for instance, narrate what they have lived through; telling stories also creates a new space to share with others their experiences, revealing their fears and emotions. Regarding this theme, I will present the NUNCA MAS (Never Again) report, which is fundamental as it gives some testimonies, facts and proposals that will help to reach a consensus and therefore, future reconciliations.</p><p>Why is important to achieve justice? Because then members of a certain community will be able to interact in the present with common shared values and thus, deal with the past.</p><p>Not to consider reconciliation as one important step to achieve justice, and only think in terms of punishment, instead of giving way to peace and justice, could perhaps promote the possibility of further conflicts. To consider both punishment and reconciliation might just be one possible blueprint in the long and difficult way of searching for a just society.</p>

<p>While competition among companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, this is not necessarily the case for competition among governments. Key in the fiscal competition theory is that the mobility of firms and households yields incentives for governments to aim to improve their relative position through successive undercutting of tax rates and welfare state arrangements. This mechanism has the potential to work as a disciplining device because it ensures that no jurisdiction is allowed to be grossly inefficient, because if it were grossly inefficient, mobile factors of production would move away. The main concern in the theoretical fiscal competition literature, however, has been that fiscal competition lowers government spending below their efficient levels. Another concern related to fiscal competition is that household mobility is likely to undermine attempts by governments to redistribute income. Empirical evaluation of both the existence and consequences of fiscal competition is the central topic of the thesis “An Empirical Analysis of Decentralization, Fiscal Competition and Welfare Policy”. </p><p>A particular focus of this thesis is on fiscal competition in welfare policy. With decentralized responsibility for the welfare benefit system in Norway, theory predicts that local governments will behave strategically in setting their welfare policy in order to avoid becoming ‘welfare magnets’. The key finding in Chapter 2 of this thesis is that Norwegian local governments in fact engage in such a ‘welfare game’. A local government will respond with reducing their welfare benefits when neighboring local governments reduce their welfare benefits. Encouraged by the finding in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 seeks to answer the question: Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? The analysis shows that Norwegian welfare recipients respond to changes in welfare policy by migrating. Local politicians concern about being to generous compared to their peers seem warranted. The analysis in Chapter 4 evaluates whether strategic interaction among Norwegian local governments in property tax decisions occurs. With limited mobility of the tax base and politically highly visible decisions, we interpret the strategic interaction found to be driven by yardstick competition, rather than competition for a mobile tax base. The final chapter differs from the rest in that it utilizes data from 18 OECD countries. The essay analyzes the effects of decentralization of government on the size and composition of government spending. Since jurisdictions with limited geographic scope (such as local governments) are, in general, more likely to face greater competitive pressures than larger ones (such as countries), it follows that the more fiscally decentralized countries are expected to experience stronger fiscal competition. One of the key findings is that decentralization of taxing powers is associated with less transfer spending, but unrelated to government consumption.</p> / Paper I reprinted with kind permission of Elsevier, Sciencedirect.com

<p>Varje skola har skyldighet att inneha en aktuell krisplan att tillgå vid händelser och situationer som kan utlösa en krisreaktion hos en eller flera individer på skolan. Det finns inga direktiv från varken arbetsmiljöverket eller skolverket kring hur dessa krisplaner skall vara utformade eller vilka händelser och situationer som bör tas upp. Detta ger varje enskild skola stora friheter i utformningen av krisplanerna. Jag har inhämtat krisplaner från fem grundskolor med årskurser från förskoleklass till årskurs fem och gjort kritiska diskursanalyser av dessa varpå jag upptäckt stora skillnader och även likheter mellan dessa vilka jag ger en redogörelse för i mitt resultat. Jag har fokuserat på tre utkristalliserade teman:</p><ul><li>Elevs dödsfall</li><li>Uppföljning av elever som mår dåligt till följd av inträffat dödsfall</li><li>Situationer som en enskild skola är ensam om att lyfta upp</li></ul><p>Vidare för jag en diskussion kring krisplanernas utformning och de utkristalliserade teman jag funnit och kopplar dessa till psykologisk forskning kring barns känslor, krisreaktioner samt barnens bearbetningsprocess vid en kris.</p><p>Jag söker även efter indikationer på att barn som mår dåligt till följd av att föräldrarna separerar lyfts upp i krisplanerna. Då jag inte finner några indikationer på att dessa barn omfattas av krisplanernas åtgärder för jag en diskussion om dessa barns specifika reaktioner på separationen i slutdiskussionen. Jag diskuterar även huruvida barnen får vara delaktiga i utformandet av krisplanerna på skolan utifrån barnkonventionens tredje artikel som belyser att barns bästa alltid skall komma i främsta rummet samt tolfte artikeln som lyfter fram att barns åsikter alltid skall tas i beaktande i situationer som rör dem.</p> / <p>Each school is obligated to maintain an emergency plan in case of events and situations that could lead to a state of crisis with one or among several individuals at school. There are no directives from the department of work environment or the department of education on how an emergency plan should look like or what topics to be covered. This gives each school the freedom of choice to form the emergency plan in their own manner. I have gathered emergency plans from five elementary schools ranging from preschool to fifth grade and upon critical analysis, great differences was noticed but also some similarities which I will describe in my results. Focus was put into three recurring themes noticed:</p><ul><li>Death of a pupil</li><li>Follow up of pupil´s feeling depressed as a result of occurred death</li><li>Emergency plan topics covered by one individual school only</li></ul><p>There is a discussion around how the emergency plans are formed and around the three themes which then are connected with psychological research around children’s emotions when a state of crisis occur and their ability to handle and process a state of crisis.</p><p>I also seek indications that children feeling depressed as a result of parents separating are considered in the emergency plan. As no indications where found that this was covered in the emergency plans there is a discussion around children’s specific reactions to a separation within the end discussion. There is also a discussion if children can take part in the creation of the emergency plans at their school on the basis of the children’s convention, third article which points out that the children’s best must be of the highest interest and the twelfth article which points out that the children´s opinion must be considered in situations where they are affected.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att utifrån en teoretisk kunskap om ungdomars attityder till rasism, främlingsfientlighet och invandring utföra en studie som i praktiken undersöker ungdomars attityder, i årskurs 6 till 9, till invandring och invandrare. En enkätundersökning genomfördes som omfattade 83 elever fördelade på fyra klasser, en i varje årskurs. Undersökningen utfördes på en högstadieskola i en kommun med drygt 9000 invånare i västra Sverige. Enkäten bestod av 10 slutna frågor samt 2 delvis öppna, där eleverna fick möjlighet att motivera sina svar. Resultatet visar att flickor är mer toleranta än pojkar och att elever i årskurs 7 är mer toleranta än sina äldre kamrater. Den högsta andelen intoleranta elever finns i årskurs 9. Till denna tendens kan inte de tillfrågade ur årskurs 6 inräknas då en stor andel av dem anger att de är osäkra till frågeställningen i flera fall. Bland elevernas egna kommentarer visar någon enstaka elev hög intolerans när denne jämställer ett mångkulturellt samhälle med våldtäkter. Denna attityd är dock inte representativ i någon mening, då en sammanfattande värdering av resultatet visar hög tolerans för nästan samtliga av de tillfrågade eleverna.</p> / <p>The purpose of this paper is that from a theoretic knowledge of young people’s attitudes towards racism, xenophobia and immigration carry out a study that in practice investigates young people’s attitudes, in the sixth to ninth grade, towards immigration and immigrants. A survey was carried out that included 83 pupils divided in four school classes, one in every grade. The survey was carried out at a grammar school in a municipality with more than 9000 inhabitants located in the west part of Sweden. The survey contained 10 secluded questions and 2 partly open questions, where the pupils had the possibility to justify their answers. The results shows that girls are more tolerant than boys and that pupils in the seventh grade are more tolerant than their older friends. The highest share of intolerant pupils occurs in grade nine. It’s not possible to include those asked from the sixth grade into this tendency because of the high percentage share that answers “don’t know”. Among the pupils own comments there are very few that shows intolerance to a great extent and one pupil writes that a multicultural society equals rapes. This attitude is not by far representative since a summery of valuations in the survey shows that almost every of those asked are tolerant to a high extent.</p>

<p>Soldater som avbryter sin grundutbildning i förtid innebär onödiga kostnader och åtgärder för såväl organisationen som för de enskilda berörda. Försvarsmaktens mål är att avgångarna inte ska vara högre än 7 % av inryckande värnpliktiga. Målet har dock varit svårt att nå och för åren 2000-2005 ligger de genomsnittliga soldatavgångarna på cirka 13 %. Skillnaderna i avgångstal mellan olika förband är dock stora och den här undersökningen studerar om det kan bero på det ledarskap som praktiseras vid förbanden.</p><p>Genom att mäta nivån avseende <em>utvecklande ledarskap</em>, vilken är Försvarsmaktens ledarskapsmodell, vid sex arméförband och sen koppla ihop den med storleken på deras soldatavgångar identifieras olika samband. Därigenom framgår också faktorer som är viktiga för att nå låga avgångar.</p><p>Resultaten pekar mot att det finns samband mellan storleken på soldatavgångarna och nivån på det utvecklande ledarskap som tillämpas. Särskilt betydelsefullt för låga avgångar förefaller <em>personlig omtanke</em> vara.</p> / <p>Early attrition among conscripts is a problem both for the organization and for the individuals due to the costs and efforts that arise. The goal of the Swedish Armed Forces is that early attrition rates should not be higher than 7 % of personnel reporting for duty. Nevertheless the goal has been difficult to achieve and between the years of 2000 and 2005 the average early attrition rate has been approximately 13 %. The disparity between different units is significant and this study will examine whether this can be due to the leadership that is executed at the units.</p><p>By measuring the level of <em>transformational leadership</em>, which is the model of leadership in the Swedish Armed Forces, at six different army units and then connect that level to their level of early attrition rates, different relations will be identified. By doing this, important factors to prevent early attrition will also occur.</p><p>The results indicate that there are relations between early attrition rates and the level of the transformational leadership that is executed. Especially <em>individualised consideration</em> seems to be of outmost importance for low attrition rates.</p>