Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004.

Kann die Schule demokratisch sein? Wie kann in einer demokratischen Gesellschaft – d.h. in einer Gesellschaft, die sich vom modernen Staat Rechte in jahrhundertelangen Kämpfen erstritten hat – Bildung so organisiert werden, dass am Ende der Schulzeit die Schüler den Weg aus ihrer Unmündigkeit gefunden haben und somit tatsächlich zu demokratischen Bürgern geworden sind? Der Staat spielt hierbei als Bildungsträger in der Betrachtung dieser Frage eine entscheidende Rolle, denn er ist es, der Herrschaft ausübt, womit auch die Schule – als Institution des Staates – automatisch in den Prozess von Herrschaftsausübung miteinbezogen wird und ihr eine signifikante Rolle in der Erziehung und Formung künftiger Herrschaftsempfänger zukommt. Daher kann sich die Frage nach einer demokratischen Schule nicht auf Regeln des Miteinanders beschränken, sondern muss sich jenen komplexen Strukturen annehmen, in die die Schule eingebettet ist. / Can school be democratic? How can education be organized in a democratic society, a society which has fought for rights from the modern state for centuries, in a way that allows students to find out of their nonage and thus become democratic citizens by the end of their schooldays? Here, the state plays a significant role as an educational institution, since it is this state that is in authority. Consequently, school as a state institution, is drawn into the process of wielding power and takes over an essential role in the education and shaping of future recipients of authority. Thus, the question of a democratic school system cannot be limited to communal rules but has to consider those complex structures the school system is embedded in.

Street children are the most vulnerable group in any society. It is estimated that 150 millions children lives on the street in the world. Most of these children lack all basic needs. This study is been done in Babati district, Tanzania. Focus of this study is to examine the possibilities to Education and Healthcare of street children in Babati. This is a qualitative study based on semi structured interviews with street children, authorities responsible for Education and Healthcare of these children and other actors involve in this subject. The result of this study is that the government of Tanzania has developed a guideline (focus on HIV/AIDS related problems causing orphans) to assist these children with shelter, food, education, healthcare etc. There are 656 identified street children in Babati is receiving assistance from the authority but the interviewed street children are receiving any assistance are none. NGOs in Babati working with street children follow the same guideline assisting street children. Children not falling under this guideline do not have many chances to receive any assistance from the authorities and other actors in Babati. The authorities and actors need to expand their focus on reaching all street children in Babati.

Objectives: There are four primary goals for this research project: <ol><li>To develop an objective index of health care quality which represents, in the best practical way, a comprehensive range of services provided at the health region level. <li>To develop a comparable measure representing physician assessments of health care quality, and compare this measure with the objective index. <li>To develop an understanding of the relationships between physician ratings on the workplace issues of professional autonomy, stress, sense of equity and satisfaction and their views on health care quality.<li>Based on the understanding of this research, provide recommendations to health care policy makers about the use of both physician viewpoints and objective measures of quality.</ol> Background: Health care in Canada has grown and evolved from a relatively simple offering of services, provided primarily by doctors and hospitals, to a complex conglomeration of programs and services, provided by a loose network of both public and private providers. As a result, physicians are under pressure to adapt to these changes and a power struggle which has always pitted physicians against policy makers. In dealing with changes to the health care system the use of statistics and evidence is gaining prominence as the basis for policy decisions, in addition to the less formal tools of rhetoric and politics.<p>Design: Data from the 2004 Canada-wide survey Emerging Issues in the Work of Physicians is compared to a single index score of health care quality based on objective data from the annual Health Indicators Report published by Canadian Institute of Health Information and Statistics Canada (2005). These reports include a number of measures of quality and access to health care by health region and by province, using mandatory standardized data collection and reporting procedures. <p>Measures: Nine reliable measures of health care quality were selected from the Health Indicators Reports for inclusion in the index: 30 day AMI risk; 30 day stroke risk; AMI readmission risk; asthma readmission risk; ACSC rate; hysterectomy readmission rate; prostatectomy rate; in-hospital hip fracture rate; and C-section rate. Index scores were developed for each of the measures, which were then assigned weights based on importance, resulting in a single overall index of health care quality. These scores are compared to a similar index score which is based on physician views on quality, as collected in the national survey.<p>Results: Physician views on health care quality are aligned with the objective data when examined on an aggregate basis. However, there is a high degree of variability in physician responses which results in differences when examining the data on regional or individual bases. In addition, physician views on quality are influenced by factors in their work lives including autonomy, stress, equity and satisfaction. On each of these factors, those reporting high and low levels will generally over and under-rate health care quality as compared to those reporting moderate levels.<p>Discussion: As policy makers make decisions on how to shape the future of health care, they must grapple with conflicting viewpoints of different stakeholder groups, and they must decide on the degree to which they rely on evidence (in the form of objective data) versus influence (as exerted by physicians and/or other stakeholder groups). This research shows that, while physician views on how well the health care system is performing are generally aligned with the objective data, those opinions vary greatly between individuals, and are influenced by work related factors including autonomy, stress, equity and satisfaction.

Religious fundamentalism is a confusing and not well understood phenomenon in present day Western societies. In order to obtain fresh insights into what social forces and conditions affect religious organizational development such that they become fundamentalist organizations, this study seeks to analyze a religious group that historically has been mandated to integrate and utilize alternative scientific and/or religious knowledge into their canon of teachings. A triangulation study consisting of a content analysis of its accepted history and a discourse analysis of its accredited membership are utilized to gather data on this religious organization to understand the historical, organizational, and external social circumstances that have allowed this religious community to engage and interact with alternative scientific and/or religious knowledge without interpretations of conflict becoming a source of social strife within their organization.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are two events that scarred America and its people. In the aftermath of the assassination and the terrorist attacks, the American public was forced to sift through competing messages existing in the public sphere in order to make meaning out of the events. Although the American government, within a few days of both events, released who was ultimately responsible (Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy and Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11), the people were still left with coming to terms for why such violence occurred. In order to provide a frame from which the American people could view and understand the assassination and the terrorist attacks, two blue ribbon commissions were formed: the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy and the 9/11 Commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks. Despite the reports’ purposes, significant segments of the population questioned both Commissions’ conclusions. In both instances, conspiratorial understandings of the events grew after the publication of the reports so that, in the case of the Warren Commission, most of the American public believe Oswald did not act alone and, in the case of the 9/11 Commission, there is growing belief that the government’s failure to predict and prevent the terrorist attacks was the result of a governmental conspiracy. This dissertation seeks to understand why, in our current times, official discourses are unable to prevail over conspiracy theories. This study proposes to illustrate the power of conspiracy discourse by examining it through the lens of official discourses that were designed, in part, to head-off conspiracy beliefs before they gained momentum within the American public. Such an inquiry will provide three main benefits: it will contribute to a more exacting understanding of the rhetorical power of conspiracy arguments in our times; it will provide insight into the relationship between official and conspiracy discourses (especially as they now exist); and, such a study has implications for determining the current direction of political life.

Home rule power gives local governments greater authority to obtain and manage fiscal resources and determine the distribution and extent of public services. By design, this authority alters government outcomes. The vast decentralization and local government structure literature examining horizontal and vertical competition demonstrates the complexity of predicting the effect of home rule on government sector size. Adding to the complexity, home rule is fundamentally distinct from decentralization. Home rule power gives local governments greater fiscal, structural, and functional authority, while state governments may retain partial authority. This can result in duplication of revenue generation and service provision. Under the leviathan hypothesis direct and indirect constitutional constraints are necessary to control government expansion. State restrictions on home rule authority may serve as a form of direct constitutional constraint that has been overlooked in the economic literature. This dissertation uses 1990 and 2000 Census data to empirically test home rule and other institutional factors’ effects on government size. The results of the studies in this dissertation confirm that home rule relaxes a constraint on government size, finding that home rule states tend to have larger government sectors. The empirical evidence supporting the role of institutions in public sector performance is a primary contribution of this dissertation

This thesis focuses on the guidelines that university governing bodies have adopted in order to regulate the actions of its student population and the factors that influenced their decisions. The evaluation of these guidelines is not a judicial analysis, but an analysis of the rhetorical aspects associated with the guidelines. The thesis contends that the current rhetoric of diversity on American college campuses, while drafted with the best of intentions, fails due to the limitations that it places on its students, the morality argument in which it draws strength, and the increase in differences, not acceptance, that it creates. The research utilizes specific examples of problems that are a direct result of University diversity policies and how they create a prison like structure in which those attending the University must adhere to the uncontested rules of the authority.

Denna uppsats är en studie av hur Socialstyrelsen och Försäkringskassan hanterar ordet hen med särskilt fokus på åtta medarbetares attityder till ordet och vilka ideologier dessa bottnar i. Metoden är kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer och mejlintervjuer där medarbetarna har fått resonera kring hur de ställer sig till ordet och till att använda det på sin respektive myndighet. Ytterligare två komponenter har i enlighet med Bernard Spolskys teori om språkpolicies, undersökts - den explicita språkvården med avseende på hen samt om ordet förekommer i språkbruket internt och externt på myndigheterna. För tydlighetens skull är uppsatsens analysdel indelad efter dessa tre komponenter: den explicita språkvården, attityder och ideologier och språkbruket. Informationen om den explicita språkvården och det interna och det externa språkbruket bygger främst på informanternas egna erfarenheter och observationer. Materialet består av 6 kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer på drygt 256 minuter samt två mejlintervjuer. Analysen visar att det inte bedrivs något explicit språkvårdsarbete på myndigheterna med avseende på hen. Vill medarbetarna uttrycka sig könsneutralt rekommenderas de att skriva han eller hon eller den. Ingen av myndigheterna har någon officiell hållning vad gäller hen men medarbetare rekommenderas att undvika hen så länge det finns risk för att provocera mottagaren. Analysen visar också att majoriteten av informanterna är positivt inställda till ett könsneutralt pronomen men att det inte nödvändigtvis måste vara ordet hen som fyller den funktionen. De negativa attityderna till hen lägger många av informanterna hos andra människor. / This paper is a study of how Socialstyrelsen and Försäkringskassan handles the word hen. The main focus is eight employees attitudes to the word and what ideologies they derive from. The method is qualitative research interviews and e-mail interviews where the employees discuss how they feel about the word and if they have or want to use it. Two additional components in accordance with Bernard Spolsky’s theory of language policies, is also investigated - the explicit language planning for hen and if the word occurs in the internal or the external communication. The analysis is divided into three components: the explicit language planning, attitudes and ideologies and language use. The information about the explicit language planning and the internal and the external language use is mainly based on the participants own experiences and observations. The material consists of six qualitative research interviews of more than 256 minutes and two e-mail interviews. The analysis shows that the explicit language planning doesen’t handle hen. If employees would like to express themselves gender-neutral they are recommended to write he or she or it. Employees are advised to avoid hen as long as there is a risk of provoking the receiver. The analysis also shows that the majority of respondents are in favor of a gender-neutral pronoun, but it is not necessarily the word hen that has to fill that function. The negative attitudes towards hen many of the informants put on other people.

Many political theorists agree that an equal distribution of certain goods is a requirement of justice. However, they disagree about the types of agents that possess these distributive obligations, and about the range of agents who owe these obligations to each other. Are states primarily responsible for ensuring a just distribution of income? Or, is distributive justice also the responsibility of private individuals? Do agents – whether states or individuals – possess distributive obligations to foreigners? Or, is distributive justice only a requirement within national borders? I argue that the primary subject of distributive justice is the state’s relation to its citizens. States, and not private individuals, possess distributive obligations; and states only possess these obligations to their citizens, not to foreigners. I argue first that the state possesses distinctive distributive obligations to its citizens because of the way in which it exercises political authority over them. To exercise its political authority legitimately, that is, in a way that is consistent with the free and equal nature of its citizens, I argue, the state must secure a just distribution of civil liberties, political rights, income, and opportunities. I argue second that the subject of distributive justice does not extend beyond the state’s relation to its citizens. I argue first that principles of distributive justice do not apply to the private choices of citizens on the grounds that justice demands that citizens be free to decide what to do with their lives on the basis of their own conception of the good, and not on the basis of what is best for others. I argue second that because international organizations do not exercise political authority in the same way that states do, equality is not a demand of global justice.