The 1988 and 1991 Criminal Justice Acts transformed the position of the child witness within the criminal justice system. Rules of evidence which had discriminated against children's testimony were progressively abolished, and new procedures were introduced to accommodate children's needs within the trial process. This thesis offers a socio-legal critique of the reforms, analysing the way in which their development and implementation have been ideologically structured. Part Two provides an historical overview of the way in which the legal system has regarded children's testimony. Contrasts are drawn between the relative failure of the 1925 Inter-Departmental Committee on Sexual Offences against Young People to secure changes in the treatment of child witnesses, and the comparative success, some sixty years later, of the Pigot Committee. The links between child witness reform and dominant conceptions of child sexual abuse are investigated. Part Three turns to the implementation of the reforms and reports the findings of a qualitative and ethnographic study conducted for this thesis at one Crown Court Centre. Sixteen contested piosecutions, between them involving evidence from 53 child witnesses, were identified. The final hearing of each case was observed in full, and the attitudes towards the reforms of the barristers and child witnesses concerned were sought by way of interviews and questionnaires. Part Four notes the mixed effects of the reforms, and the categorical distinctions observable at the study Crown Court in the treatment of child complainants and child by-stander witnesses. It is suggested that the reconceptualisation of child sexual abuse as a criminal justice, rather than a welfare, problem, played a significant role in achieving child witness reform, but that the moral rhetoric involved silenced alternative perspectives and has led to the marginalisation of some child witnesses. What these conclusions suggest about the law reform process more generally is briefly discussed.

Children continue to experience unrelieved moderate to severe pain post-operatively. Previous studies have suggested several factors to explain this. However, the impact of these factors on practice has not been explored. Nor have children's nurses clinical decision-making strategies been examined. This case study set out to explore the influence of various factors on individual nurses' post-operative pain management practices, and to answer the following questions: • How does the perceived importance of a pain management task impact on practice? • How does theoretical knowledge and its application impact on practice? • How does what nurses say they do compare to what they actually did? • How do nurses make decisions when managing pain in children? The case study used qualitative (participant observation and the think aloud technique) and quantitative methods (questionnaires) to obtain an in-depth picture of children's nurses' post-operative pain management practices. As well as examining some aspects of pain management for the first time, such as nurses' pain-related clinical decision-making, new perspectives were explored in relation to other well researched issues, including whether theoretical knowledge about pain management is applied in practice. The perceived importance of a pain management task did not affect the likelihood of it being undertaken. A good level of theoretical knowledge appeared not to affect the quality of a nurse's pain management practices. A lack of congruence was found between what the nurses said they do and what the nurses actually did. Observational data indicated that nurses generally did not follow current recommendations fully when managing pain. In several areas, the practices of the ward sisters appeared to be of a lower standard than more junior nurses. Nurses appeared to use non-expert decisionmaking strategies regardless of their years of experience or level of academic attainment. A hypothetico-deductive (analytical) model of decision-making seemed to be used. Several strategies, which might facilitate the application of theoretical knowledge in clinical decision-making and practice are considered, including the use of teaching rounds and clinical scenarios. These need evaluating, and further research is needed to identify other factors that affect pain management practices and decision-making strategies. How children's nurses make clinical decisions also needs further exploration. A revised conceptual framework is presented which suggests that, for post-operative pain management practices to be effective, nurses need to have not only the right attitude and the right knowledge but also the ability to make the right decision. However, it is probable that other factors, both individual and collective, are also involved, including ward culture, role-modelling and lack of motivation to change. The revised conceptual framework provides a basis for future research.

This qualitative mini-treatise explores how South African choral identity is perceived by three regional children’s choirs, facing challenges of representing cultural diversity against the background of an ongoing process of social transformation. The study proposes that choirs from South Africa project a distinctly South African “choral” identity which they themselves have constructed by fabricating a mental representation of themselves, and which they project outwardly by means of a range of musical and extra-musical elements observable in the cultural product and artifacts generated over time. The researcher has analyzed a selection of cultural products and artifacts of the Eastern Cape Children’s Choir, the Cantare Children’s Choir and the Tygerberg Children’s Choir, in order to identify common practices among three subject choirs which sustain their continuity, in terms of Richard’s definition of identity (in Torres 2008: 3): “to name a set of practices which subjects may adopt in sustaining both the individual and, to varying degrees, collective continuity”. Research findings indicate that subject choirs are perceived, and project their choral identities, according to their musical ability to communicate and interact with other world-class choirs. Recurring practices undertaken by each subject choir, in order to maintain their international perspective, are identified as key to sustaining their continuity. Choral identity is furthermore strongly influenced by the choral tradition of the choir and the role of the conductor in developing their choral tone. This study is significant to regional children’s choirs seeking to overcome challenges of renegotiating cultural identity, as well as sustaining and expanding choral singing as an art form in South Africa.

This study contrasts four distinct discursive responses to (or even accidental remarks on) the Victorian concept of individual and/or social improvement, or progress, set forth by the preeminent social critics, writers, scientists, and historians of the nineteenth century, such as Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Macaulay Matthew Arnold, Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer. This teleological ideal, perhaps the most prevalent ideology of the long nineteenth century, originates with the Protestant Christian ethic during and in the years following the Reformation, whereupon it combines with the Enlightenment notions of rational humanity's boundless potential and Romanticism's fierce individualism to create the Victorian doctrine of progress. My contention remains throughout that four nineteenth-century writers for children and adults subvert the doctrine of individual progress (which contributes to the progress of the race) by chipping away at its metaphysical and narratalogical roots. George MacDonald allows progress only on the condition of total selflessness, including the complete dissolution of one's free will, but defers the hallmarks of making progress indefinitely, due to his apocalyptic Christian vision. Lewis Carroll ridicules the notion of progress by playing with our conceptions of linear time and simple causality, implying as he writes that perhaps there is nothing to progress toward, no actual telos on which to fix our sights. Oscar Wilde characterizes moral development as nothing short of self-inflicted cruelty, consigning his most scrupulously moral-minded characters to social subversion or untimely death (the dark reflection of MacDonald's compulsory selflessness). And finally, Rudyard Kipling toys with historical substitutes for conventional progress, such as repetitive cycles, deviating from historical unidirectionality and linear development. He often realigns his characters with their intractable fates at the conclusions of his narratives, echoing Carroll's suggestion that perhaps our goals are delusional. I conclude that while each individual author fails to holistically undermine the doctrine of progress, taken collectively, these four fantasists represent a heretofore unexamined repudiation of the Victorian era's most enduring metaphysical conceits.

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This research resulted from a concern for serious, authentic texts and the quality of adaptations. This brought the problematics surrounding the Bible and children's Bibles to the fore. The main concern is the integrity of the original text, and the depriving effect these adapted texts could have on very young listeners or readers. Chapter 1 is an introduction to this study. In chapter 2 the logical and magical dimensions of the word (as art) are examined. Chapter 3 is an attempt to define the Bible in literary semantic terms. Concepts under discussion are inter alia: oral tradition, genre, author, writer, double text (supratext and subtext), autobiography, reader and oeuvre. Chapter 4 defines children's Bibles in literary semantic terms and six prototypes are critically evaluated because of their claim to be called Bible. In chapter 5 these texts are discussed as children's literature. The last chapter gives an updated view of the child, including his religious needs and insights. A corrective on existing children's Bibles is proposed and motivated. Theoretical works on literary semantics, children's literature, developmental psychology and theology have been consulted. Although psychology and theology play a fairly important role in this study, the perspective remains literary semantic. ihe survey material includes all the English and Afrikaans toddler's and children's Bibles that were available in Cape Town, during the period 1992-1994. The main conclusion of this thesis is that the integrity of the original text, and that of the Author, have been violated (to different degrees). The implication is that the young listener has been deprived of a valuable meaninggiving source. Further it has been found that children's Bibles do not really have the right of existence as either Bible or children's literature. But the popularity and the real need for texts of this kind necessitates an alternative. A new approach is also suggested, namely, that the child starts hearing the pure Scripture already in utero. The practical outcome of this study proposes an alternative publication, which will soon be attempted. By the selection of Scriptures the selector will endeavour to give an overall view of the complete oeuvre in verbatim text. The aim is to publish such a text in various South African languages.

The purpose of this study is to analyze fifteen junior novels as to the nature of the literary experience they offer. Such an analysis becomes significant to the teacher of high school English in view of the fact that many junior novels are being published, and school libraries are stocking their shelves with them in increasing numbers. One librarian states that in her library the percentage of junior novels in the total collection as grown from 11.4% in 1951 to 58% in 1956. She also states that "the English teacher, who is less apt to think terms of circulation figures, may question the literary value of much of the current output." / Typescript. / "June, 1959." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Dwight L. Burton, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 59).

"The field of children's literature has produced a number of authors and books which the children's librarian must be able to evaluate wisely. The ability to select critically, not only for literary quality, but also for appeal to the child is a prime requisite for librarians, teachers, and parents. From the authors in this vast field Meindert De Jong has been chosen as a subject for a bio-bibliographic study. Such a study should prove valuable to a children's librarian as training for future judgments since his books have met with varying degrees of acceptance. It has additional value because Meindert De Jong has received the Newbery Award and has also been a runner-up. The purpose of this paper is to examine Meindert De Jong's books for children and to summarize the criticisms of these works as found in periodical reviews. In addition, this study will present such biographical and general background informations as may be of assistance in evaluating his work"--Introduction. / "August, 1959." / At head of title: Florida State University. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-45).

"Miss Sawyer was selected as the subject of this study in the first place because of the writer's great admiration for her work, especially the Newbery Medal Award winner, Roller Skates. Also, it was felt that her children's works were important enough to make a useful study and of sufficient interest and quantity to be worthwhile. Therefore, it is the intent of this study to examine the books for children of Ruth Sawyer and to summarize criticism of these publications found in the usual book reviewing sources in an attempt to present and evaluate her juvenile work"--Introduction. / "August, 1958." / At head of title: Florida State University. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-47).

Some of the junior novels being produced today are trivial, but others are works of real stature written by outstanding authors. To a prospective librarian interested in work with young people, a detailed study of one of these successful authors seems beneficial and of great interest. Rosamond du Jardin is acknowledged to be one of the most skillful and successful authors of this genre today. Certainly she is one of the most popular with teen-agers themselves. Not much has appeared in print about this talented author. Only two biographical sketches have been found and they were not extensive or complete. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to bring together all available information about the life of Rosamond du Jardin and about her works. / "August, 1960." / At head of title: Florida State University. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate School of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-46).