Ontario, Canada’s most populous province enacted its Heritage Act in 1975. The Ontario Heritage Act enables municipalities to conserve built heritage in a number of ways, including instituting heritage conservation districts. Heritage districts recognize and conserve built heritage that extend beyond the special architectural qualities of individual buildings. Port Dalhousie is a quaint community located on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and inextricably linked to the first three Welland Canals. Now a part of the City of St. Catharines, it was designated a heritage conservation district in 2003. However, after the designation an ambitious and controversial re-development plan was proposed for the community’s historic commercial core. The re-development aimed to revitalize the area, but in doing so also threatened to destroy the heritage. This case study used historical research, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires to investigate the cycle of heritage commodification, the effectiveness of public participation and the exercise of power as the various stakeholders in the community of Port Dalhousie deliberated over the future of its built heritage. Findings from this study reveal that sound governance and effective planning policies promoted public participation. The results also confirm that active civic involvement from local residents plays an integral role in heritage conservation, and influences developments that threaten heritage. This study recommends that heritage planning should be more proactive in municipal land use planning, and heritage guidelines for conservation areas should be part of broader heritage management programs where power sharing, participation, and decision making reflect social equity. The findings and recommendations from this study are intended to assist communities, managers and planners in future efforts to conserve built heritage.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province enacted its Heritage Act in 1975. The Ontario Heritage Act enables municipalities to conserve built heritage in a number of ways, including instituting heritage conservation districts. Heritage districts recognize and conserve built heritage that extend beyond the special architectural qualities of individual buildings. Port Dalhousie is a quaint community located on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and inextricably linked to the first three Welland Canals. Now a part of the City of St. Catharines, it was designated a heritage conservation district in 2003. However, after the designation an ambitious and controversial re-development plan was proposed for the community’s historic commercial core. The re-development aimed to revitalize the area, but in doing so also threatened to destroy the heritage. This case study used historical research, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires to investigate the cycle of heritage commodification, the effectiveness of public participation and the exercise of power as the various stakeholders in the community of Port Dalhousie deliberated over the future of its built heritage. Findings from this study reveal that sound governance and effective planning policies promoted public participation. The results also confirm that active civic involvement from local residents plays an integral role in heritage conservation, and influences developments that threaten heritage. This study recommends that heritage planning should be more proactive in municipal land use planning, and heritage guidelines for conservation areas should be part of broader heritage management programs where power sharing, participation, and decision making reflect social equity. The findings and recommendations from this study are intended to assist communities, managers and planners in future efforts to conserve built heritage.

No description available.

American democracy fosters the common good of society by allowing citizen involvement in government. Sustaining American democracy depends on civic involvement among citizens. Civic involvement, which consists of citizens' informed involvement in government, politics, and community life, is a desired behavior among adult citizens in the United States and it is a desired outcome of higher education. However, people in the latter part of the twentieth century have questioned the extent to which higher education makes a difference in civic involvement among adults in the United States. College educators are challenged to explain the relationship between higher education and civic involvement among adults in the 1990s. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between higher education and civic involvement. The researcher approached this issue by examining relationships between measures of civic involvement and personal characteristics such as education level, race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status among adults in the United States. The researcher compared joint relationships between civic involvement and personal characteristics among college graduates with the joint relationships between civic involvement and personal characteristics among adults with some college education and adults with no college education. Data from the Adult Civic Involvement component of the National Household Education Survey of 1996 (NHES:96) were analyzed. This survey was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Using list-assisted, random digit dialing methods and computer assisted telephone interviewing techniques, data were collected from a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized civilians who were eighteen years of age or older at the time of the survey. Data were collected regarding respondents' (a) personal characteristics, (b) use of information sources, (c) knowledge of government, (d) community participation, and (e) political participation. The selected technique for analyzing data was canonical correlation analysis (CCA), which is a form of multivariate analysis that subsumes multiple regression, multivariate analysis of variance, and discriminant analysis. The results revealed that civic involvement among adults in the United States is moderate at best. Low to moderate civic involvement among adults is mostly attributed to the absence of civic behaviors among adults with no college education. Among adults, overall civic involvement has strong relationships with education level, race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status. While the relationship between higher education and civic involvement is strong, there are significant differences in civic involvement among college graduates when grouped according to race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status. White male college graduates with high incomes tend to demonstrate the attributes of civic involvement to a greater extent than other groups. Among adults with some college education, overall civic involvement is characteristic of older males.Similarly, older adults with no college education demonstrate civic involvement to a greater extent than younger adults with no college education. These findings are consistent with the results of previous studies. The findings also extend the results of previous studies by explaining the relationships between civic involvement and multiple personal characteristics when analyzed simultaneously. The findings suggest a need for ongoing analyses of civic involvement among adult citizens and among college students. The results further imply a need for college personnel to identify and implement strategies that will improve the civic outcomes of higher education for minorities and females in various age and income categories. / Ph. D.

This essay gives examples of possible ways to inspire young adults to become politically more aware and active using dystopian fiction in the EFL classroom. First, an overview of the dystopian genre and different ways of using it in the EFL classroom to improve critical thinking skills will be given. Subsequently, different scenes from The Hunger Games will be analyzed to show how young adults can be inspired to be more aware of social and environmental justice and to act. Finally, it is discussed why literary material in a classroom must relate to a student’s personal life and why the relevance must be explained to a student to raise their interest. As a conclusion, it is claimed that it cannot be expected that all students care for the world, but showing them why they should and how they could do it is a first step.

The dissertation deals with the roots of civic apathy in local government, and the main emphasis is to establish the root cause/s of civic apathy. The hypothesis: 'civic apathy is a phenomenon intensified by ignorance and a feeling of powerlessness and frustration on the electorate' is tested in this study. To examine further specific aspects of civic apathy, including establishing the cause/s and effects of apathy, the author conducted a quantitative research in the Northern Metropolitan Area m Johannesburg, using questionnaires and literature study as the research method. The hypothesis advanced in the dissertation has been validated insofar as it has been argued and demonstrated that indeed people can feel powerless and frustrated if they are deliberately being excluded from, or denied the opportunity to participate actively in their local government activities. The main finding is that civic apathy is intensified by ignorance. However, the most important finding is that there ts a causal relationship between powerlessness, frustration and apathy. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)

The dissertation deals with the roots of civic apathy in local government, and the main emphasis is to establish the root cause/s of civic apathy. The hypothesis: 'civic apathy is a phenomenon intensified by ignorance and a feeling of powerlessness and frustration on the electorate' is tested in this study. To examine further specific aspects of civic apathy, including establishing the cause/s and effects of apathy, the author conducted a quantitative research in the Northern Metropolitan Area m Johannesburg, using questionnaires and literature study as the research method. The hypothesis advanced in the dissertation has been validated insofar as it has been argued and demonstrated that indeed people can feel powerless and frustrated if they are deliberately being excluded from, or denied the opportunity to participate actively in their local government activities. The main finding is that civic apathy is intensified by ignorance. However, the most important finding is that there ts a causal relationship between powerlessness, frustration and apathy. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)