Despite the fact that women make up a large proportion of participants in the environmental justice movement, the movement is still framed in terms of race and class. This thesis investigates the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and environmental justice. I explore the prominent rolls that women play in grassroots environmental justice movements and the look at the discourses that surround gender and environmental justice through a queer studies and ecofeminist lens. I argue that motherhood narratives—while powerful motivators for activists and effective tools for creating resistance—can create a rhetoric that is exclusionary to people with non-normative sexualities and support heteronormative structures which ultimately hurts the movement. I suggest a new rhetoric that embraces plurality of voices including voices of motherhood—one that is based on an understanding of the connection between the oppression of many groups of people, and that of the environment.

This dissertation is an experiment in thinking with the story, not about the story in order to erase the boundaries between analysis and narrative. CASA, Community Action Stops Abuse, is the context for this research on the lived realities and meaning of working with an empowerment philosophy. A University-Community Initiative (UCI) grant with CASA and the University of South Florida is the occasion to study the communicative aspects of individual and collective perceptions of empowerment. The dissertation focuses broadly on two UCI project goals: developing a collaborative relationship and producing a booklet of stories about the work of paid staff and volunteers. The heart of the dissertation is my relationship with the CASA workers and how scholarship and advocacy intersect with a philosophy of reciprocal and compassionate empowerment.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

This evaluation of the Multnomah County Community Action Agency (MCCAA) Latch Key Child Care Program was undertaken at the request of the Multnomah County Planning and Evaluation Department. Latch Key is one of three day care programs classified as "developmental programs for youth" for which Multnomah County is the fiscal agent. The other two are Littles, a full-day pre-school day care program, and Head Start, an educational and developmental program for pre-school children. Littles and Latch Key comprise what is known as Programs for Children, a comprehensive child care program which serves children of low-income working parents who live in the East County area east of 82nd Avenue, plus the Arleta, Errol Heights and Lents Districts which lie within the Portland city limits. With the exception of Mt. Hood Community College, which operates a small day care program, Programs for Children provides the only publicly-supported child care services in the above area, which was designated as a "poverty" area by the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1970. This report will evaluate the Programs for Children administration and Latch Key centers only.

No description available.

Port-au-Prince, la ville la plus peuplée des Caraïbes est ceinturée de quartiers précaires connus sous l’appellation de bidonvilles. Ces quartiers construits généralement sur des terrains dangereux, envahis par une population en quête de logement, abritent la plus forte proportion des habitants de la ville. Ils constituent en même temps des lieux d’observation de l’inimaginable capacité des populations locales à garantir l’accès à certains services. À travers l’action d’une association locale évoluant à Village solidarité dans la zone métropolitaine de Port-au-Prince, nous avons étudié les apports et les limites des stratégies utilisées dans l’organisation de services publics d’électricité. L’analyse repose fondamentalement sur une approche de développement local reposant sur cinq notions complémentaires et interreliées qui sont les suivantes : le projet commun, l’appartenance et l’identité collective, les ressources, le leadership, l’opportunité politique. Les résultats de la recherche font état d’un projet commun aux contours assez flous qui reflète des insuffisances au niveau des modes de pensée, et au niveau des ressources matérielles et financières mises en jeu. Le style de leadership en place au sein de l’association est teinté de déterminisme religieux, pris au piège des manœuvres clientélistes des politiciens locaux et infantilisé par l’action des agences gouvernementales. A la fin de l’étude nous dégageons des pistes pour dynamiser les forces du milieu et réorienter l’action associative afin d’aller vers un projet collectif. Ces pistes reposent fondamentalement sur la transformation des modes de pensée influençant l’action et la transformation des pratiques organisationnelles. / Port-au-Prince, the biggest city of the Caribbean considering the size of its population, is mostly constituted in precarious neighborhoods generally named “bidonvilles”. Those neighborhoods generally built over dangerous fields, by a population that is looking for affordable housing are the place of living of the majority of the inhabitants of the city. At the same time, they represent the true places to observe the unthinkable imagination of the local populations to organize access to some basic services. Through the action of a local association in Village Solidarité in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, we studied the contributions and the limits of the used strategies to organize public services of electricity. The overall analysis is conducted under a local development approach that is constructed around the concepts of common goal, belonging and collective identity, leadership, resource and political opportunity. A sample of association members and residents has participated in group focus and individual interviews during the field study. The results of the research are expressing an imprecise common goal and an insufficiency of the ideological instruments, and the material and financial resources. The leadership is prisoned by religious frame of thinking, local political tricks, and infantilized by the action of governmental actions. At the end, we propose paths to strengthen the power of the neighborhood toward a collective project. Those paths are constructed fundamentally over the transformation of the sets of thinking and organizational practices.

Cette étude repose sur l’observation de la mise en oeuvre, sous l’égide du Centre social de l’AMA (Association Montargoise d’Animation), d’un projet participatif dans une zone urbaine sensible.Après avoir rappelé les origines de la politique de la ville en France, et décrit les différents dispositifs qui la constituent, l’auteure analyse le déroulement de ce projet, dans lequel elle a joué un rôle de conseillère méthodologique. Elle montre comment les personnes qui ont choisi d’y participer sont parvenues à former un groupe de recherche en vue de réaliser une enquête sur la réussite scolaire, et comment elles ont su tirer partie des données recueillies pour aboutir à la rédaction d’un livret de 82 pages dans lequel elles exposent leurs conclusions.L’auteure montre enfin que la mise à distance de la réalité sociale qu’implique une démarche d’enquête a permis à ces personnes de surmonter les effets de la stigmatisation sociale dont elles se sentent les victimes pour assumer pleinement leur statut de citoyen.Loin de résulter de la transmission d’un savoir, ce changement d’attitude a été la conséquence du nouveau rôle qu’elles ont ainsi été amenées à jouer. En ce sens, une telle expérience relève de l’éducation populaire, c’est-à-dire d’un modèle d’éducation dans lequel l’enseignant accepte de partir, non pas de son propre savoir, mais de celui des « apprenants ». / This study is based on the observation of a citizen project that was implemented in an underprivileged area of Montargis, under the aegis of a « Social center » called AMA (Association Montargoise d’Animation).First, the author traces the origins of French urban policy, and describes its various administrative and operative levels. Then, she relates how some of the underprivileged citizens of this area joined the particular AMA project she has studied and in which she acted as a methodological consultant. She goes on describing how, together, they decided to conduct a survey with the aim of identifying factors which determine successful results at school, and how they wrote and published an 82 pages booklet in which they develop their findings. She makes it clear that she just recommended some research methods, without directly interfering in the survey itself.Finally, she shows that through the research they themselves conducted, the people involved in the project learned to take a step back from immediate social reality. This allowed them to overcome the effects of social stigmatization and to fully assume their citizen status. Far from submitting to transmitted knowledge, that change of attitude is an outcome of the new part they were induced to play in society. In that sense, such an experiment becomes an experience which belongs in the domain of people’s education (éducation populaire), that is to say a bottom-up education process in which teaching relies on learners’ knowledge instead of relying exclusively on teachers’ knowledge.

This doctoral thesis is a practice-led and corporate-grounded enquiry into the role of design research methods in a global technology company. The work aims to understand and communicate through a series of case studies how locally conducted participatory action research can be integrated into the processes of an in-house design team at the global NCR Corporation. It questions the current approaches taken in the design and development of consumer transaction technologies in the context of a global organisation and new markets. The thesis starts by introducing the reader to the global corporation in which the study is focused and author employed, the NCR Corporation. The contextual grounding of the corporate environment, its heritage, history and continued evolution will illustrate the dynamic yet traditional role design has played within the corporation. As a senior member of the Consumer Experience Design (Cx Design) team in the corporation the author is well placed to evaluate the role of design and how it can evolve. The immediate contextualisation is then followed by a broad examination of the literature in the field of design in a corporate culture, research methods and socially-led innovation. This will define the boundaries of interest and influence in the thesis. A participatory action research approach was taken to address the research questions. Informed by a series of hyperlocal and global community engagements framed and directed from within the corporate culture, the author defines an understanding of the levels of community engagement through design research. The resulting outputs are then applied within the context of the NCR Corporation where the impact and influence on such engagements can be understood. The author concludes that his contribution to new knowledge, the development of a Participatory Action Based Strategic Design Process, can be applied within a global technology company. The process adapts McNiff’s and Whitehead’s (2011) seven phases of action research reporting and Ravi Chhatpar’s strategic decision-making process. The thesis demonstrates the value and influence of design research methods in the design of consumer transaction technologies. The thesis provides an understanding of how design research methods have been applied in a corporate environment, how the insights are applied, and demonstrates how the research has influenced the author’s practice and therefore the wider Cx Design group.

This thesis analyzes the impact of the political decision to broaden the scope of the Government of Canada's 3-year National Homelessness Initiative (Human Resource Development Canada, NHI, 2002) from an urban focus to one that includes smaller communities. This change provided the opportunity to study the phenomenon of homelessness and how rural responses are formed. This author postulates that this focus of attention on an almost invisible phenomenon—rural homelessness—and the accompanying community planning processes funded by the Supportive Community Partnership Initiative (SCPI) will impact local social policy development. A multi-dimensional analytical approach was adopted and considered three components: first, a policy review, a broad look at the policy agenda framework in Canada; then, a case study to illustrate implementation issues related to the National Homelessness Initiative; and, finally, a reflection on current practice in order to realize a holistic critique of public policy. The influence of socio-economic, political, and cultural factors on local planning and capacity building will be highlighted. Various models of governance were adopted across the country and guided the collaborative processes. This thesis presents an in-depth look at the community action plans and activities of the Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness (SCATEH) in both the rural and urban settings of Simcoe County. The processes adopted, capacity building components identified, and outcomes over the 7 years covered by the SCPI agreement are examined. The limitations of using participatory local action planning to respond to complex issues such as homelessness are detailed along with a modified community-based policy development model recommended as a learning tool to be used by those volunteers acting as agents of change. It is widely recognized that safe, affordable social housing is a fundamental need, and one that is extremely difficult to meet. The contribution this research makes is to reveal how effective government-community partnerships can be in a rural setting.

The United Nations General Assembly recognized the years from 2005 to 2014 as the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). Students perspectives on education for sustainable development and student perceptions on action projects for sustainable development are almost absent from the literature. This thesis presents an analysis of students voices and experiences as a result of Youth Forum 2008 (a forum proposed to support high school students as action leaders in sustainability projects) in three different case locations. The study attempts to understand students challenges with their action projects, examining them in the context of dominant discourses and explores supports that can be put into place to facilitate students navigation toward their goals of completing successful action projects for sustainable development.<p> This qualitative study was composed of a series of focus group recorded conversations with ten high school student participants involved in three different school sites who all attempted to complete action projects for sustainable development. Many themes were identified: time, whether projects were extracurricular or curricular, school community, teacher, teacher education, marks/evaluation, community engagement, youth forum and technology. In the examination and interpretation many attractions and distractions for the student participants were identified. By interpreting the students experiences through the language of the students, a deeper understanding of the dominant discourses of schools and society and how they might limit the students highlights broader ideas about students struggles and triumphs in education and with teaching. In the conclusion, I suggest recommendations and I also suggest further avenues for research.