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.

Following the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) integrated catchment management plans must be prepared for all river basins, in order to achieve 'good ecological status' (GES) in all EU waters. This concept is a broader measure of water quality than the chemical and biological measures, which were previously dominant in EU water policy. The Directive also calls for a consideration of the economic costs and benefits of improvements to ecological status in catchment management plans, along with the introduction of full social cost pricing for water use. In this thesis, the primary focus is on the use of the Choice Experiment (CE) method. The CE method is reviewed and then used to estimate the value of improvements in a number of components of ecological status on two Irish waterways (the Boyne and the Suir). Apart from CE method another stated preference approach to environmental valuation is also considered; the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). This thesis determines what value the targeted population of the two catchments place on the nonmarket economic benefits of moves towards GES by employing both approaches and various model specifications, while the applicability of Benefit Transfer (BT) method is also assessed under different tests. In addition, the design of the questionnaire used in the survey stage of the research, offered the possibility of investigating issues related to the effect of cognitive ability and psychometric factors on choice. Respondents with discontinuous preferences are identified and analysis is conducted to investigate the implications of not accounting for these preferences. Finally, due to experiencing protesting behaviour by a proportion of the sampling population an attempt is made to investigate the parameters that contributed to this inclination.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Jan. 9, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 300-330).

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This study disaggregates and evaluates conventional community psychology as reflected in both the Community Mental Health and Social Action Models. In so doing, it provides evidence in support of its plea for a radical paradigm shift towards ecosystemic theorising in the field of community psycho logy. It further illustrates that an ecosystemic point of departure would have significant implications for the reformulation of conventional notions of community. It concludes by teasing out some alternative praxis related community psychological formulations. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study disaggregates and evaluates conventional community psychology as reflected in both the Community Mental Health and Social Action Models. In so doing, it provides evidence in support of its plea for a radical paradigm shift towards ecosystemic theorising in the field of community psycho logy. It further illustrates that an ecosystemic point of departure would have significant implications for the reformulation of conventional notions of community. It concludes by teasing out some alternative praxis related community psychological formulations. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Dallas is a unique city whose history has been overshadowed by its elite. The War on Poverty in Dallas, Texas, has been largely overlooked in the historical collective. This thesis examines the War on Poverty, more specifically, Community Action Programs (Dallas County Community Action Committee) and its origin and decline. It also exams race within the federal program and the push for federal funding among the African American and Mexican American communities. The thesis concludes with findings of the politicization of the Mexican American community and the struggle with African Americans for political equality.

It is well established that rural regional Australians have borne the brunt of globalization in terms of the adverse impacts caused by social and economic restructuring resulting from global, national and local forces. In response governments and communities have embraced sustainability and civil society for promoting local community action and responsibility for social, economic and environmental issues. This research focuses on community narratives about the social change processes as they engage the forces of neo-liberal policies. Applying a qualitative, grounded theoretical approach to data collection and analysis this study also adopts a multi-perspective, multi-disciplinary framework to gain more holistic, contextual understandings of community functioning and change. In echoing the principles of community psychology, the foundational, multidisciplinary concepts of sense of community, social capital, civil society, empowerment and conscientization have informed understandings of this communitys process and outcome towards transformational change. This study offers a critical reflection of transformational change in an effort to promote more peaceful, collaborate relationships between dominant and oppressed groups in expanding our understandings and solutions for community change. Identified by Newbrough (1992, 1995) as the Third Force Position, the ideals of political community are visibly expressed as they attempt to pursue transformational change towards a just and sustainable future for the community. However, while civil society has made a positive contribution, also apparent are the processes and outcomes which affect those most vulnerable. Those most powerless continue to suffer from exclusion, marginalization and as a result are denied access to vital resources to meet their needs.

Este estudo antropológico trata de questões relacionadas ao enfrentamento do desastre que atingiu a cidade de Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brasil, em novembro de 2008, resultado de um anticiclone que gerou enormes danos físicos, materiais e a ruptura das rotinas e dos laços afetivos e de parentesco de seus habitantes. A análise se pauta nas narrativas da experiência de vitimização, vulnerabilidade e de sofrimento conformadas na memória dos habitantes atingidos que configuram diferentes formas de interpretação, superação do desastre e reorganização da vida familiar e comunitária. Tais narrativas e práticas revelam relações com distintas dimensões éticas engendradas nos discursos e ações produzidas pelas entidades políticas e científicas, que abordam a relação entre indivíduo, sociedade e ambiente. O exame das políticas de Defesa Civil e de prevenção de desastres revelam o encontro entre as noções, práticas e valores da população com a racionalidade científica, burocrática e tecnicista do Estado e outros órgãos, encontro este que delineia diversas formas de resistência, na invisibilidade do cotidiano, em face das situações de vulnerabilidade. / This anthropological study is about issues related to the confrontation with the disaster that struck the city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil, in November 2008, a violent tempest that generated enormous physical and material damage and, also, the disruption of routines, of family and emotional attachments of its inhabitants. The analysis is based on the narration of the experience of victimization, vulnerability and suffering on the memory of the inhabitants, that represent different ways of interpreting and overcoming the disaster and reorganization of family and community life. Such narratives and practical matters are related to the various ethical dimensions revealed by their speech and by the actions taken by political and scientific institutions that discuss the relation of individuals, society and the environment. The examination of the politics of Civil defense and disaster prevention reveals the reunion of concepts, practice and values of the population is ruled by scientific rationality, bureaucracy and technical thinking of the Estate and institutions. That reunion outstrips several ways of resistance in the invisibility of everyday life when in a place of great vulnerability.