This paper investigates whether a new conceptual framework, Neighborhood Ritual Integrity (NRI), addresses the concepts of social capital, collective efficacy, and rituals in a manner which makes it applicable to sociological research. Neighborhood Ritual Integrity (NRI) is a conceptual framework developed in response to various studies, which have established a relationship between neighborhood demographics, structural neighborhood features, crime and adolescent behaviors. Kiser et al., (2007) identified six dimensions that influence short and long term community functioning: Ritual Integrity, Daily Routines, Role Clarity, People and Organizational Resources, Deliberate Planning, and Meaning Making as aspects of NRI. Each dimension describes either a structural or cultural component of community level processes that could affect positive features of neighborhood life. Results from focus group data are examined for the existence of responses consistent with the conceptual definitions of NRI as well as social capital, collective efficacy, and rituals in hopes that this investigation will develop a more comprehensive sociological approach to the study of neighborhoods.

The underlying context of this work is the mismatch between the systems that we need to comply with and what our spirit and intuition wants and needs. The thesis questions the relevance of spiritless corporate systems set up to serve the ‘best interest’ of human beings and other living things. Corporate systems have been established to comply with governing laws, to facilitate transaction of money and provide financial accountability to stakeholders and clients – spiritless matters. Corporate systems are ill equipped to protect our emotional and spiritual boundaries, our tangible and intangible links to the past and to the future. Spirit, which is the essence of life, is often not understood, discussed or included in the planning, development and implementation of the very systems that govern and impact on our lives and our communities. If spirit is included it is often well intended but rhetorical. Spirit needs to be revived and provided time, place and purpose, not only in our broader lives but also in our work cultures. Without spirit, facts have no meaning or relevance to life. This thesis searches for solutions to fill this spiritual gap in corporate systems, drawing on the experiences and lessons gained through engaging with communities and corporate systems in Australian and international contexts. The search covers a study of oral tradition(spirit),the impact of the lack of credibility afforded to oral tradition, developing and trialling common-ground terminology and frameworks befitting both corporate and spiritual systems across different industry sectors, the isolation of arts and culture from other sectors, the role of community development arts practices, and aspects of social science and urban development theories. The research traces the development and implementation of a cultural planning program for Western Australia through policy development at State government level and then framework development undertaken through Community Arts Network WA. The development of this cultural planning program draws on the contribution of diverse industry sector partners and this thesis research explains how their perspectives can contribute to the revival of spirit in corporate systems. The partnerships involved are business planning, town planning, community psychology, vocation, education and training, and sustainability. Having contributed to the development of the broader frameworks for the implementation of cultural planning across the State and beyond, this research delves further into addressing the issue of reviving spirit in corporate systems through refining the First (spirit) and Third Person (corporate) approach to cultural planning. This method is based on a key Spirit Catalyst called The First and Third Person Systems. This key Spirit Catalyst provides a guide for balance between spirit and corporate systems. There are a total of seven secondary Spirit Catalysts cited. Comparisons and contrasts between First and Third Person cultural planning process and strategic planning are provided. Principles and protocols and tools for evaluating spirit have been developed as part of the process. In keeping with the first person nature of spirit, personal narrative is used wherever possible to give life and meaning to facts and other planning and management processes.

Because of disunity among prominent professional learning community (PLC) authors, experts, and researchers, the literature was studied to develop a ten-element model that represents a unified and reconceptualized list of characteristics of a PLC. From this model, the Learning Community Culture Indicator (LCCI) was developed to measure professional learning community (PLC) implementation levels based on the ten-element model. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to determine the structural validity of the LCCI. Factor analyses provided successful levels of fit for the models tested in representing the constructs of the LCCI. Reliability measures also indicated high levels of internal consistency among the responses to the survey items. Although some items and elements had moderate levels of fit and need additional revisions and validity testing, the LCCI produced substantial evidence that this survey was a valid and reliable instrument in measuring levels of PLC implementation across the ten elements. Because this research validated the LCCI, school leaders can implement, monitor, and diagnose elements of PLCs in their schools. The LCCI also provides a method in which future research can be conducted to empirically support the influence of PLCs and student achievement. Potential uses and recommendations for further research and consideration are presented. A call for more empirical research is made in connecting the PLC reform model to improved student learning. The theory of PLC is at a point of substantiation and growth. The LCCI is recommended as potential tool for studying and facilitating the implementation of PLCs in schools.

Abstract This study examines people-centred Thai NGOs trying to help peasants empower themselves in order to compete better in conflicts over land, water, forest, and capital, during the 1970s to 1990s. The study investigates how the NGOs contested asymmetric power relations among government officials, private entrepreneurs and ordinary people while helping raise the people’s confidence in their own power to negotiate their demands with other actors.¶ The thesis argues that the NGOs are able to play an interventionist role when a number of key factors coexist. First, the NGOs are able to understand local situations, which contain asymmetric power relations between different actors, in relation to current changes in the wider context of the Thai political economy and seize the time to take action. Secondly, the NGOs are able to articulate a social meaning beyond the dominating rhetoric of the ‘state’ and the ‘capitalists’ which encourages the people’s participation in collective activities. Thirdly, while dealing with one problem in social relations and negotiation with local environment, the NGOs are able to recognise new problems as they arise and rapidly identify a new political space for the actors to renegotiate their conflicting interests and demands. Fourthly, the NGOs are able to recreate new meanings, new actors and reform their organisations and networks to deal with new situations. Finally, the NGOs are able to effectively use three pillars of their movement, namely individuals, organisations and networks to deal with everyday politics and collective protest.¶ The case studies in three villages in Northern Thailand reveal that the NGOs were able to play an interventionist role in specific situations through their alternative development strategies somewhat influenced by structural Marxism. The thesis recommends that the NGO interventionist role be continued so as to overcome tensions within the NGO community, for instance, between the NGOs working at the grass-roots level and the NGOs working at regional and national levels (including NGO funding agencies); local everyday conflicts; and the bipolar views of a society among the NGOs expressed in dichotomous thinking between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, ‘community’ and ‘state’, conflict and order, actor and system.¶ The fragmentation of NGO social and environmental movements showed that there is no single formula or easy solution to the problems. If the NGOs want to continue their interventionist role to help empower ordinary people and help them gain access to productive resources, they must move beyond their bipolar views of a society to discover the middle ground to search for new meanings, new actors, new issues and to create again and again counter-hegemony movements. This could be done by having abstract development theories assessed and enriched by concrete development practices and vice versa. Both theorists and practitioners need to use their own imagination to invent and reinvent what and how best to continue.

No description available.