Thesis (MTech(Business Administration)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2004 / My central thesis is, that certain social systems and cultures have supported modern economic growth and human progress, whereas others have not. Countries and, winning organizations that have been able to jump ahead out of the laggard have done so, because they developed a conquering culture of rigor and work, removed from the influences of invisible forces. The world at the beginning of the twenty first century is still, divided between the few who are rich and powerful and the many who are poor and powerless, between the free and the oppressed. Traditional'explanations like imperialism, dependency, colonialism and racism are no longer adequate after so many decades. Increasingly researchers are reasoning that the principal reason why some countries and ethnic groups are better off than others lies in cultural values and beliefs and attitudes, which powerfully shape political, economic and social performance, and share the view that value and attitude change is indispensable to progress for those who are lagging. There is a methodological difference between myself and some people who are consistently uncritical of the values and attitudes of a culture, and think people ought to resign themselves to economic and social values that condemn them to poverty and subservience, in the name of cultural purity. The power of cultural values, beliefs and attitudes to promote or resist progress has been largely ignored. Culture is a significant determinant of a nation's ability to prosper, because it shapes individual's thoughts and behaviours, and the way individuals think about progress.

This thesis deals with the theme of diversity and its management, explains its significance and importance in today's dynamic times, historical development, legislative support, its benefits and costs to a company. It further describes the concept of gender, women's position in the labor market and the presence of women in the IT business. Thesis includes an analysis of diversity policies and strategies in multinational IT company and a research on this topic among Czech employees.

Diese Ausgabe präsentiert 6 Artikel, die sich mit der linguistischen und kulturellen Diversität in der Republik Uganda befassen. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt der Frage, wie sich Sprache, Sprachvielfalt und Multilingualismus in öffentlichen und kulturellen Bereichen des täglichen Lebens widerspiegeln. Die Artikel basieren auf Daten und Erfahrungen, die im März 2003 in Uganda gesammelt wurden.

Clinical simulations are a promising approach to preparing preservice teachers for culturally responsive teaching. These simulations use actors to portray the role of students, parents, and coworkers in common problems of practice, but with a focus on issues of culture in such interactions. In this dissertation, I provide six design principles derived from both literature in medical education on standardized patient encounters for cultural competence as well as sociological literature on the relational work of doctors and teachers to guide the design and use of clinical simulations for culturally responsive teaching. I then use thematic analysis to examine what teachers learned from a clinical simulation of a student-teacher interaction that focused on issues of race and classroom discipline. Within this analysis, I conceptualize culturally responsive teaching as comprised of cultural consciousness, cultural competence, and critical reflection and look at how teachersâ starting points with respect to their own cultural identity development affected what they learned from the simulation. Finally, I provide a description of three trajectories of learning as focal cases in cross-comparative case analysis by looking at how three preservice teachers framed the problem in the simulation over time. In doing so, I look at when and how teachers were âpulled up shortâ by the experience such that it might serve as a critical incident in their professional development. Findings contribute to research on how preservice teachers learn to be culturally responsive and how to design and use clinical simulations for that purpose, and to broader conversations about how to adapt and refine instructional approaches from other professions.

This study explores the productive use of translanguaging in elementary classrooms where instruction is delivered primarily in English and teachers and students do not share proficiencies in studentsâ heritage languages. Using qualitative methods derived from ethnography of communication and discourse analysis, the study explores how one 2nd grade and one 3rd grade classroom incorporated various translanguaging pedagogies. From a communities of practice perspective, this study found that teachers with limited proficiencies in studentsâ heritage languages can leverage these languages to promote student achievement, but that teacher and student negotiation of how, when, and why these resources are leveraged is necessary. Overlapping aspects of learning communitiesâengagement, shared resources, and joint enterprisesâinformed the productive use of translanguaging pedagogies. Teacher perspectives on language use in their classrooms also played an important role in determining how these pedagogies were implemented. This work emphasizes the importance of classroom communities in shaping how language is used to negotiate meaning.

Given the difficulty in learning teaching that aims for the ambitious student learning goals prescribed in current standards documents, supports are needed in order to develop and sustain teachersâ enactment of ambitious instruction. Teacher workgroups are a common strategy for instructional improvement, but how teachers engage in activities during workgroup time shapes the learning opportunities that can develop. In this comparative case study, I take a situative view of learning to examine the learning opportunities afforded in workgroup meetings with middle-school math teachers and pedagogically expert facilitators. Using interaction analysis, I analyze how tools are used by facilitators during workgroup meetings. Both the nature of the tool and facilitatorsâ orientations towards those tools shaped the learning opportunities available to teachers. This work provides an example of the not-sufficient nature of tool use and emphasizes that how tools are used mediates the extent to which the tools can support teachersâ learning.

Prior research on teacher learning in the context of large-scale instructional reform suggests that it is important to attend to both school and district factors and teacher-level factors when trying to understand variation in the impact of professional development efforts on the quality of teachersâ instruction. This dissertation study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) How do district-organized pull-out professional development, one-on-one instructional coaching, school-based teacher collaborative time, and school leadersâ instructional expectations impact the quality of teachersâ instruction over time? (2) How do teachersâ current instructional expertise (the depth of their mathematical knowledge for teaching, their visions of high-quality instruction, and their views of their struggling studentsâ mathematical capabilities) mediate the influence of instructional supports and principalsâ expectations on their development of ambitious practice? Using data from the Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Settings of Teaching (MIST) project, this study involved a qualitative, comparative analysis of eleven teachers: eight whose instructional quality improved or declined over time in the context of district-wide reform efforts, and three teachers whose instruction remained procedurally oriented. Drawing on interview and survey data from these teachers and their colleagues, I examined potentially critical between-school and between-teacher differences in teachersâ instructional expertise, the types and quality of district- or school-based supports for their learning, and the instructional expectations of their school leaders. I found that those who improved worked regularly with an instructional coach with substantial expertise in inquiry-oriented math instruction. I also found that three of the four teachers who improved had developed an ambitious vision of instruction and had come to view their own diverse students as capable of engaging in rigorous mathematical activity; this in turn appeared to lead to their identification with their districtâs reform efforts. These findings suggest that effecting lasting instructional improvement at scale might involve supporting teachers to (a) develop a sophisticated vision of instruction and (b) come to see their own students as capable of engaging in rigorous mathematics, then (c) navigate the ongoing challenges involved in enacting ambitious instruction with diverse students.

An emerging body of research has demonstrated that multimodal composing is a complicated and multifaceted process which involves the coordination of semiotic, material, and interactional resources. This qualitative study explores how young adolescent students enrolled in an academic enrichment program used digital tools to respond to and analyze literary texts. Data sources included video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, students multimodal compositions, artifacts from the composing process, screen recordings, in-process and final student interviews, surveys, and instructional artifacts. Findings show that students navigated different composing identities, composing pathways, and moments of creative tension as they composed multimodal products. Through the in-depth analysis of students individual and collaborative processes and products, this study traces the material, personal, and interactional resources that students bring to collaborative composingand presents a description of how students take on a variety of interactional roles in the creation of their joint work. This research also documents the pedagogical structures and conditions which may support and hinder students collaborative, multimodal composing.

No description available.

No description available.