The implementation of sustainable development is the social imperative of the 21st century, requiring strong leadership by governments at all levels. As the logical convenor of constituent groups in civil society, governments have a key role to play in diffusing its concepts and practices in the next decade, before critical thresholds are reached. This role will not be realized, however, without a guiding framework across governments that provides consistent and effective leadership to other sectors of Canadian society, equally supported by a new framework for governance based on human responsibility and the interconnectedness of human and natural systems. These frameworks are grounded on the reconciliation of three imperatives, the ecological, the social and the economic, based on analogues taken from ecological systems. Principles such as integrity, cyclical processes, resilience and systems approaches are key, as are the many alternative paradigms circulating within society capable of providing new information about the ways in which our systems operate.

Today in Canada, child care is not perceived by the government, nor its citizenry, as a public good. Despite numerous reports from economic, health, social and psychological experts, Canadians remain complacent about the inadequate child care provisions in our country. As a society, we do not demand, or even anticipate, the public provision of universal, affordable, accessible child care. Instead, Canadians consider the care of children to be a predominantly private issue; unworthy of significant government intervention or assistance. Consequently, parents and children must improvise within a privatized, ad hoc, market-oriented patchwork of individualized child care arrangements. While it is true that certain "special" cases are acknowledged to deserve the government's support, - for example Aboriginal children and children with special needs, as well as the children of "welfare moms" - their exceptional status serves to reinforce the notion that the care of children is primarily a private parental responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and critique the current child care system (or lack thereof) in Canada. In addition, I intend to show that existing child care arrangements are unsatisfactory not only because of the immediate consequences for parents, children, and child care workers, but because of the way in which the privatized purchasing of child care reinforces other systemic shortcomings in our patriarchal, racialized, capitalist society. I will argue that current attitudes toward child care in Canada, as part of a patriarchal capitalist and racialized paradigm, rely on and perpetuate detrimental notions of class, gender and race, to the disadvantage of all citizens. Finally, I will discuss the possibilities for meaningful reform of the Canadian approach to child care.

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The following is a case study of the Northeast Fisheries Project, in Northeast Thailand, carried out jointly by the Canadian International Development Agency, its implementing agency and the Thai Department of Fisheries from 1986 to 1990. The formulation and events surrounding the project will be reviewed, with special emphasis on an experimental extension program which was pivotal to the project's success. Overall, the project did not succeed in meeting its objectives, and the purpose of this study is to examine the role of Thai values, social structure and bureaucracy, in contributing to this failure. Specifically, we will consider Thailand as a 'bureaucratic polity', the history and dynamics of patron-client relationships, and how these factors interact in the context of development projects and programs.

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This thesis is an examination of the various ways in which marijuana, its use, and its users have historically been signified, within both hegemonic and subcultural discourses, from marijuana's origins in antiquity through its North American prohibition in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Attention is given to how this history, and prohibition in particular, has informed contemporary North American significations of the drug, its use and its users.

<p>The study adopted qualitative research methods because the issues to be researched are complex social matters. The approach was three-pronged. Firstly, a desktop assessment of the claim was done. Secondly, semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected households in the community to understand their experiences after dispossession and their perception of the restitution claim. Thirdly, a combination of desktop analysis and household interviews was employed to understand the socio-economic dynamics and evaluate the feasibility of the community&rsquo / s perceptions.</p>

In response to the high levels of child poverty, the government of South Africa introduced the Child Support Grant (CSG) in 1998. The grant, initially targeted children 6 years and younger. Over the years it has been extended to include children 15 years and younger. According to many studies the grant has proven to be beneficial. This study investigated the targeting of the CSG, if it indeed reaching the poor children via their caregivers. Care-givers, who reported receiving the CSG in KIDS 2004, were tracked to KIDS 1998 to determine their demographic and socioeconomic profile. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods was employed. The demographic and socio-economic characteristics of caregivers receiving and not receiving the CSG were analysed using cross tabs. Based on the means test income threshold, caregivers who are eligible and non-eligible for the CSG were identified. Multinomial regression was applied to identify the targeted, omitted and leaked CSG beneficiaries. These findings were augmented by the findings from the qualitative data. Based on the proxy indicators of poverty, the findings from the study have revealed that the CSG is being targeted at the poor, however there is evidence of both type I and type 11 errors of targeting present. Whilst type 11 error (leakage) is negligible, type I error of under-coverage is quite prominent. In essence the grant is reaching only some of its intended beneficiaries but not all of them. The study calls for government and its stakeholders to revisit the targeting design and implementation of the GCS. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.