Leaders and policy makers in Uganda developed a national strategy of placing female administrators in traditionally male-dominated coeducational secondary schools in the belief that their vision would promote equitable education by changing gender regimes that play in schools. Gender regimes are patterns of gender arrangements that could disadvantage the education of boys or girls (Connell, 2002). The purpose of this study was to discover if female administrators perceived and had developed strategies to change gender regimes in their schools. Participants were 13 female administrators of government-supported coeducational mixed/day secondary schools in Kampala and Wakiso urban districts. Participants ranged in age from 37 to 59 years and in school experience from 12 to 32 years. Nine participants held masters' degrees and 4 were currently enrolled in masters' programs. All participants were members of a female organization. The investigator used qualitative methodology to collect and analyze data and to report findings. With each participant, the investigator engaged in an open dialogue and used a semi-structured protocol to conduct an interview that was recorded and transcribed. The investigator examined archival records and collected artifacts from each school. Data were analyzed emically with NVivo software to facilitate the iterative process of identifying and refining themes. Themes had to reach a threshold of 50% to be considered significant. The findings revealed that female administrators perceived gender regimes related to family culture, school culture, sexuality, and power and authority. All female administrators had developed strategies to change the gender regimes that disadvantaged girls' education. These perceptions and strategies indicated that gender regimes were part of the vision of female administrators, but insufficient evidence was collected to determine the degree they were part of their strategic goals. These findings are significant because if these female administrators can change the gender regimes at play in their schools, they will make a significant contribution to providing equitable education to their students. While these findings cannot be generalized, this work may help other educators gain a better understanding of the influence of gender regimes in their schools.

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Although Congress enacted civil rights legislation in the 1960s to address racial inequities in income and employment, the executive branch and the courts have since retreated from efforts to pursue those policies aggressively. Meanwhile, anti-racism advocates, including the Montgomery County, Virginia based Dialogue on Race, have continued to promote strategies aimed at securing employment and income equity for all citizens. This study analyzed the social and economic costs of continued racial inequality in employment and income, and examined the ways in which local employers are addressing this challenge in the Blacksburg, Virginia region by exploring their self-reported rationales for action on the basis of economic efficiency or profit, moral obligation to fairness and justice, adherence to legal requirements, or leader influence. I addressed these concerns through population data analysis, key informant interviews, and a survey of major local employers. I found that New River Valley employers appear to be motivated by economic and moral reasons, as well as legal compliance. I conclude that activists should use this apparent openness to multiple rationales to work to help community leaders and local employers recognize racial equality as a moral imperative rather than as an instrumental claim incidental to its perceived utility. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

While many previous studies indicated that the overall number of school string/orchestra programs in the United States has increased, string/orchestra programs have been substantially underrepresented in school music curricula. In addition, the programs have been inequitably distributed geographically, and have tended to conform particular trends in their characteristics and demographics of string teachers and students. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics and trends in the profile of current school string programs. Also, by investigating the inception of the programs, this study aimed to identify practical ways in creating a school string program. A 37-item questionnaire was developed to collect data. The participants were string/orchestra teachers who were teaching in public schools and members of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). A total of 130 teachers participated in this study. The result of this study indicated that string programs remain concentrated in suburban areas. Additionally, while string student population has become more diverse and reflective of the overall student population, the racial/ethnic makeup of string teachers is still predominantly White. This study also revealed that the idea of creating a new string program was most often initiated by either school music teachers or outreach program instructors/directors, and the first step typically involves discussing the idea with school administrators.

This qualitative case study analyzes the underrepresentation of minority students in Advanced Placement (AP) courses in Virginia high schools and examines the influences that encourage school leaders to lessen the existing gaps at their assigned schools. Data from a division in southeastern Virginia summarizing each school's minority representation in its AP courses were analyzed. After identifying the schools' minority representation levels, qualitative research methods were used to determine the impact, if any, of school leaders on student participation rates. Additionally, qualitative data from individual interviews were considered to determine if school leaders who had a higher representation of minority populations at their schools demonstrated intentional actions to address AP participation in their schools. The results of this study indicate that principals believed that all capable students should have access to AP courses and that teachers and counselors influence students' decisions to enroll in AP courses. Additionally, principals found that sharing data reflecting their school's representation rates helped justify the need to improve student participation in AP courses. Principals with high participation rates placed importance on communicating to students the opportunities obtained by participating in AP courses and expected school staff to encourage students with potential to participate in more rigorous courses. Principals with higher minority representation rates in advanced courses were also found to frequently remind a variety of stakeholders to encourage students to participate in AP courses. Furthermore, principals with higher minority representation in AP programs used more "we," "us," and "our" statements and references to a team approach when asked about their work. Finally, this study found that specialized academies create environments where stronger student representation rates can occur in AP courses for all student groups. The results of the study have the potential to impact high school leaders as they seek to improve outcomes for the students they serve. / Ed. D.

Building codes are socio-technical regulations that govern the manner in which the built world is designed, constructed, and maintained. Instituted in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of humans in the built world, codes also serve as an index of always changing societal values. If codes do not co-evolve with social values, however, they often perpetuate standards that no longer reflect the priorities of mainstream society. As crises arise and as cultural practices change, regulatory institutions are charged with creating new or amend old codes to reflect these societal shifts. Emergent social values are often dismissed by the general public, misrepresented by their political representatives, or abstracted by the louder voices of the market and the state. In a few critical moments in modern history, however, society successfully adopted and institutionalized previously underrepresented values into urban form. Social movements provide a primary venue for such paradigmatic change. They do this through the production of new knowledge that aims to alter the cognitive praxis of its citizenry and to generate the momentum required to codify grassroots ideals into the built world. Exploring how this confluence of socio-technical innovation functions within the built world, this dissertation addresses the primary research question: What is the relationship between urban social movements, the values they espouse, the building codes they construct, and the liberative function of the spaces produced? In this dissertation, I investigate three established and one emerging social movement to discern the characteristics of democratic code formation that lead to civic urban form. These four case studies are analyzed in terms of their origins, the claims made, strategies employed, and outcomes achieved. Patterns are then extrapolated from this analysis to identify qualities of collective action that contribute to the codification of civic urban form. The research discussed herein was conducted in two phases to develop a historical base from which to evaluate contemporary efforts to codify civic urban form. The first phase of this exploratory investigation tells the story of three intrinsically valuable, but also comparable case studies of social change in the United States: the community development strategy pursued by the civil rights movement, the architectural accessibility platform advocated by the disability rights movement, and efforts to institutionalize new building practices through voluntary building assessment systems by the environmental movement. The second phase extrapolates patterns from the established cases to inform the investigation of proto-movements currently coalescing around issues of spatial justice. Both phases are then reflected upon in order to propose a theory of civic urban form that recognizes the dialectic between social movements, emergent social values, building codes, and the physical spaces they inform. The thesis statement underlying this dissertation is that urban social movements in the U.S. require a myriad of different activist organizations— radical and mainstream, professional and grassroots— to simultaneously employ diverse strategies through an integrated frame of collective action in order to institutionalize new types of civic urban form. Based on the theoretical framework developed to conceptualize the production of civic urban form, I go on to argue in the concluding chapters that urban social movements currently seeking various means to codify the tenets of sustainable development in the United States might benefit from couching their collective actions within an integrated action frame of spatial justice. / text

‘First line healthcare’ is offered via telephone in many Western countries. The overall aim of this thesis is to describe Telephone Nursing (TN) from three viewpoints: telenurses, parents calling for their children, and operation managers. Four empirical studies were conducted. Telenurses described their work in five different ways: ‘Assess, refer and give advice to the caller’, ‘Support the caller’, ‘Strengthen the caller’, ‘Teach the caller’ and ‘Facilitate the caller’s learning’, which all constitute a TN ‘work map’. Authentic paediatric calls between parents and telenurses revealed that 73% of callers were mothers and children were aged between 5 days and 14.5 years. The top three contact reasons were ear and skin problems, and fever, with a median call length of 4.4 minutes. More than half of the calls resulted in referrals and 48% received self-care advice. The likelihood of fathers being given referrals as a result of their call was almost twice as high as that for mothers, while mothers were almost twice as likely to receive self-care advice as fathers. Parents described their degree of worry and trust that influenced their decisions whether to contact SHD or not. Their calls were carefully prepared, and the parent calling often depended on family routine. Parents reported to follow recommendations. Most relied upon their own intuition if further worried, but some indicated they would never seek healthcare unless it was recommended. Operation managers described four main goals of TN work: ‘create feelings of trust’, ‘achieve patient safety’, ‘assess, refer and give advice’, and ‘teach the caller’. Equitable healthcare was regarded as important, whereas health promotion was not considered as part of the goals. Conclusion: The studied TN viewpoints present concordance and discrepancies. Paediatric health calls appear mostly to be a woman-to-woman activity. Telenurses’ increased gender competence might increase TN safety. For that matter, telenurses’ collaboration with parents and making parents aware of holding the ultimate responsibility for their child’s condition is important. Goals of TN work and their relationship with healthcare obligations such as equitable healthcare and health promotion need further clarification. The viewpoints described in this thesis may contribute to the development of TN.

We study graph parameters arising from different types of colourings of random graphs, defined broadly as an assignment of colours to either the vertices or the edges of a graph. The chromatic number X(G) of a graph is the minimum number of colours required for a vertex colouring where no two adjacent vertices are coloured the same. Determining the chromatic number is one of the classic challenges in random graph theory. In Chapter 3, we give new upper and lower bounds for the chromatic number of the dense random graph G(n,p)) where p ∈ (0,1) is constant. These bounds are the first to match up to an additive term of order o(1) in the denominator, and in particular, they determine the average colour class size in an optimal colouring up to an additive term of order o(1). In Chapter 4, we study a related graph parameter called the equitable chromatic number. This is defined as the minimum number of colours needed for a vertex colouring where no two adjacent vertices are coloured the same and, additionally, all colour classes are as equal in size as possible. We prove one point concentration of the equitable chromatic number of the dense random graph G(n,m) with m = pn(n-1)/2, p < 1-1/e² constant, on a subsequence of the integers. We also show that whp, the dense random graph G(n,p) allows an almost equitable colouring with a near optimal number of colours. We call an edge colouring of a graph G a rainbow colouring if every pair of vertices is joined by a rainbow path, which is a path where no colour is repeated. The least number of colours where this is possible is called the rainbow connection number rc(G). Since its introduction in 2008 as a new way to quantify how well connected a given graph is, the rainbow connection number has attracted the attention of a great number of researchers. For any graph G, rc(G)≥diam(G), where diam(G) denotes the diameter. In Chapter 5, we will see that in the random graph G(n,p), rainbow connection number 2 is essentially equivalent to diameter 2. More specifically, we consider G ~ G(n,p) close to the diameter 2 threshold and show that whp rc(G) = diam(G) ∈ {2,3}. Furthermore, we show that in the random graph process, whp the hitting times of diameter 2 and of rainbow connection number 2 coincide. In Chapter 6, we investigate sharp thresholds for the property rc(G)≤=r where r is a fixed integer. The results of Chapter 6 imply that for r=2, the properties rc(G)≤=2 and diam(G)≤=2 share the same sharp threshold. For r≥3, the situation seems quite different. We propose an alternative threshold and prove that this is an upper bound for the sharp threshold for rc(G)≤=r where r≥3.

Le débat portant sur la relation entre la protection des droits de l'homme et la protection des investissements étrangers n’est pas nouveau. Quand cette dernière et la protection des droits de l'homme des peuples locaux s'opposent, quelle solution le régime du droit de l'investissement devrait-il proposer? Est-il possible d'inclure la protection des droits de l'homme des investisseurs étrangers dans le régime du droit international de l'investissement? Il faudrait trouver le moyen de rendre le régime du droit international de l'investissement compatible avec le régime du droit international des droits de l'homme. C'est le problème principal que cette thèse souhaite traiter. Je propose d'inclure la protection des droits de l'homme par le biais de la clause du traitement juste et équitable (TJE) dans les TBI. Le sens littéral du TJE est de donner aux investisseurs étrangers le traitement qu'ils méritent. Cela veut dire que l'on ne devrait leur donner ni plus ni moins que ce qu'ils méritent. On leur donne plus quand leur investissement est protégé sans que l'on accorde l'attention qui lui revient à la protection des droits de l'homme des peuples locaux. En même temps, les investisseurs étrangers méritent un environnement d'investissement dans lequel leurs droits de l'homme sont respectés. Pour l'argument de la cohérence, on a pu voir que le TJE était en général la mise en œuvre de l'état de droit. Les investisseurs étrangers méritent un environnement d'investissement où l'état de droit existe. L'état de droit inclut la protection des droits de l'homme. Les investisseurs étrangers méritent un environnement d'investissement où les droits de l'homme sont protégés. / The relationship between human rights protection and foreign investment protection has been an issue that has been widely discussed. When the foreign investment protection and the human rights protection of local people conflicts, how should the investment law regime solve the problem? Moreover, is it possible that foreign investors' human rights protection be included in the international investment law regime? The international investment law regime should find a way to make itself compatible with international human rights law regime. The aforementioned is the major issue that this thesis intends to address. I have proposed to include human rights protection through the fair and equitable treatment (FET) clause in BITs. The literal meaning of FET is to give foreign investors the treatment that they deserve. This means that foreign investors should not be given neither less than they deserve, nor more than they deserve. Foreign investors were given more than they deserve when their investment were protected without giving due regard to local people's human rights protection. Meanwhile, foreign investors deserve an investment environment where their human rights are protected. For the coherence argument, FET is generally the implementation of the rule of law. In its interpretation, there is a presupposed warrant. The warrant is "foreign investors deserve an investment environment where rule of law is implemented." Foreign investors deserve an investment environment where rule of law is implemented. Rule of law includes the protection of human rights. Foreign investors therefore deserve an investment environment where the protection of human rights is implemented.

Thesis (LLM. (Labour Law)) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / This mini dissertation relates to the payment of divorce benefits to a former spouse upon divorce and recent amendments that have taken place in the Pension Funds Act 24 of 1956.Particular reference is made to the amendment of Section 37D.This amendment has brought about changes that will contribute positively to the development of South African Retirement Law. The discussion below deals with the unfairness to non-member former spouses before 1st November 2008. An analysis of pension interest taking into account relevant statutory provisions and case law will be dealt with as well. A classification between a member spouse and a former spouse in order to determine who is responsible to pay tax upon divorce. In terms of the Divorce Act 70 of 1979 the former spouse of a retirement fund on divorce could be awarded by the court a portion of the benefits that the member would have received had she/he resigned on the date of divorce. The former spouse was only entitled to receive that share when the member became entitled to a benefit in terms of the rules of the fund which states on his/her retirement or termination of membership which could have been many years after the date of the divorce. Dissolution of Customary marriages will also be discussed and the benefit a divorced spouse has at the dissolution of marriage.