In 1961, a series of uprisings exploded in Angola, Portugal’s largest colony in Africa. A struggle for the independence of all the Portuguese colonies in Africa followed, organized by the national liberation movements: the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique, and the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. The wars would end in 1974, following a military coup d'état in Lisbon and the dissolution of the Portuguese dictatorship during the Carnation Revolution. This thesis explores fourteen years of anti-colonial campaigns: the people who led the liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies, the cadres these leaders encountered in Moscow, East Berlin, Prague, Sofia, and Warsaw, and the international environment they faced. It begins by looking at contacts forged between Soviet cadres and African nationalist leaders from Portuguese colonies in the late 1950s, before offering detailed analysis of why the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia offered assistance to the MPLA and the PAIGC in 1961, the same year Angola erupted into spasms of racial violence and the Soviet Union and the United States locked horns over the status of West Berlin. The subsequent chapters analyze the evolution of Soviet relations with the liberation movements during the 1960s and 1970s, the role this relationship played in shaping Soviet attitudes and policy in Africa, and the significance of Soviet bloc assistance in anti-colonial campaigns. This thesis also looks at the diplomacy of the liberation movements and their ideological and organizational transformations over fourteen years of guerrilla war. The final chapter evaluates the Soviet role in the decolonization of Portuguese Africa following the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship and investigates why the Soviets decided to intervene on behalf of the MPLA in the pivotal event of this thesis – the beginning of the civil war in Angola in 1975.

My general premise is that sports and recreations are among the most revealing mirrors of many societies, offering a distinctive insight into social patterns, cultural values and even economic conditions. From this it follows that research on the USSR, using the sport-system as a case-study, may throw light on important characteristics of social processes in Soviet-type societies -- all the more so because the place of sport is evidently more central in the Soviet social system. This study attempts to show the extent to which the forms of recreation which developed in the USSR have or have not coincided with the predictions and aspirations of Marxist writers about playful activities in the society of the future. The study contains a historical account of sport in Russia and the USSR, with sections devoted to each of the main periods into which Russian and Soviet history is conventionally broken down according to the stages of its economic and political development. In addition, a special section is devoted to Soviet sport as s reflection of Soviet foreign policy. Sport is taken in the widest sense to include, too, the systems of physical education which developed in Russian and Soviet schools and colleges. The Introduction examines the various western and Soviet concepts of physical culture, sport and recreational activities.

In 1589, the government of Tsar Feodor I of Muscovy returned the gift of golden medals received from Queen Elizabeth I, describing the offending objects as neither commendable nor agreeable. The rejection was accompanied with opprobrious public speeches about the gift's unsuitability and a threat to transfer Muscovite favour unto other European nations if Elizabeth offered no immediate redress. In her defence, Elizabeth argued that diplomatic gifts were to be accepted not in respect of the object itself, but of the royal majesty from whom it was presented. While the episode appears to show a petty squabble over material trinkets, its diplomatic repercussions were significant as the following five years would be dedicated to the repair of Anglo-Muscovite relations. Clearly, gifts were integral to the mechanics of early modern diplomacy. This thesis explores an intriguing, but as yet scarcely studied, facet of diplomatic history: the operation of Muscovite diplomacy prior to the reign of Peter the Great. It focuses on Muscovy's long-term relations with England (Muscovy's first continual diplomatic relationship with a Western European power in the sixteenth century) and examines the exchange of sovereign gifts between the two royal courts. The principal novelty of this research lies in its departure from the anthropological definition of the gift as a 'material' object, instead it argues that non-tangible components, such as royal favours, were also 'gifts', provided they were given willingly, were reciprocated− if not necessarily symmetrically, and created emotional, political and social bonds between the participants. As an example of such intangible gift, this thesis uses the Muscovite zhalovannaia gramota (a charter of mercantile privileges). In this way, the research explores the full range and complexity of diplomatic gift-exchange between the two monarchies in a crucial period of dynastic change in both countries. Frequently, gift-giving is interpreted as either a means of intercultural communication par excellence or, in the case of a rejected gift, as evidence of an inevitable clash of cultures. This thesis, however, demonstrates that diplomatic gift-exchange was a multi-faceted process. Royal intentions were complex and, therefore, required different levels of engagement; their transmission was reliant upon intermediaries (ambassadors), and the reception of gifts was intrinsically linked to diplomatic aims. Secondly, in contrast to the widespread assumption that the diplomatic cultures of England and Muscovy were discordant, day-to-day diplomatic exchanges (including gift-giving) drew the Tsars into a shared ceremonial arena, where other rulers competed for the symbolic resources of sovereignty. The exchange of gifts between the two states facilitated the process of gradual integration of the apparently alien Muscovite Tsar into the English (and essentially European) standardised codes of diplomatic behaviour and ceremonial communication. It was not until the reign of Peter I, however, that the Tsars fully became prominent members of the European society of princes. Diplomatic practice was neither universal nor culturally specific; such assumptions are obstructive to a better understanding of the mechanics of cross-cultural interactions. Ultimately, diplomatic ceremony and gift-giving were driven by notions of sovereign honour and the symbolic language of the court society, and not by political, national or cultural incommensurability. Thus, the foundations of Muscovy's gradual integration into European codes of diplomatic behaviour can be traced to the reign of Ivan IV, and specifically, to the continuous Muscovite diplomatic relationship with the English Crown.

In 2004, Mozambique introduced a new competency-based curriculum framed around the principles of culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers need to strategically use local languages, traditions and culture to build on what children bring from home and share with their families to bridge the gap between schools and communities. This study is a qualitative ethnography of the teaching and learning process in one suburban primary school in Mozambique. The aims of the study were to explore teachers' ideas, values, and understanding about the teaching and learning process, and to reflect on how these views, which are manifested in their classroom practices, influenced the implementation of curriculum changes at the classroom level. The study conceptualised the new educational policy in Mozambique as a discourse that has introduced in the field of teachers' practices new pedagogic possibilities and frame of references. Informal conversations, interviews, and observations of lessons and school dynamics were the main methods used for the process of data collection. Teachers, students, parents and community members participated in the study. Ethnography as methodology offered the possibility to gain multi-layered insights into those contextual, social, and cultural realities around which teachers create meanings for their roles and actions, attribute significance to them, and build relations with students, parents, and community members. Understanding how these realities were represented and reproduced in teachers' discourse and practice was regarded as a precondition to interrogating teachers' interpretations of changes. The study combined a Bourdieusian sociological analysis of the teaching and learning process with a postcolonial critique. Whereas Bourdieu's tools of field, habitus and capital supported an understanding of the ‘whys' behind what is going on at classroom level and the cultural and ideological assumptions underpinning teachers' practices, a postcolonial critique exposed the rules of classification and exclusion underpinning the ‘hows' of teachers' pedagogies. The findings of the study showed that the pedagogic discourse of the new curriculum does not resonate with teachers' understanding of their roles, practices and professional identities. The conception of ‘schooling as an extractive process' and the construction of Portuguese as the most important symbolic cultural capital legitimised the process of alienation between schooling and home socialisation and sustained the power relations, determining the separation between inschool and out-of-school languages and knowledges. If, on the one side, teachers dismissed their responsibility to transform and integrate local knowledges into the official curriculum by constructing themselves as implementers of an educational policy that they did not fully grasp, then on the other side, in the process of making sense of the new curriculum, the socio-cultural values that teachers attached to it were challenging their field positions and maintenance. Teachers maintained their distinction through their ‘Portugueseness'. The ‘Portuguese-only discourse' was the most dominant ‘doxa', taken-forgranted by teachers in their practices, despite the fact that Portuguese as Language of Learning and Teaching was perceived as one of the main challenges for student learning. The implication of the study relates to the cultural micro-politics of teachers' identities. To attend to the introduction of curriculum changes as a technical matter fails to address the power-relations embedded in the teaching and learning process. The new pedagogic possibilities fostered by the curriculum are not succeeding. Without the re-narrativisation of how teachers think about them in order to build new field positions and meanings that resonate with changes, the reform seems unlikely to succeed.

This thesis explores depictions of established Russian-Siberian peasants, settlers from European Russia, non-agricultural workers, indigenous Buriats and Jews in Irkutsk province during the late imperial period. In particular, it focuses on characterisations of these groups that were created by the Irkutsk 'cultural class' (kul'turnogo klassa) in the late imperial period. The sources it uses are print media such as journals and newspapers produced in or associated with Irkutsk to create a 'microhistorical' study. It is structured around categories of analysis that were used at the time in scientific and literary treatments of lower class peoples, such as social mores, cultural activity, economic function, physiognomy and sexuality. It also studies how these images informed the development of a transformationist culture of government in rural, urban and colonial environments. Using theories of imperial networks and cultural projects borrowed from human and cultural geography and adapting them to an anthropocentric study of Russian colonialism, these debates are situated within the wider context of pan-European, inter-imperial frames of reference. The portrayals of population groups in both domestic and colonial settings that lay within these frameworks rested on common core signs and assumptions found across other pre-war European empires, which made both the frameworks and the images highly portable. This anthropocentric comparative is used to "bring the empire back in", both in recognising the imperial frames of reference within which its culture played out, and also as a means of furthering historiographical analyses that argue against Russian exceptionalism.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the social and psychological implications created by unstable placements and trauma experienced by former foster youth. The participants of the study were recruited from college campuses via Extended Opportunity Program and Services liaisons as well as the Guardian Scholar Program liaisons. The sample included individuals that identified as former foster youth and individuals that identified as never being in foster care. The findings indicated the social and psychological differences among former foster youth that resided in unstable living arrangements as compared to youth that were not in foster care.

Abstract not available

Univ., Diss.--Heidelberg, 2006. / Literaturverz. S. 135 - 160.

Denna undersökning syftade till att undersöka om Larson m.fl. (2012) teori om kantiga och runda former kan appliceras på silhuetter i ett ovanifrånperspektiv, samt om de kan förmedla hotande eller lättsammare intryck för betraktaren. Kan betraktaren uppfatta vilken roll karaktären är ämnad att inneha inom ett MOBA-spel och blir någon av rollerna lättare eller svårare att avläsa när dess geometri förändras? För att ge bakgrund till undersökningen går arbetet igenom tidigare arbeten och undersökningar inom geometriska former, silhuett, analys med ikonografi, strategispel och karaktärsdesign. Som artefakt till undersökningen skapades tre olika karaktärskoncept som behandlar klasserna Carry, Support och Tank. Varje koncept utvecklades till två olika versioner, ett koncept med runda former och ett med kantiga former, totalt 6 bilder. Karaktärerna tecknades i ett ovanifrånperspektiv vilket skulle simulera samma perspektiv som förekommer inom MOBA-spel. Undersökningen genomfördes genom två olika metoder. En kvantitativ metod med enkäter och en kvalitativ metod med intervjuer. Spelvana personer inom MOBA-spel fick besvara och delta i båda undersökningarna. Resultatet i arbetet visar att deltagarna kan se vilken karaktärsroll som koncepten föreställer och att geometriska former kan påverka hur karaktärers egenskaper tolkas, men att andra visuella attribut var viktigare för många deltagare. Resultatet visade också att karaktärsrollerna blir lättare eller svårare att avläsa när deras geometri förändras, men i de här exemplen ändå inte tillräckligt för att majoriteten skulle missförstå karaktärkoncepteten.

During the Second World War, with the failure of the German invasion of the Soviet Union to maintain its momentum, large areas of captured Russian territory remained under German Army jurisdiction for the entire duration of the conflict; rather than being turned over to National Socialist civilian administrators. Evidence drawn from the files of two of the military government rear areas (KorOcks) is used in order to consider the institutional response of the Army towards this unanticipated problem. Methodological approaches associated with 'history from below' are combined with orthodox 'history from above' in order to reassess the findings of secondary literature on the topic. Particular consideration is given to primary data which describes the war from the perspective of the German soldiers who conducted policy on the ground. Initially, the controversial historical debate which has developed as to the Wehrmacht's role in the occupied areas is discussed and set against the wider background of the place of the armed forces within the Third Reich. The character and organisation of military government in the Soviet Union is then described so as to indicate the complex and difficult conditions under which the German troops operated. Following on from this, a range of diverse issues are discussed, including economic policy, anti-partisan warfare, the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, army relations with the civilian population, Wehrmacht co-operation with the SS, criminal behaviour amongst the German soldiers, and troop morale and fighting power. A number of highly critical interpretations of Wehrmacht activities are thus re-evaluated; especially those which emphasise the extent to which members of the German armed forces were influenced primarily by ideological considerations. Overall, while full regard is given to the weight of evidence which seeks to demythologise 'apologist' arguments that deny the calculated involvement of the German Army in the racial war of annihilation conducted in the East, equal attention is drawn to the varied responses and conduct of the German troops directly involved in implementing such policies. Accordingly, due regard is also given to the importance of social, socio- psychological and institutional factors in influencing individual and group behaviour within the Third Reich.