In South Africa faith plays an important role in community-based volunteering related to HIV and AIDS work. Many community-based volunteers make use of their faith to provide healthcare and social services related to HIV and AIDS. This research examines this faith or religious vibrancy and critic two things: (1) to what extent such volunteers can be understood as a Religious Health Asset, and (2) what criteria can be used to consider community-based volunteers as a new form of the church emerging in a time of HIV and AIDS. The research first examines the concept of voluntary work in South Africa, particularly in times of HIV and AIDS. Field research relies on community based volunteers linked to Sinomlando, a research centre at the University of KwaZulu- Natal through participant observation and open ended interview method. I examine faith or religious aspects in volunteers serving the communities. The research notes that in community-based volunteering, the use of prayers, religious choruses and/or quoting of the Bible is a visible faith practice. I learnt that prayers and choruses are spontaneous, and they are volunteers’ expression and release of emotions caused by socio-economic stressors. The use of the Bible is not a common practice among groups of volunteers as it is with praying and singing. Given this, the thesis argues that faith practices in community-based volunteering can be understood as a religious health asset. Using the ecclesiogenesis theory of Leonardo Boff, the thesis then analyses whether these groups signify a new form of the church is emerging. However, the finding is that they do not constitute a new form of the church, but rather a new form of missionary spirituality as the laity is taking on the responsibility of living out their faith in a new context and in the face of new challenges. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

The present study investigated the construct of characterising societies as being either individualistic or collectivist as topics of research in the field of cross cultural tolerance. Using scenarios to describe behaviours typically encountered in New Zealand society, participants from individualist and collectivist cultures were asked to rate behaviours as to how much they understood and accepted the actions described. The participants’ responses were also analysed using attitude measures to seek if similarity in attitudes was a more informative approach to determine why one individual does or does not accept certain behaviours. The study found that although there were general cultural differences between the two groups, individual attitudes went further in explaining possible reasons why acceptance and tolerance of other's behaviours may occur. The findings were then discussed in terms of how they were relevant to both biculturalism and multiculturalism in New Zealand.

La tesi si compone di sei capitoli, articolati in due parti fondamentali allo scopo di esaminare il tema dell’intervento educativo in particolari condizioni di disabilità, esplorando il campo ancora poco indagato delle sindromi e malattie rare. La prima parte affronta il problema della cura e del prendersi cura, nel loro stretto legame con la scienza pedagogica: muovendo da alcune riflessioni di carattere filosofico, si giunge a delineare il ruolo, il significato e i contesti in cui è possibile identificare possibili percorsi di care educativo. La seconda parte dell’elaborato sarà interamente focalizzata sullo studio delle problematiche educative connesse ad alcune condizioni genetiche rare. Dopo una disamina di carattere generale, vengono affrontate nel dettaglio quattro sindromi specifiche: la sindrome di Prader-Willi, di Angelman, di Rett e di Kabuki. Per ognuna di esse, vengono presentate le più recenti acquisizioni nel campo del funzionamento cognitivo, dello sviluppo della personalità e delle possibili strategie di intervento educativo, riabilitativo e di inserimento sociale. / The thesis is composed by two parts, with the purpose of examining the theme of educational intervention with children affected by rare genetic syndromes. The first part deals the problem of the terms “cure” and “care” , in their relationship with educational sciences: from philosophical reflections to the role, the meaning and the fields in which it is possible to identify trackways of care. The second part of this work is focused on the study of educational problems about four rare genetic syndromes: Prader-Willi syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, Rett Syndrome and Kabuki Syndrome. For each one of these syndromes, we presented new acquirements about cognitive functions, personality development and strategies of educational, rehabilitative intervention and social integration.

過去研究發現助人行為是促進自己與他人建立友好關係，使得雙方產生對彼此有歸屬感的一種策略。然而，對於嬰兒而言，由於其助人行為能力正在發展，我們很難於自然情境中得知他們是否會為尋求此歸屬感，而促發其助人行為。因此，本研究之目的為探討嬰兒的助人行為是否會受到與他人建立友好關係的歸屬感而影響。本研究藉由兩個實驗來探討。實驗一藉由觀察60位18個月大嬰兒在接受不同認知意涵的內隱圖片促發其歸屬感後，進入助人任務的助人行為表現。實驗結果發現接受在一起性質圖片的18個月大嬰兒，並未因圖片促發其助人行為來維繫其歸屬感。為排除助人任務性質可能造成的干擾因素，實驗二調整了實驗一的助人任務後，在相同條件下進行觀察嬰兒的助人行為表現。結果發現雖然在一起性質的內隱圖片仍未促發其歸屬感而引發助人行為，但若將圖片分類方式改為知覺層級，將具有成對性質的內隱圖片（在一起、背對背與基準）與接受單獨性質圖片比較後卻發現，18個月大的嬰兒在特定時間區段（0至20秒、0至30秒）中有顯著較多的助人行為。此結果說明知覺層級上的刺激能夠穩定的促發18個月大嬰兒的歸屬感，進而引發其助人行為。 / Previous studies propose that helping behaviors can be an effective strategy for establishing friendly relationship and affiliation with others. However, for eighteen-month-old infants, the ability of helping is under development. Hence, it is difficult to evaluate whether they pursuit affiliation by helping others, especially in natural conditions. In this thesis, two controlled experiments were conducted to understand whether the helping behaviors can be evoked by priming. In the first experiment, sixty eighteen-month-old infants were recruited and primed by several implicit photos to evoke their tendency of affiliation and to measure the influence of the primes. Results show that the primes do not significantly evoke the subjects to perform more helping behaviors in both conditions: primed by the photos imply together and primed by other photos (back-to-back, baseline, and alone). To exclude the possible interferences of the previous helping tasks, the second experiment undertook the same procedures and settings with the first experiment, but modified the task to clarify the needs of helping. Results reveal that the difference of priming effect is still insignificant between together and others. However, if the photos are grouped by the easier-perceivable meaning: representing photos having two objects as together, and representing photos having only one object as individuality, the significance of priming can be observed. Subjects primed by together photos performed significantly more helping than those primed with individuality photos in specific periods (0-20s and 0-30s). Based on these findings, this study suggests that the perceptual stimulus can stably evoke affiliation of eighteen-month-old infants, and influence the tendency of helping others.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore and identify the meaning and importance of service for health professionals. Those who participated in this study are all registered nurses who each have between 10 and 40 years of clinical nursing and nurse lecturing experience. The participants each wrote two stories, one about the meaning of service and the other about the importance of service. Definitions of service generally suggest organised labour involving an act of help or assistance. Our intent was to understand what constituted service for each of us in the healthcare - and specifically the nursing practice/education - context.A secondary purpose of this qualitative research was guided by participatory and critical theory paradigms. Seven participants and I (as the initiating researcher) formed a co-operative inquiry group to undertake the research using a collaborative process. Within this method the leader and the group became co-participants and co-researchers. Nurses and women are identified as marginalised people and by honouring the principles of co-operative inquiry we were empowered through this process. While the initial data was analysed thematically by the lead researcher, the original 19 sub-themes were refined by participants into five themes.The findings of the participants are consistent with overseas studies on emotional labour and sentimental work. The five themes that emerged as the meaning of service are helping, giving, elements of service, acts of doing, and pride in work. Helping was defined as an attitude and an action, which often results in a spiritual connection. Giving involves stretching yourself, and altruistic behaviour that also incorporated a spiritual component. Five sub-themes merged to form the third theme elements of service; working with people, being a public servant, being a servant, need and duty. The complexity and hidden aspect of service work was expressed in acts of doing where being professional was paramount. The final theme, pride in work, acknowledged childhood conditioning and a sense of contributing to the greater good through our unique work as nurses. This study affirmed that service has much importance to those involved and deepened our understanding of the blend of meanings service expresses.

This dissertation is based on a theoretical and empirical synthesis. It offers a theoretical discussion of the burnout syndrome and its influences on surroundings, while the empirical part is performed through questionnaire research, where 69 respondents took part mainly from the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. The primary aim of this investigation is to illuminate attitudes of students regarding their readiness to face the burnout syndrome in school conditions and to collect information in regards to their reaction to this situation. The evaluated data, gained through the use of open questions, is represented in the charts. It investigates the advantages and disadvantages that the students feel before the start of their career and which can affect their career growth; or their way to failure. It is apparent from the results that the theoretical knowledge of the problematic issues are on a very good level. Most students believe, that they are well aware of what the burnout syndrome is about and that in case of it happening, they would know how to deal with it and where to look for help.

The thesis aims to identify the most important ethical principles that should be part of the professional approach of helping professionals towards disabled people in wheelchairs, however, their application involves members of the majority society, too. The thesis then refers to the conditions that support application of these principles in helping professionals and the historical development of the care of disabled people in wheelchairs. The thesis includes an important part that presents a conducted research dealing with these principles from the view of disabled people in wheelchairs and helping professionals themselves. Thus the main aim of the research is to compare the two perspectives.

Diploma thesis deals with altruistic behaviour of the professionals, such as teachers, nurses and doctors, who provide helping service. The work focuses not only on the professional part of the care but also on human care and feeling towards patients. Two proposed hypothesis were tested. The hypothesis H1: strictly brought up people working in the helping profession lead their patients to the passive dependency. The hypothesis H2: religiously brought up people working in the helping profession feel to be blame more often than the other people. A special questionnaire, containing 25 questions, was designed. Each of the questions offered various variants of answers which had to be mutually inconsistent. The questions can be divided into groups: one of them characterized the composition of the respondents, four served for the hypothesis testing and the rest of the questions enabled to fine distinguish various characteristics of the respondents and to mask the purpose of the questions. In the group of 97 respondents prevailed women in the age below 45 years of the nursery profession who practiced 1 to 20 years. Most of them were atheists. In the group of religious people prevailed the Catholics. The professional software EXCEL 3 was used to test both hypothesis and the special logic calculus was developed to make the answer evaluation easier. The output/input controls of the entering data were also used to find the occasional mistakes. The hypothesis was proved if more then 70 percent of the premises responded to the presumptive implications. Based on this criterion the hypothesis H1 was proved while the hypothesis was not approved.

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The Diploma thesis is focused on attitudes of helping profession to epilepsy. The aim of theoretical part is to introduce life with epilepsy and to increase public awareness of the illness. As a part of the thesis there is refuting myths and prejudices that are often cause of negative attitudes. Helping professions are a main part of life both of epileptics and their families as well their surroundings and their attitudes affect most of it so it is main sample of the research. Theoretical part is divided into few chapters. In the initial chapter there are defined basic concepts important for good orientation in the topic - stereotypes, prejudices and attitudes. Its theories, functions and changes are further described more in detail. Next chapters describe epilepsy from medical and social aspects such as Etiology of epilepsy, epileptic seizures classification, its diagnostics and treatment are mentioned there. First aid during epileptic seizures and role of social workers are not missing. Further diploma thesis covers problematics such as social stigmatization and myths connected with epilepsy. From wider perspective impact of epilepsy on social and personal life is revealed to readers. Research part of the diploma thesis was created by quantitative method using questionnaire survey. The aim of...