Finnish teachers continue to receive significant attention among educators, educational leaders, and policy makers in the United States and around the globe. In addition, teacher collaboration continues to receive support as a meaningful part of teacher work and practice. Teacher collaboration is frequently described in various ways within different contexts. This study aims to: (a) better understand the nature of Finnish teacher collaboration by examining three teacher collaboration behaviors (sharing information and knowledge, planning, and problem-solving); (b) explore the extent to which Finnish teacher collaboration is formal (or school-required) collaboration and informal (or voluntary) collaboration; and (c) investigate the extent to which Finnish teachers attribute teacher learning to teacher collaboration. Using both qualitative and social network methods, the sample included 19 teachers from two comprehensive Finnish schools (1st–9th grades) who completed an online survey of professional network and open-ended questions. Analyses highlights the following: (a) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school engage in the three teacher collaboration behaviors (sharing information and knowledge, planning, and problem-solving); (b) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school value and collaborate in both formal and informal network structures; and (c) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school attribute a degree of teacher learning, in terms of teacher improvement, to teacher collaboration.

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The purpose of my thesis is to demonstrate the economic development of China and Latin America. My reason for choosing these two regions for my study is because they are both Third World Nations. My intention on writing this thesis is to prove that culture and the informal business networks of China are the major forces of what is driving the Chinese economy ahead of Latin America. I will explain how the definition of culture ties in with the economic society of both regions. In writing about culture, I will attempt to explain if there really is a difference between trust in each society. To better interpret this thesis, I came up with several variables of economy that will help explain each region's development. These variables are federal direct investment (FDI), labor, and funding of businesses in each region. In my study, I present the different approaches that are taken by each region to attract FDI. In addition, I will explain how and if informal networking is beneficial to the work force and the funding of businesses in each region. The majority of my research for this thesis consisted on reviewing past articles of scholarly journals. From these journals I drew conclusions of my own and compared them to other scholars' work. I also analyzed such websites like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and various others to be able to come up with my own findings necessary to complete my thesis. To anticipate the conclusion, this thesis notes how important it is for each region to find its own unique way to attract FDI and how culture can impact the development of an economy. In my thesis, I am including the importance of trust in the society and the significance of the informal business networks on the Chinese economy.

Los Angeles stands as the largest city in the United States without comprehensive street vending regulation. Over the span of ten years, between 1984 and 1994, street vendor activists challenged Los Angeles to regulate street vending through the work of the Street Vendors Association. Within the same ten years, the city hosted the Olympics; the city introduced broken windows policing; immigration from the global south increased; and, a riot broke out. This thesis explores how Los Angeles’ ambition as a “city of the future” and its Mexican “past” impacted the politics of street vending during this span of time.

The goal of this study was to understand how a secondary principal uses a distributed perspective of leadership to support informal teacher leaders (ITLs) to improve classroom technology integration. Using a phenomenological lens, I employed a multi-site case study to inform the research goals. A conceptual framework based on Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory and Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice theory was used to guide the study’s methods and data collection. Data were collected in three phases. At each site, the first phase consisted of a digital survey with only closed-ended questions that was administered to all classroom teachers. The survey was analyzed using social network analysis to identify the ITLs at each school. During the second phase, individual interviews with the ITLs and the principal as well as a follow-up focus group interview with ITLs at each school were conducted. During the final phase of data collection, I observed the ITLs at work to understand how they embodied informal teacher leadership. Analyses of diverse data revealed how a principal influences the nature of informal teacher leadership in a school. Findings revealed that principals establish cultural expectations using teacher voice in leadership decisions, modeling the effective use of education technology, providing in-school and out-of-school leadership opportunities for ITLs, and establishing expectations for all teachers to assume roles of instructional leadership. It was clear in this study that although principals are not directly connected to the informal leading and learning network that occurs in a school, they indirectly influence the informal network by establishing school-wide cultural expectations for informal teacher leadership and by personally interacting with the ITLs.

In 2013, the Dominican state ruled to uphold a 2010 constitutional amendment that stripped thousands of Dominicans of Haitian origin of their citizenship and forced them to leave the country during summer 2015. About 2,200 of these people became displaced in Anse-à-Pitres, where most took up residence in temporary camps. I use the term forced migrants or displaced persons interchangeably to refer to these people. Many endure challenges in meeting their daily survival needs in Haiti, a country with extreme poverty, considerable political instability, and still in the process of rebuilding itself from the devastating earthquake of 2010. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic field- work in Anse-à-Pitres, I examine how these displaced people, in the face of statelessness and amid their precarious social and economic conditions, create survival strategies by drawing upon everyday labor mobility and informal economic activities within and across their communities. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the involvement of these displaced people in community life through socio-economic practices attests to a sense of belonging and produces a form of substantive citizenship in their absence of legal citizenship. This kind of substantive citizenship is also shaped by the ability of the displaced people to re-define life goals, participate in local meetings with the local state and organizations on the ground, and challenge systems of power that seek to impose their choices upon them. In this dissertation, I argue against construing the displaced people as hopeless by focusing on the forms of power and agency that they exercise in and over their lives, which make them agents of their self-development.

Informal learning experiences have become increasingly effective in enhancing self-efficacy and interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).This study investigated the impact of access to informal STEM learning experiences on student self-efficacy and interest in STEM before and after participating in the 2018 See Blue See STEM Summer Experience. Pre-survey results indicated that middle school students who had previous access to informal STEM learning experiences are 3.21 times as likely to demonstrate high self-efficacy in STEM as those who had no previous access. After engaging in the 2018 summer experience, post-survey results showed a statistically significant increase in student self-efficacy in STEM and indicated that students who had previous access to informal STEM learning experiences are 4.13 times as likely to manifest interest in STEM as those who had no previous access. These results suggest that increasing exposure to informal STEM learning experiences enhances both self-efficacy and interest in STEM.

Since the 1993 inception of the mentoring program in the U.S. Navy, little evidence has been collected on its effectiveness, primarily because of difficulties with instrumentation and conceptualization in conducting such assessments. The purpose of this correlational study was to identify external factors affecting military protégés' satisfaction with their mentoring experience. The conceptual framework of this study was based on Kram's mentor model theory, which includes career and psychosocial support functions. A 5-item Likert survey instrument was designed to measure the dependent variables of satisfaction with career mentoring and satisfaction with personal mentoring against 10 independent variables: dyad compatibility, mentor training, dyad geography, mentoring functions, mentor/protégé gender, challenging job assignments, protégé visibility, mentor leadership, time management, and protégé career expectations. The survey was completed by a total of 538 participants, selected among the service personnel of 17 U.S. Navy aviation squadrons in the enlisted ranks of E1 through E6. Ten simple linear regressions were performed with a level of significance of .001. All 10 independent variables were significantly related to satisfaction with both career and personal mentoring. The study results suggested, however, that career mentoring was favored to a greater extent than was personal mentoring by protégés, with the effect sizes ranging from 5% to 48% for career mentoring and from 3% to 22% for personal mentoring. Furthermore, Kram's theory was a useful lens to evaluate mentoring in this population. The implications for positive social change include informing program administrators in the U.S. Navy of the benefits to their units to evaluate and improve the design and the implementation of career and personal mentoring.

Social security is one of the key pillars of socioeconomic development in developing countries. Despite being an internationally recognized basic right and a key pillar of socioeconomic development, it does not protect the majority of the global workforce. Over 90% of workers in developing countries do not have social security coverage, the greatest percentage belonging to informal sector. In Rwanda, the national government has stepped up efforts to extend coverage to the wider population, but informal sector workers have not joined the existing pension scheme in significant numbers, and the reasons for which are unclear. Guided by Maloney's theory of voluntarism; the purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the factors affecting the level of workers' participation in informal sector in pension scheme in Rwanda. This study was designed to provide new insights into the current social security situation of informal sector workers in Rwanda and to contribute to the knowledge base on social security and the informal sector. The research questions focused on awareness, income levels, and other factors that can address the social security needs of informal sector workers. Data were collected from 22 active workers from informal sector and 5 officials from ministries and agencies who were well-versed with social security issues. Data were analyzed via Moustakas's steps of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative narration, and synthesis of texture and structure. The results revealed that low incomes, lack of awareness, poor benefit design, distrust of public schemes, and frustrating laws and procedures were hindering the increased public pension coverage of informal sector workers in Rwanda. These findings will help Rwandan policy makers to promote positive social change by informing policies that enhance social protection of workers in informal sector.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2010 / Living in informal settlements is associated, theoretically, with the exposure and vulnerability to Brown Environmental Problems. Literature further stresses the association of informal settlements and poor living conditions by demonstrating that the establishment of informal settlements around the cities is intricately associated with poor living conditions that enforce circumstances of perpetual risk and high levels of vulnerability to Brown Environmental Problems. Overcrowding, poor service provision and heavy reliance on dirty fuels characterizes informal settlements and therefore link these settlements and environmental risks and hazards. The link between informal settlements and environmental risks and hazards is in return making people who live in these settlements vulnerable to, among other things, the Brown Environmental Problems, such as indoor pollution, dirty water, poor sanitation and poor waste management. It therefore became increasingly necessary to investigate the vulnerability to Brown Environmental Problems associated within these settlements. The investigation was done in Seshego, Zone 6, mostly known as Shushumela (Rainbow-Park). The study adopted a combination of the qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative approach was used to describe the characteristics of the informal settlement, the types and origins of the Brown Environmental Problems, the living conditions within the settlement, and to detail the individual accounts of the informal settlements population’s opinions and experiences on their vulnerability. Additionally, quantitative approach was used to measure the demographic profile of the households within the settlements, to determine the population density in the settlements, the frequency of the households’ exposure to a variety of Brown Environmental Problems and the amount of time of exposure to dirty fuels, dirty water, and poor sanitation. The prevalence rate of the different types of the Brown Environmental Problems was also quantitatively constructed. The study compiled its conceptual framework by digesting and synthesising contributions from the system of ideas that involves the general assumption about the relationship between informal settlements living conditions and vulnerability of the populations therein to Brown Environmental Problems. Zone 6 is an informal settlement in Seshego, this settlement is also known as Rainbow Park-Shushumela. Like other informal settlements, Shushumela comprises of people who need a place to stay but unable to find one due to various reasons one of them being affordability issue. Shushumela informal settlement does not have basic services. Its residents stay in shacks and use their own ways to survive the situation of living without electricity, adequate sanitation and waste removal services. The residents are exposed to various Brown Environmental Problems such as indoor air pollution due the use of paraffin wood and coal, waterborne diseases and sanitation-borne diseases due to the limited access of water and use of pit latrines. The residents’ overall living conditions expose them to Brown Environmental Problems.