This study aims to examine possible differences in the way male and female politicians answer questions in a news interview, with focus on hedging expressions, answer resistance strategies and negative mentions of other politicians and political parties.The study is based on analysis of 13 interviews with British politicians made for the BBC One programme The Andrew Marr show in 2013 and 2014. The data used for analysis is transcripts and recordings of the interviews, and the study uses conversation analytical tools to in detail examine the answers in relation to conversational phenomena and techniques.The results show several significant differences in the way men and women answer questions. Women use more hedging expressions, minimal response and overt resistance than men, whereas men covertly resist questions to a greater extent than women. Men also seem more likely to mention colleagues or other political parties in a negative manner in a way to pass blame. These results are discussed in relation to social structures in society as well as former studies on the matter.

The subject of this study is how pupils in math disabilities communicate and reason during calculations involving fractional numbers. The study comprises eight informants, two from eigth grade (a boy and a girl, 13 to 14 years old) and six from ninth grade (three girls and three boys, 14 to 15 years old) who all were considered to have math disabilities. They were all interviewed alone about their reasoning when solving ten tasks involving fractions to see what knowledge and misconceptions the pupils showed. The conclusion of the study is that the pupils posessed procedural abilities, but were weaker in their concepual abilities. Most pupils in the study were uncertain about the meaning of nominator and denominator. Several of the pupils preferred to think in percent rather than fractions but they had problems in converting from percent to fractions and vice versa.

Bakgrund: Antalet patienter som är i behov av palliativ vård ökar inom hemsjukvården. Existentiella behov utgör en stor del av den palliativa vården och behöver tillgodoses för att patienter ska kunna känna livskvalité vid livets slut. Sjuksköterskor har en viktig del i att stödja och bemöta patienter i deras existentiella frågor.Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva sjuksköterskors erfarenheter av att bemöta patienters existentiella frågor inom palliativ vård i hemsjukvården.Metod: I studien intervjuades sju sjuksköterskor. En kvalitativ innehållsanalys användes för att analysera datamaterialet.Resultat: Två kategorier framkom, dessa var: Tillgodose patientens rättigheter och Följsamt förhållningssätt gentemot patienten. Sjuksköterskor erfar att patienters existentiella frågor är en svår men betydelsefull del av vården i livets slut. Andra erfarenheter som sjuksköterskor har är att samtal bör prioriteras och att känna in patientens behov för att kunna bemöta patienters existentiella frågor.Konklusion: Denna studie har synliggjort att sjuksköterskor inte behöver vara rädda för att bemöta existentiella frågor. Ett gott samarbete med andra professioner kan gynna både patient och sjuksköterska. / Background: Patients in need of palliative care increases in home care. Existential needs are a major part of palliative care and need to be provided for the patients to feel quality of life at the end of life. Nurses have an important part in supporting and responding to patients in their existential questions.Aim: The purpose is to describe the nurses experience of responding to patients existential questions in palliative care in home care.Method: In this study a qualitative content analysis was used. Seven nurses were interviewed.Result: Two categories emerged, these were: Provide the patients rights and Adaptable attitude towards the patients. Nurses experience that patients existential questions are a difficult but a significant part of end of life care. Other experiences that nurses have is that conversations should be prioritized and to see the patients needs to respond to patients existential questions.Conclusion: This study has revealed that nurses do not need to be afraid of responding to existential questions. Collaboration with other professions can benefit both patients and nurses.

This research has investigated how environmental communication is reaching out in urban Kenya and what knowledge and attitude exists. Key aim was finding what perception stakeholders had on effective ways to communicate to reach goals of a sustainable development. Focus laid on solid and liquid waste, because of great improvements needed in infrastructure and behavior. In addition, comparison was made to current sustainability goals. Qualitative interviews with semi structured questions were conducted in Kitengela (Kajiado county) and Machakos Town (Machakos county), with six different target groups each and a total of 48 respondents. General knowledge of possibilities to reuse and recycle solid waste was quite high, but sewage is not very common to refer to as a resource. The sensitization today on the issues was mainly through schools and media. A perception was that people don’t care or know, but there are conversations about the menace of litter and sometimes dirty water. Nearly 75 % said service of clean water and environment would be worth almost any price. Many expressed frustrations on the lack of management and implications that follow when wanting to act well or create awareness, but no system to support a sustainable behavior. Suggestions of communicative methods had emphasis on reaching all age groups where people gather, like schools and churches/mosques. The approach should be positive with concrete feedback on profits of sustainable living, while presenting a vivid vision for everyone to work towards.

Research on military health indicates that some members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) experience challenges during their military-to-civilian (MTC) transition(s). This novel study explored the Canadian public’s perceptions of the issues facing CAF members during their transition back into civilian society. Its significance is in its unique results and contribution to a previously unexplored topic within research on MTC transitions. A cross-sectional survey was administered via structured in-person interviews with 100 Canadian civilians not affiliated with the military. Results included civilian participants’ accurate as well as inaccurate perceptions about MTC transition issues compared to existing literature on veterans’ transition experiences. Participants underestimated issues regarding transitioning CAF members’ social networks and overestimated PTSD as the biggest struggle facing CAF members during their MTC transitions. Though participants accurately perceived that CAF members experience struggles during their transition, they overestimated the level of transition difficulty as reported by CAF members (Black & Papile, 2010; Life After Service Survey, 2014). Further research is recommended to examine the public’s perceptions of MTC transition issues and to better understand the potential implications of civilians’ perceptions on transitioning CAF members. / Graduate

The Business English (BE) degree in China was established as an independent dis-cipline in 2007. Business English used to be taught as a component of English lan-guage and literature degrees. There are now about 50 universities in China offer-ing BE degrees, but the change in the status of Business English has not been with-out attendant problems. Most Chinese universities offering degrees in BE have failed to combine the teaching of English language and literature and the teaching of business in very meaningful ways, and have given English language learning a much larger share of the curriculum. Business English is taught in university Eng-lish departments rather than in Business Schools, and most BE teachers only have a background in English language and literature, with no practical work experience in the area of international business. These teachers have little knowledge of how English is used in the workplace, and might have difficulty contextualizing BE teaching in real business situations where English is used as a lingua franca (BELF). The fact that non-native speakers’ communications predominate in the BELF environment calls into question the emphasis on native-like correctness in university BE teaching. Language needs analysis (LNA) was conducted in order to discover the English language needs of BE graduates starting work in Chinese companies with an inter-national clientele. Data from questionnaires, interviews and business emails sent to and from recent graduates were analysed. The findings from questionnaires and interviews indicate that emailing is the most frequent mode of communication in English in the Chinese companies that employ BE graduates, although speaking skills are also highly prized. All groups of re-spondents (BE teachers, company employers and RGs) thought standardized na-tional English tests (e.g. TEM4, TEM8) were important for securing a job. It was found that most of the company employers and recent graduates believed that ad-hering to native-like norms was not important in a BELF environment where most of their clients were non-native English speakers who did not have a very high lev-el of English. The findings from analysis of my corpus of 86 business English email chains (307 messages, 34,837 words) suggest that MEMC graduates are communicatively adept at business email communication and can establish rapport with their cli-ents and mitigate potential face-threats, despite the fact that their English is some-times non-standard. Current teaching materials, methods and practices in BE teaching in China still place greatest emphaisis on conformity to a set of native-like norms, however, rather than pragmatic competence. These findings have interesting implications for ESP course content and the teach-ing of Business English as a lingua franca (BELF). BE lecturers might be unwilling to use authentic BELF emails as models in the classroom, because the writers have a restricted command of English. There were no signs of any miscommunication in the email exchanges, however, and specifically BELF usage may well have had a disarming effect on clients, helping to achieve the writers’ purposes more effec-tively than textbook English would have done.

Cities and villages are built by and for its inhabitants, and are designed to support different kind of lifestyles, needs and habits. In turn, urban and village planning and consequently its structures greatly influence the daily lives of the inhabitants of said structures. The relation between gender roles (and subsequent gender inequality), and planning processes is relevant, because the distribution of power affects the planning of communities and the resulting development. This is not limited to cities, but all planned settlements – rural as well as urban. The local instrument for rural development in India is the gram panchayat, a local council where inhabitants can propose developments for their village, if voted through, where these projects are organized and implemented. In India, women and men are not able to lead equal lives. When a society is unequal, inequality can manifest itself throughout structures in society – physical as well as nonphysical. Since culture is a set of rules for how to live in a society, treating men and women differently has to be a part of these rules (or at least not contested) for an unequal society to remain the same. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the present gender roles in the Indian culture affect the participation of women in the gram panchayat, and how this affects the development of rural villages. In order to investigate this issue, a literature study was conducted to understand India as a country, its culture and gram panchayat system, and knowledge of gender roles present in the Indian society. Interviews were held with representatives from governmental and non-governmental organizations in order to gain additional information about the Indian culture, gender roles and living circumstances in the rural parts of Uttarakhand. The case study consists of field studies in rural villages in the Uttarkashi district, where women were interviewed regarding their participation in the gram panchayats i.e. the local planning process. The results of the study show that there are gender roles present in the Indian culture which are mostly shown through a clear division in responsibilities between women and men in India. Results from the literature study and the interviews indicate that these gender roles have their roots in religion, mainly Hinduism since it is the dominant religion in India. In the rural villages in the case study, this division in responsibilities mean that some women are not participating in the planning process because they do not have the time, and sometimes they are not called to the gram panchayat meetings at all. There were however women in both villages from the field studies who participated. The results are inconclusive regarding whether the participation of women in the planning process affects the resulting development in the villages. However, some researchers argue that equality between the genders contributes positively to overall development.

This research was conducted with the goal of exploring the existing perceptions of black parents regarding play therapy. The researcher was motivated by the tendency of black parents not to bring their children for play therapy even though they had been referred. A theoretical framework was obtained by doing a literature study on perceptions, play and the role of play in development. A theoretical base for play therapy was also provided. An empirical study was conducted on a sample of seven black parents who were selected by means of purposive sampling. The sample was selected from a population of parents who had brought children for play therapy to Child Abuse Treatment and Training Services and to the Trauma Clinic of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg. A qualitative approach was utilized whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted and recorded on an audiotape. Interviews were later transcribed for analysis and interpretation. The researcher used Tesch’s approach to analyse the data. The findings of the study indicated that black parents who brought their children for play therapy were aware of the value of play in the development of children. The study also brought more questions to the researcher’s mind, such as “How do those parents who were non-compliant perceive play therapy?” “Why are parents not bringing their children for play therapy after being referred?” Future research could be conducted to answer these questions. The researcher’s conclusion is that black parents who brought their children for play therapy did not understand what play therapy is, however they all understood the value of play in child development. Parents perceived play therapy as a helpful intervention method for counseling children as a result of positive feedback from relatives and suggestions by referring professionals. There is a need for awareness campaigns and through these awareness campaigns black parents will be made aware of the value of play and play therapy for children. As a result more black parents might bring their children for play therapy and more troubled children might be provided with the opportunity to express their feelings through play. / Dissertation (MA (MW) (Play Therapy))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Construction literature forwards innovation as a desirable objective for firms. Innovation is argued to; improve the firm s performance, increase market share, establish a competitive advantage, and ultimately ensure firm survival. Literature has overlooked the role of organisational slack within construction firms as a determinant of innovation despite the concept being well developed within the general management literature. This research uncovers and examines the impact of organisational slack on firm-level innovation as a determinant of innovation within the construction sector. This work forwards organisational slack as an unexplored firm level determinant of innovation within the construction context. Using the resource-based view of the firm, as a framework for firms, the thesis develops links between previously established firm level determinates of innovation to and slack to support its proposal as a determinant of innovation. Following this traditional measures of innovation argued fail to accurately capture innovation in the construction context, with patents represent inventions, while R&D expenditure is not applicable within the construction. Due to these failures of traditional approaches to measuring innovation, firm level performance is forwarded as a proxy measure for innovation outcomes. Developing existing slack literature, this thesis develops hypotheses proposing inverse U-shaped (n) and U-shaped (u) relationships between the level of slack and innovation outcomes. The thesis presents mixed method research. Study 1 adopts a deductive research strategy, incorporating statistical analysis to test the hypothesised relationships. The Research Design develops and Archival analysis research method; mirroring the approaches of econometric research found in slack literature. The data analysis explores two contexts: construction and manufacturing, allowing a comparative baseline to be established. The analysis of data from this study reveals that discrepancies in the R2 between the contexts is largely the result of the inability of control variables (Age, Size and Number of employees), to explain variation in firm performance (as a proxy for innovation outcomes) in a construction context, rather than the unsuitability of slack in the construction context. In construction firms, Unabsorbed Slack and Financial Slack demonstrated statistically significant results supporting an inverse U-shaped relationship with firm performance (n) supporting Hypothesis 1a and 1b. Contrary to this Absorbed Slack and Human Resource Slack demonstrated statistically significant results demonstrating a U-relationship (u) between slack and performance supporting hypothesis 2b (H2b). Study 2 adopts a deductive research strategy, incorporating semi-structured interviews as a source of primary data in order to explore the slack-innovation relationship in greater depth. Primarily, this study provided evidence to suggest that construction firms do not directly measure innovation. Instead, firms choose to measure outcomes of changes within the firm, typically in terms of measure relating to firm financial performance. Evidence from this study supports the proposal of firm financial performance as a viable proxy for innovation outcomes in Study 1. In addition to this when faced with changes to their environment, participants responses typically supported a positive linear relationship between the level of organisational slack and the firm. This research is the first to examine the impact of organisational slack on construction firm financial performance (as a proxy for innovation). This relationship is curvilinear in nature, however, the results are inconclusive if it is inverse U shaped (n) or U shaped (u) based upon conflicting evidence from different slack variables. What can be ascertained however, is that the level of slack impacts firm level performance and theoretically impacts firm level innovation.

This thesis presents four distinct studies of psychological and social integration of homeless and vulnerably housed individuals. The first study presents a predictive model of psychological integration, defined as a sense of belonging and membership to one’s community. The second study presents a predictive model of social integration, defined as how an individual engages with others in the community. The third study presents a mixed methods comparative analysis of homeless and vulnerably housed individuals with “high” and “low” levels of psychological and social integration. The fourth study presents a reflexive analysis of conducting interviews with homeless and vulnerably housed individuals. Data for this research comes from a two-year longitudinal study conducted in Ottawa, Ontario. Participants were men and women, over the age of 18 (Baseline: N = 397; Follow-up 1: N = 341; Follow-up 2: N = 320) who were either homeless or vulnerably housed at the study’s outset. Quantitative data analyses occurred at Follow-up 1 and 2 and utilized hierarchical multiple regression. Qualitative data analyses used a general inductive approach utilizing a First Cycle and Second Cycle coding method (Saldana, 2009). Social support was a significant predictor of both psychological integration and social integration. Individuals with high levels of social support had high levels of psychological and social integration. Social support proved to be the only predictor to be significantly associated with social integration at both Follow-up 1 and 2. Psychological integration was positively associated with several variables at Follow-up 1 and 2: increased age, living in high quality housing, and residing in a neighbourhood that is perceived as having a positive impact. The mixed methods analysis uncovered several salient themes that affected psychological and social integration, including substance use in one’s housing and neighbourhood, neighbourhood safety and location, and housing quality. The reflexive component of the thesis highlighted the importance of location when conducting interviews and the power dynamics of the interview process. The results are discussed in terms of implications for service delivery and policy.