<p>This thesis is the result of an ethnographic study of the multilingual literacy practices of a group of families in their particular spaces within the urban context of the community of Manenberg, with the specific view of investigating the links between spatial and urban capital and the literacy practices to be encountered amongst these families. The following questions form the core of the study: 1. What are the parental ethnotheories about literacy and schooling? 2. Are there family literacy practices that may enhance preschool children&rsquo / s ability to make meaning within the school system? The results of the thesis show a range of beliefs resulting in parents adopting a range of strategies in terms of&nbsp / language choice and literacy socialisation of their children. The thesis also shows that the vast majority of parents view acquisition of English as important, that there is a definite concern about access to libraries and about safe places for children to engage in extramural activity. Parental ethnotheories have a direct bearing on how the preschool child is oriented towards literacy. This includes implications for what languages the preschool child is exposed to, what medium of instruction parents prefer for their children (which is often not the language of highest competence of the child), whether or not various supposedly accessible resources for the promotion of children&rsquo / s literacy are tapped into, and whether or not parents become actively involved in the literacy acquisition of their children. However, these findings need to be seen in the larger context of the research participants&rsquo / perceptions and discourses about space, multilingualism, and literacy. Some unexpected findings are shown as a result of listening to people&rsquo / s voices on the ground. The&nbsp / respondents&rsquo / ethnotheories of multilingualism, space, and literacy produce narratives of local patriotism, pride in Cape Afrikaans, and of emplacement rather than displacement.&nbsp / Urban planning structures, whether envisaged under apartheid or by successive regimes in the post apartheid era, are shown to have become less rigid, fluid, and porous. The&nbsp / local moral economy works to legitimise poverty, so that living in a shack is not stigmatised, and gang members are seen to be full members of the local community, ignoring&nbsp / normative structures that would treat such agents in a punitive manner beyond the borders of Manenberg. Residents, though mostly impoverished and lacking in high levels of&nbsp / education, are shown to remain marginalised through a lack of material resources, with many in need of a strategic orientation to resources, including those which would enable&nbsp / them to orient their children to literacy in such a way as to enable them to make a successful transition to the school system.</p>

In this thesis I provide an overview of Nietzsche's ethics with an emphasis on showing how his naturalistic approach to ethics leads him to advance an egoistic moral code. I argue that this, though radical in the light of conventional morality, is not irrational, unprincipled, or proscriptive of other-regarding moral considerations. On the contrary, it demands the highest degree of foresight and integrity. While Nietzsche's writings are meant for a select group of people, namely "higher men," whose flourishing may be undercut by their unwitting acceptance of a self-destructive morality. I explain that Nietzsche places the highest degree of value on the life of these individuals, the development of their character, and their flourishing. Further, I explain that Nietzsche extols as a great virtue "bestowing" or "gift-giving," and that he takes generosity to be more frequently practiced under an ethics of egoism.

Herbert Morris argues in his influential retributivist paper, "Persons and Punishment," that criminals deserve punishment because their actions represent an unfair distribution of benefits and burdens in society. The proper distribution of benefits and burdens is important, in part, to restore law abiding citizens’ confidence that others will follow the law. In this paper I show that Morris's argument for why criminals deserve punishment morally requires us to set up an institution of rehabilitation in addition to the institution of punishment. Such an institution is morally required because neither pure punishment systems nor punishment systems that incorporate quasi-rehabilitative aspects have ever worked to uphold the necessary confidence that Morris tells us law abiding citizens must have in order to protect the social order. Moreover, we cannot abandon Morris's appeal to the duty to maintain social order without also abandoning a plausibly Morrisian framework.

This thesis addresses two interpretative questions concerning the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first is to ascertain the primary objection that Nietzsche has to a morality that he describes as decadent. The conclusion reached is that Nietzsche’s objection to decadent morality is based on the harm it does to a class of “higher” individuals who have valuable work to perform in achieving a desirable future for humanity. The second question is to determine the manner in which Nietzsche’s own values are to be understood based on the skepticism he expresses concerning the objectivity of value. The conclusion reached is that Nietzsche’s values are objects of the same analysis he applies to human values generally. The values Nietzsche endorses, including the valuing of “higher” individuals, are to be understood as symptoms of a particular physiology and its relationship to living.

Den här uppsatsen handlar om unga människor som på ett eller annat vis har att göra med två kulturer, det vill säga härstammar från ett land men har växt upp i Sverige och där mitt syfte med denna studie har varit att belysa hur bl a religiös moralism kontra västerländsk liberalism kan ge upphov till emotionella konflikter hos ungdomar som lever med dubbla kulturer. Syftet har också varit en strävan att möjliggöra ökade kunskaper och förståelse för dessa unga mäniskor. Den fråga som jag med denna studie har avsett att svara på är vilken betydelse religiös moral har hos föräldragenerationen för de sociala relationer som deras barn utvecklar i det nya hemlandet under ungdomsåren. Levnadsberättelserna speglar deras vardagsliv där läsaren inbjuds till att ta del av det allra mest privata såsom känslor, syn på moral, sociala relationer och framtidstankar. Jag har använt mig utav Dorothy Smith’s institutionella etnografi som en vetenskaplig ansats. Studien är att betrakta som kvalitativ, gjord utifrån samtal med fem unga människor samt observationer från tidigare studier och arbeten jag har genomfört. Resultatet visar bland annat på att det finns emotionella konflikter hos mina informanter i att anpassa sig till rådande förhållanden i ett västerländskt samhälle och där föräldrarnas syn på sin religion utgör en bromskloss i att leva sitt liv som den unge själv vill. Känslofällor uppkommer som ett resultat av att föräldragenerationen många gånger har en annan åsikt om vad som är att betrakta som brukligt avseende sexuella relationer och partnerskap och där det råder en negativ uppfattning hos föräldrarna över hur det västerländska samhället är format vad det gäller just detta. Svårigheten uppstår därmed för den som så att säga ”växer upp med ett ben i varje kultur”. / This essay is about young people who have to do with two different cultures that is descended from one country but have grown up in Sweden. My purpose in this study is to illustrate how, for example religious moralism vs. Western liberalism can lead to emotional conflicts for adolescents living with dual cultures. The aim has also been an effort to allow for increased knowledge and understanding of these young people. The question I of this study is intended to answer is what role religious morality has among parents for the social relationship as their children will develop in their new country during adolescence. The stories reflect their everyday lives and the reader are invited to take part in the most private, such as feelings, views on morality, social relations and future thoughts. I have chosen Dorothy Smith's institutional ethnography as a scientific approach. It is a qualitative study, based on conversations with with five young people as well as observations from previous studies and some work I have done. The results show, inter alia, that there is emotional conflicts in my informants to adapt to prevailing conditions in the Western society, where parents' views on religion constitutes a stumbling block to living his life as the young want. Emotional traps arise as a result of the parent generation becouse they often have a different opinion on what is considered to be customary in sexual relationships and partnerships and where there is a negative perception among parents about how Western society is shaped in terms of just that. The difficulty arises therefore to "grow up with one foot in each culture. "

The purpose of my study was to find out how staff in after-school activities thinks they work with norms and values, we may call this values education, and how this in turn may influence children's norms and values. By extension, how children are socialized with each other and develop socially. In my research, I have interviewed five of the after-school activities staff who work with children aged 6-9 years at a school in the neighbourhood Rinkeby-Kista in northwestern Stockholm.The results show that after-school activity according to the staff can play a very important and sometimes crucial role in children's social development. Staff believes that if they do not learn the social rules by participating in playing and games in early childhood, when growing up they are outside and cannot participate. By their pedagogical approaches, in terms of values and norms, the adults in after-school activities can help children to become socialized into a community of solidarity and eventually as adults become responsible citizens able to function and participate in society.

At present two options are available that can lead to a determination of how moral education may be possible in practice. One takes its formulation from the work of Kant, the other stands in the tradition of Aristotle. Kant emphasizes the importance of duty mid obligation. In contrast, Aristotle attempts to construct a theory of moral life on the practice of virtue. Both theoretical perspectives have debilitating deficiencies. A spectrum of moral experience is presented that represents the wood opportunities available to the agent in life experience. The polarities of this spectrum pull most naturally towards either an Aristotelian or a Kantian perspective, although neither perspective is capable of addressing the requirements of the entire spectrum. The Aristotelian perspective is associated with the life of non-dilemmic virtue, undertaken in community, where relational realities and the contextual contingency of moral life is emphasized. The Kantian perspective is associated with dilemmic situations to be resolved by a process of moral The central problem of the dissertation acknowledges the antithetical nature of these perspectives, and the dichotomous nature of their philosophical roots. The central task of the dissertation is the establishment of a dialogic process that has the potential to reconcile this dichotomy, and to allow these perspectives to mutually inform and reinforce each other. This task is accomplished by providing responses to a central research question that is accompanied by a series of subsidiary questions. From an analysis of various theories of moral education, Kohlberg's theory of structural developmentalism is chosen for reformulation as it is informed by the exploration of the requirements of the dialogic process. To address the research questions, additional Spectra are offered to provide an epistemological and ontological basis for a five-step dialogic treatment that combines, through a developmental climacteric, the Magistral dialogue of Vvgotsky Socratic dialogue of Bakhtin. The five-step model is comprised of a recursive loop through the four steps of the Magistral dialogue prior to an entrance into a Socratic dialogue. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

<p>This dissertation documents African-American girls' musical practices at a Boys and Girls Club in Durham, NC. Hip-hop is the cornerstone of social exchanges at John Avery, and is integrated into virtually all club activities. Detractors point to the misogyny, sexual exploitation and violence predominant in hip-hop's most popular incarnations, suggesting that the music is a corrupting influence on America's youth. Girls are familiar with these arguments, and they appreciate that hip-hop is a contested and sometimes illicit terrain. Yet they also recognize that knowledge about and participation in hip-hop-related activities is crucial to their interactions at the club, at school, and at home. As girls hone their listening skills, they reconcile the contradictions between behavior glorified by hip-hop and the model presented to them by their mentors. This project examines how African-American girls ages 5-13 use their listening practices to claim a space within hip-hop's landscape while still operating within the unambiguous moral framework they have learned from their parents, mentors and peers. Through ethnography and close analysis of vocal utterances, dance moves and social interaction, I consider how individual interactions with mass-mediated music teach girls a black musical aesthetic that allows them to relate to their peers and mentors, and how these interactions highlight the creativity with which they begin to negotiate sexual and racial politics on the margins of society.</p> / Dissertation

The video game is, as we know, one of the most popular and quickly growing mediums in the United States and the world in whole. Because of its success, the video game industry has been able to use their resources to advance technology of many kinds. Two very important technologies which have been advanced by the game industry are artificial intelligence and graphic design. With advances in the videogame industry constantly increasing the realism of gaming, those who game are finding themselves rapidly transported into new worlds. The Combination of the elements of narrative transportation, character identification, a videogames ability to enable mediated experience create a situation in which players may be able to rapidly learn very complex concepts. This project begins with a classification of videogame moral systems, both on a theoretical and logistic level. Given this understanding of how videogames themselves define moral involvement, the project then seeks to answer how the players understand their own moral involvement in the game by directly involving player/participants in the conversation. The data produced strongly suggests that videogames have great potential to teach even the most complex concepts of right and wrong to players.

A review of the history of video game design reveals an emphasis on themes of competition, survival, and combat. Game designers are now increasingly exploring other themes, including ethics, morality, and religious or spiritual subjects. This thesis analyzes the design of a 2D single-player computer game based on Christian principles, investigating morality, ethics, and meaning in video games. The game builds on previous games, examining the ethical relevance of certain video games as cultural artifacts and as personal inspiration, expounding on how games can be both inspirational and educational. Though violent games can provide moral challenges and "ethically significant experiences," in this project, non-violent solutions are more conducive for a game based on Christian tenets. This thesis project reinterprets the idea of the "shmup" or scrolling shooter game by changing the game mechanics and win condition to express a non-violent process. The player takes on the role of an angel who has been sent to rescue birds from demons, presenting general subjects for wide audience appeal regardless of religious beliefs. The thesis outlines the process used in the design, the philosophical approach, and the technical and artistic methods used to create the game. The game is evaluated subjectively with respect to the goals set forth in the design, based on informal player feedback. This thesis contributes to the exploration of games in a spiritual, artistic, moral, and emotional context and the process outlined herein provides a practical example to other independent game developers in the design of a game based on spiritual themes.