Faculty of Health School of Medicine 9101327d swadee@xsinet.co.za / Little is known about the epidemiological and mortality patterns of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in Africa. Aims of this study- to determine the demographics, clinical features and causes and predictors death in patients attending the Lupus clinic at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto. Methods- the records of 226 patients who fulfilled American College of Rheumatism criteria for the diagnosis of SLE were reviewed. The mean (± SD) age at presentation was 34 (± 12.5) years. The female to male ratio was 18:1. The commonest clinical feature found was arthritis in 70.4% of patients. Nephritis was present in 43.8% and CNS lupus in 15.9% of patients. 55 patients in this group had died and 64 were lost to follow up. The 5-year survival was 57% uncensored and 72% if censored for loss to follow up. Infection (32.7%) was the commonest cause of death followed by renal failure (16.4%). Nephritis, CNS lupus and hypocomplementaemia were associated with mortality on univariate analysis. Lupus nephritis was the only independant predictor of mortality on multivariate analysis. Conclusion- this study confirms the poor outcome of SLE in the developing world and demonstrates that renal disease is a factor commonly implicated in mortality. The 5-year survival and pattern of mortality is similar to that reported elsewhere in the developing world

Thesis advisor: Irwin Blumer / This study examines the perceived impact of a parental empowerment project on parents of students of color transitioning into high school. The overarching problem addressed is the achievement gap. The study is an investigation of a means to increase the involvement of parents of color at an important transition. This is a gap closing measure because research dictates that this type of intervention can lead to higher academic achievement for minority students. To this end, seven participants constitute the sample group. Each sample member is treated as an individual case in keeping with the study's design as a qualitative case study. This study seeks to determine how these seven parents had their attitudes and behaviors shifted as a result of their participation in the aforementioned project, and which factors supported and inhibited their involvement as their children transitioned into high school. The researcher finds that all of the sample members perceived some benefit from their participation. These benefits for the parents include fostering a greater role understanding, increased ability to hold their children accountable, and an increased understanding of the high school curriculum. The monthly parent meetings, one of the three elements comprising the empowerment program, were most helpful for parents. Whereas, the scheduling of meetings made it difficult for members of the sample to be as involved as they wanted to be. Ultimately, the study concludes that a program which involves parents during their children's high school transition can help them increase their own sense of efficacy. It suggests opportunities for further research to be done on the impact of such a program on the actual academic performance of students. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration.

Thesis advisor: Lisa Dodson / This paper explores the ways in which nine parents experience their children's high school. Although the high school is in the inner city of Boston and serves mostly children of color from working-class and poor families, the parents hold themselves to expectations based on middle-class and dominant societal norms. They experience the school as an institution that often does not live up to its responsibilities to educate and protect their children. The parents then place most of these responsibilities for their children's educations on themselves, both to ensure their children's futures and to prevent any negative judgments from being made about their parenting. This paper attempts to allow parents to tell the story of their children's school in their own voices and to begin to resist the ways that inner-city parents have been constructed in the literature in the past. In order for urban education to truly change, the voices of parents must be allowed into the conversation and this paper attempts to begin the recognition of those voices. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Longitudinal structural equation models of parent educational involvement (PEI) and student mathematics and literacy achievement were examined for 1364 students, followed from 54 months through 8th grade. Path analyses revealed evidence of bi directionality between PEI and achievement and moderation by economic risk. Specifically, two pathways of association were analyzed: parent socialization and child evocative effects. Parent socialization pathways confirmed the positive association of PEI with both math and literacy achievement -increased parent involvement was significantly associated with increased achievement across development. No evidence of child evocative pathways was found for the full sample. Additionally, economic risk was found to moderate pathways of parent socialization between PEI and achievement. Parent socialization pathways suggested involvement was most strongly and positively associated with high achievement for children with greatest levels of economic risk across childhood. These results underscore the argument that parent educational involvement should be an important goal of practice and policy aimed at closing the achievement gap between lower and higher income children. Indeed, PEI does matter more for some children than others. National policies and school procedures should be geared towards promoting PEI early among the low income parents of underperforming children, for these children not only have the most to gain from having their parents engaged in their education, but also have the most to lose. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

The study examines the importance of competitive advantage and change in a dynamic environment. The purpose of the study is to explore how AAI could remain relevant and competitive in the market and examines how regularly changing its approaches to programme delivery could be used to meet needs of the community. The study also focused on the impact of AAI’s pace of change and how the pace impacted on the organization’s effectiveness and quality of programmed delivery. AAI relied on its past successful programmes to address the need of communities in many new countries. However, previously successful programmes did not prove popular when rolled in new markets. AAI programmes are suffering substantial withdrawals from beneficiaries. Beneficiaries are withdrawing from AAI programmes, complaining that the programme delivery approaches were not competitive and innovative. Many new organizations being formed are competing not just for beneficiary markets, but for financial resources (funding), skills and new ideas of delivering programmes. Traditional government type donors are being overtaken by a new crop of donors that is in favour of funding competitive and innovative organizations. Traditional aid organizations are losing market share to smaller agencies. The organizational structure of AAI appears not to support effective and efficient delivery of programmes. With no senior manager at the helm of the department, coordinating activities, sustaining competitive advantage and managing change within the programme department remained a challenge for the organization. A frastruated staff compliments exacerbated the situation. Employee turnover at the key and tactical levels resulted in the department operating without adequate staff and key personnel. This made coordination and cooperation amongst units very difficult. Various programme units operated in silos and mixed messages were sent to community resulting in the community being unhappy with AAI. Community felt that AAI did not consult with them when deciding on how to meet their needs. Community members felt that AAI was taking unilateral decisions and did not care about their feedback and the quality of the programmes delivered. This study further examines how AAI has suffered due to its inability to respond to the needs of community and its failure to adapt to the changing business environment. It reveals how innovation and adaptability is critical for retaining competitive advantage. It reveals how capabilities once built can be eroded by competition through copying. It concludes by revealing the importance of dynamic capabilities in sustaining competitive advantage as well as the need to change in response to the market. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

Advocates of self-managed teams, a common strategy for organizing work, suggest that teams may be a solution to gender inequality in the workplace. According to this argument, the nonteam-structured workplace is typically stratified by gender with women occupying the lower stratum of the hierarchy. Women's formal and informal interactions are therefore limited to mostly other women in similar low-status positions. This gendered pattern of interaction is said to negatively affect women's career opportunities and outcomes because women's positions prevent them from accessing and mobilizing good social capital - benefits from ties to influential persons within the organization. Self-managing teams that cross-cut workplace positions and subunits provide access to good social capital, thus enhancing women's work outcomes. I tested this argument with data from a case study of employees in the asset management subdivision of a multinational insurance and asset management company dubbed Finco Asset Management. In general, the results confirm the benefits of participation in self-managing teams. First, in Chapter 3 I found that workgroups, the nonteam structure at Finco, were more likely to be segregated by gender than self-managing project teams. In Chapter 4, I found that workplace position, workgroup and the perceived importance of another for one's career advancement determined the informal structure at Finco. Tie importance attenuated the effect of joint project team participation, which suggests that employees were strategic about forming ties with influential persons in project teams. In Chapter 5, I found that the informal structure, particularly indegree centrality and outdegree centrality, were key predictors of promotion and pay increase. Indegree centrality alone determined layoffs, however. Thus consistent with the social capital argument, self-managing project teams reduced gender segregation, provided access to important informal networks and the informal networks influenced employee work outcomes. However, gender mattered as well. Women were more likely to share workgroups and less likely to be in upper management. Women were also less likely to have same-sex informal networks within their subdivision after accounting for tie importance; however, they were more likely to have same-sex ties in other subdivisions. Women also reported lower job commitment and saw fewer opportunities for mobility at Finco in comparison to men. Hence, while participation in cross-cutting, self-managing teams does improve women's work outcomes, gender differences persist in positions and attitudes.

Thesis (M.ED.) --University of Limpopo, 2007. / Lack of parental involvement in primary schools has been a burning issue to fellow educators, school managers and departmental officials in Mankweng Circuit in Limpopo Province. Parents too were dissatisfied about their children’s performance. The main aim of this study was to investigate causes which hinder learner performance and intend to develop or propose strategies to be used to improve learner performance. Research and practice indicate that parental involvement remains a crucial topic effort to enhance school effectiveness. However, principals in schools still experience a number of problems in this regard and do not succeed in obtaining optimal involvement of parents. The present research therefore investigated the Impact of Parental Involvement on Learner Performance. Although it was possible to isolate factors responsible for non-involvement of parents, it is clear that each of these factors must not be seen in isolation, they cumulatively compound the problem of Parental Involvement. Method used for this study was qualitative and quantitative approaches. Populations were from parents, principals, heads of departments and educators. Questionnaires, interviews, observations and documents were used as instruments to obtain information from respondents. Data was analysed using tables and figures. The major findings of the research revealed that, principals are of the opinion that parents in rural areas and lower socio-economic areas present a special problem as they lack interest in parental involvement in schools for education of their children. / Not listed

The transition of Navajo Indian children from boarding schools to public schools has brought about the challenge of involving parents in their children's education. These people have previously been accustomed to having the education of their children left to the distant schools, with little opportunity for parental involvement. As a consequence, it is often difficult to get these parents to accept the schools' invitations to participate in conferences and other activities when parental involvement is important. This study reviewed all of the reports that could be found of programs involving Indians and non-Indian parents in their children ' s education. These programs were discussed with reference to their applicability to Navajo culture and the geography of the reservation. Suggestions and guidelines were offered for using various parts of these programs with Navajo Indian parents.

Older women and men were participants in this qualitative research of three case studies of community theatre. Their stories, gathered through in-depth interviews and participant observation of the theatre projects over a four year period, informed the development of a theoretical model of leisure as process. Through devising and presenting their theatre pieces, 50 older people, ranging in age from 45-8 5 years, with differing cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, reflected on personal experiences, negotiated their own processes for working collaboratively, and presented the stories of theft lives publicly in a way which affirmed their actions and understandings of themselves and theft world. Interviews with more than 30 of these people allowed an analysis of the ways in which older people negotiated the processes of play-building and constructed meaning in their lives at a time when the social structures of paid work and family were becoming less central as people moved into their third age. This research has located the study of individual agency through leisure in the context of the social structures which shape constraints to leisure and in turn limit individual agency. As such, the research has been concerned both with the self and with social relationship and has theorised leisure as a process of negotiation. Since process implies change over time, the research methods used and the leisure context selected for study were also process oriented. The research methodology was emergent and took on qualities of action research as the study progressed. By focusing on community theatre as the social context for leisure, the nexus between community development, community theatre and action research was examined and found to inform a broader understanding of leisure as process. The research has also expanded knowledge of community theatre as a collaborative process which draws on individual and collective reflections to build public presentations of issues of concern to participants. The processes of community theatre have received no attention to date in the leisure literature. The negotiation of self takes place in different social contexts for women and for men, for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, for old and young, and for people from different socio-economic backgrounds. This research demonstrated that changes in personal situations as a result of the aging process, changes in family context and changes in work context are associated with changes in the negotiation of self, and these changes are expressed through leisure activity as well as other involvements less clearly classified as leisure. Purposive aspects of leisure assumed greater significance as people grew older and this was expressed in the culture of busyness and a pride in 'never being home'. Older women, in particular, developed friendships and community networks outside the family unit as relationships with husbands and children changed. These social connections were found to facilitate difficult transitions such as divorce or the death of a spouse. Community theatre supported the development of community networks, and presented an opportunity to claim a voice in the public arena and challenge the invisibility of older age. The research added to knowledge about constraints on leisure involvement by older people, and identified personal, social and material constraints. The most significant of these were the personal constraints of fear and of ill-health. However, participants in this research continued to negotiate a path through constraint in order to live their lives to the full. Analysis of their stories indicated that whilst constraint sometimes operated as a hierarchical process of control pushing people into isolation, people who were supported in their efforts to negotiate constraint through the development of community networks gained self-confidence and a heightened sense of agency. The processes of community development used in community theatre were found to facilitate the negotiation of constraint by developing personal skills and strengthening social support. The constructivist orientation of the research acknowledged the dialectical nature of knowledge construction and the possibility of social change through research. Aspects of action research were demonstrated in the processes of community theatre, which also seeks social as well as personal change. The research has a political motivation in that it seeks to strengthen the position of participants. Concern with the power relationship between researcher and researched facilitated a deeper understanding of the role of power in the process of leisure. The research opens up one small window on the processes whereby people may continue to live life to the full through active engagement in life and leisure.

The research undertaken compares the impact of heritage planning and management at Maldon in Victoria, with Tumbarumba in New South Wales and to a lesser extent with a number of other municipalities. Maldon and Tumbarumba are former gold mining towns of similar size and age. Maldon has been subject to rigorous planning controls following its declaration as a 'Notable Town' by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in the 1960s and was the forerunner for heritage planning in Australia, while Tumbarumba was later to be recognised for its heritage value and has less detailed planning controls. Maldon has been the centre of ongoing conflict for decades while Tumbarumba has been relatively free of conflict. Through research into existing documents, community consultation and use of questionnaires, this thesis sets out to look at how the conservation of heritage towns fits into the broader picture of conservation management, and examines the dynamics of conserving heritage towns. By undertaking a heritage study in the town of Tumbarumba, and looking closely at how heritage planning was implemented at Maldon, two dimensions of heritage management are examined. Firstly, the consistency in the planning process and the duration of events are compared, and secondly the extent of conflict is examined with contributing factors being isolated. Within the thesis, models are developed for analysing the conflict at Maldon, and for implementing heritage management in towns. The latter is through examining the accepted approaches to heritage management against the evidence of conflict, external control, community involvement and the presence of incentives. The thesis concludes that the dynamics of working with the community can be as important as the technical aspects of conservation.