Retaining motivated teachers is a major concern across countries. Ghana, like other Sub- Sahara African countries, has been trying to address challenges, such as the lack of teachers, particularly in rural areas, and the low levels of motivation among them. On the other hand, teachers in developing countries are not necessarily trained and, even if they are, they may not be competent, effective and efficient (Lockheed and Verspoor 1991). Mere enthusiasm and good intentions may not be enough to improve the quality of education. Nevertheless, motivation is necessary, since without it, teachers – especially those facing difficult circumstances – cannot persevere; and, no matter how skilled, without drive, teachers are unable to perform in the long term. As a consequence, without well-motivated teachers, children are less likely to attain the desired level of education. Moreover, if parents/guardians do not believe that education equips their children with the necessary skills and knowledge for a better life, access to and completion of basic education will not increase and government efforts to achieve EFA and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may be in vain. Teacher motivation is not a new area of research. Extensive quantitative and qualitative research has been carried out, especially in the UK and the US, but not in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, in the case of Ghana, most of the research is based on surveys and oneshot interviews and tends to describe why teachers have low job satisfaction and motivation. As working and living conditions for most teachers are challenging, studies into 'motivation' have tended to be superficial. More specifically, little research has been carried out into investigating why some teachers are able to stay motivated in conditions that others do not consider to be conducive to effective practice − or how they are able to manage. In addition, what research has been done has been concentrated in the southern part of the country, which is considered to be better off compared to the northern part according to many gauges. This study has aimed to investigate how basic school teachers‟ perception of teaching as a career is shaped by social and professional environment in rural Ghana. It has also intended to explore local realities with respect to the policy and its implementation for basic education. One-year field research from 2007 to 2008 was conducted by using a mixedmethods approach in two 'deprived'1 districts − one from the north and the other from the south − which are geographically, socio-culturally, and economically different. The methods of data collection involved survey, ethnographic research, interviews, and teacher focus group discussions. This research echoes previous research findings that physical disadvantages − such as the lack of conducive infrastructure, the shortage of teaching and learning materials, and poor salaries − are factors that contribute to a lower commitment to the profession. However, this research also suggests that two other key stakeholders at micro-level − in addition to the teachers themselves − play a role in teacher motivation. These are: colleague teachers, including head teachers; and the communities in which teachers live and work. Support at this level – both material such as the provision of accommodation and food and nonmaterial like morale support – can not only enhance teachers‟ well-being and self-esteem but also help them to see their current positions as a part of their goals. On the other hand, at macro-level, local authorities − the main implementers of policies and strategies formulated at central level and of teacher management − are particularly influential, as it affects teachers‟ long-term vision. They tend to discourage teachers in their operation, mainly due to its organisational culture that teachers perceive neither fair nor rational. With the same reason, strategies put in place to motivate teachers do not always produce the expected outcomes. Moreover, teachers are more likely to be subordinates to the authority even in school management and to feel powerless in the system. Too much emphasis on teacher motivation at school level may overlook the important role of the District Education Offices (DEOs), since teachers‟ lives are much more related to how the DEO manages them than is the case with similar hierarchical relationships in the West.

This research explores the ways in which local knowledge, attitudes and beliefs surrounding disability influence the socially constructed experience of autism in Ghana. It further explores the impact of these beliefs on educational access, policy and provision as well as on inclusion in wider society for both children with autism and their families. It is argued throughout that conceptualisations of both autism and disability are subtly, and at times unconsciously, shaped by cultural influences as well as individual experiences. Using semi-structured interviews, participatory methods and text analysis, this thesis first examines internationally accepted diagnostic criteria for cultural relevancy and concludes that while 'autism'does indeed transcend cultural barriers, its presentation is nonetheless culturally bound. The presentation of each of autism's 'triad of impairments' is explored in Ghana, namely communication and socialisation impairments alongside a restricted range of interests and repetitive behaviour patterns. Significantly, the experience of autism demonstrated in this thesis, at both a personal and familial level, is linked to, and negotiated through, cultural belief systems. A relatively shared 'worldview', understood as the culturally mediated lens through which autism and impairment are understood and managed in Ghanaian society, is outlined. Traditional values, a deep sense of spirituality and communal kinship responsibilities are highlighted. Next, an exploration of causal attributions, valued and de-valued personhood traits and the expected role of an adult in society each highlights significant influences on the perception and management of autism in Ghana. Throughout, this thesis focuses on the impact of autism, as constructed and understood in urban Ghana, on the individual, one's kin and broader society. The second half of this thesis focuses on educational access, policy and provision with particular attention to Ghana's burgeoning inclusive education efforts. Conceptualisations of disability and difference, as negotiated through Ghanaian culture, norms and history are explored alongside the implications of these beliefs in designing educational provision for students with autism as well as the socio-political pressures to adhere to large scale international movements such as Education for All (EFA). In particular, tensions between local and international conceptualisations of 'disability' and 'inclusion' are highlighted and it is concluded that adoption of international declarations into local policy, and subsequently into local practice, needs to be better negotiated alongside culturally relevant systems and beliefs. International declarations, rooted in a social model of disability, are found to clash with local conceptualisations of disability rooted in an often intuitive understanding of disability consistent with an individual model. However, consistency with an individual model did not equate to biomedical understandings of disability, which was instead mediated through a lens of socialrelational causation and management more consistent with religious or cultural models of disability. It is concluded that acknowledging and respecting Ghanaian understandings of disability is a prerequisite to ensuring inclusion of children with autism, both in education and their community. Adoption of laudable rights based international declarations must also ensure adaptation to local culture and context. Conclusions and recommendations for synergy between advocacy for, and education of, students with autism in Ghana are proffered.

The main research topic of this study is universities' academic research and knowledge-transfer activities in a catch-up country, particularly the relationship between the two activities, which has been rarely examined in previous research. In order to understand this issue against existing literature, a critical review of previous studies has been attempted, considering the idiosyncratic characteristics of the Korean national innovation system. As a result, at the three analysis levels (i.e. national, organisational and individual levels), we propose three conceptual elements respectively: a tentative historical path of universities in catch-up countries; critical factors influencing knowledge transfer activities of universities in catch-up countries; and academics operating in synergy mode. Thereafter, based on the methodology integrating not only the three analysis levels but also qualitative and quantitative approaches, we analyse the data collected from the interviews with Korean academics, survey responses from Korean academics and government White Papers on the activities of Korean universities. The results show a close and positive relationship between Korean universities' academic research and knowledge-transfer activities across the three levels. Firstly, during the last several decades, the Korean government has strongly encouraged the development of teaching, academic research and knowledge-transfer activities of Korean universities in harmony with the different developmental stages of Korean industry. This has resulted in selective patterns of the universities' three activities (e.g. concentration of scientific activities in certain fields). Secondly, organisational factors such as scientific capacity and industry funding are important for universities' knowledge-transfer activities in a catch-up country, which corroborates the positive relationship between the two activities. Finally, in terms of the factors influencing the synergy mode (i.e. a positive relationship between academic research and knowledge-transfer activities), academics' career stage and disciplines are important. This is related to the rapid expansion of the Korean academic system and the selectivity found in its activities. Based on these findings, it is tempting to conclude that universities in East Asian catch-up countries have developed their own academic system different from those in developed countries, which can be characterised as having strong government control and a high level of interaction with other actors in the national innovation system. Therefore, the application of the controversy over the direct economic contribution of universities in western countries to the context of catch-up countries is quite limited.

In 1987, the Government of Ghana embarked on a process to decentralise education management to districts throughout the country as part of a programme of wider social and democratic governance reforms. A vital element of this reform was the prescription of active community participation in the affairs of schools within their localities. The establishment of school management committees (SMCs) was to create a new school governance landscape based on community participation, as well as devolution of power to the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies. In this regard, considerable attention has been focused on central government‟s understanding of how this devolution of authority to communities and schools should work and how communities should assume responsibility for increased participation in schools. From the inception of this policy over two decades ago, there seems to have been no feedback through research findings or diagnostic policy reviews on how this new role of the community has been received, interpreted and executed in its engagement with schools, particularly in the rural poor and underserved areas. Mindful of this, this study sought to explore the multiple understandings of how community and school relations work, as well as the challenges and pressures which influence community – school relationships. The study employed the qualitative methods of interview and documentary analysis to collect data on the understanding and experiences of community – school relations from SMCs and PTAs; other members of the community; the school; and education management. The findings suggest that many of the theoretical and policy expectations about representation and participation in school improvement through the SMC and PTA concept are only evident in form and not in practice. Furthermore, in poor rural contexts, it is often the comparatively better educated and influential members of the community, including informal groups who become the new brokers of decision-making, and who through their actions close spaces for the genuine representation and participation of others. In some cases, SMCs seldom work as the de facto representatives of the community, as decisions are made and critical interactions occur outside this formal structure for community representation and engagement in school governance. This affects the visibility of SMCs and undermines their credibility and capacity to play their intended role. Moreover, the degree of community participation in schools appears to be shaped by the school fulfilling community expectations of schooling and on a „social contract‟ based on the principle of reciprocity. These findings support the view that the fate of schools is increasingly tied to and powerfully shaped by key players at the local level, and that this happens through more informal and traditional roles which are more trusted but not necessarily representative of the image presented by policy on community participation in school governance. The findings also highlight the threat to voluntarism, a key assumption of the policy on community participation and the importance of seeking ways in which schools can play a more active role as change agents in the community, thereby legitimising in the community‟s eyes their importance in the life of the community.

This thesis examines poetry by Native Hawaiian activists written between 1970 and 2016 in order to develop a detailed understanding of the multi-faceted ways poetry incorporates, transmits and enacts contemporary political identity. Whilst fundamentally a literary analysis, my methodology is discursive, and draws on a range of critical approaches, archival research and interviews with poets, in order to address why poetry is such a powerful form of resistance to American hegemony. By reading contemporary poetry as an expression of deeply held cultural and political beliefs, this thesis suggests that writing and performing poetry are powerful forms of political resistance. Adopting a lens that is attentive to both the indigenous and colonial influences at play in Hawaiʻi, it elucidates the nuanced ways that traditional literary techniques enter contemporary Native Hawaiian poetry as vehicles for cultural memory and protest. Attention to the continuities between traditional Hawaiian epistemology and the ways those same methods and values are deployed in twentieth and twenty-first century poetry, means this thesis is a part of a growing body of work that endeavours to understand indigenous literature from the perspective of its own cultural and political specificity. The introduction establishes the historical and critical context of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement and the Hawaiian Renaissance. It outlines the main developments in Native Hawaiian literary criticism since the late 1960s, including the reclaiming of traditional narratives and the privileging of indigenous epistemologies. Chapters One to Seven proceed chronologically, each addressing a particular collection, anthology or body of work. Chapter One focuses on Wayne Kaumualiʻi Westlake's radical rejection of Westernised Waikīkī, whilst Chapter Two explores the anthologies Mālama: Hawaiian Land and Water and HoʻiHoʻi Hou: A Tribute to George Helm and Kimo Mitchell, in relation to the Sovereignty Movement's dedication to Aloha ʻĀina (love the land). Chapters Three to Five deal with five poetry collections, two by Haunani-Kay Trask, and one each by Imaikalani Kalahele, Brandy Nālani McDougall and Māhealani Perez-Wendt. The chapters address how these poets articulate Native Hawaiian identity, nationalism and continuity through traditional moʻolelo (stories), which underpin the political beliefs of three generations of sovereignty activists. Chapters Six and Seven address contemporary performance poetry in both published and unpublished formats by Jamaica Osorio, David Kealiʻi MacKenzie, Noʻukahauʻoli Revilla and Kealoha, demonstrating how a return to embodied performance communicates aloha (love, compassion, grace). The conclusion, Chapter Eight, indicates projects that are already productively engaging Hawaiian epistemology in the areas of geography and science, and points towards developments in the digital humanities that could extend this indigenised methodology into literary studies, in order to further engage with the depth and multiplicity of storied landscapes in Hawaiʻi.

Since the advent of international assistance, the aid paradigm has changed continually and the choice of mechanisms for providing assistance has evolved in order to try and pursue better approaches. Along with the traditional project approach, the sector-wide approach involving budgetary support has emerged as a new aid modality since the mid-1990s. While many donors – e.g. the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank and the European Union (EU) – have embraced the new modality, some donors have kept their distance from this trend, relying mostly on project assistance – e.g. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). However, the extent to which aid resources are absorbed in the recipient government/sector under the different aid delivery mechanisms is not well known. This thesis provides insight into this question by exploring the process of absorbing foreign funds in the education sector. Employing a phenomenological research approach, the process is examined from the point of view of local actors and beneficiaries of aid aimed at improving education quality. The context chosen is basic education (primary and junior secondary) in Ghana after the introduction of the national basic education reform, which was announced as the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme in 1996. Two cases are chosen for comparison: the Whole School Development (WSD) programme financed by the DFID; and the Quality Improvements in Primary Schools (QUIPS) programme facilitated by USAID. The former constitutes a sector-wide type of assistance, which put Ghanaian officials in charge of DFID funds and the implementation of the programme; while the latter adopted a project type model, with implementation managed directly through a USAIDfunded project office. The major part of the data is derived from interviews conducted in 2006 with significant educational personnel at three different levels: Ministry of Education (MoE) headquarters, the District Education Office (DEO), and the schools). The analysis reveals a complex picture of aid absorption, which illuminates the pros and cons of the two approaches in relation to impact and sustainability. The study finds that the QUIPS project achieved tangible results in the pilot schools, while the WSD programme made little impact at the school level. The WSD programme, which used existing structures within the education system to deliver funds and resources to schools, showed evidence of high fungibility, but appears to have strengthened the Ministry‟s administrative capacity. On the other hand, the QUIPS approach, which had low fungibility, has been severely criticised by Ghanaian officials, who questioned its sustainability and contribution to system-wide change. The thesis concludes by stating its specific contribution to the literature on international aid assistance to developing countries and making recommendations for the Ghanaian context.

The translation unit has been regarded as an elusive notion in linguistics. The literature shows that there seems to be little agreement regarding, in particular, their identification and size. This study attempts to rethink these two central issues of translation units with the help of a parallel corpus: the ARC (the Alignment of Reuters Corpora), an English-Japanese newswire corpus. The main achievements of this study are: the identification of five variables associated with translation unit size; the establishment of an unbiased, reproducible identification method; and, the demonstration that translation pairs (i.e. translation units and their equivalents) are ideal for contrastive analysis. The identification method, ‘the one-equivalent principle’, established in this thesis is justified linguistically by a thorough, systematic review of the relevant literature, and empirically using nine case studies. The target words of the case studies were the most frequent content words in the ARC: market; government; year; economic; new; foreign; said; told; and, expected. The examination of translation unit size, as well as non-translation units and translation pairs, shows that parallel corpora, and the one-equivalent principle, are powerful tools for understanding the nature of translation units.

The epochs of Indian History have been determined from time to time by the appearance of foreign influences. Of immeasurable significance for India was the coming of the Europeans, for it eventually transformed the political destiny of the country. Inevitably, France, one of the five great European maritime powers of the time, had been vitally involved in this historic process. Yet, though there exists a cornucopia of material on French commercial history in the East Indies and on the various military and commercial phases of the Anglo-French rivalry in India, no one has so far undertaken to study the true character of the French presence in India from 1763 to 1783, within the setting of French global policy after the Seven Years' War. This is what the present study has endeavored to do According to conventional wisdom, and even scholarly opinion, the French were imperialistic in India. Yet a review of the French government's policy from 1763 to 1783 shows that, on the contrary, the French were, with remarkable consistency, non-expansionist in India. The Indian policy of the French government constituted only one part of its wider strategy to unseat British predominance throughout the world, and to retrieve France's position as a first-rank Power in Europe. The French government schemed to attack the founts of British power in India and in North America, not to succeed to British domination in these regions, but to liberate them In India, the French through a policy of diplomatic intrigue, labored to expel their rivals from the country. The story of the French presence in India post-1763 is largely the story of a desperate struggle by Frenchmen to block the extension of British imperialism in the region. The ultimate end was to restore freedom and liberty on the Indian soil. The French government may have aspired to establish in India a network of trade but not an empire of conquest. The prevailing belief that the French conflict with the English in India was primarily a conflict for an 'Indian Empire' may now be revealed for what it always was: a myth / acase@tulane.edu

A general equilibrium model is established to evaluate fiscal policy in Taiwan, particularly the replacement of the sales tax by a value-added tax. To begin, the major taxes levied in Taiwan are identified and briefly described. Based on this descriptive analysis, we can make assumptions concerning tax incidence for Taiwan's major taxes within a general equilibrium framework; and the effective tax rates, by type of tax, by family income class, are calculated. Then, a general equilibrium computation algorithm is applied to convert an abstract representation of an economy into an operational model The results are obtained by comparing the solutions between before- and after-tax equilibrium in nonlinear equations system. The main conclusions show that (1) the relative prices of goods, in general, only have a small change; and (2) the efficiency gain in production and total welfare gain are both small as well / acase@tulane.edu

The study involved the investigation of ancient dental enamel derived from former inhabitants of Pacific Islands: a population whose movements were necessarily more restricted than their mainland counterparts. Lead and strontium isotope analysis of human teeth were undertaken using TIMS and MC-LAM-ICPMS. Exposure information was obtained from elemental concentrations of lead and strontium using LAM-ICPMS, GFAAS and ASV. Isotopic measurements of lead within the dental enamel of these individuals suggest that the dominant source of biogenic lead exposure in these and other pre-metallurgical societies derived from the local water supply. Data from these ancient populations are compared with measurements made on ‘moderns’ based at Broken Hill, NSW, as well as from other UK-based post Iron Age populations. Results of this study indicate that the concentration of ancient lead within crystalline dental enamel in both ancient and modern populations can in certain circumstances be approximately the same, even when the degree of lead exposure is very high. The study proposes reasons for the discrepancies between these results and those obtained in previous studies, as well as discusses the implications of these analytical results for future studies in lead exposure in human populations. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)