Parent-teacher conferences are an important component of parent involvement practice in any school. However, parent-teacher conferences often come short of the expectations of both parents and teachers and fail to lead to lasting solutions to learners' problems. This study focuses on the implementation of parent-teacher conferences in primary schools. The problem was investigated by means of a literature study and an empirical investigation. The literature identified approaches to and models of parent involvement, common barriers to parent-teacher communication and the characteristics of effective conferences. A qualitative investigation explored the process of a small sample of parent-teacher conferences in a selected primary school in Mamelodi, Gauteng Province. Data was gathered by participant observation. Findings showed that teacher talk predominated during conferences; the importance of mutual trust and teachers' listening to parents; guiding parents to improve learning at home and barriers to communication. Recommendations based on the findings were made. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Education management)

This dissertation is a participant observer’s account of implementing a multisite, randomised controlled trial within Her Majesty’s Prison Service. It adds to a scarce literature detailing the steps involved in implementing experiments in custodial settings by providing a candid account of the route from planning to successful implementation. The randomised controlled trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Sycamore Tree Programme. This programme’s goal is to teach prisoners the wider harm of crime and includes a face-to-face meeting between a victim of crime and the participating offenders. It derives its rehabilitative potential from restorative justice and seeks to foster hope that change is possible for offenders, thus aiding them to desist from crime. Its development and theoretical basis are described for the first time. In an in-depth narrative the dissertation details how at every stage strategies were developed to manage participant procurement, random assignment, maintaining treatment integrity, and preparing for final outcome measurements. The randomised controlled trial was designed to produce an individual experiment in eight prisons. These will be combined in a meta-analysis as well as analysed as a pooled sample. Overall the implementation process took close to two years and involved a charitable body, Her Majesty’s Prison Service, the National Offender Management Service, and two police forces. This work has demonstrated how the unstable nature of English prison populations and the risk-averse climate must be addressed when conducting experiments in that environment. It has also illustrated the gap between the rhetoric of evidence-based policy and the facilitation of research designed to seek that evidence. Nevertheless, developing trusting relationships and combining rapidly learnt skills with inherent abilities ensured that the evaluation methodology was supported and protected through the various challenges it met. Finally, the dissertation suggests conditions for closer collaboration between government executive bodies and researchers that might increase the number of experiments undertaken in prisons. It also aims to encourage researchers that prison experiments, although not easy, are feasible, defendable, and, above all, worthwhile.

The shifting topography of contemporary Japanese society is engendering a significant reorientation of men’s family relations. However, exactly how Japanese men are adapting to these broad-based trends, including parent-child relations, demographics, marriage norms, care provision, residential choices, and gender roles, as well as in the decline of Confucian worldviews, remains relatively obscure. In this dissertation, I explore men’s everyday practices underpinning their family relations as husbands, fathers, sons-in-law, and grandfathers. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the summers of 2013 and 2014 in Hyogo, through narrative interviews and participant-observation. I find husbands’ view of their wives transitioning from having a culturally prescribed duty to perform domestic matters to simply having responsibility for domestic matters. This opens up space for negotiation within married couples, with my informants providing what I refer to as additional help, which offers new insight into charting the evolution of hegemonic masculinity. I evidence relatedness founded on exchange as an approach to understand relations across the extended family, which importantly involves additional help, financial resources, and intimacy. I underscore how men selectively seek intimacy in some family relations, notably as fathers and grandfathers. Provision of additional help and seeking of intimacy lead to men’s (re)construction of masculinities differing across family relations, with an important reason for men to select their practices so as to craft their family relations is to address their sense of well-being. Further, the pattern of men’s family relations reveals the emergence of substantially novel sons-in-law relations, as compared to that found in ie patriarchal norms. This evidence suggests a fundamental shift from a vertically-dominated set of family relations, as in the ie household, to a more horizontal, fluid set of relations across the extended family.

Submitted by FLAVIO ANICETO (flavio.aniceto.produtor.cultural@gmail.com) on 2014-05-23T14:56:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO FLAVIO ANICETO DOS SANTOS FINAL 18.05.2014.pdf: 1128904 bytes, checksum: 49dacd3c3362f7b8453b840e45cdb402 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rafael Aguiar (rafael.aguiar@fgv.br) on 2014-05-29T17:53:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO FLAVIO ANICETO DOS SANTOS FINAL 18.05.2014.pdf: 1128904 bytes, checksum: 49dacd3c3362f7b8453b840e45cdb402 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2014-06-02T13:50:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO FLAVIO ANICETO DOS SANTOS FINAL 18.05.2014.pdf: 1128904 bytes, checksum: 49dacd3c3362f7b8453b840e45cdb402 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-02T13:51:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO FLAVIO ANICETO DOS SANTOS FINAL 18.05.2014.pdf: 1128904 bytes, checksum: 49dacd3c3362f7b8453b840e45cdb402 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-04-15 / This research focuses on the state of cultural performances in public forums in the city of Rio de Janeiro, referred to as Public Art, after the effects of the Street Artist Law from June 2012, which guarantees the free use of urban spaces for these artistic performers and officially recognizes them. Taking that into perspective, we propose a reflection on the possible contradictions between the cultural mediation we believe to be intrinsic to these movements and the institutionalization that comes from this law. The study of said mediation also intends to point out other forms of social integration found in the planning of cultural policies. The investigation's primary target was the professional clowns who perform in the streets, squares, parks, communities and other public forums in the city. / O presente trabalho analisou ações culturais em logradouros públicos do município do Rio de Janeiro, atualmente chamadas de Arte Pública, no contexto posterior a promulgação em junho de 2012 da Lei do Artista de Rua, que garante o uso livre do espaço urbano para as apresentações artísticas destes grupos e artistas e reconhece oficialmente estas manifestações. A partir deste quadro a pesquisa se propõe a refletir sobre as possíveis contradições entre a mediação cultural que acreditamos ser inerente a este segmento e a institucionalização decorrente desta lei. O estudo da mediação visou ainda pensar em outras formas de participação social no planejamento das políticas culturais. A investigação foi feita prioritariamente com palhaços profissionais que atuem nas ruas, praças, comunidades e outras áreas públicas do município.

Text in Afrikaans / Loosit is a pastoral care model which may be applied to primary school children in South Africa and the use thereof is explored in this research project. Loosit consists of a series of plays as well as a discipleship program. These plays, humoristic yet contextually relevant to children, are done on a set resembling school toilets. Children are encouraged to write to the leading character, Uncle Jani Tor, and to post the letters in the `toilet` post box. Themes focused on in this project are problems with friends, social pressure, problems in the family and death. There is a specific focus on the ethics of Loosit as a model of pastoral care applicable to children. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

In this study, hypnotic analgesia in obstetrics is explained in terms of ecosystemic thinking, as opposed to traditional conceptualisations of hypnosis. Five case studies were used. Each case is described in detail, as well as the therapeutic rationale behind each case, in order to present the reader with an understanding for the thinking behind the doing of ecosystemic hypnotherapy. The study utilises a new paradigm approach to research which is explained and is in keeping with ecosystemic epistemology. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

The main objectives this thesis was primarily assessment of the services level, which are provided by Travel agency Topinka in their own recreation centers by analysis and comparison these centers by predetermined criteria. The others objectives were to determine requirements and needs of customers using a questionnaire investigation and the current trends. On basis of these analyzes propose steps, which will lead to improve position of this company on the tourism market. These proposes are facultative program and two packages of services (combination of transport, accomodation, catering and additional services). The others are modernization recreation centers as innovation sports facilities and reconstruction and modernization areas too.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T17:06:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 116840.pdf: 2565608 bytes, checksum: 2d74f73c827a14c1fcd45c38bacee9b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho apresenta pesquisa de mestrado que buscou investigar a aprendizagem criativa enquanto referencial para o planejamento e ação docente em educação musical na Educação Infantil. Aprendizagem criativa é um conceito em construção (CRAFT; CREMIN; BURNARD, 2008), sendo que nesta expressão aprendizagem indica que o foco está centrado no processo de aprendizagem da criança, e criatividade refere-se ao potencial criativo a ser desenvolvido dentro de um campo de conhecimento específico, como a música. Do ponto de vista sociocultural, esse conceito considera a interação de fatores culturais e sociais, como o contexto e a perspectiva da criança, o processo colaborativo e não competitivo, a análise e reflexão dos trabalhos como ponto fundamental para a aprendizagem colaborativa e a interação entre as crianças e com o professor. Tal referencial envolve, portanto, o papel do professor na promoção da aprendizagem criativa, a agência das crianças no processo de aprendizagem, e a prática reflexiva tanto dos professores quanto das crianças. A metodologia de pesquisa de natureza qualitativa integrando elementos da pesquisa participante e pesquisa-ação foi adotada por possibilitar a intervenção do pesquisador no contexto e a inclusão dos colaboradores da pesquisa nos processos de construção de estratégias metodológicas e reflexão sobre a ação pedagógica, questões importantes para que atingíssemos os objetivos da pesquisa. A produção de dados foi realizada em duas etapas: (1) curso de formação para professores de música visando introduzir o referencial de aprendizagem criativa e discutir aspectos sobre a atuação do professor; (2) acompanhamento da ação pedagógica de duas professoras de música participantes do curso e atuantes na Educação Infantil, através de observação de aulas, reuniões para planejamento e reflexão. Dessa forma foi possível construir um processo de formação, ação e reflexão, e um espaço para manifestação das expectativas e dificuldades dos professores. Os resultados indicam que a abordagem de aprendizagem criativa influenciou as concepções dos professores refletindo em mudanças no planejamento e ação docente, tais como: menos estruturação e interferência dos professores e mais liberdade para as crianças; realização de trabalhos de composição em pequenos grupos; reavaliação de uma prática criativa para uma prática que promove a criatividade; documentação das atividades e produções das crianças, procurando dar voz às crianças, estimular e mediar a aprendizagem. Estudos futuros poderiam ser realizados com o objetivo de envolver outros profissionais da Educação Infantil e evidenciar a perspectiva das crianças nesse contexto sob a ótica da aprendizagem criativa.

Graduation thesis is bent on analysis traffic literacy of participants of tourist trade. According to the research only a half of the polled people have heard about a transport education first time in Kindergarten. This is a very bad result because children belong to the most risky group of traffic operations. That is why the analysis was made in Kindergarten, concretely in Kindergarten Bratrská, Dačice, to find out present status of transport education. We set up a project which should obtain an improvement of transport education.

As escolas públicas valorizam o planejamento escolar como uma das preocupações administrativas e pedagógicas a fim de que sejam criadas condições para a efetiva realização do que foi estabelecido. Entretanto, as escolas públicas municipais não contam com planos administrativos elaborados. A presente pesquisa tem o objetivo de identificar a visão do diretor escolar sobre a gestão estratégica com balanced scorecard (BSC) e mapa estratégico no setor público. Para atingir o objetivo visado, a pesquisa teve como primeiro passo, o repasse de dados e informações do GREFIC da FEARP-USP para seleção das escolas públicas no município de Ribeirão Preto/SP e, a partir disso, uma abordagem qualitativa, utilizando o estudo de caso como procedimento técnico nas escolas públicas levantadas. A pesquisa caracterizou-se como aplicada e descritiva. As técnicas de coleta de dados foram a observação, o questionário, a entrevista, o diário de campo e o grupo focal. Foram entrevistadas oito diretoras escolares. O grupo focal foi aplicado em três diretoras escolares concomitantemente a uma capacitação sobre o tema \"gestão estratégica com BSC no setor público\". Foi feita a observação não participante em duas escolas. Na análise de dados, foi utilizada a análise de conteúdo. Como resultado, constatou-se que a visão da gestão estratégica, para o diretor escolar, foi de pensar em metas e objetivos para melhoria da vida escolar do aluno. Já a perspectiva do diretor escolar sobre a aplicação da gestão estratégica com BSC e mapa estratégico no setor público foi a de que as ferramentas aparecem como viáveis dentro do setor público e das escolas públicas, porém, ambos precisam ser adaptados para melhor utilização. Foi elaborado um esboço do BSC e mapa estratégico no setor público, especificamente da escola pública. Conclui-se que as escolas necessitam de um plano administrativo específico para uma gestão mais eficiente e participativa. O BSC e o mapa estratégico são viáveis para o setor público e para as escolas públicas municipais, desde que sejam adaptados. Este projeto contribuiu para a pesquisa do BSC no setor público, bem como para a melhoria da educação pública brasileira. / Public schools value school planning as one of the administrative and pedagogical concerns to create conditions for the effective realization of what has been established. We argue, however, municipal public schools do not have elaborate administrative plans. The aim of this research is to identify the principals vision of strategic management with balanced scorecard (BSC) and strategic map in the public sector. To reach the proposed objective, the research had as a first step the transfer of data and information from the GREFIC of FEARP-USP for the selection of public schools in Ribeirão Preto/SP city and from there a qualitative approach, with the use of the case study as technical procedure in public schools raised. The research was characterized as applied and descriptive. The data collection techniques were observation, the questionnaire, the interview, the field diary and the focus group. Eight school principals were interviewed. The focus group was applied to three principals\' concomitant with a training about strategic management with BSC in the public sector. Non-participant observation was done in two schools. Data analysis was performed using content analysis. The results indicate that the vision of strategic management for the principal was to think about goals and objectives to improve the student\'s school life. The principal\'s view on the application of strategic management with BSC and strategic map in the public sector was that tools appear as viable within the public sector and public schools, but both need to be adapted for better use. An outline of the BSC and strategic map was made in the public sector, specifically the public school. We conclude that schools need a specific administrative plan for a more efficient and participatory management. The BSC and the strategic map are feasible for the public sector and municipal public schools, provided they are adapted. This project contributed to the BSC\'s research in the public sector, as well as the improvement of Brazilian public education.