In the Canadian North, capacity building through post-secondary education is a key policy strategy of territorial and federal governments. However, government support for the University of the Arctic (UArctic), a viable policy instrument that makes an important contribution to the capacity building efforts of the territories, has been inconsistent. This thesis will investigate whether devolution has impacted capacity building through post-secondary education, by using UArctic as a case study.

Managing solid waste effectively has become a burden for many countries especially thedeveloping and the least developed ones. Policies are made as guidelines for various actorsin the waste management sector to implement, but implementation also comes withresource availability and the capacity of the actors to ensure their roles in the policy areachieved. This research focuses on the actors in the solid waste management in twoassemblies of Ghana: the New Juaben Municipal Assembly and the Accra MetropolitanAssembly. The study explores the capacity of the stakeholders in these two study areas inrelation to their roles in the Environmental Sanitation Policy of Ghana, looking at theircurrent practices in solid waste management. A seven weeks field research in Ghanainvolving the use of semi‐structured interviews, informal interviews, snow‐ball sampling,participant observation and focus group discussion with actors within the solid wastemanagement sector, provided for the data of the study. The study identifies somechallenges of these actors and gives recommendation of some issues which would requirefurther research.

In the Canadian North, capacity building through post-secondary education is a key policy strategy of territorial and federal governments. However, government support for the University of the Arctic (UArctic), a viable policy instrument that makes an important contribution to the capacity building efforts of the territories, has been inconsistent. This thesis will investigate whether devolution has impacted capacity building through post-secondary education, by using UArctic as a case study.

There are different types of cultures with increasing of immigrant brides to bring lots of impacts on Taiwan. However, those female spouses have never got the respect from Taiwan¡¦s society, no matter how they strive for keeping their existence value. Besides discriminative reports from media, the difficulties those female spouses meet are also caused by deficient policy planning and implementation. There are two research methods as secondary data analysis and in-depth interview in the study to discuss the role played by local governments in Taiwan on the immigrant brides policy implementation and other related issues. The study intends to figure out social policy implementation of immigrant brides and its substances. Moreover, it also discusses the process while the policy is being planned and executed to realize formation and response of such a social issue in local governments in Taiwan with feminism and multiculturalism in the study. With multiculturalism, the study shows out real existence value and positive meaning of new immigrants. Furthermore, as exploration and analysis mentioned as above, it hopes to offer and promote development and active view of social policy of new immigrants to actually practice multivalue in the policy further in the study.

For some time, youth worldwide have faced high levels of unemployment, up to twice as high as adults in Canada (Quintini, Martin, & Martin, 2007). In an environment proliferated with economic recovery initiatives responding to the global economic downturn that began in 2008 (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010), navigation towards employment for youth is complex and dynamic. Many rural communities were damaged by the global economic downturn, particularly in eastern Ontario (Jinha, 2009). The value of career education in supporting youth with transition from school-to-work is widely supported (Bell & O’Reilly, 2008). To my knowledge, a teacher’s perspective on teaching compulsory career studies within times of significant economic challenge has remained unexplored. Using two strands of data collection, document analysis was used to describe policies and strategies that comprised the Canadian and Ontario governments’ responses to the global economic downturn and the provincial policy on career education. I undertook interviews with a career studies teacher to document her knowledge of Canadian and Ontario governments’ responses, and how and from where she gained this knowledge. The teacher’s perceptions of challenges faced by career studies students’ when seeking employment, and of what this knowledge contributed to her teaching practice were also reported. The documents revealed that Canadian and Ontario governments’ had responded to the global economic downturn with similar policies and strategies, influenced by future economic security. The Ministry of Education curriculum documents included economy which was linked with the students’ learning and to the expectations of the curriculum. The teacher had limited knowledge of federal and provincial policies and strategies, although she saw connections to the career studies curriculum. The teacher supported her career studies practice through experience gained in a combined role as a teacher of cooperative education and business subjects, and the experience of colleagues. I concluded that the teaching of career studies was influenced by the teacher’s other teaching subjects, and career studies teachers’ need access to appropriate, current resources to meet curriculum expectations. Expanding the program to full-credit status might allow teachers greater flexibility to tailor the career studies program to meet individual students’ needs. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-27 11:37:15.56

This thesis draws on electronic government (e-govemment) policy formulation, implementation and execution. IT has been enthused by the perceived lack of a model for e-government in Saudi Arabia public sectors. A model for e-government implementation is developed for Saudi Arabia. It examines critical factors that have impacts on e-government implementation in Saudi public sectors by collecting and analysing data in both quantitative and qualitative approaches, and further presenting an extensive review on literature. This exercise is significant, to avoid the pitfalls of imposing universal approaches to research and policy practices. The conclusions and recommendations of this research are significant for both practitioners, in providing guidelines for e-government implementation, and scholars, in suggesting further research in the new area of e-government.

Abstract In 2007 the Ministry of Education in Ontario identified Aboriginal education as one of its key priorities with the release of the First Nation, Métis and Inuit Education Policy Framework (FNMI). Improving educational outcomes and closing the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students is the focus of this policy. This study examines the policy implementation process in one school board in Ontario by focusing on how teachers in two elementary schools made sense of the policy expectations and how this sense-making impacted their professional practice. In order to examine how implementation was understood and acted upon by these teachers, the sense-making/co-construction model developed by Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan (2002) provides the starting point for analysis. This study seeks to make visible the sense-making cues that teachers used to notice and select new information and to examine how these cues impacted teacher enactment of the FNMI policy. Sense-making theory supports the examination of change at the micro level of local policy actors; while the co-construction model with its meditational system of individual agency, organizational structure/culture, and environmental messaging contextualizes the individual sense-making of teachers within a larger social environment. The research methodology included teacher interviews designed to collect evidence of teacher sense-making during the policy implementation process, and school visits to observe evidence of school culture and structure. Interview responses of 15 elementary teachers and 2 principals were analyzed for sense-making cues. The findings revealed clusters of sense-making cues connected to three main sense-making frameworks or discourses. These discourses included the teacher as professional, equity and inclusion, and leadership and change. These findings support previous research on sense-making and policy implementation and contribute further insight into the micro processes of policy implementation, which could be leveraged to improve policy implementation. Key Words: policy implementation, teacher sense-making, leadership, co-construction model

Concerned with the question of why governments display varying degrees of success in implementing social reforms, (judged by their ability to arrive at coherent policy outcomes), my dissertation aims to identify the most important factors responsible for the stagnation of social benefits reform in Russia, as opposed to its successful implementation in Kazakhstan. Given their comparable Soviet political and economic characteristics in the immediate aftermath of Communism’s disintegration, why did the implementation of social benefits reform succeed in Kazakhstan, but largely fail in Russia? I argue that although several political and institutional factors did, to a certain degree, influence the course of social benefits reform in these two countries, their success or failure was ultimately determined by the capacity of key state actors to frame the problem and form an effective policy coalition that could further the reform agenda despite various political and institutional obstacles and socioeconomic challenges. In the case of Kazakhstan, the successful implementation of the social benefits reform was a result of a bold and skilful endeavour by Kazakhstani authorities, who used the existing conditions to justify the reform initiative and achieve the reform’s original objectives. By contrast, in Russia, the failure to effectively restructure the old Soviet social benefits system was rooted largely in the political instability of the Yeltsin era, and a lack of commitment to the reforms on the part of key political actors. And when the reform was finally launched, its ill-considered policies and the government’s failure to form the broad coalition and effectively frame the problem led to public protests and subsequent reform stagnation. Based on in-depth fieldwork conducted in Russia and Kazakhstan in 2006 and 2008, my study enriches the literature on the transformation of post-communist welfare regimes, and contributes important insights to the central question in the literature on public policy, that is, when, why and how policies change. It also enhances our understanding of political and public policy processes in transitional and competitive authoritarian contexts.

Abstract In 2007 the Ministry of Education in Ontario identified Aboriginal education as one of its key priorities with the release of the First Nation, Métis and Inuit Education Policy Framework (FNMI). Improving educational outcomes and closing the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students is the focus of this policy. This study examines the policy implementation process in one school board in Ontario by focusing on how teachers in two elementary schools made sense of the policy expectations and how this sense-making impacted their professional practice. In order to examine how implementation was understood and acted upon by these teachers, the sense-making/co-construction model developed by Datnow, Hubbard, & Mehan (2002) provides the starting point for analysis. This study seeks to make visible the sense-making cues that teachers used to notice and select new information and to examine how these cues impacted teacher enactment of the FNMI policy. Sense-making theory supports the examination of change at the micro level of local policy actors; while the co-construction model with its meditational system of individual agency, organizational structure/culture, and environmental messaging contextualizes the individual sense-making of teachers within a larger social environment. The research methodology included teacher interviews designed to collect evidence of teacher sense-making during the policy implementation process, and school visits to observe evidence of school culture and structure. Interview responses of 15 elementary teachers and 2 principals were analyzed for sense-making cues. The findings revealed clusters of sense-making cues connected to three main sense-making frameworks or discourses. These discourses included the teacher as professional, equity and inclusion, and leadership and change. These findings support previous research on sense-making and policy implementation and contribute further insight into the micro processes of policy implementation, which could be leveraged to improve policy implementation. Key Words: policy implementation, teacher sense-making, leadership, co-construction model

ABSTRACT In an effort to meet students' arts education needs, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) collaborated with various community organizations to develop the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts in 2004. In 2008, the NYCDOE updated the music portion with a publication known as the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Music PreK-12. After designing the new "Standards and curriculum guide" with the intention of changing arts education in New York City public schools, the NYCDOE organized various professional development workshops to prepare music teachers. Although the responsibility of music teachers was obvious, the role of assistant principals, who evaluate the performance of music teachers, was not apparent. In this study, I employed questionnaire, interview, observation, and document analysis as data gathering instruments to investigate the implementation and supervision of the music education portion of The Blueprint standards. I used a collective case study approach to conduct the study in the public high schools of New York City in light of the changing conditions of education in the NYCDOE. I found that in the New York City public high schools, not every music educators was familiar with The Blueprint, and the NYCDOE did not make its implementation mandatory to all music educators. Implementation of The Blueprint depended on individual teachers' choice. Because the NYCDOE did not train music supervisors how to supervise and evaluate the implementation of The Blueprint, they did not use the criteria from The Blueprint to evaluate music teachers. Data from classroom observation of music teachers indicated that they were implementing some of The Blueprint's strands. Music educators that were apprehensive about using The Blueprint believed that their established method of teaching music was sufficient, and that the NYCDOE does not always follow through with its policies. Administrative support and resources were not significant barriers except in one case, but time was an obstacle to the implementation of The Blueprint, especially the rehearsal time. Time for other subjects took precedence over music.