This research presents a regional study of the implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act (commonly known as the New Poor Law) and its operation in Hertfordshire up to 1847. It examines the economic costs of poor relief across the whole of this rural southern county but it also adopts a microhistory approach to examine in detail how the New Poor Law was implemented and administered in four poor law unions: Hatfield, Hitchin, St Albans and Watford. This study makes national and intra-county comparisons of poor relief data, policy and practice. This research focuses on people as well as place and examines how different groups influenced poor law policy and practice. It makes an important finding about the role played by the second Marquis of Salisbury (a prominent Hertfordshire resident) in the review of the poor laws and the legislation that followed. At the local level this thesis explores the process of implementation and gives new emphasis to the contribution made by the assistant poor law commissioners to both process and policy in the initial years of the New Poor Law. This study is unusual in the attention given to the middlemen of the poor law machinery - the poor law guardians and poor law officers including: medical officers, workhouse masters, relieving officers and schoolmasters and mistresses. This detailed examination of the local guardians challenges the existing historiography on the social demography of this body of men, demonstrates that the influence of elite personnel persisted and adds new data to support the argument that the operation of the poor laws was not just regionally but locally diverse. The workhouse, so symbolic of the New Poor Law and an essential component of the deterrent ideology, is considered in the context of attitudes around its construction and capacity as well as its everyday operation. This thesis adds to the poor law historiography with new data on a previously under-researched area of the country; it provides new information on the development of poor law policy, but more importantly it draws attention to the role of the middlemen and how their individual contributions influenced poor law policy and practice.

A case study approach was employed to investigate the expectations families in poverty had for their children's early childhood education program. Questions explored included the purpose of early childhood education, the needs of young children, the association of early childhood education to formal schooling, and families' aspirations for their children. Four women whose children or grandchildren were enrolled in an urban early childhood program and considered at risk because of poverty participated. Qualitative methods were used including analysis of interviews and families' photographs of representations of childhood, as well as the researcher's participant observations at the early childhood program. Results indicated that the women had mainstream aspirations for the children, including going to college. Analysis revealed that the women were insightful in regard to the development of children, to appropriate ways of learning for young children, and to the needs of young children. It was also apparent that the women understood the need for and desired a shared role between families and teachers in their children's development. The participants expect early childhood programs to not only prepare young children for school but to prepare them to successfully negotiate social interactions with both children and adults. The need for young children to be outside of the home was an unexpected theme of this research. The results also indicated that the women felt that childhood was a special time of life, free from anxiety, but a time to also form a secure base from which they could take risks in the world. The present study addresses myths that families in poverty do not understand the needs of young children, are not concerned with their futures, and have low expectations for their children. This study has implications for the preparation of teachers. Preservice teachers need opportunities for personal reflection regarding their assumptions about families. The development of initiatives that would allow low income families to reveal their expectations for their children's early childhood education is also implied. / Department of Elementary Education

Research carried out in several countries has concluded that high yielding varieties (HYV) of rice have tremendous potential compared to traditional rice varieties in alleviating poverty. On the other hand, it is argued that despite increase in yields, high yielding varieties do not benefit the poor farmers because of high costs associated with input acquisition and other operational costs. To further understand the issues related to production and economics of HYV, this study was carried out with its primary objective to assess the profitability of smallholder rice production in Mangol, Bilene district in southern Mozambique. Out of a total population of eighty farmers, sixty farmers participated in this research. Two groups of farmers, one using traditional rice varieties and the other using high yielding varieties were surveyed. The study consisted of field observations; yield measurements and interviews of the farmers using a semi-structured questionnaire. Gross margins were calculated for both traditional input users (TIU) and modem input users (MIU). Results show that an average farmer using high yielding varieties produces 4.4 tons of rice per ha, corresponding to a gross margin of 4 238 000,00 MZM. The highest yield obtained with high yielding varieties was 7.3 tons of rice per ha, producing a gross margin of 10 038 000,00 MZM. On the other hand, an average TIU farmer produces 2.5 tons per ha, realising a gross margin of 3 483 125, 00 MZM. The maximum yield attainable using traditional inputs is 2.9 tons per ha, producing a gross margin of 4 283 125, 00 MZM. The results also show that the lowest yield obtained by farmers using modern inputs was 3.1 tons per ha, producing gross margins of 1 638 000,00 MZM while the lowest attainable when using traditional inputs is 1.7 tons producing gross margins of 1 913 125,00 MZM. The main conclusion of this study was that HYV are more profitable than traditional varieties, both in financial terms, to individual farmer and in economic terms, to the society as a whole. However, due to high production costs, farmers producing HYV must attain yield levels not less than 3.4 tons per ha as yields below that level make little financial incentives and does not motivate farmers to shift from traditional varieties to modern varieties. In order to ensure high yields, farmers must be assisted to carefully implement the recommended agronomic practices because the adoption of high yielding varieties does not ensure profitable yields if the other agronomic and management practices are not observed during the production process. The study also assessed the contribution of agricultural support services such as input supply, credit and extension, on the adoption of new technologies and it was concluded that when agricultural support services are available, farmers can successfully adopt recommended technologies. / Dissertation (M Inst Agrar (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Published Article / The potential for tourism to contribute to development in South Africa has been enthusiastically embraced by the government and by many scholars. This article examines tourism from two perspectives 'Tourism First' and 'Development First' and tries to reconcile each of these modes with developmental dictates. A number of obstacles to the realisation of the developmental potential of tourism are identified. The inherent tensions between traditionalism and tourism, as an expression of modernity, are explored. It is concluded that, although the tourism industry is an excellent generator of positive economic multipliers, it does not readily lend itself to functioning as a 'lead sector' for development.

The topic of this study is how methods for literacy development are used in upper secondary school education for poor comprehenders. The work was based upon the questions: 1) How do secondary school teachers employ methods for literacy development in their classroom instruction, with special focus on poor comprehenders? 2) How do secondary school teachers perceive that they employ methods for literacy development, with special focus on poor comprehenders? 3) What differences and similarities are there between the teachers? Two methods were used; classroom observations and interviews of three Swedish as a foreign language teachers and three first language content area teachers.  The results showed that all teachers employ different methods that enhance educational quality as well as literacy development strategies that have been proven beneficial for poor comprehenders. Variations in methods used are generally due to individual discrepancies in preferences rather than differences between first and second language teachers. The conclusion is that teachers who apply methods for literacy development should be able to adapt their whole class instruction according to the needs of poor comprehenders without lowering instructional quality.

From 1837 the Poor Law Commission sanctioned temporary relief, at workhouses, for poor wayfarers, heralding a departure from historic attempts to control the wandering poor with criminal vagrancy legislation. A modern, detailed account is lacking, and the thesis addresses gaps in the historiography, such as the significant underestimation of women using the system, the influence of penal separation upon casual relief, and the changing attributes of recipient The origins of casual relief are traced to local initiatives, c.1800-1830, adopted, subsequently, in the reformed Poor Law system. The assumption, by administrators, that the justice system would retain the mandate for the suppression of vagrancy, was never eradicated, partly because criminal legislation remained in force, alongside casual relief. The deterrent principle of the New Poor Law was applied in casual wards, characterized by an absence of rehabilitative elements. The reluctance of Poor Law officials to engage fully with vagrant relief was reflected in repeated attempts to transfer responsibility to the police. Contemporary views are examined to ascertain whether Poor Law vagrancy policy was based upon rational assessment, or was the product of myth and prejudice. Ignoring evidence that the majority of casual relief users were in search of employment, and that others were rendered destitute by age or ill health, officials insisted upon the intrinsic deviancy of recipients. The traditional belief in the ‘undeserving’ poor was undiminished. Phases in casual relief are identified, summarized as a gradual transition from primitive provision (‘stables and straw’) to purpose-built cells. However, notwithstanding the strengthening of central regulation, from 1871, uniform implementation of policy was never achieved. Casual relief remained a protean experience for applicants in this period. Inasmuch as most itinerant poor avoided the wards, New Poor Law deterrence succeeded; as a measure to control vagrancy, it failed.

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The general focus of the study is a shanty town (población) on the outskirts of Santiago in Chile during the military regime of Augusto Pinochet. The military coup of 11th September 1973 was the beginning of seventeen years of repression and violence. The specific focus of the research is the development of resistance against Pinochet amongst the people (pobladores) of that shanty town. The research is based on a six year period in the población where the candidate, being also a Catholic priest, had unique access through his role to the social and cultural life of the people. The implications of this role in terms of retrospective anthropology are examined in detail. The experience is studied in terms of the developments of attitudes and behaviour within a particular group especially in their movement from tentative protest and the creative use of ambiguity, to the use of barricades as the focus for direct confrontation with the authorities. The passing beyond the barricade is explored in terms of the expansion of the people's capacity to develop political agency. The thesis is a case study of Liberation Theology and its role in the development of resistance to the military regime. The street becomes a central focus as space of protest. A comparison is made between the private space of the house as refuge and the public space of the street as place of conflict and danger. It is suggested that the barricade may be understood as a dynamic boundary being partly constituted by the bodies of the protesters themselves. It is also didactic, insofar as the re-appropriation of physical space - the streets, the bridge upon which the key barricade is built, and by extension the entire población, parallel the occupation of the internal space in the minds of the protesters. The transformations of meaning being etched into the 'landscape' were being correspondingly etched into the 'inscapes' of the imagination. If space can be taken as analogous to language and the movement of bodies through the población understood, therefore, as an articulation of an alternative discourse, then the boundary/barricade can be seen as the focus for such a counter-discourse against the attempt by Pinochet to militarise civilian life. Liberation theology and the Basic Christian Community are explored in terms of the development of the potential of resistance to the military regime. It is suggested that these functioned by legitimating new public discourses, promoting new styles of leadership and empowering individuals and organisations. Here politics becomes part of the road to 'salvation' and religion becomes politics by other means. Finally the question of popular education is addressed in the context of an invasion of the University by the pobladores. A project of popular education is explored in its attempt to go beyond the question of protest against the Regime to addressing how political power is operated through appropriation of discourse. Power and knowledge are intricately intertwined. The focus moves to consider political violence as being exercised not just in military might but also through institutional structures. The conclusion recapitulates the main themes in the context of wider aspects of anthropology.

No description available.

No description available.