Au-delà de la littérature édifiante ou critique des XVIème, XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles, l’image mentale des religieuses bénédictines et cisterciennes passe aussi par la production et la diffusion de représentations iconographiques via de nombreux supports. L’étude menée sur ce media visuel a permis de rassembler un corpus de 1160 références regroupées en une base de données exploitable. Son analyse se développe autour de l’affirmation de l’importance du témoignage historique et documentaire de l’iconographie pour la connaissance des modes de vie et de pensées de ces moniales. Le traitement typologique du contexte de production, des commanditaires et destinataires des œuvres définit les enjeux et objectifs de ces représentations. L’iconographie présente toutes les caractéristiques spirituelles et temporelles de la vie monastique féminine avec les différentes problématiques qui font l’actualité du monde régulier post-tridentin. L’étude se penche aussi sur la représentation des grandes figures fondatrices du monachisme féminin, comme sainte Scholastique, les saintes fondatrices d’abbayes médiévales et les fondatrices modernes de congrégations nouvelles. L’iconographie donne à voir un monde monastique féminin puissant et émancipé avec l’évocation de la sainteté féminine et de son lien privilégié à Dieu. Les portraits de supérieures et de religieuses sont des témoins directs d’un pouvoir temporel et spirituel similaire à celui de leurs confrères moines. L’image de la bénédictine et de la cistercienne à l’époque moderne se révèle orientée et biaisée, utilisée à des fins de propagande, mais les religieuses en tirent toujours le meilleur parti pour conforter leur légitimité. / Beyond uplifting or critical literature of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the mental image of the Cistercian and Benedictine nuns also involves the production and dissemination of iconographic representations via a variety of media. The study on the visual media brought together a corpus of 1160 references grouped into a usable database. His analysis develops around the affirmation of the importance of the historical and documentary witness of the iconography for the knowledge of the modes of life and thoughts of these nuns. The typological treatment of the context of production, sponsors and recipients of art works defines the stakes and objectives of these representations. Iconography features all the spiritual and temporal of feminine monastic life with the various problems which make the topicality of the post-Tridentine regular world. The study also focuses on the representation of the great founding figures of female monasticism as Saint Scholastica, the Holy founders of medieval abbeys and the modern founders of new congregations. The iconography shows a powerful and emancipated female monastic world with the evocation of feminine Holiness and his relationship to God. Superior and religious portraits are direct witnesses of their temporal and spiritual power similar to that of their fellow monks. The image of the Cistercian and benedictine in modern times turns oriented and biased, used for purposes of propaganda, but the nuns always get the best of that to reinforce their legitimacy.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

The past three decades have seen a substantial growth of interest in children's play in scholarly and popular writing, the mass media and government policymaking. Implicit and explicit in this growing interest is the idea that children's play, or more specifically, a decline or lack of children's outdoor play, represents a serious problem in the UK and other western societies and that it therefore requires the intervention of a range of professional and political powers. The rapid and widespread affirmation that claims about children's play have received deserves critical examination. This study examines the construction of children's play as a social problem in four major UK newspapers. Focusing on the period from 1985 to 2016, it draws on theoretical and conceptual tools from the constructionist study of social problems and methodological tools from Qualitative Media Analysis to examine the roles played by various claimsmakers in the construction of the problem and the rhetoric used in support of their cause. It hence offers important insights into the prominent position children's play holds on the public agenda and identifies some of the underlying cultural currents from which claims about children's play draw.

Este trabalho analisa as razões do recorrente fracasso das reformas tributárias no Brasil. Foram estudadas três tentativas de reforma - uma no governo FHC e duas no governo Lula. Apesar de o sistema tributário brasileiro ser muito mal avaliado, todas estas tentativas de reforma falharam. A hipótese central do trabalho é que este fracasso não pode ser explicado pelas estruturas políticas ou federativas, mas pela estratégia dos governos. A ampla insatisfação com os tributos no Brasil induz o governo a propor reformas abrangentes, que alteram muitos aspectos da intrincada estrutura tributária. Estas propostas acabam gerando conflitos multidimensionais, ou seja, o aparecimento de muitas clivagens políticas simultâneas. Também se compara a reforma tributária a outras duas grandes reformas do período: a reforma do judiciário e a reforma administrativa. / This thesis analyzes the reasons for the persistent failure of the tax reforms in Brazil. I studied three attempts at reform one in Cardosos and two in Lulas administration. Although the Brazilian tax system is rated very poor, all these attempts have failed. The central hypothesis of this study is that failure can not be explained by political or federal sistem, but by the strategy of governments. Widespread dissatisfaction with taxes in Brazil induces the government to propose sweeping reforms that alter many aspects of the intricate tax structure. These proposals generated multidimensional conflicts: the emergence of many political cleavages simultaneously. I also compare the tax reform with two other reforms of the period: the reform of judiciary and administrative reform.

The Common Good was the ancient patrimony of a Scottish burgh, and the central resource of urban government before local rates. By the early nineteenth century this revenue was under considerable strain due to rapid population growth and urban expansion. As pressure on urban institutions and resources increased, so did debts secured against the revenue stream from Common Good assets, anxieties about which triggered the campaign for burgh reform. In 1833, as the Burgh Reform Act changed the electoral basis of burgh government, Edinburgh was declared bankrupt due to levels of borrowing incurred to build and extend the New Town and to expand Leith harbour. This thesis uses Common Good accounts as its quantitative basis. The disbursements of extant accounts for the period 1820-56 were recorded and assigned analytical categories in order to compare expenditure of different types over time. Such detailed analysis constitutes a major contribution to the existing historiography of Scottish cities and local government, providing insight into changing spending and priorities, and the effects on the unravelling of the old political order. It also facilitates discussion of the changing nature of corruption and probity in public life during a period when expectations of those holding office changed substantially. In the 1820s burgh reform seemed likely, yet in responding to the challenges of urban government, the unreformed Council was innovative. Two case studies illustrate the contingency function of the Common Good. Whilst George IV’s visit is well-known, that the Council used Common Good money to provide civic hospitality and promotion is not. The Great Fires of Edinburgh of 1824 were very damaging, especially around Parliament Square, and the Council offered a sophisticated response using the resources of the Common Good which included emergency aid to those in need, and the establishment of the first municipal fire brigade. In 1833 Edinburgh was declared bankrupt, and the City’s assets were transferred to trustees appointed for the Creditors. Without control of its finances during protracted negotiations, the new, elected Council suffered from a ‘legitimacy deficit.’ The Settlement Act 1838 served to ‘translate’ the Burgh Reform Act, 1833 to Edinburgh’s needs, as it restructured municipal debt and gave Leith a portion of Edinburgh’s Common Good, which meant Leith could make use of its police burgh status gained in 1833. This case shows the higher importance of local legislation to a major city rather than general acts. With the problems of the former political system resolved, Edinburgh’s 1856 Extension Act expanded municipal boundaries and transferred police powers to the Council, so moving towards a unitary authority. Neither burgh reform nor the restructuring of local government can be understood without first analysing how the Common Good was used, and this thesis takes important strides in that direction.

This thesis contributes to existing knowledge on NGOs in the global South through examining the case study of RDO, an NGO in Pakistan, investigating the influence of historically structured formal and informal institutions and the politico-economic factors shaping its efforts for democratic and empowerment-oriented change in rural communities. It analyses RDO’s philosophy and practice regarding the formation of community organisations, which are intended to work democratically for their own development and to access government and other NGOs’ services. It does this by analysing 63 qualitative interviews, 20 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), organisational documents and observational data from 8-months fieldwork. It is argued that, rather than democratising and empowering community members, whose relationships with each other and with the state agencies have been historically patronage-based (Gough et al., 2004) and marked by inequalities based on ethnicity, gender, and class, RDO tends to deal with the communities in a patronage-based manner. This is due to its inability to allocate adequate time to communities to institutionalise democratic values in place of path dependent structures (Pierson, 2000) of inequality and practices of patron-clientelism. This, in turn, emanates from its shift away from the empowerment agenda and subscription to neoliberal mode of interventions. Additionally, the interventions by national and international NGOs, most of which have burgeoned in the wake of post-2000 political and natural disasters, have also socialised the rural communities to perceive NGOs as providers of welfare goods. This has made it harder for RDO to work according to its goals. Hence, instead of changing path dependent structures (Pierson, 2000) of inequality and patron-clientelism (Gough et al., 2004), RDO, like most NGOs in the global South, has largely become an agent of its perpetuation.

The impact of technology in society nowadays has led to significant curricular reforms around the world that aim to achieve a higher quality in education. Mexico has not been the exception and in 2008, the Reforma Integral de la Educación Media Superior, RIEMS (the Comprehensive Reform of Upper Secondary Education) was launched with the aim to overcome three challenges in upper secondary education in Mexico: access to education, quality and equity. The proper development of this educational level would represent a fundamental assumption that the country could respond to the challenges of the global economy in a context of equity and diversity. In this context, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in schools has become a required tool considered as the necessary action for the qualitative improvement of the teaching and learning process. This provides many possibilities, but also new demands. One of the most important challenges concerns the teaching task and the fact that teachers are required to play a different role from the traditional approach that they are used to using in class and which is common in classrooms in Mexico, becoming instead facilitators of the learning process. This thesis was carried out to explore how EFL teachers engage with ICT in their practice in the context of Mexican reform initiatives. Specifically, the study focused on teacher cognition to understand what teachers think, know, believe and do related to ICT adoption. A case study approach was used to collect data from three EFL teachers in a high school in Mexico through interviews, observations and stimulated recall sessions. The results show that the participant teachers face a challenging, complex, multifactorial situation that hinders their adoption of ICT. The organisational structures of schooling and the social dimension of the particular school setting impact negatively on the conceptions that teachers bring to their practice making it difficult for ICT tools to be explored and appropriated pedagogically.

People across the globe are on the move due to environmental disruption and degradation, causing them to travel and find their future in new locations. Climate change will increase the number of people seeking to escape environmental pressures. What should be the appropriate response to this increase of migrating people, driven away from their homes as a result of climate change effects? From the perspective of normative political philosophy, it is more precise to ask two interrelated questions: what are the obligations in the context of climate change migration and to who should assign them. Previous research in normative political philosophy has focused on the high-profile case of small island states that can be submerged by the rising levels of the oceans, overlooking the wider ways in which human mobility will be induced by climate change effects. The thesis, then, fills this gap in the literature and provides a nuanced account that combines insights from political philosophy and writing on climate change and immigration. My dissertation answers the two above-mentioned questions, dedicating the first part to the ‘who’ question and taking up the ‘what’ question in the second part. The overall argument shows that states creating hazardous climate change incur obligations towards those adversely affected by it, including those relocating across international borders. And these states ought to amend or supplement their immigration policy in a way that advances the capacity of vulnerable individuals to cope with climate change. In the first part of the thesis, I establish state responsibility for the adverse effects of climate change, primarily focusing on its relation with duties towards climate change adaptation. I work with a backward-looking principle of responsibility, responsibility for causing bad outcomes, and explore its application to the case of climate change in the face of some conceptual and empirical challenges. I further develop a notion of responsibility for creating risk that can capture the collective adverse outcome states bring about by emitting greenhouse gases. I explicate the moral significance of imposing risks on others and the obligations that it gives rise to. Building on this theoretical groundwork, the second part of the thesis dives into the complex nexus of climate change and human mobility. I focus on a particular pattern of immigrationinternational movement due to gradual environmental changes associated with climate change that significantly restrict people’s life prospects. I defend a view that perceives such migratory scenarios as a way to cope with climate change, a form of adaptation. I argue that the obligations of states include providing admission to climate immigrants. However, they are part of a wider set of actions and policies to advance the adaptation capacity of all individuals vulnerable to climate change hazards: immigrants themselves, but also the immobile. This part of thesis shows that the adaptation duty of states is a complex balancing act between providing admission and supporting local adaptation. The last chapter elaborates on this challenge. Drawing on the research on climate immigration, I highlight the aspects of this movement that must be considered in a morally informed immigration policy. In addition, I put forward the possibility that states can allocate among themselves their obligations so some will do more in terms of admitting immigrants and some will do more in terms of supporting local adaptation.

This thesis provides empirical evidence on the relationship between demographic events and job satisfaction. Existing conceptualisations of job satisfaction are not fruitful for theorising the relationship between family context and job satisfaction. I develop a framework whereby job satisfaction is maximised when there are no mismatches between desired and obtained employment characteristics, while desired employment characteristics are in turn affected by family context. On one hand, family events may create negative spill-overs into well-being at work; on the other hand, work may be a buffer against negative family events. As family context I consider motherhood, length of paid leave after birth of a child for women and marital dissolution for men. I use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a longitudinal survey representative of German households that spans the period 1984–2013. This dataset is ideal for my research question because it is the longest panel survey of job satisfaction. Although I chose the SOEP due to its high suitability, I also exploit features of German society and policy. I show that family events bring about variations in job satisfaction in unexpected ways. Becoming a mother does not matter for trajectories of job satisfaction. However, factors such as availability of suitable employment and norms may be more important in explaining why childless women have lower job satisfaction than mothers in Eastern Germany, but not in Western Germany. A shorter paid leave brings about a lower level of job satisfaction at the return to work but only for women of a lower socio-economic standing. Men who divorce experience a temporary increase in job satisfaction that lasts for up to three years after marital dissolution.

殖民時期的香港一直被丛书新自由主義的經典例子。加上香港殖民政府的剝削本質，它一般不會提供廉價醫療服務給予普羅大眾。然而，儘管有「積極不干預主義」這口號，殖民政府仍然於香港留下了龐大公營醫療系統。為什麼龐大公營醫療系統與放任自由主義並存於二次世界大戰後的香港社會？ / 為了解答以上疑問，本研究將從一九六四年醫療改革，探討香港戰後醫療政策。本文認為，香港研究忽視了冷戰對香港公共衛生的影響。文獻回顧後，實證研究分為三部分。第一部分提出「衛生關注」(Sanitary Concern)不足以構成醫療改革的原因。第二部分通過文本分析，發現六十年代的主流報章不重視醫療改革，由此可見改革並非基於公眾的訴求。最後的部分從戰後政府檔案，發現長遠的公營醫療規劃沿於五十年代後期。同時，戰後公營醫療系統的擴張，更可能是因為殖民政府為了確保足夠的戰時緊急醫療服務，及防止左派利用社區診所滲透入基層。 / Hong Kong has been regarded as a textbook example of Neo Liberalism. The exploitative nature of a colonial government makes it unlikely for the colonial state to make commitment for low-cost medical services to the general public. However, the slogan of “positive non-interventionism notwithstanding, the strong public health sector in Hong Kong is also a colonial legacy. Why was such a state-centered medical system established in a laissez-faire society after the Second World War? / This thesis aims at investigating the 1964 hospital reform in Hong Kong to study the colonial governance and arguing that the Cold War factor has been neglected in the analysis of the medical-institutional change. After the literature review, there are three empirical sections to support this explanation. The first part finds that sanitary concern was not a strong reason for the reform. In the second part, a context analysis on newspaper during the 1960s shows that the hospital reform was simply neglected by most newspapers, which implies that the reform was not the direct result of public pressure. The final part looks into the long-term medical planning since the late 1950 and several related medical policies through different archives in order to demonstrate the impacts of Cold War’s politics on Hong Kong’s medical services provision. Evidences suggest that self-sufficiency of military-emergency medical services and control over the growing influence of left-wing community clinics could be a more convincing explanation for the reform. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Tang, Kai Yi. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-165). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Thesis/Assessment Committee --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgments --- p.iv / List of tables, graphs and figures --- p.v / Acknowledgments --- p.vii / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- The 1964 medical white paper: the first commitment in the colonial history --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- A state-centred medical system as a colonial legacy --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3 --- The research question --- p.8 / Chapter 1.4 --- Methodology --- p.10 / Chapter 1.5 --- The central argument and outline of the thesis --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Literature Review --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1. --- Politics of health in Hong Kong: a sudden change from the voluntary sector to the state? --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2 --- The origin of public health in Britain, India and Singapore --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3 --- Inadequate explanations for the 1964 hospital reform --- p.19 / Chapter 2.4 --- The nature of the Colonial governance: laissez-faire or Interventionist? --- p.21 / Chapter 2.5 --- British Hong Kong: Lacking commitments to local community --- p.24 / Chapter 2.6 --- The partial vision of public health in the colony --- p.25 / Chapter 2.7 --- Financial conservatism, the Pound crisis and social reforms in Hong Kong --- p.29 / Chapter 2.8 --- “1967 riot“ and “MacLehose“ as a explanation for the post-War social reforms --- p.33 / Chapter 2.9 --- An alternative: Cold War, the colonial governance and social service provision --- p.37 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Sanitary concern, diseases and state interventions in Hong Kong: Did the epidemic matter again? --- p.44 / Chapter 3.1 --- The origin of sanitary concern in Victorian Britain --- p.44 / Chapter 3.2 --- Impacts and limitations of sanitary concern in Hong Kong --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3 --- The 1894 Plague as a turning point: the first expansion in the colonial medical system --- p.50 / Chapter 3.4 --- Shadow of sanitary concern after the War --- p.53 / Chapter 3.5 --- Health profile in Hong Kong: a gradual improvement? --- p.56 / Chapter 3.6 --- A epidemiological transition in infectious diseases since 1945 --- p.59 / Chapter 3.7 --- Conclusion: Did diseases really matter? --- p.64 / Chapter Chapter Four --- Public opinion on public health: a driving force to the reform? --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1. --- The political culture in post-war Hong Kong --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2 --- From the rise in telephone fees to a social event in newspapers --- p.69 / Chapter 4.3 --- A content analysis on newspapers in 1964 --- p.72 / Chapter 4.4 --- Most medical news: informative but not critical --- p.73 / Chapter 4.5 --- Hospital reform: simply ignored? --- p.77 / Chapter 4.6 --- Reform: a result of public pressure? --- p.81 / Chapter 4.7 --- A social event: “charity clinics problem“? --- p.84 / Chapter 4.8 --- Conclusion: an ignored reform by an active Chinese community? --- p.88 / Chapter Chapter Five --- Politics of public health in post-war Hong Kong: clinics, hospitals and the Cold War --- p.89 / Chapter 5.1 --- British in Cold War: to defend a valuable but vulnerable port --- p.90 / Chapter 5.2 --- Coincidence: A growing government medical sector since 1957 --- p.97 / Chapter 5.3 --- Planning since 1957: reserved lands, standard clinic design and Executive Council --- p.108 / Chapter 5.4 --- Planning in New Territories: a Heung Yee Kuk’s petition for a new hospital --- p.113 / Chapter 5.5 --- A forgotten alternative in medical financing: medical insurance schemes --- p.117 / Chapter 5.6 --- Politics between Hong Kong and London: Mayo Clinic --- p.120 / Chapter 5.7 --- Incinerators and generators: the role of civil hospitals in defence --- p.123 / Chapter 5.8 --- Civil hospitals in M.D.S.: to defend the indefensible Colony --- p.124 / Chapter 5.9 --- “Inconsistent planning: to defend Hong Kong without military hospitals? --- p.135 / Chapter 5.10 --- Threats from the communist: regulations on refugee doctors and charity clinics --- p.138 / Chapter 5.11 --- Conclusion: 1964, a year of no significance? --- p.144 / Chapter Chapter Six --- Conclusion --- p.145 / Chapter 6.1 --- Summary of arguments --- p.145 / Chapter 6.2 --- A reference point: Cold War’s politics and the medical reform in Singapore --- p.148 / Chapter 6.3 --- Implications on public health and Hong Kong studies --- p.152 / Chapter 6.4 --- Limitations and directions of further study --- p.153 / Reference --- p.156