Submitted by Mariana Dornelles Vargas (marianadv) on 2015-05-21T19:01:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 impacto_certificacao.pdf: 1900443 bytes, checksum: 5484c933fff453acab0db3f2dea0b2d1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-21T19:01:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 impacto_certificacao.pdf: 1900443 bytes, checksum: 5484c933fff453acab0db3f2dea0b2d1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Nenhuma / Este trabalho investiga a certificação da gestão pública municipal de Gramado/RS com a Norma ISO 9001: 2008 - Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade, no período de 2007 a 2010, que contempla as etapas de implementação, certificação e manutenção do selo de qualidade, com enfoque central na área da Educação e na Escola. Caracteriza-se como estudo de caso com abordagem qualitativa. Analisa as etapas do processo, as diferenças dos indicadores de qualidade da Norma ISO 9001 e Indicadores de Qualidade da Educação; e a percepção dos sujeitos sobre os efeitos da ISO na prática da gestão da Escola. Concluímos que o modelo de gestão, com base no setor econômico e com idéias neoliberais de qualidade total, está inserido nos requisitos da Norma ISO 9001:2008; para a gestão da educação municipal e para o ensino formal, o modelo de gestão com requisitos de gerenciamento e controle gerou contradições, questionamentos e dúvidas em relação ao conceito de educação de qualidade; no âmbito da gestão da escola a certificação gerou um desafio, contrariando conquistas já consolidadas e legalmente garantidas, como a gestão democrática com autonomia e participação da comunidade escolar nas decisões, necessidades e prioridades da Escola. / This work researches upon the certificate of the city public management of Gramado/RS, in the ISO 9001:2008. Quality management sistem, within the period from 2007 to 2010. It shows the introduction levels, certification and maintenance of the quality seal. Aiming mainly the educational and school areas. It analizes qualitative cases; analizing working and operational levels. It nominates the differences about ISO 9001 rule and quality rate of education; The people‟s perception through the ISO effects, once into practice in school management. We concluded the sistem of management, having economical basis and also having neoliberal ideas of total quality, is in the requirements of ISO 9001:2008 rule; To the city educational management and to the formal teaching, the model with management requirements and control, has raised contradictions, questions and doubts in relation to the conception of quality educational sistem; In the school management area the certificate has raised a challenge, doubting about some consolidated achievements, those also legaly warranted, as democratic management with autonomy and participation of community in school decisions, needs and priorities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2001. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Paul Baker (Chair), Dianne Ashby, Deborah Curtis, Susan Lenski, Glenn Schlichting. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-219) and abstract. Also available in print.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The study about School Councils believes that this form of organization, when consolidating at school, suggests changes in how to manage educational institutions, as well as makes proposition to think about possible ways to enter new contacts in the school, focusing on the possibilities of an education based on assumptions and participatory political grounds. School councils are integrated collective, composed of segments that constitute the basic core operation of the school: parents and representatives from the civil society, the technical servers, managers, teachers and students. These segments form a legal unit that has different skills, but inclusive ones. It manifests itself through advisory, deliberative, supervisory and mobilizing character of participatory activities that are directed to follow the actions of the school. On this assumption, we believe that understanding the changes made on the school, with the aim of providing qualitative changes in the political and educational management processes, may be a necessary exercise to understand the directions and the structures defined in the educational system. For these questions, we chose, as a research object, the School Councils, which are asserted as a place of political and pedagogical settings and have the purpose of improving the dynamics of learning processes undertaken by the school. The research was conducted in the municipality of Aracaju-SE, between 2011 and 2013; it was to sample a set of fifteen (15) schools located in the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, 52 (fifty-two) people who answered to the questionnaires and a group of eighteen (18) people who participated of the interviews. All subjects in the sample are part of the chosen segments, namely: teachers, principals and parents to understand that the first two segments are directly acting on the guidelines of the school and have parents, as a representative voice of society, focusing, with their expectations and demands, a level of influence on the guidelines of pedagogical practice. The following techniques were used for data collection and analysis: Questionnaire, Interview and Document Analysis (Acts, Ordinances, Regiments, Decrees, Tables of measurement and evaluation of school results etc.). This research used as a guiding research a number of key issues, among them, we have: Is there sense in defining policy and teaching experience developed within the School Councils, as evidence of the meaning of Quality of the pedagogical processes of the School? Is there consistency among the official discourse, the discourse and the expectations of parents and teachers about the purposes and meanings of the actions of School Councils? All interpretive and deepening the study process was subsidized by important authors, among them, Paulo Freire, Jurgen Habermas, Bernard Charlot, Maria da Gloria Gohn, Carlos Alberto Torres, Jean-Louis Derouet, Claus Offe, among others. The thesis is organized into six chapters that present an analysis of the object and search results. / O estudo sobre os Conselhos Escolares considera que esta forma de organização, ao se consolidar na escola, sugere modificações na forma de gerir instituições de ensino, bem como faz proposição sobre possíveis caminhos para pensar a inserção de novos interlocutores no espaço da escola, incidindo sobre as possibilidades de uma formação escolar baseada em pressupostos e fundamentos político-participativos. Os Conselhos Escolares são coletivos integrados, compostos por segmentos que constituem o núcleo básico de funcionamento da escola: os pais e a representação da sociedade civil, os servidores técnicos, os gestores, professores e estudantes. Esses segmentos formam uma unidade jurídica que possui competências distintas, porém, integradoras. Manifesta-se através do caráter consultivo, deliberativo, fiscalizador, normativo e mobilizador de ações participativas que estejam direcionadas ao acompanhamento das atividades escolares. Por esse pressuposto, consideramos que entender as modificações realizadas sobre a escola, com a finalidade de proporcionar alterações de caráter qualitativo nos processos políticos e pedagógicos de gestão, pode ser um exercício necessário para compreensão dos rumos e das estruturas definidas no sistema educacional. Por estas questões, escolhemos, como objeto de pesquisa, os Conselhos Escolares, que se afirmam como lugar de definições políticas e pedagógicas e que possui a finalidade de aperfeiçoar a dinâmica dos processos formativos empreendidos pela escola. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida na cidade de Aracaju-Se, entre os anos de 2011 e 2013 e teve como população pesquisada, um conjunto de 15(quinze) escolas localizadas nos mais diferentes bairros da cidade, 52 (cinquenta e duas) pessoas que responderam aos questionários e um grupo de 20 (vinte) pessoas, que participaram das entrevistas. Todos os sujeitos participantes da amostra fazem parte dos segmentos escolhidos, a saber: professores, gestores e pais, por entender que os dois primeiros segmentos estão diretamente atuando sobre as diretrizes da escola e têm, nos pais, uma voz representativa da sociedade, incindindo, com suas expectativas e demandas, um nível de influência sobre as diretrizes da prática pedagógica. Para a coleta e análise de dados foram utilizados as seguintes técnicas: o Questionário, a Entrevista e a Análise Documental (Atas, Portarias, Regimentos, Decretos, Quadros de medida e avaliação de resultados escolares, etc.). Esta pesquisa utilizou como norteador da investigação um conjunto de questões fundamentais, entre elas, destacamos: Há sentido em definir as experiências políticas e pedagógicas desenvolvidas no interior dos Conselhos Escolares, como evidência do significado de Qualidade dos processos pedagógicos da Escola?Há coerência entre os discursos oficiais, o discurso e as expectativas dos pais e professores sobre as finalidades e os sentidos das ações dos Conselhos Escolares? Todo processo interpretativo e de aprofundamento de estudo foi subsidiado por importantes autores, entre eles Paulo Freire, Jurgen Habermas, Bernard Charlot, Mª da Glória Gohn, Carlos Alberto Torres, Jean-Louis Derouet e Claus Offe. A Tese está organizada em seis capítulos, onde apresentamos a análise do objeto e os resultados da pesquisa.

Embora muito se tenha discutido o processo de municipalização da educação básica no Brasil, a oferta de educação dentro dos limites municipais foi pouco analisada pela literatura até o momento. No caso dessa política, é importante considerar padrões e estratégias municipais de oferta, já que eles dependem, em grande parte, das decisões tomadas pelos governos locais. Quando as condições de oferta de políticas públicas no espaço são distintas, os indivíduos terão oportunidades diferentes de acesso aos serviços, de acordo com a região em que residem (SELLERS, 2016). Este estudo representa um esforço em contribuir para a análise de padrões de oferta intramunicipal de educação, adotando uma abordagem espacial. Pretende-se avaliar se a autonomia decisória e de alocação de recursos dos governos municipais equaliza a qualidade das escolas em todo o território ou se favorece regiões específicas dos munícipios. Para realizar essa análise, os setores censitários dos municípios da Região Metropolitana de Recife foram classificados em níveis de vulnerabilidade, com base nas dimensões renda, escolaridade, raça, gênero e idade. Essa classificação resultou em cinco grupos de setores censitários, variando da altíssima até a baixa vulnerabilidade, e também em uma divisão dos municípios entre homogêneos, nos casos em que apresentam alta concentração de população vulnerável, e heterogêneos nos casos de grandes disparidades entre os níveis de vulnerabilidade da população residente. Para analisar a qualidade das escolas municipais, os indicadores utilizados foram o estoque de equipamentos como: quadra de esportes, laboratório de ciências e informática, biblioteca, internet, berçário e parque infantil. Já a qualidade do corpo docente foi examinada com base na proporção de professores com ensino superior por escola. Os resultados da análise apontam para alguns padrões: a) a oferta de equipamentos para educação infantil (berçário e parque infantil) é baixíssima nos municípios homogêneos e um pouco mais alta nos municípios heterogêneos; b) a oferta de equipamentos em escolas de ensino fundamental é mais concentrada nos municípios heterogêneos e, especificamente, nos grupos de setores com baixa vulnerabilidade; c) nos municípios homogêneos, a oferta de equipamentos para o ensino fundamental se concentra em espaços de média e baixa vulnerabilidade; d) os níveis gerais de oferta para todos os equipamentos analisados são baixos e dificilmente contemplam mais que 50% das escolas de um município, e, por fim, e) a proporção de docentes com ensino superior é maior nas escolas localizadas em áreas de menor vulnerabilidade nos municípios. A desigualdade de oferta intramunicipal de escolas de qualidade, seja por limitações financeiras ou técnicas dos municípios, prejudica os alunos ao longo de sua formação, e, muito provavelmente, as suas perspectivas futuras. / Although the municipalization of basic education in Brazil has been much discussed by the specialized literature, its provision within the municipal boundaries was little explored by researchers so far. Regarding this policy, it is important to consider municipal patterns and strategies of provision, since they depend on the decisions made by local governments. When the provision of public policies is distinct spatially, individuals will have different opportunities to access services, based on their region of residence (SELLERS, 2016). This study aims to analyze intramunicipal patterns of education provision, based on a spatial approach. It evaluates whether the local government decision-making autonomy helps equalizing schools quality throughout the municipal territory or if it favors specific regions and groups. In order to carry out this analysis, all the census tracts on the Metropolitan Region of Recife were classified into levels of vulnerability, based on its population income, schooling, race, gender and age. This classification resulted in five groups of census tracts, varying from very high to low levels of vulnerability, and also in a division of municipalities between homogeneous, in cases which they have a high concentration of vulnerable population, and heterogeneous - in cases of large disparities among the resident population. The existence of equipments such as: sports court, science and computer lab, library, internet, nursery and playground were used as indicators of municipal schools quality. Furthermore, the quality of the teaching staff was examined based on the proportion of teachers with higher education per school. The results revealed some patterns: a) the existence of early education equipments (nursery and playground) is very low in homogeneous municipalities and slightly higher in heterogeneous municipalities; b) the presence of equipments for primary schools is concentrated in the heterogeneous municipalities and, specifically, in those census tracts with high proportions of individuals in advantageous positions; c) in the homogeneous municipalities, the presence of complementary equipment for primary education is concentrated in spaces of medium and low vulnerability; d) the levels of provision for all equipments analyzed in this study are low and hardly cover more than 50% of schools within the municipalities, and e) the proportion of teachers with higher education is more elevated in schools located in areas of lower vulnerability within municipalities. The unequal provision of good schools, whether due to financial or technical limitations of municipalities, punishes and affects students throughout their education, and, most likely, in their future prospects.

This study discussed the need for a broader public discourse on high-stakes accountability-based school reform that underscores teachers' perspectives. Also, the study discussed the need for fuller disclosure of the possible undesirable classroom effects of the reform. To address these needs, the study described teachers' perspectives on the Standards of Learning (SOL) school reform in Virginia, focusing upon teachers' views on the reform's classroom effects. The domains of interest were (1) the adequacy of curriculum and the diversity of teachers' instructional strategies, (2) the quality of student learning, (3) teachers' sense of professional autonomy and level of teacher tension, and (4) school quality. The study examined whether there are differences in teachers' views based the income level of the school locale where teachers teach (low-, middle-, or high-income), the school type (elementary, middle, or high school) in which they teach, and teachers' status on whether they teach a SOL-tested subject (yes/no). The participants of the study included 360 randomly selected teachers who were listed as members of Virginia Education Association (VEA). A survey research design was employed. The instrument included 80 Likert-type items, eight demographic items, and three open-ended questions. Inferential and descriptive statistics were reported for eight scales of the survey as were thematic trends in the qualitative data. The study's results suggested that the SOL program contributes to a hurried, high-pressure classroom culture that depletes the potentiality of the very ends of education the program is intended to achieve. Teachers tended to report (1) an inadequacy of the SOL content standards, (2) a reduction of teachers' use of diverse instructional strategies and an inability of the SOL program to meet diverse student needs, (3) arbitrary SOL test cut-scores, (4) an inadequacy of the SOL pass rates to represent school quality, (5) a lack of diagnostic usefulness of SOL test scores, (6) an inadequacy of SOL testing and SOL test scores to hold schools accountable, (7) teachers' sense of diminished professional autonomy, and (8) teachers' mounting tension in the classroom. These results were juxtaposed to the views of policymakers and business leaders, the public at large, parents, and scholars in the field of education concerning the issue of high-stakes accountability-based school reform. Finally, the study discussed a conflict related to the purpose of public schooling between a prevailing narrative of many policymakers and business leaders and what have been the marginalized views of classroom teachers. / Ph. D.

[pt] Partindo da questão proposta no título do trabalho, o presente estudo focaliza as interações que se desenvolvem entre famílias contemporâneas e escolas de ensino fundamental onde os alunos alcançam bons resultados nas avaliações de larga escala. No intuito de identificar e compreender as formas como se combinam as estratégias adotadas em cada uma das duas instâncias socializadoras, esta reflexão prioriza as imbricações e seus desdobramentos em relação à construção da qualidade de ensino disponibilizado aos alunos. A investigação foi direcionada aos estudantes do último ano do ensino fundamental, ocasião em que as famílias já tiveram a oportunidade de vivenciar um relacionamento significativo com a escola dos filhos. Iniciando com a abordagem das famílias dos alunos, o estudo focaliza também as instituições de ensino e discute as relações entre estes dois agentes, analisando os subconjuntos das escolas públicas e dos colégios privados, com base na perspectiva das homologias. O material empírico estudado abrange um survey direcionado à alunos, pais e professores de oito escolas e vinte e seis entrevistas com pais e gestores escolares de duas unidades de ensino, escolhidas entre aquelas que integraram a amostra do survey, articulando-se assim as perspectivas macro e micro. Além das entrevistas foram observadas reuniões de pais e outros eventos escolares direcionados às famílias, onde a participação dos pais na escola se apresenta mais visível. Referenciado principalmente na obra de Pierre Bourdieu, no âmbito da sociologia da educação, o presente trabalho agrega contribuições da psicologia e da antropologia para ampliar a compreensão do tema. Os resultados da pesquisa apontaram para famílias que, apesar de significativas diferenças sócio-culturais assumem ações empenhadas na condução do processo escolar dos filhos, porém não se mostram igualmente disponíveis para uma participação mais intensa na escola. Por outro lado, escolas que valorizam a colaboração dos pais e estão abertas ao diálogo face a face mostram maior disposição para escutar do que para fazer mudanças. Os novos espaços de participação franqueados aos pais, embora reconhecidos e valorizados, ainda não parecem ter sido devidamente apropriados pelos agentes educacionais, sinalizando para possibilidades de relações ainda não exploradas. / [en] Starting from the question proposed in the title, this study focuses on the interactions that are developed between contemporary families and fundamental schools in which students achieve good results in large scale evaluations. Trying to identify and understand how the adopted strategies are combined in each one of the two socializing instances, this reflection prioritizes the complex overlaps and their consequences regarding the construction of the quality education available to students. The research was directed to students of the last year of fundamental school, as the families have already had the opportunity to experience a significant relationship with their children s school. Starting with the approach of the students families, the study also focuses on the education institutions and discusses the relations between these two agents, analyzing the subsets formed by public and private schools based on the homology of perspectives. The empirical material studied covers a survey directed to students, parents and teachers of eight schools, and a set of 26 interviews with parents and school managers of two school units chosen from the ones that integrate the sample, thus linking macro and micro perspectives. In addition to the interviews, parents meetings and other school events aimed at families, in which parents participation are more visible, were also observed. Referenced mainly in Pierre Bourdieu s work in the sociology of education field, the present work adds psychology and anthropology contributions to broaden the topic understanding. The survey results point to families that despite significant socio-cultural differences are actively committed to their children schooling process, however they are not equally available to a more active role in the school. On the other hand, schools that value the parents cooperation and are open to face-to-face dialog show a greater willingness to listen than to make changes. Although the new participation spaces open to parents are recognized and valued, they don t seem to be fully appropriated by educational agents, signalizing possible relationships that haven t been explored yet.

Educational systems are complex adaptive systems (CAS). The macroeffects of an educational policy emerge from and depend on individual students' reactions to the policy. However, educational policymakers traditionally rely on equation-based models, which are deficient in reflecting the work of microbehaviors. Using inappropriate tools to make policies may be a reason why there were many unintended educational consequences in history. A proper methodology to design and analyze policies for complex educational systems is agent-based modeling (ABM). Grounded in the theories of CAS and computational irreducibility, ABM is capable of connecting microbehaviors with macropatterns. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the application of ABM in educational policy analysis by constructing an agent-based overlapping generations model with hypothesized inputs to qualitatively represent the environment of the Taipei School District. Four research questions explored the effects of Taipei's 2016 student-assignment mechanism and its free tuition policy on educational opportunity and school quality under different assumptions of students' school-choice strategies. The simulated outputs were analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired samples t tests. The findings, which could hardly be revealed by traditional models, showed that the effects were complex and depended on students' strategies along with the number of choices students were allowed to make; the assignment outcomes for elite students were robust to the mechanism, and the free tuition policy worsened school quality. Although exploratory, these findings can serve as hypotheses and a guide for Taipei's policymakers to collect empirical data in evaluating their 2016 mechanism and tuition policy.

More recently, competition issues have not only focused on the private sector, but have become increasingly important in public administration, especially in the field of education. The thesis focuses on the issue of the competitive environment of secondary schools in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region, which provide education in the educational program Public administration. The selection of these schools was based on an analysis of the education market. The aim of this work is to find out what the competitive characteristics of secondary vocational schools are through the lens of individual headmasters. The thesis is divided into two parts. In the theoretical part, a competition-oriented literature survey is conducted. The survey then provides an up-to-date view of the perception of the competition in education in the world by various authors and scholarly articles. The chapter entitled Quality in Education characterizes the Quality of the school according to the Czech School Inspection and also serves as a basis for the practical part. The theoretical part is further developed by a chapter focusing on the description of secondary education and the description of the Framework Education Programme. The last chapter of the theoretical part is devoted to assessing the situation in the market of...

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Twenty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. Socio-economic polarisation is entrenched by the lack of social capital and interactions across racial and economic divides, blocking pathways out of poverty. This dissertation examines social mobility and cohesion in post-apartheid South Africa by considering three related topics. Chapter 2 of the dissertation examines the impact of school quality on the academic performance of disadvantaged learners as one of the most important enforcing factors perpetuating the social and economic divides. Given the historic racial and economic stratification of the South African public school system, many black children are sent to historically white public schools as a way to escape poverty. Using longitudinal data, this chapter estimates the effect of attending a historically white school on the numeracy and literacy scores of black children. The main challenge is to address the selection bias in the estimates, for which a value-added approach is implemented in order to control for unobserved child-specific heterogeneity. In addition, various household covariates are used to control for household-level differences among children. The results indicate that the attendance of a former white school has a large and statistically significant impact on academic performance in both literacy and numeracy which translates into more than a year’s worth of learning. The main finding is robust to various robustness checks. In Chapter 3 the dissertation examines social cohesion by considering the concept of reference groups used in the evaluation of relative standing in utility functions. The chapter develops a model in which various parameters are allowed to enter the utility function without linearity constraints in order to determine the weight placed on the well-being of individuals in the same race group as the respondent versus all the other race groups living in one of three specified geographic areas. The findings suggest that reference groups have shifted away from a purely racial delineation to a more inclusive one subsequent to the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Although most of the weight is still placed on same-race relative standing, the estimates suggest that individuals from other race groups also enter the utility function. The chapter also examines the spatial variation of reference groups and finds evidence that the relative standing of close others (such as neighbours) enter the utility function positively while individuals who live further away (strangers) enter the utility function negatively. Finally, Chapter 4 provides a summary of the dynamics of income in South Africa, using longitudinal household data. Chapter 4 is aimed at separating structural trends in income from stochastic shocks and measurement error, and makes use of an asset-based approach. It first estimates the percentage of individuals who were in chronic poverty between 2010 and 2012 and then estimates the shape of structural income dynamics in order to test for the existence of one or more dynamic equilibrium points, which would be indicative of the existence of a poverty trap. The findings do not provide any evidence for the existence of a poverty trap. In addition, contrary to earlier findings, the results do not provide evidence for the existence of an asset-based threshold at which the structural income accumulation paths of households bifurcate. Instead, the results seem to indicate the existence of a threshold beyond which structural income remains persistent with very little upward mobility. The robustness of the results is confirmed by making use of control functions in order to correct for any measurement error which may exist in the data on assets. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Twintig jaar nadat apartheid beëindig is word Suid-Afrika steeds as een van die wêreld se mees ongelyke lande gekenmerk. Sosio-ekonomiese polarisasie word verskans deur die gebrek aan sosiale kapitaal en interaksies tussen rassegroepe en ekonomiese klasse, wat lei tot die versperring van roetes uit armoede. Hierdie proefskrif bestudeer sosiale mobiliteit en samehorigheid in post-apartheid Suid- Afrika deur middel van drie verwante onderwerpe. Hoofstuk 2 van hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die impak van skoolkwaliteit op die akademiese prestasie van benadeelde leerders as een van die belangrikste faktore wat huidige sosiale en ekonomiese skeidings afdwing. Gegewe die historiese verdeling van die openbare skoolstelsel volgens ras en ekonomiese status, word heelwat swart kinders na historiese blanke skole gestuur ten einde armoede te ontsnap. Deur gebruik te maak van paneeldata word die impak van skoolbywoning van ’n historiese blanke skool op die geletterheid van swart kinders - in beide wiskunde en Engels - beraam. Die grootste uitdaging is om enige sydigheid in die beramings aan te spreek, waarvoor daar van ’n waarde-toevoegings inslag gebruik gemaak word ten einde te kontroleer vir enige individuele heterogeniteit. ’n Verskeidenheid kontroles op die vlak van die huishouding word gebruik ten einde te kontroleer vir verskille tussen kinders uit verkillende huishoudings. Die resultate dui daarop dat bywoning van ’n historiese wit skool ’n groot en statisties beduidende impak op die akademiese prestasie van beide wiskundige asook litterêre geletterdheid het, wat omgeskakel kan word in meer as ’n jaar se leerwerk. ’n Verskeidenheid verifikasie toetse bevestig die geldigheid van die resultate. Hoofstuk 3 van die proefskrif bestudeer sosiale samehorigheid deur die samestelling van verwysingsgroepe in die evaluasie van relatiewe posisionering in nutsfunksies te oorweeg. Die hoofstuk ontwikkel ’n model waarin verskeie parameters sonder liniêre beperkings in die nutsfunksie toegelaat word ten einde die gewig te beraam wat geplaas word op die welstand van individue in dieselfde rasgroep as die respondent teenoor al die ander rasgroepe wat in een van drie gespesifiseerde geografiese areas woon. Die bevindings dui daarop dat, na die land se eerste demokratiese verkiesings in 1994, die definiering van verwysingsgroepe weggeskuif het van ’n verdeling volgens ras na ’n meer inklusiewe definisie. Alhoewel meeste van die gewig steeds geplaas word op relatiewe posisionering teenoor individue van dieselfde ras, dui die beramings daarop dat individue van ander rassegroepe ook ingesluit word in die nutsfunksie. Die hoofstuk beoordeel ook die ruimtelike variasie van verwysingsgroepe en bevind dat die relatiewe posisionering van nabye individue (soos byvoorbeeld bure) die nutsfunksie positief beïnvloed terwyl individue wat vêr weg woon (vreemdelinge) die nutsfunksie negatief beïnvloed. Hoofstuk 4 van die proefskrif sluit af met ’n opsomming van die inkomste dinamika in Suid-Afrika, deur gebruik te maak van paneelhuishoudingdata. Die laaste hoofstuk mik om die strukturele tendens in inkomste van enige stogastiese skokke en metingsfoute te isoleer en maak gebruik van ’n bate-gebasseerde inslag. Dit beraam eerstens die persentasie van individue wat in kroniese armoede verkeer het tussen 2010 en 2012 en beraam dan die vorm van die strukturele inkomste dinamika. Dit word gedoen ten einde vir die bestaan van een of meer dinamiese ekwilibrium punte te toets, wat aanduidend sou wees van die bestaan van ’n armoedestrik. Die bevindings bied nie enige bewyse vir die bestaan van ’n armoedestrik nie. Ook bied die resultate geen bewyse vir die bestaan van ’n bategebasseerde drempel waar die strukturele inkomste akkumulasieroetes van huishoudings vertak nie, in teenstelling met vorige resultate. In plaas daarvan, blyk die resultate te dui op die bestaan van ’n drempel waarna strukturele inkomste volhardend bly met baie min opwaardse mobiliteit. Die geldigheid van die resultate word bevestig deur gebruik te maak van kontrolefunksies ten einde te korrigeer vir enige metingsfoute wat moontlik in die data van bates mag bestaan.