Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

For many years Indian students requiring special education services were sent to provincial schools where services were provided. In 1985, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) began providing funds to Indian band-operated schools for support of special education services. During the past nine years, parents, teachers, and administrators of band-operated schools have expressed concerned about the lack of and the quality of special education services in band-operated schools. There is an absence of information regarding the provision of special education services in band-operated schools in Manitoba. The purpose of this study is to describe the status of special education in these schools. The methodology of this study included surveys and in-depth interviews with principals of six band-operated schools in Manitoba. Two schools were randomly selected from each of three student enrollment categories (1200-750; 650-300; and 150-50). The major findings of this study confirm the concerns of parents, teachers, and administrators that the special education delivery system is not meeting the needs of disabled Indian students. Reasons for the lack of comprehensive services included: inefficient administrative structure; insufficient numbers of trained personnel; inconsistency of programs and services; absence of operating procedures; and lack of parent and community involvement. Eight activities are recommended for improving the quantity and quality of special education services to Canadian Indian children. First, planning committees need to be established at the band-operated school and tribal council level to develop cooperative plans for providing special education services to meet existing needs. Second, an Indian controlled special education organization should be developed consisting of band-operated schools, tribal councils, and a provincial agency. Such an organization can develop, support, and monitor special education activities. Third, the kinds and numbers of special education personnel must be increased. Fourth, there is a need to develop special education programs and services. Fifth, policies for efficient and effective operating procedures need to be written. Sixth, all students needing special education services should be identified and served. Seventh, parent and community involvement with band-operated schools must be encouraged. Eighth, additional research is needed in other Indian band-operated schools and reserves before these findings can be generalized.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-129).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-136).

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004.

School social work practice that targets students and schools for change is the most effective approach in removing barriers to learning for all students. However, research on the profession has found that school social workers tend to focus on traditional clinical work with individual students and families, often to the exclusion of broader system level interventions. Working to create a positive school climate is an avenue for social workers to facilitate school-wide change. This research explores how school social workers employ a practice approach that embraces a broad clinical framework specifically including skills associated with building a positive school climate. The study also analyzes how specific school social worker characteristics are associated with the performance of practice tasks related to enhancing school climate. The project examines data collected from social workers practicing in Texas public schools as part of an exploratory, mixed method survey. The analysis utilized descriptive statistics and a hierarchical cluster analysis to group the school social workers with similar response patterns for the practice task variables. Descriptive statistics revealed that 93% of the school social workers participated in at least one of eight general practice tasks related to school climate dimensions and 77% participated in at least four of the eight. The cluster analysis yielded a solution that grouped the participants into four clusters. Once the clusters were profiled, three school social worker characteristics were found to significantly relate to the completion of tasks associated with school climate: perception of autonomy, job structure and years of experience. The results show widespread use of practice skills that target multiple dimensions of school climate. The findings lend support to the feasibility of participating in the school climate related tasks across school settings and school social worker characteristics. The research findings place school social worker expertise in a school reform framework and captures how they can contribute to school-wide change within their routine practice duties. / text

This thesis explores the activities of education welfare officers (EWOs): local education authority employees whose work includes the investigation of pupil absence from school. EWOs have rarely been the subject of research or analysis, as writers have tended to see them as self-evident functionaries. Given the paucity of the existing literature, it was necessary to construct a research programme that would seek to describe and understand the social relationships and processes that the EWOs were engaged in and attempt to develop new frameworks and categories of analysis. To this end, a grounded qualitative research programme was pgrsued. The research data for this study was generated by a series of semistructured, in depth interviews with EWOs in three different local authorities. These interviews focused on a number of selected examples from the EWOs workloads that were discussed in detail and the case files analysed. As well as generating a grounded analysis, this data was then used as the basis for a series of case studies that were interrogated through the framework of a Foucauldian analysis of disciplinary power. The research programme produced a number of specific insights into the work of the EWO that had been absent or understated by previous analysts and writers. It also showed how the uses of care and control, as the defining analytical and antithetical categories in previous analyses, was unhelpful and at times misleading. Through a careful and detailed analysis of the EWOs work, the thesis shows how their activity is better understood in terms of processes of normalisation where strategies are deployed that utilise relations of disciplinary power as described by Foucault in Discipline and Punish. The way in which this work contributes to the development of Foucault's analysis of disciplinary society and the complications of supervisory mechanisms is discussed. However, the main achievement of this thesis is to show how the research programme led to the production of a framework for the analysis of the activities of EWOs that is able to engage effectively with questions that had apparently left previous writers baffled.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Also available in print.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work