Thesis--Gothenburg. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-234).

Magister Social Work -MSW / Heroin usage is on the increase in the Western Cape province of South Africa owing to globalization and to increased access to the drug in this province. The goal of this study is to explore the experiences of coloured heroin users in the Metro South area of Cape Town, which stretches from Simons Town and Muizenberg to Retreat, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park, Parkwood and Wynberg. These individuals have been found to congregate in the Wynberg CBD. The overarching theoretical framework for the purpose of this research is social constructionism and symbolic interactionism, using a qualitative means of inquiry. Snowball sampling was used to recruit prospective participants and data was collected by means of in-depth interviews, with a semi structures interviewing schedule. The questions informed the subsequent themes and categories that arise from the data collection process.

As externships evolved from their vocational education roots into the university setting, both the course purposes and the expectations of student changed toward deeper learning. While the students’ responsibility for gaining knowledge has increased, teaching methods designed by educators to prepare students for more critically evaluated outcomes has not evolved at the same pace. Educators still grapple over how educational design can combine the structured teacher-centered learning strategy used in university classrooms with the learner-centered approach students typically utilize in for-profit culinary workplaces. This dissertation is about culinary externships in the urban environment. The study examined the roles, reasoning, and behavior of culinary externship stakeholders: student externs, externship sites via their externship supervisors, and educators who facilitate externships under the academic rules and guidelines of both culinary bachelor programs and the rigor demanded by higher education. Further, the study explored what factors encouraged and empowered students to acquire durable knowledge from their externship experiences and the forms of social capital they use to invest in their experience, as well as the conditions that failed to secure durable knowledge from the externship. The findings indicate that each stakeholder approaches an externship from their own working perspectives. Further, the ability of students to socialize, utilize agency to achieve their personal ends, bear the sole weight of evaluation, and acquire practical work experience prior to the externship yielded the best outcomes. Additional questions are posed and answered within the study.

Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird die Möglichkeit diskutiert, genderspezifischen sozialen Wandel in Schwellen- und Entwicklungsländern über Mikrokreditvergabesysteme anzustoßen. Anhand einer in Mittelägypten durchgeführten Studie mit mehrfach diskriminierten Frauen wird gezeigt, wie Mikrokredite die Akkumulation nicht nur von ökonomischem, sondern vor allem auch von kulturellem und sozialem Kapital im Bourdieu'schen Sinne unterstützen können. Wenn in diesem Kontext eine Veränderung des symbolischen Kapitals gelingt, kann dies zu neuen Wahrnehmungs-, Denk- und Handlungsschemata der Beteiligten und zu Strukturveränderungen auf der Makroebene führen. Die theoretische Modellierung von genderspezifischem sozialem Wandel erfolgt in diesem Artikel entlang empirischer Daten, die von den Autorinnen in Mittelägypten erhoben wurden.

The thesis investigated the social and symbolic significance of acquiring a 'music education' through the taking of piano tuition and external public music examinations. It aimed to discover why the learning of the piano and the certification of musical attainment are so prevalent and revered among Malaysian music students. Its purpose was to unravel the socio-cultural raison d'etre of this approach to music education through the creation of a metatheoretical schema, which is premised upon the theories of symbolic interactionist, George Herbert Mead, music analyst, Heinrich Schenker and social theorist, George Ritzer. Central to the argument in this instance is the symbolic significance associated with the act of playing the piano. The investigation attempted to determine if this 'act' conveyed a symbolic meaning that is peculiar to a specific cultural vista. It further examined the degree to which this practice represented both a validation and a sense of conformity to social norms in the continuity and stability of an expanding middle class society in Malaysia. The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) is the largest of the five main external public music examination boards that operate in Malaysia. Since 1948, over one million candidates have enrolled for ABRSM examinations in Malaysia and a team of approximately thirty ABRSM examiners visit Malaysia for three months every year. The majority of the candidates are pianists. Given such large numbers of piano candidates, one might expect a healthy development of musical talent in the country with aspiring pianists eager to demonstrate their musical prowess. However, this does not seem to be the case. On the contrary, there appears to be a curious lacuna between the growing number of students who enrol for external public music examinations and the seemingly lack of interest in public music making and the honing of general musicianship skills. The thesis hence examined the symbolic meaning of this socio-rausicological phenomena.

The thesis investigated the social and symbolic significance of acquiring a 'music education' through the taking of piano tuition and external public music examinations. It aimed to discover why the learning of the piano and the certification of musical attainment are so prevalent and revered among Malaysian music students. Its purpose was to unravel the socio-cultural raison d'etre of this approach to music education through the creation of a metatheoretical schema, which is premised upon the theories of symbolic interactionist, George Herbert Mead, music analyst, Heinrich Schenker and social theorist, George Ritzer. Central to the argument in this instance is the symbolic significance associated with the act of playing the piano. The investigation attempted to determine if this 'act' conveyed a symbolic meaning that is peculiar to a specific cultural vista. It further examined the degree to which this practice represented both a validation and a sense of conformity to social norms in the continuity and stability of an expanding middle class society in Malaysia. The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) is the largest of the five main external public music examination boards that operate in Malaysia. Since 1948, over one million candidates have enrolled for ABRSM examinations in Malaysia and a team of approximately thirty ABRSM examiners visit Malaysia for three months every year. The majority of the candidates are pianists. Given such large numbers of piano candidates, one might expect a healthy development of musical talent in the country with aspiring pianists eager to demonstrate their musical prowess. However, this does not seem to be the case. On the contrary, there appears to be a curious lacuna between the growing number of students who enrol for external public music examinations and the seemingly lack of interest in public music making and the honing of general musicianship skills. The thesis hence examined the symbolic meaning of this socio-musicological phenomena.

Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed that this group’s language use in daily life is full of conflicts, negotiation and consolidation, not only at school as a usual space of contested language practice, but also at home, with peers and in other spaces. At school, social division existed both in and out of class, yet such social division was not merely due to ELLs’ reluctance to integrate. Participants positioned themselves differently in English Literature courses and core classes in accordance with their perceived proficiency. Home, generally regarded as a traditionally stable space of language practice, became another site of complex dynamics. Peer networks also emerged as embodying similar complications. In addition to racial and ethnic factors, age on arrival and length of residence played a significant role in social interaction, impacting both same-ethnic and cross-ethnic peer networks. Based on these findings, four categories are identified pertaining to participants’ cross-trajectory language experiences, in which English spaces are positioned differently in relation to other spaces. Equally noteworthy are the dynamics between social spaces, social relations and language use, which shape – and are shaped by – symbolic power, investment and language identities. The implications of these findings on ELL adolescents’ language use in a broader migration space are also discussed.

Research has shown that late-arriving teen English language learners (ELLs) are deeply rooted in the sociocultural and educational system of their home country for a majority of their schooling time (Duff, 2001; Minichello, 2001). In their transition to a new society in North America, this group encounters sociocultural and linguistic differences in their daily lives. Through a lens entitled Critical Multiple Social Spaces, which combines the Multiple Worlds Model (Phelan et al., 1991), the concept of Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) and a sociocultural perspective on language use (Fairclough, 2001; Pennycook, 2010), this qualitative case study focuses on 10 Chinese ELL adolescents who came to Canada after the age of 15, and examines their cross-trajectory experiences of English practice in their daily lives and their language identities. At the time of this study, they were at the stage of completing high school and applying for admission to higher education institutions. Findings showed that this group’s language use in daily life is full of conflicts, negotiation and consolidation, not only at school as a usual space of contested language practice, but also at home, with peers and in other spaces. At school, social division existed both in and out of class, yet such social division was not merely due to ELLs’ reluctance to integrate. Participants positioned themselves differently in English Literature courses and core classes in accordance with their perceived proficiency. Home, generally regarded as a traditionally stable space of language practice, became another site of complex dynamics. Peer networks also emerged as embodying similar complications. In addition to racial and ethnic factors, age on arrival and length of residence played a significant role in social interaction, impacting both same-ethnic and cross-ethnic peer networks. Based on these findings, four categories are identified pertaining to participants’ cross-trajectory language experiences, in which English spaces are positioned differently in relation to other spaces. Equally noteworthy are the dynamics between social spaces, social relations and language use, which shape – and are shaped by – symbolic power, investment and language identities. The implications of these findings on ELL adolescents’ language use in a broader migration space are also discussed.

This study focuses on the conditions and processes that strengthen social distinctions and symbolic boundaries in society. In order to fully grasp the conditions of these processes, it is not sufficient to simply study them as they are carried out on a daily basis. Therefore in this study firstly a general overview of the matter evaluated in the context of globalization. Although a variety of means are at work in constructing social distinctions and symbolic boundaries, in this study three of them have been taken up: leisure, consumption and space. In order to reveal the relationship between them and social distinctions, it examines two different leisure spaces: Laila and Kaktus.

Diese Dissertation handelt von Grenz- und Fremdheitskonstruktionen in iranischen Reiseberichten (sowohl Europa- als auch Russlandreiseberichte) des 19. Jahrhunderts. Durch die Untersuchung der zentralen sozialen und kulturellen Strukturen und Prozesse der Grenz- und Fremdheitserzeugung ist in dieser Studie, die iranische Gesellschaft, in den Besonderheiten ihrer eigenen Geschichte, durch ihre äußeren Begegnungen und Interdependenzen geforscht worden. Anhand der theoretischen Fokussierung auf zwei Konzepte, nämlich Fremdheit und kulturelle und soziale Grenze, wurde die Entwicklung der iranischen Gesellschaft in Anbetracht ihrer Beziehung zu den europäischen Ländern im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts rekonstruiert. Zwar ist die Arbeit primär eine soziologische Studie, konnte aber den historischen Kontext der Ereignisse und die literarische Beschaffenheit der Reisetexte nicht unbeachtet lassen. / This work is a comprehensive sociological study on travelogues, specifically with focus on the Iran’s 19th century history (Qajar Dynasty). It presents an analysis that sociologically and systematically registers the staging of cultural boundaries and the socio-historical construction of foreignness in the Iranian society, on the basis of selected Persian travel literature. This study has tried to show that cultural and social boundaries are relational and historical constructs which, in case of Iran, are dramatically affected by the encounters of Iranians (statesmen, students, tourists, etc.) with western countries (Western Europe and Russia).