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A conflict that ensued between Senegal and Mauritanian in 1989, led many Mauritanians to seek refuge in Senegal. Though the exact number is not known, an estimated 20,000 Mauritanian refugees continue to live in northern Senegal 16 years after being expelled from their home country. The exact number could not be ascertained because the attempted registration exercise which started in December 1999 was unfortunately abandoned in 2000. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Student academic progress has been at the centre of concern to all higher education institutions in South Africa. It is understood that student progress emanates from a range of dynamics that gives students different educational experiences. The student cohort at University of Pretoria (Abdulghani et al., 2014) come from diverse cultural backgrounds in South Africa, aptly called the rainbow-nation, and subsequently bring different levels of proficiency and world experiences to the higher education sector. The student population is like a tapestry interwoven from different cultures and includes students from all 'walks of life', rich and poor, alternative lifestyle and background, as well as students who are disabled, and students who have diverse sexual orientations. The transition from school to university is regarded as a time of extreme stress for students arriving at the university door for the first time. The expectations of students are mostly unknown, but educators know that students entering university come from positions of extreme inequality, not only in terms of schooling, but also of financial and other resources. It is well-documented that in addition to all the other changes, a large number of students arrive at the university lacking the necessary knowledge and skills that will help them cope at university. These are largely students that come from underprivileged schools that still bear the ravages of apartheid education. To assist students in overcoming the lack of these skills and bridging the educational gap, higher education has to address these needs. Hence, it is the intention of this research to "explore the undergraduate Information Technology experience of an extended programme". The research is a four-year longitudinal study of IT students in the extended (four-year) IT degrees at UP, and has analysed interviews conducted with IT graduates in a range of professional settings. Taken together, these components have been designed to expand the researcher's understanding of undergraduate IT experience (extended programmes) and the transition from university to the workplace. Furthermore, it focuses on how students in Information Technology experience their education, how they gain knowledge of what Information Technology is, and what their post-graduation plans are. Based mainly on the theoretical framework of Vincent Tinto (1975), this study provides an analysis of research regarding student experiences, retention and withdrawal in the extended four-year programme (E4YP) in IT. The research methodology used to conduct this study includes a mixed methods approach undertaken from more than one point of view. The researcher used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research features. The data was generated by surveys (online questionnaires and mini-questionnaires), mini-essays and the results of statistical analysis using academic results and Students� Academic Readiness Survey (STARS) scores. The findings of this study paint a portrait of typical first-year students irrespective of study direction. Their experiences and journey during the first-year are fraught with issues such as finance, accommodation, transport, gender inequality, institutional hiccups, loneliness and exhaustion, and difficulty in finding their way around campus. However, many expressed experiencing the euphoria of freedom from school/parental rules, meeting new friends and socialising, and enjoying the general feeling of being a university student. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Informatics / PhD / Unrestricted

ii Abstract The topic of his thesis, "Social Sustainability", arising from the social sciences, specifically sociology, has naturally its core focus on society and its functioning. To be more exact, the functioning of society in context of integration, which is an ever more growing topic in the globalised world we live in. In relation to this thesis, an integrational project/workshop has been carried out at a folk high school, Brandbjerg, in Denmark, with the purpose to practically test, the methodological measurability of change in subjectivity. Worth mentioning, that the hosting community, in terms of immigration, was in focus and its perception on variation of habitus. Hereto, Q-Methodology from William Stephenson functioned as the foundation for the development of the workshop, as well as it aided the analysis of the therefrom taken data, to determine a change in the participants subjectivity. The aim of this practical implementation, was to put the findings into perspective of the theoretical framework of sustainability, specifically social sustainability. The findings served in combination with face to face interaction as part of social integration, to underline the need for sustainable integration and an alteration of social sustainability upon further research. A tendency was determined as being the...

Immigrant-receiving societies emphasize the need for immigrants to integrate intomainstream life. In Sweden, this trend has manifested itself in integration policies. Inthe present study, the author aims to understand sports and outdoor events experienceand its effects on social integration of immigrants and refugees’ in the JämtlandCounty, Sweden. By ‘giving voice’ to 19 participants from different nationalities, thisstudy explores the new Swedes’ perspectives on social integration process andconceptualizes their engagement and experience of sports and outdoor eventsthroughout this process. The participants speak of the benefits and needs to participateactively in the society of settlement, but they also describe the barriers and obstaclesthat they may face. Their perception of integration is based on their life stories andexperiences. Based on findings and results, three descriptive themes are described.The outcomes of three descriptive themes are interpreted in one overarching themeelaborating the role of sports and outdoor event as a social connection leading to socialintegration of newcomers. It is assumed that sports and outdoors are not strongenough to achieve social integration, rather they can act as social bridges and providea common ground where integration can be cultivated. The results of this study canbe useful for the sports and events planners and organizers specifically in 2021 whichis appointed as ‘Friluftslivets år 2021’ (Year of outdoor life) as well as those who dealwith newcomers’ integration in Sweden and Jämtland. / <p>2021-02-01</p>

In the eastern half of Germany migrants remain a small minority and find themselves surrounded by a predominantly secular society. In examining how Christian migrants from Africa achieve social integration within Leipzig, this study focuses on the relationship between integration and identity. Paradoxically, an African identity can promote integration where the structure of local parishes allows this.

In today’s society, there are very high expectations on urban planning and it´s possibilities to contribute to a good city and a good life for the citizens. A planner has to have both economical, ecological and social sustainability in mind while developing the city. An important part of the social sustainability is that all residents feel like a part of the society in the city they live in. Social integration between different social groups in the society is an important matter in today’s society. The question is if urban planning has the potential to contribute to the social integration. In this thesis, neighborhood boundaries are investigated in order to identify possibilities and barriers in the built environment for people´s movement in the city. Factors that could have an impact are identified through literature studies. The empirical investigation of the neighborhood boundaries is carried out through observations in field is supplemented by a description and discussion of three methods, multiple centrality assessment and observations, that can be used to estimate the possibilities for a good urban life. The result of the investigation is presented through a comparison of the neighborhood boundaries where factors like streets that connect the neighborhoods and the barrier impact from streets is assessed. According to the literature, streets and green areas can have barrier impact, while public space and bicycle- and footpath can have positive effects on urban life. Finally, the physical structure and the built environment is considered to have an impact on people´s movement´s in the city and urban life. In the discussion, advantages and disadvantages of the three methods and suggestions of how they can be developed are brought up. For example, it can be good to combine calculations of the connectedness of the network with observations of where and how urban life is taking place. Last but not least it´s important to point out that it seems to be agreed on in the literature that the built environment can have an impact on how people move in the city and social processes among citizens, but it is and will continue to be discussed how big the impact is. / Det finns idag höga förväntningar på att stadsplaneringen ska kunna förbättra staden och livet för stadens invånare. En planerare ska ta med både ekonomisk, ekologisk och social hållbarhet när staden ska utvecklas. En viktig del av den sociala hållbarheten är att alla invånare ska känna sig som en del av det samhälle de lever i. Integration mellan olika grupper i samhället är därför ett viktigt och mycket aktuellt tema i dagens samhälle. Frågan är vilka förutsättningar stadsplaneringen har för att kunna bidra till denna integration. I denna uppsats undersöks stadsdelsgränsers karaktär för att identifiera möjligheter och hinder i den byggda miljön för människors rörelser i staden. Genom litteraturstudier identifieras ett antal faktorer som kan påverka detta. Denna empiriska studie av stadsdelsgränser som utförs genom iakttagelser i fält kompletteras med en beskrivning och diskussion om två befintliga metoder, multiple centrality assessment och observationer, för att bedöma en plats möjlighet till ett fungerande stadsliv. Resultatet av den empiriska undersökningen presenteras som en jämförelse av de olika stadsdelarna där faktorer som antal sammanlänkande gator och gator med barriärverkan bedöms. Resultatet av litteraturstudien visar att gator och grönområden anses kunna ha en barriäreffekt, medan offentliga rum och cykel- och gångstråk anses kunna bidra positivt till det sociala livet i staden. Slutligen anses stadens fysiska struktur och den byggda miljöns utformning kan påverka människors rörelser i staden och stadens sociala liv. I diskussionen diskuteras för och nackdelar med de tre metoderna och förslag på hur de kan utvecklas och kompletteras. Det kan exempelvis vara bra att kombinera beräkningar på det fysiska nätverkets sammanlänkning med observationer av hur stadslivet fungerar. Avslutningsvis finns det en samstämmighet i litteraturen om att den byggda miljön påverkar sociala processer i staden, men det diskuteras hur stor denna påverkan är och denna diskussion kommer troligen fortsätta.

In recent years, organizations have sought to address historic inequities by adopting ameliorative policies ranging from providing merit-based avenues of entry and promotion to members of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups to creating a new organizational function that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (hereafter DEI). My dissertation comprises three case studies of the implementation and unanticipated consequences of such policies. I find that in all three cases, even the most far-reaching attempts at reform tend to reproduce existing ethnoracial and class barriers, thereby illustrating the dynamic of “reproduction through change” (Bourdieu 1988). The first paper is a case study of what happens when a relatively limited form of inclusion is introduced into a context marked by firm class boundaries. The analysis is based on interviews and participant observation with administrators and recipients of a prestigious and merit-based scholarship to an elite university in Peru. While administrators described themselves as committed to inclusion, their message to scholarship recipients was ambiguous, often counseling them to hide their scholarship status. This more insidious form of gatekeeping, together with evident class boundaries, entailed enormous social-psychological and interactional costs for scholarship recipients and transformed their pride in winning the scholarship into shame. The second paper describes a similar dynamic but in a different and more surprising context. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted with current and former Foreign Service Officers to explain how recipients of the Pickering Fellowship, a U.S. Department of State fellowship, learn to accept a devaluing status belief about this accolade once they enter the Foreign Service. Within this organizational context, there is an established belief that Foreign Service Officers who are not the prototypical “Male, Pale, and Yale” workers must be “diversity hires” who entered the U.S. Department of State through a “back door” and have a “leg up” because of their race. This racialized negative evaluation gets linked to the Pickering fellowship and affects all fellows. This paper offers insights into the intersection of racial diversity and status processes in organizations. The third paper analyzes the structural tension concentrated in the position of Black DEI workers, explicitly hired as part of an organizational effort to implement a more thoroughgoing set of reforms addressing historical inequities. The case study examines the work lives of DEI workers in an elite public university. Between 2019 and 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with DEI workers, students, and high-status organizational actors. The analysis suggests that DEI workers and their organizational colleagues envision the prototypical DEI worker as a member of a minoritized racial group. This race-typed prototype dictated (1) how colleagues and organizational leaders evaluated the expertise of DEI workers who belong to different racial groups and (2) how DEI workers of color intertwined their life narratives in accounts of their expertise, while White DEI workers did not do so. The development of this form of racialized expertise leads to a (3) racial task segregation among DEI workers of different groups. Even as the organization seeks to implement a far-reaching form of inclusion, minority DEI workers are assigned the task of managing internal and external organizational boundaries.

This dissertation asks how local planners, elected officials and activists have negotiated the recent implementation of inclusionary zoning projects in historically disinvested neighborhoods of New York and the Grand Paris. Instead of focusing on potential issues with the involvement of the private sector in cases of affordable housing provision, I shed the light on the strengths and limitations of the public sector, its land use ideologies and its accountability in terms of affordable housing provision. I look at a policy program that has widely circulated in both countries since the 1970s. Inclusionary zoning was developed as a strategy to leverage market-rate and affordable housing by channeling capital from private real estate developers. It has also always been rooted in a genealogy of initiatives that were attempting to reverse the exclusionary outcomes of zoning. While inclusionary zoning programs have now been widely adopted across North America and Europe, their use seems to be highly incremental and context-specific, and efforts to compare and contrast programs have not succeeded in systematically explaining what works and what does not work. Few studies consider how neighborhood context, local politics and power relations shape inclusionary zoning outcomes. Few studies consider how the implementation of inclusionary zoning programs in historically disinvested neighborhoods is shaped by path dependency and national contexts, which orient so much of our planning traditions, political economies and multi-scale governance structures. This dissertation intends to fill such a gap by contrasting the Fort d’Aubervilliers housing project where local public sector agents secured a more redistributive housing project (more affordable units and deeper affordability levels) because they had more power and were backed by resources, programs, institutions operating at a more macro level, to the East Harlem housing project where local public sector agents did not secure a redistributive housing project (more affordable units and deeper affordability levels), because they had less power and there was a disconnect with resources, programs, institutions operating at a more macro level. My research project goes beyond a standard macro-level comparison of national or metropolitan programs. It proposes a finer-grain “N of Two plus Some” comparative framework, with a single case study for a neighborhood in New York and a single case study for a neighborhood in the Grand Paris, both informed by other secondary cases. I present it as a chronological narrative research which “restories” my findings. I uncover the political mediation and micro-processes behind the implementation of two inclusionary housing projects, Fort d’Aubervilliers in the banlieue of the Grand Paris, and Sendero Verde in New York’s East Harlem. I map the multi-level negotiation processes that unfolded in each case among agents of the public sector, using close to 150 semi-structured interviews and shadowing meetings and hearings across the two cities. Findings follow Jenny Schuetz’s proposal that empowered but not autonomous local actors, subject to regional or federal public governance structures, represent the most just and redistributive model of urban governance when it comes to inclusionary zoning implementation (Schuetz et al. 2009). I contrast the story of an affordable housing project “locked” through the cooperation of the agents that make up the mille-feuille multi-scale public sector in the case of Aubervilliers with a contested public-private project where city agendas overlook a community-led neighborhood plan in the case of East Harlem. I underline how local levels of governance - the intermunicipal Établissements Publics Territoriaux in the case of Paris and the City Council in the case of New York - played a critical role in each case to negotiate the social justice outcomes of inclusionary zoning implementation in these historically disinvested neighborhoods, with more or less success. The investigation of two inclusionary zoning cases in East Harlem and the banlieue of Aubervilliers offers lessons about the social justice and equity aspects of real estate development projects undertaken in the two global cities of New York and the Grand Paris. It uncovers the “mixité de façade” question I ask, whether the social mix component of these two projects is truly achieved, or just a façade. In so doing, I intend to underline that there is a large enough gradient of ways to make the redistribution of economic growth, and goals of social justice, feasible in the two cities I work on. I also hope to reintroduce the type of opportunities the agency of public sector agents in charge of residential landscapes can grant us with, even in historically disinvested neighborhoods. New York and the Grand Paris, two cities which are still respectively at the forefront of securing subsidized housing markets for their residents, allow me to fuel a rich literature on global cities and transatlantic planning. Only this time, I decenter the standard comparative narrative on Paris and New York, and start chronicling the challenges of metropolitan policy making, progressive “New Proceduralism” and “New Public Management” illustrated by programs like inclusionary zoning, by situating the conversation in the historically disinvested neighborhoods of both cities. Eventually, while both contexts differ in several ways, they tell us something valuable. The major takeaway is that a strong public institutional landscape and a solid net of programs and resources available for public agents in charge of neighborhood planning plays a huge role in determining the success or failure of implementation processes for this type of inclusionary zoning-financed housing projects.

Through the lens of dramaturgy theory, this study conceptualizes Israel as the stage, North American and Chinese students as two groups of actors, and social integration as their play, seeking to answer this question: how do the different roles North American students and Chinese students play in Israel lead them to different experiences of social integration? This study attempts to understand what roles American and Chinese students initially wanted to play and what shaped them, where, how and with whom they conducted their performances, and if the roles they played were adjusted during the process. Eight sets of semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with four American students and four Chinese students. The research findings and analysis reveal that although American and Chinese students do have different experiences of integration, they nonetheless share similar strategies that a dramaturgical framework can successfully elicit. Moreover, the analysis presented in this thesis, also, suggests that the experience of international students is likely much more layered than what is reflected in much of the literature that addresses the integration of international students.