Class analysis suggests a strong positive link between parental social position and adolescent educational expectations. Yet, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean pupils with disadvantaged parents maintain much higher expectations for university study compared to their white peers from more advantaged families. Ethnicity is key to understanding this paradox. Yet, quantitative research has not explained how ethnicity impacts on adolescent expectations or whose expectations it impacts most. This thesis investigates whether the longitudinal association between parental social position at age 14 and pupils expectations at age 16 is mediated by parent-child conflict, pupils’ homework engagement, feelings about school and pupils’ assessments of teacher effectiveness at pupils’ age 15, net of all prior influences at age 14. It then explores whether these mediational routes are moderated by maternal ethnicity. Ecological systems theory informs a longitudinal latent variable mediation model estimated on panel data from waves 1-3 of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England. Parental social position at age 14 does not affect pupils’ expectations at age 16 via the hypothesised home and school factors at age 15. Its longitudinal influence is weak on white, modest on Black Caribbean and Pakistani and insignificant on Indian and Bangladeshi pupils’ expectations at age 16 casting doubt on classical sociological models. Moderation by maternal ethnicity strengthens the positive longitudinal influence of home-related factors on expectations and tones down the negative effect of family disadvantage or other negative influences particularly on South Asian pupils’ expectations at age 16. Pupils’ expectations at age 14 significantly impact on home and school factors and expectations at age 15 and are the primary indirect route of influence on expectations at age 16. Moderated by maternal ethnicity, this mediational mechanism allows South Asian pupils to develop and maintain higher expectations than white pupils despite family disadvantage.

The increasing number of young people who are inactive and not engaged in education, employment or training (NEETs) in the UK over the last years bears severe implications both for individual young people and for the society. This study explores the processes underlying the effects of neighborhood context on young people who experience NEET status. It relies on quantitative data from a nationally representative study, the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), linked with the seven decomposed English Indices of Deprivation. Drawing on previous sociological theories this study puts forward an original theoretical framework, the Ecological Model of Neighbourhood Effects that proposes four pathways that mediate the direct effect of neighbourhoods on young people: a) individual characteristics and attitudes; b) parental characteristics and relationships; c) school experiences and attitudes to schooling, and; d) social epidemics. Potential causal pathways between neighbourhood context and individual outcomes are explored on a first strand of analysis by employing a logistic regression model. The results show that there is a higher probability for young people who live in high Crime Score areas to become NEETs in comparison to those who live in areas with low Crime Score after controlling for individual, family, school and peer group characteristics. On a second strand of analysis, I employ counterfactual models, propensity score matching and sensitivity analysis. The findings suggest that when two groups of children with identical observed characteristics at the age 13/14 experience di↵erent neighbourhood contexts, those who grow up in high Crime Score areas are more likely to become NEETs in comparison to those who grow up in low Crime Score areas. Unobserved characteristics though indicate the presence of selection bias that could alter the inferences drawn about neighbourhood effects.

This paper investigates the details behind aggregate shifts in household electricity access in South Africa. More specifically, when viewed from a cross-sectional perspective, we note a significant (and surprising) decline in electricity access between 2008 and 2010, followed by a substantial improvement in access between 2010 and 2012. In order to further investigate these interesting dynamics and move beyond a limited cross-sectional analysis, we then set up the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) in a novel form that allows one to track household units in a longitudinal fashion. Using this data, we identify the initial drop in electricity access to have come as a result of a large number of household disconnections, as well as a significant degree of "misdirected" household formation (with people leaving household with access and setting up households in locations without access). We also identify the subsequent improvement in aggregate access to have come primarily as a result of a significant fall in the number of households that lose access over the period, an increase in the number of households that gain access, and favourable household formation processes (with people leaving households without access and moving into households with access). It is therefore vital that those involved in coordinating service delivery take into account that, if one's aim is to improve aggregate electricity access, preventing loss of access is just as important as expanding access. Policy makers should also take note of household formation and dissolution processes when considering service delivery expansion - to prevent government from needlessly chasing a moving target.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics and Social Science, 1964. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-99). / by David Levhari. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics and Social Science, 1964.

Bibliography: leaves 225-250 / This study seeks to investigate the use of the Bible in black theology in South Africa. It begins by judging the extent to which black theology's use of the Bible represents a clear theoretical break with white western theology. The use of concepts like the “Word of God", “the universality of the Universality of the Gospel", “the particularity of the Gospel”, “oppression and oppressors" and "the God of the Oppressed" in black theology, reveals a captivity to the ideological assumptions of white theology. It is argued that this captivity accounts for the current political impotence of black theology as a cultural weapon of struggle, especially in relation to the black working class struggle for iberation. Thus while it has been effective in fashioning a vision on liberation and providing a trenchant critique of white theology, it lacks the theoretical wherewithal to appropriate the Bible in a genuinely liberative way. This weakness is illustrated in the thesis with a critical appraisal of the biblical hermeneutics of especialiy two of the most outstanding and outspoken black theological activists in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak. The fundamental weakness of the biblical hermeneutics of black theology is attributed to the social class position and commitments of black theologians. Occupying and committed to a petit bourgeois position within the racist capitalist social formation of South Africa, they share the idealist, theoretical framework dominant in this class. Thus in order for black theology to become an effective weapon of struggle for the majority of the oppressed black people, it must be rooted in the working class history and culture of these people. Such a base in the experiences of the oppressed necessitates the use of a materialist method that analyses the concrete struggles of human beings in black history and culture to produce and reproduce their lives within definite historical and material conditions. The thesis then undertakes such an analysis of the black struggle and of the struggles of biblical social communities. For this purpose a materialist analysis of the texts of Micah and Luke 1 and 2 and is undertaken. This is followed by an outline of a black biblical hermeneutical appropriation of the texts. It is concluded that the category of "struggle" is a fundamental hermeneutical tool in a materialist biblical hermeneutics of liberation. Using this category one can read the Bible backwards, investigating the questions of which its texts are answers, the problems of which its discourses are solutions. The point of a biblical hermeneutics of liberation is to uncover the struggles of which the texts are a product, a record, a site and a weapon. For black theology, the questions and concepts needed to interrogate the biblical texts in this way must be sought in the experiences of the most oppressed and exploited in black history and culture. What form such an exercise may take is illustrated by a study of the book of Micah and Luke 1 and 2. Two significant findings follow.The class and ideological contradictions of black history and culture necessitate the emergence of a plurality of black theologies of liberation. Similar contradictions in the Bible necessitate a plurality of contradictory hermeneutical appropriations of the same texts.

Includes abstract.~Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-41). / The withdwal of the Maize Board in 1996 meant that farmers could no longer rely on their pre-planting price or "voorskat" for price discovery and price risk management. Some have claimed (UNCTAD, 2007) that the South African Futures Exchange (SAFEX) can provide these functions. We test this claim and analyse the impliacation of it.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics and Social Science, 1964. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 1004-1017). / by Warren Phillip Saunders, Jr. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics and Social Science, 1964.

Bibliography: pages 270-291. / Thirteen social work organizations participated in the study, with questionnaires being distributed to 237 managers and social workers through organization internal mail, conventional postage, and group administration depending on the preference of the organization. The overall response rate was 54.43%. The results revealed that the statistical 5/5 or opportunist management style is most prevalent within the social worker and management samples. This style is essentially a situational approach to managing and indicates that the manager's primary motivation is that of self-interest. In the social worker sample, another significant feature was the prominence of the 1/1 or impoverished management profile which characterises managers as being indifferent, apathetic and bureaucratic. An analysis of the profiles of both the opportunist and 1/1 managerial styles indicate that these managers employ autocratic practices toward workers. The predominance of the opportunist and the 1/1 styles confirm the results of the open-ended questionnaires which reveal autocratic management styles as being predominant. The element of autocratic control therefore emerges as a significant feature of management style within social work management. The conclusions drawn from this study are that social work managers need to change their orientations which are motivated primarily by self-interest and characterised by autocratic practices, toward a 9/9 approach which encompasses the principles of teamwork, participation, change and innovation which are needed within a South African democratic and developmental context of practice.

The poverty trap hypothesis postulates that very low income individuals may be trapped in poverty because severe constraints give rise to behaviour that limits their ability to take up and benefit from new investments. Furthermore, the theory suggests that insurance and credit can serve as effective tools in counteracting the mechanisms that create this type of persistent poverty. In this study, using data obtained from two separate samples of farmers in the Western Cape, we explore the validity of this hypothesis in a South African context. One sample consists of organic farmers from Cape Town whilst the other comprises of conventional farmers from the Matzikama Municipality. We elicit behavioural traits; more specifically risk preferences, using lottery type experiments with real money at stake. Using a series of logit regressions we look at the relationship between these preferences i.e. risk aversion, loss aversion and nonlinear probability weighting and actual uptake of farm technology in both samples. Using the Matzikama sample, we then apply the estimates to uptake in an experimental setting where insurance and credit are provided. The experimental study allows us to test for both absolute and path dependent effects by examining both the levels, using a multinomial logit model, and the timing, using a cox proportional hazard model, of uptake. The results from the real life data show that the effects of the risk preferences tend to differ depending on the type of technology, and this is true for both samples. One consistent finding from both the real life and experimental uptake data is that the farmers who live in households that have below average relative income levels are less likely to take up technology; even with insurance and loans being made available in the experiment. This finding is unexpected given that all the farmers face the same objective risk levels and do not have their real life income at stake in the experiment. Our results show that the availability of insurance improves uptake in the overall sample and can serve as effective tools in reducing poverty. However, contrary to the poverty trap hypotheses, little evidence is found to suggest that the insurance contract in the study sufficiently serves as a device to counteract the risk preferences that are linked to low technology uptake. This finding is evident when considering both absolute uptake and the timing of uptake. Therefore, the results on the effects of insurance and credit on technology uptake, given risk preference and relative income position, may imply that low income farmers in South Africa are not only constrained by behaviour that is prompted by monetary or risk factors but also other behavioural or psychological components e.g. the feeling of hopelessness that stems from persisting conditions of poverty; however, this requires further investigation.

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Masters of Arts in the Department of Social Work in Community Work at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2000. / The history of South Africa is the history of conquest, dispossession, forced removals, unjust policies, detribalization and poverty. Development , on the land was seen as a prerogative of the White minority. Underdevelopment, on the other hand was considered a natural state for the overwhelming black majority class. This conflict relationship formed the foundation of the South African Society's social system over years. Order in the society meant the ability to sustain a status quo of the social system. Land has,in all respects, been the borne of contention. It is arguable that land has had a determinant role in the nature of the South African state and politics. The land redistribution programme will either improve these class antagonism or legitimase them. It pivotes upon the context under which the land redistribution is carried out and by whom it is being driven. The land redistribution programme needs to be Afrocentric in paradigm and Africans themselves need to drive the course of their own development. There are things which may be of value to Africans and which land redistribution programme, unless driven by themselves , may be found insignificant. For an example, African organization structures in rural areas are very important for self identity. Unless the land redistribution programme recognizes these problems and challenges, there will be a moving equilibrium or status quo with regard to social change. There will be apartheid order within a democratic social system. The land set aside for settlement under the new order will still resemble the then bantustan, and black sport lands.