The factors related to mathematics and geometry achievement were modeled in this study. It was based on the data obtained from the Student Assessment Program carried out by Ministry of National Education. Mathematics achievement tests and student questionnaires of each grade were analyzed by using principal component analysis to obtain different dimensions that are expected to be related with student achievement. Before the principal component analysis, a content based evaluation of the content of the mathematics achievement tests was actualized and the items were grouped as mathematics and geometry. Regarding the student questionnaire socio-economic status, perception of success and interest toward mathematics and science, student-centered activities and teacher-centered activities in the classroom were identified as factors through the principal component analysis. Thereafter, three models were designed and tested by structural equation modeling technique (SEM) using LISREL 8.54. Path analysis with latent variables was used for testing the models. The following results were obtained in the study. In all of the models, socioeconomic status had a positive impact on the mathematics and geometry achievement of the students for all the grade levels examined. Teacher centered activities were found to be positively related with the students&rsquo / success of mathematics and geometry. On the other hand, student centered activities intended to have a negative relation with mathematics and geometry achievement. As the other variables were considered, an increase on the mathematics and geometry scores of the students&rsquo / was observed in all grade levels with the increase in the perception of success and interest toward mathematics and science.

Bakgrund: Statistik och forskningsrapporter från bland annat Världshälsoorganisationen visar att hälsan världen över är ojämlikt fördelad och att socioekonomisk status, socialt kapital och health literacy är bidragande faktorer. Föräldrars utbildningsnivå och inkomst kan påverka barns hälsa och uppväxtvillkor och barn tillhörande riskgrupper har sämre förutsättningar till hälsa. Samhället har möjlighet att genom politiska insatser på olika nivåer och i olika sektorer påverka individers möjligheter att i sin tur vidta hälsofrämjande åtgärder. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka föräldrars syn på kopplingen mellan ekonomi och hälsa, och hur det påverkar familjen att leva ett gott liv. Metod: En kvalitativ ansats valdes och sju föräldrar från tre olika kommuner i Värmland intervjuades i enskilda semistrukturerade intervjuer. Samtliga intervjuer spelades in, transkriberades och analyserades därefter enligt kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i två kategorier: ”Hinder och möjligheter” som består av subkategorierna: Socialt kapital och Tid och utrymme, och vidare av ”Prioritering och investering” som består av subkategorierna: Samhällets roll, Levnadsvanor och livsstil och Uppväxtvillkor. Slutsats: Det framkom att hälsa är ett komplext begrepp som handlar om både fysiskt och psykiskt välbefinnande. Enligt informanterna har individer möjlighet att påverka sin hälsa genom prioriteringar och investeringar. Vidare beskrevs att förutsättningarna för hälsa är ojämlikt fördelade i samhället och de ekonomiskt svagare kan ha svårare att vidta hälsofrämjande åtgärder. Informanterna ansåg att det finns en koppling mellan ekonomi och hälsa och att god ekonomi förbättrar individers möjligheter till hälsa och ett gott liv. Individers kunskap, intressen och vilja styr individers val i livet. Tidsbrist och för lite utrymme för återhämtning och tid med familjen har beskrivits kunna utgöra en begränsande faktor för bättre hälsa. Hälsa beskrevs också vara en resurs för ett produktivt liv. Barns hälsa påverkas bara till viss del av familjens ekonomi samtidigt som en trygg miljö och god föräldrarelation ansågs vara betydelsefulla. / Background: Statistics and reports from among others the World Health Organization show that inequity in health exists all over the world and that socioeconomic status, social capital and health literacy are contributing factors. Parental education and income have an effect on children’s health and development and children in risk groups have lower chances to develop good health. The society has the opportunity to affect individuals to take actions to promote their own health by political actions on different levels and in different sectors. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine parental view on the connection between economics and health, and its effects on living a good family life. Method: A qualitative approach was used to collect data. Seven parents from three different municipalities in Wermland were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis of the material resulted in two categories: ”Obstacles and opportunities” which further consists of two subcategories: Social capital and Time and capacity. The other category “Priority and investment” consists of three subcategories: Society’s role, Lifestyle factors and Childhood conditions. Conclusion: This study showed that health is a complex concept about physical and psychological well-being. According to the informants individuals have the opportunity to affect their health by their priorities and investments. Furthermore, the opportunities for reaching good health are being described as unequal throughout the society and it seems to be harder to take health promoting actions for those who are economically weaker. The informants felt that there is a connection between economics and health and that good economy improves individuals’ possibilities to be healthy and live a good life. Individuals’ interests, knowledge and will affect their choices in life. Lack of time and capacity for recovery and to spent time with their families is thought to be a limiting factor for better health. Health is also being described as a resource for a productive life. Children’s health is only partly being affected by families’ economy. A safe environment and good parental relationship seems to be important.

There is often an assumption that there is a right and a wrong way for consumers to behave. For example, with regard to eating, people should make food choices based on maximizing vitamins and minerals and not consuming more calories than one expends in a day. Likewise, it is assumed that buying products to conspicuously signal a message to another is wasteful and maladaptive. The research in this thesis challenges these assumptions and argues that these behaviours can be both adaptive and maladaptive depending on one’s environmental conditions. In this thesis, I describe three experiments that examine how perception of environmental harshness affects appetite for different types of foods. The data shows that food desirability in adulthood varies depending on early childhood socio-economic status, the type of environmental stressor (harsh social, harsh economic and harsh physical safety) and the intensity of the stressors within each of these environments. It was also found that different types of environmental harshness differentially affects food desire based on energy density and food category type. In addition to the experiments on harshness and food desirability, I have examined how environmental harshness affects desire for products that are used to conspicuously signal information to others. For example, under conditions of environmental stress, products may be used to advertise that a male possesses financial or physical power which is desirable to a potential mate. Likewise, a women may buy products to display she possess financial power or she may purchase products that augment her beauty and sexual attractiveness. These studies reveal that product desire is also affected by different types of environmental harshness and the intensity of the stress generated by these environmental conditions. Through the research described in this thesis, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of the proximate variables that influence two subsets of consumer behaviour, namely food desire and product signalling, and how these behaviours may have been selected for due to their adaptive value.

Submitted by Yan Bernardes Vieites Castro dos Santos (yan.vieites@gmail.com) on 2017-08-10T14:56:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 The Prosocial Class - How Social Class Influences Prosocial Behavior (Versão Final).pdf: 1469168 bytes, checksum: b516c5d38bb18756e5b26eef64cd026d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-08-10T16:23:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 The Prosocial Class - How Social Class Influences Prosocial Behavior (Versão Final).pdf: 1469168 bytes, checksum: b516c5d38bb18756e5b26eef64cd026d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-18T19:40:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 The Prosocial Class - How Social Class Influences Prosocial Behavior (Versão Final).pdf: 1469168 bytes, checksum: b516c5d38bb18756e5b26eef64cd026d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-19 / The concept of noblesse oblige establishes that the differential in privileges between the rich and the poor should be balanced by a differential in duties towards those in need. However, the empirical findings regarding which are the most prosocial groups havebeenascontroversialasthisassertive. Whereasresearchintheso-calledpsychological framework has advocated a negative relationship between social class and prosocial behavior, the economic approach has claimed the opposite (i.e., positive) direction to be true. This article sought to disentangle conflicting findings from these strands of research across two different studies. In the first study, we conducted a series of focus groups in both wealthy and impoverished areas. Results suggested that research in the domain of social class has been circumscribed to an almost conventionalized few prosocial behaviors that are not representative neither of wealthy nor of poor individuals. In the second study, we conducted surveys in the same areas. Results revealed that, despite having less resources and opportunities to help others, lower social class individuals are more prosocial than their upper-class counterparts. Furthermore, prosociality differences cannot be explained by a different pattern of targets of help across the social spectrum. Implications for practice and research on prosociality are also discussed.

Esta pesquisa propôs-se a examinar a compreensão leitora de crianças, estabelecendo os seguintes objetivos: 1) discutir os modelos teóricos e experimentais da compreensão leitora; 2) elaborar um instrumento de avaliação de compreensão de texto; 3) investigar o desenvolvimento da habilidade entre a quarta e a sexta séries do Ensino Fundamental, analisando também o impacto de variáveis externas (nível socioeconômico e tipo de escola) sobre aquele desenvolvimento; 4) investigar na amostra as associações e dissociações entre o desempenho em leitura de palavras e em compreensão de textos; 5) verificar que funções neuropsicológicas relacionam-se à compreensão leitora; 6) e, finalmente, investigar a forma como aquelas funções neuropsicológicas se relacionam com o nível socioeconômico e a inteligência, em seus efeitos sobre a compreensão leitora. Para os estudos empíricos, alunos de quarta a sexta séries (n= 110; escolas públicas e privadas) foram avaliados em tarefas de leitura, tarefas neuropsicológicas, e quanto à inteligência. Testou-se a significância estatística da diferença entre os grupos em função da série e do tipo de escola. Da amostra total, apenas o grupo de maus compreendedores (leitura de palavra preservada/compreensão textual deficitária) e o de bons leitores (leitura de palavras e de texto adequadas), foram comparados quanto ao desempenho neuropsicológico. Usou-se regressão linear para verificar o efeito da variável grupo (maus compreendedores versus bons leitores) sobre os escores nas tarefas, controlando o efeito da série e tipo de escola. Modelagem de Equações Estruturais foi usada para testar 6 modelos que propunham diferentes relações entre nível socioeconômico, inteligência e funções executivas (variáveis independentes), sobre compreensão leitora. Os resultados mostraram que há efeito da série sobre leitura de palavras isoladas e sobre a compreensão (questionário), e que o desempenho das crianças de escola pública é inferior ao dos alunos de escolas privadas tanto na leitura de palavras, como na compreensão de textos (reconto). A variável grupo (maus compreendedores versus bons leitores) relacionou-se significativamente com quatro tarefas da bateria de avaliação neuropsicolinguística, destacando-se a memória de trabalho e as funções executivas. No modelo estrutural de melhor ajuste o efeito do nível socioeconômico sobre a compreensão leitora foi totalmente mediado pelas funções executivas (enquanto o fator que incluiu as medidas de funções executivas e de memória de trabalho), enquanto que a inteligência não teve efeito significativo sobre a compreensão leitora. Como desdobramento da pesquisa, acredita-se que funções executivas devem ser foco de ações clínicas junto a crianças com dificuldades de compreensão, e de ações escolares preventivas junto a crianças de nível socioeconômico baixo, como forma de prevenir dificuldades em compreensão leitora. / This research aimed to examine reading comprehension in children, establishing the following objectives: 1) discussing the experimental and theoretical models of reading comprehension; 2) developing an instrument to evaluate reading comprehension; 3) investigate the development of reading comprehension, also analyzing the effect of external variables (socioeconomic status and type of school) on this development; 4) investigating in the sample associations and dissociations between word reading and reading comprehension performances; 5) verifying which neuropsychological functions are related to reading comprehension; 6) and, finely, investigating how those neuropsychological functions relate to socioeconomic status and intelligence in their effect upon reading comprehension. For the empirical studies, 110 children, 4th to 6th grades, were assessed in reading, neuropsychological and intelligence measures. Statistical differences among the groups, in terms of grade and type of school, were tested. Poor comprehenders (high word reading and low reading comprehension) and good readers (high word reading and reading comprehension) were compared in relation to the neuropsychological measures. Linear regression tested the effect of the variable group (poor comprehenders versus good readers) upon neuropsychological scores, controlling for grade and type of school. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test six models proposing different relations among socioeconomic status, intelligence and executive functions (independent variables) in their effect upon reading comprehension. The results showed that grade has effect upon word reading and comprehension (questionnaire), and that students from public schools underscore the ones from private schools. Group variable (poor comprehenders versus good readers) were significantly related to performance on four tasks of the neuropsycolinguistic battery, highlighting executive functions and working memory. In the best-fitting structural model, effects of socioeconomic status on reading comprehension were fully mediated by executive functions. Furthermore, IQ had no effect on reading comprehension once the direct effect of executive function was included in the model. It is concluded that executive functions should be focused both on clinical actions among children with reading comprehension difficulties, and preventive actions with the school children from low socioeconomic level, in order to prevent difficulties in reading comprehension.

The research study was conducted in Mazakhele, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The aim of the study was to understand the impact of unemployment on the inhabitants of Mazakhele. The primary question of this study was: How does unemployment affect the jobless in Mazakhele? The sample consisted of five females and five males aged between 25 to 55 years who were unemployed. Purposive sampling was used. In-depth interviews were used to collect the data that were analysed using the five steps of qualitative analysis. The findings of the study revealed that unemployed people (a) felt a lack of purpose in life that resulted in them experiencing difficulties in structuring their time, (b) generally spent their time with passive and purposeless activities and (c) experience frustration and anger that may lead to violence, substance abuse, prostitution, drug trafficking and sometimes even suicide. In addition, the participants indicated that unemployed people lose not only their jobs, but also their sense of social identity and self-worth. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The current diploma thesis examines Czech listeners' perception of various accents of English from the points of view of comprehensibility, pleasantness, socioeconomic status, and model suitability. The main aim of the study is to contribute to the discussion on how accent variation within the Anglophone world is perceived by non-native speakers, and what aspects influence their evaluations of the accents. The theoretical part of the thesis defines several terms related to the domain, describes selected pronunciation varieties of English, and summarizes research which has focused on native accents of English in the perception of non-native speakers. The research part of the thesis consists of a study, in which 39 Czech students from two types of schools evaluated six accents of English and provided information about their experience with English and Anglophone cultures. The results showed that standard varieties are favoured by the students in all four respects, but also that students' evaluations, especially for pleasantness, may be affected by their relations to the Anglophone world. Key words: Native Accent, Regional Variation, L2 learner, Comprehensibility, Socioeconomic Status, Pronunciation Model, Standard

Esta dissertação é composta por dois estudos conduzidos a fim de compreender de maneira integrada os fatores cognitivos/neuropsicológicos e ambientais relacionados ao desempenho em leitura (precisão e fluência) de crianças. A amostra foi composta por 185 alunos, 78 (42,2%) meninos e 107 (57,8%) meninas, do 4º ano do Ensino Fundamental de escolas públicas de Porto Alegre e Belo Horizonte. No primeiro estudo, foram investigadas as variáveis cognitivas/neuropsicológicas e ambientais que melhor explicam o desempenho de leitura (precisão e fluência). Nas análises de regressão linear observou-se a consciência fonológica e a nomeação seriada rápida (NSR) como melhores preditores na precisão de leitura, apoiando a hipótese de que o processamento fonológico é um contribuinte fundamental para a leitura no nível lexical. As variáveis ambientais importantes para leitura de palavras irregulares e fluência em leitura foram o nível socioeconômico (NSE) e o índice de desempenho (IDEB) da escola de origem. No segundo estudo, comparou-se o desempenho neuropsicológico, características comportamentais e ambientais de 3 grupos de crianças provenientes do estudo 1: com dificuldades de leitura/escrita (DLE); com dificuldade combinada de leitura/escrita e aritmética (DC) e sem dificuldades de aprendizagem (SD). Os grupos DLE e DC apresentaram desempenho estatisticamente inferior ao das crianças sem dificuldades de aprendizagem em consciência fonológica, NSR e memória de trabalho fonológica. O grupo DC apresentou desempenho inferior ao do grupo com DLE apenas em fluência verbal ortográfica. As crianças com dificuldades acadêmicas (DLE e DC) apresentaram maior escore no questionário de características de desatenção e hiperatividade e menor NSE. Os resultados contribuem para a compreensão de modelos multifatoriais (cognitivo/neuropsicológico, comportamental e ambiental) no desempenho da leitura e nas dificuldades de aprendizagem. Ambos os estudos mostram que a leitura no nível da palavra está mais relacionada às habilidades de processamento fonológico do que as habilidades visuoespaciais ou funções executivas, nas crianças avaliadas no quarto ano. É importante considerar a inserção de atividades para promover estas habilidades no currículo no Ensino Infantil e Ensino Fundamental como medida preventiva (primária e secundária) de dificuldades de leitura. / This dissertation consists of two studies conducted to understand cognitive, neuropsychological and environmental factors related to children’s reading performance (accuracy and fluency) in an integrated way. The sample consisted of 185 4th grade students, 78 (42.2%) boys and 107 (57.8%) girls, from public elementary schools from Porto Alegre city and Belo Horizonte city. In the first study, we investigated the cognitive and environmental variables that best explain the reading performance (accuracy and fluency). In linear regression analyzes observed phonological awareness and rapid serial nomination as best predictors of the accuracy, supporting the hypothesis that phonological processing is a key contributor to the reading on the lexical level. Important environmental variables for reading irregular words and fluency in reading were the socioeconomic status (SES) and the index of Brazilian education. In the second study, we compared the neuropsychological performance, behavioral and environmental characteristics of 3 groups of children from the study 1: difficulties with reading / writing (DLE); combined with reading / writing and arithmetic (DC) and without difficulty (SD). DLE and DC groups had statistically lower performance than children without learning difficulties in phonological awareness, NSR and phonological working memory. The DC group had underperformed the group with DLE only orthographic verbal fluency. Children with academic difficulties (DLE and DC) had higher scores on the questionnaire of inattention and hyperactivity characteristics and were from lower SES families. The results contribute to the understanding of multifactorial models for reading performance and learning difficulties, given the performance results from the interaction among different factors (cognitive/neuropsychological, behavioral and environmental). Both studies showed that the word reading level is more consistent related to phonological processing skills than visuospatial abilities and executive functions in this 4th grade sample. It is important to consider the inclusion of these skills in the curriculum in Infant and Primary Education as a preventive measure (primary and secondary) of reading difficulties.

Where people choose to live is a consequence of a variety of factors, such as housing cost, design, localization and personal considerations. Urban blue spaces provide a range of perceived benefits to nearby inhabitants and is generally seen as attractive traits for an area, influencing housing cost and demographics amongst other things. This has implications for socioeconomic spatial distribution, and thus the city could also be viewed as a map of socioeconomic variation. This paper seeks to examine the socioeconomic spatial variation in the city of Karlstad in relation to urban blue spaces. Using publicly available statistics for 23 different areas of the city, this variation is visualised in a series of maps and tables. Two models, one using average income and one using a proposed local socioeconomic index, are devised and used to estimate the impact of blue spaces on socioeconomic spatial variation in Karlstad. Results show a significant socioeconomic variation between different areas. Certain areas score high and certain areas score low in every category of the socioeconomic index, painting the picture of a socioeconomically divided city. The models used are proven to be inaccurate. Although the four areas with the lowest average income are all located in zones furthest from blue spaces, no evidence indicate that high and medium high average income areas, nor areas with high socioeconomic index, generally are located in closer proximity to blue spaces. Findings imply that socioeconomic spatial variation in Karlstad cannot be reduced to blue spaces and is a complex area of further research.

Inledning: Övervikt och fetma bland barn har de senaste 30 åren ökat över hela världen. Att barn utvecklar övervikt eller fetma har inte bara att göra med deras livsstil utan bakomliggande orsaker kan kopplas till föräldrars socioekonomiska status, SES (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2017). SES kan beskrivas som ett samlingsbegrepp för utbildning, yrkesnivå och inkomst. Syftet med denna uppsats var att kartlägga associationen mellan socioekonomiska faktorer och övervikt/fetma bland barn mellan 0 – 12 år gamla. Metod: Tio vetenskapliga artiklar valdes ut för denna litteraturöversikt. Ur dessa artiklar utkristalliserades fem olika teman som litteraturöversikten baserades på. Resultat: Studien visade att det finns ett samband mellan SES och övervikt/fetma hos barn. Föräldrars utbildningsnivå, moderns vikt och tillgång till fysisk aktivitet och även Tv-vanor kan kopplas till SES som anses som riskfaktorer gällande övervikt/fetma. Diskussion: Resultaten från artiklarna visar att förekomsten av samhälleliga, ekonomiska och miljömässiga determinanter påverkar livsstil. Samhällets beslutsfattare har ett ansvar att underlätta individers beslutsprocesser kring hälsosamma val, då är det viktigt att samhällets olika aktörer är inblandade i den övergripande strävan att främja hälsan. / Introduction: Overweight and obesity among children have increased worldwide over the last 30 years. The fact that children develop overweight and obesity isn’t only related to lifestyle, but an underlying cause can be linked to parents’ socioeconomic status, SES (Folkhälsomyndigheten, 2017). SES can be described as a collective term for educational and occupational level as well as income. The purpose of this thesis was to map the relationship between socioeconomic factors and overweight/obesity among children between 0 – 12 years old. Method: Ten scientific articles were selected for this literature review. From these articles, five themes emerged which outlined the base for this literature review. Results: The studies showed that a connection between SES and overweight/obesity in children exists. The parents’ educational level, the weight of the mother, access to physical activity and also TV viewing habits can be linked to SES and considered as risk factors for overweight and obesity. Discussion: The results from the articles show that the existence of societal, economic and environmental determinants affect lifestyle. Society’s decision makers have a responsibility to facilitate individuals’ decision-making processes regarding health choices, therefore it’s important that society’s various actors are involved in the overall endeavor to promote health.