Critical Realism, the Capabilities Approach, and Marxism, all have underdeveloped theoretical problems. For Critical Realism, the ceteris paribus clause, which is used to asses an ideological critique, does not properly specify what other things warrant the dismissal or acceptance of said critique. For the Capabilities Approach, a proper ontology or metaphysics is missing, and the claim that the Capabilities Approach can be metaphysically neutral is false. Finally, Marxism is good at describing the more onerous aspects of capitalism (e.g., alienation, exploitation, crisis), but it does not provide normative force for seeing these descriptions as bad. I argue that these three schools of thought, when connected through the ontology of Critical Realism, can be rendered mutually inclusive, and each theory can help address the lacuna in its respective counterpart. Critical Realism gives to Marxism and the Capabilities Approach ontological justification, and the Capabilities Approach gives to Critical Realism and Marxism normative force. And finally, Marxism gives to the Capabilities Approach a more radical, but consistent twist that furthers the goal of realizing our shared human powers.

This paper explores the concept of well-being both in theoretical and practical applications. When it comes to well-being policy, it is apparent that the government’s goal ought to be to maximize the well-being of the citizens within that particular society. In order to do so effectively, there must be a foundational understanding both of the concept of well-being itself, as well as how it functions in application. I argue that preference-based approaches to well-being, which often emply GDP as a key metric, fail to adequately reflect the well-being of a nation’s citizens. I suggest that the Capabilities Approach offers a superior approach to well-being both in theory and in practice. Though it is possible that there are other equal or better options, I find that the Capabilities Approach successfully reaches the genuine depths of a person’s well-being without allowing for one individual’s well-being to impede on another’s. While it is evident that the capabilities approach still faces a number of hurdles and room for development, I hope to have argued that it is a step forward from traditional as well as subjective approaches to well-being. With further research and development, it is evident that this shift will allow for development decisions that are unbiased, equally considering the interests of all citizens, and thus a step forward towards truly increasing the well-being of humans throughout the world.

While globalisation is a multidimensional phenomenon, present educational foci tend to lie not on preparing students for a complex, globalised 21stcentury, but on preparing students for a 21st-century economic globalisation. In order to advocate a change of consciousness, this present study examines the concept of human flourishing and the skills – referred to as cosmopolitan soft skills – fostering the phenomenon. Taking a critical realist approach, a theoretical and an empirical investigation was carried out. The theoretical analysis undertaken by the study identified flourishing to be a three-dimensional concept and established that flourishing cannot be fully realised unless an individual is flourishing both from a positive-psychological, a moral-political, and a moral-ethical perspective. The empirical, comparative analysis of school policy documents and interviews with school principals, on the other hand, eventuated a comprehensive list of skills and competences that contemporary educational institutions aim at equipping their students with for the sake of flourishing. By an interplay between theory and empirical data, the study resulted in a possible conceptualisation of cosmopolitan soft skills, consisting of the four core skills of attention, acceptance, respect, and responsibility, and 78 other skills organised into four main categories. Provided the critical realist stance taken, the results are believed to be of a flexible and ever-changing but universal nature that facilitate future research into the educability of the cosmopolitan soft skills concept and the empirical realisation of human flourishing.

A presente investigação científica tem como objetivo compreender de que maneira o uso de serviços de governo eletrônico (e-gov) é influenciado pelos diferentes \"locais de acesso à internet\" e pelas competências de uso do internauta. Para tanto, foram utilizados os microdados da pesquisa TIC Domicílios (desenvolvida pelo Centro de Estudos sobre as Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação) referente aos anos de 2007, 2009 e 2011, se caracterizado um estudo longitudinal. Os procedimentos referentes ao tratamento e análise dos dados se deram por meio da aplicação de técnicas estatísticas de cunho descritivo (mediana, distribuição de frequência) e multivariado (Análise de Correspondência, Análise Fatorial Binária e Regressão Logística Binária). O eixo teórico deste trabalho se fundamenta na abordagem das Capacidades desenvolvida pelo economista Amartya Sen. Os resultados desta investigação demonstram que para todas as classes socioeconômicas o uso dos serviços de governo eletrônico está fortemente relacionado às seguintes competências de uso: e-mail, e-commerce (busca de produtos e serviços) e serviços financeiros (consultas). Tais competências são favorecidas pelo acesso à internet preferencialmente em \"casa\" e no \"trabalho\", sobre as demais alternativas de acesso como as lan houses (centros públicos de acesso pago) e os telecentros (centros públicos de acesso gratuito). Esses resultados oferecem indícios de que as políticas públicas que promovem o acesso à internet preferencialmente do ambiente domiciliar (em consonância a ações que auxiliem o desenvolvimento de competências de uso da internet) são mais eficazes para promover um aumento no uso do e-gov, do que os esforços de se redefinir o papel dos centros públicos de acesso (telecentro e lan house), a fim de que estes se tornem ponto de acesso aos serviços de e-gov. / This scientific research aims to understand how the individuals\' use of e-government services (e-gov) is influenced by different \"location of access to the internet\" and their usage capabilities. For this purpose, the microdata from ICT Households Survey (developed by Center of Studies on Information and Communication Technologies - CETIC.br) for the years of 2007, 2009 and 2011 was used, featuring a longitudinal study. For the processing and analysis of the data, descriptive (median, frequency distribution) and multivariate (Correspondence Analysis, Binary Factor Analysis and Binary Logistic Regression) statistical techniques were applied. The theoretical basis of this research is based on the Capability Approach developed by the economist Amartya Sen. The results of this investigation states that for all social classes the use of e-government services is strongly related to the following usage competencies: e-mail, e-commerce (search for products and services) and financial services (consultations). These capabilities are favored by the Internet access preferably at \"home\" and \"work\", more than on the other location of access to the internet alternatives such as lan houses (paid public access centers) and public telecenters (free public access centers). These results provide evidence that public policies that promote access to the internet preferably at home environment (with other actions that encourage the development of internet usage competencies) are more effective in promoting an increase in the use of e-gov, than efforts to redefine the role of public access centers (telecenters and lan houses), so that they become a point of access to e-government services.

In this thesis my aim is to bring attention to the problem of sexual exclusion as experienced by members of the disability community and argue that this is an issue of justice. I do this by first discussing the value of sex. I maintain that sex is an integral part of a flourishing human life. Once this is established, I examine theories of justice and demonstrate how the systematic sexual exclusion of persons with disabilities can be understood as an injustice that must be addressed. Finally, I give an overview of some of the proposed solutions to the problem of sexual exclusion and conclude that the transformation of social attitudes is necessary for sexual justice. / Graduate / 0422 / trw.deboer@gmail.com

abstract: Community colleges, like all higher education institutions in the United States, have not been immune to the increased national focus on educational accountability and institutional effectiveness over the past three decades. Federal and non-governmental initiatives aimed at tracking and reporting on institutional outcomes have focused on utilitarian academic and economic measures of student success that homogenize the goals, aspirations, and challenges of the individuals who attend these unique open-access institutions. This dissertation, which is comprised of three submission-ready scholarly peer-reviewed articles, examined community college students’ conceptualizations and valuations of “student success.” The research project was designed as a multiple methods single-site case study, and the data sources consisted of a large-scale student e-survey, follow-up semi-structured interviews with a heterogeneous group of students, semi-structured interviews with faculty and administrators, and a review of institutional documents. The interviews also incorporated two experimental visual elicitation techniques and a participatory ranking exercise. Article One introduces and operationalizes the author’s primary conceptual perspective, the capabilities approach, to develop a more comprehensive framework for understanding and evaluating community college student outcomes. This article documents the methodological process used to generate a theoretical and an empirical list of community college capabilities, which serve as the basis of future capabilities-based research on community college student success. Article Two draws on the student interview and student visual elicitation data to explore the capability category of “refuge” – a new, unexpected, and student-valued purpose of the community college as a safe escape from the complexities and demands of personal, home, and work life. In light of recent efforts to promote more structured and prescriptive college experiences to improve graduation rates, Article Three explores students’ perceptions of their pathways through the community college using the participant-generated and researcher-generated visual elicitation data. Findings indicate that students value the structure and the flexibility community colleges offer, as well as their own ability to be agents and architects of their educational experience. Taken together, these articles suggest that student success is less linear and more rhizomatic in structure than it is currently portrayed in the literature. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2015

The road of development through e-government is covered with deep potholes and dead ends. This is because Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are adopted and e-government policies are developed with a blind focus on the ICT tools and with little reflection on the contribution of ICT to development (Heeks and Bailur, 2007, p. 243, Avgerou, 2009, p. 14). To assist with this reflection Information Systems (IS) researchers are increasingly calling for the development of local contextual theory or a framework in ICT for Development (ICT4D) (Avgerou, 2009, p. 14, Madon et al., 2007, Walsham, 2003, Walsham, 1997). This thesis responds to that call by investigating the role of e-government towards development within the South African context. The means of inquiry was a three year ethnographic immersion in a longitudinal research project. The aim of the longitudinal research project was to investigate how a specialised type of ICT (Group Support Systems) can enable interaction between government and citizens in attaining specific human rights. The research project centred on creating an awareness among the public in South Africa of a newly enacted Act, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act No 3 of 2000 (PAJA). The rich data collected was analysed using Grounded Theory, resulting in a substantive theory that suggests that within the South African context e-government could contribute to development if it is used to facilitate policy implementation within the spirit of Ubuntu. The thesis delineates the journey up to the emergence of the substantive theory. The substantive theory has important implications for IS theory and IS practice. For IS theory, the substantive theory demonstrates that research on ICT4D in Africa could usefully be undertaken by following an action research strategy within a critical-interpretive paradigm. The substantive theory also suggests the importance of taking into account the contextual collaborative nature of African culture in the spirit of Ubuntu when conducting such research. For practice, the substantive theory proposes a potential framework where ICT could provide the collaborative environment or shared space in the spirit of Ubuntu for policy implementation towards development. Checked against implementation requirements on the South African policy on entrepreneurship, the substantive theory framework proves to be equally valuable. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Informatics / unrestricted

A presente investigação científica tem como objetivo compreender de que maneira o uso de serviços de governo eletrônico (e-gov) é influenciado pelos diferentes \"locais de acesso à internet\" e pelas competências de uso do internauta. Para tanto, foram utilizados os microdados da pesquisa TIC Domicílios (desenvolvida pelo Centro de Estudos sobre as Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação) referente aos anos de 2007, 2009 e 2011, se caracterizado um estudo longitudinal. Os procedimentos referentes ao tratamento e análise dos dados se deram por meio da aplicação de técnicas estatísticas de cunho descritivo (mediana, distribuição de frequência) e multivariado (Análise de Correspondência, Análise Fatorial Binária e Regressão Logística Binária). O eixo teórico deste trabalho se fundamenta na abordagem das Capacidades desenvolvida pelo economista Amartya Sen. Os resultados desta investigação demonstram que para todas as classes socioeconômicas o uso dos serviços de governo eletrônico está fortemente relacionado às seguintes competências de uso: e-mail, e-commerce (busca de produtos e serviços) e serviços financeiros (consultas). Tais competências são favorecidas pelo acesso à internet preferencialmente em \"casa\" e no \"trabalho\", sobre as demais alternativas de acesso como as lan houses (centros públicos de acesso pago) e os telecentros (centros públicos de acesso gratuito). Esses resultados oferecem indícios de que as políticas públicas que promovem o acesso à internet preferencialmente do ambiente domiciliar (em consonância a ações que auxiliem o desenvolvimento de competências de uso da internet) são mais eficazes para promover um aumento no uso do e-gov, do que os esforços de se redefinir o papel dos centros públicos de acesso (telecentro e lan house), a fim de que estes se tornem ponto de acesso aos serviços de e-gov. / This scientific research aims to understand how the individuals\' use of e-government services (e-gov) is influenced by different \"location of access to the internet\" and their usage capabilities. For this purpose, the microdata from ICT Households Survey (developed by Center of Studies on Information and Communication Technologies - CETIC.br) for the years of 2007, 2009 and 2011 was used, featuring a longitudinal study. For the processing and analysis of the data, descriptive (median, frequency distribution) and multivariate (Correspondence Analysis, Binary Factor Analysis and Binary Logistic Regression) statistical techniques were applied. The theoretical basis of this research is based on the Capability Approach developed by the economist Amartya Sen. The results of this investigation states that for all social classes the use of e-government services is strongly related to the following usage competencies: e-mail, e-commerce (search for products and services) and financial services (consultations). These capabilities are favored by the Internet access preferably at \"home\" and \"work\", more than on the other location of access to the internet alternatives such as lan houses (paid public access centers) and public telecenters (free public access centers). These results provide evidence that public policies that promote access to the internet preferably at home environment (with other actions that encourage the development of internet usage competencies) are more effective in promoting an increase in the use of e-gov, than efforts to redefine the role of public access centers (telecenters and lan houses), so that they become a point of access to e-government services.

No description available.

Oil producing communities of Nigeria known as Niger Delta region has been a region characterized with fierce violent conflict for more than a decade. The conflict is between successive Nigerian Governments and their collaborating oil companies, and militant groups from the region. And the core issues in the conflict are the socio-economic deprivations and denial of resource control which were occasioned by corporate malfeasance and indifference of successive Nigerian Governments to the plight, demands and aspirations of the people of the region. The Nigerian Government who first aggravated the violent conflict in the region through the use of violent repression as an anti-protest measure however proposed an amnesty policy in June 2009 as a non-violent measure to address the crisis in the region. The policy aimed solely at disarming, rehabilitating and reintegrating the militants into the Nigerian state. The implementation of the policy brought a relative peace to the long troubled region for the first time, with the seeming compliance of the militants. This study however argues that the policy has no feasibility of ensuring a genuine and lasting peace in the long troubled region because its focus is not on the root cause of the crisis. Thus it argues that addressing the issue of human rights whose lack is the root cause of the crisis and whose provision has always been demands and the aspirations of the people will instead engender a genuine and lasting peace in the region.