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This study provides a policy analysis of publicly funded school voucher programs. This research provides an analysis of voucher programs in Cleveland and Milwaukee and of political, legal, and programmatic constraints facing voucher programs. A synopsis of student test score analyses and parental surveys provides a basis for analyzing the effect of programs on participants. A survey of 30 individuals working with the Cleveland and Milwaukee public schools or voucher programs clarifies the effect of the programs on the overall educational environment. A review of financial data from the prog...

TQM gurus and consultants market it as the best change initiative that provides organizations with a competitive advantage. They also say that it is a cure for all problems that companies face. This dissertation provides intellectual and factual data showing that this is not always the case. There are areas where TQM provides a needed change initiative along with others. In addition, once most companies treat improving their processes as a priority, TQM ceases to give a competitive advantage since it becomes a basic entry point into the competition. The dissertation gives examples showing th...

Recent national efforts to coordinate and promote higher education in the fire service led to this national survey of fire service degree programs. The main purpose of the study was to gather descriptive information concerning fire service degree programs offered at two-year and four-year accredited institutions. A second purpose of the study was to identify the perceptions fire service degree program coordinators/directors hold concerning current and future issues affecting their programs. The information collected as part of the study can be used in a variety of ways from benchmarking amo...

This dissertation reports the results of a sociological analysis of the narrative form and functions of revolutionary discourse. Chapter I poses two questions: How do representations of death function in political processes? How do signifiers of violent death function in the structure of revolutionary statements? Chapter II reviews relevant sociological concepts and articulates a dramatistic political-sociology of death, concepts mainly derived from Emile Durkheim, Robert Hertz, and Arnold van Gennep on death and the sacred, Max Weber on violence and politics, and Burke, Duncan, and Edelman...

Before Vatican II, marriage was often considered, or at least popularly expressed, as a union of bodies; that is to say, marriage was an exclusive contract by which a man and a woman mutually handed over their bodies for the purpose of acts which led to the procreation of children. Matrimonial jurisprudence was primarily focused on this marital contract. With the advent of Vatican II and its emphasis on the personalist notion of marriage, a new age dawned whereby canonists, especially auditors of the Roman Rota, were henceforth to view marriage as a union of persons. "Person" is more th...

When African scholars lament over the near destruction of African cultures, they do not reflect the reality of African women's historical traditions of empowerment and inclusion in pre-colonial/pre-Christian African societies, which were also lost in the same process of Western Christian cultural imperialism. Similarly, most male Church theologians writing or speaking about inculturation do not address the deeper cultural issues, which impact heavily on African women. As Nigerian theologian, Rose Mary Edet rightly observed, "policy-related and other research projects concerned with "women in d...

Adrienne von Speyr in her book "Confession" and throughout her writings speaks of the "confession" of Jesus Christ. This is a startling use of the term because Christ never sinned. The author examines all the writings of von Speyr in the light of Roman Catholic soteriology and sacramental theology and in view of the influences that existed between her and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The author then shows how the theme of confession is central to von Speyr's writing, aids in illuminating her theology of Holy Saturday and the Paschal Mystery, and serves as the basis for the renewal of th...

Karl Mannheim, and Karl Marx suggested that there is a relationship between economic and political institutions and that behaviors and attitudes are influenced by this. Viewing this postulate as a conception which posits the economic mode of production as the locus of causality for culture, this examination of capitalism as culture, investigates how education and its pedagogical techniques, as a means of "enculturation," reflects the capitalist economic mode of production. Building on the theoretical notions in the Sociology of knowledge and Structuralism, this hermeneutical analysis discus...

The thesis examines the Catholic social teaching, as it is expressed in papal encyclicals, in wide context of contemporary political doctrines and major events of 20th century. The author proposes a method of following political messages of the Catholic Church during the last century. He challenges a standard Church's claim of immutability of its teaching. He shows, on the contrary, firm contextualisation both of Church's action and of its official message. From classical confrontational strategy face to modernity, through the attitude of "dialogue" during the Second Vatican Council, the Churc...

The use of satellite remote sensing for modeling net primary production (NPP) was evaluated in sixty boreal forest stands spanning a range of site conditions. The work included: (i) estimating annual phenological dynamics and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception with remotely sensed spectral measurements, (ii) linking annually absorbed PAR (APAR) to measured NPP and quantifying variability in light use efficiency ("En"), (iii) evaluating sources of variability in "En" via mechanistic modeling of ecophysiology and associated carbon fluxes, particularl...