Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Community theater Australia Case studies'

This thesis explores how everyday knowledge of community development practices can inform the theorising of community development in Australia. The literature of community development offers a rich source for understanding and explaining the tensions and dilemmas of collective endeavour in context, yet arguments for particular approaches to community development can serve to evaluate practice in context. In this research, however, case studies are positioned as a source of knowledge. The power of case studies lies in their ability to portray collective action and collective action is what differentiates community development from other approaches to problems. The capacity to work in context is also pivotal to community development and case studies are adept at showcasing practice in context. The research reported in this thesis uses case studies of community development practices in the south west region of Western Australia to explore ways in which theoretical arguments for particular approaches to practice represent community development in the literature. A multiple case study design is used to establish twelve cross-case findings about how community development happens in four local communities. Each case is focused on the community development practice of a community group from the south west region of Western Australia. The thesis reports how the four community groups practice community development and then explores how the knowledge of these communities can inform the theorising of community development in the Australian context. The research found that the case studies have the potential to inform the theorising of community development in ten different ways; for example, through unsettling the idea of the bottom-up approach to community development, by identifying the ‘threat’ that context may pose to the tenets of community development, and by unmasking the imperceptibility of process. The research also highlights ways in which community development practices are storied in the literature and offers fresh insights into the obligations of the narrator of community development stories. The thesis concludes by arguing that greater integration between case studies and theoretical propositions for practice, could reinvigorate the way the literature supports and encourages community development practices in the Australian context.

Asking the question "can regional and community web portals become sustainable?" demands a foray into many different disciplines. Sociology, education, business, strategic and knowledge management, organisational theory, relationship management and current technological trends and capabilities are some of the areas on which community projects, such us the development of communities on-line, are founded.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-270) Based on 18-months fieldwork, 1997-1999, in various organisations, social clubs and radio programs that were constructed by participants and 'outsiders' as an expression of a local migrant community. Attempts to answer and challenge what it means to be a Latin American in Adelaide and in what sense Latin American migrants and refugees in Adelaide can be spoken about as members of an 'ethnic/migrant community' in relation to the official multiculturalism discourse and popular representations of migrants in Australia.

In 1990 many in Colquitt, Georgia considered themselves to be a dying town due to the loss of jobs and outmigration that occurred when labor intensive farming transitioned to the machine. In response citizens brought in a theater director from Chicago who helped them launch a performance series of inclusive stories that were acted by local volunteers. The resulting series called Swamp Gravy has run from 1992 to present (2012), and has led to purported claims of community revitalization. The purpose of this study was to discover what this ongoing narrative community engagement meant to the people of Colquitt in regards to: community experiences that produced new relationships (including those between Blacks and Whites); personal empowerment; the coproduction of an emerging and diverse community identity; and institutional and economic development. Methods for this case study included narrative interviews of participants, attendees and local citizens, as well as observation of the town and the performances, and document analysis. Many participant volunteers and attendees became Swamp Gravy enthusiasts, and describe their experiences as coming out into a meaningful experience of community, which included forming relationships with diverse others (including those of a different race). The enthusiasts speak of growing into larger community responsibilities with others for the common good, and feel that ongoing and inclusive storytelling is very important to coproducing a diverse heritage that informs the future of their city. Other attendees (predominantly the business community) describe the benefits of Swamp Gravy as instrumental to having given the town recognition (identity) as an entertaining tourist attraction that exposed individual talent, boosted individual confidence, and enhanced social connectivity. Others in Colquitt were indifferent or resistive to the coming out that the performances invite. Most everyone recognizes that Swamp Gravy has attracted outside tourists which has boosted economic development, occasioned the renovation of downtown Colquitt square and the formation of institutions to continue to attract and accommodate visitors from afar. This case is theorized in terms of the emerging communicative turn in planning that juxtaposes the planner as mediator or facilitator, and stakeholders as co-producers. The findings in this case study support that the Swamp Gravy form of narrative process has some potential for guiding stakeholders to a just diversity in cities, neighborhoods and towns, and as such should be studied further. Urban planning in situations of urban renewal may be one place where utilizing this form of meaningful engagement could lead to discovery of new identities, which may both inform and motivate a just plan to be coproduced.

Australian policy contexts are promoting school transformation through teacher learning and the development of schools as professional learning communities. However, Australian practitioners have very limited contextualised research to guide their efforts in response to these policies. The researcher's involvement in a school revitalisation process provided the impetus for this research study that investigates the practitioner experience of a developing professional learning community at RI College (pseudonym for a large independent girls' school in Brisbane). This study endeavours to gain a more informed and sophisticated understanding of developing a professional learning community with the intention of 'living' this vision of RI College as a professional learning community. Praxis-oriented research questions focus on the practitioner conceptualisation of their school as a developing professional community and their experience of supporting/hindering strategies and structures. The study gives voice to this practitioner experience through the emerging participatory/co-operative research paradigm, an epistemology of participative inquiry, a research methodology of co-operative inquiry and mixed methods data collection strategies. Incorporating ten practitioner inquiries over two years, recursive cycles of action/reflection engaged practitioners as co-researchers in the collaborative reflective processes of a professional learning community while generating knowledge about the conceptualisation and supporting/hindering influences on its development. The outcomes of these first-person and second-person inquiries, together with a researcher devised online survey of teachers, were both informative and transformative in nature and led to the development of the researcher's theoretical perspectives in response to the study's research questions.;As outcomes of co-operative inquiry, these theoretical perspectives inform the researcher's future actions and offer insights into existing propositional knowledge in the field. Engagement in this practitioner inquiry research has had significant transformative outcomes for the co-researchers and has demonstrated the power of collaborative inquiry in promoting collective and individual professional learning and personal growth.

How health care is best provided remains topical, contentious, and political. Debates continue over funding allocation and the weighting placed on preventive, curative, institutional and community services. Such debates were evident in 1973 when a new Federal Labor Government began to reform Australia's health system by implementing a national Community Health Program policy. Implementation led to the establishment of community health centres and multi-disciplinary teams. Studies have generally concluded that community health centre teams have ???failed??? to achieve the goals of this policy. This study sought to answer one broad question. How was the community health program policy implemented, in what context did this event occur, what processes were used and why, and how did generalist community nurses participate? This case study of the Hunter Region, New South Wales, between 1974 and 1989, was based on data collected from four sources: over five hundred documents and archives, including relevant literature, epidemiological studies, centre records, official government and newspaper reports; 69 in-depth interviews with practitioners and administrators; and participant observation. The findings revealed that implementation was hindered by political, administrative and professional impediments. However, practitioners established and provided a broad range of relevant new services by changing the way they practised. Generalist community nurses worked with non-government, private and public organisations offering health, educational and social services. As boundary riders they filled structural holes and created social capital. Conclusions drawn were first, that context strongly influenced how public health policies were implemented and the services offered by different discipline groups. Second, teamwork would have been improved had pre-service health professional education fostered a common understanding of the aim of health care and the broader determinants of health. Third, a preventive orientation needed reinforcing via an organisational context, administrative processes, ongoing learning opportunities and leadership. Fourth, generalist community nurses??? commitment to a preventive approach was embedded in a growing understanding of people's circumstances and health problems. Finally, while policy implementation was constrained in the Hunter Region during the study period it achieved what its architects intended, that is, a broader mix of accessible services, and collaboration between organisations and groups as the boundaries that maintained their separation were bridged.

Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) have been researched over many years from the study of electronic data interchange (EDI) systems to the current internet based trading platforms. Early e-marketplaces connected a buyer and supplier using proprietary systems that established a market hierarchy. The buyer was responsible for the system, established the terms of trade and the electronically enabled supplier could connect to the system. These systems were costly to build, which limited their use, and only organisations with an integrated system could use them. The web based e-marketplaces opened up the possibility of connecting many buyers and suppliers and enabling electronic transactions. The e-marketplace offers opportunities for establishing trade relationships with many organisations across the world. Business to business (B2B) e-commerce is a significant part of the Australian economy and there are opportunities to take advantage of e-marketplace trading. One of the advantages of electronic trading is the ability of the technology to deliver transaction benefits; these can have a significant impact on organisations regardless of organisational size. However, despite the potential of the e-marketplace to deliver organisational benefits there have been limited studies which consider the strategic implementation of e-marketplace trading. Organisational strategy and the implementation of strategic initiatives involve interactions between organisational structures and agents. The analytical dualism this represents complicates uncovering the fundamental causes of e-marketplace participation. Not only does the adoption of e-marketplace trading impact on the buyer and supplier organisations, it introduces the e-marketplace vendor organisation and the e-marketplace technology into the participation decision. The complexity of the interactions across organisational structures and between organisational agents and technology adoption can produce a diversity of outcomes. The philosophical underpinning of critical realism for the study is supported by the lack of understanding as to why, and in what circumstances, organisations successfully participate in e-marketplace trading. The critical realist philosophy provides the opportunity to understand the interrelationships between context, organisational structures and agents and identify the causal mechanisms involved in producing various outcomes. It allows for the development of middle level theory as existing theories are examined to explain the perceived phenomena. Large organisations operating in Western Australia are used as case studies to uncover the causal relationships between context, structures and agents that can produce successful, strategic implementation of e-marketplace participation. Existing literature in relation to e-marketplaces and IT adoption is used to develop the research questions and formulate the interview questions. The structured case methodology is used to analyse each case and relate the findings to possible explanatory theories. Context, mechanism and outcome patterns, identified in each case, are presented. Building on economic market, institutional and network theories the research identifies organising vision theory and community discourse as explanations for organisational legitimation that can circumscribe the use of e-marketplace trading. Six types of community group that influence organisational adoption of e-marketplace technology are identified. The research suggests that the influence of these groups within the organisation, the fit with organisational culture and strategic objectives can prevent or instigate change. Further, the decision making process supported by the group (or group member) is more influential in the strategic adoption of the e-marketplace than the ability of the technology to deliver efficiency or transaction processing gains. This implies that technology adoption studies should include contextual and environmental issues and practitioners should examine how much their decision making is influenced by organisational and environmental features. The thesis contributes to the discussion on organising vision theory, e-marketplace trading and business value creation. It demonstrates the application of the structured case study methodology to research that is underpinned by critical realism.

碩士
南華大學
文化創意事業管理學系文創行銷碩士班
103
Since 1994, Community development in Taiwan has entered into 21 years. Its derived from the concept of making machi in Japan, the community architecture in the United Kingdom, and community design in the United States. A policy of "Comprehensive Community Development" was thus established. In the post 20 years, community theater was a community development strategy, so it had to comply with the target of cultural identity in the community. Besides, community theater had connotations of community cultural characteristics, thus it became the pathway of implementing community development and an effective way to attract community residents’ participation. 　　Chiayi City has promoted community theaters for eight years. During this period, Bei-Hu Community Development Association, Xin-xin Community Care Association, and Bai- Sha-Wang Cultural Association had set up community theaters in accordance with the encouragement and assistances of Cultural Affairs Bureau, Chiayi City. Over these years, each of these three community theaters, had their own diverse cultural characteristics, and had also developed different performing styles. 　　Qualitative research method was adopted in this research. Through depth interviews, document analysis, case studies and secondary data collections, this research has explored background, development situation, the local cultural identity enhancement, cultural differences and characteristics of future development of these three community theaters. In addition, this research tried to provide references for future research.

It is well documented that rural and remote Australian residents have poorer access to medical services than their counterparts in capital cities. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 1998 there were 75.3 vocationally registered general practitioners per 100,000 population in rural and remote areas, compared with 103.0 per 100,000 in metropolitan areas. In 1998 28.7% of the Australian population lived in rural and remote areas, so a substantial proportion of the Australian population is adversely affected by the unequal distribution of general practitioners. Australian country communities highly regard the services of general practitioners and they continue to demand residential medical services. Demand is driven by need for access to health services, but also by the intimate inter-relationships between the general practice and community sustainability. For example, the general practice contributes to the viability of the local hospital which is often a major employer in the district. Consequently, many country communities strive to keep their general practice by contributing to practice infrastructure, providing governance, raising funds for medical equipment, and actively helping recruitment.
thesis (PhDHealthSciences)--University of South Australia, 2004.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-270)
ix, 270 leaves : col. ill. ; 30 cm.
Based on 18-months fieldwork, 1997-1999, in various organisations, social clubs and radio programs that were constructed by participants and 'outsiders' as an expression of a local migrant community. Attempts to answer and challenge what it means to be a Latin American in Adelaide and in what sense Latin American migrants and refugees in Adelaide can be spoken about as members of an 'ethnic/migrant community' in relation to the official multiculturalism discourse and popular representations of migrants in Australia.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-- University of Adelaide, Dept. of Anthropology, 2001

By drawing on community development values and principles as well as a social constructivist theoretical perspective, this study aims to understand how people who are homeless and the volunteers who serve them perceive their roles in terms of empowerment and disempowerment. Twenty-nine individuals have participated in this study: 18 had personal experiences of homelessness and 11 volunteered in the homelessness sector. This study collects data through informal in-depth interviews, and it thematically examines a research diary. Research outcomes suggest that volunteers feel elements of perceived and actual power in their volunteerism. The study argues that such power stems from a belief that volunteering benefits the volunteer, people experiencing homelessness and broader society. These findings are consistent with existing literature and popular discourse; however, my research discovers that volunteers also express guilt and a reluctance to self-identify as a volunteer. This reticence, which accompanies volunteers’ scrutiny of the role’s characterisation as superior, runs contrary to how scholarship and popular discourse often understand volunteers. Participants with first-hand experiences of homelessness characterise the role of the Australian ‘homeless person’ through notions of disempowerment and empowerment. They perceive disempowerment in the various ways they experience social disconnection: family rejection, a lack of companionship through friends and low-quality or precarious relationships within the home-less community. They also connect socially expected behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs and norms to the disempowerment of welfare users. Nevertheless, through topics of public space, safety and protection, these participants express a sense of belonging and perceived empowerment. Crucially, this study finds that 13 of the 18 ‘homeless’ participants had volunteered in the homelessness sector. This unanticipated observation expands the study’s analytical focus beyond an oppression-privilege binary in order to explore the nuances of participants’ complex social positions. As a result, the study tracks the ways by which volunteering challenges what it means to be ‘homeless’ in Australia and how it helps some ‘homeless people’ overcome aspects of the power inequalities encountered in mainstream society and welfare contexts. Overall, the study submits that volunteering signals the personal resources, abilities, skills, knowledge and potential that home-less people possess to improve their own lives and determine their own future. Finally, the process of research challenges the student researcher’s expectations of what it means to perform as an effective scholar. The willingness and ability to listen - to offer kindness, sympathy and compassion – reconfigures how the student understands himself, others and good social work.

"February 20, 2003"
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 586-603)
xvii, 603 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.
Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library.
Investigates the level of resident participation in decision-making in aged care hostels in South Australia.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 2003

The purpose of this research is to provide a socio-historical and political framework for analysing two small government programs, the Victorian Rental Housing Co-operative Program and the Local Government and Community Housing Program, through which community housing principles were introduced into Australian public housing policy. The context for this research is the failure by the housing rights movement to continue with aims which were politically independent of the ALP, the descent of the movement into "tenure politics", the move to the Right by the ALP after the collapse of Keynesianism as an economic tool, and the possible privatisation of public housing by the Liberal Government through the use of housing vouchers. Links between these themes are postulated. A picture of these events and processes, and the ideologies and motivations of the individuals involved in the public housing policy communities both in Victoria and federally, has been built up through the examination and analysis of contemporary documentation, interviews with key informants and through secondary sources. The major conclusions postulate a relationship between the adoption of small community housing programs in the late 1970s and 1980s and the strategic co-option of the housing rights movement by the ALP, and the current inability of the movement to articulate a housing politics which transcends "tenure politics" at a time when the movement is most severely threatened.

This thesis examines the role of social capital in Australian regional development. It does so though a case study of one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged regions in Australia, the City of Playford, (perhaps best known as the former City of Elizabeth and home of South Australian Manufacturing). The approach taken involves an examination of the historical roots, more recent academic and political debates, along with the structural political and economic conditions which have inspired the rise of social capital. This is accompanied by an exploration of the application and implications of the social capital approach to development in the City of Playford. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in social capital theory. Of particular interest to policy makers has been the suggestion that there is a link between social capital and economic development. This argument has lent support to the idea that inequality in regional economic development can be tackled by building social capital in disadvantaged regions. In this thesis I take a critical approach to both the concept ‘social capital’ and the link between social capital and economic development. I suggest that the popularity of social capital may be due more to the political and academic environment in which the concept was spawned, than its ability to address issues of inequality in regional development. The results of the case study in the City of Playford highlight the continuing importance of issues of class and structural inequality in Australian regional development. I argue that contemporary applications of social capital in regional development are not only unable to adequately address such issues, but may also be contributing to their exacerbation. Having drawn attention to the inherently problematic nature of the concept, I then discuss the implications of the research findings for the future of social capital in both policy and social theory.
http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1345130
Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2008