Coup Coup Land : A Comparative Study of the Coups of Fiji

A thesis presented on the political history of Fiji from cession to Britain in 1874 compares and analyses the country’s four political coups. A military coup occurred in 1987 by Lt. Col Sitiveni Rabuka. Six months later he staged a self-coup. In 2000 George Speight staged an armed civilian coup or putsch, and in 2006 Commodore Frank Bainimarama, head of Fiji’s military forces, overthrew the government of Laisenia Qarase. This paper is an internal comparison of the four coups of which the aim is to examine why coups occur in Fiji. The conclusion is that the level of influence of the country’s traditional paramount chiefs is a strong causal factor in events leading to the political overthrows. Issues such as ethnicity, constitutionalism, democracy, traditionalism, and modernity make the study of the Fiji coups complex. All of the major actors involved have been present or have been somehow linked to each coup. Questions of leadership arise as do issues regarding pluralism and multiculturalism. These issues are discussed in this paper. The end result is that if the question of traditional leadership is not addressed within a democratic framework then Fiji will continue to have coups.

The Construction of Identity in Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones

The Farming of Bones deals with issues surrounding the dynamic connections between identity and boundary construction in post-colonial context. It will present an analysis of how the novelist problematizes and communicates her idea of social and national identity construction to her readers and how the readers can identify themselves with the struggles and challenges of the protagonist Amabelle who is trying to find her own identity. This essay will show how Danticat’s novel contributes to an understanding of national identity beyond borders and makes the reader take the role of an individual who constructs her identity by uncovering moments of raw humanness. Until now, no literary scholar has examined the protagonist’s therapeutic role in bridging this social and national gap. Instead critics have discussed other issues of the novel like crossing and re-crossing the border, love, dreams, etc. Although this scholarship has been very effective and rewarding, it lacks any focus on the complexity of the characters’ identity construction. Therefore, this paper will reconsider Danticat’s The Farming of Bones with a closer attention to the question of identity.

The effects of Kanban in software development teams : a study of the implementation at Sandvik

In software development organizations there is sometimes a need for change. In order to meet continuously increasing demands from their customers, Sandvik IT Services- SITS, at Sandvik in Sweden, required improving the way they worked with software development. Due to issues like a lot of work in progress and lot of simultaneous tasks for individuals in the teams that caused stress, it was almost impossible to address the question of working with improvements. In order to enable the improvement process Kanban was introduced in the software development teams. Kanban for software development is a change method created by David J. Anderson. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. One part is to assess what effects Kanban has had on the software development teams. The other part is to make a documentation of the Kanban implementation process at SITS. The documentation has been made on the basis of both company internal resources and observations of the Kanban implementation process. The effects of Kanban have been researched with an interview survey to the teams that have gone through the Kick start of the Kanban process. The result of the thesis is also twofold. One part of the result is an extensive documentation of the implementation process of Kanban at SITS. The other part is an assessment of the effects that Kanban has had at SITS. The major effects have been that the teams are experiencing less stress, more focus on quality and better customer collaboration. It is also evident is that it takes time for some effects to evolve when implementing Kanban

Literacy Practices in and out of School in Karagwe : The case of primary school literacy education in rural Tanzania

This study has investigated the question of relation between literacy practices in and out of school in rural Tanzania. By using the perspective of linguistic anthropology, literacy practices in five villages in Karagwe district in the northwest of Tanzania have been analysed. The outcome may be used as a basis for educational planning and literacy programs. The analysis has revealed an intimate relation between language, literacy and power. In Karagwe, traditional élites have drawn on literacy to construct and reconstruct their authority, while new élites, such as individual women and some young people have been able to use literacy as one tool to get access to power. The study has also revealed a high level of bilingualism and a high emphasis on education in the area, which prove a potential for future education in the area. At the same time discontinuity in language use, mainly caused by stigmatisation of what is perceived as local and traditional, such as the mother-tongue of the majority of the children, and the high status accrued to all that is perceived as Western, has turned out to constitute a great obstacle for pupils’ learning. The use of ethnographic perspectives has enabled comparisons between interactional patterns in schools and outside school. This has revealed communicative patterns in school that hinder pupils’ learning, while the same patterns in other discourses reinforce learning. By using ethnography, relations between explicit and implicit language ideologies and their impact in educational contexts may be revealed. This knowledge may then be used to make educational plans and literacy programmes more relevant and efficient, not only in poor post-colonial settings such as Tanzania, but also elsewhere, such as in Western settings.

Machine Translation and the Disruption of Foreign Language Learning Activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technologyfriendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.

Teaching Mathematics in English to Swedish Speaking Students : The Use of Second Language Teaching Practices in the Teaching of Mathematics in English to Swedish Speaking Students in Lower Secondary School

Over 20,000 Swedish lower high school students are currently learning mathematics in English but little research has been conducted in this area. This study looks into the question of how much second language learner training teachers teaching mathematics in English to Swedish speaking students have acquired and how many of those teachers are using effective teaching practices for second language learners. The study confirms earlier findings that report few teachers receive training in second language learning but indicates that some of the teaching practices shown to be effective with second language learners are being used in some Swedish schools

Machine translation and the disruption of foreign language learning activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technology-friendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.