BlueFriends: measuring, analyzing and preventing social exclusion between elementary school students

Social exclusion is a relatively recent term, whose creation is attributed to René Lenoir(Lenoir, 1974). Its concept covers a remarkably wide range of social and economic problems, and can be triggered for various reasons: mentally and physically handicapped, abused children, delinquents, multi-problem households, asocial people, and other social “misfits” (Silver, 1995, pp. 63; Foucault, 1992). With an increasingly multi-cultural population, cultural and social inequalities rapidly ascend, bringing with them the need for educational restructuring. We are living in an evermore diverse world, and children need to be educated to be receptive to the different types of people around them, especially considering social and cultural aspects. It is with these goals that inclusive education has seen an increased trend in today’s academic environment, reminding us that even though children may be taught under the same roof, discriminatory practices might still happen. There are, however, a number of developed tools to assess the various dimensions of social networks. These are mostly based on questionnaires and interviews, which tend to be fastidious and don’t allow for longitudinal, large scale measurement. This thesis introduces BlueFriends, a Bluetooth-based measurement tool for social inclusion/exclusion on elementary school classes. The main goals behind the development of this tool were a) understanding how exclusion manifests in students’ behaviors, and b) motivating pro-social behaviors on children through the use of a persuasive technology. BlueFriends is a distributed application, comprised by an application running on several smartphones, a web-hosted database and a computer providing a visual representation of the data collected on a TV screen, attempting to influence children behaviors. The application makes use of the Bluetooth device present on each phone to continuously sample the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication) from other phones, storing the data locally on each phone. All of the stored data is collected, processed and then inserted into the database at the end of each day. At the beginning of each recess, children are reminded of how their behaviors affect others with the help of a visual display, which consists of interactions between dogs. This display illustrates every child’s best friends, as well as which colleagues they don’t interact with as much. Several tips encouraging social interaction and inclusiveness are displayed, inspiring children to change their behaviors towards the colleagues they spend less time with. This thesis documents the process of designing, deploying and analyzing the results of two field studies. On the first study, we assess how the current developed tools are inferior to our measuring tool by deploying a measurement only study, aimed at perceiving how much information can be obtained by the BlueFriends application and attempting to understand how exclusion manifests itself in the school environment. On the second study, we pile on the previous to try and motivate pro-social behaviors on students, with the use of visual cues and recommendations. Ultimately, we confirm that our measurement tool’s results were satisfying towards measuring and changing children’s behaviors, and conclude with our thoughts on possible future work, suggesting a number of possible extensions and improvements

INFORMATION SEEKING AND SHARING IN RURAL SRI LANKA: IDENTIFICATION OF CENTRAL INDIVIDUALS IN WILDLIFE, LIVESTOCK, AND HUMAN HEALTH INFORMATION NETWORKS

Low-resource countries are disproportionately affected by infectious diseases and residents living in rural areas in these countries are more likely to experience geographic or infrastructural barriers that limit their access to formal health care or information. For health interventions in these areas to be most effective, information should be tailored for their audience and then disseminated through relevant communication channels. Interventions that utilize existing social networks and that learn about how their audiences talk about the topic of interest are more effective than those that do not. This thesis used a case study in Sri Lanka to 1) identify central actors in wildlife, livestock, and human health information networks and 2) to examine themes and topics that arise during discussions about wildlife, livestock, and human health. One-hundred and forty-three rural residents were interviewed to identify their main sources of wildlife, livestock, and human health information and to identify to whom they would report these health issues. Social network analysis of the responses revealed that government agency staff, such as the Grama Niladhari and government physicians, were the most frequently cited source of wildlife and human health information and the most common place to report health cases. A local indigenous healer was the most common source of livestock health information, the most common person to report livestock health cases to, and best positioned in each of the health networks to disseminate information and receive reports within the community. Women were more likely to be unsure of who to talk to and were considerably less likely to be nominated as a source of health information than men. Locally relevant and central leaders that are seen as key contacts for wildlife, livestock, and human health issues should be engaged and used to effectively disseminate information to and from the community. Government agencies should also engage with and maintain relationships with rural communities to facilitate information sharing. The gender differences shed light on the importance of engaging and accommodating all groups within a Sri Lankan community, perhaps by identifying group-specific opinion leaders that will appropriately communicate information to and from the group. To learn about health discussion topics, a structural topic model was used to identify main topics that emerged in 7,412 survey responses and to examine gender differences among the topics. Seven topics were identified by the topic model: 1) Cost/benefits of living near forest, 2) Reporting/asking about animal health, 3) Diseases caused by animals, 4) Wildlife visits and consequences, 5) Issues and needs of the village, 6) Village societies, and 7) medicine. There were small but significant gender differences for Topics 1-6 which indicated that men and women were spending different amounts of time on different topics. However, given the small gender effect sizes, which ranged from 0.3%-1.6%, it was concluded that gender has a relatively very small influence on these topics. Further research should investigate the specific words and rhetoric males and females use to describe health topics to uncover small nuances that broader methods cannot

Education for All: Deficit-Thinking vs. Inclusive and Culturally Responsive Schooling

The research study presents an in-depth investigation of the interplay and effects of (a) ‘neoliberal approaches to education’ (particularly the market-based ideology); and (b) ‘deficit-thinking’ (practice of holding lower expectations for minority students whose demographics do not fit the traditional context of the educational system) on the ‘restructuring’ process of the Maltese educational system into an inclusive and culturally responsive one. Hence, this thesis delved into national policy documents and explored the perceptions of diverse educational stakeholders to examine how educators make sense of ‘deficit-thinking’ and ‘inclusive education’ to shine a light on system-wide dynamics, processes and practices in favour of quality education for all learners. For this purpose, eight State schools (4 Primary and 4 Secondary) from four different colleges, in the Northern, Central and Southern regions of Malta, took part in the study upon acceptance. Research participants included: (a) policymakers (Education Minister; Director Generals; Directors; Church Schools Secretariat Representative and President of the Malta Union of Teachers); (b) College Principals of the four randomly selected colleges; (c) members of Senior Management Teams in schools; (d) middle leaders; (e) teachers, support specialists and/or educational practitioners; (f) learning support educators; and (g) Primary, Middle and Secondary students. The utilized ‘mixed-method’ approach (questionnaires, interviews, job-shadowing sessions, class observations, socio-metric tests, focus groups and document analysis) facilitated data collection, which helped to identify different cohorts of minority learners in local schools as well as to reveal system-wide weaknesses to inclusive education (lack of conceptual clarity on inclusion; resistance to high-leverage change due to lack of strategic leadership for inclusive education; one-size-fits-all teaching practices; and unsustainable support services). Research findings highlighted also the predominant presence of the ‘deficit ideology’, which seemed to intensify in conjunction with neoliberal approaches. Moreover, results helped to propose the ‘repositioning-of-the-self’ model, based on inclusive leadership, to unleash the power of ‘deliberative dialogue’ to encourage ‘collective thinking’ on how to eliminate ‘deficit-thinking’ practices from all hierarchical system levels and to transform schools into inclusive settings that validate and create ‘space’ for all students (including minority ones) to learn

Transformation theory and e-commerce adoption

This thesis investigates business transformation on the Internet; particularly the nature and significance of Cyber transformation theory and the Marketspace Model as a framework for E-commerce adoption. E-commerce can raise a firm\u27s productivity, transform customer relationships and open up new markets. The extent to which nations become adopters of E-commerce is set to become a source of comparative national competitive advantage (or disadvantage) in the twenty first century

Towards a mobile application to aid law enforcement in diagnosing and preventing mobile bully-victim behaviour in Eastern Free State High Schools of South Africa

Mobile bully-victim behaviour is one cyber aggression that is escalating worldwide. Bully-victims are people who bully others but are also victimised by peers. The behaviour of bully-victims therefore swings between that of pure bullies and pure victims, making it difficult to identify and prevent. Prevention measures require the involvement of a number of stakeholders, including communities. However, there has been a lack of whole-community participation in the fight against cyberbullying and the roles of stakeholders are often unclear. We expect the law enforcement in particular, the police, to play a key role in curbing all forms of bullying. This is a challenging task in South Africa as these law enforcement agents often lack the skills and appropriate legislation to address particularly cyber-related bullying. Literature shows that law enforcement agents need to advance their technological skills and also be equipped with digital interventions if they are to diagnose and prevent mobile bully-victim behaviour effectively. This is particularly important in South Africa, where the rate of crime remains one of the highest in the world. The aim of this study was to develop a mobile application that can aid law enforcement in diagnosing and preventing mobile bully-victim behaviour in high schools. As part of requirements to the application development, it identified the impediments to the law enforcement effectiveness in combating mobile bully-victim behaviour. Extensive literature review on the factors influencing mobile bullying and mobile bully-victim behaviour was conducted and an integrative framework for understanding this behaviour and its prevention was developed. In so doing, the dominant behavioural theories were consulted, including the social-ecological theory, social learning theory, social information processing theories, and the theory of planned behaviour, as well as the general strain theory, and the role theory. The conceptual framework developed in this study extended and tailored the “Cyberbullying Continuum of Harm”, enabling inclusive and moderated diagnosis of bullying categories and severity assessment. That is, instead of focusing on mobile bully-victims only, bullies, victims, and those uninvolved were also identified. Also the physical moderation of the identification process by the police helped to minimise dishonest reporting. This framework informed the design, development and evaluation of a mobile application for the law enforcement agents. The Design Science Research (DSR) methodology within pragmatic paradigm and literature guided the development of the mobile application named mobile bullyvictims response system (M-BRS) and its evaluation for utility. The M-BRS features included functions to enable anonymous reporting and confidential assessments of mobile bully-victims effects in school classrooms. Findings from this study confirmed the utility of the M-BRS to identify learners' involvement in mobile bully-victims behaviour through peer nomination and self-nomination. This study also showed that use of the M-BRS has enabled empowerment of marginalised learners, and mitigation of learners' fear to report, providing them with control over mobile bully-victim reporting. In addition, learners using the M-BRS were inclined to report perpetrators through a safe (anonymous and confidential) reporting platform. With the M-BRS, it was much easier to identify categories of bullies, i.e. mobile bully-victims, bullies, victims, and uninvolved. The practical contributions of this study were skills enhancements in reducing the mobile bully-victims behaviour. These included improvement of the police's technical skills to safely identify mobile bully-victims and their characterisation as propagators and retaliators that enabled targeted interventions. This was particularly helpful in response to courts' reluctance to prosecute teenagers for cyberbullying and the South African lack of legislation thereon so that the police are enabled to restoratively address this behaviour in schools. Also, the identification information was helpful to strengthen evidence for reported cases, which was remarkable because sometimes perpetrators cannot be found due to their concealed online identities. Furthermore, this study made possible the surveillance of mobile bully-victims through the M-BRS, which provided the police some control to reducing the mobile bully-victim behaviour. This study provided a practical way for implementing targeted prevention and interventions programmes using relevant resources towards a most efficient solution for mobile bully-victims problem. Since there are not many mobile-based interventions for mobile bully-victim behaviour, this study provided a way in which artefacts' development could be informed by theory, as a new, innovative and practical contribution in research. In so doing, this study contributed to technology applications' ability to modify desired behaviour

What is Social Network Analysis?

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book introduces the non-specialist reader to the principal ideas, nature and purpose of social network analysis. Social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals achieve their goals. Social network theory maps these relationships between individual actors. Though relatively new on the scene it has become hugely influential across the social sciences. Assuming no prior knowledge of quantitative sociology, this book presents the key ideas in context through examples and illustrations. Using a structured approach to understanding work in this area, John Scott signposts further reading and online sources so readers can develop their knowledge and skills to become practitioners of this research method. A series of Frequently Asked Questions takes the reader through the main objections raised against social network analysis and answers the various queries that will come up once the reader has worked their way through the book

What is Social Network Analysis?

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book introduces the non-specialist reader to the principal ideas, nature and purpose of social network analysis. Social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals achieve their goals. Social network theory maps these relationships between individual actors. Though relatively new on the scene it has become hugely influential across the social sciences. Assuming no prior knowledge of quantitative sociology, this book presents the key ideas in context through examples and illustrations. Using a structured approach to understanding work in this area, John Scott signposts further reading and online sources so readers can develop their knowledge and skills to become practitioners of this research method. A series of Frequently Asked Questions takes the reader through the main objections raised against social network analysis and answers the various queries that will come up once the reader has worked their way through the book