Rethinking fieldwork education and practice in Southern Africa: lessons from Botswana

A conference paper on the education of social worker's' fieldwork practice in Botswana.The purpose of this paper is not so much to critique what is currently the practice of fieldwork in southern Africa in general, and in Botswana in particular. Major discussions regarding the role of fieldwork education in the context of a developing country have been debated at length by several authors (Kaseke, 1986; Muzaale, 1988; Ankrah, 1986; Hall, 1990, Njau, 1986). The main focus of this paper, therefore, is to consider, from a developmental and organisational perspective, ideally what ought to become offield education with particular reference to Botswana. This approach to field education, obviously, does not suggest a blueprint, but rather a working framework for contextualised fieldwork education in Botswana. The approach is therefore tentative and exploratory. An attempt will be made to map out a plausible alternative to fieldwork education for Botswana. Logically, the practice of fieldwork cannot be divorced from the dominant social work education methodology and issues pertaining to the Department of Social Work’s “organisational competence”. The bottom line, however, is that social work education in Botswana lacks structural cohesiveness as a necessary condition to spearhead a unity of purpose and a sense of community among all those with a stake in it (that is, practitioners, educators, students and client constituencies). The practice of fieldwork, therefore, is conceptualised as positing plausible opportunities for organised and purposeful social involvement based on the principle of: social work for development with equality and justice. The focus of fieldwork, we argue, should be woven around the production and the delivery of services to communities by those who have a major stake in the process, specifically, social work students and educators.Overseas Development Administration, British Development Division, Central Africa; British Council

Factors That Affect College Graduation Rates of Minorities

This paper examines the factors that affect college graduation rates of minority students. We control for whether an institution is private or public, the institutions’ admission rates, institutional expenditures, and the percentage of the institutions’ faculty that are minorities. We find that institutions with higher admissions rates have higher minority graduation rates, that institutions with a higher percentage of faculty who are minorities have lower minority graduation rates, and that institutions with higher instructional expenditures have lower minority graduation rates

Estimating urban greenness index in the city of Johannesburg: a case study of Soweto vs Rosebank suburbs

A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science University of the Witwatersrand School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences May 2019Urban greenness plays a significant role in providing ecosystem services and disservices which directly affects the health status of urban city's dwellers. Factors like impervious concrete surfaces or tarred roads and tree cover contribute to changes in urban land surface temperature. The change in urban temperatures will result in differing local temperatures compared to surrounding areas leading to urban heat island effect. Urban greenness index in the city of Johannesburg of South Africa was investigated in Soweto and Rosebank suburbs to determine its environmental suitability for its inhabitants. A total of 120 street tree species composed of Jacaranda mimosifolia and Platanus acerifolia were recorded, and GPS points from each of these trees were collected from Rosebank for ground-truthing. In this study two satellite images of Landsat 8 and SPOT 6 were used for analysis. Landsat 8 data was used to evaluate the effects of urban heat island phenomenon based on urban thermal field variance and ultraviolet indices. Soweto had the highest total biomass of 504399.97 tons while that of Rosebank was 113179.03 tons. However, Rosebank suburb had a higher greenness index value of 0.82 compared to that of Soweto (0.14) and this gives a clear pattern of the ecological disparity between the two areas. The Land Surface Temperature (LST) of Soweto showed a higher value (2.58 oC more) compared to that of Rosebank suggesting that high-density areas are hotter than low-density suburbs. Pearson correlation coefficient was performed among NDVI, LST and Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) and a confusion matrix were derived. The results showed a positive correlation between LST and NDBI (0.92 and 0.98) and a negative correlation between LST and NDVI (-0.91 and -0.99) and NDVI vs. NBDI (-0.90 and -0.85) in Rosebank and Soweto areas. Based on urban thermal field variance (UTFVI) analysis, it shows that residents of Soweto face more thermal discomfort compared to residents of Rosebank suburb. Similarly, analysis of the global solar ultraviolet index (UVI) indicated that Soweto residents’ life is more vulnerable to prolonged exposure to ultraviolet solar radiation than those in Rosebank. Overall, land surface temperature for the two study areas was successfully retrieved from Landsat 8 data and the information obtained from this study will provide a baseline for future planning on improving the greenness of urban citiesMT 202

Kevin Yates : Small Dead Woman

Brown contends that Yates’ sculpture confounds the expectations of visual pleasure and knowing-through-seeing that one attends in a gallery. She also suggests the artist’s means of fabrication and tactic of decontextualization doubles the inertia of sculptural form in order to apprehend tragedy. George and Mudede’s text develops the concept of “public wilderness” to examine zones between city and country where emptiness paradoxically regulates a variety of behaviours, including serial killing. Biographical notes