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Development Intervention (development + intervention)
Selected AbstractsAnti-Politics as Political Strategy: Neoliberalism and Transfrontier Conservation in Southern AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2010Bram Büscher ABSTRACT Studies on conservation and development often point out that interventions rely on anti-political manoeuvring to acquire legitimacy and support. Recent ,aidnography', in particular, has done much to expand and add nuance to our understanding of the complex, micro- (anti-)politics at work in conservation and development interventions. In doing this, however, aidnography seems to have led the focus away from two crucial, broader issues related to conservation and development interventions: how they are regulated through the wider, neoliberal political economy, and how this fuels and obscures (global) inequality. Drawing on empirical research on a transfrontier conservation and development intervention in Southern Africa, this article argues that the differential workings of anti-politics in practice warrant a renewed appreciation and a more explicit political operationalization of the concept. This is done by re-emphasizing anti-politics as an essential political strategy within conservation and development interventions and as an intrinsic element of the wider political economy of neoliberalism. [source] Organizational learning as an organization development intervention in six high-technology firms in Taiwan: An exploratory case studyHUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2007Bella Ya-Hui Lien Organizational learning (OL) is about how individuals collect, absorb, and transform information into organizational memory and knowledge. This case study explored how six high-technology firms in Taiwan chose OL as an organization development intervention strategy. Issues included how best to implement OL; how individuals, teams, and organizations learn; and the extent to which OL activities contributed to organizational performance. Five themes emerged as findings: (1) using language with which employees are familiar, (2) implementing OL concepts that are congruent with employees' work or personal life, (3) putting individual learning first and diffusing it to team learning and organizational learning, (4) using the knowledge management system to create an opportunity for individuals, teams, and the organization to learn, and (5) linking OL to organizational strategy to improve organizational performance. [source] Effects of fidelity of implementation on science achievement gains among english language learnersJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 7 2009Okhee Lee Abstract This study examined the effect of fidelity of implementation (FOI) on the science achievement gains of third grade students broadly and students with limited literacy in English specifically. The study was conducted in the context of a professional development intervention with elementary school teachers to promote science achievement of ELL students in urban schools. As the criterion for measuring FOI, we focused on the quality of instructional delivery in teaching science to ELL students. We measured FOI using both teachers' self-reports and classroom observations during the first year of the intervention. Science achievement was measured by a pretest and posttest over the school year. The results indicate that none of the measures of FOI using teachers' self-reports or classroom observations had significant effects on science achievement gains. The results are discussed in terms of issues about conceptualization and measurement of FOI in educational interventions. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 836,859, 2009 [source] Impact of a multiyear professional development intervention on science achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse elementary studentsJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 6 2008Okhee Lee Abstract This study examined the impact of the 3-year implementation of a professional development intervention on science achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students. Teachers were provided with instructional units and workshops that were designed to improve teaching practices and foster positive beliefs about science and literacy with diverse student groups. The study involved third, fourth, and fifth grade students at six elementary schools in a large urban school district during the 2001 through 2004 school years. Significance tests of mean scores between pre- and posttests indicated statistically significant increases each year on all measures of science at all three grade levels. Achievement gaps among demographic subgroups sometimes narrowed among fourth grade students and remained consistent among third and fifth grade students. Item-by-item comparisons with NAEP and TIMSS samples indicated overall positive performance by students at the end of each school year. The consistent patterns of positive outcomes indicate the effectiveness of our intervention in producing achievement gains at all three grade levels while also reducing achievement gaps among demographic subgroups at the fourth grade. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 726,747, 2008 [source] Science achievement of english language learners in urban elementary schools: Results of a first-year professional development interventionJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 1 2008Okhee Lee Abstract This study is part of a 5-year professional development intervention aimed at improving science and literacy achievement of English language learners (or ELL students) in urban elementary schools within an environment increasingly driven by high-stakes testing and accountability. Specifically, the study examined science achievement at the end of the first-year implementation of the professional development intervention that consisted of curriculum units and teacher workshops. The study involved 1,134 third-grade students at seven treatment schools and 966 third-grade students at eight comparison schools. The results led to three main findings. First, treatment students displayed a statistically significant increase in science achievement. Second, there was no statistically significant difference in achievement gains between students at English to Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) levels 1 to 4 and students who had exited from ESOL or never been in ESOL. Similarly, there was no significant difference in achievement gains between students who had been retained on the basis of statewide reading test scores and students who had never been retained. Third, treatment students showed a higher score on a statewide mathematics test, particularly on the measurement strand emphasized in the intervention, than comparison students. The results indicate that through our professional development intervention, ELL students and others in the intervention learned to think and reason scientifically while also performing well on high-stakes testing. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 31,52, 2008 [source] The challenge of altering elementary school teachers' beliefs and practices regarding linguistic and cultural diversity in science instructionJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 9 2007Okhee Lee This study examined the impact of a professional development intervention aimed at helping elementary teachers incorporate elements of students' home language and culture into science instruction. The intervention consisted of instructional units and materials and teacher workshops. The research involved 43 third- and fourth-grade teachers at six elementary schools in a large urban school district. These teachers participated in the intervention for 2 consecutive years. The study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods based on focus group interviews, a questionnaire, and classroom observations. The results indicate that as teachers began their participation in the intervention, they rarely incorporated students' home language or culture into science instruction. During the 2-year period of the intervention, teachers' beliefs and practices remained relatively stable and did not show significant change. Possible explanations for the limited effectiveness of the intervention are addressed, and implications for professional development efforts are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1269,1291, 2007 [source] Professional development in inquiry-based science for elementary teachers of diverse student groupsJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 10 2004Okhee Lee As part of a larger project aimed at promoting science and literacy for culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students, this study has two objectives: (a) to describe teachers' initial beliefs and practices about inquiry-based science and (b) to examine the impact of the professional development intervention (primarily through instructional units and teacher workshops) on teachers' beliefs and practices related to inquiry-based science. The research involved 53 third- and fourth-grade teachers at six elementary schools in a large urban school district. At the end of the school year, teachers reported enhanced knowledge of science content and stronger beliefs about the importance of science instruction with diverse student groups, although their actual practices did not change significantly. Based on the results of this first year of implementation as part of a 3-year longitudinal design, implications for professional development and further research are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 1021,1043, 2004 [source] Foreign direct investment and hydropower in Lao PDR: the Theun-Hinboun hydropower projectCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2006Maarit Virtanen Abstract This paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment and especially the role of hydropower projects in achieving national development goals in the Lao PDR. It focuses on the environmental and social impacts of large-scale projects by using the Theun-Hinboun hydropower project as an example of controversies related to development interventions affecting livelihoods dependent on the natural resource base. Findings suggest that even though the Theun-Hinboun hydropower project has evolved into a kind of model project, several questions related to the final impact on poverty reduction, mitigation of environmental and social impacts and the participation of project affected people remain open. The relative success of Theun-Hinboun may not be easily repeated, especially as planned new hydropower schemes cause even more profound impacts on still largely subsistence based livelihoods and the environment. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Anti-Politics as Political Strategy: Neoliberalism and Transfrontier Conservation in Southern AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2010Bram Büscher ABSTRACT Studies on conservation and development often point out that interventions rely on anti-political manoeuvring to acquire legitimacy and support. Recent ,aidnography', in particular, has done much to expand and add nuance to our understanding of the complex, micro- (anti-)politics at work in conservation and development interventions. In doing this, however, aidnography seems to have led the focus away from two crucial, broader issues related to conservation and development interventions: how they are regulated through the wider, neoliberal political economy, and how this fuels and obscures (global) inequality. Drawing on empirical research on a transfrontier conservation and development intervention in Southern Africa, this article argues that the differential workings of anti-politics in practice warrant a renewed appreciation and a more explicit political operationalization of the concept. This is done by re-emphasizing anti-politics as an essential political strategy within conservation and development interventions and as an intrinsic element of the wider political economy of neoliberalism. [source] Social development: the intellectual heritageJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 7 2003James Midgley Because social development is primarily concerned with practical matters, little attention has been paid to the ideas, concepts and theories that inform social development interventions. Most publications on social development make little reference to theoretical issues, and most practitioners are unaware of the conceptual derivation of their activities. However, although seldom recognized or acknowledged, social development practice has, in a subtle and indirect way, been informed and shaped by a variety of intellectual ideas that, in turn, reveal a commitment to different normative perspectives. This paper traces the contribution these perspectives have made to social development over the years. By documenting this intellectual heritage, it hopes to promote a greater awareness of theoretical issues and, at the same time, to foster social development's conceptualization. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The effect of development interventions on the use of indigenous range management strategies in the Borana Lowlands in EthiopiaLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2008S. Homann Abstract In the last three decades, the Borana rangelands of Southern Ethiopia have been deteriorating due to unsustainable utilization. This paper analyses the changes in indigenous range management among the Borana pastoralists and the role of development interventions. The fieldwork was carried out during 2000,2002, following a severe drought. Two locations, Dida Hara and Web, that once were part of a large grazing system with seasonally distinct herd movements, experienced differences in development interventions. Indigenous range management strategies and pastoralists' current use of key strategies before and after the last drought were compared based on pastoralists' information about land-use change collected through participatory appraisals, land-use mapping, and household surveys. Priorities for future interventions were discussed in multi-stakeholder workshops. Water development in rainy season grazing areas such as Dida Hara has resulted in year-round grazing and expansion of permanent encampments. This has affected the traditional dry-season areas like Web because it interrupted the organization of rangeland management. Herd mobility became less applicable and traditional land-use classifications have lost their function in range management. The introduction of government-imposed administration disturbed the indigenous institutional networks and negotiation procedures for controlled herd movements. Aggravated by human population growth, this reinforces a higher and more permanent grazing pressure, leading to the deterioration of rangelands. Despite the disturbance of pastoralists' range management practices considerable technical and management capabilities prevail. Innovative development approaches should integrate indigeneous knowledge-based (IK) strategies and formal legislation, but this requires strong external support and official recognition from the Ethiopian Government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A critical cross-cultural perspective for developing nonprofit international management capacityNONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 4 2009Terence Jackson Issues of the effectiveness of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are becoming critical among a claim that cultural sensitivity to people's needs and the appropriateness of interventions is a competitive advantage of the sector. Here, the cross-cultural management agenda is set out, particularly in terms of the transferability or appropriateness of management knowledge and development interventions. Research propositions are presented that, if supported through future empirical findings, suggest cultural hybridization is a process that can be managed through greater stakeholder involvement, leading to greater appropriateness as well as effectiveness of international NGOs. [source] Power over, power to, power with: Shifting perceptions of power for local economic development in the PhilippinesASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2008Amanda Cahill Abstract Power has long been recognised as crucial to the sustainability of community development interventions; however, the way in which space affects power relations within such interventions has remained relatively under-theorised in the development literature. Many practitioners continue to regard power as located centrally and as embedded in particular institutions, networks, knowledge and resources. According to this logic, processes of empowerment involve the redistribution of these resources to marginalised groups through their participation in development interventions such as microfinance and sustainable livelihood initiatives. The danger inherent in such development approaches is that they can discourage the potential for participants to use their own agency by overemphasising an existing lack of resources locally and inadvertently feeding a sense of dependency on formal development interventions initiated by external agencies. This paper suggests that a post-structural conceptualisation of power as dynamic, multiple and mediated at the local level offers a more productive starting point for thinking about approaches to empowerment. Drawing on data from an action research project designed to initiate community enterprises in a small rural municipality in the Philippines, I suggest how a post-structural approach to power can be enacted by building on the existing local resources and practices of everyday life. [source] The Gendered Violence of Development: Imaginative Geographies of Exclusion in the Imposition of Neo-liberal CapitalismBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2007Lara Coleman In this article I consider how gendered hierarchies are constitutive of neo-liberal development and the violence attendant upon it. Building on Arturo Escobar's observation that violence is constitutive of development, I explore how the violent imposition of neo-liberal development is legitimised through the inscription of gendered imaginative geographies, which define ,savage' spaces of exclusion in need of ,civilising' development interventions. Drawing on the example of contemporary Colombia, I trace how the development discourse produces space in this way by normalising certain identities and political rationalities,those associated with competition and rational economic behaviour,while representing others as errant, as hyper-masculine subjects prone to violence or ,pre-rational' feminised subjects. [source] | |||||||||||||