3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
Search Results
Item A study of the knowledge,attitudes and practices of first year students at Cork University regarding parental and personal alcohol use(2006-11-17T11:27:17Z) Glisson, Grace; Jacqueline, MathildaAIM: - To study the knowledge, attitudes and practices of first year students at UCC regarding parental and person alcohol use. OBJECTIVES: -To obtain demographic data on the students and to compare the children of alcoholics with the children of non-alcoholics to determine if any differences existed between the two groups. METHOD: - A questionnaire administered at the start of a lecture. RESULTS: -The students had a good knowledge of alcohol abuse and its causes. The majority was drinking within safe limits, had started drinking while still at school and obtained most of their knowledge about alcohol from their peers. The children of alcoholics felt more at risk of developing a drinking problem and chose careers in arts and food science in preference to others. RECOMMENDATIONS: - Education should take place at school with parental involvement. Special attention should be paid to the children of alcoholics, as they are high-risk.Item COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP THROUGH AN ARTIST DRIVEN,COLLABORATIVE PROJECT BETWEEN LEARNERS FROM THE RIDGE SCHOOL AND SALVAZIONE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(2006-03-23) Schulz, Kathrin MarionA Community Partnership Art Event, resulting from curating and facilitating an educational collaboration was held on the 23 March 2004, ten years into South Africa’s democracy. Through a Masters in Fine Arts coursework entitled “Creating, Curating and Critiquing” offered at the University of Witwatersrand, I attempted to test the boundaries of the Arts and Culture Learning Area and explore alternatives to the current definition of “outreach”. The grade six learners from The Ridge School, an independent boys’ preparatory school and Salvazione Christian School, an assisted government school, were brought together over a period of ten weeks during regular school art lessons. Through the guidance and expertise of various artists, workshops were cocoordinated with the collaborative ideas of the learners coming to the fore. The process and dialogue established between learners, artists and educators was intended to shift my own parameters of teaching primary school art. Focusing on people rather than the final products points to a readiness to view knowledge not as a commodity owned bthe expert teacher, but rather as something which can be constructed and developed with the learners. Originally the collaboration was intended as a celebration of the opening of new premises for Salvazione Christian School. The public art happening was held in a tent next to the informal settlement where a large majority of the children from Salvazione Christian School live. 3 Rather than what might be described as a modernist approach to art education, where the focus seems to be on the artist and artwork, the focus was on linking art to social interaction, and it was through the discovery of a form of hybridity that a number of differences between the two communities were challenged and exposed. This resulted in an approach that seems similar to the manner in which the Indian writer, Salman Rushdie writes of hybridity: “Hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs.” (Coombes, 2000:39) Through this hybridity tensions were created and explored rather than a ‘rainbow’ or melting pot created, where differences are glossed over as in a multicultural approach. The primary research methodology was participant observation in which directly observed data was analyzed and interpreted. Data was gathered from the interactions in the workshops, setting up the exhibition and the art event. As intended, a link between art and ‘outreach’ was established. In order for this link to change into a community partnership, it must be seen as part of a much longer process. The process as a whole did become a different kind of primary school art space, preparing the way for possible positive transformation of the visual arts in the arts and culture learning area at primary school level.Item The prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township.(2006-03-13) Langa, MaloseThe aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township. The participants in this study were 118 school learners in Alexandra Township. Of these 44 (40%) were in grade 9, 37 (32.2%) in grade 10 and 32 (27.8%) in grade 11; 55 (46.6%) were males and 63 (53.4%) were females; 50.4% were aged between 14—16, while 49.5% were aged between 17-20 years. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire, mostly requiring ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to determine use of various substances, the age of first use and the frequency use of these substances. This questionnaire has been used in other local studies and translated from English into Sesotho to maximize the validity of responses. The findings of this study indicate that in the past month the prevalence of 54.5% of males and 38.4% of females smoked cigarettes; 49.1% of males and 39.1% of females drank alcohol; and 36% of males and 12.6% of females smoked dagga. The everyday use of cigarettes was 41.7% for females and 47.2% for males; 7.2% of males and 3.6% females for alcohol; and 29.9% of males and 6.3 % for dagga. The results showed that there were no significant age and gender differences regarding the use of these drugs, except for dagga (X²=.005), with more males than females reported the use. It seems that the everyday use of alcohol, tobacco and dagga is very common than the use of other illicit drugs. Mental health workers should take note of the above findings while planning preventative strategies for the reduction of everyday dagga use, daily cigarette smoking and drinking of alcohol. The results are also important for those involved in treatment programmes to assist these school learners before they progress into more other serious drugs such as ecstasy, LSD, Crack cocaine and heroin.