The purpose of this occasional paper is to analyse well-being in Gauteng province from a capability perspective. The authors adopt a standard ‘capability approach’ consistent with Amartya Sen’s concept of capabilities.

The past thirty years have seen a rapid expansion of testing, exposing students worldwide to tests that are now, more than ever, standardized and linked to high-stakes outcomes. The use of testing as a policy tool has been legitimized within international educational development to measure education quality in the vast majority of countries worldwide. The embedded nature and normative power of high-stakes standardized testing across national contexts can be understood as a global testing culture. The global testing culture permeates all aspects of education, from financing, to parental involvement, to teacher and student beliefs and practices. The reinforcing nature of the global testing culture leads to an environment where testing becomes synonymous with accountability, which becomes synonymous with education quality. Underlying the global testing culture is a set of values identified from the increasing literature on world culture. These include: education as a human right, academic intelligence, faith in science, decentralization, and neoliberalism. Each of these values highlights different aspects of the dialogue in support of high-stakes standardized testing. The wide approval of these values and their ability to legitimate various aspects of high-stakes testing reinforces the taken-for-granted notion that such tests are effective and appropriate education practices. However, a large body of literature emphasizes the negative unintended consequences – teaching to the test, reshaping the testing pool, the inequitable distribution of school resources and teachers’ attention, and reconstructing the role of the student, teacher, and parent – commonly found when standardized, census-based tests are combined with high-stakes outcomes for educators or students. This book problematizes this culture by providing critical perspectives that challenge the assumptions of the culture and describe how the culture manifests in national contexts. The volume makes it clear that testing, per se, is not the problem. Instead it is how tests are administered, used or misused, and linked to accountability that provide the global testing culture with its powerful ability to shape schools and society and lead to its unintended, undesirable consequences.

The improvement of the quality of life of all South Africans is high on the agenda at national (The National Planning Commission, 2012) and regional levels of government (The Gauteng Planning Commission, 2012) and it is therefore important to develop an instrument that can measure this multi-dimensional concept. The need therefore exists for a composite index of quality of life with the ability to both track the quality of life of people over time and compare it across different demographic and socio-economic groups. Such a measure could identify those demographic and socio-economic groups with low levels of quality of life and also highlight dimensions that need to be prioritised in order to improve the wellbeing of people. In South Africa there are a limited number of quality of life indices and measures of wellbeing. Indices that measure wellbeing nationally include: the Quality of Life Index of Moller and Schlemmer (1983), the Living Standard Measure (LSM) Index produced by the South African Audience Research Foundation (SAARF) (2013), the South African Development Index of the South African Institute of Race Relations (2011), and the Everyday Quality of Life Index (Higgs, 2007). The following indices measure wellbeing at a regional level: the Quality of Metropolitan City Life in South Africa Index (Naude, et al., 2009), the Non-Economic Quality of Life Index at Sub-National Levels (Rossouw & Naude, 2008) and the Quality of Life Index of the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO, 2011). Although these quality of life indices make distinctive contributions to the study field, the focus of these studies is often to measure only objective or subjective quality of life or only economic or non-economic quality of life, rather than all of the above. Furthermore, many of the indices use equal weighting, which does not necessarily reflect the priorities of the communities.

This book uses mixed methods to extend the concept of “wellbeing stocks” to refer to dynamic ways of working with others. It addresses metaphors and praxis for weaving together strands of experience. The aim of the wellbeing stocks concept is to enable people to re-evaluate economics and to become more aware of the way in which we neglect social and environmental aspects of life. The pursuit of profit at the expense of people and the environment is a central problem for democracy and governance. The vulnerability of cities is a symptom of the lack of balance between individual and collective needs. This book explores the potential for cities, specifically in the regions of Indonesia, Africa, and Australia, to become more productive as sites for food and water security through more creative use of technology. It highlights the need for partners that see food and security feasible at the household level if supports are provided at the community, national and international level. The book examines how these regions are affected by demographics, climate change and people movements, but also explores ways to establish an effective cultural ecosystem management.

This book addresses the ongoing problem of HIV in black South African women as a health inequity. Importantly, it argues that this urgent problem of justice is changeable. Sprague uses the capabilities approach to bring a theory of health justice, together with multiple sources of evidence, to investigate the complex problem of HIV and accompanying poor health outcomes in black South African women. Motivated by a concern for application of knowledge, this work discusses how to better conceptualise what health justice demands of state and society, and how to mobilise available evidence on health inequities in ways that compel greater state action to address problems of gender and health. HIV in women, and possible responses, are investigated on four distinct levels: conceptual, social structure, health systems, and law. The analysis demonstrates that this problem is indeed modifiable with long-term interventions and an enhanced state response targeted at multiple levels. This book will be of interest to academics and students in the social health sciences, gender and development studies, and global health, as well as HIV/health activists, government officials, policy makers, HIV clinicians and health providers interested in HIV.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, DESRIST 2020, held in Kristiansand, Norway, in December 2020. The 28 revised full research papers included in the volume together with 7 research-in-progress papers and 9 prototype papers, were carefully reviewed and selected from 93 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: digital public services; data science; design principles; methodology; platforms and networks; and service science. Due to the Corona pandemic this event was held virtually.

This book presents papers from the 10th Applied Research Conference in Africa (ARCA), showcasing the latest research on education and inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable communities. The conference is focused on applied research discussion and its dissemination, developing understanding about the role of research and researchers in the development of the continent. Education is a key driver to transform lives, build peace, eradicate poverty and drive sustainable development in Africa. Researchers face large challenges to making a meaningful contribution to the development of Africa. It is a continent where research can at time be not viewed directly related to development. The aim of the Applied Research Conference in Africa is to provide a platform for capacity building and networking among researchers in Africa. The proceedings is focussed on applied research, its discussion and dissemination and will be if interest to researchers, professors, graduate students, policymakers and professionals in industry.

This book is about the varied range of emerging applications using specially trained detection dogs to monitor and protect aquatic ecosystems, animals, plants and related resources. Featuring contributions from those at the forefront of converging disciplines ranging from canine training, ecological and biological monitoring, water resource management, law enforcement, and eco-toxicology, it addresses everyone already immersed in these or related fields, and anyone seeking to gain a broader understanding of them. Chapters cover several common themes including monitoring presence/absence through biological and ecological surveys; maintaining and evaluating water quality; law enforcement and anti-poaching initiatives; public education, awareness and compliance; standards and best practices; optimal uses of dogs in relation to and in conjunction with other available tools and pragmatic considerations for selecting and working with dogs and handlers. The aim of the book is to stimulate new ideas, promote the sharing and dissemination of information and findings - and, ideally, to catalyze new and innovative partnerships, to strengthen the preservation and conservation of our aquatic heritage.

This book gathers papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Construction in the 21st Century, held in London in 2019. Bringing together a diverse group of government agencies, academics, professionals, and students, the book addresses issues related to construction safety, innovative technologies, lean and sustainable construction, international construction, improving quality and productivity, and innovative materials in the construction industry. In addition, it highlights international collaborations between various disciplines in the areas of construction, engineering, management, and technology. The book demonstrates that, as the industry moves forward in an ever-complex global economy, multi-national collaboration is crucial, and its future growth will undoubtedly depend on international teamwork and alliances.

This book innovatively explores how universities might be engines of reform and be directed towards social change. Using rich case studies drawn from South African research, the book comprehensively provides a myriad of new perspectives on what constitutes a set of appropriate public-good professional capabilities that will translate successfully into contributions to human development. It challenges universities to produce professionals who have the knowledge, skills and values to improve the lives of people living in poverty in urban and rural settings. It covers issues such as: Conceptualising Public-Good Professionalism Global Issues and Professional Education South African Debates about Higher Education Institutional conditions and professional education arrangements Social Constraints on educating ethically aware public professionals By drawing on an approach that focuses on differing public-good professional capabilities in five professions, this book produces a crucial new framework for the preparation of professionals relevant to the global study of higher education policy. It expands higher education’s contribution to global social justice beyond a concern with human capital, administering a challenge to higher education internationally to address human development in the 21st century. This book will be of great interest to all scholars of higher education involved in higher education studies, comparative education, and development studies. It will also prove valuable to policy makers, higher education leaders and lecturers and graduate professionals in diverse organizations.