Search results for ""Vossiuspers UvA""

The polyethnic contexts of societies provide a particular situation in which people with various languages, religion, and cultures live within the same geographical space. In Iran, a highlevel ethno-lingual diversity is present, for example Lor, Kurd, Gilak, Arab, Balouch, Turk, Turkmen and religious groups such as Assyrians, Armenians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. Therefore, as a polyethnic society, this country is not an exception in ethnic debates. On the other hand, Iran as an old, polyethnic, and heterogeneous country encompasses a variety of different normative orientations for norms and values, which may include ethnic, local, religious, national, and historical normative sources. This condition necessitates social and cultural studies particularly with anthropological approaches in order to elucidate the pattern of order with different and coexistent normative sources. As this study focuses on a specific ethnic group (Gilak ethnic people in north of Iran), it attempts to clarify the link between Gilak ethnic boundaries, ethnic orders, and the normative system of the society, and explores the horizon of experience on two tiers; ethnic people and ethnic intellectuals. This will clarify the inner comprehension of ethnicity by both ordinary citizens and intellectuals and try to elucidate the experience of being Gilak for these two groups and ascertain how the experience of being Gilak has changed over time.

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What is the ‘raison d’être’ of auditing? Does auditing only exist by the grace of the legislator? Or does auditing fulfill other needs in contemporary society? For many companies, auditing has been made mandatory. This is possibly one of the reasons why researchers to date have given limited attention regarding the drivers for the demand for audit. Auditing (seen as a social control mechanism) is part of an organizational order in society. Therefore, it is essential to reflect on the (changing) demands of society. As a lack of insight why society demands an audit, accommodates the risk of not meeting the needs and expectations of society, the added value of auditing may be called into question. This dissertation deals with the question: what are drivers for the demand for audit for Dutch SME companies which are not mandatory required to have their financial statements audited.

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Increasing doubts over the narratives that traditionally served to legitimize the tasks and possibilities of societal institutions – such as science – have also called into question the significance of philosophy to educational thinking. Related debates largely concern epistemological issues, i.e. issues regarding the nature and status of (scientific) knowledge. This dissertation takes as its starting point the nowadays hardly controversial idea that all knowledge is to a certain extent ‘uncertain’. The questions addressed are how this ‘epistemic uncertainty’may be intelligibly understood, and what consequences can be drawn from such an understanding for the tasks and possibilities of philosophy of education as an academic discipline. In response to antifoundationalist as well as fallibilist authors, the author develops a discursive contextualist approach to epistemology that gives way to a philosophy of education that has both critical-reflective and theoretical-constructive potential, as is illustrated in relation to the educational issue of dealing with ‘students at risk’.

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This thesis reports on a study on lesbian families in which the children were born to the lesbian relationship (planned lesbian families). How strong is the desire of lesbian mothers to have a child, and what are their motivations? How do lesbian mothers experience parenthood? What do they strive for in child rearing? How do they experience the relationship with their partner, and do they feel supported by others? What is the quality of the parent-child relationship in lesbian families? Do lesbian mothers feel rejected, and if so, does this have a negative impact on their role as a parent, and does it negatively influence child adjustment? All these questions are examined in ‘Parenting in Planned Lesbian Families’, this by studying 100 two-mother families and compare them with 100 heterosexual families. It is the largest study on planned lesbian families to date.

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