Browsing by Author "Kreitzer, Linda"

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    Chieftaincy Conflicts in Ghana: A Case Study of Ga Mashie Chieftaincy Conflict under the Fourth Republic
    (2016) Boakye, Paul Acheampong; Ray, Donald; Hiebert, Maureen; Kreitzer, Linda; Rice, Roberta
    This thesis explores the factors that account for the Ga Mashie chieftaincy conflict and government’s inability to solve it. This research finds that the imposition of colonial and post-colonial political structures with no roots in pre-colonial political offices has led to conflicting interpretations of who the rightful successor to the Ga Mashie throne is. This has generated disagreements about the customs and traditions of the Ga people with particular reference to succession; and contested versions of ancestral and hereditary rights to political office. In addition, the difficulty in resolving the Ga Mashie conflict stems from the active involvement of successive governments and other political entities for parochial political interest. These results are illustrated through interviews with key personnel with knowledge on chieftaincy in Ghana, and extensive review of the relevant academic literature. This research adds to the limited literature on Ga Mashie chieftaincy conflict and chieftaincy conflicts in southern Ghana.
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    A Difficult Journey: How Participation in an Indigenous Cultural Helper Program Impacts the Practice of Settler Social Workers Supporting Indigenous Service Users
    (2019-05-28) Slessor, Jane; Kreitzer, Linda; Lorenzetti, Liza; Pratt, Yvonne Poitras
    The impacts of the Indian Residential School System and other assimilationist policies have had a devastating impact on the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. As a result, Indigenous Peoples frequently experience poorer economic, health, and social outcomes, including experiencing homelessness at a greater rate than settler Canadians. Unfortunately, social work as a profession has been complicit in this history of colonization and still struggles to work effectively with Indigenous Peoples. In this post Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada era, it is incumbent upon the social work profession to actively seek better ways of working with Indigenous service users as reconciliation is not possible whilst such inequities continue to exist. Homeward Trust Edmonton (HTE), with the Housing First (HF) program, have developed a unique strategy to work more effectively with the Indigenous Peoples they house. It is called the Indigenous Cultural Helper Program (ICHP). This program offers housing support staff the opportunity to learn about Indigenous histories, worldviews, cultures and ceremonies in order that they may experience and understand the significance that (re)connection to culture can have for people attempting to connect with home. This research study interviewed settler housing support workers who had taken part in activities offered by the ICHP to determine if their participation had any impact on their housing support work with the Indigenous Peoples in the program. An anti-colonial research methodology for settler researchers doing research in Indigenous sovereignty was used for this research (Liz Carlson, 2016 a, 2016b). Through participants’ rich narratives, the research found that the housing support workers were impacted personally, in their relationships with the Indigenous service users they work with, and in how they view the transformations necessary within their organizations.
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    First, we act it: community theatre and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda
    (2010) Daoust, Gabrielle D.; Kreitzer, Linda
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    Indigenization of social work education and practice: a participatory action research project in Ghana
    (2004) Kreitzer, Linda; Wilson, Maureen G.
    The hegemony of western knowledge has influenced and continues to influence knowledge production throughout the world. Factors including colonialism, development under modernization and current neo-liberal globalization policies have helped to define knowledge production that promotes western thinking. Indigenous knowledge, for the most part, continues to be deemed primitive and unimportant. This hegemony is seen in the historical domination of Western social work knowledge worldwide and can be traced back to the colonial era. During the middle 20th century, social work education expanded to other non­western countries in an imperialistic fashion with the assumption that western social work knowledge, mainly North American and British, was universal and transferable. West Africa was influenced by this exportation of western social work knowledge, in particular, in Ghana. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Association of Social Work Education in Africa and the Ghana Association of Social Workers were active in promoting social work education and practice in that area. Over time, these organizations have lost their momentum and are perceived to have become ineffective. Western social work knowledge has continued its domination of social work education there. This study attempts to address the hegemony of western social work knowledge through a critical and emancipatory approach to knowledge production. Guided by Critical Theory and Participatory Action Research, it explores the processes of westernization and indigenization that have affected. Ghanaian society. Through a dialogical process, faculty, students, social workers and a community leader came together to create new knowledge concerning Ghanaian social work. Through this critical process, the group emerged with action plans that changed their situations personally and professionally. This new knowledge reflects a need for a greater profile of social work in Ghana, an organizational change in regards to the Ghana Association of Social Workers and a greater emphasis on the publication and use of indigenous writing in social work education. It is hoped that the new knowledge produced from this research will continue to evolve and will motivate and challenge social workers in Ghana to develop an innovative social work education and practice that will be relevant to the needs of Ghanaian society.
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    Public Policy Making and Policy Change: Ghana’s Local Governance, Education and Health Policies in Perspective
    (2023-01-05) Adu Gyamfi, Benjamin; Ray, Donald; Hiebert, Maureen; Franceschet, Susan; Kreitzer, Linda; Stapleton, Timothy; Béland, Daniel
    This thesis, with the multiple streams framework (MSF) and the new institutionalism (NI) as theoretical lenses, seeks to understand the factors that shape policy making and policy change in post-independence Ghana. More specifically, it seeks to provide a better understanding of the factors that have led Ghana after independence to achieve remarkable, path-departing, substantive change in its health and local governance policies but marginal or incremental changes in its education policy. I argue that policy entrepreneurs and government political will in the form of demonstrated credible intent and commitment of the government culminating in partisan decisions greatly shaped the different policy outcomes and differing magnitude of change in Ghana’s local governance, health, and education policies at specific moments in time. Institutions affect the efforts of policy entrepreneurs and the government to carry out a proposed policy change. Understanding public policy making and policy change is of vital importance because public policies involve who gets what in politics. Thus, there is the need to examine the determinants of public policies and the drivers of policy change. Yet, the analysis of policy making and policy change in Africa, particularly Ghana, has been a neglected area of study. Hence, policy making and policy change in Africa has not been sufficiently explored. Besides, comparative understanding of policy making and policy change in Ghana is under researched. The study, therefore, helps to fill this gap by comparatively analysing how political will and commitment of the government and policy entrepreneurs interact differently to drive policy making and policy change at specific moments in time in Ghana. Relying on the MSF, while paying attention to the impact of differing institutions on the streams, helps to provide a deeper understanding of the policy making process and policy change. Methodologically, the comparative case study method helps in identifying variations, patterns and commonalities in health, education, and local governance policy making and policy change in Ghana. Theoretically, the study aims first, to extend the applicability of the MSF in examining policy making to Ghana and second, to provide a deeper understanding by combining the MSF and the NI.
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    Queen Mothers and Social Workers: A Potential collaboration between traditional authority and social work in Ghana
    (2005-10-06T16:44:27Z) Kreitzer, Linda
    Kingship (chieftaincy) is an institution that has existed since ancient times in Africa (Kludze, 2000). It is an institution that has played a major role in many Ghanaian ethnic groups as the governor of customary law. Important to traditional authority is the Queen Mother. She is the biological mother or close relation to the chief and offers advice and counsel to him. Today they have many roles in their communities including being diplomats and mediators as well as overseeing the welfare of women and children in the community. Western style social work has been present in West Africa since the 1940's encouraged by the United Nations and the Association of Social Work Educators in Africa. Social workers have been trained in Ghana since 1946 and work in government and non-government organizations. The development of communities and the social welfare of women and children are of concern to social workers as well as to Queen Mothers. In 2002, a group of social work researchers met for ten months to look at the indigenisation of social work curriculum in Ghana with a Queen Mother as part of this group. This article describes the important dialogue between social workers and the Queen Mother concerning their roles in the community with potential future collaboration with each other that would enhance community development.
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    Social work in Africa: exploring culturally relevant education and practice in Ghana
    (University of Calgary Press, 2012) Kreitzer, Linda
    Social Work in Africa offers professors, students, and practitioners insight concerning social work in the African context. Its purpose is to encourage examination of the social work curriculum and to demonstrate practical ways to make it more culturally relevant. Drawing on her experience as a social work instructor in Ghana with field research conducted for her doctoral thesis, author Linda Kreitzer addresses the history of social work in African countries, the hegemony of western knowledge in the field, and the need for culturally and regionally informed teaching resources and programs. Guided by a strong sense of her limitations and responsibilities as a privileged outsider and a belief that "only Ghanaians can critically look at and decide on a culturally relevant curriculum for themselves," Kreitzer utilizes Participatory Action Research methodology to successfully move the topic of culturally relevant practices from rhetoric to demonstration. Social Work in Africa is aimed at programs and practise in Ghana; at the same time, it is intended as a framework for the creation of culturally relevant social work curricula in other African countries and other contexts.
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    The Tensions between Culture and Human Rights: Emancipatory Social Work and Afrocentricity in a Global World
    (University of Calgary Press, 2021-05) Sewpaul, Vishanthie; Kreitzer, Linda; Raniga, Tanusha
    A critical interrogation of the relationship between cultural practices and human rights in Africa rooted in Afrocentricity and emancipatory social work. Cultural practices have the potential to cause human suffering. The Tensions between Culture and Human Rights critically interrogates the relationship between culture and human rights across Africa and offers strategies for pedagogy and practice that social workers and educators may use. Drawing on Afrocentricity and emancipatory social work as antidotes to colonial power and dehumanization, this collection challenges cultural practices that violate human rights, and the dichotomous and taken-for-granted assumptions in the cultural representations between the West and the Rest of the world. Engaging critically with cultural traditions while affirming Indigenous knowledge and practices, it is unafraid to deal frankly with uncomfortable truths. Each chapter explores a specific aspect of African cultural norms and practices and their impacts on human rights and human dignity, paying special attention to the intersections of politics, economics, race, class, gender, and cultural expression. Going beyond analysis, this collection offers a range of practical approaches to understanding and intervention rooted in emancipatory social work. It offers a pathway to develop critical reflexivity and to reframe epistemologies for education and practice. This is essential reading not only for students and practitioners of social work, but for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of African cultures and practices.
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    The Lived Experiences of Married Immigrant Coptic Women in the Context of Their Coptic Orthodox Church
    (2015-05-05) Elmenshawy, Hany Zaher Saieed; Kreitzer, Linda
    The focus of this dissertation is centered on the lived experiences of married immigrant Coptic women in Canada with regards to aspects of living their faith in the context of the culture of their traditional Coptic Orthodox Church. A descriptive phenomenological inquiry was undertaken as a methodological framework to gain understanding of the lived experiences. In an attempt to capture the meaning and the interpretation of the described lived experiences, the symbolic interactionist approach served as a theoretical framework. Feminist principles were also incorporated in order to facilitate the research process in understanding the lived experiences in this descriptive phenomenological inquiry. Purposive sampling techniques were employed; eight participants participated in the study from the Greater Toronto Area through the Coptic centers located in Mississauga and Toronto. It was through semi-structured interviews and open-ended questions that the interpretation of their experiences emerged. Each interview was transcribed verbatim and analyzed according to the descriptive phenomenological approach. Thematic analysis was the level of data analysis that was applied in aiming to capture thematic statements of the meanings regarding the phenomenon on the basis of the descriptive phenomenological approach. NVivo software was used to create thematic emergent themes and thematic coding folders in facilitating the data analysis. The study illuminated valuable insights and provided married immigrant Coptic women the opportunity to express their lived experiences within the culture of their Church; an opportunity they previously might not have had. Findings showed consistent understanding among all the participants in this study who all believed they held the greatest status in, and through, the patriarchal system and structure of their Coptic Church. Findings generated knowledge for social work practice about many of the spiritual and religious aspects of the faith of Coptic women and the influence of their Coptic Church on them.
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    Unraveling How Social Workers Recover from Workplace Bullying Through Rediscovering Self
    (2020-01-21) Tanchak, Sherri Lynn; Kreitzer, Linda; Crowder, Rachael; Nicholas, David Bruce
    Social workers are increasingly sharing stories about witnessing and experiencing the injustice of workplace bullying across varied practice environments. Inherent in many stories are themes of discrimination, trauma, betrayal, anger, shame, and loss. Workplace bullying is essentially an abuse of power within the workplace. In the current workplace bullying literature, there is a disproportionately high representation of quantitative studies that describe and measure the nature, scope and prevalence of workplace bullying and its impact on the physical health, emotional well-being, social relationships, and work performance of targets and bystanders. Although this repository is rich with descriptive knowledge, it lacks the voices and experiences of workplace bullying targets. The purpose of this dissertation study is to examine how social workers recover from WPB. Ecological systems theory and socialist feminist theory provide a theoretical framework to guide this research. By utilizing constructivist grounded theory methodology, 13 registered social workers with active membership with the Alberta College of Social Workers, Canada were interviewed by semi-structured open-ended questions about their experiences of workplace bullying recovery. Four key themes emerged from the data: awareness, responses, impacts and rediscovering self. The findings inform a unique description of workplace bullying recovery and have been adopted into a conceptual framework to illustrate the social processes of workplace bullying recovery. A discussion of key findings of this study along with recommendations for social work educators, professional social work regulatory associations and clinicians working with WPB targets conclude this dissertation.