| 1. |
- Sidenvall, Johan, 1974-
(författare)
-
Att lära sig resonera : om elevers möjligheter att lära sig matematiska resonemang
- 2015
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Students only learn what they get the opportunity to learn. This means, for example, that students do not develop their reasoning- and problem solving competence unless teaching especially focuses on developing these competencies. Despite the fact that it has for the last 20 years been pointed out the need for a reform-oriented mathematics education, research still shows that in Sweden, as well as internationally, an over-emphasis are placed on rote learning and procedures, at the cost of promoting conceptual understanding. Mathematical understanding can be separated into procedural and conceptual understanding, where conceptual understanding can be connected to a reform oriented mathematics education. By developing a reasoning competence conceptual understanding can also be developed. This thesis, which deals with students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically, includes three studies (with data from Swedish upper secondary school, year ten and mathematics textbooks from twelve countries). These opportunities have been studied based on a textbook analysis and by studying students' work with textbook tasks during normal classroom work. Students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically have also been studied by examining the relationship between students' reasoning and their beliefs. An analytical framework (Lithner, 2008) has been used to categorise and analyse reasoning used in solving tasks and required to solve tasks.Results support previous research in that teaching and mathematics textbooks are not necessarily in harmony with reform-oriented mathematics teaching. And that students indicated beliefs of insecurity, personal- and subject expectations as well as intrinsic- and extrinsic motivation connects to not using mathematical reasoning when solving non-routine tasks. Most commonly students used other strategies than mathematical reasoning when solving textbook tasks. One common way to solve tasks was to be guided, in particular by another student. The results also showed that the students primarily worked with the simpler tasks in the textbook. These simpler tasks required mathematical reasoning more rarely than the more difficult tasks. The results also showed a negative relationship between a belief of insecurity and the use of mathematical reasoning. Furthermore, the results show that the distributions of tasks that require mathematical reasoning are relatively similar in the examined textbooks across five continents.Based on the results it is argued for a teaching based on sociomathematical norms that leads to an inquiry based teaching and textbooks that are more in harmony with a reform-oriented mathematics education.
|
|
| 2. |
- Boström, Ulrika, 1970-
(författare)
-
”När man kollar på bilden tänker man så här” : en receptionsstudie av gymnasieelevers uppfattning om bilder som kunskapskällor i historieundervisningen
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque.I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression.The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice.One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.
|
|
| 3. |
- Deldén, Maria, 1963-
(författare)
-
Historien som fiktion : gymnasieelevers erfarande av spelfilm i historieundervisningen
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present study explores the reception of historical feature films in history education. It is concerned with how pupils experience the films as well as the significance of the feature film for their understanding and interpretation of history. The study incorporates empirical data from classroom projects in two different Swedish upper secondary schools where film was used as an educational tool. Observations of classroom activities were made and interviews with twelve pupils and their history teachers were conducted.The study applies a phenomenological approach. The lifeworld of the pupils is in focus, specifically the aspect of the lifeworld they live and experience in history class when film is used as a means of understanding the past. The phenomenon studied is thus how the pupils experience the film, and through the film, history itself. Theoretical notions from film reception studies and history didactics are used as analytic tools.The study shows how emotional and cognitive processes converge in the pupils’ meaning making of the films. The embodiment of the films’ narrative is an important factor that contributes to both the understanding of the film as well as of history. The pupils experience the films emotionally, feeling both empathy and antipathy for the various characters, physically through sight and sound as well as embodied reactions, and cognitively through an understanding of the film’s narrative. Embodied experience is fundamental for history to become materialized. The audiovisual portrayal and materialization of the past becomes embodied in the pupils so that the experience of the film and of the historical lifeworld presented therein becomes part of their lifeworld. Generally, pupils consider the films to be trustworthy, though this perceived accuracy depends on how authentically the narrative is performed and the pupils’ previous store of historical knowledge. A didactic dilemma to consider when using historical feature film in the classroom is the contradiction between the aesthetic experience of a feature film and its use as a tool for understanding the past. The captivating character of feature film evokes empathy and engagement with the films’ characters regardless of the degree of historical accuracy. This is a critical issue for teachers; there needs to be balance between respect for the pupils’ aesthetic experience of the film and the need to guide them to develop for example the skills of historical empathy, where distance is necessary for the pupils to be able to consider different perspectives.
|
|
| 4. |
- Dmytryshyn, Andrii
(författare)
-
Skew-symmetric matrix pencils : stratification theory and tools
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Investigating the properties, explaining, and predicting the behaviour of a physical system described by a system (matrix) pencil often require the understanding of how canonical structure information of the system pencil may change, e.g., how eigenvalues coalesce or split apart, due to perturbations in the matrix pencil elements. Often these system pencils have different block-partitioning and / or symmetries. We study changes of the congruence canonical form of a complex skew-symmetric matrix pencil under small perturbations. The problem of computing the congruence canonical form is known to be ill-posed: both the canonical form and the reduction transformation depend discontinuously on the entries of a pencil. Thus it is important to know the canonical forms of all such pencils that are close to the investigated pencil. One way to investigate this problem is to construct the stratification of orbits and bundles of the pencils. To be precise, for any problem dimension we construct the closure hierarchy graph for congruence orbits or bundles. Each node (vertex) of the graph represents an orbit (or a bundle) and each edge represents the cover/closure relation. Such a relation means that there is a path from one node to another node if and only if a skew-symmetric matrix pencil corresponding to the first node can be transformed by an arbitrarily small perturbation to a skew-symmetric matrix pencil corresponding to the second node. From the graph it is straightforward to identify more degenerate and more generic nearby canonical structures. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for one orbit being in the closure of another is that the first orbit has larger codimension than the second one. Therefore we compute the codimensions of the congruence orbits (or bundles). It is done via the solutions of an associated homogeneous system of matrix equations. The complete stratification is done by proving the relation between equivalence and congruence for the skew-symmetric matrix pencils. This relation allows us to use the known result about the stratifications of general matrix pencils (under strict equivalence) in order to stratify skew-symmetric matrix pencils under congruence. Matlab functions to work with skew-symmetric matrix pencils and a number of other types of symmetries for matrices and matrix pencils are developed and included in the Matrix Canonical Structure (MCS) Toolbox.
|
|
| 5. |
- Ekman, Olivia, 1985-
(författare)
-
Att släcka ljungeldar : Medikaliseringen av eklampsi i Sverige 1840-1930
- 2016
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates the treatment of eclampsia in Sweden at the turn of the 20th century, paying particular attention to two treatments, the “Active treatment” and “Stroganoff’s treatment”. The aim is to investigate the evolving medicalization of eclampsia in Sweden by analyzing the interdisciplinary discussion on eclampsia in the Swedish medical journals. Eclampsia has been described by physicians as the “disease of a thousand theories”, an enigma or a riddle without an answer. The disease has been known since antiquity, as evidenced by its presence in the Hippocratic corpus, but has been without a cure to this day. In the latter half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, treatments of eclampsia emerged that – at the time – seemed to hold promise. Eclampsia has been described as an insidious disease that strikes the patient as lightning from a clear blue sky.In 1843 the Scottish doctor John Lever connected albuminuria with the onset of eclampsia which allowed for early diagnostic of eclampsia. This marked a new way of perceiving eclampsia; no longer was it just an acute disease, but a progressive disease that could be treated before it became life threatening. The discovery of albuminuria became an important clue in the formation of the theory that eclampsia was caused by an unknown poisoning. Since no cure could be found, preventing the onset of eclampsia became a higher priority.The only known way of ending the progression of the disease was to end the pregnancy – a method used since the 18th century. This was usually done by caesarian section, an operation that during the 19th and early 20th century could be just as fatal as the disease itself. A change came in the late the 19th century with the discovery of new operating techniques, better hygiene, and the introduction of general anesthetics, which reduced the amount of fatalities connected with operations. The caesarian section eventually became the choice of treatment for eclampsia known as the “Active treatment”. This4treatment was challenged by “Stroganoff’s treatment”, which was a reformed version of the older treatment of eclampsia. The version of “Stroganoff’s treatment” used by Swedish doctors, which incorporated caesarian section, gave them a broader range of treatments that could be modified to suit different scenarios in a way that was impossible using just the “Active treatment”. The two treatments were discussed in Swedish medical journals throughout the beginning of the 20th century, and their discussion shows the growing medicalization of eclampsia during this time.
|
|
| 6. |
- Fager, Lars, 1953-
(författare)
-
Split vision : en studie av designprocessen som lärprocess i ett utbildningssammanhang
- 2017
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This licentiate thesis is based on visual art didactics and the school subject visual art, but focuses on the design process in a college design education. The aim is to explore and understand the innovative and exploratory learning processes and the importance of visual mediation in this context. With a phenomenological approach the study focuses on design students experiences in this context. These experiences are made subject on reflection and formulation, through phenomenology and visual semiotics. The empirical materal of the study consists of interviews and sketches and images collected from student workbooks.The results of the study show that the design process does not occur by itself among the students. It must be learned. The need for learning probably also applies to the processes of creative learning in other fields. Furthermore, the results indicate that the process is best understood and appropriated in pragmatic learning situations.Three kinds of visual representations of the basic aims of process work are identified in the analysis: images for communicative purposes, images for reference and discussion purposes and images as a support for one's own thinking.From the perspective of visual art dididactics the results of the study reveals four important dimensions, wich may be of relevance as a fundamental didactic structure in efforts to promote understanding of a practice-oriented learning in context of visual mediations. Together with a split vision guiding principles, existing premises and action-based learning processes may provide a supporting unit in this structure. Based on the results, it seems important that pupils and students have the opportunity to learn to master and appropriate the creative process in order to use it in an investigative purpose. Considering the structure of the process, a didactic model can facilitate learning and at the same time provide a valuable complement to the subjective approach of inspiration in the aestetic learning process.In summary, the results of the study indicate that the fields of design and didactics are related to each other and that the field of design training can bring knowledge and experience of exploration and creative learning processes to the school subject visual art.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Fredriksson Sjöberg, Maria, 1979-
(författare)
-
Vad händer med dialogen? : En studie av dialogisk interaktion mellan pedagog och barn i förskolan
- 2014
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall purpose of this study is to gain knowledge about dialogues in the setting of the preschool. The more in-depth purpose is to highlight what happens in dialogues between a teacher and a child when more children join the situation of interaction in which the dialogue is taking place. A further purpose is to attempt to understand what it is that influences change in the dialogue and what significance the actions of the teacher can have for this change. The study is based on several questions that concern interaction in preschools, who it is that initiates an increase in the number of participants in those situations that involve dialogue, and what happens with the dialogue when more children join and what causes the change in the dialogue.The study is based on video observations from a preschool; approximately 10 teachers and 50 children between the ages of one and six took part in the study. The situations that were observed and documented in video format were everyday activities (both indoor and outdoor) that were led at a nominal level by teachers. In total, 40 films were recorded. Film length was between one and 60 minutes. In 32 of the films, there was interaction between a teacher and several children, and 18 of these included dialogues between a teacher and several children. Dialogue is here given a specific significance and refers to the interaction that can be described in terms of presence, listening, reciprocity, and extending. This definition of dialogue derives from a combination of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue and aspects of interaction that earlier research found to be significant for children’s learning. In two of the 18 films that showed dialogue, no other children became part of the situation of interaction; the remaining 16 films were transcribed; and both verbal and non-verbal events were made apparent in the transcriptions. Analyses of the recorded material and of the transcriptions were conducted using analytical terms borrowed from conversation analysis as well as the central term for this study dialogue. The results demonstrate a complex practice and also demonstrate that dialogues in the sense given in this study take place between children and teachers. Situations of interaction also occur where dialogues take place in which a number of children join. It can be the child joining the situation of interaction who takes the initiative to an increased number of participants; however, it can also be the teacher or the child in the dialogue. The initial address can take place during a moment of transition in the interaction or at the same time as another participant is talking. The dialogue often changes when more children join the situation where the dialogue is taking place. The dialogue can end completely or be interrupted and resume. The results further demonstrate that the dialogue can continue without seemingly being affected by the fact that more children join. This happens when the child joining and the teacher in the dialogue interact in a non-verbal manner at the same time as the teacher is talking with the child in the dialogue. The dialogue can also be continued with more participants. Who takes the initiative, how the initial address occurs, and which content is given focus by the different participants are all factors that seem to affect what happens to the dialogue. How the teacher acts when more children join also appears to be significant in terms of what happens with the dialogue when more children join. In those situations where the teacher begins talking with a number of children about different subjects, the interaction ceases to be dialogic. When the teacher asks the joining child to wait, the dialogue is both interrupted and resumed, and on those occasions when the dialogue continues with more participants, the teacher listens to the joining child and the participants take turns speaking.
|
|
| 9. |
- Giandomenico, Jessica, 1974-
(författare)
-
Power Asymmetry Revisited : Reconciling EU Foreign Policy Goals and Enlargement Conditionality in the Western Balkans
- 2013
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The EU is assumed to have a strong top-down transformative power over the states applying for membership. This leverage is based on a power asymmetry where the applicant states want to join the EU more than the EU wants to enlarge, and that the applicant states gain more than the member states from the enlargement.This thesis criticises the assumption of a strong top-down power over EU applicant states. There is growing evidence that this power asymmetry is not as strong as initially assumed. A historical institutionalist approach is used to explain how the power is weakened through the design of the conditionality and the management of the enlargement policy. The first study shows how the member states are locked up in a path dependent pattern where their capacity to act is limited. Lock-in effects narrow down the options to act for the EU member states, giving priority to political considerations over technical standards and thus limits its transformative power. In addition to that the EU has demonstrated a strategic interest in the Western Balkans, further undermining the power asymmetry. The second study demonstrates how the EU has limited capacity to influence the implementation of the conditionality, leaving much room for interpretation to the domestic actors. The design of the EU conditionality, with its focus on formal structures and rules, is not adequate to address also the desired normative transformation of the applicant states. The EU can provoke formal changes, but layers of the old structures and habits remain beyond the reach of the EU’s transformative power. Together these two studies demonstrate that the EU’s assumed top-down control over applicant states has some built-in weaknesses both at the Brussels level and in the applicant states, and that those weaknesses affect the transformative power of the EU. The tendency to give priority to political considerations over strict conditionality, in combination with limited scope of the conditionality, demonstrate that the power asymmetry is not that asymmetric, and that the EU does not have the institutional capacity to be the normative power and change agent it strives to be.
|
|
| 10. |
- Indzic Dujso, Aleksandra, 1965-
(författare)
-
Nationella minoriteter i historieundervisningen : bilder av romer i Utbildningsradions program under perioden 1975-2013
- 2015
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 2000 when Sweden signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities the Roma minority became one of the acknowledged national minorities in the country. It meant that the rights of the Roma mi-nority would be safeguarded and the knowledge of its history and culture would be spread. In that context, the Swedish school, with its founded as-signment of democracy, was given an important role. The education was to communicate the multicultural values of the society and to make visible the history and culture of the Roma minority.The school books used in teaching today do not meet these demands. The view of the Roma minority given in school books is often inadequate and simplified. The present study will therefore examine a different type of edu-cational material used in schools and teaching, The Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company‟s programs of history and social studies regarding the Roma minority. Starting in postcolonial theory as well as critical dis-course analysis the study examines how the picture of the Roma cultural and ethnic identity in the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company‟s material has been displayed and possibly changed during the period of 1975 to 2013.The results show a picture of Roma which, both in form and content, con-sists of some clearly demarcated discursive categories. The obvious continui-ty of the categories gives a picture of static and invariable Roma identity. At the same time this unambiguous picture is broken both by giving the existing discourses new meaning and also adding new discourses. The complexity and nuances become more prominent and the Roma identity is integrated in common Swedish history telling. The changes in the view of Roma, given by the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, can mainly be explained by the change of the Swedish immigration and minority policy and, as a conse-quence of this, the change of the school‟s mission regarding knowledge communication of Sweden as a multicultural country.
|
|
