| 1. |
- Andersson, Pernilla, 1969-
(författare)
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The Responsible Business Person : Studies of business education for sustainability
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Calls for the inclusion of sustainable development in the business curriculum have increased significantly in the wake of the financial crisis and increased concerns around climate change. This has led to the appearance of new initiatives and the development of new teaching approaches. This thesis explores business education at the upper secondary school level in Sweden following the inclusion of the concept of sustainable development in the curriculum. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory, the overarching purpose is to identify the roles of a responsible business person that are articulated in business education and to discuss how these roles could enable students to address sustainability issues. The thesis consists of four studies, based on textbook analyses, teacher interviews and classroom observations. Three categories of roles have been identified, implying that a business person is expected to either adapt to, add or create ethical values. These three categories are compared with the roles indicated in the environmental discourses constructed by Dryzek and the responsibility regimes developed by Pellizzoni. Drawing on Dryzek’s and Pellizzoni’s reasoning about which qualities are important for addressing sustainability issues, it is concluded that the roles identified in the studies could mean that students are unequipped (the adapting role), ill-equipped (the adding role) or better equipped (the creating role) to address uncertain and complex sustainability issues. The articles include empirical examples that illustrate how and in which situations specific roles are articulated, privileged or taken up. The examples also indicate how the scope for business students’ subjectivities are facilitated or hampered. It is suggested that the illustrative empirical examples could be used for critical reflection in order to enhance students’capabilities of addressing uncertain and complex sustainability issues and to improve educational quality in terms of scope for subjectivity.
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| 2. |
- Sundström Sjödin, Elin, 1972-
(författare)
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Where is the critical in literacy? : Tracing performances of literature reading, readers and non-readers in educational practice
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In many instances in society, educational and other, literature reading is emphasised as something that develops persons in positive ways. The present thesis explores this claim in relation to literature reading in educational practices. By tracing how values and critical aspects of reading are enacted, the purpose is both to problematize taken-for-granted truth claims about literature reading and to develop an understanding of the elements involved when reading, readers and critical aspects of reading are created. The studies focus on different educational practices; a teacher’s narrative about grading, information brochures about reading to children and the policy and practice of a reading project at special residential homes for detained youth in Sweden. In these practices, the thesis explores where and when the critical takes place, in what constellations and with what consequences. The thesis draws on critical literacy, where reading is regarded as taking action and having self-empowering potential. However, with help of a pragmatic and material semiotic approach, the investigations steps away from what is taken for granted about reading and about what critical means, and instead reading, readers and the critical are analysed as transactional effects.The studies show how students can be placed at risk by rationales for reading literature that construct and establish them as lacking of culture or as literacy inadequate. The thesis further shows that the critical in literacy can be ambivalent as well as multiple, and it can be enacted by both human, discursive and material actors.
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| 3. |
- Bengtsson, Henning, 1974-
(författare)
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Att utveckla mellanstadieelevers kritiska och temporala tänkande : En lärandeverksamhetsteoretisk studie rörande hållbar utveckling
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study is to investigate what critical and temporal thinking can mean for younger students (aged 9-10) that requires the adoption of various perspectives in the context of sustainable urban planning, and how such knowing can be orchestrated in joint theoretical exploration work. A particular area of interest is the concept of contradictions (as used in activity theory) as a potential didactic tool for the subject, i.e. in what way it can be a driver for students and teachers to jointly identify problems, explore knowledge content with different tools (learning models) and discuss possible creative solutions to environmental and sustainability issues.This study used the learning study research approach. In collaboration with teachers, lessons were designed, analysed and evaluated to extract knowledge through the iterative process that characterises this approach. The design of the research lessons was structured in accordance with Davydov’s theory of learning activity. The students’ experiences were analysed phenomenographically and the analysis of the lessons was guided by Engeström and Sannino’s conceptual tools for how contradictions can manifest themselves (such as in dilemmas, conflicts and double-binds). The results of the study include phenomenographical descriptions of what it means to know how to use a natural site for sustainable urban planning, and what critical aspects students need to be able to discern in order to be competent to participate in such a practice. The results also show that the way contradictions are manifested in joint work (involving teachers and students) affects the form of practice that develops and the opportunities for students to jointly make the problem their own and explore the complexity of sustainable urban planning using mediating tools (learning models).The discussion highlights how the results of the study can be used as tools for designing, implementing and evaluating teaching, and, more broadly, the results are reflected in ways in which the task used in the research lessons can be developed.
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| 4. |
- Fagerström, Jonathan, 1984-
(författare)
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Fine particle emissions and slag formation in fixed-bed biomass combustion : aspects of fuel engineering
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a consensus worldwide that the share of renewable energy sources should be increased to mitigate climate change. The strive to increase the renewable energy fraction can partly be met by an increased utilization of different biomass feedstocks. Many of the "new" feedstocks puts stress on certain challenges such as air pollution emissions and operation stability of the combustion process. The overall objective was to investigate, evaluate, and explain the effects of fuel design and combustion control - fuel engineering - as primary measures for control of slag formation, deposit formation, and fine particle emissions during biomass combustion in small and medium scale fixed-bed appliances. The work in this thesis can be outlined as having two main focus areas, one more applied regarding fuel engineering measures and one more fundamental regarding the time-resolved release of ash forming elements, with particular focus on potassium.The overall conclusion related to the abatement of particle emissions and slag formation, is that the release of fine particle and deposit forming matter can be controlled simultaneously as the slag formation during fixed-bed biomass combustion. The methodology is in this perspective denoted “fuel engineering” and is based on a combined approach including both fuel design and process control measures. The studies on time-resolved potassium release showed that a Macro-TG reactor with single pellet experiments was a valuable tool for studying ash transformation along the fuel conversion. The combination of dedicated release determinations based on accurate mass balance considerations and ICP analysis, with phase composition characterization by XRD, is important for the understanding of potassium release in general and time-resolved data in particular. For wood, the results presented in this work supports the potassium release mechanism from "char-K" but questions the previously suggested release mechanism from decomposition of K-carbonates. For straw, the present data support the idea that the major part of the potassium release is attributed to volatilization of KCl. To further explore the detailed mechanisms, the novel approach developed and applied in this work should be complemented with other experimental and analytical techniques.The research in this thesis has explored some of the challenges related to the combined phenomena of fuel conversion and ash transformation during thermochemical conversion of biomass, and has contributed with novel methods and approaches that have gained new knowledge to be used for the development of more effective bioenergy systems.
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| 5. |
- Hansson, Petra, 1971-
(författare)
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Text, Place and Mobility : Investigations of Outdoor Education, Ecocriticism and Environmental Meaning Making
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall ambition of this thesis is to investigate the approaches taken to environmental and sustainability education in outdoor education and ecocriticism in a Swedish and in an international context, to investigate environmental meaning making and to conduce to the development of analytical methods for empirical investigations of environmental meaning making. Four objectives are formulated. The first objective of the thesis is to analyse constitutive discursive rules and traits regarding environmental and sustainability education and environmental meaning making in outdoor education in a Swedish context and in ecocriticism. This is achieved through discourse analyses of central textbooks in outdoor education and of research and textbooks in ecocriticism.The second objective is to investigate how different situated circumstances such as, text, place, mobility, social situations and previous experiences interplay in environmental meaning making. This is achieved through analyses of classroom communication, through analysis of nature writing and through an analysis of painted landscapes.The third objective is to compare and critically discuss the constitutive discursive rules and traits within the two investigated educational practices – out door education and ecocriticism – in the light of the results from the investigations of environmental meaning making carried out.The fourth objective is to develop analytical methods based on John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt’s theories of transaction and meaning making for conducting empirical investigations of environmental meaning making in which different interplaying situational circumstances are taken into account.The results of the thesis show that taking a transactional starting point to investigate environmental meaning making adds further understanding of the situational circumstances influencing environmental meaning making in specific situations which sheds new light to the identified approaches to environmental and sustainability education in outdoor education and ecocriticism. These results suggest that a transactional approach to environmental and sustainability education can help to clarify taken for granted assumptions regarding the nature of situational circumstances such as text, place and mobility in environmental meaning making.
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| 6. |
- Hort, Sofia, 1984-
(författare)
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Skrivprocesser på högskolan : Text, plats och materialitet i uppsatsskrivandet
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to explore how students in a higher education context handle the writing of their final essay. Applying a sociomaterial approach, the study offers comprehensive case studies of students’ writing processes. The thesis attempts to show how student writers handle writing challenges through different technologies and at different places. It does so by implementing the Mobile Technologies Process Logs (MTPL)-method, wherein participating students take an active role to create and gather data on their own writing processes.The results show that some students’ textual work could be described in terms of being comprehensive, and hence handled through varied writing technologies at various writing places. These students write a lot of texts to move the writing process forward. Other writers take a more product-oriented view in their writing, and hence write through fewer technologies, at a few places, and with a wish to finish their final text product directly. Many of the students make explicit how they process the literature through writing texts. The knowledge production, the analysis, which is central to academic writing, seems however more implicit and difficult for the students to handle, specifically if having a product oriented view on writing. The results also show how students mobilize different textual actions to meet challenges that writing an (digital) essay implies. This work is clearly emplaced ,at diverse or at more homogenous writing places.It is significant to make textual strategies as well as the functions of writing technologies and place visible to all students. It seems vital at times where higher education, as well as the students entering this institution, are put in front of a raft of (new) challenges. At the same time as the idea of the bad student writer is prevailing, higher education institutions seem not to teach how an academic writing process could be managed in successful ways. This thesis contributes to this field of inquiry with results on how students’ writing processes can be characterized.
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| 7. |
- Klaar, Susanne, 1964-
(författare)
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Naturorienterad utbildning i förskolan : pragmatiska undersökningar av meningsskapandets individuella, sociala och kulturella dimensioner
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, illuminate and clarify meaning making processes and content when children between the ages of 1-3 encounter nature in a preschool practice. Further, the aim is to develop and illustrate action-centred methodological approaches that facilitate investigations of individual, social and cultural dimensions of preschool children’s meaning making of nature. The results are presented in four substudies that all take their starting points in John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with a specific focus on Dewey’s concept of transactions, his theory of action and educative experience as meaning making. In the first substudy, a Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) is developed and used to investigate physical meaning making by studying actions and the consequences of these actions. In the second sub-study, a Custom Analysis is developed to facilitate investigations of how the preschool culture contributes to children’s meaning making of nature. An Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) is used in the third sub-study for investigations relating to teachers’ guiding processes. Here, a Substantive Learning Quality Analysis (SLQA) is also developed and used for investigations of multi-dimensional learning qualities in children’s learning about nature. In the fourth substudy, the analysis methods above are refined to form a tool that can be used by teachers in their reflective work with pedagogical documentation in preschool practice. The results illuminate a multifaceted perspective of meaning making about nature. In this context, meaning making includes cognitive, physical, moral and aesthetical qualities, and nature content includes caring for nature, health and well being in nature and knowledge about natural phenomena and processes. The results contribute to a critical discussion about preschool science education that concerns how preschool practices can highlight nature learning and the multifaceted aspects that are of importance for making meaning of the environment and of life.
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| 8. |
- Larsson, Christina, 1956-
(författare)
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Att lära genom improvisation : en didaktisk studie i grundskolans musikundervisning
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the growing field of research on improvisation, it is argued that improvisation should be at the core of music education, and in many curricula improvisation is in fact emphasized. However, in general music education, as well as research, improvisation is still overlooked. There seem to be a discursive gap between ‘everyday’ and artistic perceptions of improvisation and the way it is perceived didactically. Improvisation is also a creative music activity form and as such it cannot have prescribed outcomes. Yet, the current goal- and result driven schooling system focuses on achieving prescribed knowledge requirements. This situation constitutes an educational paradox. Through a systematic literature review, interviews with teachers and a practice-based study, this thesis explores the conditions and the role of improvisation in general music education. The theoretical perspective is based on Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, and his concepts of aesthetic experience and transaction. Results show that improvisation is conceptualised in a continuum between structure and freedom and that teachers’ didactical approaches to improvisation can be oriented towards the process, the subject or Bildung. However, teachers’ perceptions of improvisation as related to jazz and blues sometimes present a hindrance. Combining a practical epistemology analysis with Dewey´s concept of the esthetic event (Dewey´s spelling) provides new insights into the process and content of aesthetic meaning-making. Improvising pupils who have an aesthetic experience can develop expressivity, agency and responsivity (EAR) as well as aspects of embodied, cognitive and ethical knowledge. The transactional perspective and 5 concepts developed here provide new insights in how to understand improvisation in education: as ethically co-creative action, co-learning action, explorative action, a space for imagination and emotional engagement and finally a room for subjectification. This implies a negotiated role for the teacher as co-player. A practical aesthetic analysis (PESA) is suggested which emphasises the specific nature of the aesthetic experience.
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| 9. |
- Petros, Fikre Bogale, 1985-
(författare)
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Edge Precoloring Extension of Trees
- 2022
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Given a set of k colors and a graph G with a subset S of precolored edges (a partial k-edge coloring of G), we consider the problem of determining whether G has a proper edge coloring of G with the same k colors (an extension of the partial coloring) where the colors of edges in S are not changed. If such a coloring exists, then the partial k-coloring is called extendable.Some scheduling problems as well as some combinatorial problems can be reformulated as partial edge coloring extension problems for corresponding graphs. Partial edge coloring extension problems seem to have been first considered in connection with the problem of completing partial Latin squares. In 1960 Evans stated his conjecture that any partial Latin square of size n with at most n – 1 non-empty cells can be completed to a Latin square of size n. In terms of edge colorings this is equivalent to the statement that any proper partial n-edge coloring of the balanced complete bipartite graph Kn,n with at most n – 1 precolored edges is extendable. This classical conjecture was proved by Smetaniuk (1981), and also independently by Andersen and Hilton (1983). Moreover, Andersen and Hilton completely characterized which partial Latin squares of size n with n non-empty cells that cannot be completed to a Latin square of size n. In addition, Andersen (1985) characterized partial Latin squares of size n with n+1 non-empty cells that are completable to Latin squares of size n.More recently, the problem of extending a partial edge coloring where the precolored edges form a matching has been considered by Edwards et al. (2018). Casselgren, Markstrom and Pham (2020) studied questions on extending partial edge colorings of the n-dimensional hypercubes Qn. In particular, they obtained an analogue of the positive solution to Evans' conjecture on completing partial Latin squares by proving that every proper partial edge coloring of at most n – 1 edges of Qn can be extended to a proper n-edge coloring of Qn. They also characterized which partial edge colorings of Qn with precisely n precolored edges are extendable to proper n-edge colorings of Qn.In this thesis we study similar partial edge coloring extension problems for trees. Let T be a tree with maximum degree Δ(T). First, we characterize which partial edge colorings with at most Δ(T) precolored edges in T that are extendable to proper Δ(T)-edge colorings, thereby proving an analogue of the aforementioned result by Andersen and Hilton for Latin squares. Then, we prove an analogue for trees of the result of Andersen by characterizing exactly which precolorings of at most Δ(T) + 1 precolored edges in a tree T that are extendable to Δ(T)-edge colorings of T. We also prove sharp conditions on when it is possible to extend a precolored matching or a collection of connected precolored subgraphs of a tree T to a Δ(T)-edge coloring of T. Finally, we consider the problem of avoiding a given (not necessarily proper) partial edge coloring.
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| 10. |
- Rudsberg, Karin, 1973-
(författare)
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Elevers lärande i argumentativa diskussioner om hållbar utveckling
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall ambition with this thesis is to develop knowledge about students’ learning, especially with regard to process and content, when they participate in argumentation. Students’ learning is investigated through in situ studies of classroom practices. The theoretical point of departure is a pragmatic perspective in which learning is understood and investigated in terms of concrete actions. The empirical material consists of video recorded lessons at secondary and upper secondary schools in Sweden. The content of the lessons is argumentative discussions about sustainable development and socioscientific issues. In the first study, the functions that teachers’ actions have for students’ learning processes are investigated using Epistemological Move Analysis. In the second study, an approach is developed and illustrated that facilitates investigations into students’ learning processes in terms of knowledge content and argument construction in argumentation. The method, called Transactional Argumentation Analysis, combines a pragmatic perspective of learning with an argument analysis based on Toulmin’s Argument Pattern. In the third study, the functions that knowledge have when used by students in argumentative discussions are examined. The fourth study investigates the role of peers for students’ learning and how students influence the argumentation at a collective level. Here Transactional Argumentation Analysis is developed further in order to facilitate investigations of the dynamic interplay between the intra-personal and the inter-personal dimensions of learning and the result of this interplay in terms of the knowledge content and arguments that are constructed. The thesis shows how students’ learning can be investigated through in situ studies of educational practices. The methodological contribution of the thesis consists of the development and further elaboration of Transactional Argumentation Analysis. The thesis also contributes with substantial knowledge about students’ learning processes with regard to knowledge content and argument construction when participating in argumentation. Another contribution concerns the functions of knowledge when used by students in argumentation. Finally, the studies show how peers and teachers influence students’ learning, and how students contribute to the shared argumentation in the classroom.
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