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- Ericson, Helena, 1980-
(författare)
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The art of ageing well : a salutogenic perspective on physical activity for older adults
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines older adults’ participation in physical activity, and is framed within a salutogenic theory regarding ageing well, or as others say, healthy ageing. Ageing well can be studied in numerous ways. Since this thesis is within the field of Sport Sciences, different physical activity initiatives for older adults are in focus. Population ageing is a global trend andrepresents a major societal challenge. Societies that adapt to this changing demographic situation and invest in healthy ageing or in how people can age well may enable people to live longer and healthier lives and reduce the burden of disease and disabilities. Therefore, strategies that offer environments that contribute to keeping people active are something that societies should prioritize. Current knowledge on issues relating to an ageing population are often based on an understanding of what causes illness, rather than what promotes health. Against this backdrop, it is essential to investigate those who are regularly physically active. The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute knowledge about older adults’ participation in sport and physical activity initiatives. The thesis will further contribute knowledge about who participates in the initiatives and what characterizes the different initiatives they participate in. This will be explored using salutogenic theory in relation to ageing well. Main findings are that older adult women and men are partly drawn to different physical activities and social relations were the most meaningful health resource. In conclusion, engaging in physical activity increases the odds of maintaining well-being in later life and of ageing well. Thus, offering and increasing physical activity is one way of meeting the challenge of an ageing population in society. From a salutogenic perspective, physical activity carried out to provides a meaningful, comprehensible and manageable way for older adults to engage in the ongoing process of maintaining health.
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| 2. |
- Lindholm, Åsa Maria, 1958-
(författare)
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Metabolic Aspects in the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders among women of childbearing age and is associated with a number of metabolic disturbances. It has been hypothesised these women carry an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) with advancing age. The first aim of this thesis was to establish the prevalence of PCOS-related symptoms in Northern Sweden. The Northern part of the WHO MONICA project was used for this purpose. Based on self-reported menstrual disturbances and hirsutism together with biochemical analyses of free androgen index, the estimated prevalence of PCOS in Northern Sweden was 4.8%, which corresponded with previous prevalence studies. Disturbances in the fibrinolytic system are predictors of future cardiovascular events and measurements of plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) activity and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) mass concentration may be used to assess fibrinolytic activity in women with PCOS. From the findings, over-weight women with PCOS had impaired fibrinolysis, especially if they displayed objective biochemical markers of hyperandrogenism. Conversely, lean women with PCOS, displayed no signs of disturbed fibrinolysis. The adipose tissue is an active endocrine organ that produces and releases hormones, pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and chemoattractant cytokines. Proinflammatory molecules produced by adipose tissue can be active participants in the development of insulin resistance and the increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with obesity. The findings suggested being overweight, rather than the PCOS diagnosis per se, was the main explanatory variable for elevated adipose tissue inflammation in PCOS patients. Weight reduction is the primary target for intervention in overweight and obese women with PCOS. When this thesis was planned, no placebo-controlled trials on anti-obesity drugs in women with PCOS had been conducted. Sibutramine in combination with lifestyle intervention resulted in significant weight reduction in overweight women with PCOS. In addition to the weight loss, sibutramine appeared to have a beneficial effect on metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors.
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| 3. |
- Larneby, Marie, 1978-
(författare)
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Vi och de Andra : Om idrott, genus och normer på en idrottsprofilerad högstadieskola
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this dissertation is to describe and problematize normative patterns related to sport and gender at a sport’s profiled secondary school,and discuss what consequences these patterns may have for student-athletes. The dissertation has an ethnographic approach and the empirical data was collected through observations and semi-structured interviews. I have followed one cohort of 78 student-athletes during their three years at thestudied school (grade 7–9), of which 29 were interviewed. In addition, seven members of the staff were interviewed. I chose to follow the sport groups in tennis, floorball, football for boys, football for girls and lessons in physical education and health (PEH). This dissertation project was guided by the theoretical frameworks provided by gender theories: gender as a social institution (Lorber, 1994), the process of othering (Puwar, 2004; Pickering, 2001), and inclusive masculinity (Anderson, 2009). In addition, sport related logics and norms of performance and competition was utilized as theoretical tools (Engström, 2010; SOU 2008:59).The main results are that there were two main normative patterns related to sport and gender that prevailed at the studied school: the logic of performance and competition, and a gender norm stating that boys are better than girls. These patterns were resilient but also faced deviations and resistance. Sport occupied a significant space at this school. Socialization of performance and competition, with admittance through selection and early specialization directed the organization of the profile and its practice, but also the student-athletes’ attitudes, behaviors and actions. The logic of performance was often expressed as a sound comparison and competition that functioned as an incentive for motivation and a strategy for improvement, and was regarded as an inherent part of sport. However, comparison and competition were used as a stratifying instrument in order to rank oneself higher in the school’s internal hierarchy. Moreover, students-athletes testified to the presence of an expectation of a certain kind of engagement, focus, attendance, level of ambition and attitude towards sports. When one or more of these expectations were not met, due to for instance injuries, decreased motivation or lack of interest, the student-athletes felt that they (or peers at the school) deviated from the normative position as an ideal student-athlete. Within this sport centered school, a gender norm stating that boys are better than girls prevailed. This norm was produced, reproduced and confirmed in the daily school sport activities as well as inthe classroom setting. An active differentiation lead to a general stratification, which resulted in a construction of boys and girls being different athletes who were explained being not equally skilled, and that boys’ sport is valued more then girls’. This differentiation and stratification was a result of the logics of performance and competition, with a need to compare boys and girls although they never competed against each other, they only trained together. However, when student-athletes talked of themselves at an individual level, there was less emphasis on gender. The athletic skills strength, speed and technique were demanded, and it was often expected that girls were to adopt boys’ way to do sports. It contradicts and simultaneously challenges the gender norm that boys are better than girls are. To conclude: since competition and comparison was a strong logic, it was directed inwards towards peers and a constructed meaning of status within the bigger school group. In addition, gender produced another dimension of stratification between athletes, which should be of no value in organized competition as boys and girls almost never compete against each other. However, at this school, gender differentiation and stratification got a lot of attention because it was constructed to be of significance.Norms, values and logics from the world of sports had entered school and established a normative system that produced a student-athlete and a school sport profile that was an extension of organized sport.
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| 4. |
- Lindkvist, Louise, 1983-
(författare)
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A school subject under pressure : understanding the changing means and ends of Swedish physical education and health
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is concerned with exploring changes in the organization of Swedish PE, seeking to understand why certain aspects of the subject undergo alterations while others remain relatively stable. Central to this exploration is grasping the ends outlined for PE and the means employed to attain them. The ongoing debate surrounding the need for change in PE has placed the subject in a vulnerable position, susceptible to influence from various interest groups, and more likely to change according to their demands. Despite existing research focusing on various aspects of change within the subject, there remains a gap in knowledge concerning how underlying ideas regarding the purpose and realization of PE are incorporated into its means and ends. Therefore, this thesis aims to understand how shared ideas of appropriate practices in PE contribute to altered or retained organizational principles, with potential consequences for how education is realized. Employing institutional theory, the first research question examines how the research field of PE shapes legitimacy in practice, by identifying 15 dominant research topics. The second research question seeks to understand PE teachers’ actions within a broader societal context. This exploration demonstrates how four institutional logics guide PE teachers’ decision-making processes. In relation to the third research question, an institutional work perspective sheds light on processes driving certain actions towards change. Through interviews with school leaders, the results highlight four types of institutional work employed as they navigate government-initiated policy. The fourth and final research question delves into how PE teachers navigate the diverse institutional pressures affecting both symbolic and material conditions for implementing change. Employing an institutional logics perspective, the findings show that PE teachers respond to the various pressures in four different ways. The discussion scrutinizes how the actions of organizational members influence institutional structures and vice versa, enabling both change and stability within PE.
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| 5. |
- Tugetam, Åsa
(författare)
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Att göra och erfara friluftsliv : En etnografisk studie om lärprocesser i gymnasieelevers friluftslivsundervisning
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Studies on learning in school friluftsliv education have primarily focused on teachers’ and other adults’ perspectives. The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, from the student perspective, the learning processes that take shape in school programmes in friluftsliv education. The thesis looks at how students’ sensemaking in friluftsliv takes shape and how this occurs in interaction with other students and with teachers. The thesis applies a sociocultural perspective to learning, which centres on the students’ narratives about how they do friluftsliv learning. Learning and learning processes are placed in an analytical context that involves individual students’ view of themselves, their relationship to the group of which they are a part, and the place in which they find themselves. The study is based on an ethnographic approach in which data has been gathered by means of interviews, observations, videos taken with GoPro cameras, and logs that students have written. Two secondary school classes were followed over time in a friluft education programme that consisted of both theoretical and practical components and culminated with a week-long stay in the Scandinavian mountains. The students were also interviewed six months after their week of friluftsliv, with the intention of investigating how acquired knowledge had been transformed or applied in practice over time. The study clearly shows three learning processes that were brought to light by the data collected: contextual, relational and identity-developing learning processes. Contextual learning is manifested when the students’ sensemaking of friluftsliv is placed in relation to regular classroom instruction and that they find themselves in what is for them an unfamiliar environment, from which they cannot “check out”. This learning process must be understood as a type of transaction or relationship between individual students and their environment. For the students, the contextual mobility – that is, the students’ movement between different contexts – and the place responsiveness they expressed – in the mountain environment, for example – were seen as significant for the creation of new experiences and insights into the practical aspects of previously acquired theoretical knowledge, not only in the subject of physical education and health but also in history, geography, etc. Relational learning concerns partly the students’ ways of looking at the relationships they have within the group and with teachers, and partly how it develops/changes and how different forms of knowledge capital can be used in the context of outdoor education. Identity-developing learning concerns how friluftsliv education leads students to develop new knowledge about their own mental and physical capacity, which leads them to view themselves, their role in their family and in society, in a partially new way. Regarding the implications for teaching and for students’ learning, the study stresses the importance of a processual perspective that focuses on students’ evolving sensemaking, rather than the short-term goals and objectives of individual blocks of instruction.
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