| 1. |
- Berkhuizen, Carina
(författare)
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Barns samspel bortom förskolans väggar : Om yngre barns samspel och platsskapande på förskolegården och i en mobil förskola
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The general aim of this thesis is to explore the relations between children’s interaction and places within preschool activities. How children’s interaction opportunities are conditioned by the physical and social environment in the preschool yard (study I), as well as place-making processes in various contexts in mobile preschool activities (studies II and III), are examined within the framework of this purpose. As these three sub-studies have different research focuses, they use different theoretical perspectives. In study I, special attention is given to how the physical environment and teachers emerge in the contexts of children’s (aged 1–3 years) interaction in the preschool yard. Study II focuses on how children (aged 3–4 years) use the spatiality of a mobile preschool to create places in a recurring fantasy play. In study III, the focus is directed on both children’s place-making within fantasy play and how children and teachers create “place” together in a mobile preschool. Destination choices can be part of place-making processes of a mobile preschool; therefore, which aspects considered as important, in choosing a destination, are investigated. The first study starts from sociocultural perspectives on children’s interaction (e.g. Vygotsky, 1930/ 1995). Taking an abductive approach, the concept of artifacts (Wartofsky, 1979) and concepts from an environmental psychological perspective (see Gump, 1969; Westlander, 1999; Wicker, 1985, 1987) are added to explore how the social and physical environments relate to opportunities for different interactions. The results show how children reveal "interaction junctions" and "interaction swathes" in their activities within the preschool yard. In order to investigate place-making within a mobile preschool, the second and third studies combine a relational perspective on spatiality (Massey, 2005) with a sociology of childhood perspective that emphasizes children’s agency and collective activities, such as fantasy play (e.g. Corsaro, 2015). The results show how children create their own “play-places” in their place-making and how teachers choose destinations. Through its chosen perspectives and focus on younger preschoolers, this thesis provides further knowledge on how opportunities for interaction can arise in the preschool yard. Furthermore, this thesis reveals a new kind of spatiality within the preschool – that is, a mobile preschool – by using a relational perspective on place-making. Thus, this thesis contributes additional knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of Childhood Studies regarding children’s (possible) interaction in diverse places.
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| 2. |
- Doerr, Katherine
(författare)
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Is College Science Teaching Women's Work? : Gender Inequity in the Physical Sciences
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- After decades of virtual exclusion from participation in STEM, women have majored in, earned graduate degrees in, and forged careers in male-dominated fields such as the physical sciences in increasing numbers. At each step of the way, however, women’s participation diminishes, and this is especially apparent in the workforce. Moreover, these women are likely to be doing different work than men; that is, STEM workplaces are vertically segregated by gender, and women’s work, while important, is often lower-paid and lower-prestige than men’s work. The purpose of this research was to characterize one example of vertical segregation, teaching-intensive faculty positions in a university physical science department, and to explore how and why gender matters for the women, and men, who are on the teaching faculty. Using ethnographic methodology to trace, through their social interactions, how individuals’ experiences are shaped by institutional viii norms and ideologies, the analysis was shaped by theories of gender as a social system that works to perpetuate inequality. The teaching track is an alternative job track that allows participants to have work-life balance, which is commonly explained to be more suitable than the research track for women in science who want to have children. Concerningly, there are significant negative consequences for pursuing this track, at least for the women. Fundamental aspects of fulfilling and equitable work, such as fair pay, respect, and advancement pathways, are elusive. When women do resist or challenge their marginalization, they are met with unfair treatment and even harassment. The experience of men on teaching faculty is a sharp contrast; as men, they belong in science and this brings a default of respect as well as elevation to higher pay. Thus, the teaching faculty has an internal gender hierarchy. As such, this inquiry offers the conclusion that college science teaching is women’s work not because it offers a safe and fair space to have a career and a family, but because the neoliberal academy requires low-cost and flexible labor to carry out its teaching mission, and women are easily exploited to provide this labor.
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| 3. |
- Lembrér, Dorota, 1979-
(författare)
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Sociocultural influences on parents’ views about mathematics education for young children
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates parents’ views on mathematics education for young children at home and in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions in Sweden and Norway. The curricula documents for ECEC highlight the importance of collaboration between teachers and parents for children’s learning and development. However, the views of parents on the education of young children are seldom explored in research. The assumption that parents and other family members can contribute to children’s mathematics education is a fundamental assumption in the current project. The narratives of parents of their experiences with young children in mathematics education were analysed to identify answers to the following overarching research questions. how can parents’ views on mathematics activities for young children be identified? what do parents’ value in mathematics education for young children? and what might influence parents’ views on mathematics education? Parents’ views were investigated by collecting data from online surveys of Polish parents living in Sweden and through photo-elicitation focus group interviews with Norwegian parents. The narratives that were produced from these two data collections provided different insights into parents’ views on mathematics education for young children which have to do with the relationship between parents’ individual views and wider societal views. The findings indicate that counting was viewed as important for young children, and everyday life experiences were considered an appropriate means of introducing them to mathematical ideas. Many of the parents emphasised their role in children’s mathematics learning and its impact on how the children engaged with mathematics at home. The findings also indicate that parents’ views on mathematics education are influenced by wider societal expectations connected to ECEC pedagogical practices in mathematics education. The implications of this research include an understanding of the kinds of opportunities there are for parents to contribute to the introduction of mathematics education to ECEC. Nevertheless, the research results also show that collaboration vibetween parents and teachers can be challenging because of the different nature of their roles. Consequently, one outcome of this research is the identification of a need for further research into the complexity of collaboration as this relates to the negotiation of different understandings of pedagogy, mathematics and roles and responsibilities in children’s learning of mathematics.
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| 4. |
- Yarova, Aliona
(författare)
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Narrating Humanity : Children's Literature and Global Citizenship Education
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to explore how children’s magic realist fiction contributes to critical Global Citizenship Education (GCE). This study argues that children’s magic realist literature can facilitate young readers’ knowledge and understanding of human rights issues and promote environmental awareness in a non-didactic manner by representing global issues from non-human perspectives. The thesis comprises four articles.The first study explores the non-human perspective of an animalhuman ‘cyborg’ protagonist in Peter Dickinson’s novel Eva (1988). The study shows how the non-human perspective allows the reader to go beyond anthropocentric boundaries in order to explore the issue of treating the other.The second study investigates an animal perspective on the Roma genocide along with the mistreatment of animals in the Second World War in Sonya Hartnett’s The Midnight Zoo (2010). The animal perspective shows human intolerance of other humans (the Roma) intertwined with human actions towards animals and encourages the reader in a non-didactic way to adopt an eco-philosophical standpoint.The third study is concerned with the representation of the Holocaust from the point of view of a supernatural narrator, Death, in Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (2005). Death’s inverted magic realist narrative facilitates the young reader’s understanding of human rights issues and represents the history of the genocide in a non-didactic manner.The fourth study examines the relationships between humans and the natural environment shown from the non-human perspective of a tree. Taking the lens of holistic ecology, this study explores the representation of human – nature relationships in Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls (2011) and how the novel guides the child-reader towards an awareness of environmental issues.
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| 5. |
- Engström, Alexander
(författare)
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Everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Drawing on lifestyle-routine activity theory, this dissertation explores associations between everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults. It also examines the operationalisation of the concepts of lifestyle and routine activities, and explores the use of experience methods, via a smartphone application named STUNDA, to collect data about everyday life. Of the four studies conducted, Study I shows that different specific lifestyle measures are of varying relevance for victims, offenders, and victim-offenders, which indicates that no single universal lifestyle feature is of relevance for all outcomes studied. The findings from Study II reveal that spending time with friends in the city-centre is associated with lower levels of fear of crime across months, days, and moments. However, other associations between everyday life variables and fear of crime are inconsistent across these reference periods. Study III, a systematic review of the literature, shows that measures of lifestyle and routine activities differ in the frequency with which they are used in studies on interpersonal victimisation and offending. Illegal activities are often used as lifestyle/routine activity measures in studies on victimisation while unstructured and peer-oriented activities dominate in studies on offending. However, the measures used in the included studies are diverse, which indicates that researchers use a wide range of activities that are intended to measure lifestyle/routine activities. The final paper, Study IV, explores fear of crime in relation to moments of everyday life and finds that specific features of settings, such as being in semi-public and public spaces and on public transport, increase the odds for experiencing fear of crime.The overall conclusions of the studies point to methodological and theoretical directions for future research. First, research in the field of lifestyle-routine activity theory needs to consider specific and potentially different activities when examining victimisation, offending, and the overlap between these two outcomes. Further, fear of crime research must consider different reference periods, such as months, days and moments, since fear may not only be defined as a more stable trait-like phenomenon but also as a momentary and transitory experience in everyday life. The types of measures used to represent everyday life also require consideration, particularly in terms of the inclusion of lifestyle/routine activity measures that are actually related to criminogenic exposure. For theory more specifically, the implications of the findings point to an overall confirmation of the view that exposure to various environmental circumstances is associated with crime and fear of crime. However, across all of the studies conducted, the findings point to potential weaknesses of the theory. In particular, the lack of an elaborated perspective on individual traits and characteristics limits the explanatory scope of lifestyle-routine activity theory. For instance, people with similar lifestyles still vary in terms of their victimisation, offending, and fear of crime, which necessitates the inclusion of additional individual-level factors that could explain these variations. Future research must thus either modify lifestyle-routine activity theory or open up for other theoretical perspectives that provide a more holistic approach to understanding the role of both environ-mental and individual factors when studying everyday life, crime, and fear of crime.
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| 6. |
- Gunnemyr, Per
(författare)
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Den fjärde kvadrantens dilemma : Kunskapsbedömning i en föränderlig historiekultur
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how history teachers in Swedish upper-secondary school perceive voluntary external tests in history. The study focuses on history teachers' perceptions of 1) the design of the tests, 2) the implementation of the tests, 3) the use of the tests and 4) the impact of the tests on their assessment practice. The overall aim is to investigate how historical culture, as it is expressed in the school subject of history, changes over time. The analytical focus for the study has been to explore the significance of knowledge assessment in general, and voluntary external tests in particular, for this change. The temporal focus for the study has been the 2011 Swedish school policy reforms manifested in the curriculum for upper-secondary school (Gy11).The theoretical framework combines theory of history didactics and theory of assessment. Historical culture and assessment culture are the central concepts of the study. The overall hypothesis of the study is that the relationship between the school's historical-cultural dimension and the assessment-cultural dimension contains a latent tension referred to as the dilemma of the fourth quadrant.The empirical material was collected from qualitative interviews with eight history teachers. The first sub-study included four teachers during the year 2009 who had used a voluntary external test named the History Teachers' Test (HLP). The second sub study included four teachers during the year 2016 who had used a voluntary external test named the Course Test in History (KP).The results show that history teachers perceive and handle the external tests in different ways. One possible interpretation of this difference is that the tests respond to different needs or problems. In the study, two such problem areas have emerged, the equivalence problem and the alignment problem. A conclusion based on the empirical results is that the HLP-teachers use the test results for a summative purpose to deal with an equivalence problem, while the KP-teachers use the test tools for a formative purpose to deal with an alignment problem. The results also show that there is strong a connection between the school's historical-cultural dimension and assessment-cultural dimension, manifested in the history teachers' different ways of perceiving and using voluntary external tests.
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| 7. |
- Mashreghi, Sepandarmaz
(författare)
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Decolonial re-existence and sports : stories of Afghan youth in Sweden
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the context of sports and migration, research within policy-driven themes (i.e., integration) have consistently flattened out the migrants’ experiences, meanings and understandings of sports and physical activity to make sense for and from Euro-centric perspectives and framings. Thus, muting other relevant, alternative and already existing ways of living sports and physical activity. Critical sports studies, on the other hand, have demonstrated that sports (and physical activity) remain a contested domain where various human experiences are negotiated and remade along the intersecting lines of class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, legal status and (dis)ability. The aim in this study has been to work within a decolonial framework to demonstrate how migrant youth in Sweden navigate, experience, challenge and generate knowledge in relation to physical activity and sports.Doing decolonial research in sports studies means delinking from Eurocentric thought and epistemology in order to uncover alternative forms of physical culture and practice that generate different meanings to that of the (Western) hegemonic discourse. To do this, we, the youth and I, have worked and researched together within the framework of participatory art-based action research and our shared Khorasani epistemology. This means that the coresearchers have been active participants in generating research material, analysing the material and disseminating the generated knowledge. Grounded in Indigenous, borderland, Chicana and Black feminist knowldeges as well decolonial thought, this thesis contributes both theoretically and methodologically to the field of sport and exercise in relation to young asylum seekers and migration research. The participatory analysis demonstrates that for the Afghan youth in this study sport and physical activity was not a distinct entity, rather it was intertwined with various aspects of their lives, such as their experiences of child labour, pleasures, hopes for the future, leisure, social and mental aspects, and migration experiences. Furthermore, the youth revealed that despite various forms of oppression, trauma and hardship, they constantly returned, or rather, reclaimed life and future in their acts of self-reflection, friendship, love and hope within the context of sport and life. They, thus, moved beyond the mere resistance of the precarities in their lives to bring about a re-existence. The findings of this thesis also highlight the affordances and limitations of participatory methods, art-based research and decolonising work. Although the participatory methods grounded in the epistemology of the youth (and myself), allowed us to reclaim and tell our stories in our ways, they fell short in making lasting systemic transformations. These limitations also give rise to new questions and possibilities for future research in relation to how change and transformation are defined and researched; and whether these definitions are somewhat limiting and influenced by the colonial rhetoric of salvation underlining participatory action research basic principles of empowerment and critical consciousness.
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| 8. |
- Weber, Magnus
(författare)
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Religion as a lifeworld : an alternative to secularist concept of religion in social work
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The discourse on religious extremism and jihadism has stimulated deep interest in religion as a factor in social problems. So have other religion-related issues such as honour-related violence, migration and integration, and female circumcision. Given that social workers are often mentioned as pivotal actors when it comes to preventing and working long-term with extremism, radicalisation, and related issues, religion has acquired increased visibility in social work. This has reinvigorated discourse on religion within social work practice, policy and research.This dissertation attempts to grapple with and theorise about the implications of this new visibility of religion in social work. Its starting point is an analysis of the tacit assumptions about religion revealed in interviews with practitioners in the field of preventing violent extremism and promoting democracy. Genealogical analysis then contextualises these tacit, secular assumptions in a historical, philosophical and theological setting, so denaturalising them. This work clears the way for developing a new and innovative path that holds promise for more productive work in relation to religious social problems.The main argument in this dissertation is that a secularist concept of religion falls short when doing social work with religious citizens. This is because a secularist concept of religion regards religion either as a set of doctrines or teachings or as purely subjective and emotional. Practitioners who take the former position often try to disprove specific doctrines, as if doctrines produce religious extremists. Practitioners who adopt the latter position try to change the inner inclinations of the subjects from, say, an extremist disposition to a democratic one, or from radical Islam to ‘mainstream’ Islam. Both approaches are inadequate because by depriving religion of its bodily and institutional setting, religion is reduced solely to its intellectual or emotional elements, while overlooking its practical, social, institutional and embodied aspects.The alternative conceptualisation of religion proposed in this dissertation is rooted in phenomenology. If religion is conceived of as a horizon of meaning that precedes and supersedes individual choice and preference, while simultaneously being construed as contextual and open to reinterpretation, encounters between social workers and religious clients can be guided by openness, interest and curiosity, even reconciliation. Change could, then, be achieved from within the clients’ lifeworld, rather than through confrontation and the advocating of drastic alternatives to their present lifeworld. Such an approach to social work with religious clients is likely to be more successful than one rooted in a much narrower understandings of religion.
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