1. |
- Blomdahl, Eva, 1953-
(author)
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Teknik i skolan : en studie av teknikundervisning för yngre skolbarn
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main purpose of this study is to find out how technology as a school subject is formed into pedagogical action. Issues addressed are: – How does teaching in the school subject of technology differ in terms of content and process? – How do frame factors influence teaching in technology? As analytic tools, concepts from philosophical thought on technology and education as well as frame factor theory are used to throw light on the way technology education takes shape in the practices of two primary school teachers. The philosophical concepts employed and developed have been inspired by the thinking of Martin Heidegger and John Dewey. These con-cepts are “place” and “shaping of technology,” where the shaping of tech-no¬logy involves the following phases: formulation of the assignment, analysis, visualization/construction and evaluation/reflection. The basic questions are investigated in two case studies over a period of one year. Data is collected based on ethnographic methods and consists of observations, video recordings, documentation in the form of teachers’ diaries as well as pupils’ work, taped interviews with pupils, and interviews with the two teachers both before and after the project was finished. The overall results of the study show that the two teachers, to a different degree, use place, e.g. they try to use the children’s own experiences and the surrounding environment as a starting point in their teaching. They try to organize their teaching as a process of knowledge construction instead of as a process of transmission. In that process, different forms of represen¬tation are used, such as sketches, model constructions and written docu¬mentation, with the element of model construction providing a common denominator given the availability of tools and material. Another similarity between the practices is that the children are given opportunities to work at problem solving in cases where there are no given solutions. However, they enter problems due to their own embodiment in a pedagogy of transmission, which results in the fact that the shaping of technology becomes difficult to organize. Strict borders between subjects, the fragmented timetable of the school, and the organization of the classroom space and scarce equipment and materials all influence the possibilities of teaching in technology.
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2. |
- Bremer, Anders, 1957-
(author)
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När livet skakas om : patienters och närståendes erfarenheter av hjärtstopp utanför sjukhus
- 2008
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- I Europa vårdar ambulanspersonal årligen cirka 300 000 människor med hjärtstopp. Ungefär en av tio överlever. Tidigare forskning har inte i någon större utsträckning berört hur överlevande patienter och närstående mår efteråt eller vilka etiska aspekter och problem som möter ambulanspersonal i dessa situationer. Med hjälp av en reflekterande livsvärldsansats är syftet med denna licentiatavhandling att beskriva vad det innebär att överleva hjärtstopp utanför sjukhus respektive närvara vid en nära persons hjärtstopp. Med utgångspunkt i det empiriska resultatet är syftet att belysa och diskutera etiska aspekter och problem av betydelse för ambulanspersonals vårdande ur ett normativt perspektiv.Avhandlingens empiriska resultat visar hur ogripbart det är att drabbas av hjärtstopp och hur uppvaknandet ur medvetslösheten innebär vilsenhet och kontrollförlust genom den minneslucka som tillfogats. Att överleva innebär därför ett sökande efter sammanhang så att situationen kan ges mening och förklaring till tankar, känslor och upplevelser. Känslan av sammanhang nås via andra människors berättelser tillsammans med egna minnen. I det fortsatta livet finns existentiell rädsla och otrygghet där den egna identiteten och meningen i livet omvärderas i takt med en växande insikt om hur den egna kroppen påverkats av hjärtstoppet. Ibland upplevs kroppen som begränsad vilket skapar otrygghet och rädsla. I det fortsatta livet kan det finnas skuldkänslor för det inträffade likväl som att hjärtstoppet ses som en opåverkbar händelse. Men det finns även tacksamhet och glädje över välbefinnande och trygghet i ett förändrat liv där vardagliga sysslor ger tillvaron en viss stadga. Det passerade livshotet införlivas i ett liv där mänskliga relationer blivit än viktigare värden i ett gott liv.Närvaro vid en nära persons hjärtstopp omkullkastar känslan av kontroll. Allt upplevs overkligt, tiden tycks stanna upp och samtidigt är verkligheten extremt påtaglig. Förvåning övergår snabbt till ett kaos av tankar och känslor där panik, chock och fruktan griper tag. Verkligheten innebär ett överväldigande och ensamt ansvar där närstående känner sig otillräckliga. Väntan på professionell hjälp känns lång och det är en befriande känsla då ambulanspersonal anländer och övertar ansvaret. Samtidigt väcks hopp om att patienten ska överleva. För närstående är allt kaotiskt, ångestfyllt och omtumlande då de kastas mellan hopp och misströstan för att slutligen få ett overkligt och ogripbart besked om den nära personens överlevnad eller död. Livets grundvalar skakas om och uppmärksammar livets skörhet och att inget kan tas för givet. Efter händelsen finns obesvarade frågor och oro som riskerar att leda till ensamhet i sorg eller i en oro för den överlevandes framtid. Oavsett vilket, riskerar ensamheten att leda till uppoffring av egna och viktiga behov.I ett gott beslut balanseras etiska normer att rädda liv, rätten till värdig/god död, autonomiprincipen samt att göra gott och inte skada. Den övergripande normen vid hjärtstopp är att rädda liv. Att i det akuta skedet avgöra om patienten räddas till ett acceptabelt liv är svårt. Det empiriska resultatet ger dock stöd för att återupplivning bör göras vid behandlingsbara hjärtstopp samtidigt som resultatet visar hur svårt det är att dra en gräns för vad ett acceptabelt liv är. Undantagsvis är det goda beslutet att avstå från eller avbryta återupplivning, exempelvis vid förekomst av ett giltigt förhandsdirektiv. En värdig/god död är då det primära. Ett utökat etiskt ansvar för ambulanssjuksköterskor kan vara att de ges beslutsrätt för avbrytande av återupplivning. Ett annat ansvar handlar om möjligheten att främja ett gott liv för överlevande genom att efteråt bidra med kunskap som kan skapa förlorade sammanhang. Ansvaret för närstående kan innebära att meningslös återupplivning inte görs ”för deras skull” utan att deras behov möts på bättre sätt.
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3. |
- Källerwald, Susanne, 1963-
(author)
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I skuggan av en hotad existens : Om den onödiga striden mellan biologi och existens i vården av patienter med malignt lymfom
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to describe what it is like to suffer from malignant lymphoma and to highlight the care given to these patients. A reflective lifeworld approach, founded in phenomenological philosophy, has been used. Data have been collected using interviews and have been analyzed using essence-seeking analysis. The results are founded upon three empirical studies and a philosophical excursus. The results are presented in four sections.The thesis describes how patients with malignant lymphoma live in limbo characterized by existential uncertainties, partly caused by the mortal threat of the disease and by failings in the actions of the healthcare staff. Patients fear dying when suffering from malignant lymphoma, regardless of whether the disease is a genuine medical threat to their life. Thus, there is a substantial need for existential support for these patients. However, the results show that deficiencies in existential support can lead to patients feeling objectified, which in turn increases their existential uncertainties. Care that is solely directed towards the physiological body and excludes the human as a subject can be experienced as a disparagement.Care that includes the patients’ lifeworld provides alleviated suffering and a possibility for the patients themselves to take an active part in the health process. Despite the healthcare staff’s genuine ambition to alleviate the suffering, patients’ existential questions are met with a degree of conflict; on the one hand they are a natural part of healthcare, and on the other the questions are of such character that they are not part of professional healthcare. A healthcare culture that does not fully acknowledge the importance of existential questions appears to be one of the greatest obstacles to a holistic healthcare approach. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of shared strategies among the healthcare staff when meeting the patients’ existential questions. A conflict arises in an unnecessary battle between biology and existence, which in turn increases the patients’ existential insecurities.Medical knowledge is insufficient in caring for patients with malignant lymphoma. An understanding of caring science is needed in order for the care to become caring and able to meet the needs as described by patients with malignant lymphoma. Healthcare staff most be provided with sufficient support to meet the patients’ existential questions. The organization of healthcare is characterised by being a culture in which existential questions are not given sufficient attention. It seems that healthcare staff give priority to medical/technical tasks rather than conversations of existential character.
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4. |
- Olsson, Liselott, 1970-
(author)
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Movement and experimentation in young children's learning : Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study departs from experiences made in a setting where preschool children, teachers, teacher students, teacher educators and researchers in the Stockholm area in Sweden have been collectively experimenting with subjectivity and learning since the beginning of the 1990’s. However, during later years, questions were raised in the context of cooperative work about the changes that have been achieved so far, possibly becoming new and somewhat rigid ‘mappings’ of young children and learning. What has become the latest challenge to practice and research is finding ways of regaining movement and experimentation in subjectivity and learning. The present study sets out to contribute to these recent efforts by having as its purpose to construct the problem of how to work with movement and experimentation in subjectivity and learning in the field of early childhood education practice and research. Through weaving together later years efforts in practice, with theoretical resources found in the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, three decisive points are identified in order to work theoretically and practically with movement and experimentation. The first decisive point states that the focus needs to be on process rather than position, as positioning of any kind implies detracting movement from the picture. The concepts ’micro-politics’ and ‘segmentarity’ are used, presenting movement as flows of belief and desire and as that which precedes positions, constituting the starting point of all change in subjectivity and learning. This is connected to how researchers and teachers try to latch on to children’s desires rather than trying to predict, supervise, control and evaluate them according to preset standards. It is argued that in relation to contemporary society, where governing takes place through appealing to these flows of desire, pedagogical and academic institutions need to engage in their own desiring production in order to avoid being inevitably one step behind. The second decisive point states that one needs to admit science’s inventiveness and productiveness, rather than being confined to its critical agenda, as the latter implies that production processes of subjectivity and learning are treated as taking place separately from the undertaking of research, which can only register them, and thereby also immobilize them as effects and not as ongoing and continuously changing processes. It is demonstrated how switching to methods that recognize and account for their own productiveness and inventiveness can account for movement and experimentation. One such method is tried out through using the concept ‘transcendental empiricism’ to account for the collective, intense and unpredictable experimentation that takes place in between researchers and teachers in the above described setting. Another method is tried out through treating the empirical material in the study - pedagogical documentations of learning processes - as ‘events’. Through insisting upon a continuous production of sense in events it is demonstrated how children’s own sense production can be accessed and how this permits to keep the events in which they take part open ended and in movement. The third decisive point concerns the dualism individual/society and states that this must no longer be treated as a cause-effect relationship, as this immobilizes subjectivity and learning and hinders experimentation, but rather one must find another logic for how to treat what takes place in between constructed and imagined entities such as individuals and societies. In an analysis of a project in a class of two years olds, the concept ‘assemblages of desire’ is used so as to describe how subjectivity and learning take on the features of ‘a relational field’, where children through their collective desires produce new realities in the classroom. It is argued that the formalized school and research system could benefit from adding to attempts to predict, supervise, control and evaluate young children’s learning, some of the experiences that become visible in the encounter in between Deleuze’s and Guattari’s philosophy and the practices present in this study. When working theoretically and practically with movement and experimentation it is possible to access very young children’s learning in ways that might force a rethinking of the educational system.
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