The aim of this thesis is to study male questioning of masculinity. The study of the questioning will be conducted through a literature study, that will be done using an anthology that holds a critical perspective towards masculinity. The study of the questioning, will be done through mapping the most common patterns within the questioning together with patterns in the form used for presenting the questioning. Apart from the focus on the questioning and its form, which norms that are being questioned will also be studied. Apart from the focuses mentioned above, the last focus is directed towards finding patterns within the chosen themes vulnerability and homosociality. Since the focuses of the thesis will be studied through finding patterns within the material, thematic analysis will be used as a method. The method queer reading will also be used for studying norms. What has been found is that the form of the questioning mainly contains alternative thinking and reflections about ideals, as well as frustration related to trying to live up to these ideals. Overall few innovatory perspectives were brought up in the questioning, but the own father was rather commonly brought up in relation to reflection of the own masculinity. Regarding the chosen themes, avoiding to express emotions of vulnerability openly was found to be most common regarding vulnerability. Within the theme of homosociality, the most common pattern was that the men maintained a distance to each other. The most interesting discovery was found within the reflective form, which became interesting, since the stories contained an understanding that reflection should be avoided in order to uphold a masculine identity. Paradoxically then, the overall form of the material was reflective stories, making the form of the stories a break against a central norm found within their content.

Background: Self-harm is used to describe a group of diseases where the persons intention is to hurt thereself. This collective name includes conditions such as anorexia, burning, poisoning and self-cutting. The act of self-harm is almost never related to the patients' wish of death, it's more of a tool for the person to calm herself. Previous research shows that nurses often see these patients as troublesome often because of a lack of knowledge. There's just a few studies that examine the patients' views. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how patients with self-harm was experiencing the meeting with the nurse. Method: The study was designed as a literature based study based on 12 qualitative articles. All articles are read and analyzed by Friberg (2012) model with the analysis of qualitative research. Results: The result of this study showed that the nurse plays a big part in how the patients experienced their treatment. If the patient feels that the nurse doesn't see, hear or respect her, the patient starts to feel that she is not worth health care. For the patient to feel and get better it's essential that there is a functional relationship between the patient and the nurse. Conclusion: Patients who self-harm is a difficult patientgroup to treat if there is a lack of knowledge. But these patients are dependent on the care that the nurse is providing them. Therefore a caring and trusting relationship is a must to provide high quality care.

Purpose of this study was to investigate the Alcoholics Anonymous strengths and weaknesses, their policy of total abstinence after treatment and strategies for sobriety. The study was conducted by two focus group interviews with women and men living in a twelve-step treatment. Also a single interview was made with a woman from the staff at the women's homes. The results were analyzed with the theories of social mobilization and how group processes affect individuals. The result shows that the key strategies is to work in the twelve steps, going to meetings, and accept the concept of disease to achieve sobriety. Replacing unhealthy social circles is important. Community given in Alcoholics Anonymous give the individual strengths to break out of addiction. The analysis of a group perspective showed that the community has impact on the individual's choice. It thus leads also to change to new sober socializing, given within the movement, which can change behavior. / Denna studies syfte var att undersöka Anonyma Alkoholisters styrkor och svagheter, deras policy den totala avhållsamheten efter behandling och strategier för nykterhet. I studien genomfördes två fokusgruppintervjuer med kvinnor respektive män boende på ett tolv- stegsbehandlingshem. Även en enskild intervju gjordes med en kvinna ur personalen på kvinnornas hem. Resultatet analyserades med teorier om social mobilisering och om hur grupprocesser påverkar individer. Resultatet visar att centrala strategier är att arbeta i de tolv stegen, gå på möten, och acceptera sjukdomsbegreppet för att uppnå nykterhet. Byte av osunda umgängeskretsar är viktigt. Gemenskapen som ges inom Anonyma Alkoholister ger individen styrka att bryta sig ur missbruket. Analysen med ett grupperspektiv visade att gemenskapen har påverkan på individens val. Det leder således också att byte till nytt nyktert umgänge, som ges inom rörelsen, kan ändra en individs beteende.

Music plays a crucial role in everyday life by enabling listeners to seek individual emotional experiences. To explain why such emotions occur, we must understand the underlying process that mediates between surface-level features of the music and aroused emotions. This thesis aimed to investigate how musical emotions are mediated by psychological mechanisms from a cross-cultural perspective. Study I manipulated four mechanisms by selecting ecologically valid pieces of music that featured information relevant for each mechanism. The results suggested that listeners’ emotions could be successfully predicted based on theoretically based manipulations of target mechanisms. However, Study I featured only listeners from a single culture, neglecting the possible role of contextual and individual factors. Study II investigated the prevalence of emotions, mechanisms, and listening motives in a web survey featuring listeners from both individualist and collectivist countries. Results indicated that patterns of prevalence of emotions and mechanisms were quite similar across cultures. Still, Study II found that certain emotions such as nostalgia and the mechanism episodic memory were more frequent in collectivist cultures. In contrast, sadness and the mechanism musical expectancy were more frequent in individualist cultures. Study II also suggested that listening motives were country-specific, rather than subject to the individualism-collectivism dimension. Study III explored how particular mechanisms are manifested within a collectivist cultural setting with great potential for deeply felt emotions: fado music in Portugal. Interviews with listeners provided in-depth information on how the cultural context might shape listening motives and emotions. The results revealed that listeners strived for musical experiences that would arouse culturally valued emotions. Music-evoked nostalgia and contextual factors were regarded as important and contributed to an enhanced sense of wellbeing. Study IV tested the influence of lyrics on the emotions induced by Swedish and Portuguese pieces of music. The results revealed cross-cultural differences in how lyrics influenced emotions. The differences were not related to the music’s origin, but to the listener’s origin, suggesting that the impact of lyrics depends on the cultural background of the listener. In conclusion, the thesis suggests that cultural factors serve as moderators of effects of biologically based mechanisms for emotion induction.

This work is intended for high school and university students and their teachers who want to learn or improve their knowledge about affine transformations and perspective collineation. In this work the reader acquainted with the ideal elements, dividing ratio and cross ratio. The main part of the work is perspective collineation and affine transformations, their definitions, properties, specificity and finding other elements. This work also deals with the use of affine transformations and perspective collineation in descriptive geometry. The text is supplemented with illustrative images, applets and step-by-step images that are created with GeoGebra software. Keywords: affine transformations, perspective collineation, ideal elements, cuts of solids, dividing ratio, cross ratio

This Diploma thesis thematizes the problem of students' time perspective and its diagnostics. The whole text is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical with emphasis on the theoretical part. The theoretical part will look upon the conceptions of time perspective. Ideas of time perception, the influence of time on human behavior and a connection of time pespective with an achievement motivation are presented. The personality-motivational concept of time perspective by European expert of motivational psychology Jopeph Nuttin are analyzed. From the domestic authors I describe the concept of perpsective orientation by Isabella Pavelkova. These theories are completed with information gained by Rayner, Gjesme and Fraisse. The important section is a chapter where diagnostics and specifics methods are presented. The empirical section contains the results of research provided by 5 classes of high school students with an eight year (or four year) study plan in April 2012 in Caslav. Using two questionaries (Motivational Induction Method and Perspective Orientation Questionary). Motivational Induction Method investigates objects of students' time perspective and summarized these themes into exact time frames. The Perspective Orientation Questionnaire helps investigate external validity. Key words:...

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) management is challenging. This pilot study investigated parents/caregivers’ perception of therapies and other interventions in their ASD children. Information for children attending NDS department of MATC in Winnipeg was collected from participants through questionnaire-guided interviews. Mixed quantitative/qualitative methods were employed to analyze data. A total of 12 participants completed the study and data from14 children were collected. All children attended school, 88% were males, and more than 50% reported eating/sleeping difficulties. ADHD comorbidity was reported in 69%. The prescription drug most commonly tried was risperidone 56%, which found effective in controlling aggressive behaviours. Melatonin mostly tried in children for sleep. Behavioural therapy was rated as the most effective intervention, but was often limited by coverage and waiting period’s issues. Common concerns voiced by participants were the lack of trained professionals, the limited understanding of ASD children’s needs and the uncertainty for the future of their children (financial/service support at older age). Future studies should be conducted in a larger population and a longer observation time to document the changing needs of ASD children. / May 2016

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine how preschool teachers in contemporary Sweden think and talk about intercultural education in the current context in which Sweden is rapidly becoming a more culturally diverse country. Specifically, the study applied an intersectional framework to examine how teacher’s work and talk around cultural issues and how children’s books can contribute to the broader pedagogical project of developing intercultural education in preschool. The research questions guiding this research were: How do teachers in ethnically diverse preschools work with and talk about children’s books in their daily interactions with children? How do teachers in ethnically homogenous preschools work with and talk about children’s books in their daily interactions with children? Teachers from two preschools - differing in terms of the ethnic make-up of their child population - were asked to read a pair of children’s books whose storylines had obvious links to issues related to cultural diversity. The teachers were then asked to discuss the books in focus groups. Transcripts of the focus groups were then subjected to a thematic analysis from an intersectional perspective. These analyses revealed that teachers in both preschools considered children’s age and their relative intellectual and emotional competencies to be significant barriers for using culturally sensitive children’s book to promote an intercultural education in preschool. Furthermore, the teachers oriented to other social categories, such as gender and family, in their analyses of the children’s books. These findings raise questions about if and how preschool teachers choose to engage with cultural issues in their preschools.

Abstract Student influence and participation are phenomena that have been debated for a long time throughout school educations’ history; yet, they still do not meet the intentions of school curriculums. At the same time, recent research has shown these aspects to be meaningful for students’ learning abilities, all the while highlighting the teacher’s important role in their implementation. This study emanates from a global life perspective and examines the assumption that teacher’s experiences are important for how influence and participation are shaped, especially targeting student counseling. The aim with this study is to contribute with more understanding of these aspects, the significance they imply and their importance for learning. This study is formed like a case study and is conducted at a F-9 school with a sample of teachers who are currently involved in the development of student-led counseling. The teachers are being interviewed through qualitative focus group interviews and observed during student-led counseling. The results of the interviews are evaluated through a phenomenologically based method of analysis and a hermeneutically based interpretation. The results of the observations are evaluated on the grounds of the concept of global life perspective, intersubjectivity and intentionality. The result shows that teacher’s experiences on students’ influence and participation incorporate three subjects: preparatory work, execution and subsequent work, which emerge as an outcome of the fact that counseling was led by students. The result points out teacher’s experiences of factors that influence their work, where time, expectations and the student category ’teenagers’ are dominating. These factors obtrude on different levels in a fluctuation between each other, mutually affecting each other and manifesting themselves as both possibilities and obstacles. The result of the significance of student influence and participation is focused on in three main subjects: form of teaching, creating relations and creating identity. Each main subject contains sub-categories. The main subject ‘form of teaching’ involves the enabling of reflections, form of judgment, comprehensibility, raising awareness, increasing motivation and clarification. The main subject ‘creating relations’ consists of increasing quality and creating security. The main subject ‘creating identity’ incorporates the increase of taking responsibility. Responsibility entails growth in close relation to the student’s confidence and faith in his own capabilities. The result demonstrates that these subjects stand in mutual relation to each other, that they depend on each other and can become each other’s factors of influence.   Key words: Pedagogics, Student influence, Participation, Counseling, Global life perspective

The overall aim of this doctoral thesis is to increase knowledge and understanding of special needs education in rural schools. More specifically, the purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyse the enabling and constraining conditions in special needs education for the mission of class teachers', principals' and special educators'. To fulfil this purpose, the following research question is posed: What are the enabling and constraining conditions for special needs education and its organisation, and what meanings are given to special needs education in rural schools? In order to meet this aim four studies were conducted in a total of 58, mainly Swedish rural schools. The schools were spread out geographically and represented both public and independent rural schools. The empirical data consists of interviews, observations and questionnaires. The method of analysis was mainly qualitative content analysis. Descriptive statistics were also used. The first study (Article 1) examines class teachers' conditions for supporting pupils with special educational needs in seven rural schools in Sweden, Norway and Finland. The main results of the interview study are summarized into four themes; relationship, collaboration, distance and concern. The second study (Article II) investigates how principals in rural Swedish schools organize special needs education. A web questionnaire was answered by 45 principals. The results show that the principals balance between an individual approach to special needs and a flexible way of organizing special needs education. The third study (Article III) examines how special educators' expertise in educational consultation is utilized in order to support professional development of class teachers who work in rural schools with diverse pupil groups. Three authentic consultation sessions were observed and analysed. The results show that consultation as a support strategy enables the class teachers to support pupils with special educational needs and strengthens professional collaboration between special educators and class teachers. The fourth study (Article IV) investigates what meanings educators working as principals in independent rural schools attach to special needs education. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire with open-ended questions. According to the principals' special needs education is an activity aimed at supporting all pupils' learning and development. The results also show that the independent schools have strong ties to the surrounding community. The thematic analysis of the four studies displays two main concepts; inner force and outer pressure. These concepts illustrate the enabling as well as the constraining conditions for special needs education in rural schools. The inner force stems from relationships, familiar atmosphere, the possibilities to meet all pupils' needs, collaboration and flexible ways of organizing the educational activities, while the outer pressure stems from threats of school closure, lack of resources and unappreciative municipal authorities. Despite the constraining conditions, which make the rural school vulnerable, the enabling conditions seem to dominate, making the rural school an inclusive learning environment able to meet all pupils' diverse learning needs.