This study examines how preschool teachers are working together with the children, and how much the children actually influence the work. In order to examine this, a qualitative study has been made, examining four preschool teachers thought and attitudes towards children's influence in some of the most important parts of their daily work. The study examines how preschool teachers are working with the children's influence in early childhood education. This is also the main purpose of the study. The questions made in the study to answer the main purpose are: What does the preschool teacher think of the term democracy in general? What do preschool teachers think about children's influence and how do they work practically with this in their daily work? How does the preschool curriculum define children's influence? To what extent does children's influence get limited in the daily work? The study has used previous research about children's influence in preschool andalso uses the preschool curriculum and the CRC. It shows that the participating preschool teachers working with children's influence within the various parts of preschool activities do so by taking advantage of the children's interests and opinions. At the same time, there may be situations where the children are not given as much influence. The study also shows that teachers assume the perspective of children and child perspective.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Our perceptions of what is just and unjust varies depending on our experiences or ideological affiliation. The formation of the nature reserve Gräsö eastern archipelago was preceded by a debate highlighted in the media, where several of the people on Gräsö positioned themselves for and against the marine reserve. The claims of justice in the debate show variations in perceptions of environmental justice aspects of distribution, recognition and participation. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the pluralism in perceptions of justice may have contributed to the conflict by conducting interviews with advocates and opponents who participated in the deliberation that preceded the decision of the reserve. These are compared with the opinions of environmental justice expressed in interviews with employees of the provincial government who handled the deliberation. The results show a variation in ideas of justice in most aspects and many times the opinions of the advocates better with county government persons than the opponents. That the local population must be recognized as one of the parties to take the decision on reserve formation, if the reserve means a restriction of rights and whether compensation should be paid for these losses are aspects which perceptions of justice varies. In order to address conflicts that are rooted in the variations of justice perception attention must be paid to pluralism in interpretations of environmental justice and the rights that should be taken into account.

The purpose of this research is to develop an information system to input public values into the planning and evaluation process. A hierarchy of goals is developed and disaggregated until terms meaningful to the general public, and describing the state of the world, can be input to the disaggregation. The relationship between the planning process and the public values expressed by the terms describing the state of the world is discussed. A function is hypothesized to quantify one measure of perceived well-being. The application of the quantifying function to the general public and to sub-groups of the general public is discussed. The conventional scaling techniques of ranking and rating are discussed and compared with a general allocation technique and other psychologic scaling methods to estimate the parameters of the quantifying function. A power function is tested against the satisfaction ratings given a group of samples of water of varying clarity. The parameters thus estimated are significantly greater than zero. The general allocation technique was used to recover the parameters of the quantifying function and compared to the parameters estimated by the regression analysis. The general allocation technique showed promise as a means of recovering the public values. The general allocation technique was then applied to determine the goal and sub-goal preferences of subjects in Arizona and the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. The research indicates that community values can be input to the planning process by use of the disaggregated goal structure and the quantifying function. The general allocation technique, used in a mail survey, shows promise as a means of recovering community preferences. The disaggregation of community goals may provide a means of linking the technical criteria of the professional and the values and goals of the general public. The development of a hierarchy of goals may provide an additional tool for decision makers and professionals in their analysis of public values.

In this dissertation, the participation of 5-year-old Spanish speaking children in a kindergarten classroom community was explored. The school was located in a working and middle-class community in Southern Arizona, where pursuant to state law; the language of instruction was English. Student participants spent four hours every day in an English Language Development classroom, segregated from their native-English speaking peers.The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore factors that affected the participation of kindergarten English Language Learners (ELLs) in knowledge construction in their classroom community. Research questions were addressed by examining ways teacher questioning strategies and evaluation responses enabled or constrained the participation of ELLs in mathematics, as well as the role ofpeers in the classroom. Data were analyzed through participant frameworks, whichilluminated the process of identity negotiation through positioning strategies. Questions were investigated through the theoretical framework of communities of practice, in which learning as apprenticeship in knowledge distribution among experts and novices is emphasized.Results indicated that teachers apprenticed ELLs into academic language in three ways: (a) using predictable, consistent language; (b) using choice and process elicitations in questioning strategies; and (c) repairing communication by revoicing student responses. In math table groups, ELLs participated by talking about resources,procedures, and initiating and extending topics. Results also showed how English-proficient peers apprenticed ELLs into negotiating inclusion and exclusion requirements, which were necessary to build an argument.

A series of 6-endo-(methylthio)-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptane-2-endo-proline amides was synthesized to study the neighboring proline amide participation in electron transfer from thioethers. The thioether with endo-pyrrolidine amide formed a two-center three-electron SO bond after one electron oxidation and the oxidation potential of the thioether was lowered by 530 mV and 330 mV compared to the corresponding exo-pyrrolidine amide and the primary amide analogues, respectively. The thioether with a proline methyl ester showed the oxidation potential of 410 mV higher than that of the pyrrolidine amide. The basis for this surprising result was revealed by an X-ray crystallographic structure study of the diastereomerically pure proline methyl ester which showed amide carbonyl n → methyl ester π* interaction which removes electron density from the neighboring amide which results in less effective neighboring amide participation in thioether oxidation. This accounts for the electrochemical result. A potent synthetic route for S-tert-butyl m-terphenyl thioethers was developed and a series of such thioethers was synthesized. Electrochemical studies showed through-space S∙∙∙π interaction with lower oxidation potentials for thioethers with more electron rich aromatic groups and higher oxidation potentials with electron withdrawing aromatic groups. Selective Suzuki reactions were discovered in which mono-coupling of the precursor dibromides could be achieved. A second coupling was then possible in which two different aromatic rings are attached to the central aryl thioether ring. This enabled the synthesis of a two-sulfur three-aromatic ring extended m-terphenyl thioether as a potential electron conductor. In support of this possibility this compound showed an oxidation potential of +0.99 V which is less positive than the +1.09 V measured for the mono-sulfur analog.