The purpose of this study is to explore the barriers and opportunities that government-assisted refugee (GAR) women experience in settlement. Using a narrative inquiry approach, I elicited the stories of fourteen GAR women of diverse origins who have lived in Metro Vancouver for one to six years. Discourse analysis of the narratives shared within focus groups and individual sessions reveals a hierarchy of exclusory dimensions (barriers) and transformative dimensions (opportunities) of their adaptation process. The analysis also identifies settlement services and programs perceived as helpful by the women in overcoming identified barriers. The findings demonstrate how GAR women are active in their own cross-cultural adaptation and how this process is facilitated by intercultural communication competence and engagement in receiving communication activities. These findings provide insights for government and immigrant serving agencies concerned with tracking settlement outcomes for this population.

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During the last decades, scholars have discussed the changes of Swedish alcohol culture. Among other things, it has been suggested that parallel with increased consumption levels men’s and women’s drinking is becoming more similar. In connection with this discussion, the purpose of this thesis is to examine Swedish alcohol culture(s) by analysing the meanings that focus groups from different generations ascribe to drinking in relation to different life periods: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. More specifically, it aims to analyse how the interviewees specify and negotiate normative boundaries and self-presentations in relation to norms and discourses of gender and age. An essential part of the analysis is to examine differences within gender and age-groups, as well as the similarities between them. The findings suggest that even though drinking patterns are changing in terms of quantity and choice of beverage, meanings, motives and norms seem to be rather stable – especially in regard to gender. Overall, a distinction is being made between men and women: Femininity is constructed in terms of control, responsibility and caring, and masculinity in terms of fearlessness, breaking of boundaries, and loss of control. Men’s and women’s drinking are also accounted for in different ways. While men’s drinking behaviours are excused with arguments about biology and hormones, women’s (anticipated) responsibility is explained with their connection to motherhood. However; these norms vary in strength and are expressed in different ways, depending on the drinking norms of different life-periods; mainly moderate in childhood and adulthood, and mainly orientated to binge-drinking in adolescence. With regard to positive meanings ascribed to drinking, similarities between age and gender groups are also generally greater than the differences between them. Thus, gendered differences are mainly constructed in relation to behaviours that are perceived as risky or problematic.

No description available.

Flera forskare menar att grunden för läsinlärning börjar så fort små barn hör ramsor, sånger och människor prata. Inom förskoleverksamheten är högläsning en vanligt förekommande aktivitet. Läser man högt för barn redan från en tidig ålder kan det resultera i att barnen tidigt utvecklar sin talförmåga. Under högläsningen kan också barnen ta lärdom av nya ord och påbörjar processen av att lära sig läsa. Högläsning kan också lära barn andra saker, t.ex. hur rösten förändras när man uttrycker känslor. Studier har visat att genom samtal och lek i samband med högläsning stimuleras barnens tankeförmåga då de blir delaktiga i en lärprocess. Föreliggande studie genomfördes med hjälp av två fokusgrupper bestående av pedagoger från förskoleverksamhet. Resultatet visar att pedagoger i förskoleverksamhet medvetet arbetar med högläsning för att stimulera barns språkutveckling. Pedagogerna framhöll att de upplever svårigheter med högläsning, t.ex. avbrott under tiden de läser, annat arbete som tar tid ifrån verksamheten samt för många barn samtidigt som de skall läsa för. Trots svårigheterna som finns läser pedagogerna högt för barnen i verksamheten flera gånger om dagen. De uttryckte att barnen då får en lugn stund där de kan slappna av och vila sig från den annars fartfyllda och högljudda verksamheten. Tillsammans med barnen utforskar pedagogerna böckernas värld och erövrar nya kunskaper i samspelet dem emellan. / Several scientists agree that a base for literacy learning forms as soon as small children hear verses, songs and conversations. Reading aloud is a common occurrence in preschool activities and can result in early development of speech at a young age. Children will learn new words and begin the process of learning how to read. Reading aloud can also teach the children other things for example how the voice changes when someone expresses emotions. Studies have shown that through conversation and play during the process of reading aloud stimulates children’s thinking ability as they take part in a teaching process. This study is conducted with a help of two focus groups which consists of educationalists from preschool activities. The result from this study shows that the educationalists deliberately work with reading aloud to stimulate children’s language development. The educationalists expressed that they experience some difficulties with reading aloud. For example interruptions during the reading, other tasks that takes time away from the activity as well as a too large group of children at the same time. Despite the difficulties the educationalists read aloud to the children in their care several times a day. They expressed that this is a chance for a quiet time when the children can relax and rest from the otherwise loud and busy day. Together with the children the educationalists explore the world of books and conquer new knowledge.

With the first commitment of the Kyoto Protocol commencing in 2008, many signatory governments have identified bio fuels as a favoured response to the problem of fulfilling their countries' pledges to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. Despite the tendency for pressure over climate change to expedite the commercialisation process, detailed evaluation of the claimed benefits, likely efficacy or environmental impact of bio fuels in New Zealand in the form of the Bio fuels Sales Obligation policy (BSO): a mandate place on the Oil Companies to supply a percentage of bio fuel. Systems thinking propound the notion of complex interrelatedness: a pivotal concept in our current understanding of the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions and their relationship to climate change. It also recognizes that the multiple ways in which different stakeholders perceive a contentious question are an integral feature of any problematical situation. By applying systems concepts to qualitative research, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is therefore particularly suitable for the analysis of multiple stakeholder discourse in this situation. The present study employs SSM to examine stakeholder opinion through the construction of conceptual models in the form of rich pictures and root definitions. The researcher invited diverse stakeholders to ‘see what they were thinking’ and reflect upon the beliefs and assumptions that informed their views with respect to New Zealand bio fuels development. With reference to official documentation arising from the policy development process and through a series of interviews and a focus group, the research examines perceptions of the consultation process on bio fuels development and its contribution to informed decision-making. The study data indicates that the scope of enquiry tended to be restricted by early presuppositions regarding the consultation process and its desired outcomes, which consequently shifted the focus of consultation the enquiry from an assessment of the desirability of bio fuels to an appraisal of the feasibility of government policy. However inadvertently, communication was distorted. The research examines the basic assumptions that shaped the discourse and enabled already established opinions to prevail. Furthermore, the thesis explores how using SSM to surface tacit assumptions and challenge proposed models of intervention can help improve the reflexivity of discourse and decision-making. By ensuring open communication remains at the centre of discourse, SSM could provide a means of establishing productive conditions for learning and co-creative dialogue. Consequently the study has important implications for how the ‘health’ of public discourse in New Zealand might be sustained when addressing other similarly complex issues.

The aim of this study is to use empirical investigation to collect data and analyze the constructed normative ideas and concepts within the discourse of interculturality. We used the perspective of social constructions as a means of understanding the underlying normative discourses. We used critical white studies to get an alternative understanding on the constructed normative discourses. The investigation was an etnographic study of a preeschool in a multicultural suburb in Stockholm. We used quality methods such as focus groups discussions as the main material for our discourse analysis and did etnographic observations as a complement. The results showed that the preeschool teachers constructed interculturality in the same way as we understand multiculturality and thought the swedish language to be one of the most important elements in their deifinition of interculturality. They constructed the families at the preeschool in a position where they stood in opposition against the families in the inner city of Stockholm, which stands for the normative white majority society

Internationell forskning visar att samtliga etablerade psykoterapier är likvärdigt effektiva och att utfallet påverkas av såväl egenskaper hos terapeut samt klient som av relationen dem emellan. Syftet med studien var att identifiera innebörden i fenomenet allians i systemisk familjeterapi och studien har genomförts med fyra familjeterapeuter i en semistrukturerad fokusgrupp. Studien visade att allians i familjeterapi är ett samspelsfält inkluderande två relaterandenivåer såsom ram och interaktion. De två nivåerna omfattade aspekterna förtrogenhet, asymmetri, relatera till flera, samförstånd, närvaro och berördhet. I resultatet visades också att allians i systemisk familjeterapi handlar om flera allianser mellan terapeut och klienter i olika system. Frågan som har väckts i studien rör om det är relevant att använda begreppet allians i familjeterapi på klientsystem utöver en individ? Förslag till fortsatt forskning är att studera fenomenet allians i familjeterapi ur ett intersubjektivt perspektiv. / International research shows that all established psychotherapy is equally effective and that the outcome is influenced by capacities of the therapist and client as well as the relationship between them. The aim of this study was to identify meaning to the phenomenon of alliance in family therapy and the study was carried out with four family therapists in a semi-structured focus-group. The study showed that alliance in family therapy is an interplay field including two relation levels such as frame and interaction. The two levels comprised the aspects of familiarity, asymmetry, relation to several, consensus, presence and affectedness. The result also showed that alliance in family therapy is about several alliances between therapist and client in different systems. The question raised in the study deals with the relevance to use the concept alliance in family therapy on client systems beyond an individual? Suggestions for continued research are to study the phenomenon of alliance in family therapy from an intersubjective perspective.

This independent project is about child poverty from a preschool teacher perspective. The aim of the study is to examine how a team of preschool teachers converse about the concept of child poverty, and how they discuss their professional role, in relation to children who live in economic vulnerability. Questions of the study are: What image of the concept of child poverty appears in the preschool teachers’ conversations? How do the preschool teachers regard their room for manoeuvre and their social responsibility, in relation to children who live in economical vulnerability? The results of the study were gathered through the method of focus group and the results processed through a qualitative content analysis. Conclusions show that the representation of child poverty that appears in the preschool teachers’ conversation, indicates that it is an invisible phenomenon that is hard to define, and that it strongly connects to expected feelings of shame among children and parents. This representation is setting the frame of how the preschool teachers regard their room for manoeuvre and their social responsibility. Foremost they express difficulties in supporting the economically vulnerable children and their families in a way that is non demonstrative and in the same time retains a relation of confidence to the parents. / Detta examensarbete handlar om barnfattigdom ur ett förskollärarperspektiv. Syftet för studien är att undersöka hur ett arbetslag av förskollärare samtalar om begreppet barnfattigdom, och hur de diskuterar sin professionella roll, i relation till barn som lever i ekonomisk utsatthet. Studiens frågeställningar är: Vilken bild av begreppet barnfattigdom framträder i förskollärarnas samtal? Hur ser förskollärarna på sitt handlingsutrymme och sociala ansvar, i relation till barn som lever i ekonomisk utsatthet? Studiens resultat samlades in genom metoden fokusgrupp, och resultatet bearbetades genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Slutsatserna visar att den bild av barnfattigdom, som framträder i förskollärarnas samtal, indikerar att det är ett svårdefinierat och osynligt fenomen, som starkt kopplas till förväntade skamkänslor hos barn och föräldrar. Denna bild sätter sedan ramarna för hur förskollärarna ser på sitt handlingsutrymme och sociala ansvar. Framförallt uttrycker de en svårighet i att kunna stödja de ekonomiskt utsatta barnen och deras familjer på ett sätt, som inte är utpekande och som samtidigt bevarar en förtroendefull relation till föräldrarna.

O estudo investiga as dinâmicas que orientam as interações entre homossexuais e bissexuais femininas no ambiente escolar, analisando no âmbito da escola aspectos de vulnerabilidade e de potencialidades das ações educativas relacionadas à homossexualidade humana, em especial, a lesbianidade. A metodologia utilizada nesta pesquisa é de caráter qualitativo e tem como procedimento metodológico a realização de grupos focais com educandas de turmas do ensino médio do curso de formação de professores do ensino público. Foram realizados três grupos focais com a participação de vinte e uma adolescentes do sexo feminino e, desses grupos, foram analisados os relatos das sete jovens com experiências de vida mais significativas para as temáticas de interesse deste estudo. Conclui-se que há uma grande resistência por parte de educadores em discutir as questões da sexualidade com seus alunos, assim como por parte dos pais com relação a seus filhos. As jovens mencionaram vivenciar freqüentemente experiências de discriminação pelo fato de serem homoafetivas. É possível compreender este fenômeno a luz do preconceito e do machismo existentes nas sociedades heteronormativas que finda por dificultar o diálogo quando se pretende tratar das questões voltadas às diferentes orientações sexuais na família e no ambiente escolar. / The study investigates the dynamics that guide the interactions among homosexual and bisexual women in the school environment, looking within the school aspects of vulnerability and potential of educational practices related to human homosexuality, in particular, to lesbianism. The methodology used in this research is qualitative and its methodological approach to conducting focus groups with students of high school classes of the training course for teachers of public education. Three focus groups were conducted with the participation of twenty-one female adolescents, and these groups, we analyzed the stories of seven young people with life experiences more meaningful to the themes of interest for this study. We conclude that there is great resistance from educators to discuss issues of sexuality with their students, as well as by parents regarding their children. Young women often experience cited experiences of discrimination because they are homoafetivas. You can understand this phenomenon the light of prejudice and sexism exist in societies heteronormative ending by hindering dialogue when attempting to address the issues facing the different sexual orientations in family and school environment