Studien undersöker fritidshemslärares didaktiska arbete och samverkan med ämneslärare,samt rektorns roll i samverkan. Detta tema uppstod efter att vi deltagit i praktik och fåttobservera fritidshemslärarna i deras verksamhet. Tidigare forskning som används visar hurfritidshemslärare använder didaktiska arbetssätt för att planera och genomföraundervisningen. Den visar även att samverkan med ämneslärare spelar en roll i det didaktiskaarbetet på fritidsverksamheten, samt att rektorn har en betydande roll i samverkan. För attanalysera det empiriska materialet har sju begrepp använts, vilka alla har en koppling till detsociokulturella perspektivet. Det empiriska materialet består av intervjuer med fyra olikafritidshemslärare som arbetar på olika skolor. Intervjuerna spelades in och transkriberadessedan för att kunna bearbetas. Resultaten visar att fritidshemslärare planerar aktiviteter medtydliga syften, anpassar undervisningen efter elevernas behov och ser samverkan somavgörande för att uppnå detta. Trots utmaningar som tidsbrist och kommunikation, harrespondenterna en positiv syn på samverkan. De ser även rektorn som en trygghetspunkt trotseventuella brister. Resultaten och analysen jämförs därefter med den tidigare forskningen föratt ge en helhetsbild av forskningsområdet. Avslutningsvis diskuteras framtidaforskningsvägar, där en möjlig väg är att inkludera observationer i intervjuerna för att få endjupare förståelse för det didaktiska arbetet i praktiken. Därefter reflekterar vi över hur dennastudies resultat och diskussion har bidragit till professionsutveckling för lärare till fritidshem. / The study examines the didactic work of leisure-time educators and their collaboration with subject teachers, as well as the role of the principal in this collaboration. This theme emerged after our participation in practice and observation of leisure-time educators in their activities. Previous research utilized illustrates how leisure-time educators employ didactic approaches to plan and conduct teaching. It also demonstrates that collaboration with subject teachers plays a role in the didactic work of leisure-time activities, and that the principal has a significant role in this collaboration. To analyze the empirical material, seven concepts related to the sociocultural perspective have been employed. The empirical material consists of interviews with four different leisure-time educators working in different schools. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The results indicate that leisure-time educators plan activities with clear objectives, adapt teaching to students' needs, and view collaboration as crucial for achieving this. Despite challenges such as time constraints and communication issues, respondents have a positive view of collaboration. They also perceive the principal as a point of security despite potential shortcomings. The results and analysis are then compared with previous research to provide a comprehensive overview of the research area. Finally, future research directions are discussed, with one potential avenue being the inclusion of observations in interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the didactic work in practice. Subsequently, we reflect on how the results and discussion of this study have contributed to the professional development of leisure-time educators.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Foundations and Adult Education / Sarah Jane Fishback / There have been two classic models of the way self-directed learners organize their learning experiences – a planning model, discussed by researchers such as Tough (1971) and Knowles (1975), which considers self-directed learners to be actively and deliberately planning their learning projects, and an environmental model, proposed by Spear and Mocker (1984), which considers these learners to be strongly influenced by what they called the organizing circumstance. Later researchers have found support for both models. Both models posit that learning resources play an important role for self-directed learners, but there hasn’t been much research specifically looking at how learners make resource decisions. For this project, the researcher recruited 13 women from online sewing communities who had reported obtaining a particular hard-to-find sewing resource and interviewed them about their resource decisions and resource libraries. The project asked the questions of how self-directed learners are planning, the criteria they use to choose learning resources, how an environment of plentiful resources and the internet affect these choices, and how learners evaluate their resources. The researcher found that this particular group of learners are conscious only of doing short-term, project-by-project, planning, but reveal another, unconscious level of building mental maps of their entire field of interest, including judgments of their personal interests and evaluations of their personal skill sets. These learners enjoy this learning, and consider their resources to be treats as well as references; they seek relevant content, novelty, and intellectual challenge. They are strongly influenced by their communities, both local and online, but maintain independence in their learning choices.

The primary objective was to ascertain whether implementation of the e-tolling system will influence the spending on recreational activities by people staying in the Vaal Region. Thus the aim was to assess whether an incremental rise in expenses, leading to a decrease in available disposable income will impact people’s decisions to travel outside their residences to visit and engage in leisure destinations and activities respectively. A questionnaire was developed and distributed with the primary objective of determining whether people within the Vaal Region are aware of the costs associated with travelling using the e-toll Gauteng freeways, and whether it will have an impact on their decisions to travel from their respective residences to leisure properties elsewhere. It also probed the respondents for the type of leisure activities they engage in, frequency of visits and the reasons for participating in the respective activities. The study shows that the e-toll project will inevitably, from a monetary perspective, affect all road users travelling from the Vaal Region to the greater Johannesburg areas. This is significant and confirms that the e-toll project will be perceived to have an impact on people’s available and disposable income. With the implementation of the e-tolling project seemingly imminent, businesses and consumers will feel the belt tighten in the leisure and recreational (and in particular the casino) industry, which is dependent on the availability of disposable income, to be ultimately affected. Trends with regards to leisure activities were identified along with recommendations for future research. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The primary objective was to ascertain whether implementation of the e-tolling system will influence the spending on recreational activities by people staying in the Vaal Region. Thus the aim was to assess whether an incremental rise in expenses, leading to a decrease in available disposable income will impact people’s decisions to travel outside their residences to visit and engage in leisure destinations and activities respectively. A questionnaire was developed and distributed with the primary objective of determining whether people within the Vaal Region are aware of the costs associated with travelling using the e-toll Gauteng freeways, and whether it will have an impact on their decisions to travel from their respective residences to leisure properties elsewhere. It also probed the respondents for the type of leisure activities they engage in, frequency of visits and the reasons for participating in the respective activities. The study shows that the e-toll project will inevitably, from a monetary perspective, affect all road users travelling from the Vaal Region to the greater Johannesburg areas. This is significant and confirms that the e-toll project will be perceived to have an impact on people’s available and disposable income. With the implementation of the e-tolling project seemingly imminent, businesses and consumers will feel the belt tighten in the leisure and recreational (and in particular the casino) industry, which is dependent on the availability of disposable income, to be ultimately affected. Trends with regards to leisure activities were identified along with recommendations for future research. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In this essay I have examined the inclusion in the school, specifically in the classroom and leisure time center. Inclusion means briefly that all students, regardless of their capability for school work, should be part of the planned teaching, and also be able to assimilate the knowledge that is intended to be conveyed. During my years as an educator in classroom and after-school center I've seen how this inclusion is very complicated to implement and sometimes impracticable. I have investigated how inclusion works and how it does not work in both the classroom and in the leisure time center. I have done this by examining the inclusion from three different perspectives: student´s, educator´s and school´s. I show and discuss how different inclusion can be perceived depending on which perspective you look from. I also describe how inclusion is shaped, both positively and negatively, by external factors, so-called framework factors. I discuss how these framework factors provide or do not provide educational opportunities and how they condition the educator´s practice. Opportunities that sometimes are taken advantage of and sometimes overlooked.

Our aim with this essay is to examine the challenges that recreation teachers faces at their workplaces. We especially focus which cause difficulties for the implementation of recreation teacher’s assignments. We hope to highlight the difficulties and factors which act as a barrier to recreation teachers. The questions that we are trying to answer are: what perceptions in their daily work recreation teachers shave of their mission? What challenges do recreation teachers experience in the implementation of their mission? What solutions and aids do recreation teachers use to meet these challenges? We will use a qualitative method in our essay. Data collection includes interviews with four recreation teachers in three different schools. The empirical material will be analyzed and interpreted from a socio- cultural perspective and by means of other research in this area. The result shows that recreation teachers are experiencing challenges but are trying to carry out their mission through a variety of methods in order to provide children with basic care.

In the era of online business, digital devices, and electric books, bricks-and-mortar bookshops are in decline. Although the future of physical bookstores has received much anecdotal attention, little examination has occurred in the academic context. With a specific focus on the development of a comprehensive understanding of bookstore experiences, this research employs more-than-representational theory in order to conceptualise the ‘operational logics’ of bookstore experience. Through an ethnographic investigation of Eslite, one of the leading bookstore chains in Taiwan, this thesis argues that in order to thrive and sustain its bookselling business Eslite bookstores are produced as experiencescapes through performance. In these experiencescapes, consumers act as creative artisans who are able to re-configure any given situation, enacting countless possibilities through their embodied practices. Likewise, I suggest that cultural meanings, values, and ideological thoughts are connected to these embodied practices, spaces, identities and lifestyle through consumers’ book experiences. In addressing how practice constantly engages with corporate plans, cultural meanings, identities, and personal ways of life, this thesis contributes to wider debates on the processes of how the (more than) representational is presented and performed, and therefore invites researchers to develop a greater sensitivity to ‘doing’ geographies of consumption and spatial practices.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate, describe, and thus understand, the phenomenon of the strategy-creation process, the process, content, and context in senior Welsh rugby clubs, 1990 - 2000. The inspiration for the research arose during a monumental decade of transformation to the Game of Rugby Union Football. The research questions concern evaluating the clubs’ strategy-creation process, and the reactions to the introduction of National Leagues and Professionalism. The process pursued was centred on a purposive sample of three nonprofit rugby clubs. In addition to an in-depth analysis of the general strategy management literature, reviews were conducted within the themes of small business, nonprofits and sporting organizations. A lack of prior research in the strategy action-outcomes in the nonprofits, sporting sector, particularly the rugby union environment, was a cause for concern. The general literature revealed clear differences of opinion between researchers about the relationship between organizational strategy, strategy-creation and outcomes. An interpretive approach was adopted, employing the validated theoretical framework by Bailey et al (2000), to collect, and analyse, ‘insider’ data from different levels of club respondents, and also from various club stakeholders. The content (outcomes) found that rugby clubs employed operational planning regularly during the playing season. Strategic planning had been used, but only on a few necessary occasions. The decision-making processes were found to have strong political and enforced choice dimensions, both pre- and post- 1995. The Introduction of Professionalism had caused the need for clubs to manage conflicting rugby and business objectives, and to re-appraise the influence of culture on decisions. However, it did not change the clubs’ long established priority of placing playing performance before financial performance. The context of the clubs’ turbulent external environment, coupled with the uncertainty and unpredictability of the Game, ensured an annual, seasonal struggle for survival for clubs operating in a niche market. These distinctive operating conditions strongly influence a rugby club’s strategy-creation. This thesis concludes by considering the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings arising from the study of non-profit rugby clubs.

As the game of England and empire, cricket is a significant colonial and postcolonial cultural practice which has proven as important to anti colonial modes of resistance, opposition and independence as its image of Englishness was to the hegemonizing project of British imperialism. Although the game has an immense literature of its own, little critical attention has been paid to its place in the field of literary studies. Consequently, taking its title and starting point from the interwoven questioning of Rudyard Kipling and C. L. R. James, this thesis explores cricket's repeated presence in English and Caribbean literature as a symbol of interconnected national and imperial identities under constant renegotiation, concentrating specifically on the construction and problematization of the male cricket hero - real and/or fictional - from Tom Brown to Brian Lara. Organized around the territorial metaphor of the crease, Part One, `English Literature at the Imperial Crease 1850s-1950s', offers two chapters which examine the place of cricket in the creation, imperial contextualization and post war decline of the English cricketing gentleman as a hero of the nation. Part Two, `Caribbean Heroes at the Literary Crease after 1950', engages with cricket's relation to the masculine quest for independence in Trinidadian literature as well as a range of poetic representations of the Caribbean's substantial investment in cricket heroes. Finally, Part Three, `The Straight White Line', re-evokes the crease as line and territory to read the trans-gendered British Caribbean cricketing body of Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992). The thesis argues that while cricket has been a valuable vehicle for the postcolonial expression of freedom in the Caribbean and elsewhere it has also remained tied to an over investment in individual male heroes which continues to pose substantial problems to projects of collective emancipation.

The aim of the research is to analyze the ways in which the cultural meanings of professional sport associated with gender, ethnicity, and age are changing in the U.K. and the U.S. in the context of international social processes. This study contributes to the examination of mediated sport, and therefore, wider sporting and social processes, in several ways. It assesses mediated sport discourses as reproducing existing power relations as arranged around the social categories of gender and ethnicity. It acknowledges hegemonic masculinity remains as a useful concept for understanding the construction of gender, specifically within mediated sport. Elements of hegemonic, and therefore subordinate, masculinity are demonstrating nuanced changes. Discourses relating to media coverage of large-scale sporting events further emphasize the divisions and are implicated as resources for difference making between individuals and groups based on ethnic, ‘racialized,’ and national identities. Finally, this study offers an initial exploration of mediated sport and age. Here mediated sport discourses build a system of values and definitions related to cultural understandings of the body, social interaction, and behavioural convention; this establishes what the researcher has termed an ‘age complex’ derived from mediated sport discourses.