The aim of this thesis is to understand how a repertoire of municipal planning narratives evolved and how these were used as a means to explain, legitimise and produce change in a city that went through a process of urban transformation. The focus is set on the role of narratives in municipal plans as a mental preparation for change. In order to reach this aim, a framework for narrative analysis is developed that shall facilitate a critical reading of such municipal planning documents as comprehensive plans. This shall help to understand among other things how place and community are constructed. This framework is used to interpret four documents of the municipality of Karlskrona, one introductory guide for new inhabitants from 1980, and three consecutive comprehensive plans, adopted in 1991, 2002 and 2010. In short, the narrative analysis consists of four different ways of reading each respective document. First, more or less coherent narratives are identified in the texts. Second, they are analysed with respect to their literary and rhetoric form, in a way that is inspired by historian and literary theorist Hayden White. A third reading places the documents’ narratives into their historical context. Finally, they are classified as certain narratives of place identity on the basis of a typology developed by sociologist Manuel Castells. He states that identities can be constructed with help of narratives that legitimise the existing societal structures, that stand in opposition to these structures, or that create a new identity out of available resources. Based on these readings, I find that the four documents use very different literary and rhetorical forms and that they construct the place’s identity in ways clearly distinct from each other. They express various moral and political perspectives and convey clearly distinct social norms regarding the role of inhabitants and the municipality. Over the decades, there has been a clear shift of expressed values from those that support a leading role of the (local) state in fostering local development to those that highlight the importance of market actors and market forces. A similar change has occurred from the pronunciation of state responsibility for the inhabitant’s well-being to a greater focus on individual responsibility. This confirms the notion that municipal planning is increasingly influenced by ideas of neoliberal development. It could also be observed that storytelling and a purposeful narrative construction of place identity have become more prominent as instruments of planning. Planning narratives were clearly used to explain and legitimise shifts or persistence in municipal policymaking. Due to this it can be concluded that in the eyes of local policy makers, the municipality seems to have gone through a complete process of urban transformation from being in a state of decline to one of stabilised growth.

Thesis advisor: Dennis Shirley / Since 2010, many states in America have implemented the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Yet there is a gap in the research when it comes to ELA teachers’ experiences with the CCSS. This dissertation uses narrative thematic analysis (Reissman, 2008) to explore how eight public school, grade 6-12 ELA teachers make sense of the CCSS. The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute a more complex picture of how educators make sense of national policy in light of their curricular choices, motivations for teaching, and their beliefs about the purposes of ELA education. Narrative thematic analysis revealed that the eight teachers in this study have conflicting views about the CCSS and its impact on their teaching and beliefs. Many of the teachers described significant worry regarding the CCSS during their initial involvement. However, as time progressed, teachers described a growing sense of excitement about the CCSS. Issues such as school climate, process of implementation, and amount of pressure were significant factors contributing to the teachers’ experiences. Regarding the specific shift prescribed by the CCSS towards more nonfiction in the curriculum for ELA classes, teachers discussed fear, confusion, and, eventually, enthusiasm as responses to this initiative. An outlier among the data set described feelings of loss and sadness regarding creative content that was lost due to the CCSS. In concert with narrative thematic analysis (Reissman, 2008) I utilized the conceptual framework of sensemaking theory (Weick, 1995; 2005), to contextualize the stories teachers shared in this study. Social and relational emphases emerged as dominant ways teachers made sense of their work and their responses to the CCSS. Experiences with the CCSS are far more complex than typically reported. More inclusion of teacher voices and experiences has immense power to shape future policy and implementation. Additionally, inclusion of teacher narratives can significantly contribute to the research on creating supportive cultures and contexts in which standards and educational expectations are both created and utilized. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

This research examined the stories of three teachers with learning disabilities at the inception of their teaching careers. The research explored the composition of the teacher's professional knowledge, described in the literature as consisting of academic knowledge and personal knowledge. Would the teacher with learning disabilities express her painful childhood school memories in her presentday professional deliberations, as is indicated in the literature relating to case descriptions and research studies? The research question was: what does the 'personal self' of the teacher with learning disabilities at the inception of her career contribute to her 'professional self'? Assisted by the narrative approach that sees a person as creating stories that structure and express his identity, the teachers' stories were collected, recorded and later analysed by interpretative analysis which related to the story's structure and contents. Research data were collected from three sources: the autobiographical story of the teacher presenting personal memories and interpretation for past life events, which illustrate the teacher's interpersonal self and the intrapersonal self. The teacher's reflective feedback regarding her lessons, presented the teacher's interpretations of her professional considerations and a description of an educational event from her work revealed her educativevalue world. All these demonstrated her professional knowledge. The research findings show that coherence exists between the personal story and the professional story and the organising positioning in each of the teacher's stories was identified. It was found that the professional considerations of the teacher, including didactic knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, use of reasoned rules and reading the class map, acted on a background of knowledge that was gathered from the 'personal self' and this enriched the teacher's 'professional self' at the inception of her career.

Esta pesquisa tem como objeto narrativas biográficas de meninas autoras de violência física. Analiso 22 narrativas biográficas de adolescentes mulheres cumprindo medida socioeducativa pelo cometimento de atos de violência física (homicídio, tentativa de homicídio, latrocínio e sequestro) no Centro de Atendimento Socioeducativo Feminino do Rio Grande do Sul (Casef-RS). Busco entender de que forma as experiências de violência (tanto sofridas quanto praticadas), as representações e as práticas de gênero figuram e se interseccionam nas narrativas biográficas das adolescentes entrevistadas. Analiso os tipos de relação que as adolescentes estabelecem entre violência física e sua posição como mulher nos espaços sociais por que transitam. Interessa-me entender como práticas e representações de gênero aparentemente contrárias à feminilidade enfatizada (como é o caso da violência física) são reguladas e significadas dentro de seus contextos específicos. Procuro apreender as condições em que o cometimento de violência é significado, pelas adolescentes, como coerente com sua posição como mulher, e em que condições isso não ocorre. Nesse sentido, esta pesquisa se insere nos debates sobre a prevalência da agência (a resistência) ou da estrutura social (a vitimização) nas práticas e representações de mulheres autoras de violência. Como referencial teórico-metodológico, utilizo a teoria das práticas de Pierre Bourdieu. Diante da importância da análise de narrativas de mulheres criminalizadas para apreender tanto as estruturas sociais quanto os sentidos subjetivos que elas atribuem à violência, utilizo o conceito de habitus narrativo desenvolvido por Fleetwood, a partir do qual procuro conciliar as proposições de Bourdieu com a análise narrativa. Neste trabalho, analiso em profundidade oito narrativas, divididas em quatro grupos. Para cada grupo, foram selecionados relatos que estabelecem relações específicas entre feminilidade e cometimento de violência. São esses grupos: (i) narrativas de meninas envolvidas diretamente com o tráfico de drogas; (ii) de meninas que cometeram atos violentos contra outras mulheres; (iii) de meninas que foram obrigadas a cometer os atos pelos quais cumprem medida socioeducativa; e (iv) de meninas que cometeram violência em defesa própria ou de outras pessoas. Concluo que o cometimento de violência por parte das meninas é compreendido por elas como coerente com a manutenção de sua feminilidade em determinados contextos. Assim, certas práticas violentas não fazem delas menos mulheres, tampouco são praticadas em resistência ou desacordo com suas percepções sobre o que cabe a uma menina fazer. As posições tomadas pelas meninas, em situações nas quais a violência é percebida como legítima e coerente com a feminilidade, são: (i) como profissionais, na tomada de responsabilidade em uma situação de trabalho no narcotráfico; (ii) como rivais ou esposas, agindo em prol da manutenção das relações monogâmicas heterossexuais e (iii) como sobreviventes, por necessidade imediata, autodefesa ou proteção de outros. Logo, argumento que não há por parte das meninas uma negação da feminilidade enfatizada. Proponho que o que ocorre é uma transformação e uma negociação das condições de reprodução desta feminilidade, em um processo que torna práticas violentas condizentes com a ordem de gênero de tais contextos. / This research analyses the biographical narratives of teenage girls who committed violent acts. I have collected 22 narratives of female juvenile offenders currently incarcerated due to violent offenses (homicide, attempted homicide, robbery murder, and kidnapping) at the Center for Social and Educational Services for Teenage Women, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I aim at understanding how these girls representations of gender and physical violence (both suffered and committed) intersect in their biographical narratives. Thus, I investigate the connections they establish between their violent practices and the positions they occupy as young women in their social space. I focus on how gender practices that seem contrary to emphasized femininity (such as the practice of violence) are regulated and negotiated in these girls social context. I aim at understanding under which conditions the practice of physical violence is regarded as coherent with the girls femininity, and under which conditions it is not. Thus, this research inserts itself in the ongoing debate about whether it is agency (in the form of a resistance to gender norms) or social structure (in the form of victimization) that prevails in violent womens practices and representations of gender. In order to escape this dichotomy, I analyse these narratives through the lens of Pierre Bourdieus theory of practice. Aiming at apprehending both material conditions and subjective meanings attributed to femininity and violence, I use the concept of narrative habitus, as established by Fleetwood, to analyse these stories. In this dissertation, I analyse eight narratives in depth, dividing them in four groups. Each group is composed by narratives which comprise similar associations between femininity and violence. These groups are: (i) narratives of girls who are directly involved in the drug trade; (ii) narratives of girls who attacked other women; (iii) narratives of girls who were forced to commit violence and (iv) narratives of girls who committed violence to defend themselves or others. I have found that girls perceive their violent acts as coherent to their femininity in some contexts. Thus, some violent practices do not put them in conflict with their feminine identity and are not perceived as a form of resistance to gender expectations. In these girls understanding, legitimate and intelligible reasons and positions to commit violence and maintain their status as women are: (i) as professionals, when they are in charge of the drug trade; (ii) as rivals or spouses, when they commit violence against other girls who threat their heterosexual relationships; and (iii) as survivors, when they feel they have no choice other than to commit violence, to protect themselves or others. I argue, then, that these girls do not deny emphasized femininity, but that the conditions under which this femininity is socially accepted and reproduced is transformed and negotiated in these girls social context to accommodate practices like violence.

Esta pesquisa tem como objeto narrativas biográficas de meninas autoras de violência física. Analiso 22 narrativas biográficas de adolescentes mulheres cumprindo medida socioeducativa pelo cometimento de atos de violência física (homicídio, tentativa de homicídio, latrocínio e sequestro) no Centro de Atendimento Socioeducativo Feminino do Rio Grande do Sul (Casef-RS). Busco entender de que forma as experiências de violência (tanto sofridas quanto praticadas), as representações e as práticas de gênero figuram e se interseccionam nas narrativas biográficas das adolescentes entrevistadas. Analiso os tipos de relação que as adolescentes estabelecem entre violência física e sua posição como mulher nos espaços sociais por que transitam. Interessa-me entender como práticas e representações de gênero aparentemente contrárias à feminilidade enfatizada (como é o caso da violência física) são reguladas e significadas dentro de seus contextos específicos. Procuro apreender as condições em que o cometimento de violência é significado, pelas adolescentes, como coerente com sua posição como mulher, e em que condições isso não ocorre. Nesse sentido, esta pesquisa se insere nos debates sobre a prevalência da agência (a resistência) ou da estrutura social (a vitimização) nas práticas e representações de mulheres autoras de violência. Como referencial teórico-metodológico, utilizo a teoria das práticas de Pierre Bourdieu. Diante da importância da análise de narrativas de mulheres criminalizadas para apreender tanto as estruturas sociais quanto os sentidos subjetivos que elas atribuem à violência, utilizo o conceito de habitus narrativo desenvolvido por Fleetwood, a partir do qual procuro conciliar as proposições de Bourdieu com a análise narrativa. Neste trabalho, analiso em profundidade oito narrativas, divididas em quatro grupos. Para cada grupo, foram selecionados relatos que estabelecem relações específicas entre feminilidade e cometimento de violência. São esses grupos: (i) narrativas de meninas envolvidas diretamente com o tráfico de drogas; (ii) de meninas que cometeram atos violentos contra outras mulheres; (iii) de meninas que foram obrigadas a cometer os atos pelos quais cumprem medida socioeducativa; e (iv) de meninas que cometeram violência em defesa própria ou de outras pessoas. Concluo que o cometimento de violência por parte das meninas é compreendido por elas como coerente com a manutenção de sua feminilidade em determinados contextos. Assim, certas práticas violentas não fazem delas menos mulheres, tampouco são praticadas em resistência ou desacordo com suas percepções sobre o que cabe a uma menina fazer. As posições tomadas pelas meninas, em situações nas quais a violência é percebida como legítima e coerente com a feminilidade, são: (i) como profissionais, na tomada de responsabilidade em uma situação de trabalho no narcotráfico; (ii) como rivais ou esposas, agindo em prol da manutenção das relações monogâmicas heterossexuais e (iii) como sobreviventes, por necessidade imediata, autodefesa ou proteção de outros. Logo, argumento que não há por parte das meninas uma negação da feminilidade enfatizada. Proponho que o que ocorre é uma transformação e uma negociação das condições de reprodução desta feminilidade, em um processo que torna práticas violentas condizentes com a ordem de gênero de tais contextos. / This research analyses the biographical narratives of teenage girls who committed violent acts. I have collected 22 narratives of female juvenile offenders currently incarcerated due to violent offenses (homicide, attempted homicide, robbery murder, and kidnapping) at the Center for Social and Educational Services for Teenage Women, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I aim at understanding how these girls representations of gender and physical violence (both suffered and committed) intersect in their biographical narratives. Thus, I investigate the connections they establish between their violent practices and the positions they occupy as young women in their social space. I focus on how gender practices that seem contrary to emphasized femininity (such as the practice of violence) are regulated and negotiated in these girls social context. I aim at understanding under which conditions the practice of physical violence is regarded as coherent with the girls femininity, and under which conditions it is not. Thus, this research inserts itself in the ongoing debate about whether it is agency (in the form of a resistance to gender norms) or social structure (in the form of victimization) that prevails in violent womens practices and representations of gender. In order to escape this dichotomy, I analyse these narratives through the lens of Pierre Bourdieus theory of practice. Aiming at apprehending both material conditions and subjective meanings attributed to femininity and violence, I use the concept of narrative habitus, as established by Fleetwood, to analyse these stories. In this dissertation, I analyse eight narratives in depth, dividing them in four groups. Each group is composed by narratives which comprise similar associations between femininity and violence. These groups are: (i) narratives of girls who are directly involved in the drug trade; (ii) narratives of girls who attacked other women; (iii) narratives of girls who were forced to commit violence and (iv) narratives of girls who committed violence to defend themselves or others. I have found that girls perceive their violent acts as coherent to their femininity in some contexts. Thus, some violent practices do not put them in conflict with their feminine identity and are not perceived as a form of resistance to gender expectations. In these girls understanding, legitimate and intelligible reasons and positions to commit violence and maintain their status as women are: (i) as professionals, when they are in charge of the drug trade; (ii) as rivals or spouses, when they commit violence against other girls who threat their heterosexual relationships; and (iii) as survivors, when they feel they have no choice other than to commit violence, to protect themselves or others. I argue, then, that these girls do not deny emphasized femininity, but that the conditions under which this femininity is socially accepted and reproduced is transformed and negotiated in these girls social context to accommodate practices like violence.

abstract: This study explores the online recruitment and mobilization of followers in a social movement. In this study, I identify and analyze how certain narratives were produced, distributed and recirculated online by a social movement organization that depicted players in the movement in ways that engaged followers in actions of advocacy and support. Also, I examine how particular narratives were taken up, negotiated, amplified, and distributed by online supporters who eventually become co-tellers of the narrative and ultimately advocates on behalf of the social movement. By examining a selection of media statements, open letters, protest speeches, blogs, videos and pictures, I show how online practices might contribute to inspiring and mobilizing action or responses from a large number of followers. Data include selected excerpts from an online social movement that began in Norway in 2015 and later gathered momentum and strength outside of Norway and Europe. This multi-modal analysis of digital practices demonstrates how collaboratively produced narratives (e.g., of suffering, sorrow, persecution or resilience) emerge and gain traction in the digital space, the relationship between the temporal and spatial dimensions of narrative, and the role of collective memory in building a sense of community and shared identity. Demonstrating the dialogic and interactional dimensions of meaning-making processes, this case study informs how we might theorize and understand the role of identity and narrative in the emergence and amplification of social movements. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2019

This thesis is an examination of enski list, arguably the first magazine published exclusively for women between the wars in Croatia, and Yugoslavia. To fully understand the place, meaning and the impact of this magazine on everyday lives of its readers, with the study of the content I also include examination of the role of its editor and the first Croatian woman journalist Marija Jurić Zagorka. Finally, this thesis examines readers' responses to the content, their opinions, interactions between the readers and the editor, as well as interactions between the readers themselves for the overall assessment of the significance of enski list in the history of popular women's press in Croatia, and Yugoslavia. This thesis is a historical project which uses two theoretical approaches to study of media: feminist political economic approach, and the feminist critique of the public sphere. By combining these two theoretical standpoints I illuminated some of the ways in which media participate in everyday lives of people, specifically marginalized groups, in this case women. Situating the study within the historical context of the interwar Yugoslavia, and interwar Europe was important for understanding of this project, and its research questions. In this study I used multiple methods: (a) textual; (b) historical and biographical and, (c) audience study. In the larger part of this study which is a narrative discourse analysis of the content of enski list, I was also inspired by the interpretive ethnography of texts. I connected ethnography to feminist theory and political economy, to circumstances of gendered everyday practices and to circumstances of media culture production, all within the specific historical context. In this study I found that women in the changing socio-political and economic context expressed their relation to capitalism and modernity in different ways, sometimes exerting their critiques and the refusal of the existing patriarchal structures and sometimes seeking inclusion within the structures, with the intent to practice primarily gender equality by direct participation. Finally, the analysis of enski list has told an important story of the place of media, and the women's press in particular, in initiating, carrying, and challenging traditional and emerging discourses in the hope that they would contribute to the ways in which society can be imagined differently.

<p>The thesis deals with how<strong> </strong>technology as a school subject is presented to the pupils in the Swedish compulsory school at junior high school level. The main focus is on how teachers work with the subject matter in teaching, which is on the level of <em>the</em> <em>enacted curriculum</em>. The official documents established by the national school authorities,<em> the intended curriculum</em>, and <em>the hidden curriculum</em> are both of special interest in the study. The hidden curriculum refers to possible, but not intended consequences of the enacted curriculum for pupils’ understanding of technology as a school subject. </p><p><em>          </em>The empirical analysis of the study is based on a narrative analysis on the one hand and the variation theory on the other. The empirical data collection consists of data from:<strong> </strong>(a) interviews with five teachers and (b) a series of classroom observations, covering an entire section of each teacher’s course of the subject matter.</p><p>          The data from the interviews with these teachers indicated that they understood the concept of technology as<strong> </strong>human made artefacts aiming to satisfy practical needs. When it came to the understanding of technology as a school subject the teachers differed between understanding the aim of the subject as to: (1) practice craftsmanship, (2) prepare the pupils for future careers as engineers, (3) illustrate science, (4) strengthen girls’ technical self-confidence and (5) get the pupils interested in technology in order to become inventors in the future. <strong></strong></p><p>The data from the classroom observations indicated that the teaching presented in technology gave the pupils the opportunity to develop three specific capabilities: (1) evaluate and test functionality, (2) be precise and accurate and (3) construct, build and mount. The three capabilities were possible to develop when accomplishing tasks of practical character. Results also indicated that technology as a school subject was taught in different ways depending on the teachers’ educational background, the physical learning environment and the size of the school class. Variation theory was applied as a tool in the analysis of the data from the classroom observations, i.e. the teachers’ ways of working with the subject matter. The analysis indicated that the most frequently used pattern of variation was ‘contrast’.  Through the contrast-variation the teachers managed to contrast better or worse alternatives of constructing and using artefacts. It can be argued that this pattern of variation, ‘contrast’, is the proper pattern when pupils are working with limited or expensive material.<strong></strong></p><p>          The overall conclusion of the study is that teachers’ interpretations of current intended curriculum and their choices of subject matter and teaching methods affect which abilities the pupils are<strong> </strong>offered to develop in technology as a school subject. Based on the results of the study it can be argued that the education and the teaching of technology lacks realism and the result is that technology as a school subject may be experienced by pupils as not very important. It is obvious that the school subject technology, as well as teaching in technology, in the Swedish compulsory school, demands more attention from the national school authorities, in order to develop the pupils’ understanding that technology as a subject is related to the future development of society and social welfare.<strong></strong></p><p> </p>

This study presents an empirical, qualitative investigation of transformations as they occurred in the participants' language during a fiction reading and discussion group in a community mental health setting. Session transcripts have been analyzed from the perspective of researcher as literary critic and through the Deleuzian lens of rhizomatic assemblages (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/2005). This nonlinear, non-hierarchical and non-referential approach re-imagins the relationship among readers, texts and authors. Three themes follow from the rhizomatic perspective on transcript data. &lt;br&gt;The first of these, Assemblage, details the ways that participants engage in and with fictional story-worlds. This engagement is such that text, readers, author, and other elements of context join together in chains or blocks of becoming. These becomings rely on the mimetic structure of the fictional texts that simulates 'real life' experiences for readers. This special kind of engagement leads to transformations of linguistic forms, images and concepts. &lt;br&gt;Transformations addressed in the next segment, De-formations, include analysis of mental health talk as it encounters the poetic story world in our sessions. One result of this encounter is the vernacularization of mental health talk. Elements of clinical, usually diagnostic, language introduced in our sessions are transformed in the direction of more colloquial and 'plain-language' use. This result suggests that fiction reading moves mental health consumers away from the problem-saturated language of mental health discourse (White & Epston, 1990) that too often reifies and reinforces illness and dis-ease rather than supporting wellness. &lt;br&gt;The final section, Re-narration, examines implications of transformations in participants' language for narrative identity, that is, participants' self-understanding and re-contextualization in light of their encounters with the fictional story-world (Ricoeur, 2005). It is possible to discern nascent or potential changes in narrative identity in the language of discussants and to speculate on what changes participants may carry forward into their lives beyond the reading and discussion group. &lt;br&gt;Finally, implications are discussed for re-understanding the therapist as literary critic and for the development of locally produced bodies of literary criticism as work appropriate to community mental health providers and clients. Also, affinities between literary therapy, bibliotherapy and narrative therapy are discussed. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts / Clinical Psychology / PhD / Dissertation

The overall aim of the study is to understand and describe the phenomenon ‘atmosphere in care settings’ as experienced by patients, significant others and health care staff. The study consists of four papers, each of which illuminates various aspects of the phenomenon. Data consisted of observations and interviews with patients, significant others and staff (n=126) within a hospice, a geriatric, a medical and an oncology setting, and community care settings for older people. Narrative analysis, grounded theory, and phenomenological hermeneutics were used in a triangular fashion to analyse the data. The findings illuminate the phenomenon ‘atmosphere in care settings’ as being constituted by two interacting and interwoven dimensions: the physical environment and people’s doing and being in the environment. The physical environment is the first dimension, and five aspects were illuminated, namely the physical environment as a symbol; as containing symbols; as influencing interaction; as facilitating a shift of focus from oneself to the environment, and; as containing scents and sounds influencing experiences of at-homeness or alienation. People’s doing and being in the environment is the other dimension, and five aspects were illuminated, namely the experience (or absence of experience) of a welcoming; of seeing and being seen; of a willingness to serve; of a calm pace; and of safety. It was understood that people’s doing and being influences experiences of the physical environment and that the physical environment influences experiences of people’s doing and being. The comprehensive understanding illuminated that the phenomenon is not merely subtle qualities of the place for care, but an active part of care. Both the physical environment and peoples doing and being conveys messages of caring and uncaring. The atmosphere of a care setting can at best support experiences of at-homeness in relation to oneself, others and the surrounding world.