Developing students’ ability to think critically is an important goal of Swedish upper secondary school education. The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse critical thinking at the classroom level from a didactic perspective. Using participant observation and interviews, two groups of students and their two course teachers are being studied during two months. The groups study philosophy and social studies respectively. The thesis explores in what way critical thinking is manifested in the classroom and how the teachers view critical thinking in relation to their teaching. Didactic decisions and challenges are identified and discussed. The findings show that critical thinking is manifested in the classroom dialogue. Focus, relevance and precision are distinctive qualities of critical discussions. The teachers use different strategies to scaffold critical thinking, such as developing what the students say, questioning assumptions and supporting with distinctions. Some of the challenges facing the teachers are finding ways of assisting students to be independent in their thinking, disputing what they say without being perceived as biased and creating the right atmosphere in the group allowing for critical thinking to take place. It’s concluded that critical thinking at the classroom level is a highly complex phenomenon that involves more than just thinking skills which is the dominant view among researchers in the field.

A major challenge for teachers in crowded classrooms is to adapt the teaching to different pupil’s needs and abilities. Previous research shows that learning for pupils in the Swedish primary school has somewhat become an individual project. An increase in the individual work has been at the expense of whole class teaching. This has had a negative impact on pupils' academic performance. However, previous research also indicates that individual adaptation may affect results positively when the teacher is active, has knowledge of pupil’s needs and abilities and also a willingness to meet them. In the last few versions of the Swedish curriculum it is mentioned that teaching should be adjusted based on each pupil's abilities and needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate, describe and analyze how today's teachers in primary school (grades 1-6) handle individual adaptation in teaching, what strategies they use and what dilemmas that occurs. The study focuses on how work is carried out in practice. Qualitative interviews and participant observations are used in the data collection. This study has been conducted in two parts. The first part addresses five teachers and their classes in four different schools. In the second part the study has been extended with one of the above teachers whose classroom work was followed during a period of seven weeks. The results show that teachers are working hard to find methods that promote communication and interaction. They use different strategies to adapt teaching to each student. Individual work is still present but does not dominate the classroom work. Teachers individualize teaching by variation and interaction, by working together with tasks, with active relationship-oriented work and through continuous adjustments in the moment. The study also shows that teachers face several dilemmas when they individualize teaching in the classroom. One dilemma is among the ideal adaptation that teachers have a vision of, versus the time- and efficiencydriven adaptation that is possible to accomplish in the classroom. There is a tension between overall ideal images and teachers' practical everyday reality.

Bakgrund: I svenska barnsjukvården är barnkonventionen lag för att sjukvården ska bedrivas på barnets villkor. När barnsjukvården inte sker på barnets villkor påverkar det barnets välmående. För att kunna bemöta barnets behov behöver sjuksköterskan kunskap om barnets utveckling. Kommunikationen behöver ske individuellt och på barnets mognadsnivå för att främja barnets hälsa. Om detta inte sker kan det leda till situationer där barnet inte förstår. Detta kan ge uttryck i protester som kan leda till att metoder som fasthållning används. Det är viktigt att barnet förstår sin situation och känner sig trygg. Det är sjuksköterskans uppgift att involvera barnet och familjen i vården samt försäkra sig om att barnet förstår vad som ska ske.  Motiv: Fasthållning används fortfarande inom barnsjukvården trots att det strider mot lagen. Författarna vill undersöka varför detta sker och studera hur barnets delaktighet kan främjas i vården. Syfte: Sjuksköterskors erfarenheter av att göra barn 1–18 år delaktiga vid procedurer. Metod: Strukturerade enkäter besvarades av sjuksköterskor (n=9) från åtta barnkliniker i Sverige. Insamlad data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Sjuksköterskornas erfarenheter av att göra barn delaktiga vid procedurer kunde upplevas som både svårt och enkelt. Det framkommer att sjuksköterskorna har bra erfarenheter av när vården sker på barnets villkor, men också dåliga erfarenheter där fasthållning sker mot barnets vilja. Resultatet har två huvudkategorier; När trygghet  främjas utifrån barnets villkor och När barnets delaktighet förminskas. Dessa kategorier fördes samman till ett tema; Kommunikation är vägen till delaktighet. Konklusion: Fasthållning kan undvikas när arbetsförhållandena, resurser, sjuksköterskans inställning och kunskap fungerar optimalt. / Background: In pediatric care in Sweden is the Convention on the Rights of the Child a law for the care to be done on child terms. When pediatric care isn't provided at the child's term it affects the child's well-being. To be able to meet the child's needs, the nurse´s knowledge of the child's development is needed. Communication needs to be done individually and at the child's maturity level in order to promote the child's health. If not, it can come to situations where the child doesn't understand. Which can lead to the child protesting and then decisions of restraining the child. It´s important that the child understands the situation and feel safe. It´s the nurse's role to involve the child and family and to make sure that the child understands what will happen. Motive: Restraining in pediatric healthcare is still performed even though it´s contrary to the law. The authors want to investigate why this occurs and how the child's participation can be promoted in their care. Aim: Nurse´s experiences of making the children aged 1-18 participate in procedures.  Methods: Structured questionnaires were answered by nurses (n = 9) from eight pediatric clinics in Sweden. Collected data were analyzed with qualitative content analysis.  Result: The nurses' experiences of making the children participate in procedures could be perceived as difficult and easy. It appears that the nurses have good experiences of when care is at the child's terms and bad experiences when restraining the child against their will. The result has two main categories; When safety is created on the child's terms and When the child's participation is reduced. These categories were brought together into a theme; Communication is the path to participation. Conclusion: Restraint can be avoided when working conditions, resources, the nurse's attitude and knowledge work optimally.

This diploma thesis in architecture is a book composed of a combination of embedded anthropological documentation and creative fiction, written with help from Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. It is a story built up, fragment by fragment, that describesregular visits to the Girls Night events at a Youth Centre in Fittja, in Northern Botkyrka, south of Stockholm, where the author went to meet and spend time with a group of local girls on Thursday evenings in the Spring of 2015. Ungdomens Hus is a Youth Centre in Fittja for locals between the ages of 15 to 22. Many boys come and play games here, including pool, ping-pong, video games, the Turkish game Okey, boxing, they also watch TV and generally hang out. The ability for girls to occupy this room, on the other hand, tends to be reduced to three hours a week, when the room becomes a space for the girls alone: A room of their own. On Thursday evenings Rädda Barnen and the municipality Botkyrka arrange the Girls Nights in the Youth Centre in Fittja. This forum is open for all girls between the ages of 15 to 20 years old who live in Northern Botkyrka. The Girls Nights exists to make it possible for young women to make their presence visible, and for them to be able to take space at the Youth Centre, developing their courage to take place in other public spaces and in the context of contemporary society more generally. / Detta examensarbete i arkitektur är en bok som fått sin form från en kombination av antropologisk dokumentation och fiktion, skriven med hjälp från Virginia Woolf och Marcel Proust. Historien byggs upp fragmentariskt och beskriver regelbundna besök på Tjejforum på en ungdomsgård i Fittja, Norra Botkyrka, Stockholm, där författaren mötte och spenderade tid med en grupp tjejer på torsdagskvällar under våren 2015. Ungdomens Hus är en ungdomsgård i Fittja för ungdomar (15-22 år) i området Norra Botkyrka. Många killar går dit. De spelar biljard, pingis, tevespel, okey, boxas, tittar på teve och umgås rent allmänt. Möjligheten för tjejer att ta plats i detta rum, å andra sidan, tenderar att reduceras till tre timmar per vecka då Ungdomens Hus förvandlas till ett rum för bara tjejer: deras eget rum. På torsdagskvällar anordnar Rädda Barnen tillsammans med Botkyrka kommun Tjejforum på Ungdomens Hus i Fittja. Verksamheten är öppen för alla tjejer (15-20 år) i Norra Botkyrka. Tjejforum finns för att unga kvinnor i Norra Botkyrka ska få synas och ta plats på Ungdomens Hus, i andra offentliga rum och i hela vårt samhälle.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The emergence of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic created tremendous impact on humanity beginning in late 2019. Public health researchers at Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health responded by conducting research into the etiological profile of the virus, including a large Indiana state-wide population-based prevalence study in early 2020. Methods Data on demographics, tobacco use, health status, and reasons for participating in the population prevalence study were used to conduct three retrospective cross-sectional studies. The first study assessed the association of self-reported health and tobacco behaviors with COVID-19 infection (n=8,241). The second study used successive wave analysis to assess nonresponse bias (n=3,658). Finally, participants demographics were characterized by who responded to text, email, phone calls, or postcards and by the number of prompts needed to elicit participation (n= 3,658). Results The first study found self-identified health status of those reporting “poor, “fair” or good” had a higher risk of past or current infections compared to “very good” or “excellent” health status (P <0.02). Positive smoking status was inversely associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (p <0.001). When assessing the sample for non-response bias (n=3,658), 40.9% responded in wave 1 of recruitment, 34.1% in wave 2 and 25.0% in wave 3 for an overall participation rate of 23.6%. There were no significant differences in response by waves and demographics, being recently exposed or reasons for participating. In the final study, compared to males, females made up 54.6% of the sample and responded at a higher rate to postcards (8.2% vs. 7.5%) and text/emails (28.1 vs. 24.6%, 2= 7.43, p 0.025); and responded at a higher percentage after 1 contact (21.4 vs. 17.9%, 2 = 7.6, p 0.023). Conclusion This research contributed to the scientific understanding of the etiological picture of SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, the current study used a novel method that public health practitioners can easily implement to detect non-response bias in primary data collection without advanced statistical methods. Finally, the current study allows researchers to focus not only on the modality of inviting participants, but the frequency of invitations needed to secure specific populations, reducing time and resources.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, calls for participants to become “active and full partners in the vocational rehabilitation process.” Although it is probable that the participant’s active engagement is a major factor in a successful vocational rehabilitation outcome, little is known about the actual meaning of engagement in the vocational rehabilitation process. This construct is often entangled with other concepts such as motivation and readiness. A clear operational definition of engagement in the vocational rehabilitation process would allow professionals to better support participants in their role. The purpose of this research was to (a) operationally define the construct of participant engagement in the vocational rehabilitation process, and (b) develop and validate an instrument to measure engagement based on this definition. After creating measurement items to reflect three proposed subdimensions of engagement (Attendance, Expected Contribution, and Homework), the items were evaluated for content validity and clarity by an expert panel and then piloted with a small group of vocational rehabilitation counselors. The refined items were then administered to a sample of public vocational rehabilitation counselors through an online survey platform. The data from the usable responses (n = 88) were summarized and then tested for an optimal factor solution using exploratory factor analysis. Next, a confirmatory factor analysis was used to confirm the adequacy of the measurement model. Finally, structural equation modeling analyses were used to identify a structural model that explained the relationships among the subdimensions and overall engagement. The results of the analyses suggest that engagement is a multidimensional construct consisting of three factors: (a) Attendance; (b) Expected Contribution; and (c) Homework. The Expected Contribution factor acts as the strongest predictor of overall engagement and also mediates the effects of Attendance and Homework on engagement. Implications of the study are provided, focusing on the need to teach participants their expected role as full partners in vocational rehabilitation. Counselors should be encouraged to facilitate high levels of engagement through competent counseling skills and appropriate counseling approaches. Finally, limitations of the research are addressed and suggestions for future research are provided.

Dans le cadre de la transition des sociétés vers le développement durable, le rôle des universités est de plus en plus mis en évidence. A cet égard, l’évaluation, en tant qu’outil d’accompagnement des organisations pour l’amélioration de leurs performances, peut s’avérer d’une aide précieuse.Le potentiel d’application de l’évaluation reste toutefois limité. L’université et la durabilité apparaissent comme des objets normatifs dont la définition du contenu est source de nombreuses oppositions. En outre, leur réalité est évolutive et sujette à d’importants degrés d’incertitude et de complexité paradoxale.Le présent travail vise à déterminer les conditions à travers lesquelles l’évaluation peut apporter un avantage, sinon constituer un frein, à l’amélioration des performances des universités en matière de durabilité. Il se présente en deux grandes parties.La première porte sur la construction théorique de la norme d’évaluation des « performances durables de l’université». Elle repose sur l’examen approfondi des spécificités de l’université et de la durabilité ainsi que sur une analyse empirique de plusieurs cas pratiques relevés à l’international.La deuxième partie confronte et consolide les enseignements de la première en se concentrant sur le développement d’une méthodologie opérationnelle d’évaluation. Pour ce faire, un processus participatif multi-parties prenantes a été mis en œuvre et a conduit à la construction d'un dispositif multidimensionnel regroupant plus de 50 indicateurs. Cet outil se veut être une contribution à l’édification de systèmes d’évaluation mis à disposition des acteurs académiques pour l’identification de pistes d’amélioration de leurs performances au regard du développement durable. / In the context of the transition of societies towards sustainable development, the role of universities is increasingly highlighted. In this respect, assessment, as a support tool for organizations whishing to improve their performance, can be of great assistance. Opportunities for the application of assessment remains however limited. The university and sustainability are normative objects and their definition is subject to considerable opposition. In addition, their reality is progressive and characterized by high levels of uncertainty and paradoxical complexity.This work aims to determine the conditions under which assessment practices can support, or otherwise hinder, the performances of universities toward sustainability. It comes in two parts.The first part focuses on the theoretical construction of an evaluation norm for the "sustainable performances of universities". It is based on a comprehensive review of the specific features of the university and sustainability, as well as on an analysis of several best practices identified internationally. The second part compares and strengthens those findings by focussing on the design of an operational assessment methodology. This research was conducted through a multi- stakeholder participatory process that led to the building of a multidimensional framework comprising more than 50 indicators. This tool aims to be a contribution to the development of assessment methods for academic actors willing to identify ways of improving their performances with respect to sustainability.

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This Master’s Thesis establishes what motivates a group of Mississippi farmers to participate in sustainable agriculture instead of industrial agriculture. A database of sustainable farmers was constructed in collaboration with the Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of Mississippi. This research project used social network analysis with 28 farmers and participant observation and semi-structured interviewing with a purposively selected sample of 14 farmers. This project also explores the sustainable agricultural practices of participants. A map of the social network of sustainable agriculturalists in Mississippi is presented and shows that some farmers are well connected, some moderately connected, and others are isolated. As well, grounded qualitative analysis of interviews identified 4 primary motivations among participants: economic, health, self-sufficiency and anti-government. Overall this project found that motivations are numerous, social networks are weak but growing, and diverse demographics are turning to a sustainable model for agriculture in Mississippi.

No description available.