Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förskollärares föreställningar om sin handlingsfrihet att använda digitala teknik samt synliggöra deras syn på teknikens möjligheter och utmaningar i undervisningen. Studien utgår från Priestleys modell av Agency med illustration av tre huvudområden med iterationella, praktiskt utvärderande och projektiva dimensioner. Enligt Priestley innebär att uppnåendet av agens alltid sker i konkreta och specifika sammanhang och förståelse av ett fenomen är beroende av kontexten som är ständigt föränderliga över tid (Priestley et al., 2015). Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i den kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Det insamlade materialet från intervjuerna genomgått en tematisk analys genom att transkriberats, sorterats, reducerats och argumenterats. Studiens resultat presenterades genom tre huvudteman där tema belyser olika kontruktioner. Det första temat betonade förskollärarnas syn på teknikens användning för lärande, och digital teknik sågs som en pedagogisk resurs, främjar kreativitet och språkutveckling samt tekniken upplevde som okontrollerbara. I det andra temat framkom att förskollärare kände sig osäkra i sin interaktion med digital teknik, hade vaga digitala kompetenser och visade brist på intresse för digitalanvändningen. Det tredje temat handlade om förskollärare i samkonstruktion med tekniken kan det leda till skolifieringsagent, programmeringsagent, kritiska agent och dokumenteringsaktör. Slutsatser som kan dras från studien är att tekniken är föränderlig och det innebär att förskollärare bör kontinuerlig hålla sig uppdaterad i utvecklingen. Digital teknik är en integrerad del av samhället och det är viktig som förskollärare att känna till barns rätt till digitalt lärande.

This essay aims to identify if Swedish family law workers construct parents differently based on gender in custody investigations, and if so, whether it influences the workers assessments or not. Previous studies have shown that the gender of parents play a role in how they are viewed by social services. Assessments made by the family law are fundamental for the courts’ judgement of parental ability. The possible consequences of the identified constructions of gender in the custody investigations is a social work based on simplifications and the reproduction of gender norms. The study used a qualitative approach based on a critical discourse analysis to analyze 18 custody investigations. Our conclusions show that family law workers indeed construct gender of parents differently within custody investigations. They are constructed differently within, among other things, identified attributes of the mother and father, care, violence and cooperation difficulties. The mothers were often constructed as emotionally driven. Fathers on the other hand were often constructed as authoritarian. Parental care and faulty parental care were also constructed differently between mothers and fathers. Lastly, different constructions regarding risk factors and perceptions of victims of intimate partner violence were identified. Many constructions played a part in how the parent was assessed.

In this research project the research participants and I embarked on a journey through the "desert" of unemployment. I was introduced to the research participants at Jacob's Well, a ministry for people "between jobs" The effects of unemployment on a male's identity were explored, as well as the pastoral response of caregivers to people "between jobs". A phenomenological study was undertaken in which interviews with the participants formed the basis of the research. The structured section of the interviews was guided by the research questions, but the largest part of the interviews was about the participants' personal journeys "between jobs." The role of a ministry like Jacob's Well, catering for people "between jobs", was highlighted and recommendations for practical theology and pastoral praxis were made. / Practical Theolgy / M.Th. (Practical Theology with specialiisation in Pastoral Therapy)

In this study an ecosystematic approach to sports coaching is forwarded. This approach is illustrated using the analogy of an ecology of ideas. Ideas informing the life span of a coach within an elite team are explored. The researcher engaged four subjects in conversations the life span of a coach in an elite team. these conversations are viewed as co-constructions of realities. The coach abides within a team for a limited time. he or she enters an existing ecology of ideas, which can contribute to, or detract from, the efficacy of the coach in a team. This ecology of ideas evolves as aold meanings shift and new meanings emerge. These menings are explored in this disertation. An awareness of the ecology of ideas within a team can inform the coach to perturb the ecology of ideas in a direction that is mutually qualified as successful / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical psychology)

A sociological approach is used to analyze incidences of extreme opportunism in financial markets. Through an analysis of arguably the most widely publicized "rogue" trader events in recent history, a determination is made of the validity of explaining these events as aberrations, attributable to the actions of "rogues". The primary focus is the role of structural factors underlying these incidences of extreme opportunism in financial markets. A diverse range of documentary and other sources is used to avoid any form of bias as far as possible. It was found that structural factors act as countervailing forces to inhibit such behavior or as motivators and facilitators acting as catalysts for extreme opportunism. The balance between these factors largely determines the level of opportunistic behavior in a particular environment. Extreme opportunism is therefore not an aberration or "rogue" occurrence but a manageable phenomenon intrinsic to the social structural context within which it occurs. By conceptualizing these factors as countervailing forces one is forced to view structural factors, like compensation structures and formal and informal restraints, relative to one another and no longer in isolation. This realization translates into the conclusion that restraints and oversight systems for example, should be designed relative to the relevant motivators and facilitators in its area of application. In an environment where traders of highly geared financial products are motivated with multimillion USD incentive packages, a low budget oversight system and inexperienced regulatory staff, is clearly not the appropriate tools to control and manage extreme opportunism. / Criminology / D.Phil. (Sociology)

This exploration involves the influence of a system of patriarchy on both women and men in an inclusive way within business context. The work attempts to move away from dualisms that stereotypically define gender according to patriarchy. The challenge of this work is to find ways of describing women and men that is less defined by gender and more about our similarities as human beings. It has been suggested in the research that the business environment is still a male dominated environment. It is therefore the intention of this work to encourage ways of defining ourselves that one person does not hold benefit one over another in an abusive way. As the system of patriarchy has been endorsed by the church, the research considers how the pastoral therapist may be relevant to the business environment. / Practical Theology / M. Th - Specialising in Pastoral Therapy

Tills research project arose from an awareness that many Christian women experience female sexual desire and the expression of sexual pleasure within a religious context to be a forbidden subject and that they are consequently isolated in silence. The social construction of sexuality within the history of Christianity was briefly explored to see which discourses underpin current constructions of White Christian female sexuality. Tills feminist, participatory action research project challenged the silence on women's sexuality by inviting three women to narrate their personal stories of sexuality. With the help of narrative therapeutic practices, some of the dominant social and religious discourses that constitute White Christian female sexuality were challenged and explored. This research project aimed at the co-construction of narratives of sexuality that will hopefully be life-giving to Christian women's experiences with sexuality. / Practical Theology / M.Th. (Specialization in Pastoral Therapy))

This dissertation of limited scope explored via a qualitative reflective approach how pastoral therapy and care practices contributed to workplace transformation and ethics at a factory that had to be restored to profitability. In Chapter 1, the study's research curiosity questions how pastoral therapy and care practices could inform business in its resistance of workplace trauma and injustice. The epistemology of contextual theology and social constructionism is reviewed in Chapter 2 in its support of the research. Themes and ideas such as; participatory ethical care, ethics, the prophetic role, narratives, workplace culture, witnessing and participant awareness and empowerment are applied to workplace culture transformation. Chapter 3 explores the factory's dominant story of low morale, financial loss and feelings of no hope for the future in context of discourses of capitalism. In resistance to the dominant story, Chapter 4 focuses on practices and experiences that supported the factory's alternative story and Chapter 5 reviews the factory's alternative story in context of purposeful transformation practice. Chapter 6 concludes the study by reflecting on the research curiosity, the research aims and the researcher's development. / Practical Theology / M. Th ((Specialising Past Therapy) Practical Theology)

The genre affiliation is a postmodern study: Virtual Reality (VR) becomes a comprehensive concept, in the face of modernism's illusion, when rhetoric validates all discourses. All is VR. The study is in three sections with an overall introduction and conclusion: the first section introduces VR in its postmodern setting, the second section establishes the postmodern timeless/spaceless paradigm of HyperReality in which all Hermeneutics are being done from, the last section draws the paradigm into the Creatio Ex Nihilio discourse of the Scriptures. The proposed theological model is an intratextual theological model, however when YAHWEH precedes language then all discourses become intratextually part of the Biblical discourse. Human creativity is a metaphorical journey; the Fall was the outset of two languages, one in the presence of YAHWEH, while the other one void of this presence led to a nihilistic abstract constellation. Sin in VR is the unbiblical appropriation of this constellation. / Thesis (M.Th.)

This insider research journey explores the meaning-making processes of female spousal caregivers in anticipatory mourning and the knowledges which they have gained in retrospect. The research traces the social constructions of meaning and how they influence the process of meaning-making. A phenomenological study was undertaken in which unstructured interviews were conducted with five bereaved participants, highlighting the unique way in which each woman made meaning of loss in anticipatory mourning. The main phenomenological themes to emerge from their meaning-making were: a) the significance of time; b) challenges and gifts; c) witnessing the decline; d) paradoxes; e) the significance of the spousal relationship; and f) spirituality. The therapeutic effect of telling the life story is explored in this study and the need for contextual pastoral care that is specific to the state of anticipatory mourning is highlighted. Finally, possibilities for co-constructive pastoral care are raised in the light of the research findings. / Practical Theology / M. Th. ( Practical Theology, with Specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)