The purpose of this study was to explore how physiotherapists working in stroke care understand their role(s) in the context of clinical practice and how this is mediated by their post-licensure educational experiences. Specifically the study focused on their experiences with the Bobath Concept, a well-developed post-licensure neurology physiotherapy program. This study was oriented within sociocultural theory as a way to understand how the experiences and interactions of physiotherapists mediate their professional practice and their sense of professional identity in a way not previously studied in physiotherapy literature. In order to honour the voices of the participants, this study drew on hermeneutic phenomenology and used a principled data analysis tool to present an understanding of the interrelationships involved in stroke care from their perspectives. Four physiotherapists participated in this study by responding in writing and orally to a clinical case and participating in an in-depth interview regarding their professional roles and experiences. The findings suggest that these physiotherapists understand the Bobath Concept as a professional stance which informs their practice and contributes to an ethos of caring, which is reflected in the ways they understand their roles in clinical practice.

The aim of this study is to explore the development of how people in different generations of a family with a hereditary hearing loss developed knowledge and to examine the role of the educational system and how it influenced this development. The research questions are: What is the prevalence of the deafness spoken of in the family chronicle? What different kinds of knowledge did the family members with deafness/hearing loss develop and how did they make use of them? In what ways may they have experienced their deafness/hearing loss as a suffering? What knowledge did they develop because the hearing loss recurred in several successive generations? The studied material includes answers from a questionnaire, different historical documents and sixteen interviews. Descendants of the first man born in the family in 1816 described as deaf. Among the descendants a total of 84 persons with a hereditary hearing loss have been found, at most in seven successive generations. The sixteen persons interviewed have spoken about themselves, their parent, mother or father-parent, with hearing loss. This has made it possible to explore the development of knowledge in different areas. The findings from the interviews are interpreted in four chapters where the development knowledge in the different generations has been related to each other and to the hearing loss. The study shows that the generations developed various forms of competence and knowledge and that this occurred mainly in the homes. The members of the family with hearing loss were educated by themselves. The role of public school was small. The last generation, however, has been able to carry out higher studies. The communicative practice at home was spoken Swedish, eye contact, a loud and clear voice and speechreading. The speech of children was read before the children themselves had to read the speech of others.

Ämnet är musikterapi med hjärnskadade personer, skrivet inom ramen för Magisterprogrammet i musikpedagogik med inriktning musikterapi vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm, 2012. Syftet med uppsatsen är att bidra till ökad kunskap om hur det är att tolka och förstå hjärnskadade personers sätt att kommunicera i en musikterapisituation, då dessa har nedsatt kommunikationsförmåga, afasi, svårt med empati, ett utslätat känsloliv, stel mimik och liknande. Uppsatsen har en kvalitativ forskningsansats med hermeneutiska inslag och metoden är semistrukturerade intervjuer. Undersökningsgruppen utgörs av tre professionellt utövande musikterapeuter som alla tre har erfarenhet av musikterapeutiskt arbete med personer som drabbats av grava, förvärvade, hjärnskador. Forskningsfrågan är: På vilka sätt uppfattar tre musikterapeuter hjärnskadade patienters upplevelser av musikterapi? / Music Therapy with brain-damaged patients is the topic of this paper, written as a part of the master program in music education profile music therapy, at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, 2012. The objective is to focus on how music therapists understand and interpret the music experiences of brain damaged patients, as the patients may show reduced communication skills, aphasia, empathic difficulties, flattened emotions and/or rigid facial expression. The essay has a qualitative research approach including hermeneutic elements. The material consists of interviews with a research group of three professionally active music therapists who have worked with patients suffering severe acquired brain damage. The method used is semistructured interviews and the material has been interpreted hermeneutically. The research question is: How do three music therapists perceive the experiences of brain damaged patients in music therapy?

The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of physical activity experiences to older women. A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological design was used. A purposeful sample of 9 women, age 67 to 83 years old, enrolled in a group physical activity program participated in the study. Data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews, artifact documentation, and descriptive and reflective fieldnotes. The transcripts and significance of the artifacts were analyzed using thematic line-by-line analysis. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis, trading roles, a happier me, and pride and delight. <p>Trading roles refers to the womens perceptions of a new era of their lives given the transition experienced in their life roles. Many of the things they considered stable in their lives changed. Friends dropped away, family moved, they no longer fulfilled the role of wife, and their active grandmothering period was ending. <p>The theme, a happier me, speaks of the impact their involvement in a physical activity program had on their social lives. Living as widowed or single women, they recognized that they could become isolated within their own homes. Engaging in a physical activity program provided a context where they could expand their social network. The interaction with others in a physical activity program brought a sense of happiness and well-being to their days.<p>The theme, pride and delight, captures the deep understanding of their own sense of well-being and took pride in planning and developing the physical activity program. The assumption that more knowledgeable others must plan, implement, and evaluate programs to meet the needs of older adults was challenged by these participants. <p>The meanings of the experiences were interpreted with the support of Weiss (1973) theoretical framework on loneliness. The results of the study highlighted the importance of the contacts made in the physical activity program to the social network of the women, including provisions of attachment, nurturance, and social integration. Physical activity programs for older adults have the potential to expand the social network of older adults and with further research may prove to be an effective intervention for social isolation and ultimately loneliness.

Pope Benedict XVI, since his election to the papacy, has urged Catholic clergy and theologians to interpret the documents of the second Vatican Council using a "hermeneutic of continuity." This thesis seeks to answer whether such a hermeneutic is possible by focusing on one aspect of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The methodology here employed is a critical analysis of one of the major patristic sources of Lumen Gentiums teaching, St. Augustine of Hippo. In claiming St. Augustines support for its doctrine, Lumen Gentium also offers an interpretation of his thought. For Lumen Gentiums teaching to be plausible, we must be able to conclude that Augustines teaching is essentially identical to it. In that connection, Lumen Gentiums claim that the Church is both a spiritual and visible reality forces us to consider a controverted topic in Augustinian studies: can Augustines city of God be identified with the hierarchical Church? In order to resolve that question, we will examine both the historical and eschatological aspects of the Church in Augustines thought, with some reference (treated in an appendix) to the compatibility between his theory of predestination and his ecclesiology. Further, what the Council meant when it said that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, and whether this change in terminology, along with its implications in the field of ecumenism, can be reconciled with St. Augustines ecclesiology must be determined with a view to establishing the continuity between pre and post conciliar Catholic ecclesiology. St. Augustine developed his understanding of the nature of the Church in the early years of his ecclesiastical career through his polemical battles with the Donatist schismatics, and so the history of that schism is related in an appendix.

Over the past decade there has been considerable debate in the media concerning the necessity of educating parents in how to be better parents, and strengthening their parental role. This question has also been debated at a national level, resulting in the state commissioning a number of official investigations into the problems that parental education could resolve. A growing body of scientific studies have shown that parental-educational programmes play a strong role in preventing behavioural problems amongst children and teenagers. Many Councils in Sweden already offer these parental courses to their citizens, but discussions are ongoing as to whether these courses should be obligatory for all parents before or near to the moment that they begin to have children. This conclusion has been supported by the official investigations commissioned to look into this issue. In light of the state is approaching a proposal for mandatory training for people to get to be parents, the aim of this essay was to investigate how parents see their role as parents in in comparison with the role they are trained for, the working role. It also investigates the views parents have as to the government’s intention to educate them in parenthood. Working from a phenomenological perspective, and a hermeneutic understanding of the issues involved, six qualitative interviews were conducted with parents of pre-school children. The results show that parents view their parental role as a responsibility on several different levels. This role is variously described as one of leadership, fostering and as a non-egotistical, loving relationship. Every role is defined by individual circumstances and is forged at the moment when the parent and child first encounter each other. The role of professional day-to-day work is also described as being a matter of responsibility, mainly from a perspective of duty. It is, as well, characterised by the level of education of the parent. Parents with a university education tend to describe the role as purely egotistical. Parents are positive about parental education on a voluntary basis and are broadly positive about government looking into ways to strengthen parenting skills in first-time parents. But the idea of educating ALL parents is seen as unnecessary and impossible to achieve.

The purpose of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of our contemporary description of digital literacy using the perspective on knowledge from the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. I have chosen to deal with the problem using a hermeneutic approach. The method of inquiry is based on close reading of the selected literature. The selection itself has been made after a strategic selection regarding perspective on knowledge and digital literacy. It appears in the thesis that there are substantial differences but also similarities between our contemporary description of digital literacy from Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning and the perspective on knowledge from the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.Still, the result has been possible to use for the purpose of the thesis since the problem has an answer and a deepened impression of the understandings of digital literacy.

Acute myocardial infarction is a serious diagnosis. Both the patient and the loved ones experience an immediate uncertainty. To be able to emotionally support the patient´s spouse, the nurse in the coronary care unit must be prepared to also encounter the world of the spouse. The aim of this study was from a nursing perspective to illuminate how life was experienced during the first two months by the spouse of someone, who was stricken by a first time acute myocardial infarction. Interviews with six spouses were conducted. The methodological approach was phenomenological-hermeneutic, based on the French philosopher Paul Riceour. The result of the qualitative text analysis showed four themes: To lose one´s foothold, To be exposed to the medical and nursing staff, To get a changed relationship to one´s partner, To wish to make the most of one´s life. The first theme highlighted the spouse’s strong feelings of uncertainty concerning the outcome of the patient. The second theme showed the spouse’s confidence in the medical care. It also showed the spouse’s sense of being insulted by the nurses, who did not acknowledge the spouses´ need of obtaining information and emotional support. The third theme demonstrated how the partner cared for and felt responsible for observing the former patient´s health condition. The fourth theme showed that the spouse realized that life has to come to an end and therefore wanted to realize his/her plans for the future before it was too late. The findings from this study emphasize the importance of the medical and nursing staff to show interest in the spouses´ experiences. Thereby the spouses can experience a support in congruence with their needs, and their life situation might thereby be improved. It would be of great interest to study how nurses regard the spouses´ life situation during the patients´ stay in hospital. Further research could also highlight which factors could minimize the sufferings of partners to seriously sick patients, regardless of the patients´ diagnosis.

My study is focused on one organization with is Unicef, the organization that is workning on a UN mission. The mission is about children's rights and Unicef has brought children's actions since 1946.The purpose of this essay was to research whether the images can be used alone or as a complement to the text that the communication organizations use. By examining the way images are used, I hoped to be able to deduce the results of image use. I study if the effect out messages with only pictures will be more effective than the message in which the verbal mixed with the non-verbal.Theoretical part of this essay has a communication perspective. The essay is structure by tree elements, non-verbal communication, mass communication and intercultural communication. With these elements, or keywords, have I interpret UNICEFs communications through two media channels, internet and TV.The methodology I have chosen is qualitative method with a hermeneutic approach. I have carried out three qualitative interviews with women within the organization and one group interview consisting of four persons. I have also observation a qualitative media observation of charity gala on TV4.     My conclusions were that non-verbal communication is most likely more effective as a tool too the verbal instead of the only communication. I also got the conclusion that UNICEF communicate with people thought picture that’s gives hope for the future.

<p>The main purpose of this research is to use Hermeneutic research approach to find out how Decision Support System (DSS) is used in banks and financial services. The research started from one stance, from which the further process could be extended to reach more complete picture of Decision Support System’s usage in strategic decision makings in banks. The research is also trying to find out the drawbacks and benefits of the DSS which have been used nowadays in banks. Furthermore, the future improvements of using DSS to make better decisions related with moral and different environments are also being discussed in the research findings.</p><p>During the primary data collection, resources from different channels have been used to support the research. The primary data sources include lectures and discussion in three banks’ visiting opportunities in Stockholm, Sweden, one interview with IT Vice president from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, New York, two interviews with a professor and a director respectively from Lund University and Financial Services Innovation Centre in University College Cork, Ireland.</p><p>Experiences from both academic and practical have been shared to strength the research’s validity and trustworthiness. Hermeneutic research approach addresses through the whole research process which needs to be open-minded and flexible.</p><p>Unawareness of DSS for people who are working in banks is one of the issues today. Different embedded models regarding various functions are not so clear to bank staff; thus there is a gap between human decisions and system decisions. There is a variation of requirements between central banks, retail banks, commercial banks, investment banks. Hence there should be a differentiation when implementing a system. Banking systems are widespread systems which are influenced by environment factors, political, economic, socio-cultural and technological variables.</p>