This dissertation examines processes through which alternative Christian identities are constructed, maintained, and performed at the annual Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Organized and managed by Jesus People USA (JPUSA), an urban commune in Chicago, Illinois, the festival includes non-traditional methods of religious expression including rock music, making camp, play, and community-building. Cornerstone Festival attracts and includes members of the Christian faith who would not otherwise be included in traditionally organized Christian groups and fosters interaction between these less enfranchised members and more traditionally minded and socialized Christian practitioners. JPUSA appropriates the festival format as a method of religious expression and practice that successfully includes marginal or fringe Christians by offering a site of "play," and thus avoids the more traditional frames of recruitment and membership of orthodox religious services. In order to better understand Cornerstone Festival's complicated place in the American religious experience, a theoretical framework is developed from research in social constructionism, rhetoric and cultural studies. This framework is used to extrapolate the festival's significance as a site for socialization, its role in the cultivation of alternative Christian identities, and the purposes for which attendees use the festival as a site for community-building. The primary source of data for this study is drawn from ethnographic fieldnotes and interviews gathered at the 2008 Cornerstone Festival. I conclude that Cornerstone Festival is a coproduced, ephemeral site buttressed by a symbiotic relationship between structure and communitas. Evangelical faith and practice receive a new treatment at Cornerstone Festival where rock music, rather than a point of contention, is in fact a unifying aesthetic experience.

Aims: The aim of this research was to engage with the experiences of professionals, parents, and young people in order to develop an understanding of the current diagnosis and management of ADHD. This research will be of interest to Counselling Psychologists working with the child and adolescent population and the clinical area of ADHD. Method: Nine semi- structured interviews were conducted with two young people, three parents, and four professionals. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using the principles’ of grounded theory methods. A constructivist version of grounded theory was implemented, as outlined by Charmaz (2006) and a social constructionist epistemology was adopted. Analysis: A central story line of ‘investing in ADHD’ emerged. This involved the investment of resources in the ‘simple truth’ of ADHD as existing within the child’s brain. A number of categories emerged which contributed to this position, including the ‘battlegrounds’ which were fraught with struggles to gain control of children’s difficult to manage behaviours and ‘knowledge and understanding’ which highlighted the need to understand the nature of the perceived problems. In addition, ‘social expectations’ and ‘personal conflicts’ depicted the social and personal factors which served to construct the perceived problems. Conclusion: The investment in the ‘simple truth’ of ADHD appeared to hold the most meaning for those involved in the study. These findings offer utility for Counselling Psychologists wishing to engage clients in psychological formulation and management approaches which aim to address the underlying factors which influence ADHD.

Despite a multi-disciplinary, international literature, little research has drawn attention to the phenomenon of school refusal within the school. Most research on school refusal follows a positivist paradigm, focusing on the student, instead of examining the role of schools. Using a qualitative design and a social constructionist framework, this study explored how school personnel perceive school refusal, focusing on the social interactions, processes, and perceptions that construct their understanding. The study was conducted in a large school district in the Southeastern United States.Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with school personnel at the middle school (N=42), high school (N=40), and district level (N=10). Interviews at the school level included assistant principals, school psychologists, social workers, health services staff, guidance counselors, teachers, attendance office staff, and school resource officers. The district level interviews included personnel in departments related to guidance, psychology, school health services, and social work. Observational data was collected within the schools selected for interviews (N=10). Thirty-eight out of 68 middle and high school principals in the school district completed the Survey of School Refusal.Findings suggest that school personnel rarely use the terminology set forth by the professional literature to describe the spectrum of school refusal. Further, analysis revealed that personnel delineate students who refuse school according to their own categorizations formed through day-to-day experiences with students. Personnel's constructions of school refusal differed based on legitimacy of the reason for refusal, motivation for refusal, grade level, and barriers, which were physical, mental, emotional, social, and societal in nature. Overarching dynamics of typifications of students included parental control, parental awareness, student locus of control, blame, and victim status. These typifications influence how personnel react to students they encounter, particularly in deciding who needs help versus punishment presenting very real implications for students.The findings from this exploratory qualitative study make a significant contribution to this literature. The findings support the use of social constructionism in understanding school personnel's construction of school refusal. Implications for education, public health, and school health practice are presented and include recommendations for policy, training, prevention, early intervention, and future research.

The question of what agenda drives NGO peacebuilding in post-conflict setting has been raised in a number of literatures which make generalized conclusions that NGOs tend to respond to the liberal peace agenda, and in the process co-opt local peacebuilding initiatives. Liberal peace agenda refers to the post-conflict peacebuilding approach based on the promotion of democracy, economic liberalization, human rights and the rule of law. As such, NGOs are seen as privatizing peacebuilding, marginalizing local initiatives and applying unsustainable approaches to peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Provoked by these assertions, I conducted field research in northern Uganda, which up to 2006 had experienced 22 years of conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). I contend in my findings that while to some extent the generalized observations made by liberal peace critics are true, they fail to fully engage with the micro aspects of post-conflict peacebuilding. The macro-analytic assertions of the liberal peace critics ignore the plurality of the NGO peacebuilding practice, the diverse internal organizational culture, and the complexities and diversities of the contextual dynamics of post-conflict settings. My research was based on a micro level analysis and demonstrated that the peacebuilding process in northern Uganda was interactive, and, as such, engendered diverse encounters of sense-making, relationship building and co-construction of peacebuilding discourse and practice between NGOs, donors and local community. The study shows that peacebuilding was essentially relational and developed through a process of relational constructionism, which denotes social processes of reality construction based on relational encounters.

Denna studie bygger på empiri från två genomförda fokusgrupper med syftet att undersöka hur elever med lindrig utvecklingsstörning på gymnasiesärskolan upplever termen särskola. Den teoretiska referensram som använts är ett socialkonstruktionistiskt perspektiv med sär-skild fördjupning på teorier om kategorisering. Studiens resultat analyserades genom tematisk innehållsanalys och resultatet visade att samtliga elever som deltog i fokusgrupperna upplevde termen särskola negativ och att de önskade att termen togs bort. Termen särskola bidrog till tankar och känslor av att vara mindre värd och att vara avvikande. De nackdelar eleverna lyfte med termen och skolformen var att det bidrar till begränsningar, mobbing och stämpling. Ena fokusgruppen upplevde att skolformen som sådan är positiv, medan den andra fokusgruppen upplevde att den är negativ. I båda fokusgrupperna lyftes att vilken annan term som helst vore bättre än termen särskola, men att det inte borde finnas en särskilt term överhuvudtaget. I ena fokusgruppen lyftes oro kring att en förändrad term inte skulle göra någon skillnad. Studiens slutsatser är att terminologin och samhällets attityder bör förändras. Särskild vikt bör läggas vid att informera professionella, som har kontakt med elever på särskolan, om elevernas upp-levelser av termen. Vidare bör termen särskola studeras ytterligare, särskilt ur ett elevperspek-tiv. / This study is based on empirical data from two completed focus groups that explore how stu-dents with mild intellectual disabilities in special secondary schools perceive the term “sär-skola”. A social constructionist perspective is used with particular specialization in theories of categorization. Study results were analyzed trough thematic content analysis and the result showed all participating students experienced disadvantages of the term “särskola”, which they wanted removed. The term contributed to thoughts and feelings of being inferior and deviant. The disadvantages students raised with the term were that it contributes to limits, bullying and stamping. One focus group felt that the school form as such is positive, while the other focus group felt that it is negative. Both groups highlighted that any other term than the existing would be better, but they preferred no special term at all. Concerns were raised that a changed terminology would not make any long-term difference. The study’s conclusions are that the terminology and society's attitudes should change. Particular attention should be paid to inform the professionals, who have contact with students in special curriculum, of students’ experiences of the term. Furthermore, the term should be studied further, particularly from a student perspective.

The purpose of this study was to examine the complexities that constitute women’s narratives within a mining organisation in South Africa. A review of the literature suggests that social constructions about gender influence the way in which individuals construct narratives and meaning in their lives, which inform their ways of being. This research draws upon two main schools of thought, that is, post-modern social constructionism and post-structuralism. Based on these world views, a qualitative analysis was selected as the most appropriate research design. This research examined the narratives of nine women in senior positions from a single mining organisation, in the form of semi-structured in depth interviews carried out in September 2011. An ethnographic research design was selected, in line with the theoretical framework of this study. A thematic analysis was conducted, and the results revealed two central themes, viz. Navigating the interceptions between occupational and multiple identities; and negotiating a space for women in mining. The nature of identity that emerged from participant’s narratives was viewed as an act of weaving together the multiple strands of the self, where participants recognise the points at which these multiple strands intercept and where they diverge. So rather than merging these strands into a unified (and essentialist) self, participants seemed to recognise the fluid, dynamic and contextual sense of self and in-so-doing, participants began to, in their narrative, construct an authentic sense of self. At each interception participants are faced with (i) contradictions and ambiguity, or (ii) congruency of the self between roles, which emerged as ‘identity salience’. Interceptions were interpreted as an illustration of the micro-physics of power, as postulated by Foucault (1979). In some cases, participants internalise normative and ‘masculine’ prescriptions of the self, resulting in the reification of gendered norms and the subsequent ‘disciplining’ of the self to embody such norms. However, participants also exercise individual and collective agency in resisting dominant ideology, thereby driving shifts in the power dynamics of society and negotiating an authentic and egalitarian self, and space for women in mining. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Abstract   Author: Robert Andersson & Oskar Karlsjö Title:“My first thought is a girl that cuts herself” – A qualitative study about professionals in human service organizations description of self-injurious behavior. Supervisor: Ann Ottengrim Assessor: Rickard Ulmestig   The purpose of this study has been to understand how professionals in human service organizations (HSO) describe self-injuries behaviour, how they describe the individuals that self-harm and if the professionals describe any possible differences in how men and women self-harm as well as how professional’s knowledge concerning self-injurious behaviour is contructed. The study answers three questions; - What kind of actions do professionals in HSO describe as being self-injurious behaviour? - How is knowledge constructed by professionals in HSO concerning self-injurious behaviour? - How are people who engage in self-injurious behaviour being described? - How do professionals in human service organizations describe potential differences between men and women´s self-injurious behaviour?   Qualitative interviews have been chosen as the method in this study to gather empirical data and the social constructionism theory has been implemented to analyse the empirical data. The result of this study shows that self-injurious behaviour is a complex and at the same time a dynamic phenomenon. There are a lot of different actions that are being describes as being self-injurious behaviour. An individual that cuts its own body tissue or an individual that often gets involved in psychical fights are examples of acts that are being described as having a self-injurious behaviour. The informants also described that their knowledge and what they define as self-injurious behaviour has changed over time in the field which indicates that self-injurious behaviour is a dynamic category. According to our results it doesn’t seem to exist a stereotype of whom and why someone engages in self-harm. But men tend to self-harm in a more severe way than women.

Pasitelkus socialinio konstrukcionizmo teoriją, disertacijoje siekiama išanalizuoti karjeros sampratos formavimą Lietuvoje. Pasirinkta teorinė-metodologinė pozicija leidžia peržengti iki šiol karjeros teorijoje dominavusias dichotomijas tarp to, kas suprantama kaip senoji, tradicinė, biurokratinė arba organizacinė karjera, ir naujosios, individualios arba asmeninės karjeros, kuri būdingesnė pozityvistinei tyrimų perspektyvai. Disertacijoje akcentuojamas žinojimo ir socialinio, istorinio konteksto sąryšis. Remiantis trimis socialinės tikrovės konstravimo proceso etapais – objektyvacija, eksternalizacija ir internalizacija, į karjeros sampratos formavimo instrumentų analizę įtraukiamas ne tik mokslinis žinojimas, t. y. nagrinėjama ne tik akademinė karjeros samprata, bet ir viešosios politikos atstovų, praktikų ir tyrėjų formuojama karjeros samprata. / The dissertation analyses the construction of the concept of career in Lithuania using the theory of social constructionism. The chosen theoretical-methodological approach allows us to overcome the dichotomies that have long been prevalent in career theory—between the old, traditional, bureaucratic or organizational career and the new, individual or personal career, more typical to the positivistic approach. The dissertation emphasizes the relationship between knowledge and its socio-historical context. The construction of social reality may be divided into three distinct phases—objectivation, externalization and internalization. This approach requires us to not limit ourselves to academic discourse but also examine the notions formulated in other fields—by public servants, career consultants and empirical researchers.

The dissertation analyses the construction of the concept of career in Lithuania using the theory of social constructionism. The chosen theoretical-methodological approach allows us to overcome the dichotomies that have long been prevalent in career theory—between the old, traditional, bureaucratic or organizational career and the new, individual or personal career, more typical to the positivistic approach. The dissertation emphasizes the relationship between knowledge and its socio-historical context. The construction of social reality may be divided into three distinct phases—objectivation, externalization and internalization. This approach requires us to not limit ourselves to academic discourse but also examine the notions formulated in other fields—by public servants, career consultants and empirical researchers. / Pasitelkus socialinio konstrukcionizmo teoriją, disertacijoje siekiama išanalizuoti karjeros sampratos formavimą Lietuvoje. Pasirinkta teorinė-metodologinė pozicija leidžia peržengti iki šiol karjeros teorijoje dominavusias dichotomijas tarp to, kas suprantama kaip senoji, tradicinė, biurokratinė arba organizacinė karjera, ir naujosios, individualios arba asmeninės karjeros, kuri būdingesnė pozityvistinei tyrimų perspektyvai. Disertacijoje akcentuojamas žinojimo ir socialinio, istorinio konteksto sąryšis. Remiantis trimis socialinės tikrovės konstravimo proceso etapais – objektyvacija, eksternalizacija ir internalizacija, į karjeros sampratos formavimo instrumentų analizę įtraukiamas ne tik mokslinis žinojimas, t. y. nagrinėjama ne tik akademinė karjeros samprata, bet ir viešosios politikos atstovų, praktikų ir tyrėjų formuojama karjeros samprata.

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