The purpose of this study is to find out teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content and to highlight knowledge and experiences within the range of using manipulatives to concretize. By answering the questions below different approaches a teacher may have towards the manipulatives and how that may impact on student’s learning will also be discussed in comparison to mainly traditional and socially constructive theories of learning. What is the teachers view on manipulatives as a way to concretize? What purpose do they have when using manipulatives? According to the teachers, what does it mean to concretize a certain mathematical content? According to the teachers, what connection is there between manipulatives and concretizing? Through interviews and observations conclusions can be made that the teachers are in general positive towards using manipulatives as a way to concretize a certain mathematical content although the definition of what a manipulative is differ somewhat between the teachers. The teachers working with manipulatives do it in a well thought out fashion but more research is needed to furthermore define the purpose of using manipulatives. Few countries spend so much time concretizing and working with manipulatives as Sweden do, but still Sweden score below the OECD-average on the mathematical PISA-tests. You make ask yourself if this then is the right way to go to enhance student’s mathematical knowledge.

Over recent decades, China has opened up to the wider world in a myriad of ways. By 2020 – a decade hence – it will be transformed from its scarcely-visited-1980s self, to become the most visited nation on earth. It is therefore important to gauge how China is being represented through the immensely-powerful signifying practices of tourism. Predicated on the view that reciprocal understanding between China (or ‘the East’) has never been high with ‘the West’, this critico-interpretive study explores how China is symbolized / projected via the meditative agency of tourism – that is, by a collaborative projective Leviathan, which predominantly authorizes via longstanding eurocentric visions. Industrially-scripted representations of tourism are inspected regarding their normalizing (Foucauldian) capacity to naturalise certain visions of China’s inheritances and drawcards whilst unrecognizing / denying others. Underpinned by the multiple-truth-cognisance of social constructivism (especially that of Lincoln and Cuba), this emergent study is based upon Kincheloean bricoleurship. Initially seeking to crystallize found representational repertoires of / about ‘China’ by the use of multiple methods, it becomes – following difficulties in finding decision-takers who were both China-aware and active in such acts of signification (who could be both interviewed and work-shadowed) – an inquiry rescaffolded as a multiple-data-set exploration of worldmaking discursivity. The investigation makes critical use of Nyiri’s recent examination of the Chinese government’s ortholalia (i.e., its cultural authority) in regulating what China is and how it should be staged / performed / projected, and of various newspress articles on the late soft power articulation of both the nation’s forty-centuries of ‘brilliant history’ and its ‘sudden modern vitality’. The inquiry progresses by condemning the general and ubiquitous inadequacy of the twin fields of Tourism Management / Tourism Studies to school either practitioners or researchers as Confucian-style organic intellectuals, able to comprehend the international economic foundations of tourism, yet also appreciate its deep cultural, political, and psychic rhizomata. It culminates in the development of an ‘organic intellectual’ research agenda (after Venn), signposted to direct immediate but longrun inspection of these Foucauldian / Confucian acts of the ongoing (?) normalized or compossible (cogenerative) worlding of China.

The main topic of this thesis is the influence of the Kurdish Question on Turkey’s relations with Europe and the USA. Aiming to develop a triplex framework of (1) the Kurdish Question in Turkey, (2) Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) Turkey’s Relations with Western Society, this thesis specifically studies the international dimension of the Kurdish Question. It has two basic arguments: first, the Kurdish issue is the major cause of the deterioration in the relationship between Turkey and the West, in spite of alliances that go back over half a century. Second, Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy is the main catalyst of that long-lasting troublesome relationship. The Kurdish Question is evaluated using empirical data that examines its impact on the relationship between Turkey and the West in the period 1989-2007. Within this the problem is examined by applying a normative approach and analyses that are carried out within a theoretical framework provided by a constructivist approach. In order to present research questions by empirical evidence, discourse analysis is used that goes in hand with the theoretical approach. Three Foreign and Security Policy norms are examined, namely “Sèvres Syndrome”- the suspicion of influence of external powers and interests on Turkey, the principle of “Status Quo” applicable in FSP and internal security arrangements, and finally, the “Westernism” that foresees being pro-Western in foreign policies and internal socio-political field. Findings suggest that those three norms played significant roles in shaping Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy for decades, while important changes occurred within the recent years.

No description available.

The Third International Assessment of Educational Progress (TIMMS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) during the last decades regarding the results of mathematics teaching shows that China have a better performance than Sweden’s.Swedish teacher-guidelines focus on developing student’s individual interest and confidence for mathematics. In the Chinese teaching-guidelines for Mathematics Curriculum Standards, Ordninary Senior Secondary, the focus is given on: Elevate their mathematics literacy necessary for future citizenship and Development of citizen´s qualities (s.3).Teachers are the primary factors that impact teaching and learning of mathematics. Two teachers from Sweden and two from China were interviewed and their methods were compared in my study. The aim of my study was to understand mathematics teaching in China and Sweden. As a conclusion, this study will give advices of which concept and method should be emphasized and chosen in Mathematics teaching.

This study, through the lens of Activity Theory, focused on the induction and constructivist teaching practices of experienced teachers who were recently hired in a technologically advantaged middle school. Activity Theory was used not only to examine the induction practices but also to focus on constructivist practices with technology. Data sources consisted of using various instruments three of which were used for surveys, 11 interviews were employed to assess goals, and 18 classroom observations were carried out regarding constructivist practices. Findings through Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) analysis revealed under-realized forms of mediation to achieve effective use of ICTs (objective) and the perceptions of collaboration among the teaching staff, specifically with respect to relationships between rules and the division of labor. In effect, this study presents a challenge for CHAT analysis to elaborate the construct of contradictions to include "latent contradictions" which is essential to an expansive learning cycle.

This study explored the experiences of street-involved youth who have received mental health services for symptoms of methamphetamine-induced psychosis. Specifically, the study investigated what factors were perceived by participants to promote and hinder access to mental health services. The researcher interviewed nine street youth at Covenant House, a Vancouver agency serving street-involved youth. Interview data and the researcher's field notes were coded and analyzed within a grounded theory paradigm. Youth discussed formal and informal sources of help and routes to both. Two distinct perspectives to treatment were identified: an addictions perspective and a concurrent disorders perspective. Respondents outlined the typical pathway into methamphetamine use and described barriers and supports for accessing services while undergoing drug-induced psychosis. Significant factors that encouraged access to services were positive relationships with helpers, strong peer supports, and the use of involuntary services when necessary. Identified barriers included fear of being stigmatized, lack of problem awareness, and systemic barriers. The current research proposed a model of access to mental health services that positions outreach and frontline workers as key figures to mediating street youth's access to appropriate services.

No description available.

Cross-curricular teaching is a teaching method in which one or more subjects are used within another subject to make clear links to those subjects. This is to attract pupils that are otherwise maybe not interested in this subject. The aim of this work is to see how this teaching practice is organised these days by asking teachers about their work from a constructivist point of view. For this work written interviews with teachers from Flanders and Sweden have been conducted to see how teachers work in an international context. The results point out that although the teaching practice is different in both regions, the way the teachers think is very similar.

Despite longstanding attention to rhetorical form and structuring logics that give discourse its persuasive power (metaphor, genre, narrative, definitional frames, ideology, etc.), the relative amount of publication attending to international rhetoric remains slight. As the composition of audience(s) has stretched to global proportions the challenges of apprehending the manifold cross-cultural complexities for presidential address have expanded. Spanning five decades and three presidencies (Kennedy, H.W. Bush and Clinton), this dissertation takes presidential public address at the United Nations as its object of study in an effort to help remedy this shortcoming, while also aiming to provide a richer theoretical underpinning for accounts of globalization and its impact on the modern presidency. The analysis grapples with three particular problems: conceptualizing increasingly pluralized audiences, the matter of ascertaining how non-American institutions (like the United Nations) shape and are shaped by American rhetorical productions, and the difficulties in gauging presidential rhetorical efficacy. Two main arguments are advanced. First, the dissertation argues that presidential rhetoric at the United Nations traffics in a particular brand of cosmopolitanism, which helps presidents to constitute a universal audience nonetheless ideologically sympathetic to American goals. The terrain and implications of this cosmopolitanism rhetoric are mapped and unpacked. Second, it is argued that when crafting rhetoric for the specific audience of the United Nations General Assembly, the President is obligated to work within the confines of the rhetorical institution that is the United Nations. The project seeks to understand the limits and possibilities of presidential rhetoric based on existing international institutional constraints. Taken together, the resulting scene of presidential cosmopolitan address, rather than culminating in efforts primarily concentrated on persuasion, end up mainly interpellating a global audience supportive of a cosmopolitan agenda which in turn is pre-structured to support the interests of the United States.