In the years between 1960 and 1975 in NSW there emerged a loosely connected network of women interested in modern or creative embroidery. The Embroiderers' Guild of NSW served as a focus for many of these women, providing opportunities for them to exhibit their work, and to engage in embroidery education as teachers or as learners. Others worked independently, exhibited in commercial galleries and endeavoured to establish reputations as professional artists. Some of these women were trained artists and wanted embroidery to be seen as 'art'; others were enthusiastic amateurs, engaged in embroidery as a form of 'serious leisure'. They played a significant role in the development of creative embroidery and textile art in NSW and yet, for the most part, their story is absent from the narratives of Australian art and craft history. These women were involved in a network of interactions which displayed many of the characteristics of more organised art worlds, as posite d by sociologist Howard Becker. They produced work according to shared conventions, they established co-operative links with each other and with other organisations, they organised educational opportunities to encourage others to take up creative embroidery and they mounted exhibitions to facilitate engagement with a public audience. Although their absence from the literature suggests that they operated in isolation, my research indicates that there were many points of contact between the embroidery world, the broader craft world and the fine art community in NSW. This thesis examines the context in which creative embroiderers worked, discusses the careers of key individuals working at this time, explores the interactions between them, and evaluates the influence that they had on later practice in embroidery and textiles in NSW.

<p>I detta arbete är syftet att ta reda på hur arbete med lappteknik i grundskolan kan genomföras. Textillärare har tillfrågats om hur de arbetar med lappteknik ute i grundskolan och varför de gör på det sättet. Sedan har undersökts vad det finns för positiva och negativa yttringar med att arbeta med lappteknik och om lärarna arbetar med en progression i lappteknik och hur den ser ut i sådana fall. Arbetet syftar även till att ta reda på om eleverna behöver några förkunskaper och vilka i sådana fall. I uppsatsen bearbetas också inlärning och instruktioner i skolan och med anledning av detta har lärare tillfrågats om vad de anser är väsentligt när ett självstudiematerial i lappteknik ska tillverkas samt om det finns bra instruktionsmaterial att tillgå i lappteknik. Till uppsatsen har litteraturstudie valts för att ta reda på fakta om lappteknik och inlärning. </p><p>En kvalitativ intervju har valts för att undersöka hur man som lärare kan lägga upp arbetet med lappteknik i grundskolan. Textilslöjdslärare som arbetar i grundskolan har intervjuats. Resultatet visar att det finns flera sätt att arbeta på med lappteknik i skolan. Varje lärare bestämmer hur mycket de vill ha med av en teknik och därför är det personliga intresset en avgörande faktor. När det gäller instruktioner verkar de flesta av lärarna vara överens om att de ska innehålla både text och bild samt att texten ska vara lättläst.</p>

<p>In May 1675, the local court in the northern Swedish parish of <em>Nordingrå</em>, which had approximately 1,000 inhabitants, held a preliminary investigation on 113 persons accused of witch-craft and superstition. For the majority of the 113, the main accusation was to have travelled to <em>Blåkulla</em>, a place where witches according to Swedish folklore participated in satanic festivities and rites led by the Devil himself. The preliminary investigation was held at the request of The Royal Witch-craft Commission. Nordingrå belonged to the province of <em>Ångermanland</em>, one of the Swedish provinces with the highest number of witch trials in the 1670s. The trials in Nordingrå have, more or less never been examined before, mainly due to the fact that no sentences or penalties were ever imposed.</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to examine social relations and social conflicts in Nordingrå with the records from the witch trial 1675 as the primary source. The theoretical background for the paper is Emmanuel Le Roy Laduries study of the Occitan village of Montaillou along with Hannah Arendts theory on the banality of evil.</p><p>One of the paper´s main conclusion is that the relations of power can be traced in the trials, but that they, on the other hand, become less significant the further the trials go. One reasonable interpretation of this fact is that the trials in Nordingrå reflects the tendence of juridical centralization in the 17th century.</p><p>The social conflicts in the parish are more obvious in the accusations of superstitions than in the accusations of travels to<em> Blåkulla</em>. For example the conclusion can be drawn that at least a number of inhabitants in Nordingrå had a religion on their own, which did not always match the orthodoxy of the Protestant church. At the same time the accusations of superstition do not play a particularly important role in the trials. The main impression of the trials is, on the contrary, that they do not follow a given pattern regarding who can be put on trial, except for the fact that most of the trialed were women. Against the accused, a number of at least 173 witnesses appeared, most of them children and young people under the age of 24. The witnesses in general did not only tell the court which crimes the accused witches had committed, but also which crimes they had committed themselves.</p>

The focus for this thesis is instructions and their role in guiding students’ activities and understandings in the context of textile craft. The empirical material consists of video recordings of courses in textile craft offered as part of teacher education programs. In four empirical studies, instructions directed towards competences in craft are investigated with the ambition to provide praxeological accounts of learning and instruction in domains where bodily dimensions and manual actions are prominent. The studies take an ethnomethodological approach to the study of learning and instruction. In the studies, instructions related to different stages of the making of craft objects are analysed. Study I highlights instructional work related to objects-yet-to-be and the distinction between listening to instructions as part of a lecture and listening to instructions when trying to use them for the purpose of making an object is discussed. Study II and III explore instructions in relation to developing-objects and examine instructions as a collaboration of hands and the intercorporeal dimensions of teaching and learning craft are scrutinised. In Study IV, objects-as-completed are analysed by investigating a certain way of addressing assessment as an educational topic. The manifest character of skills and understandings in craft provide specific conditions for learning and instruction. In craft education, skilled action is not just explained but also shown and established through bodily instructions that make the targeted skills available through bodily understandings of moving and touching. The bodily conduct of students comprises a resource for teachers to assess students’ understanding of the subject matter being taught as the materiality of craft activities reveal the crafters’ understanding of the activity at hand. The thesis demonstrates how skills in craft are made available to students in and through opportunities to see, feel and act in craft-specific ways. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Accepted. Paper 4: Submitted.

I detta arbete är syftet att ta reda på hur arbete med lappteknik i grundskolan kan genomföras. Textillärare har tillfrågats om hur de arbetar med lappteknik ute i grundskolan och varför de gör på det sättet. Sedan har undersökts vad det finns för positiva och negativa yttringar med att arbeta med lappteknik och om lärarna arbetar med en progression i lappteknik och hur den ser ut i sådana fall. Arbetet syftar även till att ta reda på om eleverna behöver några förkunskaper och vilka i sådana fall. I uppsatsen bearbetas också inlärning och instruktioner i skolan och med anledning av detta har lärare tillfrågats om vad de anser är väsentligt när ett självstudiematerial i lappteknik ska tillverkas samt om det finns bra instruktionsmaterial att tillgå i lappteknik. Till uppsatsen har litteraturstudie valts för att ta reda på fakta om lappteknik och inlärning. En kvalitativ intervju har valts för att undersöka hur man som lärare kan lägga upp arbetet med lappteknik i grundskolan. Textilslöjdslärare som arbetar i grundskolan har intervjuats. Resultatet visar att det finns flera sätt att arbeta på med lappteknik i skolan. Varje lärare bestämmer hur mycket de vill ha med av en teknik och därför är det personliga intresset en avgörande faktor. När det gäller instruktioner verkar de flesta av lärarna vara överens om att de ska innehålla både text och bild samt att texten ska vara lättläst.

The aim of this historical study was to investigate and describe the Swedish vocational educational school system from 1918 till the 1940's. The dissertation focuses upon vocational education related to industry and craft work. Questions include; who were the actors; and who's interests did they represent; how did the quantitative development of that school system look like; and which content, according to officiai authorities, should the education have. The work has a theoretical frame that comes closest to reproduction theories and educational sociology. The empirical material comprises the official documents, periodical journals and official statistics. The results showed that there was a wide gap between official rhetoric and what took place in reality. The development of the vocational training system did not follow expectations, neither in the quantitative nor the organisational sense. The national board of education also paid little attention to the vocational school system, once it was launched. Only a handfull of men persued the question and thereby at the same time made it their careers. The vocational educational school system branched out rather quickly and became incoherent. Futhermore there were difficulties in finding pupils who wanted to join the new school-form that vocational schools represented. The benefits from joining the many branches of the vocational educational system were few. The professional staff of teachers was diffuse, they were mostly recruited from "higher" school systems while the status of working as vocational educational teacher was low. In fact, the dissertation shows, that the vocational educational system that was introduced during the first half of the 20th century, had a very low status. The educational content looked very much like the content in the compulsory school, among other things, due to the ways of recruiting teachers. Overall results show that vocational training did not become a powerful means to carry into effect the rhetoric that underpinned it, but the period had significance at a symbolic level because it linked school and the labour market more firmly in popular consciousness. / digitalisering@umu

Denna studie har undersökt på vilket sätt elevers slöjdarbete kan stödja elevers lärande i matematik. Studien utgår ifrån det s.k. sociokulturella perspektivet där kunskap och lärande utvecklas i samspelet mellan människor och där situationella betingelser och språket spelar en central roll för kunskapsutvecklingen. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ undersökning med inspiration från den metod som på engelska benämns grounded theory. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av observationer av elevers slöjdarbeten i textilslöjdens årskurs 3-9. Observationerna har pågått under 2 års tid och utmynnat i dagboksanteckningar av elevers slöjdarbeten. Den nya svenska läroplanen, Lgr 11, och dess kursplan i matematik utgör det ramverk mot vilket elevers slöjdarbeten, och dess möjlighet att stödja elevers lärande i matematik, analyseras. Kursplanens förmågor kompletteras i analysen av Kilpatricks fem matematiska kompetenser. Resultatet visar hur matematik från kursplanens samtliga sex områden visar sig i elevers slöjdarbeten. Eleverna använder sig av matematik vid beräkningar, problemlösning och i vissa fall som inspiration till ett slöjdarbete. Det visar också på hur elevers slöjdarbeten kan bidra till att utveckla de förmågor som kursplanen i matematik beskriver och som även Kilpatrick redogör för genom sina fem matematiska kompetenser. Den teoretiska modell som arbetet utmynnat i bidrar till förståelsen av hur elevers slöjdarbete kan användas genom att visa hur matematik naturligt inspirerar elever i utformningen av slöjdarbeten och hur matematiken används som ett redskap vid exempelvis beräkningar och mätning (”in vivo”). Modellen visar också på hur slöjdarbetet skapar en kontext som hjälper till att synliggöra matematik, hjälper elever att skapa mentala bilder och stödjer elevernas utveckling av matematiska förmågor (”in vitro”). Modellen skall ses som ett försök till att skapa förståelse kring hur slöjdarbeten (och andra liknande verksamheter) kan bidra till att stödja elevers lärande i matematik. Förhoppningen är att modellen kan utgöra ett stöd vid utformningen av en mer ämnesövergripande undervisning där matematiken kan ges ett relevant och begripligt innehåll och samtidigt utgöra ett viktigt verktyg och en källa till inspiration. / This study has examined how students' craft projects can support their learning in mathematics. The study proceeds from the sociocultural perspective. This is where knowledge and learning develop with interaction between people and where situational conditions and the language play a central role for the development of knowledge. The study is based on a qualitative method inspired by the Grounded Theory approach. The empirical material consists of observations of students' craft projects in needle work from grade 3-9. These observations were made during two years and concluded in diary notes containing students' craft projects. The new Swedish curriculum, Lgr11, and its syllabus in mathematics form the framework, to which the analysis on how students' craft projects can support learning in mathematics is matched. The abilities from the syllabus are supplemented in the analysis by Kilpatrick's five strands of mathematical proficiency. The result shows how mathematics from the six areas of the syllabus is displayed in the students' craft projects. The students use mathematics in calculations, problem solving and in certain cases as inspiration for a craft project. It also shows how students' craft projects can contribute to the development of the abilities from the syllabus in mathematics and from Kilpatrick's five strands of mathematical proficiency. The study concluded in a theoretical model that contributes to the understanding of how students' craft projects can be used. This is by showing how mathematics naturally inspires students in their designing of craft projects and how mathematics is used as a tool for calculation and measuring ("in vivo"). The model also shows how craft projects create a context that will help making mathematics visible and help students creating mental images and support the students' development of mathematical abilities ("in vitro"). The model should be seen as an attempt to create understanding on how craft projects (and similar activities) can contribute to supporting students' learning in mathematics. Hopefully the model can support a more interdisciplinary teaching where mathematics can be given a relevant and comprehensible content which can also be an important tool and a source of inspiration.

The aim of this thesis has been to describe and analyse the students'views on the effects of constructivistic indicators in a learning environment of vocational training. The indicators concerned here were activity, authenticity, holism, context and multiple perspectives. The thesis focuses futher on the differences between traditional and constructivistic vocational training in its practice-of-skills aspect. The work consists of two sections, of which the first is a theoretical survey of cognitive constructivistic learning in which the views of various researchers are presented, analysed and compared. By designing a learning method with the highest possible number of constructivistic indicators, it has been possible to record students opinions of these in three different ways, by using questionnaires, interviews and video recordings. The pupils' experiences of various learning situations have then been described and analysed. Data have also been gathered using a fourth method, by recording spontaneous comments from the teachers concerned. The information has then been collated, and the results compared with the views of those researchers already presented. The results indicate that the effects of cognitive constructivistic indicators are felt as favourable by the pupils, who make it clear that it is of great value to be able to "think for oneself' as they put it, in the course of acquiring professional skills. Among other things, what the pupils consider specially valuable for the learning process is the personal activity and authenticity involved in creating usable products. No noticeably unfavourable pupil experiences of the constructivistic learning have emerged, while the spontaneous comments of the teachers express both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include increased motivation on the part of pupils as a consequence of learning through creating usable products; pupils feel that what they do is more meaningful than would be the case in traditional vocational training. They also become independent learners more quickly: the teachers feel that the pupils learn more efficiently, and that the training period for some of them could be reduced by one-third. The major disadvantage is that the teacher has to learn to play a partly new role, since the teaching material does not consist of rigidly specific written instructions. Initially a greater amount of work is demanded of the teacher until pupils have become accustomed to the mainly constructivistic learning method. The learning environment that is presented in conclusion includes among other things features of business economics, product design and innovation, as well as certain conditions for the establishment of small-scale industry. Judging from the results, these components may be considered as further reinforcing the learning effect from a cognitive-constructivistic point of view. Vocational training thus acquires a new qualitative dimension when constructivistic indicators integrate instruction with the subsequent situation of working and earning a living, instead of concentrating simply on the content of the syllabus with no relation to the situation of pupils after completion of their training. / digitalisering@umu

Large marine vessels carry their loads all over the world. It can be a container ship carrying over 10 000 containers filled with foods, textiles and electronics or a bulk freighter carrying 400 000 tons of coal. Vessels usually have a ballast system that pumps water into ballast tanks to stabilize the vessel. The ballast system can be used to change the vessel’s trim and list angles. Trim and list are the ship equivalents of pitch and roll. By changing the trim angle the water resistance can be reduced and thus also the fuel consumption. Since the vessel is consuming a couple of hundred tons of fuel per day, a small reduction in fuel consumption can save a considerable amount of money, and it is good for the environment. In this thesis, the ship’s power consumption has been estimated using an artificial neural network, which is a mathematical model based on data. The name refers to certain structural similarities with the neural synapse system in animals. The idea with neural networks has been to create brain-like systems. For applications such as learning to interpret sensor data, artificial neural networks are an effective learning method. The goal is to estimate the ship power using a artificial neural network and then use it to calculate the trim angle, to be able to save fuel. The data used in the artificial neural network come from sensor systems mounted on a container ship sailing between Europe and Asia. The sensor data have been thoroughly preprocessed and this includes for example removing the parts when the ship is docked in harbour, data patching and synchronisation and outlier detection based on a Kalman filter. A physical model of a marine craft including wind, wave, hydrodynamic and hydrostatic effects, has also been introduced to help analyse the performance and behaviour of the artificial neural network. The artificial neural network developed in this thesis could successfully estimate the power consumption of the ship. Based on the developed networks it can be seen that the fuel consumption is reduced by trimming the ship by bow, i.e., the ship is angled so the bow is closer to the water line than the stern. The method introduced here could also be applied on other marine vessels, such as bulk freighters or tank ships.

The act of creating anything, from a novel to a simple meal to a building, requires the combination of many elements. Broadly speaking, these elements are technique, technology, and materiality, the three of which are bought into combination according to the intent of the maker. The effects of the combination of these elements can be very powerful. One need only call to mind the cool, damp weightiness of stepping inside a church whose walls are made of solid stone or to contrast this experience with that of picking up a lightweight rowing shell whose thin wood frame and taut fabric skin combine amazing strength with impossible slenderness. These experiences amaze and move us because the various elements that brought them into being are combined in a harmonious way and one that is aligned with a poetic ambition. This is not to say that all three elements need to be mixed in equal proportions or that there is a hierarchy of importance; it is the mixing that is essential, not the presence of any one element. A specific focus of this thesis is technology and the way that architects use it and are shaped by its use. Many architects have rushed to embrace recent advances in digital design and fabrication tools, forgetting that that the act of making requires the convergence of a number of forces. Focussing too much attention on one will often come at that detriment of another. Through a series of projects, this thesis explores a number of methods of designing and making. The projects undertaken range from a series of hand carved spoons, to sculptural, physical translations of flowing water, through to the full-scale realization of a suspended ceiling for the North House prototype. An effort has been made to work across a variety of scales, and to employ as wide a range of techniques and technologies as possible. These projects have afforded a kind of research through making, one that engages the entire body rather than merely the mind, and which has been supplemented with more traditional means of research. In addition to the role of technology in architectural practice, attention has been paid to the relationship between ways of making and time, and to the way in which certain artists, designers, and architects are able to slow, compress, or even transcend time. A series of brief case studies serves to illustrate how this is possible while also describing a set of values against which the work of this thesis can be calibrated. By its very nature this thesis takes the form of an ongoing project, one in search of a somewhat elusive goal. The path that a powerful and moving project must take is often full of uncertainty. If I am certain of anything however, it is that achieving the proper mixture of elements requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to let a project take on a life of its own.