Considering the context of large city schools, this study explores what variables in a kindergarten classroom may impact the process of children’s engagement with nature. In particular I examine the central role of children and teacher in co-constructing their own unique understanding, knowledge, and attitude towards the natural world. In this study, I examine nature-child’s connection considering the complexity of nature beyond a pre-packaged concept (Louv, 2007) and avoiding a linear identification of a cause and effect relationship between children’s learning experiences and nature, (Kellert, 2005). This qualitative case study is based on extensive classroom observations, in which 20 kindergarten children and their teacher participate. The children’s direct, indirect, and vicarious experiences with nature are documented using digital photography, video-audio recording, and collection of artifacts. I interview the classroom teacher two times and invite the parents to fill up a questionnaire about their children’s experiences with nature outside the school time. I use the techniques and procedure of the grounded theory to analyze the data. A comparative analysis of the five learning episodes demonstrates four major factors that when all woven together encourage and sustain the children’s engagement with nature. These factors are: investigating children’s meaningful and autotelic questions, encountering and experiencing nature in familiar contexts, developing emotional bonding, and having sufficient time. The findings show the crucial role of the classroom teacher in creating five main conditions to engage the children in the process of each inquiry. She offers the children many opportunities to use their prior skills and knowledge, take responsibility of their own learning, and experiment with learning as a process. She often responds positively to the children’s learning endeavours and communicates her high confidence and expectations for them. This study makes an important contribution to the field of early childhood education and environmental education by demonstrating the possibilities and challenges in actively and holistically engaging children with nature in school settings. The findings shed light on our understanding of children and teacher’s sense of ownership and motivation as two driving forces of learning.

Considering the context of large city schools, this study explores what variables in a kindergarten classroom may impact the process of children’s engagement with nature. In particular I examine the central role of children and teacher in co-constructing their own unique understanding, knowledge, and attitude towards the natural world. In this study, I examine nature-child’s connection considering the complexity of nature beyond a pre-packaged concept (Louv, 2007) and avoiding a linear identification of a cause and effect relationship between children’s learning experiences and nature, (Kellert, 2005). This qualitative case study is based on extensive classroom observations, in which 20 kindergarten children and their teacher participate. The children’s direct, indirect, and vicarious experiences with nature are documented using digital photography, video-audio recording, and collection of artifacts. I interview the classroom teacher two times and invite the parents to fill up a questionnaire about their children’s experiences with nature outside the school time. I use the techniques and procedure of the grounded theory to analyze the data. A comparative analysis of the five learning episodes demonstrates four major factors that when all woven together encourage and sustain the children’s engagement with nature. These factors are: investigating children’s meaningful and autotelic questions, encountering and experiencing nature in familiar contexts, developing emotional bonding, and having sufficient time. The findings show the crucial role of the classroom teacher in creating five main conditions to engage the children in the process of each inquiry. She offers the children many opportunities to use their prior skills and knowledge, take responsibility of their own learning, and experiment with learning as a process. She often responds positively to the children’s learning endeavours and communicates her high confidence and expectations for them. This study makes an important contribution to the field of early childhood education and environmental education by demonstrating the possibilities and challenges in actively and holistically engaging children with nature in school settings. The findings shed light on our understanding of children and teacher’s sense of ownership and motivation as two driving forces of learning.

This dissertation considers the mystery of the relationship between human free choice and God by focusing on the Controversy de Auxiliis (1582-1607) and the thought of Domingo Báñez, O.P. (1528-1604) in particular. The dissertation comprises four chapters and a conclusion preceded by a preface and brief historical introduction. The preface introduces the issue to be explored and the motivations for exploring it before providing a general synopsis of the dissertation that is more detailed than the present abstract. The historical summary that follows introduces a theological debate that has become widely unfamiliar to contemporary theology, even while conceptually, that debate remains perennial. The four-chapter body that follows may be divided into two general parts: Broadly, chapters One and Two exposit Báñez’s thought, while chapters Three and Four critique it. Chapter One explores Báñez’s positive account of physical premotion, human freedom and sin. Chapter Two examines Báñez’s critique of Luis de Molina S.J.’s alternative proposal, in conjunction with some contemporary sources from both sides of the debate (Molina was Báñez’s principal adversary in the Controversy de Auxiliis). Báñez’s line of critique in Chapter Two is found to be cogent. Chapter Three investigates Molina’s critique of Báñez and finds it too to be cogent, even though Molina’s positive account was found to be problematic in Chapter Two. Chapter Four begins by exploring Bernard Lonergan S.J.’s work on divine causality and human free choice. Lonergan attempts to provide a fresh historical reading of Aquinas that is unencumbered by the presuppositions of the Controversy de Auxiliis. The first part of Chapter Four explains Lonergan’s critique of Báñez and finds it convincing, while the second part of the chapter finds Lonergan’s interpretation of Aquinas problematic from a theoretical standpoint. Chapter Four then offers a constructive critique of Lonergan’s interpretation before advancing an alternative way to think about God’s causation of human free choices. In closing, this dissertation argues that God creates human free choices, but that in creating a human free choice, God, or God’s creative will, is not an antecedent condition that determines choice. Rather, God creates the entire reality of a human free choice—both what it is and that it is—and in so doing, part of the reality God creates just is that choice’s being up to its human agent.

My research interest in the upcoming paper is the increased need for promotion of schools. I. e. the individual school´s needs to be able to show its existence, in the huge flow and availability of information; schools and universities, study circles, streamed lectures on the Internet, public schools and private schools, different educational directions, et cetera. The schools’ needs to market itself, make good PR and sell their pedagogical idea, and that has become increasingly important.   My purpose is to clarify how music teachers, in the Swedish primary and secondary school, skills and competences are used in outreach activities within but also outside, the school premises. With outreach activities I mean here the kind of official events that have cultural, tradition-bearing moves and where music teachers often have an additional responsibility for implementation, such as Speech Days, Lucia celebrations, “Open School days”, PTA meetings, et cetera.   Research issues 1) What is the significance of outreach activities expressed by music teachers and principals?   2) Which motives are expressed by the two occupation categories when it comes to outreach activities arranged by the school and how they can be related to the current governing documents?   3) To what extent are these activities and music teacher's work with these integrated in music as a school subject?   Results Outreach music activities play a big role in getting students to develop and demonstrate the basic knowledge and the breadth to which they dedicated themselves through the school’s music classes. As a consequence of that all students have been able to assimilate basic music skills outreach activities has been important to show the excellence of the pupils which they are happy to show, both for their own lifelong and life-wide learning and the school's ability to do PR for it’s well-functioning music activities. This allows the school to continue the good pedagogical work when new students secure the economic basis for the future. If outreach activities are used to give students control over their learning in the right way, it can additionally help to ensure that students stimulates to take an active part in school development at various levels, locally, nationally and internationally.   Music Teachers' motives for carrying out outreach activities varied between unequivocally curriculum-related goals, didactic goals at the individual level as well as PR and marketing-related reasons, with strong emphasis on the curriculum. A concrete motive for music teachers in the study was that all outreach activities are considered as good opportunities to "jam" with students, to gain experience through music situations similar to those that you can meet as a professional musician in the future, such as "master-apprentice" meetings. The strongest motive was to conduct outreach activities in relation to the substance in the curriculum, such as solo singing, choir, accompaniment, melody playing and to reflect on and discuss the importance of music, different genres, sound engineering, et cetera. For a couple of the principals the promotion of the school was of greater importance than for the others. They simply had to be so well performing that they each fall semester can attract a new first year class with students. Several of the principals in the study made a connection between the schools’ outreach activities and its work with values.   There was an almost unanimous agreement that outreach music activities are an integral and very important part of school music education, both among music teachers and principals. However, there were a couple of principals and even music teachers, who argued that the very large outreach activities were not optimally timed opportunities for assessment. Especially the music teachers in the study were in this respect divided into half’s, where the majority on the contrary argued that outreach activities are very important formative and stimulating opportunities for assessment. Even in this respect, i. e. when it comes to how outreach activities can be integrated in music as a school subject, strong arguments can be made to have requirements of curriculum related issues like singing, ensemble playing, accompaniment, melody playing, sound engineering and really almost everything in the curricula.   A polarization or loyalty conflict between prioritizing curriculum-related goals or PR did not seem to be verifiable, empirical data rather told that the participants in this study saw it as two activities in symbiosis. In contrast, some of the experienced music teachers spoke about the importance of "peeling off" unnecessary and costly project, and instead prioritize things that create greater opportunities for the student's musical learning.

This essay compares the public debate in Sweden 1992 caused by the reforms introduced by the then government giving parents a free choice of schools for their children with the current debate in France about proposals for a similar law there. The study concentrates on the positions taken by the teachers trade unions, in Sweden Lärarförbundet and Lärarnas Riksförbund (LR) and in France SGEN-CFDT. To do so it is necessary also to study the arguments given for and against the proposals by the political parties. Some of the differences between the debates can be attributed to different circumstances. The Swedish reform was related to the opening up of possibilities to run private schools, which previously had been rare in Sweden. The French debate has no such connections. The private schools, mostly Catholic, have a very stable share of the students and no side is openly arguing for a change of any sort. Other differences depend on the French adversity to liberalism, almost always conflated with neo-liberalism which makes market-oriented arguments much less common in French public debate. Among the trade unions the big difference is between the two Swedish organisations, LR was overall positive to the proposals while Lärarförbundet opposed them. In France SGEN-CFDT takes a position strikingly similar to Lärarförbundets in Sweden 1992 seeing free choice as undermining the idea of a school system for all. In Sweden that idea is seen as a part of the welfare state, closely connected to the Social Democratic party. In France it is seen as a republican idea, connected to an idea of citizenship. The trade unions of the teachers in both France and Sweden are also in similar positions as their role has become merely reactive. There seems to be little room left for them to formulate policy and push the educational systems in their prefered directions.

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Barn spenderar en stor del av sin tid i olika institutioner som skola och fritidshem. I den delen av vardagen som definieras som fritid gör barn olika val av aktiviteter. Begreppet motorik är i detta sammanhang en aspekt av aktiviteter som är intressant att undersöka. Människors rörelseförmåga och rörelsemönster är den generella definitionen på motorik som delas in i finmotorik och grovmotorik. Tidigare forskning visar att pojkar generellt har en mer utvecklad motorik än flickor och att dessa skillnader blir större ju äldre de blir. Syftet med vår uppsats är att undersöka barns val och deltagande i finmotoriska och grovmotoriska aktiviteter på fritidshemmet. Vi har även tittat på hur faktorer som miljö, verksamhet och pedagogers samspel med barnen och deras aktiviteter relaterar till varandra. Studiens resultat grundar sig i observationer på två olika fritidshem i Sverige. Resultatet har granskats med hjälp av våra teoretiska utgångspunkter, genus och sociokulturellt perspektiv. Det som har framkommit i denna studie är att i valet av aktiviteter som är grovmotoriska eller finmotoriska väljer pojkar generellt grovmotoriska aktiviteter och flickor finmotoriska. Sammanfattningsvis i denna studie framgick det att miljö, pedagogers handlingar, barns intressen, förväntningar, föreställningar, normer och olika grader av strukturer i verksamheten utgör faktorer som kan ha betydelse för barns aktivitetsval på fritidshemmet.

As informações acerca da performance e impacto socioambientais do fornecedor e do produto são necessárias para o exercício do consumo de forma sustentável. O conhecimento dos impactos socioambientais advindos da produção, uso e pós-consumo é requisito para a livre escolha dos consumidores por produtos que apresentem impactos socioambientais positivos em qualquer dessas fases de seu ciclo de vida. Um dos instrumentos para o alcance do desenvolvimento sustentável é possibilitar o consumo de produtos que utilizem menos recursos finitos da natureza e que tragam melhorias sociais como suas consequências. No Brasil, o fundamento para a inclusão dos dados socioambientais do produto nas informações veiculadas ao consumidor está presente no ordenamento jurídico, na garantia de acesso à informação e no direito à preservação do meio ambiente, ambos inseridos no rol dos direitos constitucionais fundamentais, ao lado do princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana, bem como em preceitos do Código de Defesa do Consumidor e da legislação ambiental. A função social da empresa decorrente do princípio constitucional da função social da propriedade também justifica o dever de veiculação dos dados referentes ao impacto socioambiental de seus produtos e acerca do comportamento socioambiental da empresa. A veiculação desses dados beneficia a concorrência, acarretando o aperfeiçoamento dos próprios meios de produção para atrair os consumidores que optam por produtos sustentáveis. Os deveres de clareza e veracidade, decorrentes do princípio da boa-fé objetiva previstos no CC e CDC, necessitam ser observados na veiculação dessas informações para evitar a maquiagem socioambiental, que é a divulgação da falsa imagem de preocupação socioambiental ao produto. A essencialidade ou utilidade das informações é o parâmetro para sua veiculação sob o risco de ocorrer seu excesso, que impede a correta compreensão de todos os dados apresentados. Até os riscos de impactos socioambientais ainda não comprovados cabem ser informados em atenção ao princípio da precaução. O repasse dessas informações pode e deve ocorrer por todos os meios de comunicação utilizados para a divulgação dos produtos, ressaltando-se o papel da rotulagem. / The information concerning the social-environmental impact of the product and the of the producers performance are necessary for the exercise of the sustainable consumption. The knowledge of the social-environmental impacts of the life cycle impact of the product is a requisite for the free choice of the consumers for products that present positive social-environmental impacts in any of these phases of its cycle of life. One of the instruments for the reach of the sustainable development is to make possible the consumption of products that use less finite resources of the nature and that they bring social improvements as its consequences. In Brazil, is possible to conclude that the legal system establishes the inclusion of the social-environmental data of the product in the information propagated to the consumer. Brazilian Constitution imposes the guarantee of access to the information, the consumer protection and the right of the preservation of the environment, as well as the dignity of the person human being. The social function of the companies, based in the constitutional principle of the social function of the property also justifies the duty of propagation of the referring data to the social-environmental impact of its products and concerning the social-environmental behavior of the company. In the legislative basis, there are strong rules concerning information in the Code of Defense of the Consumer and the environmental legislation. The propagation of these data benefits to the competition, creating incentives to the companies improving the means of production to attract the consumers that opt to sustainable products. The duties of clarity and veracity, attached with the good-faith principle established by Civil Code and Consumer Defense Code, need to be observed in the propagation of this information to prevent the greenwashing, that it is the propagation of the false image of social-environmental concern to the product. The essentiality or utility of the information is the parameter for its propagation under the risk to occur its excess, which hinders the correct understanding of all the presented data. Until the risks of social-environmental impacts not yet proven, they fit to be informed in attention to the Precautionary Principle. The view of this information can and must occur by all means of communication used for the spreading of the products, standing out itself the paper of the labeling.

Le mal est par sa nature un scandale car il se définit par ce qui ne devrait pas être à l’opposé du bien qui se présente comme ce qui doit être. Cette affirmation, qui relève de la tautologie, marque la réalité éprouvée face au mal. Il a d’abord été une évidence criante : comment réagir face aux maux de l’existence humaine ? Ainsi le mal est inscrit dans l’histoire de la pensée et commence pour notre travail avec le platonisme. Avant la conceptualisation platonicienne, le mal est une donnée factuelle de la vie avec laquelle il faut composer. Les figures divines sont ambivalentes à l’image des hommes et alternent vices et vertus. Platon postule une entité divine unique, omnisciente, omnipotente et bienveillante. Ce dieu devient intelligence, calcul et raison : le monde devient une création parfaite, belle et ordonnée et non plus le théâtre d’un affrontement entre les diverses passions des dieux. Le mal se transforme alors en un enjeu métaphysique : comment concilier cette perfection avec l’émergence du mal ? Il faut désormais expliquer et tenter de justifier la violence et les crimes. S’il est possible de proposer une théodicée qui rende le mal physique et métaphysique nécessaire, légitimer la méchanceté se révèle plus ardu. Les penseurs du platonisme, du néoplatonisme et du stoïcisme vont tenter d’apporter une première réponse au mal moral. Dans leur sillage, une rupture conceptuelle advient et révolutionne le concept : le christianisme invente le péché. En devenant péché, le mal se retrouve désormais sous la responsabilité de l’homme coupable. Le mal entre dans le giron de la liberté : il est voulu, consenti. A la suite des penseurs chrétiens, certains philosophes continueront ce travail d’élucidation de la volonté du mal. L’objectif est de retracer l’histoire de ces systèmes conceptuels qui s’entremêlent et se répondent les uns aux autres. Le mal moral se construit dans cette progression qui a des conséquences anthropologiques importantes : l’homme se pense à travers le mal. La méchanceté n’est donc pas seulement un problème à résoudre, elle devient le paradigme à travers lequel définir l’homme. Notre problématique est de montrer comment la question de la méchanceté est à la base du problème de la morale et comment elle conditionne notre représentation de la nature de la volonté humaine. Cette évolution s’est nouée lors d’étapes clés de la pensée philosophique. En effet, si dans toute philosophie morale, le concept du mal est évoqué, il n’est pas en général le centre de l’argumentaire. Le premier moment est celui de la pensée antique. Platon fait naître Dieu et le monde dans l’histoire des concepts puis se retrouve face l’énigme de nos crimes. La théodicée mise en place et qui sera reprise par Plotin et les Stoïciens ne cessera de nier l’existence d’un instinct pervers. Le mal voulu est une absurdité. L’irruption de la faute chrétienne bouleverse la donne. Saint Augustin en sera le théoricien le plus investi affectivement. Ayant expérimenté une double conversion dans sa vie spirituelle, il théorise une méchanceté issue de notre faiblesse, de notre faute première. Le mal est voulu car il n’est plus possible de vouloir autre chose. Saint Anselme reprend également le dogme de la chute mais lui apporte une dimension logique et sémantique en proposant une méchanceté égoïste. Le mal est certes voulu mais par dédain du bien. Notre dernière étape est kantienne. Le mal radical est le concept qui permet enfin de penser une volonté normale qui voudrait le mal simplement parce qu’elle a en elle cette possibilité et la liberté fondamentale de le choisir. Nous pourrons donc constater le chemin parcouru entre notre point de départ et notre point d’arrivée et comment cette problématisation du mal fait apparaître une généalogie de la volonté. Au fil de la pensée, elle passe de l’ombre à la lumière, n’étant jamais aussi présente que quand elle se retrouve confrontée aux obstacles. Penser le mal moral c’est faire l’archéologie de la volonté. / Evil provokes scandal by nature because it is what it should not be unlike good which is what it has to be. This tautological assertion expresses our feelings toward evil. It was first perfectly obvious : how must we face human pain ? Evil is a part of thinking’s history : our study starts with Platonism. Before his work, evil is just a fact of life you have to live with. The gods of Antiquity are like men : good or bad. The God of Plato is the one, omniscient, all-powerful and kindly. God is just intelligence, calculation and reason : the world he created is beautiful, ordered and perfect and it is no longer the place for the vices of ancient gods. Evils turns into a metaphysical issue : how can be the world perfect despite evil ? We have now to explain, to justify violence and crimes. Theodicy can justify pain and illness. It does not work with wickedness. Platonism, Neo-Platonism and Stoicism tried to answer this question. Following them, a conceptual break happens : Christendom invented sin. When evil became sin, man became liable and guilty. It is now a matter of liberty : man wants evil. After them, some philosophers will keep to work on the subject of the bad will. Our purpose is to find the story of these concepts and to connect thoughts between themselves. Evil has been made by this story and brings many anthropological consequences : man understands himself through evil. Wickedness is not just a matter to solve, wickedness becomes a way to define mankind. We want to show that wickedness issue is the foundations of morality and how it makes us see and think human will. Several stages occurred in this philosophical evolution. Every ethic deals with evil, not all put it at the heart of their system. Our first stage is Antiquity. Plato brings the ideas of God and perfect world in philosophy but faces the riddle of our crimes. His theodicy adopted by Plotinus and Stoics will always refuse pervert instinct in man. A man who want evil is nonsense. Christian sin appearance changes everything. Augustine will be his strongest defender. By living a double spiritual conversion, he understands wickedness as weakness due to original sin. Man want evil because he is no longer able to will something else. Anselmus follows the dogma of the fall but puts logical and semantic dimension in it and presents a self-interested wickedness. Man wants evil not for itself, man does not want enough good. Our last stage is Kant. Radical will is the first concept which allows to conceive a normal bad will which would evil just because it is one of his options and it has the liberty to do so. We can see the difference between our starting point and our arrival. We see now how the concept of will has grew up and changed. Little by little, will comes from darkness to light. The more will faces obstacles, the more it is obvious. Thinking on evil is the archaeology of the will.