<p> This phenomenological study examines innovative pedagogy and the integration of literature by professors in STEM, leadership, and professional programs to foster leadership. The study probes university professors&rsquo; personal experiences integrating literature, focusing on pedagogical strategies and practices. Many studies exist on the use of literature to develop empathy, analytical, or critical thinking in higher education. However, there is virtually no published research on the integration of literature in STEM, leadership, and professional programs to foster leadership skills. Existing theories on utilizing literature in the humanities also apply to its integration into STEM, leadership, and professional programs. Therefore, professors integrating literature have well-defined research on how literature fosters storytelling abilities, critical thinking, decision-making and other dimensions of leadership. Purposive sampling was used to select professors with expertise integrating literature. Individual phone and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 participants regarding the integration of literature. As a result, 636 coded passages were bracketed into 32 themes. The top three themes of the study included: (a) fosters leadership skills, (b) pedagogic strategies, and (c) Socratic Method. Two keys findings emerged. Finding 1, the integration of compelling literature developed leadership skills in next generation STEM, leadership, or professional students. Finding 2, the effective integration of literature required use of pedagogical strategies, which included: planning courses with a theoretical foundation, using guided questions for reading, and employing Socratic Method. Professors should select compelling highly regarded/relatable literary works with protagonists that make decisions and pair these literary works with other powerful autobiographies, theatrical or documentary movies/clips of the same subject matter. Recommendations include STEM, leadership, and professional programs add leadership through literature courses. These findings can be used for professional development training that center on fostering leadership skills. This study provides researchers and professors with strategies for utilizing literature to foster leadership. </p><p>

Burke scholars oftentimes overlook Burke's fundamental role as educator and how his work can and should be applied to the classroom. This paper explores Burke's theoretical works and centers on two concepts important to developing rhetorical skills necessary for functioning and participating in a democratic society: his theory of aesthetic form and his distinction between motion and action. Specifically, this paper (1) clarifies these concepts and explains how they relate to each other and the emotional experience of literature, and (2) demonstrates how these concepts work together to imply a new method of practicing rhetorical criticism in the literature classroom necessary to meet Burke's goals of education: to help students become critically aware of the symbolic influences working upon them and to make critical judgments about them. To do that, I explain Burke's theory of form outlined in Counter-Statement, as clarified in additional texts, and how this form engages readers in a sequential and dialogical process, which creates in readers a specific emotional experience. I discuss how this experience subjects those who encounter form to what I describe in Burke's terms as a "motional" and consequently passive experience. I then discuss how practicing a method of reflection during and after the experience of form can help subject this experience to critique, into what Burke defined as the realm of "action"—conscious, deliberative choice.

The aim of this this study is to investigate how different schools in the region Småland in Sweden work with the author Vilhelm Moberg and his literature. The aim is also to see wich aspects are central in the teaching of Moberg. Seven teachers have been interviewed  and asked about how they teach about Moberg. The results schow that the novel The Emigrants is the most popular amongst Moberg's books when it comes to education and that Moberg is important in the schools of Småland, because of this connection to region and what he wrote about Swedish emigration. All of the teachers use different strategies when it comes to reading Mobergs's works and some of them take the pupils to the areas where Moberg was born. Most of the teachers also show the pupils a film based on one of Moberg's books. The results also show that there is no big difference between lower secondary school adn upper secondary school in how they teash about Moberg, but there is a difference in how much each teacher works with the author.

This dissertation examines young people’s reading of fiction in the digital age, with a special focus on the aspects of attitude and competence. The literary reading of respondents in their upper teens is considered from several perspectives—especially those of the respondents themselves. The discussion is based on three larger empirical studies of the reading attitudes and practices of 18-year-olds. These studies build on and complement each other in relation to the overarching research questions through a triangulating process combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The studies are, however, freestanding and were conducted using different empirical methods. The first study is diachronic in that it compares national test essays on the topic of reading from the year 2000 with essays written according to the same instructions twelve years later. The main aim of this study is to reveal possible differences between the two generations in terms of attitudes and approaches to reading fiction, and to relate them to issues of literary legitimization and competence. The second study consists of a questionnaire about a short story read by the respondents, as well as about their general reading and media habits. A connection is drawn between media habits and reading frequency, on the one hand, and the results of the essay study, on the other. The respondents’ reception and understanding of the story is analyzed separately. A summary of the first two studies reveals several complex issues with contradictory patterns. The third study, which examines these issues more closely, was conducted through focus-group interviews. All three studies have been carried out among groups of pupils in the third year of upper secondary school in Sweden. The final part of the dissertation summarizes the results of the three studies, applying a pedagogical perspective to literature pedagogy within the subject of Swedish at the upper secondary level. This discussion points out several opportunities for literature teachers today.

This dissertation is a rhetorical analysis of the theories and practices surrounding student-centered mentor-teaching. I examine textual representations of the teacher/student relationship as well as theories and practices involved in the discursive formation of teacher/student relationships, examining the intersection (or lack thereof) between the ways we as researchers talk about teacher/student relationship formation and the way(s) such relationships form in the “real world” of the English classroom. This institutional critique of teacher/student relationships draws on the works of ancient rhetorical scholars like Quintillian and Socrates, and on the post-1980 scholarship of Robert Connors, Lad Tobin, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Parker J. Palmer, Mike Rose, Wendy Bishop, Louise Rosenblatt, Jeffrey Berman, and Peter Elbow. These scholars have all provided helpful models for me as I have framed my own beliefs about the value of expressive writing, the usefulness of writing conferences, the need for teacher vulnerability as a model for students’ expressive writing, the appropriateness of various relational settings beyond the classroom, and the ways grading/responding to student writing can either promote or inhibit a trusting student/teacher bond. While all of these scholars have contributed to my own beliefs and ideas, I am merely identifying and classifying pedagogical movements; rather, I am synthesizing these movements’ theories and practices in order to formulate an overall critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches. I also draw heavily upon the theoretical underpinnings of psychoanalysis, feminism, reader-response criticism, and composition studies to weave together a synthesized working model of mutually beneficial teacher/student relationships as they pertain to the high school and college English classrooms. Ultimately, I suggest my own contributions to the existing scholarship that will call for a mixture of both bolder pedagogical approaches and greater relational caution, depending upon the concept and the student(s) involved. I conclude with suggestions for utilizing teacher research to formulate new theories and practices for mentor-teaching in the English classroom.

<p><p>I förskolan sker det hela tiden möten mellan barn och vuxna och dessa möten har en stor inverkan på barns utveckling. Vi valde att göra denna undersökning då syftet var att se vad förskollärare har för förhållningssätt till genus i barnböcker. Studien har genomförts genom intervjuer med tre förskollärare i två olika kommuner i Mellansverige. Intervjuernas resultat har varit grunden för underlag till vår analys och diskussion. I resultatet framgick det att förskollärares förhållningssätt till genus är viktigt för utvecklandet av barns värderingar och attityder kring könsroller och att barnböcker kan vara ett sätt att överföra dessa värderingar på. Resultatet visade även att barnböcker i samband med genus behövs uppmärksammas mer på vissa förskolor.</p></p>

I förskolan sker det hela tiden möten mellan barn och vuxna och dessa möten har en stor inverkan på barns utveckling. Vi valde att göra denna undersökning då syftet var att se vad förskollärare har för förhållningssätt till genus i barnböcker. Studien har genomförts genom intervjuer med tre förskollärare i två olika kommuner i Mellansverige. Intervjuernas resultat har varit grunden för underlag till vår analys och diskussion. I resultatet framgick det att förskollärares förhållningssätt till genus är viktigt för utvecklandet av barns värderingar och attityder kring könsroller och att barnböcker kan vara ett sätt att överföra dessa värderingar på. Resultatet visade även att barnböcker i samband med genus behövs uppmärksammas mer på vissa förskolor.

This thesis studies the clash between the hero and the First World War in the works of Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It explores the impact on their poetry and attitude towards the concept of the hero as it applied to them as people and poets. The study shows that over prolonged contact with the horrors of the First World War, it is evident in both literary sources and their poetry that both Sassoon and Owen changed their attitudes negatively towards both the idea of heroes and heroism, as well as the War as a just and glorious cause.  However, the myth of the hero was still a core belief of their society, and in order to not be branded cowards and discarded along with their warnings, they had to become heroes in the eyes of their society, to openly attack the concept and the war it fueled. This thesis then studies how and why First World War poetry and literature should be utilized within the subject of English in the Swedish School System, as a means to provide a multicultural and critical education.