The objective of this study was to explore how meaning unfolded in the narratives of unemployed young adult graduates. South Africa has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, which is affecting a growing number of university graduates. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge about this population by combining insights on unemployment, young adulthood as a distinctive developmental period, and meaning. A qualitative research design, incorporating an existential-humanistic paradigm, was utilised to explore the nuances of personal experiences regarding meaning. A total of 12 participants between the ages of 21 and 30 who had graduated and had been unemployed for at least six months took part in individual interviews. Rich data were gathered through narrative interviews, and a narrative analysis yielded findings that demonstrated the uniqueness of each story and common themes that emerged. The participants had experienced a loss of meaning when expectations of employment were disappointed, which inspired efforts to seek meaning. Commitment to their original purpose through further education, connecting with supportive people, being involved in meaningful activities, and reflecting on how to obtain new coherence and growth restored their sense of meaning. The findings suggest that the ability to pursue new avenues of meaning can be cultivated as a valuable resource during unemployment. Stakeholders involved in graduates’ transition to work should consider including meaning-focused interventions to prepare graduates for the labour market and to curb the deleterious effects of unemployment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Psychology / PhD / Unrestricted

Orientador: Jackson Gois / Resumo: Há alguns anos, a abordagem de ensino da língua materna, mais especificamente da gramática, tem sido um verdadeiro desafio e se tornou objeto de reflexões, debates e de pesquisas de caráter qualitativo. O objetivo dessa pesquisa é investigar como ocorrem os processos de domínio dos gêneros discursivos WhatsApp, Carta Formal e Notícia Jornalística como ferramentas culturais em sala de aula utilizadas por alunos de Ensino Médio, à luz das perspectivas da Teoria da Ação Mediada de James Wertsch. Os dados foram coletados por meio de gravações de áudio e vídeo e atividades escritas em uma escola privada de São José do Rio Preto/SP. A análise dos dados nos permite observar que as categorias Incerteza e Formalidade nos auxiliam não somente na investigação de como ocorrem os processos de domínio de uma ferramenta cultural, mas também se o agente já domina a ferramenta. Observamos que quanto mais os alunos exercitam uma ferramenta cultural, maior é o domínio que apresentam sobre ela. Em contrapartida, usar apenas a mesma ferramenta pode acabar não contribuindo para que o agente use outras. A intervenção da professora também tem um papel importante no processo de domínio das ferramentas culturais. O domínio da ferramenta cultural contribui para o processo de ensino e aprendizagem do aluno e está intimamente correlacionada a elaboração de significados. / Abstract: For some years now, the approach to teaching mother tongue, more specifically grammar, has been a real challenge and has become the subject of reflections, debates and qualitative research. The objective of this research is to investigate how the domain processes of discourse genres WhatsApp, Formal Letter and Journalistic News occur as cultural tools in the classroom used by high school students, in the light of the perspectives of James Wertsch's Mediated Action Theory. The data were collected through audio and video recordings and activities written in a private school in São José do Rio Preto/SP. The analysis of the data allows us to observe that the categories Uncertainty and Formality help us not only in the investigation of how the processes of mastery of a cultural tool occur, but also if the agent already masters the tool. We observed that the more students exercise a cultural tool, the greater their mastery over it. In contrast, using only the same tool may end up not helping the agent to use others. The teacher's intervention also plays an important role in the process of mastering cultural tools. The mastery of the cultural tool contributes to the student's teaching-learning process and is closely correlated with the elaboration of meanings. / Mestre

Diplomová práce se zabývá pohledem čtyř skautských generací na ideje skautského hnutí po roce 1945 v Československu. Výzkum je zaměřen na 18. středisko Kruh v Praze. Práce se zaměřuje na proměny skautských idejí, ale i na proměny vedení a skautského programu. Výzkum je veden metodou orální historie, přičemž narátoři jsou vybíráni z řad 18. střediska Kruh. Cílem práce není podrobně zmapovat vývoj a historii vybraného střediska, ale spíše obecně nastínit, jakým způsobem se skauti museli ideově přizpůsobit politické a společenské situaci. Dále práce zkoumá způsob, jakým se ve skautském oddíle předává tradice a jak na sebe jednotlivé generace navazují. Klíčová slova: skauting, generace, hodnoty, vedení, význam

The presence of and/or search for meaning has divergent and salient outcomes for individuals’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Although numerous domains of meaning have been examined, the literature on the meaning of sex is sparse and lacks a quantitative measure. In this study, I aimed to validate a general Meaning of Sex (MOS) Measure that captured the presence of (MOS-P) and search for (MOS-S) the meaning of sex that predicted salient relational and sexual outcomes (i.e., relationship stability and satisfaction and sexual satisfaction). The MOS measure was based off of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) created by Steger and colleagues (2006), which also used the subscales of presence and searching. All participants (N = 856) reported engaging in what they considered to be sexual intercourse and were either single or in a relationship. The two subscales were distinct from one another and had good reliability. The MOS-S had a stronger (and negative) association with relationship stability and sexual satisfaction than the MOS-P. Further analyses revealed that there were significant interactions between the MOS-P and MOS-S. When individuals scored high on the MOS-P, searching for a meaning of sex no longer had a significant association with relationship stability or sexual satisfaction. Creating this measure is meaningful because it provides a more holistic picture of sexuality that has not been addressed in the literature.

In this thesis, I take a closer look at the meaning of life from an eschatological point of view. More precisely, the question at hand is whether and in what sense the existence of Hell would impact the meaning of life. The thesis primarily makes use of Joshua Seachris’s theories on what ‘the meaning of life’ denotes, dividing ‘meaning’ up into the subcategories of ‘intelligibility’, ‘purpose’, and ‘significance’. Three different answers to the research question are proposed, which crystallizes three different positions: Hell-optimism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would contribute to the meaning of life; Hell-neutralism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would have no effect on the meaning of life; and Hell-pessimism, which denotes the view that the existence of Hell would detract from the meaning of life. Arguments are given for each position, most appropriated from the broader meaning of life-discourse. On the basis of the evaluation of each argument, Hell-pessimism is considered the most probable of the three.

It has been suggested recently that Heidegger's philosophy entails a linguistic idealism because it is committed to the thesis that meaning determines reference. I argue that a careful consideration of the relationship between meaning and signification in Heidegger's work does not support the strong sense of determination required by this thesis. By examining Heidegger's development of Husserl's phenomenology, I show that discourse involves a logic that articulates meaning into significations. Further analysis of Heidegger's phenomenological method at work shows that while meaning serves as a condition of possibility of signification in the sense that all possibilities for a term's signification are latent in the meaning of that term, meaning under-determines signification and hence reference.

This thesis employs the literary folklorist methodology to explore personal narratives. Personal narratives told by Elizabeth (Beth) Wyatt Winn were analyzed. It was discovered that these narratives provide an eyewitness account of history, reveal world views, and encapsulate experiences into values and personal meanings. The depth of meaning found in Elizabeth (Beth) Wyatt Winn's personal narratives illustrates the importance of personal narratives in historical research and historical re-creation and simulation. Appendices include several oral interviews containing personal narratives.

This study researched the meaning of being single among 24 college-age adults of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e., Mormons). It examined influences on the construction of meanings of singlehood, gender patterns regarding the meaning of singlehood, and pressures on L.D.S. singles to date and marry. The most important finding was that positive attitudes toward singlehood are more prevalent than negative or ambivalent attitudes. Families, as gate-keepers and transmitters of cultural information about singlehood and marriage, and the L.D.S. religion were the strongest influences on the development of meanings of singlehood. Families and religion mutually influence one another and meanings of singlehood, and supportive friends helped singles feel that they are not alone. Although there was more variation within than between gender accounts of singlehood, important patterns in construction of attitudes were also discovered. Participants felt both external and internal pressures to date and marry.

abstract: This dissertation reports three studies of the relationships between meanings teachers hold and meanings their students construct. The first paper reports meanings held by U.S. and Korean secondary mathematics teachers for teaching function notation. This study focuses on what teachers in U.S. and Korean are revealing their thinking from their written responses to the MMTsm (Mathematical Meanings for Teaching secondary mathematics) items, with particular attention to how productive those meanings would be if conveyed to students in a classroom setting. This paper then discusses how the MMTsm serves as a diagnostic instrument by sharing a teacher’s story. The data indicates that many teachers name rules instead of constructing representations of functions through function notation. The second paper reports the conveyance of meaning with eight Korean teachers who took the MMTsm. The data that I gathered was their responses to the MMTsm, what they said and did in the classroom lessons I observed, pre- and post-lesson interviews with them and their students. This paper focuses on the relationships between teachers’ mathematical meanings and their instructional actions as well as the relationships between teachers’ instructional actions and meanings that their students construct. The data suggests that holding productive meanings is a necessary condition to convey productive meanings to students, but not a sufficient condition. The third paper investigates the conveyance of meaning with one U.S. teacher. This study explores how a teacher’s image of student thinking influenced her instructional decisions and meanings she conveyed to students. I observed 15 lessons taught by a calculus teacher and interviewed the teacher and her students at multiple points. The results suggest that teachers must think about how students might understand their instructional actions in order to better convey what they intend to their students. The studies show a breakdown in the conveyance of meaning from teacher to student when the teacher has no image of how students might understand his or her statements and actions. This suggests that it is crucial to help teachers improve what they are capable of conveying to students and their images of what they hope to convey to future students. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mathematics Education 2019

The purpose of this thesis has been to contribute with an increased understanding of how funeral rituals can contribute to relatives' grief work as a coping strategy and to see what distinguishes and what unites Christian and civil funerals. This has been investigated using qualitative, semi-structured interviews that have been analyzed with a hermeneutic approach. The theories applied to the collected material are SOC according to Antonovsky, religion as coping according to Kenneth Pargament and rite de passage according to Arnold Van Gennep. The results of the survey show that fellowship with other mourners can be perceived as meaningful and that the farewell is the part of the funeral that helps relatives to accept the loss and move forward in their grief work. The results of the survey also show that religion can act as a support for some individuals but not for all.