Making sense of anguish is an important process leading to personal growth, development, and overall meaning making. Today's quarterlife students (students between the ages of 20-25) may face a variety of traumatic life events that influence how they grow as individuals and are able to move forward from these experiences. I examine several topics that many quarterlife students experience during these challenging years. As a gay identified individual, I examine aspects of `coming out' and the reluctance of blooming into the individual that I wanted to be. I examine the impact of resenting those individuals who may have hurt you and the ultimate growth that results from the pursuit of forgiveness. I then examine the importance of not sacrificing who you are within romantic relationships, and how being in abusive relationships can inhibit one's ability to be happy. Lastly, I close with how despite all of the traumatic experiences one must overcome, we all have the ability to be happy and construct positive meaning from such times of anguish. Written within a scholarly personal narrative methodology, my thesis examines several generational life events that have the potential to cause anguish, and how one can harness personal growth and meaning making from traumatic past experiences.

In questioning the very nature of a thing, at its most basic level, a new assessment can be made of what the thing in question truly is. When we ask ourselves, what is a weed, we begin to pull the word apart - to decrypt the word from the cultural baggage that has collected around it over the course of the history of language.The cultural connotations of 'weed' cling to it like barnacles, removing the word from its true value. We reevaluate meaning, chronicling all the possible constructions of a word, all the possible varieties, where it came from, what its uses are, etc. We can then begin to develop an aggregate meaning based on an inherently more textured meaning, nuanced and built to sustain an elaboration of new information within the word itself. Weeds may serve as a successful metaphor for humanities quest for value, but it should not be assumed - we must first plot a course before we set sail.

I take a poetic approach to graphic design practice. It is a subjectivist approach, which recognizes our human right to willful interpretation. Designers navigate form, culture, and history like poets through language. We are subjective, exploratory engines drawing formal inspiration from figural and analogical associations. Subjectivity in graphic design practice is complex, however. Subjectivity privileges the interaction between object and individual. When we designers interpret the literal world with the poet’s omni-directional sensitivity, we intentionally and intuitively create objects that accrete inexhaustible, extra-literal value for their audience.

Master of Science / Department of Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs / Doris Carroll / Hall and Chandler argued that one of the deepest forms of satisfaction or psychological success can occur when the person experiences work as more than a job or career – when it is a calling (2005, p. 160). They defined calling as work that a person perceives as his purpose in life. Adams (2012) said “there has been a recent awareness of the need to find ways to incorporate meaning into people’s work (p. 66).” Steger defined meaning as “the extent to which people comprehend, make sense of, or see significance in their lives, accompanied by the degree to which they perceive themselves to have a purpose, mission, or over-arching aim in life” (Steger, 2009, p. 680). Historically, an individual received an external calling from God but today another type of calling is being discussed: that of an internal calling. The Student Volunteer Movement or SVM was the name of one of history’s most impactful Christian missionary movements to ever take place, and it originated in collegiate America (Ahrend, 2010). More missionaries were sent out in the first year of the Student Volunteer Movement than had been sent from the United States in the previous century. From 1890 to 1930 the SVM was comprised of 100,000 volunteers who committed to give their lives to the employment of Christian missions. Of those, 20,000 actually left America to live in other countries while 80,000 stayed behind in America. Those who stayed behind formed the Laymen's Missionary Movement to financially support the goers (Ahrend, 2010). During these forty years, this mobilization effort was able to recruit one out of every thirty-seven university students in the United States (Ahrend, 2010). Undoubtedly, there are important implications for understanding the Student Volunteer Movement if you are affiliated with a Christian campus ministry. However, if the Student Volunteer Movement were seen as only religious individuals, then one would have misunderstood the developmental excellence of the SVM. The lessons learned from the Student Volunteer Movement, transcend religious boundaries. Examining the Student Volunteer Movement helps student development educators create new ways to support students as they discover their calling. Additionally, it has implications for how faculty and professionals advise students who have calling. This paper provides an example of the relationship between student affairs professionals and spiritual development among students. This comprehensive analysis of the Student Volunteer Movement informs student affairs professionals how best to support a student’s holistic development.

This research is focused on the experiences of older adults participating in an innovative visual arts program at a long-term care facility in Victoria, British Columbia. The program offers participants an opportunity to explore their creativity and identity as artists. Conceptually, the study draws from Tornstam’s gerotranscendance framework (Tornstam, 2005) and the theory of meaning (Frankl, 1963). A narrative inquiry approach was used with data collected through face-to-face interviews and observations of 10 residents and three staff involved in the visual arts program. Findings indicate that the program fostered a sense of community among participants and enhanced their quality of life. The public exhibition of their artwork at a community-based art exhibit validated the merit of their work and gave meaning and purpose to their participation in the program. Findings contribute to a greater understanding of the importance of arts programs that foster creativity in later life and resonate with Tornstam’s (2005) argument that older people living in institutions can experience multiple dimensions of the self through individualized forms of expression. This study concludes by highlighting the need to increase access to arts programs for older people living in residential care. / Graduate / lyciar@yahoo.com

This compilation thesis concerns how an educator task in Swedish police education context can be understood as individual and collective meaning making and professional development. The main actors in this thesis are police teachers, police supervisors and field training officers (FTOs), and they have a mutual task in educating new police officers and hence preparing for a complex occupation. However, due to varied educating preparations these three groups of police educators seem to perform their task with different prerequisites in a constantly revised and developed Swedish police education. During the last twenty years research and literature regarding occupational and professional education concern, among other issues, professional development and professionalization, frequently from a learner orientated and lifelong learning perspective. Hence, as ideas of transferring occupational knowledge from person to person increasingly appears to be regarded as obsolete, internship education through supervising pedagogies seems to have evolved during the last decades. The rarely investigated intra-professional educators (e.g., police officers educating new police officers) have an important role in this kind of learning process, especially due to socialisation phenomena frequently described in worldwide research regarding the police occupation. The conceptions of Swedish intra-professional police educators are investigated through an exploratory and qualitative design using mainly focus-group interviews and with a reflexive approach and hermeneutic analyse models. Viewed through a theoretical framework based on meaning making, reflexivity and thought styles/thought collectives, the findings disclose that the Swedish police educators clearly share similar views on pedagogies although they have disparate preparations before the task. Their conceptions reveal how the police educating task works as an incentive for increased insights in the police task, as well as in the educating task. These findings are also conceptualized as a collective process in interacting with police students and police probationers, with reflexivity as a main tool for meaning making, especially in the educating task. In conclusion this thesis argues how the conceptions of the Swedish police educators can vitalize the discussion about how police educators better can be prepared, especially through courses with reflexive pedagogies. The conclusion also emphasizes on how the positive, reflexive and creative intentions within the intra-professional police educators can be used as a role model and as an incentive in developing the Swedish police force, and that these ideas can be applied on other occupations and professions. / I en stor fyrkantig soffgrupp i ett fikarum på Polishögskolan i Solna runt år 2002, fördes stafettsamtal om problembaserad undervisning. Lärare, chefer och ibland städpersonal eller administrativ personal deltog genom att gå in och ut ur dessa samtal beroende på vilka andra sysslor som pockade på. I denna fyrkant skapades på något sätt både pedagogik och pedagoger, av både erfarna och oerfarna utbildare. Detta skedde främst genom utbyte av erfarenheter av lyckade och mindre lyckade undervisningsaktiviteter i syfte att skapa mening i ett för många av deltagarna okänt utbildningskoncept, ofta genom användandet av begreppet reflektion. Stafettsamtalen kan beskrivas som del av en process eller ett förlopp där något framåtskrider och utvecklas, i detta fall polisutbildarnas kunskapande och meningsskapande om polisutbildning. Den meningsskapande processen placerades inom ramen för den nya reviderade polisutbildningen, som satts i spel 1998. Polisutbildningen skulle nu bygga på en problembaserad pedagogik (Colliver, 2000; Hmelo-Silver, 2004) och initialt utföras av i huvudsak yrkespraktiker med begränsad pedagogisk erfarenhet eller utbildning, vilket genererade oväntade problem som krävde snabba lösningar. De första åren från 1998 innebar många problem med både frustrerade lärare och polisstudenter, vilket en utvärdering visade (Rikspolisstyrelsen, 2000). Denna situation skapade ändå en pragmatisk men reflekterande utbildningskultur där studenternas lärande till poliser till stor del var i fokus (Polishögskolan, 2014b). De lärare som hade polisiär bakgrund, i denna avhandling benämnda ”polislärare”, fick en framträdande roll för att fungera som en brygga mellan yrkeserfarenhet och teoretisk/praktisk kunskap, trots att få av de utbildande poliserna hade pedagogisk utbildning eller någon längre erfarenhet av att undervisa. Vissa polislärare visade också en brant utvecklingskurva gällande förmågan att undervisa, medan andra misslyckades helt och försvann lika snabbt som de kom. Denna beskrivning bygger på min egen upplevelse av händelseförloppet, för jag satt också där i fyrkanten, som nyanställd lärare i muntlig och skriftlig framställning, erfaren gällande undervisning men helt okunnig om polisverksamhet. Lärarna på Polishögskolans gemensamma uppdrag var att på bästa sätt förbereda polisstudenter för en introduktion in i en polisiär yrkesverksamhet och yrkeskultur (Crank, 2004; Lauritz, 2009). Ett polisyrke som många i samhället har en uppfattning om, och som visat sig vara ett i många avseenden komplext uppdrag. Manning (2010) har under årtionden ägnat sig åt att belysa polisarbetets komplexitet och förändring. Han menar bland annat att polisarbetet kan ses utifrån ett dramaturgiskt perspektiv där poliser förväntas 2 fatta svåra beslut baserat på subjektiva omdömen i en offentlig miljö, och i hög grad beroende av samarbetet med kollegor och allmänheten: Policing is both an individual and collective performance, based on faceto-face interactions, public deference, and societal validation of the collective representation. The process of interaction is the product of policing, and the consequences of these interactions are the most consequential outcomes of policing. (2010, s. 183) Polisuppdraget har också förändrats under de senaste trettio åren, från reaktivt till proaktivt allteftersom samhället ökat kraven på polisen via problembaserat långsiktigt polisarbete (Fielding, 1988; Macvean & Cox, 2012; Paoline & Terrill, 2007). Uppdraget kan dessutom sägas vara motsägelsefullt, med å ena sidan den repressiva aspekten att upprätthålla lag och ordning och å andra sidan vara en service och trygghet för medborgarna (Petersson, 2015). Litteraturen beskriver också att många av de kunskaper som krävs för att lösa snabbt uppkomna situationer är svåra att utveckla på ett utbildningscampus utan kräver kontakt med yrkespraktiken (Chan et al., 2003). Ur detta perspektiv blir det därför synnerligen intressant hur sådan kunskap utvecklas och frodas i utrymmet mellan utbildning och yrkespraktik. Vidare, även om forskningen visar att det finns poliser som är olämpliga och har stora svårigheter att hålla sig professionella i detta uppdrag, finns det berättelser om poliser som klarar av att upprätthålla den professionella etiken i svåra situationer. Det finns alltså uppenbarligen poliser som kan vara empatiska, men ändå tydliga och handlingskraftiga, repressiva men ändå professionella, goda kollegor som ändå kan säga ifrån och anmäla om något fel begåtts. Litteratur om polisyrket berör även fenomen som sammanhållning, kamratskap, konformitet, kåranda, alienation, övervåld, rasism, stress, posttraumatisk stress, korruption och lämplighet (Crank, 2004; Lauritz & Karp, 2013; Van Maanen, 1975). Litteraturen ger också exempel på antiintellektualism inom polisen, där handlingskraft är normen och reflektionsförmåga ses som en svaghet (Crank, 2004; Granér, 2004, s. 214). Det finns också beskrivet hur konkret yrkeskunskap byggd på sunt förnuft (common sense knowledge) uppmuntras under polisutbildningen, vilket grundar sig i polisarbetets oförutsägbarhet och därmed riskfylldhet; man måste kunna lita på att kollegan finns där och agerar när fara uppstår. Där skildras också hur sunt-förnuft-kunskap konstitueras i rutinartat småprat mellan uppdragen i det dagliga polisarbetet, till exempel genom utbyte av dråpliga anekdoter från polisarbetet (”war stories”) (McNulty, 1994). Blivande poliser beskriver också sitt första möte med poliskollektivet som välkomnande och omslutande, speciellt avseende det vardagliga småpratet kollegor emellan (Ekman, 1999: Lauritz, 2009). Här har studier också visat på ett polisyrke med ökad etisk medvetenhet, där nya poliser faktiskt kan fungera 3 som förändringsagenter mot en positiv utveckling av poliskulturen utifrån dessa höjda samhälleliga krav (Chan et al., 2003; Granér, 2004; Reid, 2015). Efter att ha tagit del av ovanstående litteratur, väcktes mitt intresse för olika perspektiv på polisutbildarnas betydelse för hur lärandet till ett polisyrke går till, och vilken betydelse detta får för en förmodat lärande organisation (Andersson Arntén, 2014; Bergman & Jansson, 2010). Runt 2006 gjorde jag en första genomgång av forskning om polisutbildning. Då upptäcktes en lucka i forskning om yrkesutbildare som aktiva subjekt i sitt yrkeslärande (Se Webster-Wright, 2009), i synnerhet studier av poliser som är polisutbildare. Speciellt noterade jag en avsaknad av svensk forskning på hur polisutbildare hanterar frågorna ovan och hur de ser sig på sig själva som utbildare i detta sammanhang. Ett kunskapsintresse började på så sätt mejslas fram och blev inledningen till ett explorativt forskningsprojekt inom yrkesutbildningsfältet, ett projekt som skulle pågå i över tio år. Slutresultatet blev denna doktorsavhandling om polisers individuella och kollektiva upplevelser av uppdraget som polisutbildare och presenteras i form av sammanläggning av en redan publicerad licentiatuppsats om polislärare (delstudie ett) samt två artiklar rörande aspiranthandledare (delstudie två), och aspirantinstruktörer (delstudie tre). Jag menar att denna avhandling kan vara intressant även för andra yrkesutbildningar, både vad gäller frågor om grundutbildning såväl som vidareutbildning, men även rörande förändring, utveckling och lärande i en yrkespraktik. Kunskapsbidraget är främst empiriskt eftersom polisutbildare, internationellt och i Sverige, i begränsad omfattning har undersökts. Avhandlingen bidrar också i metodologiskt avseende då främst intervjuer i fokusgrupper använts, vilket är ovanligt i polisforskning. Dessutom tillämpas ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på idéer från bland annat John Dewey, Jennifer A. Moon och Ludwik Fleck, i en kombination som kan vara en inspiration för andra liknande studier med fokus på utvecklingsprocesser i yrkesutbildning och yrkesverksamhet.

This dissertation interrogates the generation of novel sense and meaning in the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In taking up the theme of creative transformation prominent in his work, I show how the emergence of novel sense and the advent of meaning structures are made possible through the asymmetrical relation of adversity and cliché. While the scholarship focuses primarily on expression, institution, and reversibility as the three principal forms of creative transformation within the work of Merleau-Ponty, I maintain that this asymmetrical relation provides the originary ground on which these forms operate. To this end, this project consists primarily of the elucidation of three terms within the context of Merleau-Ponty’s thought – namely, novelty, cliché, and adversity – and the latter two notion’s roles in the generation of sense and meaning manifest in several fields of experience including perception, the aesthetic, and the political. The immediate import of this project is in its contribution to Merleau-Ponty scholarship through a description of the relation of adversity and cliché on the generation of sense and meaning which has received little attention to date. Subsequently, this project – like the inauguration of sense and meaning – institutes a trajectory for future research. This dissertation serves to describe a fertile field of interrogation both within and in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s work on adversity, cliché, and novelty.

Orientador: Luciana Maria Lunardi Campos / Banca: Wanda Maria Junqueira de Aguiar / Banca: Renato Eugênio da Silva Diniz / Resumo: Em nosso atual contexto de conflitos entre o poder econômico e questões socioambientais, compreendemos a necessidade de um Ensino de Ciências e de Biologia que contrariem a falsa dicotomia absoluta entre humanidade e natureza, que vise uma educação emancipadora favorável à saúde pública de qualidade para todos e equilíbrio socioambiental, se opondo aos interesses individualistas do capital. Para este fim, o presente trabalho toma como tema "animais sinantrópicos", discutidos no contexto curricular de documentos oficiais e da produção científica de educação, compreendendo a relação entre humanos e animais como mediação para apropriação de conteúdos. Tal tema é proposto através de pressupostos da psicologia histórico-cultural e da pedagogia histórico-crítica. A primeira possibilita neste trabalho uma compreensão da formação dos significados (sociais) e sentidos (subjetivos) dos sujeitos que compõem as suas significações, além das categorias "atividade" e "motivo" para discutir suas práticas. A segunda orienta o tema a partir da concepção de conteúdos clássicos para determinar o que deve ser ensinado e define o ponto de partida e o objetivo do ensino através do conceito de prática social. O objetivo deste estudo foi: identificar e analisar significações atribuídas a animais sinantrópicos por estudantes do Ensino Médio de uma escola pública do interior de São Paulo. Como objetivos específicos visou: identificar e analisar a relação das significações com o ensino escolar; identifi... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In our current context of conflicts between the economic power and socioenvironmental issues, we understand the need of a Science and a Biology Education that counter the false absolute dichotomy between humanity and nature, and aims an emancipatory education favorable to public health of quality for every one and socioenvironmental balance, opposing the individualistic interests of the capital. To this purpose, the present work focuses on the "synanthropic animals" discussed in the curricular context of official documents and in the education's scientific production, looking at the relationship between humans and animals as mediation for the appropriation of contents. This theme is proposed through the presuppositions of historical-cultural psychology and historical-critical pedagogy. The first makes possible in this work an understanding of the formation of the meanings (social) and the senses (subjective) that make up their significations, besides the categories "activity" and "motive" to discuss their practices. The second guides the contextualization of the theme "synanthropic animals" from the conception of classical contents to define what must be taught and guides the starting point and the direction to teaching from the social practice concept. The objective of this study was: to identify and analyze significations attributed to synanthropic animals by high school students of a public school in the interior of São Paulo. Its specific objectives were: to identify and ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Thesis advisor: Michael G. Pratt / In spite of an undeniably vast and multidisciplinary body of research on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) spanning more than 50 years, extant scholarship provides little insight into how two organizations that have struggled to integrate rebound from failure in their relationship. This dissertation examines two organizations—AMC Hospital and Community Hospital—that achieved this outcome nearly 16 years after they legally merged. To understand this phenomenon, I conducted an inductive, longitudinal qualitative study of these two organizations and their members using interviews, archival data, and observations as my data sources and grounded theory techniques to analyze the data and build theory. Extending prior research on M&As, multiple organizational identity management, and identities as resources in organizations, I advance the notion of multiple identity resourcing by examining how the negotiation of multiple organizational identities fostered greater resource sharing and generation during post-merger integration. Additionally, I elaborate prior research on meaning construction during strategic change by examining how managers’ interpretations of the power and intimacy dynamics in the merger relationship influenced their strategizing, which affected organizational-level episodes of success and failure during the integration process. More broadly, I demonstrate how practices at both the level of the merger relationship and the level of strategy implementation enable successful performance during post-merger integration. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

This study will, with the help of young people aged 15, strive to increase the knowledge about the importance of social media (with a delimitation to Instagram and Snapchat) in the everyday lives and social relationships of young people. To achieve this, the essay will focus on how young people describe their own experiences and experiences through the collection of data in the form of interviews through focus groups. The collection of the empirical material has been done through qualitative research method. We have used focus group interviews aimed at five groups where the informants were selected by criteria-controlled selection. Social media provides advantages and disadvantages. It is really just the latest tool that makes it possible to do what we have always done through the ages, which is to communicate with each other and tell stories, but now in a more exciting and creative way than ever with social media as a tool.