Thesis advisor: Pamela J. Grace / As supported by extensive literature, nurses have a role to play in helping patients and families in getting their needs understood and met. This ethical responsibility includes decisions made by nurses in the context of end-of-life (EOL) care. Ethical decision-making is known to be influenced by nurses' understanding of their professional accountability and several cognitive processes that underlie moral action. Rest (1986) theorized these processes as: moral sensitivity, judgment, moral motivation, and moral character. However, few instruments have been developed to understand nurses' ethical decision-making during EOL care, and most have focused on a single dimension rather than on the multi-dimensional process. The purposes of this methodological study were: 1) to develop a scale with content domains and items capable of describing Korean nurses' ethical decision-making at EOL and 2) to evaluate the scale's psychometric properties using Korean nurses (N = 230). The criteria for participation were: Korean nurses having more than 2 years of clinical experience in the types of units where most Korean patients spend the end of their lives: critical care, general medical-surgical, and hospice units. The process followed two steps. Phase I consisted of the development of domains and items. Three domains were identified through themes derived from an integrated review of relevant literature and the findings from a preliminary qualitative study involving experts in EOL care in Korea. 95 items were generated within these three domains. Content validation was completed by a panel of six nursing ethics experts, three in Korea and three in the U.S. Next, a pilot study to test readability was conducted using three Korean nurses. During Phase II, 67 items of the NEDM-EOLCS version 3.0 were tested. After item analysis and factor analysis, a 55-item final version of the NEDM-EOLCS was established. The total scale and three subscales reported good reliability and validity. The three subscales were labeled: "perceived professional accountability," "moral reasoning and moral agency," and "moral practice at the EOL." / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

The primary task of this thesis is to explain what the relationship between social practice and the socially emergent self is, and to concurrently explain why this relationship is of significance to an accurate theory of social practice itself. A subsequent aim of this is to explain how the socially emergent self can be used to account for individual engagement in moral practices. Building on George Herbert Mead, it is argued that the social process through which the self emerges moulds the individual’s capacity to engage with social practice. It is argued that combining Mead’s theory of the socially emergent self with relational sociology provides a theoretical framework that can account for how intersubjective and historically situated social practices are taken on by the individual, to the extent that she can engage in such practices both reflectively and pre-reflectively. What is more, this theoretical synthesis is able to account for how social practices are engaged with in an incredibly routine and ‘ordinary’ manner, while also accounting for individual variation in this engagement. This theory is then applied to moral practices. It is contended that individual engagement in moral practice is not altogether different from engagement in social practice generally, and thus the theory offered here also accounts for how individuals are able to engage in moral practice in both a routine and an individualised manner.

This dissertation focuses on performance, moral practice, and self-respect in an urban South African setting. Taking as its point of departure the emergence and rapid expansion, in the 1990s and 2000s, of an outreach organization I call Jesus People Pretoria (JPP), it discusses this NGO’s attempt to create a ‘moral community’ in the post-apartheid city from the diverse vantage points of its Afrikaner leaders, its clients, and—most emphatically—its lay workers, the majority of whom are black women. Gradually moving from the everyday stage of outreach labour towards women’s gendered performances within and beyond the work environment, it proposes that at stake in the making of the JPP moral community is the negotiation of self-respect, which hinges upon the degree to which interactions imply the fostering or refutation of mutual respect, or the measure of the ‘equality’ of the exchange. As an urban entity deeply entwined in and illuminative of South Africa’s broader post-apartheid ironies, including ongoing race-based differentiation and the pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS and death, predominantly moral practice here remains but ambivalently constituted. Yet this does not denote the absence of the moral but temporarily rests it in the region of the indistinct, the unresolved, in the moment of its apparent impossibility or unachievability.

This dissertation focuses on performance, moral practice, and self-respect in an urban South African setting. Taking as its point of departure the emergence and rapid expansion, in the 1990s and 2000s, of an outreach organization I call Jesus People Pretoria (JPP), it discusses this NGO’s attempt to create a ‘moral community’ in the post-apartheid city from the diverse vantage points of its Afrikaner leaders, its clients, and—most emphatically—its lay workers, the majority of whom are black women. Gradually moving from the everyday stage of outreach labour towards women’s gendered performances within and beyond the work environment, it proposes that at stake in the making of the JPP moral community is the negotiation of self-respect, which hinges upon the degree to which interactions imply the fostering or refutation of mutual respect, or the measure of the ‘equality’ of the exchange. As an urban entity deeply entwined in and illuminative of South Africa’s broader post-apartheid ironies, including ongoing race-based differentiation and the pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS and death, predominantly moral practice here remains but ambivalently constituted. Yet this does not denote the absence of the moral but temporarily rests it in the region of the indistinct, the unresolved, in the moment of its apparent impossibility or unachievability.

The aim of this study is to explore values education as it takes place in everyday interactions between teachers and students. Focus has been on rule practice between teachers and students, which has been interpreted during the research process as the most salient phenomenon in the practice of values education. The study is based on fieldwork in two schools. Two kindergarten-classes, two classes in grade 2, and two classes in grade 5 – in sum, 141 students and 13 teachers – participated. The analysis was accomplished by means of procedures influenced by Grounded Theory. According to the results, teachers’ practice of values education is primarily manifested in everyday teacher-student–interactive rule practice, which refers to all aspects of everyday activity by which participants construct, maintain, mediate, and negotiate rules for and in everyday interaction. A significant part of values education is unplanned and reactive, embedded in everyday life of school with a focus on students’ behaviour, and mostly or partly unconscious. The analysis of the rules in the two schools resulted in five rule categories: relational rules, structuring rules, protecting rules, ersonal rules, and etiquette rules. The meaning of the rule system is to construct order in school and to foster the students in a moral sense by mediating a construction of the desirable student: the benevolent fellow-buddy and the wellbehaved student. According to the findings, four main intervention strategies are used by the teachers within the everyday rule practice: assertion, explanation, negotiation, and preparation. Students meaningmaking of rules vary across the rule-categories. Furthermore, the meanings students make of the rules affect how they value the rules. Relational rules are seen as the most important rules. Many protecting rules and structuring rules are also valued as important. In contrast to these rules, tiquette rules are valued as least important or unnecessary, which, at least in part, could be explained by the students’ problem in making meaning of these rules. To perceive a reasonable and trustworthy meaning behind a rule seems to be a significant part in students’ rule acceptance. Furthermore, students reflect on and judge their school rules and their teachers’ performance in rule practice. Perceptions of injustice, inconsistencies, nonsense, or deceptiveness in relation to rules or teacher behaviour, evoke critique among students, even if students seldom or never articulate their arguments in front of the teachers. The results are discussed in relation to other research and theories such as social constructivism, domain theory, and symbolic interactionism. / Syftet med denna studie är att utforska den värdepedagogik som äger rum i de vardagliga interaktionerna mellan lärare och elever i skolan. Fokus har riktats mot det som under forskningsarbetets gång har växt fram och som framstår som det mest framträdande i den vardagliga värdepedagogiska praktiken: regelarbetet mellan lärare och elever. En fältstudie har genomförts på två skolor. Två förskoleklasser, två klasser i år 2 och två klasser i år 5 – sammanlagt 13 lärare och 141 elever – har deltagit i studien. Analysen genomfördes genom procedurer inspirerade av Grounded Theory. Enligt resultatet kommer lärares värdepedagogik främst till uttryck genom ett vardagligt lärarelev–interaktivt regelarbete, vilket avser alla aspekter av den vardagliga praktiken genom vilka deltagare konstruerar, upprätthåller, medierar och förhandlar om regler i och för det vardagliga samspelet. En stor del av värdepedagogiken är oplanerad och reaktiv, delvis eller i stor utsträckning oreflekterad eller omedveten samt inbäddad i skolans vardag med ett fokus på elevernas beteende. Analysen av regler i de två skolorna har resulterat i fem regelkategorier: relationella regler, strukturerande regler, skyddande regler, personella regler och etikettsregler. Regelsystemets mening är att skapa ordning i skolan och att fostra eleverna genom att mediera konstruktionen av den önskvärda eleven: den välviljande medkamraten och den skötsamma eleven. Enligt resultatet använder lärare fyra interventionsstrategier i det vardagliga regelarbetet: påtryckning, förklaring, förhandling och preparering. Elevernas meningsskapande av regler varierar mellan olika regelkategorier och detta tycks även påverka deras värdesättande av regler. Relationella regler värderas som de viktigaste reglerna. Flera skyddande regler och strukturerande regler värderas som viktiga. Till skillnad från dessa regler värderas etikettsreglerna i regel som minst viktiga eller helt onödiga, vilket åtminstone delvis kan förklaras av elevernas svårigheter i att skapa mening med dessa regler. Att uppfatta en resonabel och trovärdig mening bakom en regel tycks vara en betydelsefull del i elevers regelacceptans. Flera elever reflekterar över och bedömer sina skolregler och sina lärares insatser i regelarbetet. Upplevelser av orättvisa, inkonsistenser, onödigheter eller lögn i relation till regler eller lärares beteenden väcker kritik bland elever, även om eleverna sällan eller aldrig verbaliserar sina argument inför lärarna. Resultaten diskuteras i ljuset av annan forskning om skolans moraliska praktik och elevers meningsskapande av detta samt teorier som socialkonstruktivism, domänteori och symbolisk interaktionism. / I den elektroniska versionen är figur 1 på sidan 110 ersatt med den korrekta figuren.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for how home care services interpret and handle situations with and around caretakers alcohol use. Interviews have been conducted with two managers and six basic staff in two different home care service-groups. The interviews were individual with the managers and in group form with the staff. The interviews have been analyzed using Hasenfeld’s theory on Human Service Organizations and moral practice together with Beronius’ interpretation of disciplinary exercise of power. Our result showed that the handling of caretakers alcohol use differed both within and between the home care service-groups and there was a lack of guidelines on how to deal with this. Consequently it seemed to be a lot of individual assessments carried out by the staff, which sometimes led to a moral practice. Another important result was the fact that the interviewees quickly became very fixed on abuse and addiction, even though the interviews had focus on alcohol use in general. It is obvious that when a substance abuse problem exists, difficulties arise in home care services work.

In the past 30 years there has been a steady and growing appreciation in the literature of the importance and value of teachers' practical wisdom (TPW) - or phronesis as it is also known - to further an understanding of classroom practice and of the need to find ways to help teachers generate and share their perspectives with others. Nevertheless, the potential of this kind of knowledge (understood by Aristotle to be both practical and moral in its orientation) to contribute valuable insights to educational debates has still to be realised. Rather, educational decisions about policy and practice in many contexts (whether at a national or institutional level) are still largely driven by theoretical and technical knowledge perspectives and teacher practical wisdom perspectives are still often under-valued and remain under-represented in educational literature. One of the main reasons for this put forward in this thesis is the tendency in much of the literature to see this form of knowledge as classroom bound rather than to realise the ways in which it can inform broader pedagogical discussions. Bearing all of the above in mind, the aim of the study reported in this thesis into the TPW of 14 experienced expatriate English as a foreign language teachers (EEEFLTs) working in English language centres (ELCs) across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is threefold. Its first aim is to provide a platform for the EEEFLTs to demonstrate the contribution their TPW can potentially make in addressing syllabus related issues in the KSA ELCs they have worked and, in doing so, show how the use of TPW is not confined to the classroom. Its second aim is to increase the visibility of the participants' TPW and thus raise awareness of the importance of research into TPW and to provide a model for how this can be conducted. The study's final aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the nature of TPW. Located in the interpretive paradigm, this study uses a TPW-friendly methodology to investigate TPW: interpretive phronetic educational research (IPER), which approaches and conducts educational research through a moral and practical problem-driven lens. This understanding drives the study's methodology and all stages of its data collection and analysis and the methods used in both. The goal of such methods is an epistemological one to generate TPW whilst empowering it also by highlighting its validity and how it is easily articulated - and thus captured - and not confined to the classroom. To assist with its articulation and capture, the study employs a process defined as Problematisation: a four-stage process consisting of reflection, problematisation, deliberation and articulation which drives and shapes the semi-structured interviews the study employs and the secondary research questions that inform the primary research question. The study concludes that the EEEFLTs use their TPW as a lens (that has 12 qualities) through which to view KSA ELC syllabi and, in doing so, identify many problems with the syllabi and subsequent consequences and suggest solutions to address both. These problems, consequences and solutions have been organised under six prominent categories that represent six main problem areas to emerge from the data that suggest the syllabi are teacher, textbook and test-centred, top-down, teacher-proof and time-driven. These categories represent six problem areas that in turn reflect the problematic, negative and disempowering context from which the data informing such categories and themes have been drawn. In this study, TPW is considered disempowered knowledge as a result of the disempowering context within which it has been acquired and is used. Previous TPW studies have been conducted in more positive settings and have perhaps for this reason not focused on TPW's disempowerment. In contrast, this study takes on a much more political role as it explores TPW's disempowerment in the KSA ELC context as well as in the broader context of academia and the literature. TPW's lack of visibility in TESOL and education has several implications because unless TPW achieves greater visibility, it may fade into extinction and its potential may never be realised. This study has been conducted in an attempt to prevent this happening.