In 2020, Fridays for Future activists joined forces with public transport workers to promote a climate-friendly mobility transition in Germany called #wirfahrenzusammen. To make redistributive claims, #wirfahrenzusammen adopted organizing practices from the United States. Given that social movement studies have identified struggles for recognition and advocacy- and mobilizing strategies as dominant practices, the question arises as to why the campaigners chose to buck the trend. This study, therefore, aims to identify and explain the strategic choices by turning to campaigners' interpretations of organizing. Applying a postmodern Grounded Theory method, I analyzed five semi-structured interviews, internal documents, and public information materials. Discourse analysis enabled the conceptualization of organizing practices in terms of their scale and scope by drawing on Nancy Fraser's theory of affirmative and transformative boundary struggles. The results indicate that strategic considerations, normative convictions, and path dependency led to the campaigners' choice of organizing practices which express affirmative and transformative boundary struggles.

Through qualitative interviewing and narrative analysis, this study sought to illuminate and examine the life story of a formerly incarcerated Trinidadian woman. To gain insight into her experiences across the life course, criminal and conventional, I conducted two semi-structured interviews with the same woman in the context of Trinidad and Tobago, focusing on experiences of motherhood, interpersonal relationships, employment, and those of incarceration. The aim was to uncover the events and relationships that the study participant presented as the most significant and determinative in her life story. Through narrative analysis, I also sought to understand how they could be further interpreted through four tenets of life course theory: agency, interpersonal relationship effects, events’ timing and sequence, and the historical context. Narrative analysis identified victimisation, the subsequent undermining of personal agency, motivated advocacy and motherhood’s responsibilities as the narratives that were most central to the participant’s presentation of her life story’s trajectories. Identifying both events and personal interpretations of those events, I have posited that qualitative narrative analysis paired with a life course approach can identify experiences crucial to the development and motivation of criminal behaviour. I have also put forward that a greater focus on qualitative research into female offenders’ life histories in the Caribbean region would serve to deepen both the global and regional knowledge bases, and to better inform public policy with offender-oriented insight.

For years, neonates have been "therapeutic orphans" and denied the benefits of clinical research because most therapeutic options are usually tested in the adult population. Most treatments and interventions have not been explored, and there is room potential rigorous, evidence-based clinical trials towards diseases specific to this population. Regenerative medicine holds great promise by potentially offering new ways of treating incurable diseases. However, bench to bedside translations often fail due to low recruitment rate. Thus, there is a need for effective interventions to increase trial participation and execution to help accelerate neonatal research. Behaviour theories could help to better understand trial participation, screening and recruiting behaviours, inform fit-for-purpose interventions, and assist in building cumulative evidence. There is a lack of clarity on the barriers and enablers to clinical trial participation from important stakeholder groups; NICU parents and research staff members. Study 1 reports findings on identified barriers and enablers that might affect parents' decision-making to participate in an early phase mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapy trial including concerns with safety, efficacy and expected outcomes, but were willing to consider consenting to the trial after watching the animated video and having altruistic consideration. Study 2 reports findings on identified barriers and enablers that might affect research personnel recruitment to a multi-centre MSC trial which include: having cautious hope about the trial, importance of coordination with the clinical staff and study team and optimizing the study flow. Due to the challenging context of the study, the participants prefer to have clinicians involved with the recruitment. Lasty, Study 3 reports findings on identified barriers and enablers to screening potential patients for an adeno- associated viral vector gene therapy trial. Physicians were optimistic about the treatment but were concerned about the safety, feasibility, the expected outcomes of the treatment, and available resources (personnel, equipment, funding). Many expressed the need for support from clinical professionals prior to approaching parents and highlighted variability in screening roles. The resulting comprehensive set of factors helps to identify priorities for future research and provide insights towards developing novel interventions for neonatal research.

Research in life-course criminology has been studying turning points away from criminality. There is although a limited amount of research that has been focusing on parenthood and especially on fatherhood as a potential turning point. The available studies show mixed results in this topic and the findings suggest that there are factors that can both form and restrict fatherhood as a potential turning point towards desistance. The aim for the present thesis is therefore to get a better understanding of fatherhood as a potential turning point from persistent offending and to examine the role and meaning of fatherhood in the criminal careers of Swedish former criminals. Qualitative method in the form of retrospective semi- structured interviews has been used to collect data and five former offenders that became fathers during their criminal career participated in the study. The data have been analysed with systematic text condensation and the results indicate that the men did not desist after becoming fathers. They did however have both intended and unintended breaks from criminality when their child was born, but the criminal lifestyle was their first choice and their children were put on the second place. Relationships to friends and in some cases to the mother of the child was a restricting factor for fatherhood to become a turning point. Another factor that restricted fatherhood from being a potential turning point was human agency. The men concluded that an offending father can not receive help from society if there is no will for the father to desist.

This study will focus on explaining the dynamics of Saudi Arabia’s national security. In explaining these dynamics, the study will consider two of Buzan’s frameworks for analysing national security. Further enhancement will be given by conceptualising specific assumptions about Saudi Arabia’s national security – these will be based on the manner in which certain features are utilised within the Saudi state. Semistructured interviews will be utilised to examine the findings from the adapted frameworks. By studying the state’s domestic, regional and international concerns, as well as the specific threats that each level pose with regards to several security sectors (including the: social, political, economic, militant and environmental), this study will provide a distinctive analysis of national security within the Saudi state. Initially, this study acknowledges that only a few studies have been conducted into Saudi Arabia’s national security; furthermore, these have focused on the internal perspective by considering Saudi national security in terms of its military and strategic partnerships. Secondly, the study proposes that Saudi Arabia is unique (and unlike any other state) as it holds various important social and religious aspects that are not fully understood by external sources. Consequently, this study conceptualises Saudi national security from the internal perspective by considering the Saudi state’s specific features.

Mergers and acquisitions have become very popular in recent decades for firms seeking competitive advantage. The high failure rates of these initiatives make a closer look at the influence of the human factors and their complexity on these change activities necessary. This study traces the development of merger and acquisition activities in four companies, with a particular focus on individuals’ sensemaking over time and on the influence of human functional factors on the process and the outcomes of the mergers reviewed. A qualitative case-study approach is adopted with sixteen in-depth semistructured interviews in four post-merger organisations. The analysis of the collected primary data is done through a descriptive analysis of each individual case and a cross-case analysis of the four investigated cases. The findings show that there is a direct influence of the researched human functional elements and of the individual sensemaking on both the process and outcomes of the reviewed merger and acquisition cases. Based on the findings, a human functional merger and acquisition model – reflecting the interaction and influence of the human functional elements – and a management guideline for adopting this, are developed. This study provides a review of the influence of some significant organisational and individual human functional elements, such as leadership, communication, decision-making, relationship, and individual beliefs, values, attitudes and learning on the process and outcome of mergers and acquisitions. Such an investigation of these elements and their complexity, interaction with and influence on the process and outcome of change initiatives, and more specifically in the context of mergers and acquisitions, has not been undertaken previously.

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This research is based on semi-structured interviews with thirty-two people who understand themselves to be suffering from health problems called ecological illness, or environmental hypersensitivity. The research examines the experience of ecological illness. Given that the medical status of ecological illness is controversial, and that troubles considered to be ecological illness are typically vague and non-specific, the study focuses on meanings and interpretive frameworks that are applied in the definition of such troubles; by those affected, by significant others, and by physicians. The analysis examines the nature and course over time of definitions of trouble-related identity and the social psychological and practical consequences of such definitions for respondents' illness experience. Because respondents largely define their troubles as physical health problems, a central issue in the analysis is the medical and social legitimation of illness claims. The research found that, in the course of seeking medical treatment and legitimation for their problems, people's experiences of trouble were typically discredited. They were long unable to resolve conflicts between a self-identity as sick and others' assessments of them as "not sick" or psychologically troubled. While the eventual diagnosis of hypersensitivity was a profound relief to people in many respects, it was often not recognized and accepted by others as a basis for informal or "official'' sick role considerations. Because of scepticism toward the concept of multiple sensitivities, many people continued to feel stigmatized by their problems. The study illustrates the impact and significance of controversies within medicine for the experience of certain kinds of health problems. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

I den här kvalitativa studien undersöks lärares erfarenheter av att motivera lässvaga elever att läsa skönlitteratur i skolan, både på lågstadiet och på högstadiet. Bakgrund till studien är de senaste årens tapp i internationella kunskapsmätningar och efterföljande diskussioner om undervisning i läsförståelse i pedagogiska och specialpedagogiska sammanhang. Studien bygger på elva semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare verksamma på båda stadier. De transkriberade intervjuerna har analyserats genom tematisk analys och ställts i relation till Rosenblatts och Bringéus läsartsbegrepp, förklarade med literacy som teoretiskt ramverk. Eftersom det är läsning i skolmiljö som är i fokus för undersökningen, ställs även resultatet i relation till Nilholms dilemmaperspektiv samt inkluderingsbegrepp. Delstudierna visar att det finns vissa skillnader i hur lärare på låg- respektive högstadiet beskriver sitt arbete att motivera lässvaga elever till skönlitteraturläsning. Lågstadielärarna har generellt en mer positiv inställning till skönlitteraturläsning med elever, medan högstadielärarna upplever att skönlitteraturläsningen kan vara givande, men att många elever är omotiverade och att den lustfyllda läsningen är svår att bedöma.

This study examines how primary school teachers view peer assessment. Six teachers were interviewed by semi-structured interviews about how they work with peer assessment with pupils in primary school, how they introduce it and what pros and cons they find with this method of giving feedback. The interviews were summarized with the analytical method called meaning concentration. We used Vygotsky's theory about the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which represents the space between what a learner is capable of doing with a little help called scaffolding from another child. The result was compared to this theory from a sociocultural perspective in the analytical part. The result showed that three teachers used peer assessment as a routine in their class in different subjects, two teachers had used peer assessment earlier but didn’t practice it by the time we had the interviews. One teacher had not used peer assessment with pupils but insisted on potentially using it in the future. The benefit that the teachers saw with peer assessment was that the teachers could focus on the students that needed their help while the other students were used as learning resources to each other. Another benefit was that the pupils developed in their own learning by giving feedback to others, which also prepared them for the peer assessment they would meet in high school. The disadvantage was that it was time-consuming since it required a lot of training before letting the pupils work on their own. One more potential risk with peer assessment was that the quality of the feedback could vary a lot depending on the pupil’s skills of giving feedback. Receiving low quality constructive criticism could make some students feel discouraged to present their work again in this way. The teachers also gave some advice for how to introduce peer assessment in primary school. The conclusions of this study are that peer assessment in primary school requires a lot of time for training as well as the teacher being a role model for the class in order to avoid unwanted conflicts and discouraged students. It is also a good way to prepare the pupils for their future studies and help them develop their own skills in learning.