This study explores young children's use of digital tablets in Swedish preschool environments, with special interest in how the use of digital tablets may affect children's agency. A multimodal, design theoretical approach was used, combined with sociology of childhood, to highlight the dynamics between children's agency and the affordances provided by the digital tablets. Two video ethnographic substudies were conducted within two separate preschool settings, including preschools where children use digital tablets to communicate in a minority language. In order to take into account as many modes of communication as possible, video recordings of children's use of the digital tablets was set side-by-side with screen recordings of the digital tablets. Major findings include how children's agency in digital tablet activities is intertwined with the different affordances, as emerging in the children's interaction with one another and the digital tablet. It was found that when affordances were built on visual, auditive and corporeal modes of communication, children's agency was enabled. Such affordances are in this study argued to be more, for the children, apt modes of communication for children to exert agency. Furthermore, it is argued that when children are given the possibility to communicate in their minority language, using for example Skype, this is a form of children's agency. The didactical implications and the societal potentials for children's use of digital tablets in preschools are discussed in relation to the creative skills individuals may need in an unknown future.

This study was an investigation of mentor teachers who work in a Master of Education teacher preparation program. It examined mentors who work with teacher candidates to understand their conceptualization of their purpose in teacher education. The teacher preparation program that was the site of this study placed teacher candidates in the classroom for a year-long field experience aligned with the actual teaching calendar in schools and reflective of the clinical-based preparation called for by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, 2010). Attention to teacher preparation program outcomes has increased significantly in the past few years (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013; Council of Chief State School Officers, 2013; Greenburg, Pomerance, & Walsh, NCTQ, 2011; NCATE, 2010). Within this focused interest on program outcomes and on the impact well-prepared teachers make on school improvement, field placements are viewed as more essential in the preparation of teacher candidates (Bullough, Draper, Smith, & Birrell, 2004; Korthagen, 2004; Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009; Zeichner, 2010). Therefore, because mentor teachers affect teacher candidates in the field, it is crucial to understand how mentor teachers conceive their role and purpose within teacher preparation, and how they can be supported prior to assuming this responsibility and throughout the time they spend with the teacher candidates. The dissertation research was divided into two major phases: Phase One was a survey administered to all mentor teachers who work with the program (n=54) early in spring, 2014. The analysis of the survey provided the data necessary to use purposeful sampling to select mentors who reported a commitment to diverse mentoring practices. Data was collected on the interview sample (n=6) in Phase Two through interviews and observations to document and analyze how mentors enacted practices that may or may not be consistent with their perceived purpose and role or with the existing literature on mentoring teacher candidates. Considering the importance of this mentoring relationship on the teacher candidates' preparation outcomes, identification of the approaches to mentoring that can be strengthened by preparation are important in order to emphasized these points as part of the development of partnerships that will strengthen the mentoring system. This research offered insight for teacher preparation programs relating to how mentors internalize their role and areas for development that may align mentoring practices with the educative functions that develop responsive teachers. The findings of this study offered suggestions for preparation that target the mentors' professional growth through collaborative and ongoing instructional and personal support.

No description available.

Salladsbarer i livsmedelsbutiker är något som ökat avsevärt i Sverige de senaste åren. Även i andra länder är det populärt, och främsta anledningen till detta är bekvämligheten och strävan efter ett hälsosammare matval. Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka risker och rutiner kopplade till livsmedelsbutikernas salladsbarer, samt att ge en bild av konsumenternas attityd till den nya trenden. Informationsförordningen är en sammanslagning av två EU-direktiv, som ingående beskriver regler om hur livsmedel ska märkas. I december år 2014 utökades informationsförordningen med fler krav från EU. De nya kraven innebar t.ex. att allergener och infrysningsdatum för kött och fisk skulle märkas tydligare. Det är enligt denna förordning viktigt att butikspersonalen arbetar med tydliga regler och rutiner för att upprätthålla de krav som ställs på salladsbaren. Genom en kvalitativ och en kvantitativ undersökning har data, rörande butikspersonalens kunskaper samt konsumentens attityd gentemot salladsbaren, samlats in. I den kvalitativa undersökningen deltog sju personer från olika kedjor inom livsmedelsbranschen, vars ansvarsområde är salladsbaren i deras egen hembutik. Totalt intervjuades, i enkätform, femtiofem konsumenter i livsmedelsbutikerna. Frågorna innehöll bl.a. tycke och förtroende till salladsbar, samt tillsatser i mat. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att personalen har en god kunskap om rutiner och risker kopplade till salladsbaren. Konsumenterna i studien visar ett lägre förtroende till livsmedelsbutikernas, och salladsbarens produktsäkerhet. Majoriteten av respondenterna var utan allergi till något livsmedelsinnehåll, men uppskattade inte tillsatser. Slutsatsen av denna undersökning visade på en god kunskap hos personalen, men ett lägre förtroende hos konsumenten till butikens produktsäkerhet. Detta resultat som är inte generaliserbart p.g.a. de få deltagarna. / Salad bars in Swedish grocery stores have increased in frequently in the last few years. Many other countries have also followed the new hot trend, and the main reason of this increase is the convenience and the pursuit of a healthy meal. The purpose of this study was to examine the risks and routines of the salad bars in Swedish grocery stores, and look into the customer’s attitude against the concept. The Regulation of Information merges two EU directives, and includes rules on how the foods must be handled. In December 2014 the Regulation of Information increased with more claim from the EU. The new claims implied for example that allergens and the date of freezing, for meat and fish, must be labeled more legible. According to this Regulation, the staff in grocery stores must clearly show that the rules are being followed, with help of logs and rules of hygiene. The results of the study show that the staff has a good knowledge regarding routines and risks connected to the salad bar. The consumers in the study show a relatively low confidence in food stores' products. The majority has no form of food allergy, but did not appreciate additives in the food. The conclusion of the study shows that the staff has good knowledge in product safety, but unfortunately the customers’ don´t think so. The result isn’t generalizable – you´ll need more participants in the study to generalize.

How do we recognize that someone is thinking that the train is running late, desiring another cookie, or intending to make coffee? What is the cognitive process by which we come to attribute to another individual the belief, for instance, that Barack Obama is President? For the past few decades, philosophers working on Folk Psychology--i.e., those involved in the study of how people typically form judgments about others’ mental states--have focused largely on questions involving everyday attributions of mentality in terms of intentional states, like beliefs and desires. What I dub ‘the New Folk Psychology’ expands on this tradition to include everyday attributions of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., feelings and experiences). How, that is, do we come to recognize something as being capable of and having phenomenal states, like feeling happy or experience pleasure? The project is organized around three core topics. The first component attempts to identify the process underlying everyday attributions of consciousness. This task is carried out with an eye towards addressing issues in the current folk psychology of consciousness debate, such as whether ordinary psychology incorporates something like the philosopher’s distinction between intentionality and phenomenology. My work (Arico 2010, Arico, et al. 2011) advocates a model of mind-attribution called the Agency Model. According to this model, whenever we represent an entity as having certain properties (for example, facial features), we automatically categorize that thing as an AGENT. This AGENT-categorization then activates a cascade of behavioral dispositions, including the disposition to attribute both intentionality and phenomenology. The second component concerns ways that the process underlying everyday attributions of consciousness might be related to psychological process involved in moral perception. My work to date has focused largely on the question of how it is that we come to see an entity as a moral being, as something that deserves moral consideration and/or is subject to moral evaluation. I argue that existing accounts of such moral perception are based on problematic experimental data (Arico, forthcoming). I then propose an amended Agency Model (Arico, under review), according to which seeing an entity as a moral being--like attributing it consciousness--is a consequence of categorizing that thing as an AGENT. I then utilize this cognitive picture in an attempt to explain the enduring normative ethical debate over which kind of mental capacity most fundamentally grounds moral standing.

No description available.

Reducing racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare are ongoing concerns. A paucity of data on healthcare seeking behavior among older Black women has hampered efforts to make culturally responsive healthcare services available to this population. Little is known about how older Black women's expectations and perceptions of care affect their patterns of health behavior.This study explored sociocultural contexts of health behavior with fifty Black women, aged 40 and older, in Tucson, Arizona by examining what prompts these women to seek services, identifying key factors affecting their access to and utilization of healthcare, documenting their experiences in healthcare settings and how these interactions influence their healthcare-seeking behavior. If effective healthcare service access and utilization are to be encouraged among older Black women, an informed understanding of the role cultural difference plays is essential.This research has three purposes: to provide a forum for discussion of culturally relevant strategies and models for prevention of disease and promotion of wellness in Black communities; to provide perspectives on older Black women's health issues for policymakers and administrators in public health sciences; and to gain insight and document reasons for selected health behaviors among this population. Research funding from the NIH/ NIA has helped to establish this small multi-disciplinary data set on a specific race, gender and age sub-population group for future research and development of community resource partnerships; including public health education and effective healthcare service delivery with intervention / promotion efforts targeting older Black women.Findings: Older Black women's poorer health status reflects the cumulative effects of inadequate health care due to various discriminatory experiences and their mistrust of the health care system. Mistrust, expectations of racial bias, perceived cultural insensitivity, and lack of effective communication within healthcare settings were found to be barriers to their healthcare-seeking behavior. Neither healthcare providers nor older Black women can address these issues alone. Working towards more trusting relationships within healthcare settings is critical in beginning to address avoidable inequities in health status experienced by older Black women.This research is applicable to such disciplines as Sociocultural/Medical Anthropology, Health Education, Public Health, and Africana/Ethnic Studies.

Results from archaeological survey provide new insights into the origins of variation among the prehistoric Native American societies that occupied the Chickasawhatchee Swamp of southwestern Georgia. Through macroregional comparison, these insights are broadly applicable to the Eastern Woodlands societies that existed across the southeastern U.S. between A.D. 150 and 1600. Theoretical frameworks concerning landscape ecology, inter-regional exchange, and agency and structure provide the organizing structure for a multi-scalar view of change that contradicts earlier models.Within the Chickasawhatchee Swamp, survey, mapping, and excavation data present a complex regional settlement system. Within the swamp, a few large settlements were occupied for the long-term, in spite of the absence of monumental architecture. Smaller surrounding sites were periodically abandoned. At the swamp's edge, several subregions were organized around civic-ceremonial mound sites. At these edges, mound sites and surrounding subregions were abandoned simultaneously. Instead of being driven by changes in political complexity, residential mobility cycles were consistent through time and related to the region's heterogeneous landscape.Macroregional spatial data comparing mound locations through time support data from the Chickasawhatchee Swamp and confirm hypotheses relating mound construction and transitional landscapes. New data emphasize continuity in inter-regional exchange networks and contradict earlier views in which the emergence of hierarchical political structures were a transformational process that fundamentally altered Eastern Woodlands political economies. Temporal continuity and spatial variation are instead most evident.

In recent years the Internet has greatly changed the travel industry and the emergence of social media has driven this change further. In the past travel companies have been natural links between customers and suppliers but today customers can buy travel directly from the supplier, making it difficult for travel companies to attract new customers and retain existing customers. As social media is revolutionizing the way people communicate, the trend suggests that it is becoming increasingly important for firms to take part in this technological development to interact with customers. Although Internet and social media has a major impact on firm-to-customer and customer-to-customer conversations, there is little guidance in academic literature and organizational contexts on how to use social media in an effective way. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to describe and explain how social media has transformed the relationships between selected Swedish travel companies and their customers, and how these firms create and sustain value and relationships through social media. Furthermore, we will give implications for management on how to utilize social media to create and sustain value and relationships. The results of our research confirm that social media is transforming the relationships between firms and customers. From our findings we conclude that the customer has become more empowered, that interaction now occurs through a two-way communication and that social media has made industries and relationships more transparent. The results also indicate that firms do not realize the value that can be created through social media for the customer as well as for the firm. The use of social media among the interviewed firms varies with some firms using social media through many tools and some firms not using social media at all.   Our findings implicate that being aware of what value is created and why the firm is involved in a certain social media tool increases the likelihood of success. The firm should further not be afraid to experiment with social media. However, social media also presents challenges. As social media is characterized by rapidly changing trends, it is difficult to predict what will happen not only in a distant future, but even so just a few years ahead.

Denna uppsats behandlar den svenska resemarknaden och om olika reseföretags tillämpning av konkurrensstrategier kan skapa framgång och hjälpa dem att överleva på en mogen resemarknad. Arbetet bygger på en jämförelse mellan tre reseföretag som distribuerar resor, för att undersöka och analysera olika konkurrensstrategiers verkan på den svenska resemarknaden. Tre reseföretag med olika inriktningar på marknaden jämförs i uppsatsen, KILROY travels Sweden AB, Ticket Travel Group AB och MyTravel Sweden. Undersökningen bygger på en kvalitativ metod genom personliga intervjuer med respektive företag. I analysen görs en jämförelse av reseföretagen som konkurrenter till varandra. Det som har framkommit i intervjuerna jämförs med utvalda teorier i analysen. En kombination av konkurrensstrategier används för att utreda vilka köpare och leverantörer som finns och om det finns hot från potentiella etablerare och substitut. Företagens mål, strategier, föreställningar om branschen och möjligheter för utveckling utreds. Deras positioner på marknaden motiverar också valet av strategi och hur pass aggressiva de bör vara i sina marknadsföringssatsningar. Marknadsföringsmixen visar vad företagen behöver utveckla och förbättra. De tre undersökta reseföretagen har varit framgångsrika på så vis att de har funnits länge på den svenska marknaden, är väletablerade och har kända varumärken. Företagen använder huvudsakligen tre distributionskanaler för att vara tillgängliga för kunderna, genom butiker, Internet och telefon. Konkurrensstrategier har en verkan på den svenska resemarknaden då konkurrenssituationen skapar ett behov av analys och planering, så att företagen kan bedöma konkurrenterna på ett riktigt sätt. En analys av konkurrensen görs lättast genom att använda de verktyg som redovisats i denna uppsats. De svenska reseföretagen kan skapa framgång och överleva genom en tillämpning av konkurrensstrategierna. Företagen måste då utföra kontinuerliga analyser av resebranschen och konkurrenterna. / This paper discusses the Swedish travel market and if the application of competitive strategies can create success and help companies in the travel industry to survive on a mature travel market. It is based on a comparison between three companies in the travel industry, to survey and analyze the impact of different competitive strategies on the Swedish travel market. Three companies with different business profiles are compared. They are KILROY travels Sweden AB, Ticket Travel Group AB and MyTravel Sweden. The survey is based on a qualitative method through personal interviews with each company. A comparison is made between the companies as competitors to each other in the analysis section. The results of the interviews are also compared to the chosen theories. A combination of competitive strategies is used to investigate who the buyers and suppliers are, and if there are any threats from potential new establishers and substitutes. The companies’ goals, strategies, conceptions of the industry and development opportunities are also investigated. Their market positions motivate their choice of strategies and how aggressive they should be in their marketing investments. The marketing mix demonstrates what the companies need to develop and improve. The three companies have all been successful, as they have existed for a long time on the Swedish market, are well established and have well known trademarks. They mainly employ three distribution channels to be accessible to customers, namely through stores, Internet and phones. Competitive strategies do have an impact on the Swedish travel market, as the competitive situation creates a need for analysis and planning, allowing the companies to assess the competitors correctly. An analysis of the competition is easily made with the tools presented in this paper. The companies in the Swedish travel industry can create success and survive through application of these competitive strategies. The companies must implement continuous analysis of the travel industry and their competitors.