This project is a multifaceted analysis of the Post Graduate Work Permit Program (PGWPP), a temporary work permit that allows international students to live and work in Canada following graduation. This dissertation explores a) the program’s development throughout the years, b) the lived experiences and the perceptions of the students who used the program for transitioning to permanent residency and, c) an art-based autoethnographic introspection about this transition. The research question focuses on how the PGWPP, which provides the government with economic projections regarding student migration, influences the social and economic integration of international students/graduates. This dissertation consists of three self-containing articles all of which employ mobilities paradigm to examine the following secondary questions and purposes: a)Article 1 is an archaeological review of the development of the program that assesses how well the program meets its objective to settle international graduates as successful future permanent residents, b)Article 2 investigates international graduates’ experiences and perspectives about their transition to permanent residency via the PGWPP, c) Article 3 investigates the impacts of migratory-related difficulties among international students on their trajectory as immigrants. Each article approaches the PGWPP from a different methodological angle to provide a comprehensive analysis of the program that ultimately considers the wellness of international students in their pathways to Canadian residency.

Abstract My objective with this master's thesis is to contribute development both to the education for art-teachers and to art education primary and secondary school.     This master thesis discusses three students’ different art-based processes in a visual project about sustainable site-specific design. The project is based on ethnographic documentation of a “non-place” chosen by students themselves. The students are working with visual ethnographic documentation, making pictures in different materials, process-documentations, process-dairy, reception-calls, portfolio-analysis and digital presentation. The project aims reflections over how students can transform their experiences and knowledge, and later, in their role as art teachers, using the visual methods learnt, and using the unexpected and uncertain as a potential, to organize education with primary school pupils. ‘     The purpose of the thesis is to study students learning in, about, and through visual processes in an art-project, where the design of the teaching includes risk-taking elements. To delineate the purpose, I will work on the following issues:  1. What is made visible in students' digital presentations regarding different learning processes, sub-results and final results at the denotative and connotative level?  2. What does the design of the teaching mean for the students’ learning, in relation to the following four problem areas: - Image production with materials, techniques and tools - Image, reception talk and image theory - Documentation, evaluation and assessment - The location, the drawing room and other conditions for picture teaching.  3. Will the unexpected and uncertain as a potential for learning, be made visible in the students' processes, partial and final results? If so, how?     This is a qualitative study of three teacher - students' digital presentations. The material in the study includes three teacher students' digital presentations from an exam in an art project; research notes from observations in four course elements; informal interviews with two of the students. All of the three students’ digital presentations start with ethnographic inspired documentations from their chosen “non-places”. These pictures is first analysed, through visual-semiotic analyse. With this result in mind the individual visual processes through different tasks combined with materials analyses with a semiotic gaze and results in three cases followed up with a process-analysis of the three cases.      The theoretical context of the study is based on constructionistic theoretical perspective and semiotics as a theory of analysis, problematising the four aspects of the learning-field of art-education, identified in the thesis’ systematic research overview. The aim is to discuss design of education and three students’ experiences of their process-oriented investigative artwork. A work based on divergent thinking, where processes and results are not predetermined and where neither students nor teachers can anticipate them and thus have to dare to let go, which is why the study wants to highlight the unexpected and uncertain potential in image education. The result shows three students’ different visual processes, both in what drove and inspired them, and how they worked in visual materials. It shows that the concept in the design of the task challenged the students to explore the unsecure and the unexpected.  Through their artwork and the studies four aspects design of education in teacher education and compulsory school were problematised and several new questions about education in art were raised.

Name Art as a starting point in the process of a class educational program for preschool children Abstract This work in its theoretical part specifies the definition of art education, work and art techniques at kindergartens. It describes both the historical and the current ideas on changes of art creation of pre-school children. It goes into the solutions, competency, preparations and the actual creation of a class curriculum for pre-school children at contemporary kindergartens. The empirical part describes experience of my colleagues in the creation of a class curriculum with a focus on the global view, motivation and integrated programmes. The practical part illustrates the class curriculum based on a year-round project which comes out of art activities. There is a motivational theme that goes through the whole project and motivates children in other spheres of education as well. There is an offer of activities and a close relation to other subjects which are based on the art creation of children or lead to the creation by art works. The whole project culminates with a theatre performance which is made by children themselves. Key Words Art activities, pre-school age, class educational program, pre-school education, art techniques, art, kindergarten, fairy tale, educational conception,...

The present diploma thesis maps the concepts, characteristic features and cultural-social contexts of functions of the "Do It Yourself" phenomenon. It addresses various interpretations of the phenomenon, it creates general features, and it attempts to define its position based on the experience gained from the research carried out and from the literature studied. It primarily captures the action of the phenomenon during the communist and post-communist era in the Czechoslovak and later the Czech Republic, as well as the influence of various socio-political systems on its appearance. Didactic elaboration of the topic focuses on the application of the DIY principles in teaching activity and it presents an "In & Out" artwork line integrating these ideas into the current conditions of teaching art education. The artwork part represents starting points, the process and the realization of the author's binding of the diploma thesis, which is again based on the application of DIY ideas.

This research paper is an art-based heuristic influenced study on the fear of aging and the self using an art-based modality of exploration. The researcher sought to study three questions. First, to explore the relationship between aging, beauty, youth, and social pressures. Second, to explore the fears related to aging, (losing appearances, finance, health, and death). Thirdly, to considering the implications of findings to the clinical realm. The art based methodology offered a form of investigation which, informed by heuristic steps of inquiry, augmented both personal meaning and growth. Data consisted of art made over a three-month period as well as structured journaling regarding the research questions and art making process. The imagery, journaling and observations were then collected during the illumination and explication phase, culminating in a final art response of the findings in a creative synthesis.

In a third space, the boundaries between educational contexts and school disciplines are blurred to look at content from multiple perspectives. Out-of-school organisations, like museums, can offer educational resources that launch a museum-school partnership into a third space. This thesis describes the conceptualisation and validation of such a third space. An interdisciplinary museum programme that supports the cooperation between museum educators and teachers to encourage students in an art-based exploration of science issues is presented. A systematic comparison of the museum programme with the established Framework for Museum Practice resulted in applicable design recommendations for informal educators and schools that strive for a third space. Within an art-based science teaching strategy, this thesis additionally analysed students’ transformative aesthetic experiences and what role imagination plays in those. A newly developed visual analysis indicates how the museum programme offers students opportunities to look at complex aspects of the world depicted by contemporary art and to discern and value their intricacy. The results show how the interdisciplinary approach to science issues allows links between the conceptual and the emotional. By using their own eyes and each other’s company, students observe and create science-related art, expanding their knowledge, perceptions, values, and feelings. It is the imagination that drives cognitive operations, enabling students to envision other perspectives while at the same time considering their own subjectivity. With the conceptualisation of a third space, this thesis coins a suggestion to put the purpose of ‘subjectification’ into science education practice. In addition, it strengthens the position of Arts (A) in Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education by indicating the benefits of combining the cognitive with the affective and using the hands in conjunction with the head. / Students can discover the complexities of images, objects, and aspects of the world with their powerful eyes. With their imaginative minds, they can envision diverse perspectives while at the same time considering their own subjectivity. This thesis shows that by using their eyes and imagination in an art-based exploration of science issues, students can expand their knowledge, perceptions, values, and feelings. The presented art-based teaching approach is enveloped by an interdisciplinary museum programme that allows links between the conceptual and the emotional. Its design is conceptualised in this thesis as a third space, crossing boundaries between educational contexts and school disciplines. Guidelines are offered to support museum-school partnerships and an instructional design that builds on the framework of transformative aesthetic experiences. In addition, embodied and intuitive aspects of the imagination in conjunction with rationality about science issues, direct a discussion about the purpose of ‘subjectification’ in science education.

Mémoire en recherche-création / Il y a quelques années, j’ai presque gagné 100 000 $ dans une émission de télé-réalité appelée Big Brother Canada. Je rêvais fièrement à ma victoire quand j'ai été rapidement ramenée à la réalité en étant évincée de la maison par les quatre autres concurrent.es. restant.es. Quelques semaines après la fin de l'émission, déçue et quelque peu déstabilisée, j'ai découvert que plusieurs images de moi circulaient de façon virale en ligne. En fait, j'étais devenue un mème ! Fascinée par cette nouvelle forme de langage que les mèmes semblent avoir créé sur mes réseaux sociaux au fil des ans, l'expérience de devenir un mème a suscité une grande envie de savoir ce que d'autres personnes ayant une expérience similaire à la mienne ressentent. Ma curiosité a inspiré cette recherche exploratoire dans laquelle je cherche à mieux comprendre ma mise en mème (ou mémification) à travers l’expérience vécue d'autres mèmes. Présenté sous la forme d'une création audiovisuelle accompagnée d’un script réfléchi, et soutenu par le concept de « face » de Goffman, ainsi que par les théories sur la « visibilité » de Voirol et Jauréguiberry, ce travail explore la face cachée des mèmes, le rapport entre individu-face-mème et les effets de devenir-mème. / I once came close to winning a 100 000$ on a reality TV show called Big Brother Canada. I could almost taste the jackpot when I suddenly got evicted from the house by the four remaining houseguests. Few weeks after the show was over, disappointed, and overwhelmed, I discovered that multiple images of me went viral on social media. In fact, I had become a meme! Already fascinated by this new form of language that memes seem to have created on my social media over the years, the experience of becoming a meme ignited a thirst to know how other individuals with a similar experience to mine felt. My curiosity led to this exploratory research where I seek to better understand my transformation into a meme (or memefication) through the lenses of other memes. Presented in the form of an audio-visual creation accompanied by a commented script and supported by Goffman’s concept of “face” as well as Voirol and Jauréguiberry theories about “visibility”, this work digs into the hidden faces behind memes, the connection between individual-face-meme and the effects of becoming meme.

(En)Compassing Heart explores and documents the organizational journey of POR AMOR Community Enhancement Initiatives. POR AMOR is a current, Toronto based, youth-led, non-profit organization I co-founded with three other young women in 2003. POR AMOR initiatives focus on youth empowerment and specifically helping young people to make responsible transitions into adulthood and become active leaders in their communities. Through the use of arts-informed methodological practices, this project is constructed as a modern narrative, infused with spoken-word poetry, to track the journey of a young girl from her passion for the arts to becoming an empowered individual within her community. The young protagonist is representative of the journey of POR AMOR, our journey as young people navigating our way to meaningful work in communities. The mission of POR AMOR is to promote and facilitate art-based youth empowerment initiatives in local and international community contexts.

(En)Compassing Heart explores and documents the organizational journey of POR AMOR Community Enhancement Initiatives. POR AMOR is a current, Toronto based, youth-led, non-profit organization I co-founded with three other young women in 2003. POR AMOR initiatives focus on youth empowerment and specifically helping young people to make responsible transitions into adulthood and become active leaders in their communities. Through the use of arts-informed methodological practices, this project is constructed as a modern narrative, infused with spoken-word poetry, to track the journey of a young girl from her passion for the arts to becoming an empowered individual within her community. The young protagonist is representative of the journey of POR AMOR, our journey as young people navigating our way to meaningful work in communities. The mission of POR AMOR is to promote and facilitate art-based youth empowerment initiatives in local and international community contexts.

The dissertation thesis, Ornament in Nature, Science and Art, deals with the theme of ornaments in contemporary art, design and architecture. Individual chapters are dedicated to exploring nature and science as sources of inspiration for contemporary art. The chapter, Body and Ornament, is about ornaments for the human bodies and patterns created from the form of human bodies. Art creations by the author and her students make up an integral part of the main text. An individual chapter is dedicated to the Bodyornament project. Bodyornament is a project involving artistic, educational and research elements. Its primary body of work took place as an art performance in the Veletržní palace in Prague. Through the active participation of the students, patterns and ornaments made from their bodies were created. The process was documented by means of photography. The photographs together with the students' written reflections about the experience comprise the primary research documents. In this dissertation, these documents were analyzed and interpreted by using a combination of specific forms of qualitative research and art-based research. Our research model was based on three degree reflexive analysis according to Donald Schön. Through interpretation of the research results, thoughts of possible...