The purpose for this research journey was twofold: (1) to discover the power of certain discourses in the charismatic church context and (2) to challenge disrespectful discursive practices in order to co-operate respectful, ethical and caring ways of being. Seven leaders in charismatic churches committed themselves to this qualitative research project. The research process resulted in a confirmation by the participants that some charismatic discursive practices can be abusive and also to the acknowledgement that they too have at times fulfilled the role of abuser, even in unknowingly. This research journey ended in Hope. Hope for more transparency and trust between leaders and members, resulting in more respectful practices. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)

Interest in comics as Swedish school material has risen in the last few years and the publication of comics for children and adolescents has also increased. Meanwhile, although research around new literacies has taken an interest in combinations of image and text, there is still little research on comics as a literacy material, especially as part of school practices. With comics’ rise in popularity, and their quality as examples of new literacies, this points to the relevance of exploring how meaning making with comics is done in schools. The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge on how locally situated literacy practices are done, practices in which pupils and teachers make meaning with comics. The study combines literacy, comics and discursive psychology to investigate aspects of literacy not as individual, inner workings, but as part of participants’ social constructions, in line with New Literacy Studies. With this perspective, it is possible to investigate literary concepts such as narrative, and participants’ construction of story elements, through the way in which these aspects are utilized by participants to construct social action – what participants do with their utterances. To study this, video recordings have been made in one primary and one secondary school, in two different Swedish cities. The results of the study show constructions of a comics literacy, where participants engage with both visual and textual aspects of the material and negotiate focalization of narrative perspective and construction of narrative structure as well as narrative devices such as speech and thought bubbles. Furthermore, meaning making of comics literacy also includes the construction of discourses around comics as a specific type of story telling, either for material or literary reasons. The thesis discusses how participants construct classroom literature, and provides insight into how interaction around comics enables participants to construct and negotiate discourses around what comics literacy is and what it enables, as well as how to talk about, create, and read comics. / Intresset för serier som svenskt skolmaterial har stigit de senaste åren och publiceringen av serier för barn och ungdomar har också ökat. Även om forskning om new literacies har intresserat sig för kombinationer av bild och text så finns det fortfarande lite forskning på serier som literacymaterial, speciellt som en del av skolpraktik. Med det stigande intresset för serier och deras kvaliteter som exempel på new literacies, så pekar detta mot att det finns en relevans i att utforska hur meningsskapande med serier görs i skolan. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap om hur lokalt situerad literacypraktik görs där elever och lärare skapar mening med serier. Studien kombinerar forskning om literacy, serier och diskursiv psykologi för att, i linje med New Literacy Studies, undersöka aspekter av literacy som en del av deltagarnas sociala konstruktioner – inte som ett individuellt, mentalt fenomen. Med detta perspektiv är det möjligt att undersöka litterära koncept som narrativ och deltagares konstruktion av berättelseinslag, genom det sätt på vilka dessa aspekter används av deltagare för att interagera – vad deltagare gör när de säger något. För att studera detta har videoobservationer använts i en lågstadieskola och en högstadieskola i två olika svenska städer. Resultaten från studien demonstrerar konstruktioner av serie-literacy där deltagarna engagerar sig i både text och bild i materialet, diskuterar berättandeperspektiv och konstruktioner av narrativ struktur, såväl som berättarverktyg, t.ex. prat- och tankebubblor. Därutöver inkluderar serie-literacy också deltagarnas skapande av seriediskurser där serier görs till en specifik typ av berättande, antingen på materiell eller litterär basis. Avhandlingen diskuterar hur deltagare konstruerar klassrumslitteratur, och studien erbjuder en insikt i hur interaktion runt serier möjliggör för deltagare att konstruera och förhandla diskurser om vad serieliteracy är och vad det erbjuder för möjligheter, såväl som hur deltagare kan prata om, skapa och läsa serier.

In this dissertation, the researcher presents the findings of a discourse analytic enquiry on the construction of femininity within a contemporary South African magazine. It is argued that gender is a social construction and that women’s magazines provide a channel through which discourse of femininity reaches women. These discourses in women’s magazines are often narrow and stereotypical in nature which may limit the development of women’s feminine gender identities. A discourse analytic approach was utilised to reveal the different discourses of femininity within a contemporary women’s magazines, Cosmopolitan, as well as to indicate how they may contribute to the construction of femininity. From the magazine, relationship-focused articles were selected, from which three predominant discourses of femininity were identified which includes femininity as heterosexual, nurturing, and managerial. An important finding is that competing discourses of empowerment and traditional femininity were evident. This points to the highly complex ways in which gender, specifically femininity, is constructed in the magazine under study. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Denna studie kan ses som en del av barndomsforskningen, där barn betraktas som kompetenta aktörer vars rösterförtjänar att lyftas fram. Syftet var att undersöka hur barn i olika familjeformer pratar om tillblivelse. Intervjuer har genomförts med sammanlagt 22 barn varav elva kom från familjer med en sammanboende mamma och pappa som har fått barn genom samlag (relationsbarn) och de andra elva kom från familjer med en ensamstående mamma som har fåttbarn på egen hand med hjälp av assisterad befruktning (femmisbarn). Barnens ålder varierade från tre år och tio månader till nio år och nio månader. En semistrukturerad intervjuguide låg till grund för intervjuerna där barnen ombads prata om tillblivelse, den egna tillblivelsen, tidigare kunskap om tillblivelse, känslor och åsikter inför ämnet samt kunskapskällor kring tillblivelse. Barnens berättelser har analyserats utifrån kritisk diskursiv psykologi.Resultatet visar att både femmisbarnen och relationsbarnen pratar om befruktning i olika former. De flesta pratar om en eller flera förutsättningar att bli till på, vilka alla var bundna till familjeform. Majoriteten av relationsbarnen och en del av femmisbarnen pratar utifrån en heteronormativ tvåsamhet. Många femmisbarn pratar även utifrån sitt eget tillblivelsesätt, assisterad befruktning, och talar dels utifrån att detta sätt är ett fullgott förstahandsalternativ och dels utifrån att det är ett andrahandsalternativ till att få barn genom den heteronormativa tvåsamheten. Flera av både femmisbarnen och relationsbarnen pratade kring att få barn på ett sätt som att det är en självklarhet för vuxna.De flesta av barnen pratade om förlossning och nämnde då vården som något centralt, vilken beskrivs antingen som en fixare eller en hjälpare. För femmisbarnen var vården självklar både vid befruktningen och vid förlossningen, medan vården är självklar för relationsbarnen vid förlossningen. De barn som pratar om pappors roll vid förlossningen gör det utifrån att pappor antingen är sekundära och passiva eller att de är hjälpare. Resultatet visar även att det inte finns någon skillnad kring var barnen från de olika familjeformerna har fått sin kunskap om tillblivelse ifrån samt var de skulle ta reda på mer kunskap. Barnen nämner sina mammor, men även skola, kompisar och olika former av media är kunskapskällor för barnen. Många barn pratar utifrån att kunskapen tillhör vuxenvärlden och att barn inte behöver ha kunskap om tillblivelse. Det är ungefär lika förekommande att barnen oavsett familjeformger uttryck för att tillblivelse och tillhörande ämnen på olika sätt är svårt att prata om, som att det är lätt att prata.Utifrån dessa resultat dras slutsatsen att eftersom den heteronormativa tvåsamheten framställs som det självklara, får det till följd att andra tillblivelsesätt betraktas som mindre eftersträvansvärda. I kontakt med barn blir det därför viktigt att förhålla sig till detta och sträva mot att inkludera fler likvärdiga tillblivelsesätt i sitt prat. Mammor beskrivs av barnen från de båda familjeformerna som de primära kunskapsbärarna, medan pappor nästintill helt saknas. Detta tyder på att femmisbarn, i de undersökta åldrarna, har samma tillgång till kunskap om tillblivelse som relationsbarn har. Slutligen konstateras att sexualitet till viss del fortfarande är tabubelagt i samhället, då flera av barnen på olika sätt uttrycker att det finns aspekter av tillblivelse som var svåra att prata om. Denna syn, som också återfinns i samhället, håller troligtvis på att förändras då ungefär lika många barn gav uttryck för att tillblivelse var lätt att prata om.

The aim of this thesis is to break new ground by investigating the interactional organisation of real events that comprise live business-to-business cold calls. Despite being a ubiquitous part of everyday life, we know very little about how cold calls are initiated, progressed, and completed. Cold calls are unsolicited telephone encounters, initiated by salespeople aiming to get prospective clients ( prospects ) interested in their services, with the distal goal of turning them into clients and the proximal goal of getting them to agree to an initial meeting. Cold calls are often treated as a nuisance by call-takers, and salespeople must deal with reluctant gatekeepers, recurrent sales resistance, and the occasional hang-up. The training they receive often draws on outdated theories of communication and is rarely supported by empirical evidence. Thus, this study not only addresses an important domain for interactional research, but also fulfils a practical necessity for empirical research that will inform sales training and improve callers and call-takers experiences. The data comprise 150 recorded calls supplied by three British companies that sell, service, and lease office equipment. The data were collected, transcribed, and analysed within an ethnomethodological framework using conversation analysis and discursive psychology. The first analytic chapter outlines the overall structural organisation of cold calling. It documents the constituent activities within the opening, the business of the call, and the closing. It identifies and describes two types of cold calls. Freezing calls are initiated by salespeople who are contacting a prospect for the very first time. Lukewarm calls feature salespeople who claim to have been in contact with the prospect s organisation in the past. The second chapter excavates the initial turns of lukewarm calls in which salespeople ask to speak to another person within the company, with whom they indicate to be acquainted. The analysis revealed that this third-party acquaintanceship was crucial for establishing the legitimacy of the switchboard request and for improving the chances of getting it granted. The third chapter focused on appointment-making sequences in both freezing and lukewarm calls, showing that they comprise two components: a preamble and a meeting request sequence. I also highlight how salespeople exploit sequential and turn-taking mechanisms to secure meetings with prospects without giving the latter the opportunity to refuse. The final chapter examines two practices for enacting resistance in cold calls blocks and stalls and documents the range of methods salespeople employ for dealing with each type of resistance. Sales blocks expose the salesperson s commercial agenda, attempt to stop the prospecting activity, and move towards call pre-closure. In response, salespeople can challenge, counter, or circumvent blocks as well as redo their initiating actions. Stalls slow down the progress of the sales process by delaying the next phase of the sale or by proposing less commitment-implicative alternatives. Salespeople deal with stalls by either justifying their initial proposal or by spontaneously introducing new action plans, both being more conducive to the progress of the sale. The thesis contributes to a growing body of interactional research on commercial encounters by shedding empirical light on a previously unexamined setting, business-to-business cold calls. It also moves forward discursive psychology s project of respecifying psychological phenomena by documenting the communicative practices associated with persuasion and resistance. Finally, it expands the extant conversation analytic toolkit by examining new practices (such as appointment-making) and by providing new insights into key conversation analytic topics (such as requests, pre-sequences, and accounts for calling). Overall, the findings presented in this thesis challenge existing conceptions of prospecting through cold calling that are prevalent in the sales literature. The thesis puts forward a strong argument for opening the black box of cold calls to better understand these interactions and to identify good practices as the basis for communication training. Research presented in this thesis has already been used in the development of CARM (Conversation Analytic Role-play Method) training for salespeople, who reported having doubled their appointment rates. Based on the findings in this thesis, I plan to develop further training not only for salespeople but also for prospective customers, thus improving the overall outcome of cold call encounters.

Substantial contributions have been made by lesbian and gay developmental theorists in understanding the development of lesbian and gay sexual identities, or what has come to be known as the coming out process. “Coming out of the closet” has become a central metaphor, in western contexts, for the recognisable process gay men and lesbians undergo in order to claim a relatively stable and enduring sexual identity, while overcoming obstacles such as heterosexism. Lesbians’ sexual identities are examined in this thesis through a Foucauldian lens which is fused with a narrative-discursive perspective. The aim of this study is not to trace a progressive development of identity, but rather to consider how lesbians in this study are located within a specific context, namely, a historically white university in post-apartheid South Africa, and how their identities are dynamic products of ever-shifting socio-historical spaces. Eight lesbians’ stories are analysed using the narrative-discursive method, which allows for a consideration for how the construction and negotiation of identities is shaped and constrained by social and discursive conditions. The women in this study do utilise the concept of coming out to some extent in their stories, but this narrative does not entirely account for their experiences. Instead, these women’s accounts reflect the way in which they personally experience heterosexism, and how they constantly negotiate their sexual identities within certain social and geographical spaces. When the nuances of lesbians’ contexts are taken into account, it becomes clear that claiming a lesbian identity is more than just about “coming out”, and rather about an on-going process of identity management.