I Sociologiskt perspektiv på Hästunderstödd terapi studeras hur deltagares upplevelser och effekter av Hästunderstödd terapi med någon form av psykosocial inriktning kan förstås ur ett sociologiskt perspektiv. Fyra artiklar som behandlar Hästundersstödd terapi analyseras med ett konstruktivistiskt förhållningssätt och en induktiv ansats har antagits. Resultatet av analysen ställs i relation till tidigare sociologisk forskning och sociologiska teorier som behandlar interaktion, kommunikation och relation mellan människa och djur. Resultatet mynnade i tre kategorier som står i relation till varandra. Kategorierna är: Sociala relationer, emotionell utveckling och identitetsskapande. Analysen visar att både det terapeutiska innehållet och målet med den Hästunderstödda terapin i de fyra analyserade artiklarna till största del innefattar sociala relationer. Utifrån detta dras slutsatsen att deltagares upplevelser och effekter av Hästunderstödd terapi låter sig förstås ur ett sociologiskt perspektiv, då sociala relationer är essentiellt inom sociologin.

Disconnection in teacher-student relationships caused by the alienating processes and goals of the public school system is the most pressing challenge facing high school teachers today. Disrupting this disconnection and subverting the forces that produce it are the primary goals of the savvy teacher. In this dissertation I claim that teachers require two distinct yet interconnected kinds of abilities to achieve this disruption. They need the curriculum teaching skills they are taught in teacher education programs, and they need additional skills not formally taught which would enable them to build and sustain relationships with students, in the face of school structures and processes that produce fear and isolation. These relational skills I term `savvy' (Parelli, 1993).' I contend that teachers who are savvy can establish and sustain teacher-student classroom partnerships that ameliorate the fear produced by the social, political, and economic forces that shape the institution of schooling. The following research describes how I adapted my horse whispering savvy to teaching in a high school setting. Being savvy in the classroom involves the ability to win students' trust, to form partnerships with students, and to sustain those relationships through continuous changes that threaten to disrupt them. While the development of teacher savvy is a very individual process, that process must lead to the acquisition of three vital abilities: the ability to develop teacher-student partnerships, to sustain those partnerships, and to track behavior indicating changes in relational rhythms. These abilities can be developed only in concert with an awareness derived from personal experience of the need to change teaching practice. Acting on this desire to change, the savvy teacher must be able to utilize the inadequate processes of schooling to educate students about the problems produced by our way of living that is neither compatible with our planetary systems, nor sustainable over the long term. To practice horse whispering savvy in the classroom teachers must learn to see the teaching environment as a complex interaction of systems, that is, as a network of interconnected reciprocal relations that function well as long as its interacting systems unfold harmoniously. They must learn to track this relational system from within, immersed in the web of classroom relationship, being sensitive to shifts in relational rhythms, and aware of the patterns and needs of other systems that compose the learning setting. Savvy teachers must be willing to educate students to understand the influence of the corporate agenda in the process of schooling and, to this end, abandon typical prescribed curriculum plans, and rely instead on teachable moments that occur within the classroom setting, all the while camouflaging their intent to educate students to think for themselves. It is important for the savvy teacher to realize how being powerless can make students and even student teachers feel fearful and disconnected, unprepared to handle what occurs in the school setting or even influence the outcome of events. The savvy teacher needs to help form solutions to problems, encouraging and enhancing self-sufficiency in the classroom in order to disrupt dependency on the processes offered to us by the corporate way of living.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2009. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Vita. "May 2009" Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:27:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RenataDOF_DISSERT.pdf: 868746 bytes, checksum: 067689295a5629c5bc7d8c741575c19e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-12 / This work has the main goal on the recognition of the inherent value of nonhuman animals, under the constitutional framework. It is presented the main philosophical formulations of the current pattern of behavior that rules the relationship between man and animals: first those that have excluded animals from moral consideration and then the thinkers which do have included, in some way, in order to elucidate the origin of the anthropocentric thought over the natural world. In this way, the analysis these thinkers that have included animals in moral consideration will contribute to a paradigm change from the anthropocentric view, initiating legal debates. It will be made a simplified analysis of different philosophical and legal points of view that have been demonstrating the posture in which the human beings have been dealing with the environment, with the replacement of the anthropocentric thinking for the biocentric view, in which life becomes the center of existence. Life is life, no matter whether it is human or not, has a value in itself, and must be protected and respected by the legal system. Then, it will be analized the constitutionalization of the nonhuman animal dignity in comparative law; the infraconstitutional legislation which concerning the intrinsic value of all life forms and, finally, the 1988 Constitution. It will be advocated for non-human animals the condition of subjects, presenting some cases that the Habeas Corpus was used in animal defense. In this new Brazilian Habeas Corpus theory of for apes the argument of genetic proximity was used in order to overcome the literal meaning of natural person to achieve hominids in order to assure the fundamental right of physical freedom. It is realized that the fact that the great apes being recognized as a person does not preclude the possibility of other living beings be recognized as subjects of law. In this way, animals can be considered non-human subjects of law, according to the theory of depersonalized entities and may enjoy a legal category that allows a respect for existential minimum, and can hold constitutional fundamental rights / O presente trabalho aborda o reconhecimento do valor inerente aos animais n?o humanos, sob o marco jur?dico-constitucional. Apresenta as principais formula??es filos?ficas do padr?o de comportamento atual que rege a rela??o do homem com os animais: as que excluem os animais da esfera de considera??o moral e, em seguida, os pensadores que incluem, de alguma forma, com a finalidade de esclarecer a origem do pensamento antropoc?ntrico lan?ado sobre o mundo natural. Dessa forma, a an?lise dos pensadores que inclu?ram os animais na esfera de considera??o moral contribuir? para a mudan?a paradigm?tica da vis?o antropoc?ntrica, iniciando os debates jur?dicos. Buscou-se uma an?lise simplificada das v?rias correntes filos?ficas e jur?dicas que demonstram a postura com que o ser humano vem lidando com o meio ambiente; com a substitui??o do pensamento antropoc?ntrico pela vis?o bioc?ntrica, na qual a vida passa a ser o centro da exist?ncia. Vida ? vida, n?o interessando se ? humana ou n?o, possui um valor em si mesma, e deve ser tutelada e respeitada pela ordem jur?dica. Em seguida, a constitucionaliza??o da dignidade do animal n?o humano no direito comparado; as normas infraconstitucionais que abordam a tem?tica do valor intr?nseco de todas as formas de vida e, por ?ltimo, a Constitui??o de 1988. Prop?em em favor dos n?o humanos a condi??o de sujeitos de direitos, apresentando alguns casos pr?ticos com a utiliza??o do rem?dio constitucional do Habeas Corpus na defesa animal. Nessa nova teoria brasileira do Habeas Corpus para os grandes primatas, o argumento da proximidade gen?tica, foi utilizado com o intuito de ultrapassar o sentido literal de pessoa natural, para alcan?ar os homin?deos, a fim de lhes assegurar o direito fundamental da liberdade corporal. Constata que o fato de os grandes primatas serem reconhecidos como pessoa n?o impede que outros seres vivos possam ser reconhecidos como sujeitos de direito. Sob esse ?ngulo, os animais podem ser considerados sujeitos de direito n?o humanos despersonificados, de acordo com a teoria dos entes despersonalizados, podendo usufruir de uma categoria jur?dica que possibilite um respeito m?nimo existencial, podendo ser titulares de direitos subjetivos fundamentais no ?mbito constitucional

Ce travail de thèse se présente comme une enquête sur les modalités de l’agir-ensemble interspécifique. L’idée qui a présidé à sa mise en œuvre repose sur la volonté d’élargir les questionnements classiques en sociologie de l’action (comment décrire le vivre-ensemble, quelle forme prend l’ordre social) et en linguistique (comment communique-t-on intelligiblement) à un objet sortant de leurs préoccupations traditionnelles : les interactions sociales entre hommes et chiens. Pour cela, nous analysons des données recueillies lors d’interactions ordinaires et quotidiennes entre chiots en éducation et éducateurs canins, ou entre chiens-guides d’aveugles et personnes non-voyantes.Il s’agit d’un travail empirique de recherche sur les ressources utilisées par hommes et chiens pour agir ensemble et communiquer. Pour cela, nous montrons que les actions communes dans lesquelles ils s’engagent sont réalisées de manière ordonnée, et sont séquentiellement organisées – de sorte qu’elles sont descriptibles avec une certaine systématicité. Cette systématicité, qui exhibe le caractère ordonné des interactions, est traitée comme l’indice d’une forme de socialité qui s’incarne dans l’ajustement mutuel. De ce point de vue, cette thèse se présente également comme un travail théorique sur les formes de la socialité interspécifique. De manière incidente, elle se veut en outre le lieu d’une réflexion épistémologique sur la prise en charge par les sciences humaines et la linguistique d’un objet par tradition réservé aux sciences dites naturelles. / « Non human » is an analytical category that has now entered the realm of sociology. The fact that domestic animals might be agents, and relevant interactants has been evoked and investigated in the most recent literature. The originality of our study does not lie in these arguments. It takes them for granted, and analyzes with systematicity some of the resources used by dogs and their human co-interactants (be they educators or visually impaired persons) to communicate with intelligibility, and make each other’s actions mutually accountable. The study is structured by a leading question: what kind of sociality is at stake between dogs and humans ?The dissertation is divided into two introductory theoretical chapters, and three analytical parts. The first chapter establishes the state of the art, as far as human/animal interaction is concerned. After briefly commenting on the Animal Studies and its opposition to the so-called cartesian position, it ends by introducing the ethnomethodological program as a relevant approach to shed a new light on my object. The second chapter offers an epistemological reflection on the analytical ‘naturalist’ framework worth adopting in order to investigate dog-human sociality. It gives an occasion to discuss the transcription format usually used in CA as an adequate frame to shed light on the sequentiality of actions, as well as on conditional relevance. The three next chapters are grounded on these reflections and are more strictly empirical and analytical. Chapter 3 describes the resources used by dogs and humans to interact with intelligibility and to share perceptive knowledge. It analyzes procedures of shared attention, and mutual orientation (for instance, by mutually orienting toward a relevant object for the ongoing action). Chapter 4 goes further into the analysis of participants’ procedural competencies, and observes the systematicity of sequential formats. Chapter 5 is grounded on these analyses and addresses a “topos” as far as human-animal interaction is concerned: issues of cognition. Drawing on the EM program, it proposes a praxeological approach to cognition that does not focus on dog’s capacities or skills but on the way ordinary practices of practical reasoning are accomplished.The PhD dissertation offers an empirical work on human-animal modalities of living and acting together. It aims at showing that mutual actions participants engage in are orderly accomplished and sequentially organized – and therefore descriptible with systematicity.This systematicity, by exhibiting the orderly character of interactions, is treated as a cue of a form of sociality, embodied in mutual adjustment. In this regard, this thesis offers also some theoretical thoughts on forms of interspecific sociality.At the same time, and more incidentally, it develops epistemological considerations about the reflexive relationships between social sciences, linguistics, and natural sciences in the treatment of this “hybrid” objet.

This dissertation investigates the visual and verbal representations of animals in a selection of commercial picture books for a young readership of preschool children. The picture books selected are part of the Little Golden Book series. The first twelve books in this series were published in the United States in 1942 and are still in print today, while new books are continually being published. Because these popular picture books have had a broad readership from their inception and the books in the series have a uniform aesthetics, a comparative analysis provides insight into mainstream human-animal relationships.  Children’s literature is never innocent, and fraught with power imbalances. Animals become political beings, not only in the sense that they convey a didactic message, but in the sense that each animal representation carries a host of ideas and assumptions about human-animal relations with it. Using a theoretical framework that is grounded in Human Animal Studies (HAS), and more specifically literary animal studies, this dissertation analyzes the representation of human-animal interactions and relationships in different contexts.  Before the advent of HAS, anthropocentric, humanist interpretations of animal presence in children’s literature used to be prevalent. Commercial picture books in particular could benefit from readings that investigate animal presence without immediately resorting to humanist interpretations. One way of doing that is to start by questioning how interspecies difference and hierarchy is constructed in these books, verbally, visually and in the interaction between words and images. Based on this, we can speculate about the consequences this may have for the reader’s conceptualization of human-animal relationships. In children’s literature speciesism and ageism often intersect, for example when young children are compared with (young) animals or when animals are presented as stand-ins for young children. This dissertation explores the mechanisms behind the representation of species difference in commercial picture books.  The aim of this study is to analyze how commercial picture books like the Little Golden Books harbor a potential to shape young readers’ ideas about humanity and animality, species difference and hierarchy and the possibilities of interspecies interactions. The socializing function that is an important component of all children’s books makes that these picture books can shape readers’ attitudes from an early age. When reading children’s books featuring animals, the particular way these animals are represented guides the reader towards an ideology – and in the West, this ideology is predominantly anthropocentric. In Western cultures, children and animals are commonly thought of as natural allies, and as such they are often depicted as opposed to adult culture.  This dissertation identifies the ways in which certain conservative tendencies are activated by these commercial picture books, but also emphasizes that they can be a subversive space where anthropocentrism can be challenged. The case studies developed in this dissertation demonstrate how even so-called ’unsophisticated’ picture books contain interesting strains of animal related ideology worthy of in-depth analysis. The visual and verbal dimensions of these picture books show that these stories are embedded in a cultural context that helps give meaning to the animals. A recurring concern is the function of anthropomorphism and the role it plays in how we value the animals in these books. I am particularly interested in how picture books depict various degrees of anthropomorphism, because it has the potential to challenge species boundaries and disrupt the human-animal dichotomy.

La relation homme-animal se construit à partir des interactions entre chacun des partenaires qui se transmettent des informations via les signaux sensoriels. Mieux comprendre l’effet de ces interactions passe par la détermination de la sensibilité des animaux aux signaux émis par l’homme. Les interactions vocales entre l’homme et le porc domestique ont été peu étudiées, alors que ce canal est utilisé par l’homme dans les pratiques d’élevage.La thèse a donc cherché à déterminer (1) la sensibilité des porcelets aux variations du signal vocal, (2) les effets de son utilisation dans la mise en place de la relation homme-animal et (3) son utilisation dans la communication référentielle avec l’animal. Les réponses des porcs ont été évaluées (1) dans des tests de discrimination de stimuli vocaux, (2) lors de la mise en place de la relation et de tests de réponse à la présence humaine et (3) lors de tests de choix en présence de signaux humains.Les porcelets se sont révélés sensibles à la voix féminine neutre, sans montrer d’attirance particulière pour cette voix. Néanmoins, une voix féminine aigüe et parlant lentement les a attirés physiquement. Associée à la présence répétée de l’homme, la voix féminine aigüe et lente est associée par l’animal à une valence positive. Les résultats suggèrent que la voix pourrait être impliquée dans la reconnaissance de l’homme par les animaux. Enfin, il est possible d’apprendre aux animaux à utiliser les propriétés référentielles de la voix, mais uniquement lorsqu’elle est combinée à des signaux visuels (pointage du doigt statique et dynamiq / The human-animal relationship is based on the exchange of information via sensorial signals between both partners. Identifying the sensitivity of animals to human signals would help understanding the effect of these interactions. Although auditory interactions are common in breeding practices, vocal interactions between humans and pigs were poorly studied.This thesis studied (1) the sensitivity of piglets to vocal signal variations, (2) the effect of their use during the development of the humPiglets were sensitive to a neutral feminine voice, without showing a specific attraction for it. Nevertheless, a high-pitched feminine voice, slowly speaking attracted them physically. Combined with a repeated human presence, the high-pitched-slow-feminine voice was associated to a positive valence by piglets. Piglets could use the voice to recognize humans, as suggested by our results. Eventually, animals can learn to use the referential property of the voice but only when it is combined to visual referential signals (dynamic and static pointing gestures). Our results offer promising opportunities for the use of human voice while working with animals.

Notre thèse de doctorat approfondit le thème de l’animalité à partir de Merleau-Ponty. La recherche est structurée en trois parties, qui suivent respectivement trois pôles de recherche : sujet-monde-intersubjectivité. La première partie s’interroge sur la possibilité de définir l’animal comme un véritable sujet. La phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty reformule la notion de subjectivité et nous conduit à une définition de l’animal comme une existence incarnée, ouverte sur le monde et caractérisée par une conduite signifiante. Pourtant, il faudra s’interroger sur le statut d’une telle subjectivité. La deuxième partie de notre travail est consacrée à la notion d’espace. En particulier, nous nous interrogerons sur les espaces animaux, c’est-à-dire sur la notion de milieu. Enfin, le dernier chapitre de cette partie approfondit la différence entre milieu et monde. La troisième et dernière partie de notre travail prend en charge la question de l’intersubjectivité qui s’établit dans la relation entre l’animal et l’homme, dans leur spécificité et dans leur différence. Loin de proposer une sorte d’égalitarisme entre les deux, le véritable défi est de définir une notion de différence qui, d’une part, n’efface pas l’essence spécifique de l’être humain et qui, d’autre part, ne le détache pas de la continuité du monde naturel. Dans ce cadre, l’animal est reconnu selon son être-au-monde spécifique, alors que l’homme se profile comme une nouvelle dimension, sans perdre la parenté avec les autres vivants. / This study examines the notion of animality in relation to the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is composed of three parts, which take up three main issues: subject – world – intersubjectivity. The first part explores the possibility of defining animals as subjects. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, in fact, has deeply reformulated the notion of subjectivity and led to a definition of animal being as an embodied existence, open to the world and characterised by meaningful conduct. Even so, it will be necessary to question the nature of such subjectivity. The second part of the thesis concerns spatiality, and in particular, the notion of milieu. Lastly, the last chapter elaborates on the difference between milieu and world. The third and final part deepens the intersubjectivity established in the relationship between animal and human being, in their specificity and difference. Far from proposing a kind of egalitarianism between the two, the challenge is to establish a notion of difference which, on the one hand, does not negate the uniqueness of human essence and, on the other, does not separate the human being from the continuity of the natural world. We will see that, in Merleau-Ponty’s approach, the animal being is recognised in accordance to its specific being in the world, while the human being is recognised in a new dimension, without losing its kinship and connection with other living beings.

Constructivist approaches to teaching and learning are a well established component of the landscape of educational research, especially in Science education. This research took as its starting point the limited amount of social constructivist research available in the field of Environmental Education and responded to calls for further research. The research was designed within an interpretive tradition, as a critically phenomenological enquiry employing two methods; single case studies and a focus group. Data collection used progressively focused interview questions to proceed through a series of individual interview stages, starting with a simple description of conceptualisations and moving to deeper analysis of influences on, and use of conceptualisations. The focus group was designed as a forum to explore the pedagogic issues connected to the 'social negotiation of learning', based on data and insights gained from earlier interview stages. The goals of the study were to record data on the conceptualisations of animals perceived as significant by a group of Tsonga speaking students, and to seek insights into the formative influences on those conceptualisations. The research question, namely what contribution can social constructivist approaches to teaching and learning make to Environmental Education? guided an interpretation of the above data in terms of a range of social constructivist theories of learning. Theories of Radical and Social Constructivism as applied in Science education, although dominant orientations for educational research in constructivist learning, were challenged and found inappropriate as a basis to inform methodologies for Environmental Education. Instead Lave's (cited in O'Loughlin, 1992) socio-cultural approach to learning was explored as the basis to create a more useful perspective on an environmental education situation. Finally it was concluded that Lave's socio-cultural approach to learning may be a useful guide to helping a teacher- elicit the full range of conceptualisations present in an environmental education situation, but is not ultimately effective if no challenge and change comes about. Consequently, a socially critical constructivist teaching and learning approach was suggested In conclusion I commented on the interpretive research methodology employed and suggested an example of a socially critical methodology that could take this investigation further.