This essay deals with children’s and adolescents’ use of interactive media as a tool for doing relations with each other. The purpose is to increase the understanding of the impact interactive media has on pupils’ relations and identity development both in school and on their spare time. The school system’s mission is not only to teach formal knowledge and facts but also to train children’s social skills and abilities. Despite the fact that interactive media has become a significant part of society, research tell that the school system often try to hinder the use of new technology. Through interviews with seven pupils in sixth grade and their teacher, this essay shows how interactive media impact the lives of these children. The result is analyzed from an interactionistic perspective to show how the children are doing relations and how it affects their identity development. The result shows that the children are frequent users of interactive media and they use them to communicate with foremost class mates but also peers in other locations which form a vast network of friends. A disparity can be seen between how the boys and girls use interactive media where the girls tend to use them in a higher extent for communicating with friends for the sake of communication while the boys on the other hand often use them for practical reasons such as searching information or playing games. It is emerged that interactive media is a common source for conflict which follows the children to school. The children’s relations to their peers through interactive media are connected to the development of their identity and their socialization.

When a family member is incarcerated, the task of emotionally and financially supporting the remaining family members and the incarcerated loved one often falls upon women, who are likely to be under-resourced and overwhelmed. Women whose husbands are incarcerated in India are likely to possess multiple marginalized identities, increasing their vulnerability to intersecting forms of oppression. Empirical research is lacking on wives of incarcerated men in India, contributing to their invisibility in policy-making and programmatic interventions. Guided by intersectional feminism and symbolic interactionism, the purpose of this study was to document the stories of women who had experienced spousal incarceration in the Indian context. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 wives of prison inmates who resided in or around the National Capital Territory of Delhi, all of whom either held a lower caste identity or a Muslim religious identity. Transcribed interviews were analyzed following the steps of narrative analysis. Results illustrate the diversity of storied experiences of wives of incarcerated husbands in India. First, by grouping narratives that conveyed the same overall storyline into the same cluster, I identified three story clusters: Ambivalent but Hanging On, Unconditionally Devoted, and Independent and Disillusioned. Second, by attending to how women's day-to-day lives are shaped by intersecting systems of privilege and oppression, particularly those tied to gender and class, I identified three overarching themes that spanned women's narratives: (a) a complicated relationship with patriarchy, (b) the weight of socioeconomic disenfranchisement, and (c) when resilience is not a choice. The results of this study emphasize the need to distinguish between feminist agency and welfare agency, to recognize women's experiences of ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief, and to critique the systemic injustices that forced women to be resilient. Documenting their stories is instrumental in bringing attention to the needs, challenges, and triumphs of this underserved and overlooked population. / Doctor of Philosophy / When a family member is incarcerated, the task of emotionally and financially supporting the remaining family members and the incarcerated loved one often falls upon women, who are likely to be under-resourced and overwhelmed. Women whose husbands are incarcerated in India are likely to possess multiple marginalized identities, increasing their vulnerability to intersecting forms of oppression. Empirical research is lacking on wives of incarcerated men in India, contributing to their invisibility in policy-making and programmatic interventions. The purpose of this study was to document the stories of women who had experienced spousal incarceration in the Indian context. Interviews were conducted with 14 wives of prison inmates who resided in or around the National Capital Territory of Delhi, all of whom either held a lower caste identity or a Muslim religious identity. Results illustrate the diversity of women's stories and experiences with spousal incarceration. First, by grouping narratives that conveyed the same overall storyline into the same cluster, I identified three story clusters: Ambivalent but Hanging On, Unconditionally Devoted, and Independent and Disillusioned. Second, by attending to how women's day-to-day lives are shaped by intersecting systems of privilege and oppression, particularly those tied to gender and class, I identified three overarching themes that characterized women's narratives: (a) a complicated relationship with patriarchy, (b) the weight of socioeconomic disenfranchisement, and (c) when resilience is not a choice. The results of this study emphasize the need to distinguish between feminist agency and welfare agency, to recognize women's experiences of ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief, and to critique the systemic injustices that forced women to be resilient. Documenting their stories is instrumental in bringing attention to the needs, challenges, and triumphs of this underserved and overlooked population.

The situational self-image, which recognizes the affect of situational influences, particularly social roles, was the specific topic of investigation of this study. It has generally been hypothesized in marketing literature that consumers will purchase the brand with the image most congruent with the consumers' self-image. Symbolic Interactionism, a field of study in sociology, provides the theoretical foundations for the construct situational self-image. Realization of the relationship between the situational self-consciousness and involvement was also investigated.

This thesis is concerned with how entrepreneurs’ performance - the act of impression (Goffman, 1959a), is accomplished through emotion management - the work that an individual does to manage and display situation-appropriate feelings (Hochschild, 1983). There is literature that suggests that understanding entrepreneurs’ emotion management is needed (Goss, 2008; Hampson & Junor, 2005) with Goss (2008) maintaining that entrepreneurs’ management of emotion is integral to their activities. This thesis provides the specific consideration that has been lacking. Empirically, drawing on data obtained from entrepreneur interviews, this study extends Hochschild’s (1983) list of occupations that conduct emotion management to the field of entrepreneurship. Theoretically, Hochschild’s (1983) theory of emotion management has been reconceptualised to become more interactionally sensitive. Influenced by symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) with experiences, interpretations of meaning and actions drawn on to show how performance and emotion management emerge in interaction. Emotion management is conceived of as a negotiation where both ‘normative’ pressures such as the two sets of entrepreneurship feeling rules that have been identified – feeling of engagement and feeling of detachment, and interpretive conceptualisation, are taken into account in the development of a shared scheme of understanding. Goffman’s (1959a) ideas around the presentation of self have been drawn on in rendering visible entrepreneurs’ performance as embodied, relational co-operative, and professional and appropriate. Entrepreneurs are negotiators conceiving of their performance and emotion management as resourceful, negotiated, self-interpretive work. This negotiated work is a process of ‘fluid equilibrium’, that is, a dynamic continuous process of negotiation where entrepreneurs’ legitimation is produced and maintained. Entrepreneurs negotiate power dimensions drawing on strategies such as bounded disclosure where they manage the information they divulge. However the findings from this study also demonstrate that tensions and complexities can emerge resulting in lapses in performance. These are explained through issues of ambivalence towards emotion management, ambiguity over social boundaries and inadequacy in managing information flow.

Estudo qualitativo que buscou, à luz do Interacionismo Simbólico, compreender o significado do linfedema na vida de mulheres com câncer de mama, na relação consigo mesmas, com os outros e com o mundo. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de entrevistas e prontuários de 14 mulheres com linfedema de braço pós- cirurgia por câncer de mama, que freqüentam um serviço especializado em reabilitação pós-mastectomia. Procurou-se identificar unidades temáticas pela Análise de Conteúdo, nas seguintes categorias: 1- significado do linfedema, na relação consigo mesmas e 2- na relação com os outros e com o mundo. Na relação consigo mesmas, o linfedema significou preocupação com o aumento do volume do braço e complicações, mudança de hábitos, dificuldades diversas, alterações emocionais e busca de justificativas para a presença do linfedema, concluindo que ele é um problema estigmatizante. Na relação com os outros e com o mundo, elas indicaram instituições como a ciência, o trabalho, a família, os serviços de saúde e a sociedade, na construção do significado do linfedema, e reconheceram-se como tendo um corpo diferente pelo aumento do volume do braço, o que as torna pessoas estigmatizadas. Porém, revelam sinalizações de possibilidades de ações dos outros e inscrevem a criação de novos instrumentos sociais, o que evidencia sinais de mobilização para a construção de um mundo simbólico mais positivo e rico em contribuições. / This qualitative study aimed at, in the light of Symbolic Interactionism, understanding the meaning of lymphedema to women with breast cancer, observing their relations with themselves, with others and with the world. Data were obtained through interviews and record analysis with 14 women with lymphedema in the arm after the breast cancer surgery who attended a service specialized in post-mastectomy rehabilitation. The author searched to identify thematic units through Content Analysis in the selected categories: 1- the meaning of lymphedema in relation to themselves and 2- in relation to others and to the world. With respect to themselves, the lymphedema meant concern with the arm increasing volume and complications, habit changes, several difficulties, emotional alterations and the search for justifications about the presence of the lymphedema, concluding that it is a stigmatizing problem. Regarding the others and the world, they indicated institutions such as science, work, family, health services and society, in the construction of knowledge on lymphedema, and recognized themselves as having a different body due to the increase in arm volume, transforming them in stigmatized people. However, they revealed signs for possibilities of others’ actions and for the creation of new social instruments, evidencing signs of mobilization for the construction of a symbolic world more positive and rich in contributions.

The focus of this thesis is the negotiation of identities by elite-level female athletes involved in disability sport. Recently, the London 2012 and Sochi 2014 Paralympic games have showcased the contemporary nature of disability sport and ostensibly suggest a growth in public interest within this field. However, there has been limited research to date conducted into the experiences of physically impaired, female athletes at the elite level of disability sport. Moreover, the existing literature fails to address the negotiation of identities within the interplay of gender, ‘disability’, body and wider socio-cultural influences. Inspired by this dearth of literature and the desire to contribute to disability sport theorisation, my research questions how elite female athletes negotiate their identities across contexts and the wider social, cultural and political values that influence this process. I address their experiences in relation to these factors alongside the intersection of gender and disability. I have explored the women’s experiences by utilising symbolic interactionism in combination with a social-relational conceptualisation of disability. This theoretical approach recognises the women’s bodies as a ‘fleshy presence’ in their interactional encounters and brings ‘impairment’ back into the theorisation of disability (Waskul and Vannini 2006). This approach allows me to interrogate the women’s unique realities in relation to wider socio-cultural values, and the ‘micro relations’ of their day-to-day lives. A life history perspective guides the methodological framework, which foregrounds and prioritises the seven elite female athletes’ subjective experiences in relation to the socio-historical context. The narratives offer a powerful and original insight into the complexity of disability, whilst addressing the multiple and fluid nature of the participants’ identities. This advances the use of the social-relational model and fosters new understandings of the social relations underpinning the effects of impairment. I have developed the concept of ‘reverse stigma’ and have highlighted the need to disrupt the social processes that create stigmatic physicality, whilst demonstrating how impairment is perceived in different social contexts. My research has provided an original contribution by generating an in-depth picture of how the women experience their lives, how they see themselves as disabled (or not) and the wider intersecting forces that shape and influence their realities. This is significant for highlighting the way disability and disabled female athletes are perceived in Western society.

Orientador: Rosa Maria Manzoni / Banca: Eliana Merlin Deganutti de Barros / Banca: Dagoberto Buim Arena / Resumo: Esta pesquisa foi desenvolvida tendo como foco o gênero textual notícia como meio articulador entre as práticas sociais e as práticas de linguagem na sala de aula. Apoiando-se nos referenciais teórico-metodológicos do Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (ISD) (BRONCKART, 2012), da Didática do grupo de Genebra (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004), no que diz respeito à transposição e modelização didática de gêneros e em estudos de autores brasileiros que publicam nessa linha (GONÇALVES, 2011; BARROS, 2012), a presente pesquisa apresenta a análise e os resultados de aprendizagem decorrentes do desenvolvimento de uma Sequência Didática (SD) elaborada em torno do gênero notícia e utilizada para ampliar os domínios das capacidades da linguagem escrita, com uma turma do 5º ano do ensino fundamental, de uma escola municipal do interior do Estado de São Paulo. Com base na concepção de que os alunos utilizam três capacidades de linguagem (de ação, discursiva e linguístico-discursiva) no processo da produção textual (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004), a SD foi elaborada a fim de contemplar essas capacidades e levar os alunos a sua mobilização e, com isso, dominar o gênero ensinado. Para a transposição didática do referido gênero, foi elaborado um modelo didático que, por sua vez, possibilitou a elaboração da SD desenvolvida no ano escolar citado. A metodologia utilizada resultou em um conjunto de 11 oficinas e 23 atividades didáticas de linguagem, que contemplaram as quatro etapas da SD. Na primeira etapa foram ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This research was undertaken with the gender focus textual news as a means articulator between social practices and language practices in the classroom. Relying on theoretical and methodological frameworks of Interacionism Sociodiscursivo (ISD) (BRONCKART, 2012), Didactic of the Geneva group (SCHNEUWLY;. DOLZ, 2004), with regard to the transposition and didactic modeling of genres and studies of Brazilian authors who publish this line (GONÇALVES, 2011; BARROS, 2012), this research presents the analysis and the learning outcomes of the development of a Didactic Sequence (SD) developed around the news genre and used to expand areas of skills of written language, with a class of 5th grade of elementary school, a public school in the state of São Paulo. Based on the concept that students use three language skills (action, discursive and linguistic-discursive) in the text written production process (SCHNEUWLY; DOLZ, 2004), the SD was developed in order to include these capabilities and take students their mobilization and thereby dominate the genre taught. For the didactic transposition of that genre, it designed a teaching model that, in turn, enabled the development of the SD developed in the school year cited. The methodology used resulted in a set of 11 workshops and 23 educational activities language, which contemplated the four stages of SD. In the first stage have been developed 3 workshops and 10 activities; the second was held one workshop and one activity; the third were developed workshops 3 and 8 activities and finally, the fourth stage, there were 4 workshops and 4 activities. The results are anchored in the analysis of initial production and final news genre, from the language capabilities distinguished by references that support this research: action capability, discursive capacity and linguistic-discursive capacity; Evaluative-comparative... (Complete abstract electronic access below) / Mestre

This study is about the Turkish diaspora in Sweden and how whose thoughts about being a Turk interact with how they perceive their work environment. The purpose of the paper is to analyse how four individuals with Turkish background interact with surrounding actors at their workplaces in Sweden and when, where, and how their Turkish identity is performed. Following are the questions asked to fulfil the purpose of the study;  How do high educated Turks in diaspora experience being Turkish in Sweden?  When, where, and how is the Turkish identity performed?  How do high educated Turks in diaspora interact with and perceive their surrounding actors in workplaces in Sweden? The results show that the participants do not have a direct experience of being a Turk. Their experiences are mostly a result of their interaction with others and of others’ perception of their Turkish identity. The results also show that the Turkish identity is often visible in interaction with actors outside the Turkish diaspora. However, the heterogeneous Turkish diaspora shows that perceptions of religion, politics and education can be identified as critical factors at play in interactions within the Turkish diaspora. Participants’ interaction with others and their perceptions of their workplaces are highlydependant on the workplace. Depending on the workplace’s heterogeneity or homogeneity the experiences differ. Some of the participants have developed strategies to eliminate conflicts associated with their Turkish identity.

Despite the long history of stand-up comedy as a distinct form of popular entertainment, there has been little sociological attention given to its cultural significance. Comedians have arguably become legitimate and visible voices in many public conversations about social issues and social justice. This dissertation explores the cultural work of women’s comedy in popular culture. Specifically, I examine narrative representation and audience reception of women’s stand-up comedy through multi-method qualitative inquiry. First, I analyze stand-up performances by popular U.S. comedians Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Margaret Cho. Through narrative analysis, I focus on the ironic performativity of Schumer and the charged styles of Sykes and Cho, and I discuss how these women use humor (in different but overlapping ways) to challenge dominant cultural narratives pertaining to gender, race, and sexuality. Second, I conduct an audience reception analysis using focus groups in order to better understand how people consume and interpret stand-up comedy. Due to the polysemic nature of comedy and satire, audiences decode these texts in a myriad of ways. My analysis shows how different audiences perceive the comedian as unpacking social “truths” in comedy. I elaborate these audience decoding positions, discuss the layers of interpretation (i.e., intersectional positionality and interpretive frameworks), and discuss how participants negotiate symbolic boundaries around what is deemed funny or topically appropriate for comics to say. My findings further highlight the importance of identity in critical referential viewing by incorporating standpoint epistemologies. In particular, audience members of marginalized social groups experience a “bifurcated consciousness” (Smith 1974) in their interpretations compared to those from dominant identity groups, and women and minority audience members are more likely to interpret these performances as counterhegemonic texts.

Abstract not available