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Studien utgår ifrån posthumanistiska teorier som ser på mänsklig och icke-mänsklig materia som agentiska aktörer. Studien undersöker vad som uppstår emellan yngre barn och appar i förskolan. Utifrån utvalda videosekvenser där ett- och tvååriga barn samhandlar med avancerade appar i en förskolepraktik analyseras sekvenserna utifrån posthumanistiska begrepp och ANT-analys. Resultatet belyser mycket täta, intensiva och komplexa möten där varje intra-aktion förändrar och transformerar de innefattande aktörerna i nätverk. Fokus ligger på kommunikativa relationer av transdisciplinära tillblivelseprocesser av barns och avancerade appars möten.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

The theoretical movement known under the heading of posthumanism has entered the academic field. Posthumanisms most prominent feature is to retrieve the concept of matter into the analytical framework. Matter is understood to be under-theorized within the social sciences as a result of the permeative focus upon language and discourse. A prevailing understanding of posthumanism that has been used within educational science and philosophy thus consists of moving the searchlight from language/discourse onto matter. Notably, these scholars are turning to the philosopher Karen Barad in order to spell out their posthumanistic implications. The aim of the thesis is to give an account of the philosophy of Karen Barad in contrast to other prevailing renderings of her. The analysis is carried out using a contrastive methodological approach. In this study I demonstrate how my reading of Barad differs from the scholarly readings that I choose to engage with. The results show that with an alternative conceptual understanding of Barad’s posthumanistic theory the analysis is being steered towards the entanglement of matter and discourse rather than towards the materialistic components of a posed problem. In addition, the results also show how a focus on the ontological underpinnings of Barad’s theoretical framework can give crucial contributions when it comes to understanding the generative conditions of science and knowledge-making.

There are four parts to this thesis: the first chapter analyses the structure of leisure in couples with particular emphasis on joint leisure. We take a structural approach and model the household as a two-stage decision making unit. The findings suggest that couples see joint leisure as a distinct good from private leisure. Specifically when a household decides to have more leisure, almost 40 percent of this increase is allocated to joint leisure as opposed to only 8 to 15 percent allocated to male private leisure. Furthermore, couples prefer to spend leisure together (synchronisation) relative to spending time independently, giving joint leisure the largest weight in the utility function. The findings further suggest that demographics can play a large role in determining the patterns of spousal leisure, with ethnicity and job characteristics being important factors. Finally, when analysing weekend time use patterns, there is evidence to suggest that Saturdays should be distinguished from Sundays as approximately 41 percent more joint leisure is observed on Sundays. The second chapter of the thesis begins our examination of the UK income taxation reform in 1990. The UK went from a system of joint taxation to independent taxation of couples and this reform may have had important implications for households. Across countries, there is a large variation in the income tax treatment of couples. Over the last three decades, many countries have undergone reforms in their tax systems, some have moved from joint to independent taxation, some from independent to joint, while others have begun the practice of allowing couples to choose the system they prefer. This chapter aims to give an overview of the tax treatment of couples and outlines the differences across countries, with particular emphasis on the tax reform in the UK. The third chapter investigates the UK income taxation reform in 1990 and examines how the change from a system of joint to independent taxation of couples has shifted women's relative earning potentials in the household, and how this in turn has led to changes in intra-household assignable clothing expenditures. I apply my method to a sample of UK couples with children and the findings of this chapter show that an exogenous increase in women's income relative to their spouse significantly and substantially increases female clothing expenditure and decreases male clothing expenditure ceteris paribus. However an increase in relative female earnings does not necessarily mean that children will do better relatively. The final outcome may depend on the type of transfer in question. In addition, there is evidence that the final allocations of expenditures on each partner and children may depend significantly on distribution factors such as spousal relative incomes, age gap and educational gap, despite the fact that these variables do not impact on preferences nor on budgets directly. This provides further evidence against the unitary framework in favour of the collective approach and the sharing rule interpretation of how households make decisions in practice. The final chapter of this thesis examines the effects of the tax reform in 1990 with particular emphasis on female labour supply. A method of clarifying the concept of a spouse's individual net income under a joint tax regime is proposed and following the methodology of Blundell et al (2007), the labour supply elasticities for both male and female are estimated. The analysis is extended further to include children in the model and the results show that both the number of children and their age are highly significant for women's labour supply and to a smaller extent also for men. Testing the income pooling hypothesis, the unitary model is not rejected. However, the results strongly reject the hypothesis that distribution factors have no effect on labour supply. The results also suggest that for the group of women affected, the reform generated two opposing effects on their labour supply: a positive effect from an increase in net wage and a negative effect from an increase in bargaining power. On balance, we find that a typical female decreased her labour supply by approximately 2.6 hours per week, yet she still experienced a 22 percent increase in her net income.

Studien tar avstamp i en kvalitetsgranskningsrapport från Skolinspektionen som visar på att arbetet med naturvetenskap i förskolan är bristfälligt på en fjärdedel av de förskolor som undersökts i granskningen samt att det naturvetenskapliga arbete som sker ofta är begränsat till vissa fält, så som djur och natur. I relation till denna rapport bygger studien också på tidigare forskning inom bland annat det förskoledidaktiska fältet med fokus på naturvetenskap och barns möten med olika fysikaliska fenomen. Studiens syfte är att ta reda på hur ofta barn möter fysikaliska fenomen i sin vardag med utgångspunkt i olika verb som förekommer inom fysik samt att synliggöra hur olika performativa agenter intra-agerar med varandra och hur potentiellt meningsskapande tillfällen om fysikaliska fenomen uppstår. Analysen av empirin utgår från en posthumanistisk teoribildning i form av agentisk realism, som ”plattar ut” och jämställer människa och material. Studien har en etnografisk ansats med kvalitativa och kvantitativa element och genomfördes med deltagande observationer och dokumenterades dels med en statistisk avprickningslista och dels med fältanteckningar och kompletterande fotografering. Resultaten visar att barnen på olika sätt kommer i kontakt med fysikaliska fenomen i vardagen, genom deras lek med olika material, vilket kan förstås som materiellt-diskursiva intra-aktioner. I dessa intra-aktioner uppstår tillfällen för potentiellt meningsskapande kring fysikaliska fenomen.

I Läroplanen för förskolan (Skolverket 2016) presenteras det i kapitlet “Uppföljning, utvärdering och utveckling” de skyldigheter förskolan och förskolans personal har för att systematiskt kartlägga och följa upp barnens utveckling och lärande. Under vår tid på förskollärarutbildningen har vi under bland annat verksamhetsförlagd utbildning observerat osäkerhet kring områdena dokumentation och kvalitetsarbete hos pedagogerna i förskolan. Syftet med studien är att närma sig de tankar och reflektioner några förskollärare har kring den pedagogiska dokumentationen och det systematiska kvalitetsarbetet. Även hur de praktiskt genom olika verktyg dokumenterar i förskolan, de faktorer som påverkar deras dokumentations- och kvalitetsarbete samt relationen mellan dem.I studien utgår vi ifrån två infallsvinklar på dokumentation i förskolan: ett utvecklingspedagogiskt perspektiv samt ett intra-aktivt pedagogiskt perspektiv. Dessa två infallsvinklar kan simplifieras som att utvecklingspedagogiken synliggör vad barnen lär sig, och den intra-aktiva pedagogiken synliggör hur barnen lär sig. Men de två infallsvinklarna är inte enbart olika, utan även lika på vissa sätt. Ett exempel på en sådan likhet är att de båda lyfter reflektionen som en viktig del av dokumentationen.Vi utgår utifrån vårt syfte ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsansats och en fenomenografisk metodansats. I studien har vi använt oss av forskningsmetoden semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Vi har intervjuat sju stycken förskollärare och en verksamhetsledare som i grunden är förskollärare. Intervjuerna varierade i längd från 10 minuter till strax över 50 minuter, och vi har analyserat det insamlade materialet utefter en fenomenografisk analysprocess.Resultatet visar fyra distinkta synsätt på den pedagogiska dokumentationens innebörd i förskolan; att dokumentera med barnen, att dokumentera barns utveckling, att dokumentera med reflektion och att dokumentera för att föra verksamheten framåt. De mest framträdande faktorer som förskollärarna anser påverkar deras arbete med dokumentations- och kvalitetsarbetet är kompetensutbildningen, tidsbristen, förskolechefen och svårigheten med att mäta kvalitet i förskolan. Lärplattan beskriver respondenterna som det mest använda redskapet i förskolan för att dokumentera. Slutligen beskriver de den pedagogiska dokumentationen och det systematiska kvalitetsarbetet som beroende av varandra, och relationen som oundviklig.Vi drar slutsatsen att för att få ett fungerande systematiskt kvalitetsarbete krävs det ett fungerande dokumentationsarbete, oavsett synsätt på dokumentation. Det krävs tid för att få öva på att använda dokumentation som ett redskap, och en struktur i arbetslaget för att det inte ska kännas som en betungande del av ens yrkesvardag.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

To be successful in today s turbulent business environment it is very important for a company to exhibit flexibility in its processes, activities and interfaces. Such a flexible approach enables firms to adapt and improvise in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. In spite of there being ample research on how to achieve flexibility in a variety of business process and activities, there remains little understanding on how flexibility in managing the use of resources reveals itself in intra-organisational interfaces. This thesis sheds more light on this issue and investigates flexibility specifically in the relational context of cross-functional interfaces. The importance of developing and investigating flexibility at the cross-functional relational interface is embedded in the recognition that the ability and willingness of departments to adapt and to accommodate deviations from original strategies through their cross-functional working is a critical factor for success. This research investigates flexibility at one such interface that is argued to be essential in achieving organisational success but that is characterised by conflict, lack of cooperation and distrust the Marketing and Sales interface. A literature review incorporating two broad literature streams; i.e., the Marketing and Sales cross-functional relationship literature and the literature on organisational flexibility helped develop a guiding definition of Marketing and Sales Interface Flexibility (MSIF). This definition was subsequently confirmed in the exploratory phase of the thesis, thereby providing a stronger conceptualisation of the MSIF phenomenon. The concept was found to be predicated on social exchange theory s view on the M&S exchange relationship as a dynamic process in which both continuously adapt to each other s needs through modification of their resources required to match those needs. Consequently, a theoretical model was developed. This model argues for an inverted U-shaped relationship between MSIF and business performance. According to this model, beyond certain optimal point MSIF may reduce business performance. Based on the empirical testing of the model via a survey of 229 UK-based business organisations no support was found for the inverted U-shaped relationship between MSIF and customer performance. Results of the empirical testing indicated that MSIF has an inverted U-shaped relationship with a firm s market performance. These results imply that a firm s market success is secured at lower levels of MSIF whereas further increases in investments in MSIF may, at some point, become detrimental to an organisation s market performance (i.e., market share and sales volume). Therefore, the findings suggest that managers should manage MSIF wisely, hold themselves from over-investing in MSIF and seek to find the optimal level which will provide the best market performance. On the other hand, MSIF was found to have a linear, positive relationship to customer performance indicating that higher levels of MSIF will secure more a satisfied and loyal customer base. The study also incorporates the contingency theory perspective and hypothesises the moderating effect of market dynamism on the MSIF - performance relationship. The results indicate that the value of MSIF for generating market performance decreases as technological turbulence in the market increases. Based on the social exchange theory the relationship between four socially constructed antecedents and MSIF are proposed. The findings highlight the positive impact of, (1) trust in the Marketing and Sales relationship, and (2) rules and norms of social exchange between Marketing and Sales as reflected in compatible goals and joint rewards on MSIF. However, resource dependence asymmetry is found to be negatively related to MSIF suggesting that a misbalanced resource dependency between the two will hamper MSIF. The theoretical and practical implications of the study findings are subsequently presented along with an acknowledgment of the study s limitations and proposed future research to further explore this important area.