Many war memorials today face loss of relevant meaning to the members of their community over time, an inability to adapt to evolving historical perspectives, and a lack of ability to engage visitors in a deep and authentic way of creating meaning and understanding. New war memorials should provide opportunities for visitors to engage with them in an active, conscious, and dynamic relationship with the built site. Encouraging such a connection facilitates deep and authentic meaning making that continues beyond the site visit, and that allows the memorial's form to evolve over time in response to visitor interaction. The constructivist model for war memorial design incorporates ten strategies, and the Active Physical Interaction strategy in particular, that allow designers to create places that encourage visitors to have personalized interaction. These strategies are built on the constructivist philosophy that explains how individuals and groups of people understand the non-objective world through experience. This position was tested through the design of a Dutch World War Two memorial at Warm Hearth Village in Blacksburg, Virginia. This memorial's main features include community garden beds for cultivation by the Village's elderly residents. The concept of sharp contrast reflected in three distinct areas of the memorial recall the oppression under five-years of Nazi occupation, the celebration of liberation in 1945, and the efforts of Allied and Resistance fighters in making this liberation possible. / Master of Landscape Architecture

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The overall interest of this thesis is to explore aesthetic experience in sport and its significance for learning in sport. The main purpose is to contribute to a theoretical and methodological development of studies relating to learning in sport. The exploration is undertaken within the field of pragmatism using the works of John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The exploration consists of four case studies, consisting mainly of narrative analyses of people’s written stories of participating in different sporting activities. A practical epistemology analysis (PEA) with a focus on aesthetic experience is used in three of the studies. The theoretical contribution comprises exploring learning in sport as something that is connected to emotions and perceptions, where other elements of experience, such as the social, cultural, historical, physical and mental aspects, are also important. Examining learning in the light of aesthetic experience contributes to an examination of emotion s and perceptions as integral parts of sport, without reducing learning to only consisting of emotions and perceptions. The results of the study also contribute to the possibility of exploring values in sport-related learning and shed light on the importance of habits (feelings of familiarity) when learning sport. How people ‘bodying’ the world aesthetically as part of their participation in sport has also been shown in one of the studies. The methodological contributions of the thesis consist of the development of PEA to include the examination of written texts. Furthermore, one of the studies includes the development of aesthetic events as a tool for exploring aesthetic experience in sport. Finally, a methodological contribution is made by using PEA to examine sport, since in the past PEA has only been used in studies in science education.

Support groups for suicide loss survivors are a relatively common resource used by those who are left to cope in the aftermath of a suicide death. Though descriptive studies have been used to provide an overview of support groups in the past, there have been no efforts to understand nuances of these groups and the impact of these groups and differing facilitation styles on the bereavement experience for attendees. This study explores primary data collected between March 2015 and December 2015 with a sample of 138 survivor of suicide loss support group facilitators in the United States and several other countries. Meaning making and meaning reconstruction is presented as the primary theory used to examine the attitudes of support group facilitators. Basic analytic procedures were used to explore sample descriptives, and an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with an oblique rotation was used to identify the factors within the Survivor of Suicide Loss Support Group Facilitator Scale. Three factors were revealed with a simple structure, representing the latent themes of (1) Facilitator Perspective on the Role of the Story (α=.73), (2) Facilitator Perspective on the Role of the Facilitator (α=.63), and (3) Facilitator Perspective on Role of the Loss Survivor (α.59). Bivariate analyses revealed that factors 1 and 2 both had a significant relationship with length of time the facilitator had been leading the group, facilitator’s level of compassion satisfaction, and facilitator’s level of burnout. The findings of the EFA support the use of the scale as a tool to discern differences in attitudes about the role of meaning making and sharing of stories in the group as well as the role of the facilitator in aiding this process. The findings provide important information for understanding variation in support group facilitation styles and have implications for future exploration of outcomes for group attendees based on facilitator attitude and style. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

This dissertation offers my personal exploration of the loss of my father through the eyes of multiple selves. Utilizing an arts-inspired autoethnographic narrative case study approach, I detail my journey of meaning making as I explore my personal transitions and self-discovery in the face of my bereavement, while also uncovering the potential for growth and development within my relationship with my dad. Throughout this dissertation, I incorporate a variety of mediums to capture the essence of the experience of my filial bereavement. Through this synthesis of form, it is my goal to invite witnesses to enter my experience, to have the opportunity to explore a different way of knowing by being able to look through the eyes of my multiple experiencing selves and their presentation of emotion, thought, and behaviour. Through blending of genre, this study provides a unique way of exploring a lived experience. It is meant to provide a specific view of a broad topic from multiple angles. Though it is situated within my personal bereavement, a daughter’s loss of her father, and inevitably my story will demonstrate the cultural influence of my Canadian background, it also aims to touch on aspects of the universality of loss, of bereavement, and what it means to be alive.

This thesis takes its point of departure in the political dimension in Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE). In the research field different views exist – containing both similarities and differences – regarding what is meant by ‘the political’ in the context of educational practice. What do different authors, policymakers, practitioners etc. mean when they refer to ´the political´ within the context of ESE? The ambiguity that characterises the discussions on the political dimension of (environmental and sustainability) education can impede and blur both research and professional reflection. This can create confusion, particularly amongst teachers, and a clarification of ‘the political’ through an investigation of how it appears in educational practice is vital. The thesis contributes with an educational typology and an analytical model of political moments to identify how the political dimension may emerge in different ways in educational practices. As part of these models the thesis also contributes with two theoretical-analytical concepts – educative moment and creativity – to be used to further discuss how education can use the political to explore new values and new behaviours regarding environmental and sustainable concerns. The theoretical frames of the thesis are poststructural and pragmatic theories, foremost by Chantal Mouffe and John Dewey. The thesis is especially built on a pragmatist and anti-essentialist approach, which argues that we socially construct the meaning of right and wrong, and of what works better in our lives in problematic situations. The thesis has four purposes and the results are presented in four studies. The first purpose examines how Environmental Sustainability Education (ESE) research literature conceptualize the political dimension, and how these findings impact the political dimension as educational content in teaching and learning activities in ESE practice. The second purpose examines different situations in which the political can be handled and experienced in environmental and sustainability education practice. This purpose is dealt with in the second study and the result is a didactical typology called the political tendency. The third purpose is to examine the political and politics in teaching and learning activities, both cognitive and emotional, about antagonism, conflicts, inclusion and exclusion. This purpose is dealt with in the third study and the results are illustrated by empirical examples. The fourth purpose examines the idea of creativity in relation to the political dimension, i. e. where new values can emerge or evolve. These purpose is dealt with in study 2, 3 and 4 and the results are presented as two theoretical-analytical concepts: educative moments and creativity concerning the political dimension in ESE. My ambition is that this thesis will contribute to the discussion about how teaching and learning activities that include a political dimension in ESE can use the presented models to identify educational content of the political dimension, and to further understand how individuals create their relation to their social and physical surroundings. Another ambition is to contribute to philosophical and methodological discussions about the relation between the political dimension, meaning making and embodiment within environmental and sustainability education.

This case study explores the collaborative conversation between curators and educators in the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, and how these conversations affect didactic texts in the museum galleries. By situating the Blanton Museum in a larger historical framework, the focus of this study maps out the historical perspectives informing the museum during a pivotal integration of collecting areas, including Latin American and American modern and contemporary collections, and explores how the Blanton Museum attempted to facilitate learning and meaning-making for the visitor through didactic wall texts. / text

Currently, new knowledge domains and professions emerge as a consequence of societal changes that transform that conditions for work and work integrated learning. Integration work directed to newly arrived immigrants is one example of such a new professional knowledge domain. In civic orientation, which is the empirical case in this study, quality, standardization and dialogue are explicit strategies that impact the planning, organization and decision-making in everyday work. The interest in this thesis concerns the professional knowledge that is developed in activities aiming to provide heterogeneous groups of immigrants an orientation in the Swedish society. By making activity systems the prime unit ofanalysis and scrutinizing the ways in which integration workers make use of a stipulated course material and interactions in a specific context, the aim is to contribute to the understanding of the pedagogical and communicative knowledge that is developed in practice. The analytical approach takes its point of departure in a socio-cultural perspective on workplace studies. Three separate studies have been carried out in which the empirical data consist of observations,interviews, video recordings, field notes and documents from various integration offices.The results show that different perspectives on knowledge and culture becomes relevant in local discourses on quality in integration work. What distinguishes the integration workers professional knowledge concern seeing and understanding the heterogeneity of immigrants' cultural backgrounds and bridging boundaries.Culture function as an organizing element in work that makes it possible to make distinctions and organize a contextually relevant content that can be elaborated together with the members in the groups. Such work imply transformation of procedures and it is shown that the integration workers develop their knowledge from specific situations to understand the significance of textually mediate dimeanings in other situations. Knowledge is developed as the integration workers move between different situations and activities. It is concluded that the meaning-making involved in bridging between different cultural contexts relies on extensive knowledge in and about the recognition of the other and of interactions based on equal grounds. Negotiating agreements with the members of the groups about how common possibilities and responsibilities can be understood is central for respecting heterogeneity in the process and is at the core of the integration workers professional knowledge. Considering the future development of integration work, cumulative structures are needed that recognize and support the development of the integration workers professional knowledge within as well as between organizations and other related fields of practice and in relation to higher education.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, illuminate and clarify meaning making processes and content when children between the ages of 1-3 encounter nature in a preschool practice. Further, the aim is to develop and illustrate action-centred methodological approaches that facilitate investigations of individual, social and cultural dimensions of preschool children’s meaning making of nature. The results are presented in four substudies that all take their starting points in John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with a specific focus on Dewey’s concept of transactions, his theory of action and educative experience as meaning making. In the first substudy, a Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) is developed and used to investigate physical meaning making by studying actions and the consequences of these actions. In the second sub-study, a Custom Analysis is developed to facilitate investigations of how the preschool culture contributes to children’s meaning making of nature. An Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) is used in the third sub-study for investigations relating to teachers’ guiding processes. Here, a Substantive Learning Quality Analysis (SLQA) is also developed and used for investigations of multi-dimensional learning qualities in children’s learning about nature. In the fourth substudy, the analysis methods above are refined to form a tool that can be used by teachers in their reflective work with pedagogical documentation in preschool practice. The results illuminate a multifaceted perspective of meaning making about nature. In this context, meaning making includes cognitive, physical, moral and aesthetical qualities, and nature content includes caring for nature, health and well being in nature and knowledge about natural phenomena and processes. The results contribute to a critical discussion about preschool science education that concerns how preschool practices can highlight nature learning and the multifaceted aspects that are of importance for making meaning of the environment and of life.

Growing up as fairly successful female-athlete, I have always felt somewhat undermined and frustrated when I take a look at the double-standards and social injustice compared to those male counterparts. When it comes to intercollegiate athletics, so much integrity has been lost because of this injustice, as well as the "win at all costs" mentality. Through my upbringing and the many positive experiences that came into play, however, I have been raised to uphold a strong level of integrity and live my life with honesty. By living and leading with authenticity, feelings of vulnerability and shame often come up. As a female leader, these vulnerable feelings are often shielded and masked in order to better suit the patriarchal athletic society. Through my personal experiences in the sport world, I have found that accepting one's vulnerability is a method to grow as a leader. By tackling feelings of shame directly, female leaders take on a new meaning of resiliency. Through the process of evaluating my own personal experiences of resiliency during the stages of childhood, collegiate athlete, collegiate coach, and female leader, I have come up with universal applications that look at the role of vulnerability in leadership.