How children create meaning in relation to their physical, social, and cultural worlds can be regarded as a central question, both within the traditional Swedish preschool discourse and within the Reggio Emilia philosophical approach to early childhood educa-tion. In the Reggio Emilia approach, the search for the meaning of life and of the self in life is seen as an essential human necessity (Rinaldi, 2006). In order to be able to capture the search for meaning, pedagogical documentation is recommended as a tool for making children’s learning processes visible and subject to col-lective interpretation and reflection. This documentation is regard-ed as a potential mediator between theory and practice (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 1999/2009). In the collective reflection on documentation, discourses about what can be interpreted as children’s meaning making are ex-pressed and negotiated. In turn, these discourses govern how chil-dren’s communicative expressions and actions are interpreted and understood. The different perspectives drawn upon in teachers’ in-terpretation and understanding of documentation produce differ-ent kinds of knowledge about how meaning is created. This may ultimately impact on the opportunities and spaces offered to chil-dren, both in terms of opportunities to act and communicate and in terms of the available ways “to be” in preschool practice.The aim of this study is to analyse the ways teachers talk about how children create meaning and signification in preschool prac-tice, within the context of working with pedagogical documentation. I use Norman Fairclough’s version of critical discourse analysis to discuss and analyse how teachers talk (realization and materializa-tion of discourse) in relation to social practice and educational policy context (Fairclough 1992; 2003; 2010). This contributes to the research field of early childhood education by providing a crit-ical and theoretical analysis of the transmission of philosophy and theory associated with the Reggio Emilia approach through work-ing with pedagogical documentation in a Swedish preschool set-ting. Fairclough’s analytical approach allows the way teachers talk about documentation to be understood as a dialectical lin-guistic realization of overall philosophical, theoretical, and politi-cal ideas and perspectives.The empirical data includes observations of teachers’ discussions of documentation from one preschool department with a Reggio Emilia approach in a larger municipality in southern Sweden. The empirical material consists of field notes and recorded audio. The ethical principles of the Swedish Research Council were kept in mind during data collection. Written consent was obtained from both the participating teachers and the parents whose children are featured in the documentation discussed. The analysis shows that in talking about how children make meaning in preschool practice, a discursive, and not always coher-ent, polyphony emerges. Ideas and discourses collide, are woven together, and are renegotiated. Three overarching themes emerge, which can be understood as reflecting different aspects of chil-dren's meaning making. The themes consist of talking about chil-dren’s interests, experiences, and meaning making in relation to the physical and social environment, materiality, and body. The children are described in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways. However, there is an evident overarching perception of the children as individually meaning making, interest driven, and with an ability to construct and evaluate their own knowledge and truth through an active, individual, and sensual experience of the world. Furthermore, the children are described as interacting with something more often than with someone. In this specific case, the emerging post-humanist or neo-materialist discourse seems to make the interpersonal interaction invisible. The docu-mentation also becomes a communicative link between teacher and child, which replaces communication and exchange of ideas in the immediacy of the moment.

Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D-printing, allows for rapid prototyping and complex design and gives an insight into how customers may use recent technology to co-create value. Metal additive manufacturing reaching market maturity broadens the playing field for the ability to create personalized products. The idea of value co-creation places customers in the center. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how customers engage in collaborative processes where aesthetics and embodied experiences manifest with the development of new products. By empirically researching the phenomenon in the field of technology and understanding the roles of aesthetics, customer-centered approaches to innovation may become more fruitful. This research applies technology entrepreneurship studies with aesthetics, more specifically the embodied processes that occur during the value co-creation of complex technology. A 4-month micro-ethnography of an AM firm was conducted to explore the aesthetics of value co-creation. Expanding on the work of Elias et al. (2018) and Aarikka-Stenroos and Jaakkola (2012), value co-creation in a complex technology field was explored. The key insight in this thesis is that customers may come with valuable contributions during the commercialization of technology, not only when trying to make sense of the technology, but also insights into where the technology may be applied.

We examine the relationships among employees’ use of energy management strategies and two occupational well-being outcomes: job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Based on conservation of resources theory, it was hypothesized that employees with high job demands would benefit more from using energy management strategies (i.e., including prosocial, organizing, and meaning-related strategies), compared to employees with low job demands. We tested this proposition using a quantitative diary study. Fifty-four employees provided data twice daily across one work week (on average, 7 daily entries). Supporting the hypotheses, prosocial energy management was positively related to job satisfaction. Moreover, employees with high job demands were less emotionally exhausted when using prosocial strategies. Contrary to predictions, when using organizing strategies, employees with low job demands had higher job satisfaction and lower emotional exhaustion. Under high job demands, greater use of organizing strategies was associated with lower job satisfaction and higher emotional exhaustion. Finally, use of meaning-related strategies was associated with higher emotional exhaustion when job demands were low. With this research, we position energy management as part of a resource investment process aimed at maintaining and improving occupational well-being. Our findings show that this resource investment will be more or less effective depending on the type of strategy used and the existing drain on resources (i.e., job demands). This is the first study to examine momentary effects of distinct types of work-related energy management strategies on occupational well-being.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study highlights the complex ways in which children engage with semiotic resources during designed dance activities. The study explores how preschool children aged four to five use semiotic resources during dance activities. The aim is to investigate the children's use of symbolic expressions and the communicative dynamics involved. Grounded in social semiotic theory, with a focus on meaning making and transduction, this study uses observation as a method to collect qualitative data from a selected group of child participants. The analysis, grounded in social semiotic analysis, reveals that children create meaning through different semiotic resources, which include different signs and symbols. These can take the form of physical expressions where children's creativity, imagination, emotional expression and social interaction are the basis. The results show that through the three designed dance activities, children mainly used semiotic resources such as gestures, gazes, sounds, facial expressions and verbal expressions to create meaning. By exploring the semiotic resources used and their application in these interactions, it can contribute to the research and one can gain a deeper understanding of children's communicative and symbolic expression during dance activities. The study has potential implications for educational strategies that can promote children's social and cognitive abilities. / Denna studie belyser de komplexa sätten där barn engagerar sig med semiotiska resurser under designade dansaktiviteterna. Studien utforskar hur förskolebarn i åldrarna fyra till fem år använder semiotiska resurser under dansaktiviteter. Syftet är att undersöka barnens användning av symboliska uttryck och de kommunikativa dynamikerna som är involverade. Förankrad i social semiotisk teori, med fokus på meningsskapande och transduktion, använder denna studieobservation som metod för att samla kvalitativa data från en utvald grupp av barndeltagare. Analysen, förankrad i social semiotisk analys, avslöjar att barn skapar mening genom olika semiotiska resurser, vilket innefattar olika tecken och symboler. Dessa kan ta formen av fysiska uttryck där barns kreativitet, fantasi, känslouttryck och sociala interaktion är grunden. Resultaten visar att genom de tre designade dansaktiviteterna använde barn främst semiotiska resurser som gester, blickar, ljud, ansiktsuttryck och verbala uttryck för att skapa mening. Genom att utforska de semiotiska resurser som används och deras tillämpning i dessa interaktioner kan det bidra till forskningen och man kan få en djupare förståelse för barns kommunikativa och symboliska uttryck under dansaktiviteterna. Studien har potentiella implikationer för utbildningsstrategier som kan främja barns sociala och kognitiva förmåga.

This thesis explores lower secondary students’ meaning-making of epigenetic visual representations within and between biological organization levels. Data obtained from five focus group discussions where students indicated and reasoned about eight epigenetic visual representations were explored. By analyzing students’ interactions with multiple visual representations, and the impact of linking and reasoning patterns on their meaning-making, the research contributes insights to the learning of epigenetics.  Epigenetics, which is gaining rapid importance in emerging biology curricula, is communicated at different biological organization levels, and serves as the meaning-making context explored in the thesis. A compelling biology didactics context, where students are required to reason with multiple representations depicted within and between organizational levels to make meaning about epigenetics. The thesis uncovers three primary findings. First, four linking patterns in students’ meaning-making across and between organizational levels using various visual representations are illuminated. Second, five visual characteristics that influence students’ linking within and between levels were discerned. Third, students’ meaning-making processes were observed to emerge through four phases, which involved form and function attributes of the visual representations, and the transfer of scientific ideas across representations. / <p>Article 1 published in thesis as manuscript, now published.</p>

This project examines the meaning-making of art through multiple disciplinary lenses: Art Therapy, Art History, Studio Art, Art Education and Anthropology. Disciplines were selected for their inherent ability to enhance an understanding of meaning-making through the art making process and art product. An arts-based methodology was utilized in conjunction with the Outliers and American Vanguard Art exhibition at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which featured a juxtaposition of formally trained and self-taught artists. Each of the five researchers selected a piece of art included in the exhibition, rendered the piece, documented the rendering process, and viewed each piece and its accompanying documentation from their respective disciplinary lenses to understand meaning-making of the original artist and their work. Results of this systematic investigation exposed common themes across disciplines that inform meaning-making: Culture, Context, Comparison, Communication, Formal Elements, and Accuracy. Through an understanding of elements that comprise each exposed theme, the discipline of art therapy can expand its theoretical and practical knowledge that currently informs its approaches toward the meaning-making of art. Results of this arts-based investigation imply that continued investigation of adjacent art and culture-centric disciplines can question, corroborate, and supplement existing assumptions about the meaning-making of art process and art product in the discipline of art therapy.

This thesis examines how experiences of stigma related to cannabis use are expressed and processed in an online forum. Using a netnographic method, posts from the cannabis forum on Flashback are analysed to understand how these interactions contribute to meaning-making in social contexts. By examining posts, a complex picture emerges of how stigma is expressed and how users manage this in online environments. The forum serves as a place where users can share experiences and support each other, contributing to a collective meaning-making around cannabis use.  The thesis employs Erving Goffman’s theories of stigma and symbolic interactionism to highlight how individuals within a stigmatized group manage and navigate their social reality. The results show that cannabis users on Flashback actively discuss and cope with stigma through various strategies and adaptations, contributing to a deeper understanding of how social and structural constraints affect their experiences and behaviours. By normalizing their use and creating a shared understanding within the group, they mitigate the negative consequences of stigma. This thesis thus provides insights into how digital environments both reflect and influence the norms and attitudes surrounding cannabis use.