Primates are the closest living relatives of Homo sapiens and are an important model for understanding human origins. From studying primates and making comparisons to what we know from the hominid fossil record, we can elucidate and make inferences into human physical and social evolution. My research focuses on the social aspects of primate life and attempts to find significant correlations between primate biology and social structure. Specifically, I am interested in how dominance hierarchies and power relationships between male and female primates are established and maintained in primate communities. This study contains a comprehensive dataset on a large sample of known primate species, predominantly from previously published sources and studies. For each primate species, the variables included are body mass, level of sexual dimorphism, brain size, habitat type, diet, life span, age at sexual maturity, gestation length, birth interval, locomotion type, social structure, terrestrial or arboreal locomotion, group size, home range, nocturnal or diurnal, philopatric sex, and dominant sex. Pearson's correlation coefficients between the above variables were calculated. The goal of this research is to determine what factors of primate life, both social and biological, have the largest influence on the formation and maintenance of dominance hierarchies. Certain biological variables related to body mass were found to be correlated with dominance. However, the correlation with sexual dimorphism was not found to be statistically significant and it is presumed that other ecological variables should be studied to better understand primate power relations.

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This dissertation concerns a certain experienced (sub)reality, a reality which emerged from something “in between”, from a confluence of factors - the project Gender on Stage, a particular actor education programme and myself in the role of observer. The project Gender on Stage started as an interdisciplinary study between the National Academy of Mime and Acting in Stockholm and the Department of Theatre Studies and the Department of Nordic Languages at Stockholm University. It was supported by the Swedish Research Council, and its purpose was to investigate gender in actor education. Actor education is situated between traditional theatre history and trends about the future, between aesthetic ideals and a commercial market. In addition, as was described in the outline of the project, actor education must deal with a long history of male dominance. Actor education could be visualised as the epitome of a cultural production of gender, a site where one has to explicitly deal with discourses of body and language, male and female, self and other, memories and emotions, pleasure and desire. I have stressed gender in actor education as being deeply interrelated with the notion of cultural hegemony, historical discourses of acting as well as gender, myths, and unconscious themes. Beside theories of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Sue Ellen Case and Julia Kristeva, the study invokes post-structural notions of “present absence” as well as Freud’s ideas on repression in terms of “the uncanny”. Stanislavsky’s theories of fantasy emotion and the Brechtian concepts of Verfremdung and Gestus were likewise taken into consideration. To resolve problems of confidentiality and ethics, I discuss certain significant observations, considering them to be unique situations, but also representative and symbolic acts. In discussing the gender construction, I put myself into play in the role of observer as a certain persona – a kind of converse representative and a “faceted mirror of the invisible”.

This thesis explores whether environmental justice can attenuate the burdens attributed to the operation of the E.B. Campbell Dam experienced by downstream Indigenous communities in the Saskatchewan River Delta. Environmental justice for Indigenous people who are affected by dam management is important for three reasons. First, Indigenous people often experience environmental burdens of dam management disproportionately. Second, Indigenous people are often excluded from dam decision-making. Third, when Indigenous people are included in dam decision-making, their rights and values are sometimes misrecognized within decision-making processes. While exploring environmental justice for Indigenous people in the context of dam management, this thesis contributes to a recommendation that empirical studies of environmental justice should describe the underlying causes of environmental injustice. This thesis contributes to this recommendation by documenting how power relations challenge environmental justice for Indigenous people in dam decision-making. A place-based, interdisciplinary methodology was taken to clarify an environmental justice pathway for downstream Indigenous communities in the Saskatchewan River Delta. This methodology involved analyses of hydrometric data, interview data and legal and policy documents. The findings of this thesis include that Indigenous people, through their meaningful participation in dam decision-making, could help government representatives recognize the environmental burdens of dam management. However, imbalances in power between Indigenous people and government representatives could constrain Indigenous people’s meaningful participation. The implication of these findings is that if power relations are accounted for in decision-making, the meaningful participation of Indigenous people can facilitate the recognition and remediation of environmental burdens attributed to dam management.

This essay examines three of Herman Melville’s shorter fictions: Bartleby, Benito Cereno and Billy Budd. An analysis and comparison is made of the forces of power relations and resistance between the main characters in the three stories. Foucault’s theories of power are used as a basis for the analysis. Apparent power structures such as law and military hierarchy are analysed, but the focus is on more subtle relations based on language, knowledge, conformity with norms, silence, capitalism and position. It is argued that, apart from the apparent power structures, one needs to consider the more subtle power relations and acts of resistance for an understanding in the shifts of power positions. The study examines how the resisting oppressed party in each of the three works of fiction ends up dead, and that on a first reading resistance may seem futile. A further examination of the seemingly re-established conventional order, however, reveals shifts in power positions, shifts that indicate instability in the norms of society. It is argued that positions of power are to some extent reversed in the studied works of fiction, where the dominant party ends up suffering.

In this thesis, in which I use the stand-alone paper format, I employ a Foucauldian lens to examine Alberta’s Future Leaders (AFL), an Aboriginal youth leadership development program. In the first paper, I identify how power relations shape AFL, including its ambitions and struggles towards developing sustainable programming. In the second paper, I examine AFL’s cross-cultural approach to mentorship and the ways in which failing to address issues of culture (re)produces colonial relations of power. Overall, my findings highlight the importance of recognizing and problematizing the power relations at work within Aboriginal youth leadership development initiatives.

This thesis takes its departure from the on-going debate about teachers´(collective) ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD). Teachers’ CPD through an imposed nine-step model of peer group mentoring (PGM) is focused on. The study draws on data from a two and a half yearlong interactive project that took place in a teacher team in a Swedish school. The general aim of the thesis is to study a practice of professional development in a teacher team involving peer group mentoring and to find out how and what kind of teachers’ expertise that is constructed. Furthermore, the aim is to examine how the PGM-practice was constrained and enabled and what kind of CPD was made possible. The theoretical and methodological framework is mainly based on practice theory. Practices and practitioners are seen as mutually interrelated. Practice architectures (Kemmis &amp; Grootenboer, 2008) are used to uncover the relations between the PGM-practice and its historical, material-economic, social-political and cultural-discursive conditions. Furthermore, Foucault’s notion of power was adopted as an analytical tool to examine how power came into play during the mentoring sessions and how the teachers’ discursively constructed a ‘good teacher’ and teachers’ expertise. The methodological approach is action research. A main finding of the thesis is that professional and personnel development may be imposed through peer group mentoring. Furthermore, democratic processes increased during the PGMmeetings and seemed to have an impact on classroom practice and the practice of parent-teacher meetings. The results show how the PGM–practice and its outcomes are deeply interconnected to global and local historical, material-economic, social-political and cultural-discursive arrangements which constrained and enabled it. When economic cut downs (i.e. materialeconomic arrangements) began to take effect in the local school, along with a neo-liberal discourse (i.e. cultural-discursive arrangements), democratic processes were challenged and threatened. The focus in the PGM discussions shifted from the teachers’ perceived need for pedagogical knowledge development to talk about students as costs. The constrained nine-step model disciplined some individuals more than others. The teachers disciplined each other through e.g. confessions, corrections and differentiations. Inconsistent discourses about good teaching and teachers’ know-how were constructed and the teachers positioned themselves and each other as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ teachers. The interactive research approach partly enabled the PGM-practice but at the same time effected the teachers’ positioning of each other. The interactive research approach disciplined both the teachers and the researcher. Anyhow, power relations became fluent and mutual among the participants. A collegial approach and the ability to carry out reflexive cooperation were both fostered by the model and articulated in the PGM-practice as important teacher skills. / <p>Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid</p><p>Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen i Pedagogiskt arbete framläggs till offentlig granskning Fredagen den 14 mars, klockan 13.00, Sal C 203 vid Högskolan i Borås</p><p>Fakultetsopponent: Professor Emeritus Per Lauvås, Oslo</p><p>Langelotz, L., &amp; Rönnerman, K. (2014).The practice of peer Group mentoring - traces of global changes and regional traditions. In K. Rönnerman, P, Salo &amp; T. Lund (Eds.), Lost in Practice. Transforming Nordic Action Research. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. (forthcoming)</p><p>Langelotz, L. (2013). Teachers peer group mentoring - Nine steps to heaven? Education Inquiry, 4(2), 375-399. ISSN 2000-4508</p><p>Langelotz, L. (2013). Så görs en (o)skicklig lärare. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 18(3-4). ISSN 1401-6788</p><p></p>

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The life history research reported here, explores Becoming, Othering, and Mothering experiences of Korean immigrant women with White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses, and is guided by the research questions: (1) How do the Korean immigrant women who have White dominant culture English speaking Canadian-born spouses describe their linguistic and cultural integration into their intercultural families and Canadian society? (2) How do they negotiate and reconstruct their identities? (3) How do they describe their strengths and challenges as foreign wives and immigrant mothers in intercultural families and as immigrants in Canadian society? and (4) How do they deal with their children’s dual languages, cultures and identities? Multiple life history interviews were conducted with seven participants; additionally, the researcher’s autoethnography was included. The data were examined through reflexive analysis—within-case analysis, and across-case analysis—and interpreted through an interpretivist perspective (Crotty, 1998; Mack, 2010). Emergent themes in three main categories include—becoming, othering and mothering—each of which is discussed in terms of language socialization, linguistic and cultural power relations, and the impact of linguistic and cultural integration and power relations on participants’ identities. This research brings to attention the circumstances of linguistically, culturally, and racially marginalized minority people in Canada. When the intercultural family is viewed as a microcosm of Canada’s multicultural society, this research provides to both dominant-culture Canadians and minority group people, awareness of how linguistic, cultural, and racial hegemony marginalizes minority people in Canada. / May 2016

Assessor: The purpose of this study is to highlight tenants and staff’s perception of user’s involvement and influence in municipal group housing in living by the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS). The study where performed in five small municipalities in the southern part of Sweden. Leading research questions have inter alia been in what way the process of decision-making is shared between the user and support person. Applied methods are mixed between qualitative interpretative modes with a certain quantitative approach. Qualitative group interviews consist of two focus groups with professional employees. One consists of three middle managers and the other one of five caregivers at special housing (LSS). Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with three individual users, i.e. a person who has assistance according to LSS. Twenty-four quantitative questionnaires directed to professionals in varying positions, all with the common feature that they are working with people with disabilities according to LSS. The assembled data was coded and themed into participation, influence, integrity and self-determination, living like others. Findings: Users can influence through board meetings and by legal predecessors and staff. The situational built in asymmetrical power imbalance can be compensated through mutual acceptance.