Skin is a novel set in Guatemala which uses narrative shifts in tense and perspective to investigate interpersonal boundaries, social norms, and isolation. It involves a wall, a mole, psychodermatology, limerence, excretion, and the lake.

Costa Rica is in many aspects a well-developed country, but as many other countries there is still a lot of inequality between the genders. Which can take its form in violence towards minorities such as women and children. The region is also influenced heavily by very conservative gender norms. The aim of this study is to conduct an in-depth investigation of the occurrence of gender-based violence (GBV). As well as to understand the societal and cultural factors that serve as institutional mechanisms and how they impact the country's development. The study will focus on institutions as structural features of public policy, and the norms set by these institutions that affect laws and civil society. By identifying these institutional mechanisms through the help of our respondents and relevant theories, the study will analyze the legislation, policies and cultural norms that exist within Costa Rican society and compare them with the insights provided by the respondents. This will be achieved through first-hand experiences and observations obtained from in-depth interviews with women and professionals who work and live in Costa Rica. The responses from the interviews will serve as the primary source of data for analysis. The result will be analyzed using Hirdman gender theories: Bandura A. social learning theory, and new institutional theory. The analysis will be presented in different themes, focusing on the legislation and the implementation of laws. The second theme will discuss in more detail the institutional mechanisms and how they impact the development of the country. The study findings indicate that Costa Rica has an underrepresentation of women in the political sphere and society overall, and there is no priority on women's issues. The patriarchal structure perpetuates a damaging worldview for women, machismo, and cultural traditions are some of the examples of informal mechanisms of influence present in the society. In conclusion, GBV is a significant problem in Costa Rica that leads to a high number of women being hurt or killed each year and makes it harder to move forward when it comes to sustainable development. The study finds that institutionalized norms influence the country's politics and contribute to the rise in cases of GBV. Costa Rica is in a unique position concerning sustainable development, and it is essential to study this issue, especially given the country`s previously positive development trajectory. There is also a lack of studies and work by Sweden and Sida in Central and Latin America.

The purpose of this project is to explore the concept of inside-out change and inner sustainability in the context of societal norms through the process of how they change from childhood into adulthood. What are they and how do they affect our wellbeing and quality of life? To challenge the societal norms and become aware of its negative effects on the individual and collective, we need to allow ourselves space to acknowledge the importance of our inner life. The design aims to create a physical (and psychological) space with the help of video art and design, where the audience is given time for the mind to wander, to hopefully inspire and motivate for improved inner sustainability and change from the inside-out.

We live in a normality that benefits a culture of patriarchy and despite resistance it's still over powering and oppressing others by placing concerns of men first in aspects of all important fields of life like social, economic, cultural, academic and medical. The norms of a patriarchal society tend to have specific expectations towards gender, and people who do not follow them are prone to feel invalidated, rejected, and oppressed. This is especially true for those who do not fit into these norms or who want to challenge that discrimination. Border/ave is a project formed in a close collaboration between Lauretta Kubbi and Jaanika Malla whose intent is to make a change with narrated poetry, visualisation and materialisation as an artist book that presents difficulties experienced by a woman with borderline personality disorder. The project questions to which extent Border/ave can make a change by showcasing that our current patriarchal norm in a society suppresses physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally many, but especially women with mental disorders.

Throughout the last few years, Flygskam, a norm against air travel, has grown steadily in Sweden due to its emissions. Flygskam is a Swedish word referring to the shame that follows air travel since it runs counter to the norm behavior. This thesis investigates the effect of Flygskam on demand for domestic flights in Sweden using synthetic control and panel data for 2003-2019. The results indicate that Flygskam seems to affect the domestic passengers in Sweden, estimated to be approximately 22% lower in 2019 than the counterfactual, significant on a 1% level.

Thesis advisor: Katherine McAuliffe / Thesis advisor: Angela Johnston / Human cooperation is unparalleled in the natural world and is a defining feature of human social life—it shapes nearly every social interaction we experience, from geopolitical conflict, to collective bargaining, to team collaboration. However, cooperation also presents a challenge—it is often personally costly or risky to cooperate. How are humans able to overcome these costs and risks in favor of the interest of the group? To address this question, it is important to investigate the cognitive abilities that allow us to successfully cooperate with others. One important ability for cooperation is mentalizing—the ability to represent other agents’ beliefs, knowledge, desires, and intentions. The ability to think about other agents’ minds in order to predict how they will behave (e.g., whether they will cooperate or free-ride) is an important component of our own cooperative behavior, particularly in the context of coordination—a type of cooperative interaction where cooperation is mutually beneficial but risky. I test the idea that our ability to represent the beliefs of others plays a critical role in successful cooperation. Studies 1 and 2 examine one cognitive ability for representing others’ knowledge—common knowledge—that underlies cooperation by reducing uncertainty about others’ cooperative behavior. Studies 3 and 4 investigate how we make inferences about others’ beliefs from how they behave and how that influences our own cooperative behavior in the context of social norms. Studies 2 and 4 take a developmental approach to investigate how early emerging mentalizing is for cooperative behavior to better understand how foundational it is in social cognition. Altogether, the results of these studies suggest that the ability to represent other agents’ beliefs in order to predict their behavior plays a fundamental role in supporting successful cooperation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

Property developers and investors seek to understand the drivers of prices for office and retail space. Through literature, we learn that size and age, locational attributes, physical features of the properties, and economic variables are significant determinants of commercial property prices. However, previous work has narrowly focused on aspects akin to formal structures and ignored the role of institutions, especially conventions and social norms incredibly, and what influences the behaviour of the property developers and investors while making the pricing decision. Therefore, the goal of this study was to understand how prices for commercial properties are determined in Uganda. The objectives of the study were to understand the role of conventions and social norms found in the property market environment on price determination and to explore the behaviour tendencies/heuristics exhibited by the players during the pricing decision-making process. The study was qualitative in nature. The researcher interviewed property owners, developers, institutional investors, and key informants to understand the conventions and social norms that exist in the property market and how they ultimately influence the pricing decision of commercial buildings. This study reveals that conventions exist in the Ugandan property markets. The conventions signal a price to the players in the property environment. However, due to information asymmetry and irrationality, each player interprets the price signals differently, using heuristics to develop the final price. This study helps researchers understand the role of individual behaviour/heuristics in advancing our understanding of institutions and the effects of the two on commercial property pricing, the economy at large and its consequences on economic policy.

This qualitative study documents the establishment of new social and sociomathematical norms in a second grade classroom. The teacher allowed students to speak directly to one another without having to raise their hands first during whole group mathematics instruction. Reform efforts in mathematics and the standards for mathematical practice contained in the Common Core State Standards call for students to discuss their reasoning with each other. Data were collected through interviews with the teacher and students, field notes, and video-recorded lessons over the course of 23 days. An online survey tool was utilized to share selected video of the teacher's instruction. Initial professional development topics were chosen from research in mathematics education related to the social construction of understanding. Ongoing professional development was responsive to what occurred during instruction. The literature suggests that teachers often utilize traditional teaching methods and struggle to deviate from established patterns regardless of their desire to implement change. The teacher in this study learned that allowing students to talk openly provided him with insight into their mathematical conceptions and misconceptions. The students initially viewed mathematics as a set of rules to follow and exhibited the role of passive recipients of information. This changed as students were provided opportunities to participate in discussions and in doing so developed a new understanding of their role during mathematics lessons. Mathematical errors became a catalyst for communication and were viewed by students as opportunities for assisting their peers.

Studier har visat att barn påverkas av den miljö de befinner sig i. Den fysiska världen talar ett språk som berättar om samhällets krav, förväntningar och värderingar på individen, inklusive förväntningar angående kön/genus. Könsnormer har visat sig vara inbäddade i hur rum utformas och därför kan det sägas att rum har möjlighet att påverka skapandet av kön. I denna studie undersöks hur pedagoger på en HBTQ-certifierad förskola i Sverige använder rummets språk tillsammans med det talade språket för att minska ”gender salience” i förskolan. Syftet är att ta reda på hur förskolemiljön utformas av pedagogerna för att ge alla barn möjlighet att skapa sin identitet bortom förgivettagna föreställningar om kön. Data har samlats in genom fotografier, fältanteckningar, observationer och intervjuer, samt från förskolans litteratur och styrdokument. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är feministisk poststrukturalism och queerteori, med särskilt fokus på Butlers teori om genus som performativt görande. Analysen av empirin visar hur förskolan använder färg, lekmaterial, rumslig organisering, litteratur och bilder, det talade språket, samt mat för att ifrågasätta samhällets könsnormer och öppna dörren till fler positioner än de könsstereotypa. Resultaten har implikationer både för pedagoger och också andra som är ansvariga för att skapa rum för barn och deras familjer.

In an attempt to examine classroom dialogue within a second grade classroom, I encouraged students to participate in mathematics discussions without needing to raise their hands before speaking. I challenged this traditional social norm and established sociomathematical norms as the study progressed. My study showed the effects of this change on the dialogue of students in my classroom. Focus was placed on the participation in classroom discussions when traditional social and sociomathematical norms were in place as well as when new norms were established. The study helped determine the effects of student-centered dialogue on conceptual understanding as demonstrated in the students' discussions, participation, and written expression.