Background: In March 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, suddenly and completely unexpected, governments worldwide replaced face-to-face education with emergency distance teaching. Studies showed that students and teachers, in general, had been negatively affected by the strategy. Upper secondary school teachers and students in Sweden were affected and have now worked and studied from home for more than one year. Problem: Teachers were now asked to do extraordinary things regarding course delivery and learning. However, school curricula have not changed, and it has been up to the teachers to adapt their teaching to fulfil the curricula. Few studies provided teachers’ perspectives on this extraordinary situation and why it was essential to enter the teacher’s world and determine how this affected them and their work. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the Swedish upper secondary school teachers' experiences of Emergency Distance Teaching during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Three research questions were considered sufficient to answer this aim. Method: A qualitative narrative design captured the lived experiences of Swedish upper secondary school teachers. Stories from two teachers that worked in two different school contexts were collected. Result: The stories were personal, emotional, and revealing and answered the research questions. The Qualitative content analysis identified three themes: (1) Distant and Remote Communication, (2) Key are to be Present, Kind, and Innovative, and (3) Trials. Both teachers' most decisive change and challenges were the difficulties they experienced with maintaining connectedness and the interrupted teacher-student relationship, which was especially difficult in vocational programs. The result surprisingly showed that some students had benefitted from EDT and showed higher attendance than before. The stories showed how the teachers struggled to be creative to fulfil students' vital needs and often used outside-box strategies to manage. The teachers also showed how they felt lonely and how this had affected their job satisfaction and well-being. Significant, was that the result showed that the teachers had gained new skills and knowledge of how to handle the best teaching during school closure, even if it were not the teaching that they would prefer. Conclusion: Remote and distance teaching will become increasingly important in the future, considering Anthropogenic Climate Change. There is a strong call for a holistic transdisciplinary approach to identify and manage the organizational and psychological impacts of EDT on Swedish upper secondary school teachers. Strategies specifically targeting teachers working with vocational programs and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are needed to avoid exacerbating existing disparities. Teachers required close contact with their students to have job satisfaction and they needed to be included and receive clear support, trust, and guidelines from school management.

Criminology and Security Science

abstract: This research investigates teachers' understanding of and feelings about transdisciplinary education and the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (PYP) as utilized by two remote schools in the province of Papua, Indonesia on the island of New Guinea. A goal of transdisciplinary education is to make learning through inquiry authentic, broad, student-centered, and relevant to the real world. In this study I examine educators’ perspectives of how transdisciplinary education is manifested in the two different and yet related elementary schools. Both schools are supported by a multinational mining company. One school is for expatriate students and the language of instruction is English. The second school, which is for Indonesian students, follows the Indonesian National Curriculum of 2013, with instruction delivered in the Indonesian language by Indonesian teachers. A single expatriate superintendent oversees both schools. Teacher experience, teacher PYP experience, implications of the PYP framework, cultural implications of the location, and demographics of the school stakeholders were considerations of this research. To acquire data, homeroom teachers, specialist teachers (music, art, physical education, and language), administrators, and PYP coordinators completed a survey and were interviewed. Additional data were collected through document examination and observation. A broad range of experience with transdisciplinary education existed in both schools, contributing to some confusion about how to implement the PYP framework and varying conceptions of what constitutes transdisciplinary education. Principles of the PYP were evident in curriculum documents and planning and discussed by the teachers in both schools. Educators at the expatriate school identified with the international-mindedness and approaches to learning in the PYP. Educators at the national school valued to character education elements of the PYP, which they viewed as consistent with Indonesian principles of pancasila. The mission and vision statements of the schools in this study aligned with the PYP in different ways. Challenges faced by educators in these schools are acquisition of professional development, experienced teachers and teaching materials due to the remote location of the schools. While transdisciplinary education was described, it was not necessarily implemented. The findings of this study suggest that transdisciplinary education is a mindset that takes time, experience, and commitment to implement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2019

Sustainable development (SD) in conflict analysis is rarely considered, given that older theories mainly inform conflict analysis. This research set out to establish the potential influence of combining Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) and conflict analysis. The current situation and possible influence were assessed through the primary data source, which constituted practitioners and researchers in international political conflict analysis. That was then compared to existing data on both conflict analysis and SSD. It was evident that some aspects of sustainability are already present in current conflict analysis tools but highlighted either social or ecological components. The complexity of conflict was clearly identified due to its cyclical nature and the different stakeholders involved. A need for an analysis tool combining complexity and a sustainability perspective was seen. It was argued that power dynamics in conflict analysis and the applicability of conflict analysis frameworks must be considered. Our findings indicate a place for SSD in conflict analysis, which translates into multiple application modes (e.g., root cause identification). There is a need for further research on how these two fields can complement each other and how to represent the interconnection into a practical conflict analysis tool.

This study has investigated teachers’ apprehensions of interdisciplinary collaborations, education related to sustainable development and their conditions in education. When interviewing teachers, working in the vocational programmes in upper secondary schools in Sweden, the apprehensions illuminate diversity in how schools approach and implement aims and requirements in the curricula. Apprehensions of interdisciplinarity and sustainable development reflect content and methods in the classroom.The main purpose of the thesis is to study how teachers apprehend interdisciplinary education and the relation to education on sustainable development. The second part of the study aims to identify teachers’ apprehensions of the conditions for interdisciplinary approaches in education.The results show the connections and relations between apprehensions of interdisciplinary approaches, school organization and the ability to implement education for sustainable development in the classroom. Deliberation, participation, time and distance are essential for the planning and implementation process. Teachers’ knowledge in school subjects as well as an understanding for connections between different fields of knowledge is also essential. A team teacher organization as well as support from headmasters, are framing conditions for an open climate which enables meeting each other across disciplinary borders and barriers. Interdisciplinary collaborations in education are mostly described in terms of multidisciplinary approaches, with additive knowledge development. This often means that students are left to identify connections between subjects themselves. Some collaborations are, however, described with more enthusiasm. This study identifies a relationship between integration level and collaborations that are described as successful. In the field of education for sustainable development (ESD) a holistic view is essential to be able to identify the complex relations between man and nature. In terms of education related to sustainable development, the ecological dimension is the most associated dimension among teachers in this study, while the sociological and economical dimensions in general, are implicit. Concerning the environmental education traditions, many apprehensions in this study can be related to a fact-based tradition as well as a normative tradition.To be able to categorize apprehensions in the third tradition (education for sustainable development), abilities as emancipation and transformation have to be more explicit in the learning process.

Solving complex sustainability problems requires diverse perspectives from different academic disciplines and non-academic actors. However, no generally accepted guidelines exist on how to apply transdisciplinarity or other collaborative approaches in a research process. Therefore, applied research approaches reflect the perspectives and expectations of researchers in terms of collaboration. This thesis aims to analyse how natural scientists view and involve indigenous people and local communities in a collaborative research process. To fulfil this aim, an international natural resource-related project in the Brazilian Amazon was examined as a case study and semi-structured interviews were conducted with natural scientists. The empirical data shows that local communities are directly involved in the project, incorporating their knowledge and opinions. Although the researchers think the collaborative approach is valuable, the majority believe that local community participation and decision-making power should be enhanced. The challenges faced by scientists are the communication of science and the difficulties related to power asymmetries or social, such as cultural differences. Simultaneously, cultural and social exchange can serve as inspiration for new perspectives for scientists if they are open-minded and flexible. The most highlighted benefit is the local knowledge of the communities. Scientists maintain that they cannot conduct research without local communities’ knowledge of the environment and the forest. Therefore, communities should also benefit from the academic knowledge of the scientists and the co-produced knowledge generated through the collaboration. Furthermore, the role and help of community members in research should be acknowledged, enhancing their involvement and authority in decision-making within research.

No description available.

The constant growth of technology in our world is changing the way of life all around us.We now have self-driving cars that are programmed by us to drive so we don't have to.The fact that most of us can't go a day without using something that is programmed orengineered to suit our needs is the way of life for kids nowadays. In this essay we havechosen to study programming in a preschool context.The Swedish government is planning to implement a new curriculum in 2018 that will bemore focused on digital knowledge. There is very little historical research on whatknowledge and skills children acquire and develop when they work with programmingso we wanted to do research on this subject. We have interviewed preschool teachers insouthern Sweden and created an activity where we studied preschool children playingwith programming tools in a social context to gather data on the subject. We haveanalyzed and interpreted our data with the help of Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory.Our results showed that all of the teachers thought programming was a good tool to workwith in preschool and gave us examples of benefits from working with programming.Most of them talked about learning through social interaction and said that the childrendeveloped better mathematical skills, social skills, problem solving skills andcomputational thinking. In our modern world, where our contact with technology isconstantly growing, research shows that having an early understanding of basicprogramming and the digital world will be highly beneficial in the future.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / Complex issues and exciting opportunities lie at the intersection of public health and park design. One component of the recently emerging field of design for active living explores the relationship between design and physical activity as part of a transdisciplinary area of study. This study provides the opportunity to view the design strategies that landscape architects have used to design parks through a lens of promoting physical activity. The purpose of this study is to understand design strategies incorporated in two fitness parks in Louisville, Kentucky assist in meeting public health goals for the citizens of Louisville. Two topical areas were explored: the physical design strategies used in the parks; and the collaborative efforts among stakeholders to further the public health agenda for promoting physical activity in the parks. A case study of two community scale fitness parks profiled the characteristics and design philosophies engaged in park development. The methodology, based on qualitative procedures incorporated three types of investigation: 1) collection of background data and documentation of Louisville’s parks and Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Movement; 2) interviews with key stakeholders from public agencies, private non-profit foundations, and selected consultants who have completed parks design work in Louisville; and 3) a case study analysis of two of the fitness parks in the city, based on the background data and input from subject interviews, and an identification of physical design strategies in each park. Identification of design strategies was based on a conceptual framework developed from the disciplines of public health promotion and landscape architecture, and input from local agency stakeholders. A physical activity design strategy inventory form was developed to aid in analysis. Anticipated results were two-fold: 1. Presentation of information to assist landscape architects in designing parks that intentionally provide engaging opportunities for physical activity; and 2. Contribution to the dialogue between landscape architects and public health professionals, informing collaboration on design projects and community programs. Findings revealed that the two parks studied incorporated several physical design strategies that promote physical activity, reflecting the mature park culture in Louisville, Kentucky, home to one of five designed Olmsted Parks and Parkways systems in the United States. The physical activity design strategy inventory form developed in this study as an audit tool warrants additional study as a potential audit and design tool to engage landscape architects designing for physical activity and informing others of ways that park design can play a role in physical activity.

The aim of this thesis is to report on a transdisciplinary approach, regarding the complexity of thinking about human embodiment in relation to machine embodiment. A practical dimension of this thesis is to elicit some principles for the design and evaluation of virtual embodiment. The transdisciplinary approach suggests, firstly, that a single discipline or reality is, on its own, not sufficient to explain the complexity and dynamism of the embodied interaction between the human and machine. Secondly, the thesis argues for thinking of transdisciplinary research as a process of individuation, becoming or transduction, that is, as a process of mediation between heterogeneous approaches rather than perceiving research as a stabilized cognitive schema designed to accumulate new outcomes to the already-there reality. Arguing for going beyond the individualized approaches to embodiment, this thesis analyzes three cases where the problems that appear in one case are resolved through the analysis of the following one. Consisting of three phases, this research moves from objective scientific 'reality' to more phenomenological, subjective and complex realities. The first study employs a critical review of embodied conversational agents in human-computer interaction (HCI) in a learning context using a comparative meta-analysis. Meta-analysis was applied because most of the studies for evaluating embodiment are experimental. A learning context was selected because the number of studies is suitable for meta-analysis and the findings could be generalized to other contexts. The analysis reveals that there is no 'persona effect', that is, the expected positive effect of virtual embodiment on the participant's affective, perceptive and cognitive measures. On the contrary, it shows the reduction of virtual embodiment to image and a lack of consideration for the participant's embodiment and interaction, in addition to theoretical and methodological shortcomings. The second phase solves these problems by focusing on Mark Hansen's phenomenological account of embodiment in new media. The investigation shows that Hansen improves on the HCI account by focusing on the participant's dynamic interaction with new media. Nevertheless, his views of embodied perception and affection are underpinned by a subjective patriarchal account leading to object/subject and body/work polarizations. The final phase resolves this polarization by analyzing the controversial work of Alan Turing on intelligent machinery. The research provides a different reading of the Turing Machine based on Simondon's concept of individuation, repositioning its materiality from the abstract non-existent to the actual-virtual realm and investigating the reasons for its abstraction. It relates the emergence of multiple human-machine encounters in Turing's work to the complex counter-becoming of what it describes as 'the Turing Machine compound'.