This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of five individuals who shifted their work and career from the business world to the nonprofit service sector. Through in-depth personal accounts, I show how the research participants made sense of "work" and "career" as they moved through, and after they completed the transition out of the business setting; and the degree to which their subjective experiences in the nonprofit work environment transformed their prior perspectives on "work life" and "career" that had been shaped by their experiences in the business world. According to the literature of subjective career development (how people shape their personal identity through their work over a lifetime) and transformative learning (how people change their worldview perspective to accommodate significant changes in their life circumstances), people who shift from business careers to nonprofit jobs are likely to be confounded by certain realities in the nonprofit world that cannot be readily understood or explained through past experience in the business workplace. The real-life personal stories of five such career shifters manifest clear differences in the "discourse of work and career" across the two sectors, resulting in an apparent disorienting paradox between the profit-driven "business mindset" (where the fundamental motivation is survival of the enterprise and objective personal advancement) and the mission-driven "nonprofit worldview" (where the fundamental motivation is service for a better world and subjective personal meaning-making). An analysis of these paradoxes of discourse suggests that the mission-driven nonprofit discourse ("we work for a better world") offers a valuable and constructive counterpoint to the more dominant enterprise-driven business discourse ("we work to sustain the company") that pervades the organizational landscape of our society. The implications of these findings as reviewed in the last chapter are significant for policy, practice and research in both nonprofit management and business organizational development. The work concludes with the suggestion that the nonprofit mindset opens the possibility for re-orienting one's "career" to a life-long process of self-actualization, where one works to find meaning and purpose through making a difference toward improving quality of life for a better world.

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The role of intermediation in the development of transformative climate governance capacities in cities is insufficiently examined, which is concerning given that research on transformative climate governance  has shown low degrees of  actual capacity on-the ground. As transformative climate governance is produced in the relational activities of urban stakeholders, the potential role intermediary actors can play in strengthening transformative governance capacities in cities warrants in-depth investigation.  The aim of this study  is to  examine the role intermediaries can play in advancing transformative climate governance capacities in cities, using the case of the Swedish Strategic Innovation Programme (SIP) Viable Cities and the work they do in supporting cities towards climate neutrality.  The study uses four dimensions of transformative climate governance capacity - stewarding capacity, unlocking capacity, transformative capacity, and orchestrating capacity  -  to examine what kinds of transformative climate governance capacities Viable Cities promote and incentivize as an intermediary working together with a network of several cities, varying in size and geographical location.  The study adopted a qualitative case-study approach, examining  Viable Cities through interviews with practitioners as well as participatory observations and document analysis.  The results show that Viable Cities stimulate novelty creation and identification of possible application contexts, while creating alignment and strengthening linkages between actors and resources, specifically between the networks of municipalities they engage with and the institutions they enlist to develop the conditions necessary for cities to become climate neutral. The results also indicate that Viable Cities put great emphasis on transformative capacity and orchestrating capacity through the strategies and tools they utilize, while lesser emphasis lies on stewarding capacity and unlocking capacity. This is not surprising, given the explicit focus Viable Cities has on stimulating innovation and facilitating collaboration – both in their own way of working as well as the strategies and tools they promote towards the participating municipalities.  The application of the transformative climate governance framework to the case of Viable Cities and the intermediation they perform across several cities was a novel feature of this study. The concept of transformative climate governance capacities have proven useful to assess what kinds of transformative climate governance intermediaries promote and incentivize for entities they engage with, and it can potentially be used as a tool to improve strategies to ensure that they actually have the potential to contribute to transformative climate governance. / Medlande aktörers roll i utvecklingen av transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet i städer är i nuläget otillräckligt undersökt; vilket är oroande med tanke på att forskning om transformativ klimatstyrning har visat låga grader av faktisk kapacitet i praktiken. Eftersom transformativ klimatstyrning produceras i relationella aktiviteter mellan urbana aktörer, kräver den potentiella roll som medlande aktörer kan spela för att stärka transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet vidare utredning. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilken roll  medlande aktörer  kan spela för att främja transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet i städer,  genom att undersöka det strategiska innovationsprogrammet Viable Cities och det arbete de gör för att stödja städer i resan mot klimatneutralitet.  Studien utgår från fyra dimensioner av transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet - förvaltningskapacitet, upplåsningskapacitet, transformativ kapacitet och orkestreringskapacitet - för att undersöka vilka typer av transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet Viable Cities främjar och stimulerar  i deras  arbete tillsammans med ett nätverk  av städer och myndigheter. Studien är utformad som en kvalitativ fallstudie och undersöker Viable Cities genom intervjuer med nyckelpersoner inom organisationen samt genom deltagande observationer och dokumentanalys.  Resultatet visar att Viable Cities stimulerar innovation och identifiering av möjliga tillämpningskontexter, samtidigt som de skapar likriktning och stärker kopplingar mellan aktörer och resurser, särskilt mellan nätverken av kommuner och  myndigheter  de  arbetar mot. Resultatet indikerar också att Viable Cities lägger stor vikt vid transformativ kapacitet och orkestreringskapacitet genom de strategier och verktyg de använder, medan mindre vikt ligger på att utveckla förvaltande kapacitet och upplåsningskapacitet. Detta är inte förvånande med tanke på det uttalade fokus Viable Cities har på att stimulera innovation och underlätta samarbete  –  både i sitt eget sätt att arbeta såväl som de strategier och verktyg de främjar gentemot de deltagande kommunerna.  Tillämpningen av  ramverket för transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet på en  medlande aktör som Viable Cities var ett nytt inslag i denna studie. Konceptet transformativ klimatstyrningskapacitet har visat sig användbart för att bedöma vilka typer av transformativa klimatstyrningskapaciteter medlande aktörer kan främja och stimulera, och ramverket kan potentiellt användas som ett verktyg för att förbättra och skräddarsy mellanhänders strategier.

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This inquiry used an ecojustice education framework and the transformative inquiry methodology to better understand the cultural and linguistic roots of global socioecological crises and to distinguish where ecologically unsustainable root metaphors show up in curricular and educator discourse. I first examined the British Columbia K–7 Science and Social Studies curriculum-as-plan[ned] to identify iterations of three ecologically unsustainable root metaphors of Western industrial culture—anthropocentrism, individualism, and reductionism. Then, 11 inquiry partners responded to written interview questions about how these metaphors appear in their teaching practices; three educators participated in follow-up semistructured interviews. In addition to these contributions, self-study reflections provide another layer to the connections I made among the literature, curriculum, and educator responses. The curriculum made no links between Western culture-language-thought patterns and socioecological crises. Several inquiry partners, however, did identify a relationship between these root metaphors and how the Western world treats the “environment.” Finally, the self-study portion revealed that despite understanding the power of root metaphors to shape our thinking and a deep desire to change, these taken-for-granted assumptions still arise in my teaching. Weaving together these findings, I recommend that future curriculum and teacher education include (a) the teaching of different worldviews to counteract the hegemony of Western industrial culture, (b) the power of language to shape thinking and actions, and (c) strategies to undertake the inner work needed to shift away from these culture-language-thought processes. / Graduate

This multi-article dissertation focuses on the role of narrative distance in instructional design. Narrative distance is defined œas the cognitive or emotional space afforded by indirect communication that invites listeners to make sense of content (Taeger, 2018, p. 6). Whereas fields associated with the arts have long used the indirect nature of story to create powerful experiences, instructional design has not examined how this aspect of narrative might be used in instruction. The first article in this dissertation explores the literature related to narrative distance and how designing for this phenomenon meets many of Wilson and Parrishs (2011) key indicators for transformative learning experiences. This article also suggests six principles for incorporating narrative distance into instructional design. The second article is a qualitative study of six experts from a variety of fields who design narrative distance into their work. Professionals in film, theatre, writing, art, and homiletics were interviewed three times over a period of several months using Fleming, Gaidys, and Robbs (2003) Gadamerian-based hermeneutic approach. The findings from this study discuss further principles and practices for integrating narrative distance into instructional design, especially as it relates to facilitating transformative learning experiences. These principles and practices are organized under four themes: cognitive space, emotional space, invite change, and meaningful content. Further research possibilities related to narrative distance are also briefly mentioned. The third article builds on the findings discussed in article two by offering examples of narrative distance in instruction. In addition, specific design steps are presented to help practitioners create narrative distance in a way that can lead to transformative learning experiences.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / Critical Consciousness (CC) refers to a critical theory that recognizes oppressive systems and provides those oppressed with a framework to overcome and act against these structures. Although the theory’s origin addressed illiterate adults and empowered them to become critically aware, critically reflective, and active agents of change, researchers have applied this theory to marginalized students in school and other oppressed communities. This study focused on the development of white school leaders as active anti-racist leaders using critical consciousness as a framework for this growth. Exploring white school leaders as transformative leaders - ones who become aware of their whiteness and leverage their positions to address inequities in the face of opposition - may provide a blueprint for other white school leaders. This study lends to the current research because few studies exist on critical consciousness development in white school leaders, the specific leadership strategies they employ, and the seeming effectiveness to foster critical consciousness in their schools. Ultimately, this study explored the development of critical consciousness and the leadership practices white leaders utilized to develop critical consciousness and to nurture active anti-racist educators as a praxis against inequities and oppression. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

My approach in this exploratory thesis is to lay the foundation for the development of pastoral care for a new time and a new social situation, and to build a foundation for later studies to be able to apply existential queer theological perspectives to the pastoral care work within the Church of Sweden. The work is thus hypoyhesisgenerating in order to develop a method. This is done on the basis of a literature review. By bringing together two theoretical areas, a foundation is created for the development with in the next stage of a new model and tools that improve practical interventions in theological contexts, and that provide new approaches to pastoral care when meeting confidants suffering from depression. athe diagnosis of depression is increasing drastically and affects the world health situation at large. We live in a secular/post-secualr age, when neo-liberalism with its system measures everything in terms of efficiency, productivity and profit. Existential perspectives are generally missing in the National Board of Health and Welfare´s guidelines regarding health today, and the question is what the transformative approach of existential queer theology can contribute to the theological and pastoral care work/meeting with depressed people. My theory is that these perspectives open new avenues for pastoral care in a theological context to contribute to personal health. It is about laying the faoundation for the development of pastoral care with a transformative perspective, for a new time and a new situation. The results and conclusions of the study will be used to develop practice in future research.

This thesis departs from the assumption that the current socio-ecological crises require new and alternative imaginaries as well as lifestyle changes. Following a qualitative research method, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with eco-community members and analysed thematically to determine their motivations, values and beliefs, and search for a potential common imaginary. As imaginaries shape behaviours, they also have the potential to motivate change. It is argued in this thesis that eco-community members are actively implementing local transformative change according to their alternative imaginaries. Results show that eco-community members think of imaginaries as primarily personal and that their implementation of change is turned towards the individual and local scale. This thesis explores both theoretical perspectives such as utopias, third places, autonomy and also practices like permaculture and education on sustainable lifestyles. Ultimately, this study shows how hope is rooted in the tangible actions of some citizens who are already working to create desirable futures.

The thesis aims to examine the approaches of humanitarian organizations towards achieving gender transformative changes and the challenges as well as obstacles to implementing gender transformative programming in the ongoing humanitarian response in Bangladesh for the Rohingyas since 2017. The research is conducted through applying qualitative methodology, consisting of document analysis and interviews. The document analysis is based on annual reports and gender analysis of humanitarian organizations working in the Rohingya response. Eight interviews conducted for this thesis provide insights and reflection from gender practitioners who are implementing gender transformative programs. The gender transformative approach focuses on removing the barriers, so women and men can achieve full access to resources and opportunities promoting gender equality and a gender transformative program that adopts the approach from the development till the results stage. The gender integration continuum tool and Gender and Age Marker (GAM) help gender practitioners evaluate and shape their programs with a transformative approach. The transformative programs are crucial for the response considering the existing gender gaps and needs, and for the humanitarian organizations to recognize the need for and importance of gender transformative programs. The barriers and challenges of implementing a gender transformative program in the Rohingya crisis are mainly three types: a) legal, b) structural, and c) cultural challenges. The lack of refugee rights of the Rohingyas results in establishing a response mechanism that is based on practical needs rather than strategic needs. It also hinders the implementation of the GBV case management program. There are structural challenges arising from the lack of capacity among the staff members, limited allocation of time from unequal practices, and lack of gender mainstreaming in humanitarian organizations. Culturally, the tendency to follow universal transformative program models and the reluctance of the humanitarian community to invest in gender transformative programs creates challenges in implementing gender transformative programs.