In 2009, the Government of Canada announced a four year national population health study on neurological conditions. The aim of the study was divided into four focus areas: incidence and prevalence of neurological conditions (scope of problem); risk factors for developing neurological conditions; health services, including gaps in services; and the impacts of neurological conditions. The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), with Dr. Carrie Bourassa, First Nations University of Canada, as the principal investigator, submitted a proposal to look at three out of the four focus areas, risk factors, health services / health gaps, and impacts, among Indigenous women. Out of the 13 research projects that were funded, this was the only project that focused specifically on Indigenous people, gathering much needed baseline information on how Indigenous people think about neurological conditions, how it impacts their lives, their families, and communities, and what they see as needed to support neurological health and wellbeing. Individual interviews and research circles were conducted with people who live with a neurological condition and caregivers of people with a neurological condition. Key informant interviews were also conducted with traditional knowledge keepers, health care professionals and practitioners. The open ended questions encouraged participants to share as much or as little information as they wanted to. The stories shared contained a wealth of information, far exceeding the study’s focus areas. Unfortunately, due to external deadlines and budgetary constraints, the research team only had time to focus the research report on the three key areas outlined in the proposal–risk factors, health gaps, and impacts. A lot of the information shared was not fully explored. In this dissertation, a secondary analysis of the data is conducted to explore role of culture, as well as cultural understandings of neurological conditions, and interactions with the health care system. The theoretical framework will utilize Indigenous ways of knowing and Critical Medical Anthropology as part of a "two-eyed seeing" approach. Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall suggested the phrase "two eyed seeing" as a guiding principle for health research, where one eye looks at the issue through the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, while the other eye looks at the issue from the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing. By using both eyes together to fully analyse the material, the strengths of both Indigenous and Western knowledges are brought together. Through using these different frameworks to explore the narratives, the research fills a gap in the literature regarding how Indigenous cultural understandings of neurological conditions can influence how Indigenous people access care.

Although early childhood educators have emphasized the importance of building curriculum from the children's life experiences in order to support their processes of making connections and meaning, little research has looked at how this belief positions global explorations as developmentally in appropriate practices. The critique is that most young children do not have direct experiences with global cultures, differences between cultural practices can be confusing for them, and global knowledge will go beyond their capacities (Short & Acevedo, in press). This study, conducted in a Reggio-Emilia inspired Head Start classroom in South Tucson, analyzed young children's inquiries and intercultural understanding as they interacted and responded to an inquiry-based global curriculum. The theoretical frameworks of this study include curriculum as inquiry, creating opportunities for students to engage in in-depth explorations about issues that matter to them as they go beyond their current understandings through language and action (Lindfors, 1999); reader response theory and play provide a theoretical frame for literature and play as safe spaces for exploring self and the world (Rosenblatt, 1995; Wohlwend; 2013) and play as a experiential response strategy that supports young children in interpreting and negotiating complex texts (Rowe, 2007); intercultural understanding as developing a perspective, rather than teaching about other cultures (Short, 2009). The research questions for this study include: 1) What do young children inquire about in local and global communities? 2) How do young children inquire about local and global communities? 3) What intercultural understandings do young children explore? 4) What are the characteristics of classroom engagements from the global curriculum that seem to support children's intercultural understandings? As a teacher researcher, I implemented the global curriculum and collected field notes, videos from children’s play and read aloud engagements, artifacts that the students created as they engaged with the global curriculum, and a teacher journal. I analyzed the data using constant comparative analysis. The findings of this study provide evidence to suggest that global explorations are developmentally appropriate when they build from children's curiosity about the world, and can be encouraged and supported by stories about themes children often tell stories about, and can reference through play as experience. This study also echoes research regarding the importance of approaching intercultural understanding as knowledge, perspectives, and relationships that can generate action informed by deep understandings.

In Swedish schools the interest for formative assessment practices has increased during the last decade. This can partly be seen as a response to Sweden’s poor performance in international tests and rankings but it is also reflecting the advancement of knowledge within the field. This research paper aims to examine teachers understandings of the term formative assessment and what practices they associate to the term. It is carried out by semi-structured interviews of primary school teachers. The material has then been subjected to an inductive content analysis. To ensure reliability of the results teachers have been chosen from two different municipalities and four different schools. One of the municipalities has an explicit interest in formative assessment and has developed a local program for teachers to participate in. The results of the study show a vide range of varieties in how teachers comprehend the term formative assessment. The lack of a common understanding of the term creates consequences for the equality of education, both between classrooms and between schools. Furthermore the results show that there is a correlation between the time and support teachers are given to implement formative assessment in their teachings and the depth of their understanding of the term. If the results are confirmed by further research and causality is established, further steps should be taken to examine key factors for a successful implementation.

This study looked at one classroom's manifestation of inquiry. Looking at tasks as part of the Full Option Science System (FOSS) shed light on the way in which inquiry took shape in the classroom. To do this, detailed descriptions and analysis of the enactment of inquiry-based tasks were conducted in one fifth-grade elementary school classroom during an 8-week period of instruction. A central finding was that the intended tasks differed from the actual tasks. This incongruence occurred primarily due to the actions of individuals in the classroom. These actions shaped tasks and transformed inquiry-based tasks from highly ambiguous, high-risk tasks to a routine set of steps and procedures. Teacher's actions included establishing a classroom culture, creating a flow to classroom events, and making instructional decisions. These actions resulted in implicit structures in the classroom that determined the pace and sequence of events, as well as how the requirements and value of work were understood by students. Implicit structures reflected shared understandings between the teacher and students about work and the overall system of accountability in the classroom.

The purpose of this study is to describe the three most significant pedagogical ideas and their impact on the national curriculum from the concept of communication. As the school is a social learning community this study looks at some teachers’ perceptions and experiences of teaching with a communicative approach, and the obstacles they claim to meet. The educationist Kieran Egan argue that these three pedagogical ideas are incompatible and that a curriculum that compromises them is doomed to fail. He mean that a new coherent view on education is required and should be based on students’ understandings. The knowledge should be presented as it easiest can be comprehended during a person’s intellectual development. The study includes qualitative interviews with four teachers that teach students from 6 to 9 years old, and field observations in their classrooms. The main conlusions are that a communicative approach requires a suitable classroom design that enables co-operative learning. The teachers in the study pairs their students two and two or four and four to enable that a dialog occurs between the students, on the subject of the lesson. The classroom design also makes a statement of dissociation with traditional teaching if the teacher’s desk is placed in the back of the classroom, out of focus. As the national curriculum highlights the importance of communication all teachers in the study encourages their students to co-operative learning and communication, but find the noise difficult to handle. It’s their conclusion that smaller groups of students is highly desirable and possibly the only way to overcome the incompatibility that exists within the curriculum.

The purpose of this paper was to examine understandings of uses of history in teachers’assignments. Inspired by grounded theory an analysis was made of teachers’ assignments anddifferent concepts, categories and propositions were found. The main finding concerningunderstandings of uses history was that it relied upon the consideration’s teachers had madeduring the process of creating assignments. This one-sidedness was the springboard forsuggestions made for future undertakings in didactical research pertaining to understandingsof uses of history.

abstract: This study contributes to the ongoing discussion of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT). It investigates the case of Rico, a high school mathematics teacher who had become known to his colleagues and his students as a superbly effective mathematics teacher. His students not only developed excellent mathematical skills, they also developed deep understanding of the mathematics they learned. Moreover, Rico redesigned his curricula and instruction completely so that they provided a means of support for his students to learn mathematics the way he intended. The purpose of this study was to understand the sources of Rico's effectiveness. The data for this study was generated in three phases. Phase I included videos of Rico's lessons during one semester of an Algebra II course, post-lesson reflections, and Rico's self-constructed instructional materials. An analysis of Phase I data led to Phase II, which consisted of eight extensive stimulated-reflection interviews with Rico. Phase III consisted of a conceptual analysis of the prior phases with the aim of creating models of Rico's mathematical conceptions, his conceptions of his students' mathematical understandings, and his images of instruction and instructional design. Findings revealed that Rico had developed profound personal understandings, grounded in quantitative reasoning, of the mathematics that he taught, and profound pedagogical understandings that supported these very same ways of thinking in his students. Rico's redesign was driven by three factors: (1) the particular way in which Rico himself understood the mathematics he taught, (2) his reflective awareness of those ways of thinking, and (3) his ability to envision what students might learn from different instructional approaches. Rico always considered what someone might already need to understand in order to understand "this" in the way he was thinking of it, and how understanding "this" might help students understand related ideas or methods. Rico's continual reflection on the mathematics he knew so as to make it more coherent, and his continual orientation to imagining how these meanings might work for students' learning, made Rico's mathematics become a mathematics of students--impacting how he assessed his practice and engaging him in a continual process of developing MKT. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Mathematics 2011

I institutionella samtal såsom närståendesamtal mellan en logoped, en närstående till en person med afasi och personen med afasi råder en asymmetri gällande maktförhållandet. Asymmetrin som uppstår i det institutionella samtalet kan innebära att samtalsdeltagaren med minst makt upplever ansiktshot. I samtal ses förståelse som en dynamisk process och när förståelsen innebär ett problem i konversationen störs den pågående aktiviteten. Mottagaren kan lösa problemet som uppstått genom att ge talaren en candidate understanding. Hur kommunikativa strategier används i närståendesamtal är ett relativt obeforskat område och ett viktigt område då närståendesamtal är en vanligt förekommande för logopeder. Syftet med föreliggande studie var därför att undersöka ett antal kommunikativa strategier för att få en gemensam förståelse och minska ansiktshot  vid delgivning av testresultat och rådgivning i närståendesamtal. Tre närståendesamtal mellan logopeder, närstående och i två fall personer med afasi spelades in, transkriberades och analyserades enligt samtalsanalytiska principer (CA). Två logopeder, tre närstående och två personer med afasi medverkade i studien. Totalt omfattade det inspelade materialet en timma och 37 minuter. Deltagande logopeder fick även fylla i ett frågeformulär. Strategier för avdramatisering och förståelse identifierades. Strategierna delades in i två kategorier; avdramatisering av råd och förmedling av testresultat och candidate understandings för att uppnå förståelse. I studien framkom det att candidate understandings ofta initierades av den närstående. Det framkom även att de positiva testresultaten som förmedlades inte avdramatiserades samt att dessa istället ofta framhävdes och att face threatenings acts vid delgivning av negativa testresultat ofta avdramatiserades med hedging. / In institutional interactions such as conversations between a speech and language therapist, a person closely related to a person with aphasia and the individual with aphasia there is an asymmetry considering the power. The asymmetry arising in institutional interactions may mean that the participant with the least power will experience a face threatening act. Understanding is seen as a dynamic process and when understanding is a problem in the conversation the ongoing activity is disturbed. The receiver can solve the problem by giving the speaker a candidate understanding. How these strategies are used in conversations between a speech and language therapist with a person closely related to a person with aphasia is a relatively unexplored field and an important area which is a common for speech therapists. The aim of the present study was to investigate a number of communication strategies in the conversation with a person closely related to a person with aphasia; how understanding was reached and how face threatening acts were reduced when the speech therapists delivered test results and gave counseling. Three conversations between speech and language therapists, persons closely related to a person with aphasia and in two of the recordings the person with aphasia were recorded, transcribed and analyzed according to principles of Conversation Analysis (CA). Two speech and language therapists, three persons closely related to a person with aphasia and two persons with aphasia participated in the study. In total, the recorded material is one hour and 37 minutes. Participating speech and language therapists also filled in a questionnaire. Strategies for mitigation and understanding were identified. The strategies were divided into two categories; strategies to mitigate FTA:s when delivering the test results and counseling, the other categorie was the use of candidate understandings for gaining an mutual understanding. The study revealed that candidate understandings were often initiated by the person closely related to a person with aphasia. The study also revealed that the test results with positive outcome where not mitigated and often emphasized and test results that could be perceived as negative were mitigated with hedging.

O presente trabalho trata do direito ao trabalho no âmbito da Constituição de 1988, analisando-o à luz da Teoria dos Princípios e do pensamento cepalino. Inicia-se a pesquisa analisando o desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro, inserido no contexto mundial e regional. A leitura da doutrina cepalina auxilia na reconstrução das dificuldades enfrentadas pelo Brasil desde a sua colonização e identifica características estruturais que o identificam como país periférico. Apresenta-se a influência da economia particularmente no ramo do Direito do Trabalho, a partir das reformas trabalhistas ocorridas a partir dos anos 1990, com a ascensão do neoliberalismo, cujo processo é identificado como flexibilização. Após, procura-se demonstrar que o Direito do Trabalho pode ser identificado como um ramo que converge para diversos direito fundamentais, o que permite a sua análise a partir da teoria dos princípios, desenvolvida por Robert Alexy e pesquisada no Brasil por Virgílio Afonso da Silva. / The present essay intends to analyze Labor Law within the scope of the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution, under the view of the Principles Theory and the understandings from the ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The research begins with an analysis of Brazils economic development, within the global and regional contexts. The study of the ECLAC doctrine assists the reconstruction of the difficulties faced by Brazil since its colonization and identifies structural characteristics that identifies it as a peripheral country. It is presented the influence of the economy particularly within Labor Law, from the labor reforms that took place since the 1990s, with the ascension of neoliberalism, which process is identified as the flexibility of labor relations. After this, intends to demonstrate that Labor Law can be identified as a branch that converges into numerous fundamental rights, allowing its analysis from the Principles Theory, developed by Robert Alexy and researched in Brazil by Virgílio Afonso da Silva.

O presente trabalho trata do direito ao trabalho no âmbito da Constituição de 1988, analisando-o à luz da Teoria dos Princípios e do pensamento cepalino. Inicia-se a pesquisa analisando o desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro, inserido no contexto mundial e regional. A leitura da doutrina cepalina auxilia na reconstrução das dificuldades enfrentadas pelo Brasil desde a sua colonização e identifica características estruturais que o identificam como país periférico. Apresenta-se a influência da economia particularmente no ramo do Direito do Trabalho, a partir das reformas trabalhistas ocorridas a partir dos anos 1990, com a ascensão do neoliberalismo, cujo processo é identificado como flexibilização. Após, procura-se demonstrar que o Direito do Trabalho pode ser identificado como um ramo que converge para diversos direito fundamentais, o que permite a sua análise a partir da teoria dos princípios, desenvolvida por Robert Alexy e pesquisada no Brasil por Virgílio Afonso da Silva. / The present essay intends to analyze Labor Law within the scope of the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution, under the view of the Principles Theory and the understandings from the ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The research begins with an analysis of Brazils economic development, within the global and regional contexts. The study of the ECLAC doctrine assists the reconstruction of the difficulties faced by Brazil since its colonization and identifies structural characteristics that identifies it as a peripheral country. It is presented the influence of the economy particularly within Labor Law, from the labor reforms that took place since the 1990s, with the ascension of neoliberalism, which process is identified as the flexibility of labor relations. After this, intends to demonstrate that Labor Law can be identified as a branch that converges into numerous fundamental rights, allowing its analysis from the Principles Theory, developed by Robert Alexy and researched in Brazil by Virgílio Afonso da Silva.