Diss. Göteborg : University, 2003.

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This Master’s thesis aims to map and analyse publishing patterns at two academic departments at the University of Gothenburg - the department of Physics and the department of History. The investigation has been guided by a set of questions: Who chooses to publish their scientific outcomes? In which forums do they publish findings? In what kind of media are the results published? What type of findings get to be published? The departments' publication lists have been examined, covering the years 2004-2007. Furthermore, ten scientists have been asked to describe factors contributing to their individual publishing pattern. The analysis leans on communication theory and in particular on three concepts developed by information scientists Rob Kling and Geoffrey McKim. Their notions of trustworthiness, publicity and accessibility were created as both analytical and instrumental devices. Here, they are used analytically to describe and interpret publishing patterns. The comparison of the two departments' publishing patterns reveals both similarities and differences. They differ in their choices of publication media and types of publications. However, both departments regarded publishing as acts of communication. Hence, they shared a will to communicate scientific findings and (among other factors) this will emerged as an important incitement for choosing to publish at all. / Uppsatsnivå: D

<p>This dissertation is a study of the discourse on children’s ability to control their body movements – the rhetoric of motorics (motor control). It takes an interest in the different practices that need to be dealt with if you would like to construct a description of bodiliness in a factual way, and it is particularly concerned with the practice of transforming observations of children’s bodiliness into literary inscriptions of motor control as well as the discursive actions that make these inscriptions credible and relevant. The study departures from a constructivist perspective and the aim of the thesis is to study how statements about motor control are possible, understandable, made relevant, and used in practice – dimensions that are believed to be connected.</p><p>The data are gathered from settings that either keep or produce descriptions of children’s bodiliness. That includes journals on physical education, manuals for motorical tests, professional literatures that deal with subjects like motor control, medical records from school health care and professional statements from a child rehabilitation center. Using discourse analysis this data is studied in terms of interpretative repertoires, modalities, categorizations, representations and realities.</p><p>At first focus is on the mobilization of actors and the practice of translating body knowledge into something relevant and important. After that theories and practices of observing motor control are highlighted by studying the laboratory settings, inscription devices and the professional vision of the observers. The study then moves on to the activities where the inscriptions constructed in the laboratories are mobilized to construct facts. Here the attention is placed on the practices of writing medical records and how statements about motor control are used in these types of text. Finally a reflexive move is made by comparing the rhetoric of motor control with the rhetoric used to convince the reader of this dissertation. </p>

This dissertation is a study of the discourse on children’s ability to control their body movements – the rhetoric of motorics (motor control). It takes an interest in the different practices that need to be dealt with if you would like to construct a description of bodiliness in a factual way, and it is particularly concerned with the practice of transforming observations of children’s bodiliness into literary inscriptions of motor control as well as the discursive actions that make these inscriptions credible and relevant. The study departures from a constructivist perspective and the aim of the thesis is to study how statements about motor control are possible, understandable, made relevant, and used in practice – dimensions that are believed to be connected. The data are gathered from settings that either keep or produce descriptions of children’s bodiliness. That includes journals on physical education, manuals for motorical tests, professional literatures that deal with subjects like motor control, medical records from school health care and professional statements from a child rehabilitation center. Using discourse analysis this data is studied in terms of interpretative repertoires, modalities, categorizations, representations and realities. At first focus is on the mobilization of actors and the practice of translating body knowledge into something relevant and important. After that theories and practices of observing motor control are highlighted by studying the laboratory settings, inscription devices and the professional vision of the observers. The study then moves on to the activities where the inscriptions constructed in the laboratories are mobilized to construct facts. Here the attention is placed on the practices of writing medical records and how statements about motor control are used in these types of text. Finally a reflexive move is made by comparing the rhetoric of motor control with the rhetoric used to convince the reader of this dissertation.

The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis is to explore the useability of bibliometric analysis on scientists of the humanities. This is accomplished by doing a case study on philosopher Slavoj Žižek. The work process and the results the case study is able to produce and the limits of these results are then analysed and discussed.In the case study all scientific articles in English published 1987-2010 citing Žižek were analysed. The material was gathered from the databases provided by Thomson Reuters through the Web of Science.Most references to Žižek were published in Cultural Critique, a transdisciplinary journal published in the USA. Organizational behaviourist De Cock had the most references, but literature studies was the most common institution among the authors. The 15 most cited works are monographs, and the most cited is The sublime object of ideology. The most cocited works are by psychoanalyst Lacan or works about his theories.The results show that an analysis of a researcher of the humanities using bibliometric methods provide us with relevant information. However, this information is not as complete as when applied on a scientist in the natural sciences. The main reason for this is the differences in publication behaviour and the lack of relevant material in the databases covering the humanities.Several suggestions for further research is given. These concern more in depth studies of the citations of Žižek, comparative studies using other databases, and the changes in publication patterns within the humanities. / Program: Bibliotekarie

When producing an interview report the researcher is put to the test of describing the qualitative interview method in terms of assumed orderly steps and procedures taken during the interview process, while at the same time account for a very social dynamic process. In practice, even the most carefully prepared scenario for a qualitative interview study probably does not correspond to the expectations made. What happens between the plans and the actual interview itself? This issue is investigated by contrasting the actual engagement of the participants in an interview project to how these relationships are accounted for in Master thesis from the Swedish School of Library- and Information Science in Borås. Theory and methodology from Actor Network Theory (ANT) have been applied into the area of qualitative interviews. Three theses have been analyzed highlighting accounts of the crucial first contact, where the study is presented to the interviewees, and interactions with individual and collective actors. It is suggested that qualitative interview, by nature, is a method that one learns from practice, by experience or by the study of how experienced practitioners work. It is also suggested that students can learn from one another by discussing interview practices in there theses. / Program: Informationsspecialist

Denna produktionsuppsats handlar om hur lärare på en fristående gymnasieskola socialt och individuellt konstruerar upplevt professionell kunskap om klassrumsmetodik samt huruvida detta är i enlighet med skolverkets definition av evidensbaserad praktik. Uppsatsen har utförts med bakgrund av författarens tidigare konsumtionsuppsats samt två vetenskapssociologiska studier. I författarens konsumtionsuppsats framgick det att ofrånkomliga problem finns med tillförlitligheten i utbildningsvetenskaplig forskning samt med de metoder som finns för att göra ändamålsenliga avvägningar mellan utbildningsvetenskaplig forskning och lokala behov i svensk skola. I de två vetenskapssociologiska studierna framgick det i sin tur att vetenskapliga processer i sig kan bära på ofrånkomliga problem med tillförlitlighet. Sammantaget finner författaren att dessa problem försvårar möjligheterna att få skolverkets definition av evidensbaserad praktik till stånd i svensk skola och att det därför är relevant att studera huruvida lärare arbetar i enlighet med skoverkets definition av evidensbaserad praktik eller om problem med tillförlitligheten istället föreligger. Med avstamp i detta har författaren bedrivit en fallstudie utifrån konstruktivistisk teoribildning i syfte att studera detta.I första hand studerade författaren genom passivt deltagande observation två möten där fyra lärare deltog. Mötenas syfte var att lärarna tillsammans skulle konstruera kunskap om klassrumsmetodik. Detta gjorde författaren i syfte att med hjälp av den teoretiska bakgrunden få grepp om hur lärarna gick till väga för att tillsammans socialt konstruera kunskap om klassrumsmetodik. Som uppföljning på dessa möten så bedrev författaren individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer. Detta i syfte att med hjälp av den teoretiska bakgrunden få grepp om hur de studerade lärarna beskrev den sociala konstruktion de varit med och skapat. Den insamlade datamängden analyserades med hjälp av en modifierad form av tematisk analys. Av analysen framgick att lärarna inte arbetade i enlighet med skolverkets definition av evidensbaserad praktik men att det arbete som istället gjordes teoretiskt sett kan gynna framväxten av evidensbaserad praktik på den studerade gymnasieskolan. Detta förutsatt att de studerade lärarna blir mer medvetna om hur de socialt gör sina avvägningar och hur tillförlitliga dessa således blir.

How are new scientific concepts of illnesses and disorder formed? The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase in new diagnoses incorporated into medical manuals. The concept of the male menopause, or the andropause diagnosis, is suitable for studying how medical knowledge is produced, since it has alternated between being and not being part of the acknowledged medical knowledge since the beginning of the 19th century, when it was originally launched. After being rather unnoticed during the 20th century, the concept of the male menopause had a renaissance in the 1990s’. The andropause then became a specific research area, articles about the male menopause were widely published in medical journals, specific therapies were developed, and andropause clinics opened around the world. The thesis explores what combination of circumstances lay behind the establishment of the andropause as a scientific object in the 1990s’. The purpose was to find out what the institutionalization of the (concept of the) andropause shows about the production of science, specifically  medical knowledge. Methodologically, the study can be described as an analysis of ideas, where the ideas contained in the concept of a male menopause are in focus. Accordingly, the research materials were scientific literature, media, and other documents where the idea of a male menopause was expressed. The analysis was structured in four divisions. First, the andropause theory was studied to find any obvious scientific explanations, such as new knowledge or discoveries. “Pure science” could not explain the breakthrough of the andropause diagnosis, since the andropause theory is laden with uncertainties according to the scientific principles of evaluation that the medical science itself supports. Second, the social organization of the medical knowledge production was inquired with focus on the medical profession, and the andropause theory was found to offer new professional arenas. Third, factors outside profession and science were found, the extra scientific dimensions, primarily cultural conditions and social structures. The emergence of feminist theory was found to change the perception of men in the culture, where the male norm no longer is self-evident. Fourth, in the social structure, pharmaceutical companies were found to engage strongly in the andropause concept. Together these factors constituted the andopause as a scientific object. The thesis demonstrates: the advantage of a multi perspective analysis: the complexity of the development of concepts of disease: the weakness of the epistemology of evidence-based medicine: and the social and cultural foundation of science.

This thesis is treating how Swedish liberal adult education research (folkbildningsforskning) has emerged and consolidated. The concepts of doxa, consecration, capital and field of Pierre Bourdieu are used to reconstruct liberal adult education research as a social field. The empirical material consists of texts and documents, structured chronologically between the years of 1954-2007. Central questions are: In which way can liberal adult education research be reconstructed as a field? How does it emerge? Which are the central values (doxa) that hold the field together and going, and where are the boundaries of the field? Who are the central agents of the field? How do they achieve recognition, and on which grounds? Which are the arenas that work as concecrating instances? The study indicates that the area establishes common concepts and references. A gradual expansion occurs. This involves increased opportunities, but also involves competition. Four different phases can be reconstructed as central: the emergence (1954-1979), the expansion (1980-1989), the institutionalisation (1990-1999) and the consolidation (2000-2007). Research summaries as well as organizations of special interests are contributing to the glow of the area. A number of strong positions are established as are a number of pretenders. These relate, in different ways, to the area and to broader perspectives and settings. The area is successfully handling and employing different kinds of challenges and opportunities. This is considered a sign of relative strength of the reconstructed field of liberal adult education research. / Avhandlingen handlar om hur svensk forskning om folkbildning vuxit fram och konsoliderats. Med hjälp av Pierre Bourdieus begrepp doxa, konsekration, kapital och fält rekonstrueras folkbildningsforskning som ett fält. Det empiriska materialet består av texter och dokument. Detta struktureras längs en tidsaxel, mellan 1954-2007. Centrala frågor är: Hur kan folkbildningsforskningen som fält rekonstrueras? Hur sker dess framväxt? Vilka är de centrala värden (doxa) som håller samman och bär upp fältet och var går dess gränser? Vilka är agenterna på fältet? Hur når de erkännande och på vilka grunder sker det? Vilka är de arenor som fungerar som instanser för erkännande?Studien visar att området etablerar gemensamma begrepp och referenser. En successiv expansion sker. Detta innebär ökade möjligheter, men också större konkurrens. Fyra olika skeden kan rekonstrueras som centrala: framväxten(1954-1979), expansionen (1980-1989), institutionaliseringen (1990-1999) och konsolideringen(2000-2007). Kunskapsöversikter, liksom intresseorganisationer, bidrar till områdets formering. Ett antal starka positioner uppstår, liksom pretenderande grupper. Dessa knyter, på olika sätt, an till området, men också till bredare perspektiv och kontexter. Att området förmår hantera, och införliva, utmaningar av olika slag, tyder på en relativ styrka.