Royal Subjects : Feminist Perspectives on Diary Writing and the Diary Form in Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries Series

Meg Cabot’s young adult (YA) novel series The Princess Diaries (2000-2009) is one of many modern-day examples of attempts to redefine what Western society considers the classic princess narrative: the story of a beautiful princess passively waiting for Prince Charming. As critics such as Kay Stone and Sarah Rothschild emphasize, the fictional princess is traditionally linked to notions of ideal femininity which, in turn, makes princess stories interesting texts from a feminist perspective. Rothschild notes a surge in YA princess novels in recent years, with YA writers such as Cabot aiming to challenge the traditional image of the princess as a passive feminine stereotype in their re-workings of the princess story. Previous feminist research on The Princess Diaries series celebrates the main character Mia as a symbol of third wave feminism and as such, a positive role model for Cabot’s predominantly young, female readers. Mia’s characteristic Dr Martens boots are frequently cited as an example of how greatly Mia differs from her princess predecessors. However, these critics ignore important changes in Mia’s personality over the course of the series. By the end of the series, the Dr Martens-wearing heroine introduced in the first book has replaced her combat boots with high heels. In my thesis, I will argue that Mia’s transformation in terms of appearance and preoccupation with mainstream fashion, from quirky outsider to stereotype girly girl, complicates the idea of The Princess Diaries series as feminist texts. Moreover, previous feminist research largely ignores diary writing’s prominent role in the series, and the ways in which the diary format influences the reader-narrator relationship in the novels. In my feminist reading of The Princess Diaries series, I therefore use Mia’s diary writing and the diary format of the series as my starting points. I argue that while Mia’s diary writing is portrayed as empowering, and thereby inspiring, the diary format as a narrative structure creates a rather ambiguous tone and effect; questioning but simultaneously conforming to traditional, restricting notions of femininity.

Frequency, Form, and Distribution of Illocutionary Speech Acts in Swedish Parent-Child Interaction

In this study, young children’s development of speech acts was examined. Interaction between six Swedish-speaking parents and their children was observed. The frequency, form and distribution of speech acts in the output from the parents were compared with the frequency, form and distribution of the children’s speech acts. The frequency was measured by occurrences per analysed session. The aim of the analysis was to examine if the parent’s behaviour could be treated as a baseline for the child’s development. Both the parents’ and the children’s illocutionary speech acts were classified. Each parent-child dyad was observed at four different occasions, when the children were 1;0, 1;6, 2;0, and 2;6 years of age. Similar studies have previously shown that parents keep a consistent frequency of speech acts within a given time span of interaction, though the distribution of different types of speech acts may shift, depending on contextual factors. The form, in terms of Mean Length of Speech Act in Words (MLSAw), were correlated with the longitudinal result of the children’s MLSAw. The distribution of the parents’ speech acts showed extensive individual differences. The result showed that the children’s MLSAw move significantly closer the MLSAw of their parents. Since the parent’s MLSAw showed a wide distribution, these results indicate that the parent’s speech acts can be treated as a baseline for certain aspects of the children’s development, though further studies are needed.

Ring Out Your Dead : Distribution, form, and function of iron amulets in the late Iron Age grave fields of Lovö

The purpose of this study is to analyze the distribution, forms, and function(s) of iron amulets deposited in the late Iron Age gravefields of Lovö, with the goal of ascertaining how (and so far as possible why) these objects were utilized in rituals carried out during and after burials. Particular emphasis is given to re-interpreting the largest group of iron amulets, the iron amulet rings, in a more relational and practice-focused way than has heretofore been attempted. By framing burial analyses, questions of typology, and evidence of ritualized actions in comparison with what is known of other cult sites in Mälardalen specifically– and theorized about the cognitive landscape(s) of late Iron Age Scandinavia generally– a picture of iron amulets as inscribed objects made to act as catalytic, protective, and mediating agents is brought to light.

Learning Democracy Together in School? : Student and Teacher Attitudes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The principal aim of this study is to examine attitudes and values, through questionnaires, among students and teachers in the last grade of primary school (grade 8) regarding issues related to authoritarianism, democracy, human rights, children rights, conflict resolution and legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A second aim is to explore and analyze the role of the international community in the democratization and education processes in the light of globalization in this country through secondary sources of data, site visits and observations. Analysis of the student sample reveals suspicion towards democracy, especially when democracy was associated with politics and politicians. When the issue of democracy was de-contextualized from Bosnia and Herzegovina realities in the questionnaire, students showed more positive attitudes towards it. Students generally agreed with very strong authoritarian statements. High achieving students were more democratic, more socially responsible, more tolerant regarding attitudes towards religion, race and disabilities, and less authoritarian compared to low achievers. High achievers felt that they had influence over daily events, and were positive towards social and civil engagement. High achievers viewed politics negatively, but had high scores on the democracy scale. High achievers also agreed to a larger extent that it is acceptable to break the law. The more authoritarian students were somewhat more prone to respond that it is not acceptable to break the law. The major findings from the teacher sample show that teachers who agreed with non-peaceful mediation, and had a non-forgiving and rigid approach to interpersonal conflicts, also agreed with strong authoritarian statements and were less democratic. In general, teachers valued students who behave respectfully, have a good upbringing and are obedient. They were very concerned about the general status of education in society, which they felt was becoming marginalized. Teachers were not happy with the overloaded curricula and they showed an interest in more knowledge and skills to help children with traumatic war experiences. When asked about positive reforms, teachers were highly critical of, and dissatisfied with, the educational situation. Bosnia and Herzegovina is undergoing a transition from a state-planned economy and one party system to a market economy and a multi party system. During this transition, the country has become more involved in the globalization process than ever. Today the country is a semi-protectorate where international authorities intervene when necessary. The International community is attempting to introduce western democracy and some of the many complexities in this process are discussed in this study. Globalization processes imply contradictory demands and pressures on the education system. On one hand, economic liberalization has affected education policies —a closer alignment between education and economic competitiveness. On the other hand, there is a political and ideological globalization process underlying the importance of human rights, and the inclusiveness of education for all children. Students and teachers are caught between two opposing ideals — competition and cooperation.

Evolution of signal form

Visual signals, used for communication both within and between species, vary immensely in the forms that they take. How is it that all this splendour has evolved in nature? Since it is the receiver’s preferences that cause selective pressures on signals, elucidating the mechanism behind the response of the signal receiver is vital to gain a closer understanding of the evolutionary process. In my thesis I have therefore investigated how receivers, represented by chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus, respond to different stimuli displayed on a peck-sensitive computer screen. According to the receiver bias hypothesis, animals and humans often express biases when responding to certain stimuli. These biases develop as by-products of how the recognition mechanism categorises and discriminates between stimuli. Since biases are generated from general stimulus processing mechanisms, they occur irrespective of species and type of signal, and it is often possible to predict the direction and intensity of the biases. One of the results from the experiments in my thesis demonstrates that similar experience in different species may generate similar biases. By giving chickens at least some of the experience of human faces as humans presumably have, the chickens subsequently expressed preferences for the same faces as a group of human subjects. Another kind of experience generated a bias for symmetry. This bias developed in the context of training chickens to recognise two mirror images of an asymmetrical stimulus. Untrained chickens and chickens trained on only one of the mirror images expressed no symmetry preferences. The bias produced by the training regime was for a specific symmetrical stimulus which had a strong resemblance to the familiar asymmetrical exemplar, rather than a general preference for symmetry. A further kind of experience, training chickens to respond to some stimuli but not to others, generated a receiver bias for exaggerated stimuli, whereas chickens trained on reversed stimuli developed a bias for less exaggerated stimuli. To investigate the potential of this bias to drive the evolution of signals towards exaggerated forms, a simplified evolutionary process was mimicked. The stimuli variants rejected by the chickens were eliminated, whereas the selected forms were kept and evolved prior to the subsequent display. As a result, signals evolved into exaggerated forms in all tested stimulus dimensions: length, intensity and area, despite the inclusion of a cost to the sender for using increasingly exaggerated signals. The bias was especially strong and persistent for stimuli varying along the intensity dimension where it remained despite extensive training. All the results in my thesis may be predicted by the receiver bias hypothesis. This implies that biases, developed due to stimuli experience, may be significant mechanisms driving the evolution of signal form.