Värdefull litteratur : Fyra gymnasielärare om samhällsuppdragets etik i förhållande till litteraturen i klassrummet

The ethical aspects of the Swedish Curriculum for the non-compulsory school system, Lpf94, will form the basis of the research in this essay. The ethical aspects constitute fundamental values and goals as well as common tasks that must be carried out by every teacher. Since the school debate focuses a lot on this perspective, which is often mentioned together with the words problematic and contradictory, it will consequently also be the focus of this essay. Here these features are treated in relation to literature in all its forms used by teachers in class, which also represents a part of the school debate. Together ethics and literature form a perspective that lacks research. The goal is to investigate the ethical awareness of teachers in relation to the literature, and find out which ethical decisions are made by teachers and in what ways the ethical aspects of the curriculum is fulfilled. A qualitative method has been used in order to gain results: four upper secondary school teachers/senior high school teachers have been interviewed. The results are presented in interview transcripts which have been analyzed and interpreted in the light of recent studies and research and pedagogical-didactical literature. Accordingly I have been able to draw the conclusions that the ethical features in teaching is not explicit and that there seldom seems to be any conscious ethical reflections in relation to the literature. The ethical aspects are rather invisible and unconscious. However, it is clear that the interviews raise the awareness of the ethical perspective and thus emphasize the growing and developing function of the dialogue. Finally the results have been interpreted from the point of view of the ethical tasks of the teacher in order to make the ethics visible.I detta examensarbete ligger fokus på de etiska aspekterna av samhällsuppdraget i förhållande till den litteratur som lärare använder sig av i klassrumsundervisningen. Eftersom en stor del av skoldebatten handlar om samhällsuppdraget och dess värdegrund utgör också detta perspektiv utgångspunkten för denna undersökning. Målet är att undersöka vilka etiska avvägningar lärare gör i valet av litteratur och på vilket sätt samhällsuppdragets etik blir synlig i lärares arbete. Därmed framkommer också till viss del i vilken omfattning värdegrundsarbetet sker. Genom en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod i form av samtal har fyra gymnasielärare intervjuats. Erhållna resultat har presenterats i form av intervjutranskript som analyserats och tolkats med hjälp av aktuell forskning och pedagogisk-didaktisk litteratur. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån resultaten är att etiken i lärarnas arbete inte är explicit och att det oftast inte finns en medveten etisk reflektion utifrån litteraturen. Etiken är snarare osynlig och tämligen omedveten. Dock medvetandegörs den under samtalen vilket framhåller dialogens betydelse för utveckling. Vidare framkommer att etiken aldrig är ett mål i sig, utan fungerar mer som medel för att nå andra mål i klassrummet. Slutligen, för att synliggöra etiken, har resultaten tolkats utifrån de etiska krav i samhällsuppdraget som ställs på lärare.

From the Reliable and Unselfish to the Versatile and Independent : - desired qualities in two Swedish curricula

The process in which girls and boys are constructed and construct themselves to pupils takes place in a context where conceptions of “the good pupil” are distinctly manifested in national school documents. In different types of texts concerning school and education, the image of the pupil that society wants to create emerges. Documents from early childhood education up to university level prioritise qualities such as independence, initiative, accountability and freedom to make ones own choices. Qualities or competencies that are preferred during a certain period change as time passes and society develops. The idea of the democratic subject is not the same today as it was 25 years ago. The purpose of this article is to emphasise and compare different desired qualities described in two Swedish national curricula, competencies that pupils in the compulsory school are supposed to develop. The discussion encompasses the political ideas of the pupil during a period of twenty-five years in light of changes in Western societies during the last decades.

Viljan till fysisk aktivitet : En intervention avsedd att stimulera ungdomar att bli fysiskt aktiva

Jenny Isberg (2009): Viljan till fysisk aktivitet – en intervention avsedd att stimulera ungdomar att bli fysiskt aktiva. Örebro Studies in Sport Sciences 6, 141 pp. Physical education (PE) at school may play an important role in the process of becoming physically active in the adolescence and in developing a physically active lifestyle. The opportunities for teachers to provide positive physical activity experiences to the student population extend regularly over the school terms. For some students, PE can be the only opportunity they have to be physically active. Therefore it is important that the students become motivated to practice physical activity and know the purpose with physical activity. The overall purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the possibilities to motivate youth, 12-16 years old, to practice physical activity and hopefully to stimulate them to continue to be physically active in young adulthood. The sample consisted of 122 Swedish compulsory school students (12-16 years old), 51 girls and 71 boys, who were either physically inactive, physically active but not formal members of sport clubs, or physically active and members of a sport club. They used a self-monitoring instrument to describe their physical activity and we compared their self-reported physical activity with their actual VO2 capacity and physical status. The self-monitoring instrument was further validated against an activity monitor, RT3. The intervention lasted one and a half years, and four to five years later a follow-up study was done. Using a quasi-experimental design, the three groups of participants were compared with youths who did not use the self-monitoring instrument. The main findings were that the associations between the accelerometer counts and the activities the students recorded in the self-monitoring instrument were high. The participants  in Group 1 (physically inactive) continued exercising nearly to the same extent as during the intervention while youths in a matched control group did not develop regular physical activity habits. Concerning Group 2 (exercisers), participants in the intervention group were more physically active both during the intervention and at follow-up, compared with a matched control group of exercisers who did not use the self-monitoring instrument. In Group 3 (sport team members), there was no difference between the intervention group and a matched control group after the intervention or at follow-up.  The conclusion of these main findings was that when someone motivates students to continue being physically active and to change their physical activity patterns in a positive direction, the self-monitoring instrument can be a door-opener for youths who are physically inactive or regularly active outside sports clubs.

Lärares beskrivningar av evolution som undervisningsinnehåll i biologi på gymnasiet

Biological evolution is part of the syllabi for Biology and Science in Swedish upper secondary school. In the syllabi, evolution is not only presented as a topic in Biology courses, but is also regarded as a unifying theme. The teacher has a fundamental role in deciding how the national curriculum is translated into the educational situation. This thesis investigates teachers’ accounts of their teaching of evolution in Swedish upper secondary school, describing their understandings of the purpose of teaching and learning evolution as part of biology education. The thesis is based on interviews of teachers teaching the course Biology A, which is compulsory as dictated by the Natural Science Program. The interviews were supplemented with questionnaires. The interviews were orientated towards questions about selection of course content and the reasons for choosing this content. The interviews were focused on teachers experiences based on their own practice. Two aspects of content were examined: (1) the scientific content taught in terms of themes and (2) the socializing value-laden aspects, such as priorities taken by the teachers and the teachers´ overarching aims.   The results showed that teachers described different teaching contents with regard to values, even when the core content of themes was similar. Four different selective traditions for choosing content were identified among teachers. The results are discussed in relation to the context and conditions that the teachers identify as influential on the content chosen. Teachers’ interactions with their students as well as their world views are important for their selection and adjustment of content. There are also indications that teachers’ personal views about purposes are important for selecting the teaching content.

Learning as movements in interspace

My research issues (in rearch project for PhD-degree, named Drama in School) concern how learning takes place in drama education in compulsory school. One part is to explore and problematize approaches to learning (in and through drama). In this paper will the concept learning be discussed by using a thought derived from Deleuze and Guattari’s nomad philosophy. They describe learning as a movement in the interspace. Focus is on process and inquiry, not on achievement of predetermined skills and competences. 

Undersökande arbetssätt i NO-undervisningen i grundskolans tidigare årskurser

This thesis deals with the use of inquiry-based approaches in primary school science. The aim is to investigate the goals and purposes that are constituted by the curriculum and by the teachers in interviews and through their teaching in the classroom. The results are used to develop conceptual tools that can be used by teachers’ in their work to support students’ learning of science when using an inquiry-based approach. The thesis is comprised of four papers. In paper one a comparative analysis is made of five Swedish national curricula for compulsory school regarding what students should learn about scientific inquiry. In paper two 20 teachers were interviewed about their own teaching using inquiry. Classroom interactions were filmed and analyzed in papers three and four, which examine how primary teachers use the various activities and purposes of the inquiry classroom to support learning progressions in science. The results of paper one show how the emphasis within and between the two goals of learning to carry out investigations and learning about the nature of science shifted and changed over time in the different curricula. Paper two describes the selective traditions and qualities that were emphasized in the teachers’ accounts of their own teaching. The results of papers three and four show how students need to be involved in the proximate and ultimate purposes of the teaching activities for progression to happen. The ultimate purposes are the scientific purposes for the lesson (as given by the teacher or by the curriculum), whereas the proximate purposes are the more student-centered purposes that through different activities should allow the students to relate their own experiences and language to the ultimate purpose. The results show the importance of proximate purposes working as ends-in-viewin the sense of John Dewey, meaning that the students see the goal of the activity and that they are able to relate to their experiences and familiar language.

Vad ska elever lära sig angående naturvetenskaplig verksamhet? : En analys av svenska läroplaner för grundskolan under 50 år

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an understanding of which changes related to scientific inquiry have been made historically in curriculum documents. A comparative analysis is made of five Swedish national curricula– Lgr 62, Lgr 69, Lgr 80, Lpo 94 and Lgr 11 – during the last 50 years regarding what compulsory school students (school years 1–9) should learn about scientific inquiry. It focuses 1) what students should learn about carrying out scientific inquiries, and 2) what students should learn about the nature of science. All of the curricula examined have aims concerning scientific inquiry. The results show that during the period there have been many shifts in emphasis and changes of aims, for example from learning an inductive method to a more deductive one, and from an emphasis on carrying out investigations to an emphasis on more conceptual understanding of scientific investigations. Because teaching traditions tend to conserve aspects of earlier curricula, it is discussed how the results can help teachers, teacher students and curriculum developers to better see the consequences of the changes for teaching and learning.

Man kan både sitta bredbent och med benen i kors : En kvalitativ studie om hur genusvetare praktiserar genuskunskap

There is an awareness of the importance of gender equality in most western societies, both at the political level and in everyday life. In academia, for instance, gender is nowadays a scientific field which indicates that there is a lot of knowledge about the subject. What we do not have much knowledge about is whether gender knowledge leads to changes in gender relations in practice. The aim of this study is to explore how gender scholars relate to using – practicing – gender knowledge. Key issues in this study are how gender scholars construct gender, how they practice gender theoretical knowledge, and their reflections of gender boundaries.             Theoretically, this study is mainly based on Sara Ahmed’s perspective on gender. The main finding of the study is that despite gender knowledge gender scholars tend to reproduce traditional gender orders. By identifying concepts such as reflected and unreflected masculinity/femininity, different ideals of masculinity/femininity are made visible. There seems to be an ideal among gender scholars to practice their gender knowledge. This ideal is practiced among “gender scholar women” by doing reflected masculinity and reflected femininity. Among “gender scholar men”, however, the ideal to practice gender knowledge by doing unreflected masculinity and reflected femininity seems to be a taboo at the same time. For men, it seems important to mark a distance to a certain type of femininity and to maintain the heterosexual – straight – line. For women, it seems desirable both to distance themselves from a certain type of masculinity and femininity and thereby follow alternative – queer – lines.

Fanfiction : la anonimicidad, el texto y el armario

This essay looks at slash, a genre within fanfiction, from the perspective of Sedgwick’s theory of the closet, which reflects on the concealing mechanisms associated with homosexuality. While the real author stays in the closet, disguised behind a pseudonym, slash texts present homosexual themes in a very explicit way, often relying on humor or subversive elements. Between these two spheres, the real author and the text, we can find what we call the author’s voice, conscious about the existing homophobic structures, a voice that uses different strategies to shield itself against them. Internet, with the possibility to stay anonymous, serves as a social closet where the masked authors create texts that subvert heteronormativity.

Gay and Lesbian Life at Colby 1969-1974

The history of a gay and lesbian student community at Colby seems to point to the difficulty of visibility. For students who were able to find others like themselves, their group of lesbian and gay friends had to remain underground. For students who were grappling with their newly found, socially stigmatized sexuality, the experience was isolating if they did not know where to find others like themselves. This paper seeks to address the social forces that kept sexually variant students from expressing their sexual identities openly on campus. Part of this difficulty is attributable to the compulsory heterosexuality assumed by general American society at the time, manifested in the silence or outright hostility directed against homosexuals. Naturally, Colby students replicated this assumption. Some of the students we interviewed seemed to internalize compulsory heterosexuality, while it was forced upon others. Religion and psychology were two methods of enforcing heterosexuality that were relevant to the people we interviewed. Another significant obstacle to visibility was Colby's location and the nature of Colby's student body. Waterville, unlike more urban cities, did not have a history of gay life, and thus an established gay community or gay identity into which one could be socialized. Colby, as a small, homogeneous and isolated space, posed difficulties in establishing a gay community as the population to draw from was small and regulated.

Modelo para avaliação do custo burocrático do FCVS (Fundo de Compensação de Variações Salariais) : um estudo de caso

In 1964, year of the military coup, the Brazilian government established a housing finance system with the intention of reducing the housing shortage that had been going on for decades. In order to reach this goal, the government created the Housing Finance System (acronym in Portuguese ¿ SFH), a set of rules which intended to set up a regulated market through standardized contracts and compulsory sources of funds. The system survived for some time, due to the state control of prices and salaries in the authoritarian regime. However, the increasing inflationary pressure obliged the government to adopt a populist subsidy policy, which left as a consequence outstanding balances at the end of the contracts that very often exceeded the value of the financed units. The solution adopted was to create a fund to settle these residual balances. Such fund should be capitalized by the government and by compulsory contributions from borrowers and financial institutions. Since the government did not make such contributions, the debt of this fund increased on a yearly basis, reaching around 3,5 % of Brazil¿s GDP in December 31, 2006. Due to the decline of private investments in the housing finance system, this debt concentrated mostly on public and state-owned companies, government agencies and public funds. The outcome of this policy was the Salary Variations Compensation Fund (acronym in Portuguese ¿ FCVS), which has a negative net equity of 76 billion reais and costs 100 million reais per year to be managed, and whose main creditor is the Federal Government itself.

Licença compulsória para medicamentos como política pública: o caso do anti-retroviral efavirenz

O objetivo deste estudo é avaliar o processo de implementação da Licença Compulsória no caso do anti-retroviral efavirenz. Esta pesquisa é de caráter descritivo, o meio de investigação foi o estudo de caso e foi conduzido com entrevistas semi-estruturadas contendo questões abertas para um conjunto de atores representativos da área da Saúde Pública que participaram do processo da licença compulsória residentes nos estados do Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo e no Distrito Federal durante os meses de outubro a dezembro de 2009. Permitiu-se que esses indivíduos se expressassem mais ou menos livremente de forma que eles produzissem discursos. Para a análise dos discursos, utilizou-se a técnica do Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC). Os resultados demonstraram que o Brasil possui capacitação tecnológica para desenvolver e produzir anti-retrovirais em um prazo relativamente curto. Os resultados mostram ainda que a Licença Compulsória ajudou a refrear os gastos com anti-retrovirais e que o instrumento pode ser utilizado para garantir o acesso da população a medicamentos anti-retrovirais de alto custo e estratégicos para o Sistema Único de Saúde em um ambiente de recursos limitados sempre que se chegar a um impasse na negociação para redução de preços com os laboratórios farmacêuticos transnacionais.

Pharmaceutical patent bargains: the Brazilian experience

In the backdrop of the strict patent regime flatly adopted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) for all countries, a few countries constantly challenge this system through aggressive patent bargains. Within the pharmaceutical sector, noticeably, some countries now threaten to issue or otherwise actually issue compulsory licenses that may sway large pharmaceutical companies into selling drugs with large discounts or into granting voluntary licenses domestically. That is conspicuously the negotiation strategy adopted by Brazil in its negotiations with big international pharmaceutical companies.This paper explains Brazil’s aggressive bargaining approach based on an analysis of two aspects of its political economy. The first has to do with the international context of patent bargaining in the post-WTO era. Accordingly, the existence of large and fast growing domestic markets position countries such as Brazil as strategic destinations for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and trade. Together with an absence of a propensity to innovate in pharmaceutical products, these conditions boost Brazil’s bargaining power for issuing compulsory licenses over pharmaceutical products. The second aspect is related to political economy dynamics inside Brazil. Accordingly, the political framework in Brazil undermines long-term policies and favors short-sighted ones also vis-a-vis R&D investments in the pharmaceutical industry. This remains true regardless of the strictness of the patent regime in place. The lesson of Brazil is relevant arguably for other more powerful developing countries which presently examine Brazil's approach while further challenging the WTO's strict patent policy for the future.

Bancos públicos e desenvolvimento : análise de decisões judiciais e intervenção do Estado na economia

Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de estudar, entre diferentes modelos de organização econômica, aspectos da feição do arranjo financeiro brasileiro, com ênfase sobre os bancos públicos agentes de mercado no Brasil. A pesquisa está divida em uma etapa eminentemente jurídica, de sistematização e análise de normas e decisões judiciais; e uma leitura de economia política do contexto em que essas variáveis jurídicas estão inseridas. As normas pesquisadas analisam a constituição e o funcionamento do arranjo financeiro brasileiro, identificando elementos que constituem um maior protagonismo dos bancos oficiais no Sistema Financeiro Nacional, como, por exemplo, as funções de política econômica e mecanismos de poupança e depósito compulsórios. Entre outras normas, merecem destaque a Lei 4.595/64 e a Constituição Federal de 1988. A pesquisa de decisões judiciais, por sua vez, estuda o contexto e os principais argumentos de ações que envolveram um aspecto sensível na coexistência de bancos públicos e privados: a possibilidade de bancos oficiais depositarem e gerirem recursos em caráter de exclusividade. A leitura de economia política feita no segundo capítulo consiste em ampliar a lente de análise sobre o arranjo financeiro baseado em bancos públicos. Para tanto, serão analisados alguns modelos de organização econômica, divididos pela literatura de variedades de capitalismo em economias de mercado liberais e coordenadas. Ao interpretar esses modelos para o contexto econômico brasileiro, nota-se que o Brasil se valeu de mecanismos de coordenação distintos dos demais apresentados na literatura: uma coordenação pública da economia de mercado, enquanto alternativa para superar gargalos específicos do desenvolvimento econômico nacional. O Brasil, portanto, valendo-se de mecanismos de coordenação próprios, desenha o seu arranjo financeiro a partir de uma singularidade institucional: a possibilidade dos bancos oficiais poderem operar, exclusivamente, determinados recursos mesmo em uma economia de mercado; conta com mecanismos de coordenação eminentemente públicos, mas, ao mesmo tempo, deixando claro que existem mecanismos de mercado e concorrenciais estabelecidos e que devem ser observados. Essa dicotomia, entre bancos oficiais e privados, com um maior protagonismo dos bancos públicos em uma economia de mercado é que constitui, principalmente, essa singularidade institucional.

Importância da orientação educacional no processo educativo

Este trabalho sobre a importância da Orientação Educacional no processo educativo, teve como principal objetivo analisar aspectos fundamentais da orientação que justificassem a posição assumida. o problema de nosso estudo prende-se, sobremodo, a dois aspectos que consideramos fundamentais: 1º - a Orientação Educacional, como parte integrante do processo educativo; 2º - a Orientação Vocacional como sendo área da Orientação Educacional. Na Metodologia utilizamos o tratamento descritivo crítico dos dados da revisão bibliográfica dos assuntos mais importantes tratados nesta proposição. Procurou-se levantar dados, sobre a Orientação Educacional com o objetivo de não só realizar a nossa pesquisa, mas também, contribuir para subsidiar os orientadores educacionais com uma ampla revisão bibliográfica. A escolha dos tópicos, calcada nas hipóteses do trabalho, deve-se à importância dada a aqueles estudados, pelos autores consultados e, também, a própria experiência no campo da orientação. Objetivando o desenvolvimento da presente pesquisa, procuramos na evolução histórica da Orientação Educacional o marco inicial de nossos estudos. Visando a importância, para o trabalho do orientador de uma fundamentação teórica, selecionamos, segundo certos critérios os enfoques que mais tem influenciado os estudos e trabalhos sobre orientação educacional. Procuramos, também, mostrar à importância da orientação Educacional do ponto de vista da Lei 5.692 que a institui obrigatoriamente nas escolas de 19 e 29 graus. Partindo deste campo para o estudo do Serviço da Orientação Educacional, procuramos analisar a "praxis" dos fundamentos teóricos já assinalados. Neste estudo, a título de ilustração foram levantados elementos que esclarecessem a situação da Orientação no Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Observa-se que o número de reinadores das escolas, cumprimento de uma exigência legal, longe ainda está de uma situação que favoreça totalmente à consecução de seus objetivos. No sentido de alcançar os objetivos da Orientação Educacional como nos parecem, particularmente relevantes, sugerimos uma visão integrada da práxis da Orientação Educacional nas escolas. Assim sendo, para satisfazer, não só o imperativo legal. como também, as necessidades da própria escola, torna-se mister que a Orientação Educacional assuma uma posição integrada - posição esta fundamental e imprescindível - para o resultado eficaz no processo educativo.