Lärares ledarskap som möjliggörande och begränsande i mötet med ’alla’ barn : En deltagarorienterad studie

The aim of this thesis is to, based on teachers’ experiences, describe and analyse meanings of teachers’ leadership in general, and in relation to children in need of special support in particular. The study was carried out within the tradition of participatory-oriented research, a research circle. The dialogues in the circle were based on the participants’ questions, experiences, interests, and knowledge. The circle included a researcher and nine teachers from the following types of schools: preschool, preschool class, compulsory school, and compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities. The study is based on an understanding of leadership as a relational practice. Leadership is practised in the interaction between teacher and child. Both parties exert influence over the practice of leadership. A central assumption in the study is that knowledge can develop through and in interactions between people, that knowledge and power are connected, and that knowledge and actions are intertwined. Another central assumption is that learning is a complex phenomenon. In the analysis of the research circle’s dialogues, the following meanings of teachers’ leadership emerge: to facilitate learning and discipline, and to promote different interests. The practice of leadership involves teachers handling complex situations in their interactions with ‘all’ children, i.e. children in need of special support and children without such needs. Leadership is practised between teachers and children, and the teachers have to consider the group of children as a collective in relation to the individual children. At the same time, the teachers have to consider their intentions versus what happens during the interactions. In addition, the teachers have to pay heed to the fact that their own actions and the children’s actions influence one another. Finally, the teachers have to consider the individual child’s ‘best interest’ in relation to the requirements of the policy documents. Furthermore, the results indicate that the practice of leadership is perceived as both unpredictable and, to some extent, predictable at the same time, which adds to the complexity of leadership. The teachers cannot know for sure what the children understand or if the children’s actions facilitate learning. However, the teachers can make certain assumptions about how to practice leadership in order to facilitate learning and discipline in children with different needs. The meanings of leadership were expressed in different ways in the circle’s dialogues; both as enabling and limiting in interactions with children in need of special support. One of the study’s conclusions is that leadership seems to be particularly complex in interactions with children in need of special support. The research circle’s dialogues served to promote a democratic knowledge process. The dialogues were characterised by respect for the participants’ different opinions; however, this does not mean that they were free from power structures.

Kalaureia 1894 : A Cultural History of the First Swedish Excavation in Greece

The excavation of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia in 1894 marks the beginning of Swedish archaeological fieldwork in Greece. During a couple of hot summer months, two philologists from Uppsala University, Sam Wide (1861-1918) and Lennart Kjellberg (1857-1936), worked in the sanctuary together with the architect Sven Kristenson (1858-1937), the Greek foreman Pankalos and around twenty local workmen. In 1997, the Swedish Institute at Athens began new excavations at the sanctuary. This thesis examines the beginnings of Swedish fieldwork in Greece. Within the framework of a cultural history of archaeology, inspired by archaeological ethnography and the New Cultural History, it explores how archaeology functioned as a cultural practice in the late nineteenth century. A micro-historical methodology makes use of a wide array of different source material connected to the excavation of 1894, its prelude and aftermath. The thesis takes the theoretical position that the premises for archaeological knowledge production are outcomes of contemporary power structures and cultural politics. Through an analysis of how the archaeologists constructed their self-images through a set of idealized stereotypes of bourgeois masculinity, academic politics of belonging is highlighted. The politics of belonging existed also on a national level, where the Swedish archaeologists entered into a competition with other foreign actors to claim heritage sites in Greece. The idealization of classical Greece as a birthplace of Western values, in combination with contemporary colonial and racist cultural frameworks in Europe, created particular gazes through which the modern country was appropriated and judged. These factors all shaped the practices through which archaeological knowledge was created at Kalaureia. Some excavations tend to have extensive afterlives through the production of histories of archaeology. Therefore, this thesis also explores the representations of the 1894 excavation in the historiography of Swedish classical archaeology. It highlights the strategies by which the excavation at Kalaureia has served to legitimize further Swedish engagements in Greek archaeology, and explores the way in which historiography shapes our professional identities.

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the Controversy of the Russian Propaganda Laws: is the IOC Buckling Under the Pressure of its own Incoherence in Thought?

The Sochi Winter Olympics were a triumph in the eyes of Russia and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Yet, a controversy around the introduction of anti-propaganda laws in Russia that had been criticised for being discriminatory marred the efforts of the IOC to fulfil its self proclaimed aspiration of ‘encouraging the harmonious development of man’. This article discusses the controversy utilising a legally pluralist approach to sports governance, and providing a critical reading of the practices of neoliberal globalisation that marked the issue of sexuality at the Sochi games. The paper argues that the legal influence of the IOC on domestic and international legal norms is contradictory and inconsistent. This, when considered alongside the aspirations of the IOC is significantly problematic and demonstrates the importance of investigating the underlying power structures of this influential international governing body.

Lärares ledarskap som möjliggörande och begränsande i mötet med ’alla’ barn : En deltagarorienterad studie

The aim of this thesis is to, based on teachers’ experiences, describe and analyse meanings of teachers’ leadership in general, and in relation to children in need of special support in particular. The study was carried out within the tradition of participatory-oriented research, a research circle. The dialogues in the circle were based on the participants’ questions, experiences, interests, and knowledge. The circle included a researcher and nine teachers from the following types of schools: preschool, preschool class, compulsory school, and compulsory school for pupils with learning disabilities. The study is based on an understanding of leadership as a relational practice. Leadership is practised in the interaction between teacher and child. Both parties exert influence over the practice of leadership. A central assumption in the study is that knowledge can develop through and in interactions between people, that knowledge and power are connected, and that knowledge and actions are intertwined. Another central assumption is that learning is a complex phenomenon. In the analysis of the research circle’s dialogues, the following meanings of teachers’ leadership emerge: to facilitate learning and discipline, and to promote different interests. The practice of leadership involves teachers handling complex situations in their interactions with ‘all’ children, i.e. children in need of special support and children without such needs. Leadership is practised between teachers and children, and the teachers have to consider the group of children as a collective in relation to the individual children. At the same time, the teachers have to consider their intentions versus what happens during the interactions. In addition, the teachers have to pay heed to the fact that their own actions and the children’s actions influence one another. Finally, the teachers have to consider the individual child’s ‘best interest’ in relation to the requirements of the policy documents. Furthermore, the results indicate that the practice of leadership is perceived as both unpredictable and, to some extent, predictable at the same time, which adds to the complexity of leadership. The teachers cannot know for sure what the children understand or if the children’s actions facilitate learning. However, the teachers can make certain assumptions about how to practice leadership in order to facilitate learning and discipline in children with different needs. The meanings of leadership were expressed in different ways in the circle’s dialogues; both as enabling and limiting in interactions with children in need of special support. One of the study’s conclusions is that leadership seems to be particularly complex in interactions with children in need of special support. The research circle’s dialogues served to promote a democratic knowledge process. The dialogues were characterised by respect for the participants’ different opinions; however, this does not mean that they were free from power structures.

Transformative Political Spaces? Asambleas Populares, Identity, Alliances and Belonging in Buenos Aires

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

The Meanings of New Money: Social Constructions of Value in the Rise of Digital Currencies

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-07

Racialized Others in Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights

In my thesis I analyze two classic English novels, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from a postcolonial perspective. I focus on the two central characters in the novels, Heathcliff and Frankenstein’s monster, who are both outsiders and markedly racialized agents in the narratives. Using Edward Said’s theory on Orientalism and Anne McClintock’s theory on imperialism and domesticity, I argue that the Monster and Heathcliff represent European anxieties concerning various issues linked with imperial expansion and identity politics. The Monster and Heathcliff are both disruptive forces in the narratives and they ultimately reveal the problematic nature of colonial attitudes which also reflect domestic power structures of gender and class. Ultimately the Monster and Heathcliff are ambiguous characters who refuse to occupy any specific role in the narrative and remain as undefined and ambivalent figures in the story.

Discursive approaches to language policy

This book brings together the fields of language policy and discourse studies from a multidisciplinary theoretical, methodological and empirical perspective. The chapters in this volume are written by international scholars active in the field of language policy and planning and discourse studies. The diverse research contexts range from education in Paraguay and Luxembourg via businesses in Wales to regional English language policies in Tajikistan. Readers are thereby invited to think critically about the mutual relationship between language policy and discourse in a range of social, political, economic and cultural spheres. Using approaches that draw on discourse-analytic, anthropological, ethnographic and critical sociolinguistic frameworks, the contributors in this collection explore and refine the ‘discursive’ and the ‘critical’ aspects of language policy as a multilayered, fluid, ideological, discursive and social process that can operate as a tool of social change as well as reinforcing established power structures and inequalities.

Disruptive Threads and Renegade Yarns: Domestic Textile Making in Selected Women's Writing 1811-1925

Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2016-08-03 13:57:45.102

State-narco networks and the ‘War on Drugs’ in post-transition Bolivia, with special reference to 1989-1993

This thesis examines the development of state-narco networks in post-transition Bolivia. Mainstream discourses of drugs tend to undertheorise such relationships, holding illicit economies, weak states and violence as synergistic phenomena. Such assumptions fail to capture the nuanced relations that emerge between the state and the drug trade in different contexts, their underlying logics and diverse effects. As an understudied case, Bolivia offers novel insights into these dynamics. Bolivian military authoritarian governments (1964-1982), for example, integrated drug rents into clientelistic systems of governance, helping to establish factional coalitions and reinforce regime authority. Following democratic transition in 1982 and the escalation of US counterdrug efforts, these stable modes of exchange between the state and the coca-cocaine economy fragmented. Bolivia, though, continued to experience lower levels of drug-related violence than its Andean neighbours, and sustained democratisation despite being a major drug producer. Focusing on the introduction of the Andean Initiative (1989-1993), I explore state-narco interactions during this period of flux: from authoritarianism to (formal) democracy, and from Cold War to Drug War. As such, the thesis transcends the conventional analyses of the drugs literature and orthodox readings of Latin American narco-violence, providing insights into the relationship between illicit economies and democratic transition, the regional role of the US, and the (unintended) consequences of drug policy interventions. I utilise a mixed methods approach to offer discrete perspectives on the object of study. Drawing on documentary and secondary sources, I argue that state-narco networks were interwoven with Bolivia’s post-transition political settlement. Uneven democratisation ensured pockets of informalism, as clientelistic and authoritarian practices continued. This included police and military autonomy, and tolerance of drug corruption within both institutions. Non-enforcement of democratic norms of accountability and transparency was linked to the maintenance of fragile political equilibrium. Interviews with key US and Bolivian elite actors also revealed differing interpretations of state-narco interactions. These exposed competing agendas, and were folded into alternative paradigms and narratives of the ‘war on drugs’. The extension of US Drug War goals and the targeting of ‘corrupt’ local power structures, clashed with local ambivalence towards the drug trade, opposition to destabilising, ‘Colombianised’ policies and the claimed ‘democratising mission’ of the Bolivian government. In contrasting these US and Bolivian accounts, the thesis shows how real and perceived state-narco webs were understood and navigated by different actors in distinct ways. ‘Drug corruption’ held significance beyond simple economic transaction or institutional failure. Contestation around state-narco interactions was enmeshed in US-Bolivian relations of power and control.

Contribución de la misión de naciones unidas en Guatemala – Minugua, a la promoción, defensa y garantía de los derechos de la población indígena guatemalteca (1994 a 2004)

El conflicto armado en Guatemala se originó por el abuso de poder, la desigualdad, la exclusión y la profunda discriminación, sobre todo hacia la población indígena, a la que se le han desconocido históricamente sus derechos y que fue la más afligida durante el conflicto. Lo que desembocó en el nacimiento de grupos al margen de la ley, cuyo propósito fue reivindicar los derechos de la población, así como la equidad y justicia social. El conflicto se caracterizó por la formación de grupos paramilitares, la violación al Derecho Internacional Humanitario, el elevado número de víctimas del conflicto, mayoritariamente indígenas y porque más del 85% de las violaciones a los derechos humanos fueron perpetradas por el Estado. Gracias a la voluntad política, al respaldo de la comunidad internacional, especialmente de la Organización de Naciones Unidas -ONU, y a los buenos oficios de la Comisión Nacional de Reconciliación – CNR, se lograron firmar los Acuerdos de Paz y dar fin a este cruento conflicto de más de 36 años. Las partes firmantes vieron la necesidad de que un ente autónomo e imparcial de Naciones Unidas, verificara el cumplimiento de La Misión de Naciones Unidas en Guatemala - MINUGUA contribuyó a la promoción, defensa y garantía de los derechos de la población indígena guatemalteca. Específicamente, incidió en el cumplimiento de los compromisos contenidos en el Acuerdo sobre Identidad y Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas guatemaltecos –AIDPI, que fue suscrito el 31 de marzo de 1995, asimismo, contribuyó a la garantía del derecho a la justicia de la población indígena, lo que se evidenció en las acciones y el papel que desempeñó en los componentes de verdad, justicia y reparación.

Transferencia del voto en las regiones : redes electorales nacionales y territoriales del Partido de la U en Córdoba y Sucre

La presente investigación pretende determinar la influencia de la transferencia de voto en los resultados de los distintos niveles de elección, nacional y territorial, del Partido de La U en Córdoba y Sucre entre 2010 y 2015. Se analiza cómo la construcción de redes y alianzas electorales entre los caciques de región y los candidatos da paso a la formación de potentes clanes políticos, capaces de movilizar al electorado más allá del partidismo o de la política personalista. Así, a través del análisis comparado de los resultados electorales, el trabajo de archivo y la cartografía electoral, se estudian las estructuras de poder propias de dos departamentos en los que la política es el resultado de competencias o acuerdos entre familias políticas, que utilizan las elecciones como herramienta para establecer dinámicas de grupos que le dan sentido al sistema político local.

Relaciones de poder y luchas agrarias en regiones cafetaleras: interrogantes y cavilaciones

ResumenA partir de la notoria diversidad en las características socioeconómicas y en las historias políticas de los países o regiones en que el café fue el principal producto de exportación, se plantea una secuencia de preguntas para la investigación y el análisis sobre las estructuras de poder, la conflictividad social y los significados históricos de la caficultura para las sociedades latinoamericanasAbstractGiven the diversity of socioeconomic characteristics and political histories of countries or regions where coffee was the main export product, a number of questions are raised for research and analysis on power structures, social conflict, and the historical meaning of coffee production for Latin American societies.

Power Secant Method applied to natural frequency extraction of Timoshenko beam structures

This work deals with an improved plane frame formulation whose exact dynamic stiffness matrix (DSM) presents, uniquely, null determinant for the natural frequencies. In comparison with the classical DSM, the formulation herein presented has some major advantages: local mode shapes are preserved in the formulation so that, for any positive frequency, the DSM will never be ill-conditioned; in the absence of poles, it is possible to employ the secant method in order to have a more computationally efficient eigenvalue extraction procedure. Applying the procedure to the more general case of Timoshenko beams, we introduce a new technique, named ""power deflation"", that makes the secant method suitable for the transcendental nonlinear eigenvalue problems based on the improved DSM. In order to avoid overflow occurrences that can hinder the secant method iterations, limiting frequencies are formulated, with scaling also applied to the eigenvalue problem. Comparisons with results available in the literature demonstrate the strength of the proposed method. Computational efficiency is compared with solutions obtained both by FEM and by the Wittrick-Williams algorithm.

Scaling of structures subject to impact loads when using a power law constitutive equation

It is well known that structures subjected to dynamic loads do not follow the usual similarity laws when the material is strain rate sensitive. As a consequence, it is not possible to use a scaled model to predict the prototype behaviour. In the present study, this problem is overcome by changing the impact velocity so that the model behaves exactly as the prototype. This exact solution is generated thanks to the use of an exponential constitutive law to infer the dynamic flow stress. Furthermore, it is shown that the adopted procedure does not rely on any previous knowledge of the structure response. Three analytical models are used to analyze the performance of the technique. It is shown that perfect similarity is achieved, regardless of the magnitude of the scaling factor. For the class of material used, the solution outlined has long been sought, inasmuch as it allows perfect similarity for strain rate sensitive structures subject to impact loads. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.