Signing up for the status quo? Semiological analyses of sexual harassment in higher education—a Swedish example

This article explores the effects of certain discourses as they relate to sexual harassment in a Swedish higher education setting. Using a semiological perspective, the author analyzes notions of existence, range, prevention, and stability in order to demonstrate the way they aim at signifying a limited and, from a bureaucratic point of view, legitimate reality of sexual harassment. The empirical material consists partly of material drawn from public policies, legal documents, and research reports on sexual harassment in higher education, and partly of fourteen semi‐structured interviews with equal opportunity practitioners responsible for implementing equality legislation at a Swedish university. A semiological view on the construction of sexual harassment in public texts and ordinary speech is given through an analysis of the use of language and the internal and external relations of signs. By focusing simultaneously on the stable and variable aspects of the sign, interpretations of the specific notions of limitation, variability, and experience are put forward as critical tools aimed at changing normative views of sexual harassment.     

When risk becomes invisible in the everyday life of day care

Both the identification of children at risk in day care and multidisciplinary collaboration with other professions have a political focus. This study was designed as an organizational field study and attempts to establish a coherent practice of multidisciplinary collaboration between day care and social services. This article focuses on the mono-professional pedagogical identification of children at risk as well as on the underlying process of professional reasoning. Interviews with day care staff are analysed and the findings give reason to assume that central aspects of the children at risk and their life circumstances become invisible in the everyday life of day care. Due to defensive routines as well as an organizational culture that frames and creates a non-explicitly structured practice using intuitive processes, the problems of children at risk become invisible in the everyday life of day care. When risk become invisible, it not only impedes the mono-professional help the children receive, it also inhibits a crucial multidisciplinary collaborative provision of support to children at risk and their families. The identification of children at risk seems to be based on an unexamined selection of significant information, processed by intuitive processes.     

Using self‐generated analogies in teaching of thermodynamics

Using self‐generated analogies has been proposed as a method in a constructivist tradition for students to learn about a new subject, by use of what they previously know. We report on a group exercise on using self‐generated analogies to make sense of two thermodynamic processes, reversible adiabatic expansion and free adiabatic expansion of an ideal gas. The participants (N = 8) were physics preservice teacher students at the fourth year of the teacher education program. A main finding was that work with self‐generated analogies tended to be accompanied by the students assuming ownership for their learning, manifested in terms of actions of choice and control and the use of exploratory talk. Consequently, several self‐generated analogies were elaborated and developed to a high‐order relational structure. However, we also found that with the use of self‐generated analogies in science teaching follows the risks of developing idiosyncratic explanations of the encountered phenomena or getting stuck in overly complex comparisons. Sammanfattning: Självgenererade analogier har förts fram som en metod i en konstruktivistisk tradition för att elever och studenter ska kunna lära sig något nytt genom att relatera till vad de redan vet. Vi redogör här för en gruppövning där självgenererade analogier användes för att förstå två termodynamiska processer: reversibel adiabatisk expansion, respektive fri adiabatisk expansion av en ideal gas. Åtta (N = 8) lärarstudenter på fjärde året av utbildningen med inriktning mot fysik på gymnasiet deltog i studien. Ett viktigt resultat var att vid arbete med självgenererade analogier tenderade studenterna att ta ägandeskap för sitt lärande, vilket tog sig uttryck i handlingar såsom aktiva val, kontroll över processen och explorativ dialog. Som en följd utvecklades flera av de självgenererade analogierna till ett stort strukturellt djup. Samtidigt såg vi att vid skapande av egna analogier löper studenter risken att utveckla egna förklaringar av de studerade fenomenen som inte svarar mot dem inom vetenskapen eller snärja in sig i alltför komplexa jämförelser. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 898–921, 2012     

Exploring user participation approaches in public e-service development

It has been argued that user participation is important when public authorities develop e-services. At the same time there is limited research on the usefulness of existing user participation approaches in public e-service development. In this paper we, therefore, analyze how the three user participation approaches – participatory design, user-centered design, and user innovation – meet the strategic e-service goals of the EU and the US. In doing so, we identify three challenges that need to be considered when choosing among these approaches: 1) unclear user target segments can impede the fulfillment of usability and relevance goals, 2) the nature of participation can impede the fulfillment of democracy goals, and 3) lack of adequate skills can impede the fulfillment of efficiency goals.     

Confronting Conceptual Challenges in Thermodynamics by Use of Self-Generated Analogies

Use of self-generated analogies has been proposed as a method for students to learn about a new subject by reference to what they previously know, in line with a constructivist perspective on learning and a resource perspective on conceptual change. We report on a group exercise on using completion problems in combination with self-generated analogies to make sense of two thermodynamic processes. The participants (N = 8) were preservice physics teacher students at the fourth year of the teacher education program. The students experienced challenges in accounting for the constant entropy in reversible, adiabatic expansion of an ideal gas and the constant temperature in free, adiabatic expansion of an ideal gas. These challenges were found to be grounded in the students’ intuitive understanding of the phenomena. In order to come to terms with the constant entropy in the first process, the students developed idiosyncratic explanations, but these could by properly adjusted given suitable scaffolding. In contrast, the students by themselves managed to make sense of the constant temperature in free expansion, by use of microscopic explanatory models. As a conclusion, self-generated analogies were found to provide a useful approach to identifying challenges to understanding among students, but also for the students to come to terms with these challenges. The results are discussed against a background of different perspectives on the issue of conceptual change in science education.     

Counseling between recognition,justice and difference: the significance of power asymmetries,communicative projects and unintended consequences in career counseling of immigrants in Sweden

This article consists of two parts. First we present an ongoing Swedish research project, “Counseling between recognition, justice and difference”. The aims of the project are presented, along with an outline of the political and professional questions that motivate it and the theories which inform it. In the second part, an account of one of the studies in the project is presented, which focuses on counseling conversations with recently arrived refugees in secondary education. The analysis of the conversations focuses on the communicative projects of the participants, the unintended consequences of their actions, and the impact of power asymmetries.     

Perspectives on using video recordings in conversation analytical studies on learning in interaction

Video is currently used in many studies to document the interaction in conversation analytical (CA) studies on learning. The discussion on the method used in these studies has primarily focused on the analysis or the data construction, whereas the relation between data construction and analysis is rarely brought to attention. The aim of this article is to discuss different approaches to data construction that CA studies in and on learning utilize, and how these approaches facilitate different analysis and understandings of learning and cognition from emic, participants', points of view. Three, partly overlapping, thematic approaches can be discerned: (1) setting-centred, (2) participant-centred and (3) content-centred. The underlying interest of the study seems to influence the data construction, which in turn affects what kind of analysis that can be done. There is a considerable variation in which aspects data sets focus on, where an emphasis in data construction on setting, participant or content also seems to project the subsequent analytic emphasis. This relation between data construction and analysis is important to be aware of and to address.