Criminology has long been divided by mainly focusing on people’s propensities to commit crimes, on the one hand, and environmental characteristics conducive to crime, on the other. Such a division must be bridged to advance knowledge about why some people, but not others, commit rule-breaking acts in some environments but not in others. Furthermore, explanations require causal mechanisms explaining how the outcome, a rule-breaking act, is produced. Analytic Criminology offers a general framework for how to theoretically and empirically structure the study of crime. It does so by connecting macro- and micro-levels – structuring the convergence of certain people in certain places – through a mechanistic account. Within this framework, the situational action theory (SAT) proposes a causal mechanism explaining how said convergence triggers the perception-choice process: a rule-breaking act must first be perceived to be subsequently chosen. The main drivers during this process are the person’s crime propensity and the criminogeneity of the behaviour setting. Identifying the central components also enables the theorising of changes in crime involvement, which is the subject of the developmental ecological action (DEA) model of SAT. Drawing on data from the longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study, this thesis aimed to test SAT and its DEA model, thus bridging said division. It did so through four studies with specific reference to adolescents’ crime propensity, exposure to criminogenic settings, their convergence, and finally, change over time. Study I and study II investigated adolescents’ time use and connections to rule-breaking. The former examined how adolescents spend time in unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers, during which hours of the day, in which neighbourhoods, and what level of collective efficacy the neighbourhoods have. Study II focused on adolescents’ routine activities and how they differentially place adolescents in unstructured socialising. Furthermore, it tested whether adolescents with higher crime propensity run a higher probability of reporting a rule-breaking act during unstructured socialising irrespective of their routine activities. Study III extended the situational analysis by investigating how adolescents form rule-breaking intentions in randomised scenarios depending on their morality, self-control, and the setting characteristics (varying in level of motivation and deterrence). Study IV applied a developmental perspective to key theoretical constructs derived from the DEA model, focusing on how morality, peer delinquency, and unstructured socialising change, and how the change in each is related to change in the others. Together, the studies found that adolescents with different levels of crime propensity are differently exposed to criminogenic settings but that such exposure simultaneously increases the probability of rule-breaking more for adolescents with higher crime propensity. In sum, the studies have bridged the person–place division in different ways by being rooted in a mechanistic account of rule-breaking, which is proposed as a way forward for criminology as a discipline. 

With the Internet of Things paradigm, the data generated by the rapidly increasing number of connected devices lead to new possibilities, such as using machine learning for activity recognition in smart environments. However, it also introduces several challenges. The sensors of different devices might be mobile and of different types, i.e. there is a need to handle streaming data from a dynamic and heterogeneous set of sensors. In machine learning, the performance is often linked to the availability and quality of annotated data. Annotating data is in general costly, but it can be even more challenging if there is not any, or a very small amount of, annotated data to train the model on at the start of learning. To handle these issues, we implement interactive and adaptive systems. By including human-in-the-loop, which we refer to as interactive machine learning, the input from users can be utilized to build the model. The type of input used in interactive machine learning is typically annotations of the data, i.e. correctly labelled data points. Generally, it is assumed that the user always provides correct labels in accordance with the chosen interactive learning strategy. In many real-world applications these assumptions are not realistic however, as users might provide incorrect labels or not provide labels at all in line with the chosen strategy.

In this thesis we explore which interactive learning strategy types are possible in the given scenario and how they affect performance, as well as the effect of machine learning algorithms on the performance. We also study how a user who is not always reliable, i.e. who does not always provide a correct label when expected to, can affect performance. We propose a taxonomy of interactive online machine learning strategies and test how the different strategies affect performance through experiments on multiple datasets. Simulated experiments are compared to experiments with human participants, to verify the results. The findings show that the overall best performing interactive learning strategy is one where the user provides labels when current estimations are incorrect, but that the best performing machine learning algorithm depends on the problem scenario. The experiments also show that a decreased reliability of the user leads to decreased performance, especially when there is a limited amount of labelled data. The robustness of the machine learning algorithms differs, where e.g. Naïve Bayes classifier is better at handling a lower reliability of the user. We also present a systematic literature review on machine teaching, a subfield of interactive machine learning where the human is proactive in the interaction. The study shows that the area of machine teaching is rapidly evolving with an increased number of publications in recent years. However, as it is still maturing, there exists several open challenges that would benefit from further exploration, e.g. how human factors can affect performance.

The aim of the study is to explore how social categories, with focus on genderand age, is constructed in the social documentation which is a central part ofthe officially arranged elderly care in Sweden. The analysis consists of a discourseanalysis and has a standpoint in feminist theories about performativityand respectability. The analysis consists of a text analysis of case files and howdiscourses about social categories emerge in the texts. The case files are writtenin a standardized form which is central to the structure of the documentation.The study examines the following questions 1) how is the users of elderlycare and their relatives positioned through the discourse that emerges in thecase files? 2) how is the discourse in the case files a part of doing gender andage as social categories?The study shows that the case files are reproducing stereotyped gender rolesand positions “the elderly” by differencing them from other adults throughconceptions about characteristics and (the lack of) abilities. Women’s andmen’s needs are described differently whereas abilities and strategies areprominent in the women’s case files. The respectable narrative emerges in thedescription of women wanting to perform some of the workload which is absentin case files about men. The moral responsibility of relatives is reinforcedby the description about their care work or the absence of it. Male relatives arementioned in the case files prominently in the lack of female relatives. In thisway both masculinity and femininity are constructed through the implied valuesthat is attributed men versus women in the texts. A clear medical discourseemerges in the needs assessments. The assessment texts reformulate the descriptionsof needs and they are instead formulated as facts which reinforcethe medical discourse. In final, this study shows that users of elderly care andABSTRACT10their relatives are positioned from both gender and age and that these categoriesare integrated with each other. I draw the conclusion that age is a usefulcomplement to the theory of respectability and its importance in the narrativeof expression and assessment of a person’s needs.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge of teachers’ relational competence with respect to students with ADHD. In addition, a specific focus is investigating whether teachers’ understanding of relational competence, regarding the targeted student group, can be developed using video-based interventions. Moreover, a focus is to examine whether - and if so how - the intervention contributes to changes in teachers as well as their students’ perceptions of their teacher-student relationshipin practice. Sub-studies: This dissertation contains four sub-studies, each of them aiming to answer a part of the overall research question. The first study is a systematic literature review aiming to systematically identify, critically review and synthesize existing research in the focused area. The second study is a pilot study investigating if teachers’ relational competence can be developed using video-based interventions. In study three, the aim was to investigate how teachers’ understanding of relational competence with respect to students with ADHD were developed using video-based interventions. Finally, the fourth study investigated if the video-based intervention (Study 3) contributed to changes in teachers’ and students’ (with and without NPS) perceptions of their teacher-student relationship. Theory: This dissertation takes its point of departure from a relational framework using Scheff’s (1997) theory of social bond together with Aspelin’s (2018) and Aspelin and Jönsson’s (2019) Relational Competence Model (RCM). The relational framework is supplemented by Laveand Wenger’s (1991) sociocultural theory of situated learning. Method: The overall design of this dissertation is based on mixed methods. An exploratory multi-stage evaluation design has been used. Characteristic of such a design is that each sub-study contains a study of its own which is iteratively following from the previous in order to evaluate the effect of the intervention made, and by extension, answering the overall research question. Knowledge contributions: The overall knowledge contribution of this dissertation concerns teachers’ perceptions of relational competence regarding students with ADHD, and how such perceptions can be developed. One of the dissertation’s scientific knowledge contributions is its testing ofthe RCM model for students with ADHD. The results indicate that the model can be successfully used to develop teachers’ relational competence towards these students. The dissertation also suggests that teachers need to have a “relational preparedness” - a readiness - for the unforeseen. This implies an ability to observe student behavior and reflect on what it suggests regarding students’ thoughts and feelings, together with the teacher’s ability to self-reflect with the intention to identify and acknowledge their own emotional reactions to student signals. Limitation: The lack of a randomized sample affects the credibility of the study. The lack of qualitative student interviews can be seen as a limitation as the information collected exposes changes in students’ perceptions but does not provide a deeper understanding of what the changes consisted of. Practical implications: The results are relevant for teacher education by providing a clear focus on teachers’ relational competence regarding students with ADHD, which, in turn, can help future teachers to be better equipped to meet the diversity of students in each classroom. Furthermore, the results should be relevant for teachers as well as school leaders, through its focus is on relational competence as a situated activity, and on how this competence can be developed through a small and limited intervention.

This thesis aims to contribute to knowledge about how teachers can develop their practice to enable students with intellectual disability (ID) and autism to participate in education. Pragmatism, situated learning, and variation theory have been guiding the studies. The research program follows an iterative design with an exploratory sequential design. The initial phase synthesized findings from practice-based research in the educational context of children with ID and co-occurring autism. In the next step, an intervention using Lesson Study, inspired by identified gaps in the research, targeting teachers' professional development and students' learning, was explored through quantitative and qualitative analyses of pre-and post-test data. After the initial examination, the intervention was adjusted and implemented in compulsory schooling for pupils with learning disabilities (CSPLD), for pupils with ID and autism. The main research question was: What, in a professional development program, contributes to enhancing teachers' abilities to develop teaching to increase educational participation for pupils with ID and autism?The narrative synthesis discerned six factors of importance to developing teaching practices in the Swedish CSPLD and thereby promoting contextualized inclusion for pupils with ID and autism. Namely, a. the inportance of collaborative work, b. focus on the pupils' participation in learning situations, c. distance to own teaching by video-based reflections, d. structured observations, e. analyses of how the design of lessons affects pupils' learning, f. changed focus from pupils' behavior to teaching and learning, and more generally, continuity regarding professional development over time. In conclusion, to gain further knowledge of teaching and learning in the context of CSPLD and achieve sustainability in the community where teachers share knowledge and curiosity about teaching and learning, Lesson Study is recomended as part of the SEND teacher commitment.

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the heritagisation of Swedish sports, which is examined through studies of five Swedish sports museums of today. Additionally, the disseration explores the heritagisation of Swedish sports in a wider historical perspective, mainly focusing on the years between 1900 and 2000.

There are plenty of sports museums in Sweden today, most of them run by amateurs related to sports history associations. The number of sports museums seem to have increased from the 1980’s, a development that can be seen in relation to a wider interest in heritage, especially heritage produced by amateurs and enthusiasts rather than experts. In the study, this tendency is referred to as “the heritage boom”, a term coined by archeologist Rodney Harrison. Heritage is seen as a both social and material construction which on one hand is determined by language, on the other hand by structural circumstances. When analysing heritage making on sports museums of today, categories such as gender, class, nation and generation have been used. Methodologically, archive studies have been conducted in order to study the heritagisation from a historical perspective, and ethnographic methods such as descriptions and interviews have been used to collect material in sports museums of today. All material have mainly been interpreted through discourse analysis.

The results show that the heritagisation of Swedish sports is as old as the organized sports in Sweden, since the first attempts to collect and exhibit the heritage was conducted in the early 1900s. However, despite numerous attempts, the sports heritage have had problems finding ways to be consistent until the very last few decades when the amateur-based heritage production have had its glory days. According to changes within museology and visitor interactment, the future for the Swedish sports heritage is difficult to predict. In the sports museums of today, exhibitions are generally focused on men’s sports, although changes seem to be in the making. Apart from that, there are several differences in how the sports museums constructs generation, class and nation, often depending on how the museums are managed.

Syftet med den här etnografin är att undersöka hur medialiseringen påverkar stadslivet i Malmö, särskilt ur ett tidsligt perspektiv. 

Föremål för studien är de tidsliga maktrelationer och linjära rytmer – som arbete och konsumtion – som medialiseringen ger upphov till i det urbana rummet. 

Fältarbetet har genomförts i stadsdelarna Seved, Centrum, Frihamnen och Möllevången i Malmö. Studien innehåller också en reflexiv del om erfarenheterna av att bära smart klocka under fyra år. 

Etnografins viktigaste upptäckt är att medialiseringen gör rumsligheter och tidsligheter abstrakta och föremål för konflikt. Det här skapar en nu typ av linjära rytmer: spekulativa rytmer. Det är en ny typ av linjära rytmer som är instabila, saknar kronologisk ordning och befinner sig i ständig förändring. Potentiellt kan vilken plats som helst vara vilken annan plats som helst och vilken tid som helst, vilken annan tid som helst. Utgången av de här konflikterna är en konsekvens att de inblandade parternas respektive styrkeförhållande i varje situation. 

Etnografin bidrar med ett tidsligt perspektiv på medialisering och ett ökat tidsligt förstående av samhället vi lever i.

The aim of this thesis was to increase our knowledge of the glassy state and the glass transition phenomenon and to evaluate the effect of water on the glassy state. To accomplish this, investigations were focused on the amorphous sucrose-water (paper I, II, III), trehalose-water (paper I), maltodextrin-water (paper I), and lysozyme-sucrose-water (paper IV) systems.

We studied temperature-induced and isothermal glass transition (I, II, III, IV), as well as the impact of water on the activation energy of the relaxation process (II). It has been shown that water undergoes glass transition with disaccharides, but in polysaccharides water dynamics is uncoupled from the polymer matrix. This results in differences in the water diffusion coefficient: water moves several orders of magnitude faster in the polymers than in disaccharides (I). Water reduces the activation energy of the relaxation process in the sucrose-water system (II). Attenuated water diffusion at sub-zero temperatures leads to a delay in water crystallization/melting in the sucrose-water system, which does not happen in a polysaccharide - water system (III). 

The Tg of the lysozyme-sucrose system increases with increasing lysozyme concentration, i.e., the DCp of the mixtures does not follow the prediction based on the properties of the pure components. Consequently, lysozyme does not modulate the glass transition of the sucrose matrix and the increase of the Tg of the mixtures is a result of the confinement of amorphous sucrose in the space between lysozyme molecules. The amorphous structure and unfolding of lysozyme in the presence of sucrose was investigated by DSC and SAXS. These data revealed an increase of the protein-protein distance upon addition of sucrose and upon heating, as a result of lysozyme unfolding (IV).

The overall aim of this thesis was to understand the impact of community-based participatory research-informed health promotional initiatives on the health of communities living in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Southern Sweden. The thesis was part of a larger program, Health promotion, Innovation in Collaboration which was a community-based participatory research program aiming to create novel ways to improve health through participatory and collaborative strategies. The thesis embraces one mixed-method study, a quantitative study, a qualitative study and finally a participatory action research study with a qualitative approach. A total of 49 citizens and 10 families with children aged 7-14 years from a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Southern Sweden participated in the different studies. The mixed-method study (Study I) described the development of initial evaluation of a Community-based participatory research(CBPR) informed physical activity intervention, which showed the need for the intervention to be offered cost-free and exclusively for women. In line with the results of the first study, the CBPR physical activity intervention was offered to 35 women in the neighbourhood and the effect of the intervention was assessed over time both quantitatively (Study II) and qualitatively (Study III), including a perspective on the pandemic. The last study (Study IV) focused on diet and oral health among families, particularly mothers and children. In this study, the children were initially engaged in a photovoice interview which was followed by a focus group with parents. The pre-study revealed that children disliked school lunch and did not eat breakfast regularly owing to time constraints and family situations. Furthermore, children also consumed a high amount of sugar. To this, the parents expressed that they were not able to guide their children appropriately and needed help with aspects such as diet focusing on breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as knowledge on oral hygiene habits. The quantitative part of Study I and Study II were repeated measures data at different time points before and after the intervention. The qualitative data in studies I and III were collected in form of focus group interviews in parallel to the quantitative data. The mode of data collection in Study IV was Multi-staged focus groups where the same families met at different time points and engaged in dialogue and reflection on different topics at each meeting. The results of the first three studies show that a CBPR informed physical activity intervention when offered in groups improved health-related quality of life, physical health, induced behavioural change and potentially builds resilience to withstand the psychosocial and physical effects of the pandemic. The last study shows that a CBPR informed oral health promotion through reflection and dialogue among families together with other stakeholders, influences behavioural change and perceived changes in health among parents and children living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood. In conclusion, this thesis highlights that social support is key to improved perceived health, empowerment, and sustainable behavioural change among citizens in the neighbourhood. Although women are most in need of support, they are also gateways to the families and thereby their communities. And finally, health promoters have had a vital role in engaging communities in health promotional efforts and bringing them closer to other societal actors, strengthening their social bonds and helping build community resilience in the face of adversity.

Den här avhandlingen studerar professionsutvecklande matematikundervisning i förskola och skola samt inom lärarutbildningen.

Det är utifrån ett behov av att utveckla kunskap om hur blivande och verksamma lärare kan utveckla sin kompetens att undervisa i matematik i de tidiga åren, som den här avhandlingens problemområde avgränsats, med intentionen att bidra till god matematikundervisning i förskola och skola genom att utveckla kunskap om lärares professionsutbildning. I denna avhandling är det både lärarutbildare och verksamma lärare som kollaborativt utvecklar sin förståelse för matematikundervisning och lärande i sina respektive verksamheter, genom kollaborativa insatser. I avhandlingen ingår fyra studier, och det som är gemensamt för samtliga ingående fyra studier är ett fokus på professionsutveckling för blivande och verksamma lärare som ska undervisa matematik i de yngre åren. Avhandlingens syfte är att bidra med kunskap om hur kollaborativ undervisningsutvecklande professionsutbildning kan utveckla blivande och verksamma lärares syn på och förståelse för yngre elevers/barns lärande i matematik och undervisningens betydelse för att stödja deras lärande. Kappans övergripande frågeställning är: Vilka inslag i professionsutveckling för blivande och verksamma lärare i matematik bidrar till att de utvecklar en förändrad syn på och förståelse för elevers kunnande och lärande genom matematikundervisning? Avhandlingens kunskapsbidrag utgörs av insikter i hur undervisning, kollaborativt planerad och iscensatt av lärarutbildare, i sin tur påverkar blivande och verksamma lärares syn på matematikundervisningens utformning samt barn och elevers matematikkunnande. För att se om det finns likheter och skillnader mellan olika utbildningskontexter har fyra studier valts ut, varav två lärarutbildningskontexter (förskollärar- och grundskollärarutbildning) och två kontexter för verksamma lärare (förskola och grundskola). Det teoretiska ramverk som använts som ansats, variationsteorin, bidrar till att lyfta fram det som haft betydelse för lärares förmåga att upptäcka och synliggöra aspekter som är avgörande för att iscensätta undervisning i relation till elevernas matematikkunnande. De kritiska aspekter som urskilts genom ett variationsteoretiskt perspektiv i syntetiseringen av de ingående fyra studierna är: För det första betydelsen av ämnesteoretiska innehållskunskaper. För det andra betydelsen av förståelse i hur innehållskunskapen behandlas och förstås i undervisningssammanhang. Såväl lärare som lärarstudenter i förskolan visade i större utsträckning svårigheter att identifiera barns informella kunskapsutveckling, samt svårighet att identifiera lärandets innehåll. Avseende lärarstudenter och lärare i grundskolans årskurs 4–6 hade de mindre svårigheter att identifiera innehållet, däremot fanns samma svårigheter med att identifiera barns och elevers förståelse av innehållet för lärarstudenterna. Det blir särskilt betydelsefullt inom lärarutbildning för blivande förskollärare eftersom det matematiska innehållet inte är lika framträdande inom denna kontext, och inte heller förståelsen för barns och elevers kunskapsutveckling i ämnet. Barns förmågor behöver både identifieras och utvecklas tidigt när de formellt inte räknar eller opererar med tal såsom CK (content knowledge) oftast presenteras inom matematikundervisning. Det innebär att MKT (Mathematical knowledge for teaching) utifrån den här studiens resultat behöver beaktas i större utsträckning inom olika utbildningssammanhang och mer specifikt inom lärarutbildningen mot de yngre åldrarna.

Policing research has had an upswing as the evidence-based policing movement has grown stronger and entered police practises worldwide. Within the evidence-based policing (EBP) approach, practically and academically skilled individuals, pracademics, have attracted attention as facilitating the merging of policing practice and research.

Using principles from EBP, and with a special focus on translating between policing practice, policy and research, this thesis aims to explore the characteristics of illicit drug markets with a place-based focus and to link this to the enhancement of EBP in Sweden. The theoretical base of the thesis is drawn from disorganization theory, routine activity theory and situational action theory, and these theories are combined with empirical studies from the research field of drug markets.

Drug markets are defined as open drug scenes (ODSs) in this pracademic thesis, which includes two empirical studies of patterns that characterize ODSs, one randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a law enforcement tactic at an ODS, and one case study of the impact of the pracademic research approach. The findings show that there are almost 50 ODSs in Stockholm County, which are characterized by patterns of crime concentration, a gun violence overlap, and associations with perceptions of unsafety. Three types of ODSs were identified, providing a basis for the tailoring of future interventions based on area characteristics, ODS stability, levels of violence, and gang activity. Micro places associated with ODSs and gun violence were found to be characterized by harsh social conditions and high levels of crime. A predictive index was created to forecast micro places at which gun violence may occur, and the prediction was enhanced when ODSs were included as predictive locations. The RCT, which was completed at a well-known ODS in the inner city of Stockholm, showed a slight but non-significant effect of the police conducting motivational talks with offenders, which gave rise to questions regarding the method’s effectiveness. The case study of the RCT process found frustration in police departments to be a possible door-opener for research. Ease of implementation was associated with the research having credibility among police officers, which was achieved by including the needs of practice in research questions and through the role played by the pracademic researcher.

This thesis argues for making use of pracademics to bridge the research-practice gap, a focus on ODSs, and the testing and tracking of methods such as hot spots policing, with an emphasis on properly implemented evidence-based methods and on the goals of enforcement strategies as a means of improving the effectiveness of drug-market policing.

In Swedish mathematics classrooms, students have different opportunities to participate in mathematical dialogue, and therefore also different opportunities to learn. This is a problem not only for students, but also for teachers, school developers, and researchers. By moving back and forth between two settings – the upper secondary mathematics classroom and the professional development group – this thesis aims to explore how questioning and listening can promote participation in mathematical dialogue. The following three research questions are in focus: What aspects of students’ questioning and listening do teachers need to pay attention to when promoting students’ participation in mathematical dialogue? What aspects of teachers’ questioning and listening are important when teachers promote students’ participation in mathematical dialogue? How can teachers, in cooperation with researchers, develop an awareness and refine their teaching in relation to students’ listening, questioning, and participation in mathematical dialogue?

By using educational design research, two sub-studies were conducted – one with a focus on students and one with a focus on teachers – and the results were described in four articles. Theories on three different levels were used and coordinated to understand mathematical dialogue: sociocultural theory to situate the research study on an overall level where interaction and communication are essential; the concept of mathematical dialogue by Alro and Skovsmose (2004), including their Inquiry Co-operation model to understand quality in mathematical dialogue; and local theories to study facets of mathematical dialogue concerning questioning, listening, and participation.

The results point to how important both students’ and teachers’ questions are for creating equitable participation opportunities, and how teachers can promote mathematical dialogue by using pre-thought specific mathematical why-questions that invite all students to participate in small groupproblem-solving work. The results also point to the importance of working with productive listening, a process that requires both requests for listening and willingness to listen to others. For teachers to develop an awareness and to refine their teaching in relation to mathematical dialogue, the cyclic structure of EDR, working with teacher noticing and moving back and forth between the two settings, help visualize their development processes.

The main contributions of the thesis are (1) the framework for productive listening, (2) the empirical results concerning how mathematical questioning is used to promote students’ participation in mathematical dialogue, and (3) the learnings of how mathematics education theories can be used and coordinated to increace understandings on mathematical dialogue. At the end of the thesis, a meta-reflection is made on how collaboration between different actors – students, teachers, school developers and researchers – can build bridges and deepen the understandings of the complexity of mathematical dialogue.

During the second half of the 20th century education has been recognized as a human right in several international conventions, and the UN also holds that “Education shall be free” and that “Elementary education shall be compulsory” (UN, 1948, Article 26).

The education-as-a-human right-project could be viewed as a good intention of global inclusion in recognizing that all individuals have a right to education in virtue of being humans, and the idea of education as a human right thus has a tremendous global significance. However, if we look at this more critically, the education-as-a-human right-project, may not only be grounded in altruistic good intensions for the disadvantaged.

 The term “elementary education”, or sometimes “primary education”, which is used in several human rights-documents seems to suggest that it is some sort of formalized education. It would be useful however to make a distinction between formal and informal education, as well as between teaching, learning, education and schooling, in the discussion of the right to education and specifically in the discussion concerning education as a “human right”.

 There is obviously a difference between the right to teach, the right to learn, the right to education and the right to schooling. And how are these rights related to compulsory schooling, compulsory education and the supposed duty to teach and duty to learn? A further concern is what makes this a human right rather than for example a juridical right as a citizen.

By addressing these questions within a theoretical framework of social ontology and ameliorative conceptual analysis I believe that we can find new ways of dealing with fundamental problems within philosophy of education such as the nature, purpose and aims of education as well as the right to education.

The general aim of this thesis is to explore the relations between children’s interaction and places within preschool activities. How children’s interaction opportunities are conditioned by the physical and social environment in the preschool yard (study I), as well as place-making processes in various contexts in mobile preschool activities (studies II and III), are examined within the framework of this purpose. As these three sub-studies have different research focuses, they use different theoretical perspectives. 

In study I, special attention is given to how the physical environment and teachers emerge in the contexts of children’s (aged 1–3 years) interaction in the preschool yard. Study II focuses on how children (aged 3–4 years) use the spatiality of a mobile preschool to create places in a recurring fantasy play. In study III, the focus is directed on both children’s place-making within fantasy play and how children and teachers create “place” together in a mobile preschool. Destination choices can be part of place-making processes of a mobile preschool; therefore, which aspects considered as important, in choosing a destination, are investigated. 

The first study starts from sociocultural perspectives on children’s interaction (e.g. Vygotsky, 1930/ 1995). Taking an abductive approach, the concept of artifacts (Wartofsky, 1979) and concepts from an environmental psychological perspective (see Gump, 1969; Westlander, 1999; Wicker, 1985, 1987) are added to explore how the social and physical environments relate to opportunities for different interactions. The results show how children reveal "interaction junctions" and "interaction swathes" in their activities within the preschool yard.  

In order to investigate place-making within a mobile preschool, the second and third studies combine a relational perspective on spatiality (Massey, 2005) with a sociology of childhood perspective that emphasizes children’s agency and collective activities, such as fantasy play (e.g. Corsaro, 2015). The results show how children create their own “play-places” in their place-making and how teachers choose destinations.  

Through its chosen perspectives and focus on younger preschoolers, this thesis provides further knowledge on how opportunities for interaction can arise in the preschool yard. Furthermore, this thesis reveals a new kind of spatiality within the preschool – that is, a mobile preschool – by using a relational perspective on place-making. Thus, this thesis contributes additional knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of Childhood Studies regarding children’s (possible) interaction in diverse places. 

Through a series of studies, this thesis investigates the learning of definiteness in Russian-speaking students of Swedish. A communicative oral-production task elicited modified and non-modified noun phrases in indefinite and definite contexts. Study I describes the development of the morphosyntactic structure through which Swedish encodes definiteness, the association between this structure and its meaning, and the relationship between those two tasks over time. Using an English version of the elicitation task and a test of metalinguistic knowledge, Study II examines the relationship between the learners’ explicit knowledge of article semantics and their actual use of English articles. Adding a test of language-learning aptitude, Study III then explores both the influence of second-language English and that of aptitude on the development of Swedish. Finally, Study IV discusses the role of complexity and input frequency. 

The main findings include that, at the onset of Swedish study, the learners had minimal knowledge of the morphosyntactic structure but were generally sensitive to the meaning of definiteness. However, knowledge of form developed over time while knowledge of meaning did not, and the two learning tasks did not appear to be directly related to each other. In addition, the learners were seldom aware that choosing between indefinite and definite articles requires the speaker to take the hearer’s perspective, but this lack of metalinguistic understanding did not seem to affect their use of articles. Further, previous knowledge of English appeared to facilitate the development of a Swedish morpheme that is structurally similar to its English counterpart, while aptitude was associated with the development of a morpheme whose English counterpart is structurally different. Finally, the learners used high-frequency morphemes more consistently than low-frequency ones, and morphemes were more likely to be supplied in frequent constructions than in infrequent ones. These findings are discussed in relation to a modular, cognitive framework for language learning and use. 

Avhandlingen undersöker med ett kritiskt perspektiv de idéer om kulturens värden som framkommer i samband med Malmös stadsomvandling 1990–2012. Berättelsen om Malmös utveckling under den här perioden är på många sätt typisk. I Malmö – liksom i många andra samtida urbana omvandlingsprocesser – framställs staden som en krisdrabbad industristad, som med privata och offentliga insatser omvandlas till ett dynamiskt, urbant centrum i en kunskapsbaserad och kreativ ekonomi. I fokus för analysen står det ideologiska meningsskapande som sker när kulturens roll i dessa utvecklingsprocesser beskrivs. Analysen riktar sig därmed mot det kulturpolitiska området. Dels i traditionell, avgränsad mening. Dels som utvidgat fält med ett större antal aktörer inblandade i formulerandet av politiskt motiverade idéer om kulturens värden för samhällets utveckling. Den breda ansatsen innebär att det analyserade materialet omfattar kommunala texter och policydokument som har sin upprinnelse i såväl explicita som implicita kulturpolitiska sammanhang. Materialet har tolkats kritiskt med fokus på texternas ideologiska meningsproduktion.

Avhandlingen visar att idéerna om kulturens värden för Malmös stadsomvandling har varit många och mångtydiga. Vissa idéer har formats i samförstånd mellan olika aktörer och politiska nivåer och därmed fått betydelse för och genomslag i stadsförnyelsearbetet. Andra idéer om kulturens värden har stått i motsättning till varandra och gett uttryck för andra och konkurrerande föreställningar om vad kultur är, varför den är värdefull, och på vilka sätt kulturen kan, och bör, fungera som en resurs i stadens omvandling. Avhandlingen visar att kultur anses vara av värde för ökad social välfärd, å ena sidan, och ökad ekonomisk tillväxt, å andra sidan, samt belyser mönster av ideologiskt samförstånd respektive konflikt inom och mellan dessa respektive idéer.

After decades of virtual exclusion from participation in STEM, women have majored in, earned graduate degrees in, and forged careers in male-dominated fields such as the physical sciences in increasing numbers. At each step of the way, however, women’s participation diminishes, and this is especially apparent in the workforce. Moreover, these women are likely to be doing different work than men; that is, STEM workplaces are vertically segregated by gender, and women’s work, while important, is often lower-paid and lower-prestige than men’s work. The purpose of this research was to characterize one example of vertical segregation, teaching-intensive faculty positions in a university physical science department, and to explore how and why gender matters for the women, and men, who are on the teaching faculty. Using ethnographic methodology to trace, through their social interactions, how individuals’ experiences are shaped by institutional viii norms and ideologies, the analysis was shaped by theories of gender as a social system that works to perpetuate inequality. The teaching track is an alternative job track that allows participants to have work-life balance, which is commonly explained to be more suitable than the research track for women in science who want to have children. Concerningly, there are significant negative consequences for pursuing this track, at least for the women. Fundamental aspects of fulfilling and equitable work, such as fair pay, respect, and advancement pathways, are elusive. When women do resist or challenge their marginalization, they are met with unfair treatment and even harassment. The experience of men on teaching faculty is a sharp contrast; as men, they belong in science and this brings a default of respect as well as elevation to higher pay. Thus, the teaching faculty has an internal gender hierarchy. As such, this inquiry offers the conclusion that college science teaching is women’s work not because it offers a safe and fair space to have a career and a family, but because the neoliberal academy requires low-cost and flexible labor to carry out its teaching mission, and women are easily exploited to provide this labor. 

Salivary pellicles display exceptional hydration and lubrication performance. At present, there are still gaps in the understanding of how this is achieved. The aim of this thesis was therefore to increase our knowledge on the mechanisms underlying these properties and deepen the understanding of how they are related to the composition and structure of pellicles, with a focus on those formed under in vitro conditions. This has applications ranging from the development of artificial saliva and lubricating coatings for biomedical applications to methodological approaches for initial testing of oral healthcare products. For this, we also focused on developing suitable methodological approaches for these studies, centering on atomic force microscopy, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring, ellipsometry and neutron reflectometry techniques, to investigate in vitro and model salivary pellicles.

First, we confirmed a two-layer structure for in vitro salivary pellicles and showed that the outer layer is mainly composed by the oral mucin MUC5B, but that it also contains other salivary components that enhance swelling and hydration. In the presence of bulk saliva, the outer layer also contains a reversibly and loosely bound fraction. This fraction increases the adhesiveness of the pellicle but unexpectedly has no significant effect on its lubrication performance. We also investigated the effect of mechanical confinement on model salivary pellicles by means of Neutron Reflectometry, revealing that at a pressure of 1 bar they are already completely compressed and dehydrated. Finally, with the aim to advance towards better oral healthcare products, we investigated the effect of nonionic and amphoteric surfactants on salivary pellicles, showing that they have a gentler effect on pellicle structure than the commonly employed anionic surfactants.

This dissertation explores how and why adult migrants with academic backgrounds read literature. Two connected studies investigate second language learners' fiction reading practices in an advanced Swedish course at two universities, as well as in free time, several years after such a course. The method is qualitative, and the data consists of syllabuses, observations of an oral exam, as well as interviews with teachers, students, and multilingual individuals living in Sweden permanently. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the thesis, the data is analyzed with a  broad variety of theoretical tools, based on three cornerstones: literary education, second language learning and sociolinguistics.

The study shows that the individuals possess a great deal of resources in terms of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977) and literature reading. This is especially true for Eastern European students, who carry a lot of literary performance competence (Torell, 2002), including knowledge of literary canon. Overall, the multilingual academics have been socialized into fiction reading from a young age. Part I, concerning the educational context, shows that reading in Swedish, however, has been insufficient prior to the course. Therefore, the course seems to play an important role in increasing the habit of reading in Swedish, not to mention increasing linguistic self-esteem.

Reading is often legititnized by sociocultural reasons, mainly as a source of cultural knowledge (Felsk.i, 2008), but there is alsoa desire to experience the Swedish culture from the inside. The students suggest that literature can be experienced as a fonn of integration, since it makes you a part of the Swedish population that reads. However, this has more to do with social and cultural practices than being assimilated to become a "Swede". The migrants read in Swedish, or want to read in Swedish, because they already are "readers". The results indicate that the main contribution of fiction reading in advanced Swedish courses is to introduce the option of becoming a person who (also) reads in Swedish. According to me, becoming a "Swedish reader", a person that reads in Swedish that is, means being yourself, with maintained cultural capital and literary identity, even in the new cultural and linguistic context.

ln addition, language learning is considered important, when reading literature in a foreign language. The students tend to stress explicit language skills such as vocabulary learning, whereas the teachers emphasize metalinguistic skills and abstract second language use. The results imply that the multilinguals find it easier to use CALP, cognitive and academic language proficiency (Cummins, 1981) than BICS, basic  interpersonal communication skills. This supports the idea that CUP, common underlaying proficiency (Cummins, 2000), as well as critical literacy (Janks, 2013), can be transferred from one language to another. Thus, most of the highly educated students use abstract and metacognitive skills in literature discussions at an advanced level. This leads to the conclusion that advanced skills in literature reading, language learning strategies, and metacognition are not a result of this course but originate from previous contexts. Moreover, interviews show that the highly educated readers do not only combine analytical and emotional reading, but often read with a focus on language matters, without disturbing the creative reading (Persson, 2007).

Part Il shows that the multilingual readers' literary practices in their free time are as dynamic and diverse as adult multilingualism itself (Cenoz, 2017). Some of the migrants have grown up with two languages, some speak three or four languages, and one speaks - and reads in -five languages. The infonnants carry cultural capital but also a literary identity that they bring into the new linguistic and cultural context They do not read in Swedish exclusively; as a matter of fact, they often alternate between different reading languages in their repertoire. Sometimes Swedish is not included among their reading languages, due to the number of other possible reading languages. In some cases, the identity positioning as a reader does not correspond with their present reading  habits. Still, the cultural capital from former contexts is supplemented  by knowledge and experience of Swedish  literature. I claim that this could be called having a literary multilingual  identity. An essential  result of the study is that most  of the  migrants consider  reading in Swedish an  opportunity for wider options of social and cultural practices. These practices are not imposed by society (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004) but negotiable. Suggested further research topics are related to different perspectives on underused resources of multilingual adults, especially those who carry a high cultural capital. This applies to the literature education field as well as to sociolinguistics, and includes topics such as integration, identity, and language use.

The skin provides a link to the body’s health via its rich variety of high and low molecular weight biomarkers, reflecting both systemic diseases (e.g., cancer, diabetes) and local skin disorders (e.g., atopic dermatitis, psoriasis). Non-invasive monitoring of disease-specific biomarkers on the skin surface provides a highly attractive diagnostic procedure as alternative to current practices that normally are biopsy-based and invasive. In order to succeed with non-invasive topical diagnostics, the sampling of biomarkers should proceed in a highly accurate and reproducible manner. Further, a major challenge to achieve this goal is to overcome the outermost skin layer (the stratum corneum, SC) that acts as a remarkable permeability barrier, restricting molecular diffusion in and out of our body, including diffusion of potential biomarkers.

The primary aim of this thesis is to achieve an optimized and reproducible noninvasive sampling of endogenous biomarkers from the skin surface. Here, water plays a crucial role as the hydration degree of the SC has a strong influence on the diffusion of molecules across the skin barrier. In particular, fully hydrated skin is expected to be optimal for increased diffusion of biomarkers in the skin tissue, favoring efficient extraction.

Considering this, to develop a suitable sampling matrix for non-invasive extraction, it is very important to optimize the matrix so that it has a good ability to hydrate the skin as well as a high capacity to absorb the biomarker and finally allow for analytic quantification. The main questions in this thesis are as follows. (i) How long time does it take to reach a stable level of skin hydration? (ii) How do the intrinsic properties of sampling matrices influence the extraction of biomarkers? (iii) What are the effects of the sampling matrices on the biophysical properties of the skin barrier?(iv) Are hydrogels and bicontinuous cubic liquid crystals suitable matrices for noninvasive sampling of endogenous biomarkers? (v) Is reverse iontophoresis a suitable technique to further enhance the extraction endogenous biomarkers?

The hydration of the skin is investigated in vivo and in vitro in order to estimate the time to reach stable hydration level. We show that skin hydration proceeds in two distinct stages with different rates of change of the electrical impedance response and conclude that stable conditions are obtained approximately after 60 min of hydration. We explore the novel approach of using lipid-based bicontinuous cubic liquid crystalline phases as matrices for non-invasive sampling of biomarkers in vivo and invitro and compare them with hydrogel-based materials.

From these investigations, we conclude that both kind of materials show promising capacity of hydrating the skin and collect skin-derived biomarkers. However, the cubic phases are shown to havea bout twice as high extraction capacity, as compared to hydrogels. Further, we show that reverse iontophoresis enhances extraction of a potential cancer biomarker in vitro by at least an order of magnitude, as compared to passive diffusion. Taken together, the results obtained in this thesis can serve as a point-of-departure for future applications based on non-invasive sampling of disease-related biomarkers from skinin clinical diagnostics.

This thesis investigates parents’ views on mathematics education for young children at home and in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions in Sweden and Norway. The curricula documents for ECEC highlight the importance of collaboration between teachers and parents for children’s learning and development. However, the views of parents on the education of young children are seldom explored in research. The assumption that parents and other family members can contribute to children’s mathematics education is a fundamental assumption in the current project. The narratives of parents of their experiences with young children in mathematics education were analysed to identify answers to the following overarching research questions. how can parents’ views on mathematics activities for young children be identified? what do parents’ value in mathematics education for young children? and what might influence parents’ views on mathematics education? Parents’ views were investigated by collecting data from online surveys of Polish parents living in Sweden and through photo-elicitation focus group interviews with Norwegian parents. The narratives that were produced from these two data collections provided different insights into parents’ views on mathematics education for young children which have to do with the relationship between parents’ individual views and wider societal views. The findings indicate that counting was viewed as important for young children, and everyday life experiences were considered an appropriate means of introducing them to mathematical ideas. Many of the parents emphasised their role in children’s mathematics learning and its impact on how the children engaged with mathematics at home. The findings also indicate that parents’ views on mathematics education are influenced by wider societal expectations connected to ECEC pedagogical practices in mathematics education. The implications of this research include an understanding of the kinds of opportunities there are for parents to contribute to the introduction of mathematics education to ECEC. Nevertheless, the research results also show that collaboration vibetween parents and teachers can be challenging because of the different nature of their roles. Consequently, one outcome of this research is the identification of a need for further research into the complexity of collaboration as this relates to the negotiation of different understandings of pedagogy, mathematics and roles and responsibilities in children’s learning of mathematics.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how history teachers in Swedish upper-secondary school perceive voluntary external tests in history. The study focuses on history teachers' perceptions of 1) the design of the tests, 2) the implementation of the tests, 3) the use of the tests and 4) the impact of the tests on their assessment practice. The overall aim is to investigate how historical culture, as it is expressed in the school subject of history, changes over time. The analytical focus for the study has been to explore the significance of knowledge assessment in general, and voluntary external tests in particular, for this change. The temporal focus for the study has been the 2011 Swedish school policy reforms manifested in the curriculum for upper-secondary school (Gy11).

The theoretical framework combines theory of history didactics and theory of assessment. Historical culture and assessment culture are the central concepts of the study. The overall hypothesis of the study is that the relationship between the school's historical-cultural dimension and the assessment-cultural dimension contains a latent tension referred to as the dilemma of the fourth quadrant.

The empirical material was collected from qualitative interviews with eight history teachers. The first sub-study included four teachers during the year 2009 who had used a voluntary external test named the History Teachers' Test (HLP). The second sub study included four teachers during the year 2016 who had used a voluntary external test named the Course Test in History (KP).

The results show that history teachers perceive and handle the external tests in different ways. One possible interpretation of this difference is that the tests respond to different needs or problems. In the study, two such problem areas have emerged, the equivalence problem and the alignment problem. A conclusion based on the empirical results is that the HLP-teachers use the test results for a summative purpose to deal with an equivalence problem, while the KP-teachers use the test tools for a formative purpose to deal with an alignment problem. The results also show that there is strong a connection between the school's historical-cultural dimension and assessment-cultural dimension, manifested in the history teachers' different ways of perceiving and using voluntary external tests.

This thesis is focused on (I) the outcome of reconstructive treatment of peri-implant defects and (II) risk factors for the development of peri-implantitis.

Background

An increasing number of individuals have dental implant-supported reconstructions. The long-time survival rate of dental implants is good, but complications do occur. Accumulation of bacteria on oral implants and the development of a pathogenic biofilm at the mucosal margin will result in inflammatory responses diagnosed as peri-implant mucositis(PiM). Furthermore, PiM may progress to peri-implantitis (Pi) involving the implant-supporting bone and potentially result in a severe inflammatory process resulting in alveolar bone destruction and consequently implantloss. Currently, Pi is a common clinical complication following implant therapy.The prevalence of peri-implantitis has been reported to be around 20 %. Susceptibility to infections and a history of periodontitis are considered as important risk indicators for peri-implantitis. It seems logical that a past history of periodontitis is linked to an increased risk of peri-implantitis. It is possible that other patient-associated factors such as a smoking habit, and presence of general diseases may also be linked to a higher risk for developing peri-implantitis.Treatment of peri-implantitis is difficult. Non-surgical treatment modalities may not be sufficient to resolve the inflammatory process to obtain healthy conditions.Surgical treatment of peri-implantitis has commonly been employed in clinical practice to obtain access to the implant surface thereby increasing the possibility to effectively decontaminate the implant surfaces.The effectiveness and long-term outcomes of reconstructive surgical treatments of peri-implantitis has been debated. The scientific evidence suggests that regular supportive care is an essential component in order to maintain and secure long-term results following treatment of peri-implantitis.

Aims

1. To assess the short-term efficacy of reconstructive surgical treatmentof peri-implantitis  (Study I).

2. To analyse risk factors related to the occurrence of peri-implantitis(Study II).

3. To assess the importance of defect configuration on the healing response after reconstructive surgical therapy of peri-implantitis (Study III).

4. To assess the long-term efficacy of reconstructive surgical treatmentof peri-implantitis (Study IV).

MethodsFour studies were designed to fulfil the aims:

- A single-blinded prospective randomised controlled longitudinal human clinical trial evaluating the clinical and radiographic results of reconstructive surgical treatment of peri-implantitis defects usingeither AB or BDX.

- A retrospective analysis of individuals with either peri-implantitis, or presenting with either peri-implant health, or peri-implant mucositis assessing the likelihood that peri-implantitis was associated with a history of systemic disease, a history of periodontitis, and smoking.

- A prospective study evaluating if the alveolar bone defect configuration at dental implants diagnosed with peri-implantitisis related to clinical parameters at the time of surgical intervention and if the short- and long-term outcome of surgical intervention of peri-implantitis is dependent on defect configuration at the time of treatment.

- A prospective 5-year follow-up of patients treated either with AB or BDX.

Results

- The success for both surgical reconstructive procedures was limited. Nevertheless, bovine xenograft provided evidence of more radiographic bone fill than AB. Improvements in PD, BOP, and SUP were observed for both treatment modalities

-In relation to a diagnosis of peri-implantitis, a high likelihood of comorbidity was expressed in the presence of a history of periodontitis and a medical history of cardiovascular disease

- The buccal-lingual width of the alveolar bone crest was explanatory to defect configuration

- 4-wall defects and deeper defects demonstrated more radiographic evidence of defect fill

- Reconstructive surgical treatment of peri-implant defects may result in successful clinical outcomes, that can be maintained over at least five years

- The use of BDX is more predictable than use of harvested bone from the patient (AB)

Conclusions

The study results suggest that a bovine xenograft provides better radiographic evidence of defect fill than the use of autogenous bone harvested from cortical autologous bone grafts.Treatment with bone grafts to obtain radiographic evidence of defect fill is more predictable at 3- and 4-wall defects than at peri-implantitis bone defects with fewer bone walls.In relation to a diagnosis of peri-implantitis, a high likelihood of comorbidity was found for a history of periodontitis and a history of cardiovascular disease.

Development of skin inflammation and cancer in viable epidermis and dermis involve slow molecular weight (LMW) metabolites. We hypothesize that these LMW compounds can be collected on the surface of the skin and used for non-invasive diagnostics of skin disorders. Keeping in mind that substantial transdermal penetrationis achieved only for molecules of < 500 Da, we focused on topical monitoring of LMW biomarkers. In this thesis we investigated non-invasive, topical methods for monitoring LMW biomarkers by relevant in vitro and in vivo experiments. The LMW biomarkers were:

- reactive oxygen species (ROS), specifically, hydrogen peroxide, H2O2

- amino acids and their derivatives, i.e., tryptophan (Trp), kynurenine (Kyn; a Trpderivative), phenylalanine (Phe), and tyrosine (Tyr; a Phe derivative).

Initially, we have carried out in vitro experiments using dermatomed porcine skin and cell cultures. We characterized permeability of the biomarkers through skin and assessed methods of their monitoring. By using Prussian white particles, deposited on porcine skin, we demonstrated that hydrophilic biomarkers, such as H2O2, permeate the skin mainly through hair follicle pathways (Paper I). In paper II, we have showed that the enzymes transforming Trp to the inflammation and cancer biomarker Kyn, are expressed in the basal layer of epidermis. The magnitude of changes of the Trp/Kyn ratio in the cell culture model was assessed. In paper III, we have characterized Trp and Kyn permeability through skin in vitro, concluding that their permeabilities through stratum corneum are comparable. By in vivo experiments outlined in Paper IV, we have demonstrated the feasibility of topical, non-invasive sampling of Trp and Kyn, in relation to other amino acids. Kyn detection was compromised by its low abundance on the skin. In paper V, we performed a proof-of-concept study in vivo and confirmed that non-invasive sampling of Trp and amino acids of similar abundance, such as Phe and Tyr, is more robust. We concluded that Phe/Trp ratio might be equally good biomarker of skin disorders as a predicted Trp/Kyn ratio. Summarizing, the results of this thesis provide basic knowledge for deeper clinical studies of non-invasive, topical sampling of hydrophilic LMW biomarkers of skin inflammation and cancer.

The discourse on religious extremism and jihadism has stimulated deep interest in religion as a factor in social problems. So have other religion-related issues such as honour-related violence, migration and integration, and female circumcision. Given that social workers are often mentioned as pivotal actors when it comes to preventing and working long-term with extremism, radicalisation, and related issues, religion has acquired increased visibility in social work. This has reinvigorated discourse on religion within social work practice, policy and research.

This dissertation attempts to grapple with and theorise about the implications of this new visibility of religion in social work. Its starting point is an analysis of the tacit assumptions about religion revealed in interviews with practitioners in the field of preventing violent extremism and promoting democracy. Genealogical analysis then contextualises these tacit, secular assumptions in a historical, philosophical and theological setting, so denaturalising them. This work clears the way for developing a new and innovative path that holds promise for more productive work in relation to religious social problems.

The main argument in this dissertation is that a secularist concept of religion falls short when doing social work with religious citizens. This is because a secularist concept of religion regards religion either as a set of doctrines or teachings or as purely subjective and emotional. Practitioners who take the former position often try to disprove specific doctrines, as if doctrines produce religious extremists. Practitioners who adopt the latter position try to change the inner inclinations of the subjects from, say, an extremist disposition to a democratic one, or from radical Islam to ‘mainstream’ Islam. Both approaches are inadequate because by depriving religion of its bodily and institutional setting, religion is reduced solely to its intellectual or emotional elements, while overlooking its practical, social, institutional and embodied aspects.

The alternative conceptualisation of religion proposed in this dissertation is rooted in phenomenology. If religion is conceived of as a horizon of meaning that precedes and supersedes individual choice and preference, while simultaneously being construed as contextual and open to reinterpretation, encounters between social workers and religious clients can be guided by openness, interest and curiosity, even reconciliation. Change could, then, be achieved from within the clients’ lifeworld, rather than through confrontation and the advocating of drastic alternatives to their present lifeworld. Such an approach to social work with religious clients is likely to be more successful than one rooted in a much narrower understandings of religion.

Sialic acids (SA), a group of nine-carbon backbone monosaccharides are abundantly expressed in vertebrates. They are usually linked to the terminal of glycan chains and play crucial roles in many biological processes, including cell adhesion, cell-cell interactions, immune modulation, cancer cell migration and invasion, as well as viral infections. To analyze and monitor SA expression, antibodies and glycan-binding lectins are typically used. However, high costs and poor stability limit the application in SA analysis. To overcome these drawbacks, an imprinting technique was used to synthesize an alternative SA receptor – SA molecularly imprinted polymers (SA-MIPs). Fluorescent molecules are embedded into the MIPs, facilitating the detection of MIPs binding to cells by flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy. Firstly, core-shell SA imprinted MIPs were used to analyze SA expression in a panel of breast cancer cell lines. The SA expression of these cell lines was also tested by using the two glycan-binding lectins, MAL andSNA, which recognize α2,3 and α2,6 SA, respectively. Our results show that breast cancer cell lines express α2,3 and α2,6 SA dissimilarly, and hence present different SA-MIP binding patterns. The specificity of SA-MIPs was further verified by an inhibition assay using two pentavalent SA conjugates that interfere with the SAMIPs.Furthermore, the SA-MIP synthesis protocol has been improved by using silica-coated polystyrene particles. The polystyrene core particles are lighter and smaller, increasing MIP suspensibility and augmenting MIP-cancer cell interactions. The cancer cell binding properties and the specificity have been verified by using thirteen different cancer cell lines, showing that the SA-MIPs can be used as effective tools for SA expression analysis. The SA-MIPs were used to analyze the SA expression of in vitro cultured cells treated with soluble cytokines to mimic the tumor microenvironment. The SA expression of two cancer cell lines stimulated with soluble cytokines was analyzed by using lectins and SA-MIPs. The MIPbinding data correlated well with lectin staining results, demonstrating the potential of SA-MIPs to be used in the analysis of overexpressed SA in the tumor microenvironment. Furthermore, the involvement of SA in the infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was assessed. The viral surface receptor-binding domain (RBD) recognizes and conjugates with receptors on host cells, triggering the infection. Although the interaction between the RBD and host cells has been extensively studied, the mechanism behind this reaction is not fully determined. In this study, the interaction between the viral RBD and a panel of human cell lines from tissues susceptible to viral infection was tested. Moreover, the role of SA in this interaction has also been tested and evaluated.

Problematic opioid use constitutes an extensive global problem. Correspondingly, opioid-related mortality is high and has increased in several Western countries, including Sweden, during the 2000s. In Sweden, the most effective treatment method, opioid substitution treatment (OST), was for a long time limited with respect to the number of patients. The treatment was also characterized by strict rules and conducted in a high-threshold manner, which has meant that it has not been fully appealing to people with problematic opioid use. Therefore, in Skåne County in southern Sweden, patient choice of treatment provider was introduced for OST in 2014 with the intention to increase the number of treatment places and strengthen patient empowerment. The overall aims of this thesis are (1) to investigate opioid-related deaths in Skåne with a focus on contact with care-providing authorities and in relation to increased access to OST, and (2) to examine patients’ and clinic managers’ attitudes towards the introduction of the patient choice reform for OST and their views of the reform's objectives of increased accessibility to OST and strengthening patients' empowerment and influence over their treatment.

The four papers in this thesis are based on two research projects with various empiric material. Paper I and II are based on data on opioid overdose deaths from a period of two years before and two years following the introduction of the patient choice reform. Forensic data regarding the presence of various substances and which opioid caused the death, as well as demographic data and information on contact with care-providing authorities (health care, social services, and the Prison and Probation Service), were collected. Paper I examines clinical background and contact with care-providing authorities of opioid-related fatalities, as well as differences with regard to which opioid caused the death. Paper II examines the possible impact of the intervention on the development of opioid-related deaths in the region. National mortality data were also used in this study to investigate the development in Skåne compared to the rest of Sweden. The second research project focused on stakeholders’ views on the implementation of the patient choice reform. Paper III includes interviews with 33 OST patients, and paper IV consists of interviews with the managers of all OST clinics in Skåne. The results from paper I show that of the 180 deceased in opioid overdose included in the study, almost 90 per cent had been in contact with one of the examined care-providing authorities during the year prior to death. Few differences appeared with regard to which opioid contributed to the death. Paper II indicates that there has been no significant change in opioid-related deaths in Skåne after the patient choice reform and increased access to OST. An analysis on national mortality data however showed a significant yearly decrease in drug-related deaths in Skåne compared to other Swedish counties in the years following the reform (2015–2017). No change was noted in deaths related to methadone or buprenorphine in Skåne. The proportion of deaths among patients in OST increased after the introduction of the reform. The third paper indicates that patients in OST in Skåne have gained increased empowerment and influence over their treatment since the patient choice reform was introduced. Patients especially appreciated the knowledge that they could make an exit and change clinics if they so wished, even if they so far had chosen not to. In paper IV, the clinic managers were largely positive to the trend towards increased influence for patients over their treatment situation. They were more critical of the fact that there was no major differentiation between treatment providers, and that the competition that arose after the patient choice reform mainly was related to prescribing benzodiazepines.

Conclusions drawn from the papers in this thesis include that patient choice of treatment provider can be viewed as a means of empowerment for patients in OST, which was regarded as positive by both patients and treatment providers. The limitations of such a system for providing OST that emerged were lack of diversity between clinics and that the competition between treatment providers largely comprised of differing views on the prescription of benzodiazepines. Further, improved access to low-threshold OST in Skåne was not associated with an increased overdose death-rate. The result that people who died from opioid overdose to a very large extent are known to society’s care-providing authorities suggests that there are considerable opportunities to reach people with problematic opioid use for therapeutic and harm reducing measures such as low-threshold OST and take-home naloxone.

Antibodies have become a critical component of many diagnostic assays and are used for therapeutic purposes. Nevertheless they often fail to meet the strict performance demands raised in industry and in the clinic (e.g. stability, reproducibility, selectivity, affinity). These issues are especially notable for assays targeting post translational modifications (PTM) of proteins (phosphorylation, glycosylation, sulfation etc.). Antibody-based technologies suffer from problems of a more general nature associated with the analytical use of biological receptors i.e.: i) limited stability requiring cold chain logistics, ii) high production costs, iii) batch to batch variability. The above emphasizes the need for alternative robust, reproducible and low cost “binders” and assays. The aim in this thesis is to design, develop and test molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) which were synthesized epitope and stoichiometric imprinting approaches targeting phosphorylation as a PTM. Protein phosphorylationis one of the most common PTM, which is based on covalent attachment of phosphate group to particular amino acids. Misregulation of phosphorylation process is found related with diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and neurodegeneration. MIPs are synthesized through copolymerization of functional monomers and crosslinkers in the presence of N- and C- terminal protected templates. The key recognition element employed in developed synthetic receptors was 1,3-diaryl urea functionalmonomer 1. This monomer is a potent hydrogen bond donor forming strong cyclichydrogen bonds with oxyanions. Amino acid sequence specific and side chain imprinted binders were prepared targeting phosphorylation on tyrosine (pTyr) and on histidine (pHis). pHis MIP-based approach is proposed as a solution to enrich pHis peptides in the presence of other phosphoesters such as phosphoserine (pSer) in complex mixture without pre-treatment like β-elimination. In pTyr, ZAP-70 (zeta associated 70 kDa protein), which is prognosticator for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and pTyr-sequence specific motif Src-SH2 domain were chosen as targets to evaluate regio- or stoichiometric selectivity performance of imprinted polymers. The synthesized polymers are used as effective enrichment tools for target phosphorylated peptides from complex mixture prior to mass spectrometry. Overall, the results demonstrate unique proteomics enrichment tools that link with personalized medicine relying on diagnostic coupled cancer treatment strategies based on kinase inhibitors.

In the context of sports and migration, research within policy-driven themes (i.e., integration) have consistently flattened out the migrants’ experiences, meanings and understandings of sports and physical activity to make sense for and from Euro-centric perspectives and framings. Thus, muting other relevant, alternative and already existing ways of living sports and physical activity. Critical sports studies, on the other hand, have demonstrated that sports (and physical activity) remain a contested domain where various human experiences are negotiated and remade along the intersecting lines of class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, legal status and (dis)ability. The aim in this study has been to work within a decolonial framework to demonstrate how migrant youth in Sweden navigate, experience, challenge and generate knowledge in relation to physical activity and sports.

Doing decolonial research in sports studies means delinking from Eurocentric thought and epistemology in order to uncover alternative forms of physical culture and practice that generate different meanings to that of the (Western) hegemonic discourse. To do this, we, the youth and I, have worked and researched together within the framework of participatory art-based action research and our shared Khorasani epistemology. This means that the coresearchers have been active participants in generating research material, analysing the material and disseminating the generated knowledge.  

Grounded in Indigenous, borderland, Chicana and Black feminist knowldeges as well decolonial thought, this thesis contributes both theoretically and methodologically to the field of sport and exercise in relation to young asylum seekers and migration research. The participatory analysis demonstrates that for the Afghan youth in this study sport and physical activity was not a distinct entity, rather it was intertwined with various aspects of their lives, such as their experiences of child labour, pleasures, hopes for the future, leisure, social and mental aspects, and migration experiences. Furthermore, the youth revealed that despite various forms of oppression, trauma and hardship, they constantly returned, or rather, reclaimed life and future in their acts of self-reflection, friendship, love and hope within the context of sport and life. They, thus, moved beyond the mere resistance of the precarities in their lives to bring about a re-existence. 

The findings of this thesis also highlight the affordances and limitations of participatory methods, art-based research and decolonising work. Although the participatory methods grounded in the epistemology of the youth (and myself), allowed us to reclaim and tell our stories in our ways, they fell short in making lasting systemic transformations. These limitations also give rise to new questions and possibilities for future research in relation to how change and transformation are defined and researched; and whether these definitions are somewhat limiting and influenced by the colonial rhetoric of salvation underlining participatory action research basic principles of empowerment and critical consciousness. 

Sialic acids are an important family of monosaccharides that are typically found as terminal moieties of glycans. Aberrant sialylation has been proven to correlate with various diseases including cancer. Glycosylation analysis is complex due to high diversityof the glycan isomers and their low abundance. Antibodies and lectins are commonly used in glycan purification and enrichment. However, high cost, poor availability, and limitation in storage/testing conditions hinders their application on a broader scale. This thesis is focused on the development of alternative glycan specific receptors with their potential applications in glycomics and cell imaging. The underlying technique for producing the synthetic receptors is molecular imprinting. Highly complementary binding sites are formed by fixing pre-ordered template/functional monomer complexes into a highly crosslinked polymer matrix. Fundamental investigation of this intermolecular imprinting approach in the imprinting of glycosylated targets is reported here. The core of this study focuses on the elucidation of relative contribution of orthogonally interacting functional monomers, their structural tuning and the importance of monomer, solvent and counterion choice on the imprinting. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are developed as particles of different sizes for glycan/glycopeptide enrichment applications or combined with fluorescent reportergroups for use as glycan imaging nanolabels. Special attention is given to the improvement of sialic acid MIP selectivities toward particular structures associated with cancer biomarkers. Development of MIPs against such complex targets includes design of linkage selective MIPs with comprehensive studies of the affinities and selectivities of the final glycan specific materials.

Context: With the advent of Machine Learning (ML) and especially Deep Learning (DL) technology, companies are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in systems, along with electronics and software. Nevertheless, the end-to-end process of developing, deploying and evolving ML and DL models in companies brings some challenges related to the design and scaling of these models. For example, access to and availability of data is often challenging, and activities such as collecting, cleaning, preprocessing, and storing data, as well as training, deploying and monitoring the model(s) are complex. Regardless of the level of expertise and/or access to data scientists, companies in all embedded systems domain struggle to build high-performing models due to a lack of established and systematic design methods and processes.

Objective: The overall objective is to establish systematic and structured design methods and processes for the end-to-end process of developing, deploying and successfully evolving ML/DL models.

Method: To achieve the objective, we conducted our research in close collaboration with companies in the embedded systems domain using different empirical research methods such as case study, action research and literature review.

Results and Conclusions: This research provides six main results: First, it identifies the activities that companies undertake in parallel to develop, deploy and evolve ML/DL models, and the challenges associated with them. Second, it presents a conceptual framework for the continuous delivery of ML/DL models to accelerate AI-driven business in companies. Third, it presents a framework based on current literature to accelerate the end-to-end deployment process and advance knowledge on how to integrate, deploy and operationalize ML/DL models. Fourth, it develops a generic framework with five architectural alternatives for deploying ML/DL models at the edge. These architectural alternatives range from a centralized architecture that prioritizes (re)training in the cloud to a decentralized architecture that prioritizes (re)training at the edge. Fifth, it identifies key factors to help companies decide which architecture to choose for deploying ML/DL models. Finally, it explores how MLOps, as a practice that brings together data scientist teams and operations, ensures the continuous delivery and evolution of models. 

The aim of this compilation thesis is to shed light on the Sámi history of ski sport in Sweden from an organizational and cultural history perspective where concepts like nation and ethnicity fill an important function. The Sámi are an indigenous people living in Sápmi, a land area extending across the North Calotte region and including parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The thesis contains six separate articles which together comprise a research period extending between 1879 and 1990.  The articles have been studied from different points of view with the focus on how skis as sport equipment have been historically charged with cultural expressions created by the individual skiers as well as by the general public’s interest in skiing. These cultural expressions have also been internalized as collective identification objects positioning the mutual relations between groups and collectives. By historical links to kings, heroic myths and polar expeditions, the sport of skiing has, for example, become associated with a national Swedish identity. By pinpointing its Sámi origins in the light of history, the ski sport is in this thesis instead viewed as a culturally heterogeneous phenomenon.    In three of the articles of the thesis, the Sámi history of Swedish ski sport is studied. The focus of these studies lies on how ”Sáminess” and ”Swedishness”, viewed as cultural identities, were constructed in connection with the early rise and development of ski sport from the late 19th century to the interwar period (Articles I and II) as well as with the sporting career of downhill skier Bengt-Erik Grahn in the 1960s (Article V). The studies illustrate that, at its rise and early development, cross-country skiing in Sweden was regarded as a Sámi sport. In the early 20th century, however, an ethnic borderline was created between what was Sámi and what was Swedish, which gradually invisibilized the Sámi link to ski sport. Instead, cross-country skiing acquired the inofficial character of being the Swedish national sport. The three remaining studies investigate the separately organized Sámi sport movement from its rise in 1948 through the year 1990 (Articles III, IV and VI). The origin of this movement derives from the Sámi Championships, a winter event whose original contests include skiing and other sports with a background in reindeer husbandry.  The articles clarify the importance of ski sport in creating contrastive ethnic identities between Sáminess and Swedishness (Articles I–V). Similarly, these constructed cultural markers of Sáminess and Swedishness have been interwoven to symbolize an overarching ethnic national identity (Articles IV–V). In addition, the way ski sport has been operated within the separately organized Sámi sport movement has carried weight in the creation of Sápmi as a crossborder nation (Article VI).  

Water is a vital component regulating the properties of topical formulations and their interaction with biological barriers, such as skin and mucosa. Changing the watercontent within the frame of the pharmaceutical triangle will have a huge impact on which type of formulation, such as a cream, ointment, gel, or lotion, is formed, as well as the physical properties of the formulation. The composition of a formulation, and the subsequent reformulation after application, will govern the features of the residual film. This will in turn affect the barrier properties of the underlying tissue and consequently the penetration of various substances across skin or mucosa.The primary aim of this thesis has been to provide further understanding on differences between traditional surfactant-based formulations and particle-stabilized, Pickering, formulations and how specific excipients, like alcohols, emollients, and thickeners can affect their physical and/or sensorial properties. The secondary aim has been to gain more knowledge on the role of water in topical formulations and how it affects the properties of the underlaying tissue on application.

By combining a portfolio of physicochemical techniques combined with sensory science, we have been able to identify differences between Pickering and surfactantstabilized formulations. Starch-based Pickering emulsions were perceived as less greasy and sticky than traditional creams, even at high oil content. Moreover, we were able develop a novel type of alcohol-based Pickering emulsion with combined moisturizing and antiseptic properties. We have also been able to link sensory attributes, evaluated by human volunteers, with physicochemical characterizations. Furthermore, the in vitro ForceBoard™ method was developed further and we evaluated its potential to be used as an ex vivo method using excised skin. In addition, we have shown that that the water gradient over a biological barrier has a general relevance with respect to drug absorption and should be considered not only in dermaldrug delivery but also for buccal and nasal drug delivery.

Kunskapsområdet matematik blir alltmer fokuserat även i förskolan, med mål av vilket kunnande barnen förväntas utveckla. Därav finns det behov av att förstå vad barn faktiskt erbjuds lära och vad de utvecklar för förmågor innan de börjar skolan. Studiens övergripande syfte är att beskriva på vilket sätt förskollärare utvecklar och iscensätter aktiviteter om tal och räknande, och vilket kunnande som blir möjligt för barnen att utveckla. Studien har fokuserat på förskollärarnas lärande samt iscensättande av aktiviteter med matematiskt innehåll (aritmetik, taluppfattning och räknefärdigheter). Den första delstudien beskriver processen kring förskollärares kollektiva lärande. Genom att reflektera och diskutera egna dokumentationer utvecklas de i sin profession avseende lärandet av tal och räknande i aktiviteter med barn. Den andra delstudien beskriver hur förskollärare planerar och iscensätter en aktivitet med fokus tal och räknande, och hur detta påverkade barnens möjligheter till lärande. Studien utgår från ett variationsteoriskt perspektiv (Marton, 2015) samt Chi’s (2009) taxonomi, avseende i vilken form aktiviteterna iscensätts (aktiv - konstruktiv - interaktiv). Studiens resultat visar att förskollärarnas lärande om ämnesinnehåll är en komplex process, där förskollärarnas delade erfarenheter gör det möjligt för dem att över tid urskilja nya aspekter av tal och räknande och därmed också hantera innehållet i aktiviteter på ett förändrat sätt. Studiens resultat visar även skillnader mellan hur lärarna valde att iscensätta aktiviteterna och att detta resulterade i olika möjligheter för barnen att lära.

Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet is one of the most common malocclusions among children and adolescents. In addition to increasing the risk for dental trauma, the malocclusion can also be related to bullying due to the prominent maxillary incisors. The treatment for a Class II malocclusion can be initiated at different ages and with different treatment strategies, but the treatment timing has often been, and still is, discussed within the orthodontic profession and literature. Research reports that an early treatment approach, initiated in mixed dentition and often including an additional phase of treatment in permanent dentition, reduces the incidence of dental trauma. Otherwise, no differences in treatment effects have yet been seen between treatment that is started early in mixed dentition or treatment initiated later in permanent dentition. 

During the last decades, there has been an increased focus on patient-reported outcomes within orthodontic research. The patient perspective and economic evaluations of performed treatment are areas where knowledge gaps can be found in the available research. 

This thesis is based on four studies. The studies were designed with high level of methodology and validity as a priority and with the objective to identify and address knowledge gaps related to the impact of Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet and a subsequent early treatment with headgear activator. Firstly, a systematic review addressing treatment effects was performed. This was followed by the implementation of two randomised controlled trials (RCTs) with the aims to evaluate treatment effects and self-perceived oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) as well as the cost associated with treatment. In addition, a clinical controlled trial was performed to assess the self-perceived OHRQoL for children with Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet, and compare to children with unilateral posterior crossbite or normal occlusion with no or mild orthodontic treatment need.  

The papers referred to in this thesis:  

Paper I. A systematic literature review performed to evaluate the evidence supporting early treatment (before the age of 10) of Class II malocclusion. The search included four data bases and spanned from January 1960 to October 2017.  

Paper II. A clinical controlled multicenter trial with the objective to investigate the OHRQoL among 9-year-old children in mixed dentition and to compare the self-perceived OHRQoL by the use of the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ). Evaluation and comparisons were made for children with Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet (EO), children with unilateral posterior crossbite (UPC), and children with normal occlusion (NO) presenting with no or mild orthodontic treatment need.  The sample consisted of 229 children, sourced from 19 Public Dental Service Clinics in Sweden and covering a range of demographic areas.

A single centre RCT designed to evaluate the effects of headgear activator treatment and the associated costs forms the basis of the final two papers: 

Paper III. The effects of early headgear activator treatment was compared to an untreated control group. The sample consisted of 60 children presenting with a Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet. Primary outcome was the reduction of overjet and overbite as well as effects regarding oral health-related quality of life, lip closure, incidence of trauma, and skeletal changes.

Paper IV. The costs and treatment effects of headgear activator treatment started in the mixed or late mixed dentition was registered and compared. The sample consisted of 51 children starting treatment at 9 or 11 years of age. The primary outcome measure was comparison of the treatment costs between the two groups. Secondary outcomes were comparisons of oral health-related quality of life, dental and skeletal treatment effects, lip closure, and trauma incidence. 

The following conclusions were drawn: 

• There is medium to high level of evidence, depending on treatment appliance, that early treatment reduces overjet and improves antero-posterior skeletal relationship, but currently, insufficient evidence is available regarding the effects of early treatment on OHRQoL, incidence of trauma, soft tissue profile, or treatment-related costs. There is a knowledge gap with respect to long-term outcome and the stability of early treatment.
• Children with Class II malocclusion with excessive overjet report significantly lower self-perceived OHRQoL compared to children with unilateral posterior crossbite or normal occlusion, with the domains of social and emotional well-being being most affected. The children in all three groups reported generally low CPQ scores, which implies an overall fairly good self-perceived OHRQoL.
• Early treatment with headgear activator was successful in reducing overjet and correcting molar relationship. Early treatment did not result in any significant difference regarding self-reported OHRQoL, lip closure, or incidence of trauma when compared to the untreated control group.
• The costs associated with headgear activator treatment, as well as the treatment effects, were equivalent regardless of whether treatment was started at 9 or 11 years of age. The most pronounced treatment effects were reduction of overjet and correction of molar relationship, whereas the treatment effects regarding OHRQoL, lip closure, and trauma incidences were found to be modest.
• With costs and treatment effects being equivalent, an early treatment approach can be advocated to enhance trauma prevention.

The aim of this thesis is to explore how children’s magic realist fiction contributes to critical Global Citizenship Education (GCE). This study argues that children’s magic realist literature can facilitate young readers’ knowledge and understanding of human rights issues and promote environmental awareness in a non-didactic manner by representing global issues from non-human perspectives. The thesis comprises four articles.

The first study explores the non-human perspective of an animalhuman ‘cyborg’ protagonist in Peter Dickinson’s novel Eva (1988). The study shows how the non-human perspective allows the reader to go beyond anthropocentric boundaries in order to explore the issue of treating the other.

The second study investigates an animal perspective on the Roma genocide along with the mistreatment of animals in the Second World War in Sonya Hartnett’s The Midnight Zoo (2010). The animal perspective shows human intolerance of other humans (the Roma) intertwined with human actions towards animals and encourages the reader in a non-didactic way to adopt an eco-philosophical standpoint.

The third study is concerned with the representation of the Holocaust from the point of view of a supernatural narrator, Death, in Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (2005). Death’s inverted magic realist narrative facilitates the young reader’s understanding of human rights issues and represents the history of the genocide in a non-didactic manner.

The fourth study examines the relationships between humans and the natural environment shown from the non-human perspective of a tree. Taking the lens of holistic ecology, this study explores the representation of human – nature relationships in Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls (2011) and how the novel guides the child-reader towards an awareness of environmental issues.

Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) impact many aspects of human life, from recommending a significant other to assist the search for extraterrestrial life. The area develops rapidly and exiting unexplored design spaces are constantly laid bare. The focus in this work is one of these areas; ML systems where decisions concerning ML model training, usage and selection of target domain lay in the hands of domain experts. 

This work is then on ML systems that function as a tool that augments and/or enhance human capabilities. The approach presented is denoted Human In Command ML (HIC-ML) systems. To enquire into this research domain design experiments of varying fidelity were used. Two of these experiments focus on augmenting human capabilities and targets the domains commuting and sorting batteries. One experiment focuses on enhancing human capabilities by identifying similar hand-painted plates. The experiments are used as illustrative examples to explore settings where domain experts potentially can: independently train an ML model and in an iterative fashion, interact with it and interpret and understand its decisions. 

HIC-ML should be seen as a governance principle that focuses on adding value and meaning to users. In this work, concrete application areas are presented and discussed. To open up for designing ML-based products for the area an abstract model for HIC-ML is constructed and design guidelines are proposed. In addition, terminology and abstractions useful when designing for explicability are presented by imposing structure and rigidity derived from scientific explanations. Together, this opens up for a contextual shift in ML and makes new application areas probable, areas that naturally couples the usage of AI technology to human virtues and potentially, as a consequence, can result in a democratisation of the usage and knowledge concerning this powerful technology.

Drawing on lifestyle-routine activity theory, this dissertation explores associations between everyday life, crime, and fear of crime among adolescents and young adults. It also examines the operationalisation of the concepts of lifestyle and routine activities, and explores the use of experience methods, via a smartphone application named STUNDA, to collect data about everyday life. Of the four studies conducted, Study I shows that different specific lifestyle measures are of varying relevance for victims, offenders, and victim-offenders, which indicates that no single universal lifestyle feature is of relevance for all outcomes studied. The findings from Study II reveal that spending time with friends in the city-centre is associated with lower levels of fear of crime across months, days, and moments. However, other associations between everyday life variables and fear of crime are inconsistent across these reference periods. Study III, a systematic review of the literature, shows that measures of lifestyle and routine activities differ in the frequency with which they are used in studies on interpersonal victimisation and offending. Illegal activities are often used as lifestyle/routine activity measures in studies on victimisation while unstructured and peer-oriented activities dominate in studies on offending. However, the measures used in the included studies are diverse, which indicates that researchers use a wide range of activities that are intended to measure lifestyle/routine activities. The final paper, Study IV, explores fear of crime in relation to moments of everyday life and finds that specific features of settings, such as being in semi-public and public spaces and on public transport, increase the odds for experiencing fear of crime.

The overall conclusions of the studies point to methodological and theoretical directions for future research. First, research in the field of lifestyle-routine activity theory needs to consider specific and potentially different activities when examining victimisation, offending, and the overlap between these two outcomes. Further, fear of crime research must consider different reference periods, such as months, days and moments, since fear may not only be defined as a more stable trait-like phenomenon but also as a momentary and transitory experience in everyday life. The types of measures used to represent everyday life also require consideration, particularly in terms of the inclusion of lifestyle/routine activity measures that are actually related to criminogenic exposure. For theory more specifically, the implications of the findings point to an overall confirmation of the view that exposure to various environmental circumstances is associated with crime and fear of crime. However, across all of the studies conducted, the findings point to potential weaknesses of the theory. In particular, the lack of an elaborated perspective on individual traits and characteristics limits the explanatory scope of lifestyle-routine activity theory. For instance, people with similar lifestyles still vary in terms of their victimisation, offending, and fear of crime, which necessitates the inclusion of additional individual-level factors that could explain these variations. Future research must thus either modify lifestyle-routine activity theory or open up for other theoretical perspectives that provide a more holistic approach to understanding the role of both environ-mental and individual factors when studying everyday life, crime, and fear of crime.

Video games have become the largest portion of the entertainment industry and everyday life of millions of players around the world. Considering games as cultural artifacts, it seems imperative to study both games and players to understand underlying psychological and behavioral implications of interacting with this medium, especially since video games are rich domains for occurrence of rich affective experiences annotated by and measurable via in-game behavior. This thesis is a presentation of a series of studies that attempt to model player perception and behavior as well as their psychosocial attributes in order to make sense of interrelations of these factors and implications the findings have for game designers and researchers. In separate studies including survey and in-game telemetry data of millions of players, we delve into reliable measures of player psychological need satisfaction, motivation and generational cohort and cross reference them with in-game behavioral patterns by presenting systemic frameworks for classification and regression. We introduce a measurement of perceived need satisfaction and discuss generational effects in playtime and motivation, present a robust prediction model for ordinally processed motivations and review classification techniques when it comes to playstyles derived from player choices. Additionally, social aspects of play, such as social influence and contagion as well as disruptive behavior, is discussed along with advanced statistical models to detect and explain them.   

The aim of the thesis was to translate, psychometrically test, and further develop the Behavioral Pain Scale for pain assessment in intensive care and to analyze if any other variables (besides the behavioral domains) could affect the pain assessments. Furthermore, the aim was to explore the patients’ experience of pain within the intensive care.

The Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS), consisting of the domains “facial expression,” “upper limbs,” and “compliance with ventilator/vocalization,” was translated andculturally adapted into Swedish and psychometrically tested in a sample of 20 patients(study I). The instrument was then further developed within one of the domains and tested for inter-rater reliability, discriminant validity, and criterion validity (study II). The method for analysis in both study I and II was a method specifically developed for paired, ordered, and categorical data. To describe and analyze the process of pain assessment, a General Linear Mixed Model was used to investigate what variables, besides the behaviors, could be associated with the observers’ own assessment of the patients’ pain (study III). Further, the patients’ experiences of pain when being cared for in intensive care were explored (study IV) through interviews with 16 participants post intensive care. Qualitative thematic analysis with an inductive approach was used for the analysis.

The first psychometric tests of the BPS (study I) showed inter-rater reliability with agreement of 85%. For the discriminant validity, all domains, except “compliance with ventilator,” indicated discriminant validity.

Therefore, in study II, a developed domain of “breathing pattern” was tested alongside the original version. The BPS showed discriminant validity for both the original and the developed version and an inter-rater reliability with agreement of 76-80%. Wheninspecting the respective domains there was a difference in discriminant validity between the original domain of “compliance with ventilation” and the developed domain of “breathing pattern,” showing higher values on the scale for the developed domain during turning. For criterion validity, the BPS showed a higher sensitivity than the observers, who on the contrary had a higher specificity.The General Linear Mix Model (study III) showed that heart rate could be associated with the observers’ assessments of pain. For the behavioral signs, the result indicated that breathing pattern was most associated with the observers’ pain assessment, whilst facial expression did not show any impact on the observers’ assessments.

The patients’ experiences of pain (study IV) in intensive care were described as generating a need for control; they experienced a lack of control when pain was present and continuously struggled to regain control. The experience of pain was not only related to the physical sensation but also to psychological and social aspects, along with the balance in the care given, which was important to the participants.

In conclusion, the translated and developed version of the Swedish BPS showed promising psychometric results in assessing pain in the adult intensive care patients. Still, other signs, besides behavioral, is possibly used when pain assessing and therefore information about and training in pain assessment are needed to enhance the assessments that are made. Also, the patients’ own experiences highlight the importance of individualizing and adapting pain assessment and treatment to the needs of each patient. Making them a part of the team could enhance their feeling of control, thereby supporting them in facing the experience of pain.

Den här avhandlingen utgår från följande problemställning. Hur kunde adeln, en grupp i sådan hög grad påverkad av det äldre samhällets värld avprivilegier, börd och ståndsuppdelning, fortsätta att existera även under ochefter 1800- och 1900-talets moderna genombrott? Detta nya, framväxandesamhälles vägledande principer utgjordes ju snarare av sådant som jämlikhet, personlig förtjänst och tanken om medborgarskap, i mångt och mycket motsatsen till de ideal som tidigare varit förhärskande. I avhandlingenanläggs ett kulturhistoriskt perspektiv för att studera detta historiska problem, med utgångspunkten att det förflutna var av avgörande betydelse för att denadliga identiteten kunde upprätthållas efter ståndssamhällets upplösning. Dess syfte är att undersöka hur den svenska adelns kollektiva identitetupprätthölls och förändrades under perioden från det första adelsmötet, år 1869, till Riddarhusets 350-årsjubileeum, år 1976, genom att analysera denadliga minneskulturen. Källmaterialet som analyseras är huvudsakligenhämtat från adelns kollektiva verksamhet, i form av protokoll från periodensadelsmöten och medlemstidningen Arte et Marte. Avhandlingens teoretiska utgångspunkter är hämtade från memory studies-fältet. Avhandlingen består av tre delar, som studerar varsin aspektav den adliga minneskulturen: den performativa, den kommunikativa,respektive minneskulturens fixpunkter. Genom att analysera en rad olikafenomen relaterade till adeln, under mer än 100 år: statyer, historieböcker, jubileumsfester, privilegier, namnskyddslagar, herrgården och utdöendet avadliga ätter, undersöks gruppens minneskultur och den föränderliga adliga kollektiva identiteten

The growth and presence of heterogeneous sensor-equipped Internet-connected devices inside the home can increase efficiency and quality of life for the residents. Simultaneously, these devices continuously collect, process, and transmit data about the residents and their daily lifestyle activities to unknown parties outside the home. Such data can be sensitive and personal, leading to increasingly intimate insights into private lives. This data allows for the implementation of services, personalization support, and benefits offered by smart home technologies. Alas, there has been a surge of cyberattacks on connected home devices that essentially compromise privacy and security of the residents.

Providing privacy and security is a critical issue in smart connected homes. Many residents are concerned about unauthorized access into their homes and about the privacy of their data. However, it is typically challenging to implement privacy and security in a smart connected home because of its heterogeneity of devices, the dynamic nature of the home network, and the fact that it is always connected to the Internet, amongst other things. As the numbers and types of smart home devices are increasing rapidly, so are the risks with these devices. Concurrently, it is also becoming increasingly challenging to gain a deeper understand- ing of the smart home. Such understanding is necessary to build a more privacy-preserving and secure smart connected home. Likewise, it is needed as a precursor to perform a comprehensive privacy and security analysis of the smart home.

In this dissertation, we render a comprehensive description and account of the smart connected home that can be used for conducting risk analysis. In doing so, we organize the underlying smart home devices ac- cording to their functionality, identify their data-collecting capabilities, and survey the data types being collected by them. Such is done using the technical specification of commercial devices, including their privacy policies. This description is then leveraged for identifying threats and for analyzing risks present in smart connected homes. Such is done by analyzing both scholarly literature and examples from the industry, and leveraging formal modeling. Additionally, we identify malicious threat agents and mitigations that are relevant to smart connected homes. This is performed without limiting the research and results to a particular configuration and type of smart home.

This research led to three main findings. First, the majority of the surveyed commercial devices are collecting instances of sensitive and personal data but are prone to critical vulnerabilities. Second, there is a shortage of scientific models that capture the complexity and heterogeneity of real-world smart home deployments, especially those intended for privacy risk analysis. Finally, despite the increasing regulations and attention to privacy and security, there is a lack of proactive and integrative approaches intended to safeguard privacy and security of the residents. We contributed to addressing these three findings by developing a framework and models that enable early identification of threats, better planning for risk management scenarios, and mitigation of potential impacts caused by attacks before they reach the homes and compromise the lives of the residents.

Overall, the scientific contributions presented in this dissertation help deepen the understanding and reasoning about privacy and security concerns affecting smart connected homes, and contributes to advancing the research in the area of risk analysis as applied to such systems.

Well-aligned anterior teeth are the major reason for the patients seeking orthodontic treatment, and keeping teeth aligned and stable afterwards is a goal for the orthodontist and the patient. Relapse after treatment is a common problem, and it is defined as when teeth go back to their previous positions. Removable or fixed retainers have been used to avoid relapse after treatment. It has been common practice to use removable retention to retain anterior teeth in the maxilla. However, in recent decades, it has become increasingly common to retain with bonded retainers.

Almost all previous studies on retention devices in the maxilla were based on removable retainers. Consequently, there existed knowledge gaps and lack of short-term and long-term studies on the capability to maintain the stability of the maxillary anterior teeth with bonded retainers. Hence, the reason for the papers in this study. In addition, it is not known if retentionis needed in all orthodontic patients or if there are patients, based on their initial malocclusion and individual variations, who may not need retention after treatment.

The research questions addressed in this thesis thus originate from knowledgegaps and clinical needs concerning retention strategies after orthodontic treatments. To provide strong clinical evidence, randomised controlled trials (RCT) as well as intention to treat (ITT) methodology has been assessed. The results are expected to be beneficial for the patients who will be offered the most effective retention strategy for maxillary anterior teeth based on patients’ preferences.

In Paper I and II, 45 and 27 adolescents’ patients were collected from the Orthodontic Clinic in Mariestad, Sweden. At the time when Paper Iand II were conducted, there were no studies that had evaluated the longterm effect of bonded retainers in the maxilla. In two RCTs, Paper III and IV, 90 and 63 adolescents’ patients were collected from the Orthodontic Clinic in Växjö, Region Kronoberg, Sweden.

Paper I: The aim was to investigate the amount and pattern of relapse of maxillary anterior teeth previously retained with a bonded retainer.

Paper II: The aim was to investigate the amount and pattern of changes of maxillary anterior teeth seven years post-retention, which previously were retained with a bonded retainer.

Paper III: The aim was to evaluate post-treatment changes in the irregularity of the maxillary six anterior teeth and single tooth Contact Point Discrepancy (CPD) of three different retention methods.

Paper IV: The aim was to evaluate whether retention is needed after orthodontic treatment for impacted maxillary canines and with moderate pre-treatment irregularity in the maxilla.

Key findings in Paper I

• The contact relationship between the laterals and the centrals is the most unstable   contact. Canines are the most stable teeth.

• There was no difference in the relapse pattern between rotational displacements and labiolingual displacement.

Key findings in Paper II

• There was a strong correlation between irregularity at one- and seven-years post-retention. Stable cases one-year post-retention were stable and unstable cases deteriorated with time.

Key findings in Paper III

• All three retention methods showed equally effective retention capacity and all the changes found in the three groups were small and considered clinically insignificant. Thus, the null hypothesis was confirmed. All three methods can be recommended.

Key findings in Paper IV

• Changes between the retention and the non-retention group were statistically but not clinically significant. Since satisfactory clinical results one-year post-treatment were found in the non-retention group, retention does not appear always to be needed.

• Most of the changes occur within the first 10-week period after treatment with no retention.

Key conclusions and clinical implications

Both removable and bonded retainers are effective for holding teeth inposition and can be used for preventing the relapse. It can be enough toretain with bonded retainer 12-22 instead of 13-23. It might be possibleto avoid retention in selected cases in the short-term, but a longer evaluationperiod is needed.

The rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) systems demands addressing new requirements. This particularly needs efficient deployment of IoT systems to meet the quality requirements such as latency, energy consumption, privacy, and bandwidth utilization. The increasing availability of computational resources close to the edge has prompted the idea of using these for distributed computing and storage, known as edge computing. Edge computing may help and complement cloud computing to facilitate deployment of IoT systems and improve their quality. However, deciding where to deploy the various application components is not a straightforward task, and IoT system designer should be supported for the decision.

To support the designers, in this thesis we focused on the system qualities, and aimed for three main contributions. First, by reviewing the literature, we identified the relevant and most used qualities and metrics. Moreover, to analyse how computer simulation can be used as a supporting tool, we investigated the edge computing simulators, and in particular the metrics they provide for modeling and analyzing IoT systems in edge computing. Finally, we introduced a method to represent how multiple qualities can be considered in the decision. In particular, we considered distributing Deep Neural Network layers as a use case and raked the deployment options by measuring the relevant metrics via simulation.

Forskning visar att patienter med intellektuella funktionsnedsättningar (IF) ofta kan misstolkas och missförstås i vården. Studier visar även att hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal generellt har en begränsad kunskap om IF. Det är inte ovanligt att sjuksköterskor uppger att de känner sig oförberedda på att stödja denna grupp av patienter och att de rädda för att inte kunna kommunicera effektivt och att vårda patienter med IF. Detta kan inverka på negativt på omvårdnaden och kvaliteten på den vård som ges, vilket i sin tur kan leda till att essentiella vårdbehov inte identifieras eller uppfylls på ett lämpligt och adekvat sätt. Det finns belägg för att personer med IF inte får vård i samma utsträckning som andra samhällsmedborgare och det verkar som att vanliga omvårdnadsmetoder inte alltid är utformade för att tillgodose vårdbehoven hos patienter med IF. Dessutom finns det rapporter som visar att problem med samordning mellan olika omsorgsinstanser har bidragit till för tidiga dödsfall bland personer med IF. Följaktligen har denna befolkning särskilda vårdbehov med komplexa sjukdomsbilder som utgör en utmaning inom instanser som tillhandahåller vård och omvårdnad för denna patientgrupp.

Inom ramen för professionell omvårdnad förväntas sjuksköterskan att kunna erbjuda vård till en varierad och heterogen grupp av patienter utifrån den etiska koden som föreskriver att sjuksköterskor ska respekterar alla mänskliga rättigheter oavsett patientens förmågor eller funktionella status. Genomförda studier påvisar att sjuksköterskor utbildade i IF är bättre rustade för att tillhandahålla en säker omvårdnad av god kvalitet till denna patientgrupp. Trots detta så finns i dagsläget ingen klar beskrivning över hur sjuksköterskestudenter förbereds på att omvårda patienter med IF under sin utbildning. Nyligen publicerade internationella studier avslöjade en stor variation i väsentligt IF-innehåll med flera uppenbara luckor i sjuksköterskeprograms utbildnings- och kursplaner. Hur dessa resultat reflekteras i den svenska kontexten är osäkert men det kan inte heller uteslutas. Forskning som undersöker hur omvårdnad för denna utsatta patientgrupp kan upplevas och uppfattas av sjuksköterskorna är därför avgörande för en ökad kunskap och för att kunna utveckla av en evidensbaserad omvårdnad inom område. Det ter sig därmed angeläget att detta blir en utbildnings- och professionell prioritet.

Med normaliseringsprincipen på 1960-talet följde att de stora vårdinstitutionerna stängde och patienter med IF flyttade ut till kommunerna. Sjuksköterskan inom kommunens hemsjukvård bär nu ansvaret för patienternas omvårdnad, vilket sker i patienternas hem, och är därmed också oftast den primära vårdkontakten. Kunskap om hur sjuksköterskor kan uppleva att erbjuda omvårdnad till patienter med IF (Paper I) och hur omvårdnaden som tillhandahålls i kommunal hemsjukvård kan beskrivas och uppfattas av sjuksköterskorna (Paper II) är av därför av vikt. Det övergripande syftet i denna avhandling var således att beskriva, bedöma, integrera och syntetisera kunskap rörande omvårdnad för patienter med intellektuella funktionsnedsättningar. Vidare avsågs att beskriva hur sjuksköterskor kan uppfattar omvårdnad för denna patientgrupp inom kommunal hemsjukvård. Paper I var en systematisk litteraturstudie med en meta-etnografisk ansats och Paper II var en intervjustudie med en kvalitativ, deskriptiv och tolkande design. Data samlades in genom systematiska databassökningar (Paper I) och enskilda intervjuer (Paper II). Deltagarna bestod av 203 sjuksköterskor (Paper I) respektive 20 sjuksköterskor (Paper II). I Paper I analyserades data med meta-etnografi och en ”Line of argument” synteser (LOA), medan data för Paper II analyserades med innehållsanalys.

I den första studien (Papper I) kunde sjuksköterskornas upplevelser av omvårdnad för patienter med IF förstås utifrån fjorton olika ”Lines of Arguments” synteser (LOA): Baseras på långvariga relationer (A*); Baseras på förtroende (B); Gå bortom verbal kommunikation (C*); Baseras på långsiktig planering (D); Inkluderar relevanta andra för att kunna erbjuda kvalitativ omvårdnad (E); Arbetar mot negativa attityder och utanförskap (F*);  Kräver mer kunskap i omvårdnad för denna patientgrupp (G*); Behöver erkänna personen bakom etiketten ”funktionshindrad” (H); Baseras på evidens (I); Tar oberäkneliga situationer i beaktan (J*); Kräver kunskap bortom diagnosen (K); Interprofessionellt samarbete (L); Omfatta företrädarskap och beskydd (M); Förståelse för patientgruppens komplexitet (N*). Det vill säga hur de olika men relaterade studiernas resultat tillsammans, argumentationslinjen, tolkades att representera övergripande helheter bland den ursprungliga uppsättningen av delar av sjuksköterskornas upplevelser. Åtta av dessa LOA synteser, (B, D, E, H, I, K, L, M) tolkades att reflektera ett begreppsliggörande av omvårdnad per se, det vill säga en universell upplevelse av omvårdnad oavsett kontext och patientgrupp. Medan sex av LOA synteserna, A, C, F, G, J och N tolkades att kunna spegla en unik konceptualisering av sjuksköterskors upplevelse av omvårdnad för patienter med IF.

I Paper II tolkades sjuksköterskornas erfarenheter att återspeglas i tre övergripande kategorier: i) Omvårdnad tagen som gisslan av vårdkontexten; Som ett resultat av hemsjukvårdens organisering erfor sjuksköterskorna sig själva som oförmögna att tillhandahålla omvårdnad i enlighet med sina professionella värderingar. De beskrev att de ständigt sysslade med ”brandsläckning” istället för att ge en kontinuerlig omvårdnad. ii) Omvårdnad beroende av intuition och beprövad erfarenhet;Sjuksköterskorna beskrev också att de inte behärskade alternativa och kompletterande kommunikationsverktyg vilket innebar att sjuksköterskan ofta behövde basera sina bedömningar och beslut för omvårdnaden på andrahandsinformation från stödpersonalen, samt iii) ”Slåss” för patienternas rätt till en adekvat vård en del av omvårdnad; I denna sista kategori reflekterades hur Sjuksköterskorna erfor att omvårdnad av denna patientgrupp kunde innebära en daglig kamp för att säkerställa patienternas rätt till vård på lämplig plats, i lämplig tid och av lämplig person.

Tolv av fjorton LOA synteser (Paper I) tolkades att partiellt speglas i sjuksköterskornas erfarenheter av omvårdnad (Paper II) inom kommunal hemsjukvård; i – A*, B, E och L; ii – C*, G* och I; iii- D, F*, H, M och N*. Två av LOA synteserna (Paper I) tolkades att inte reflekteras av sjuksköterskors erfarenheter (Paper II); Tar oberäkneliga situationer i beaktan (J*) och Kräver kunskap bortom diagnosen (K). Detta indikerar att resultatet från Paper I är överförbart i kommunal hemsjukvård i Sverige (Paper II).

Avsaknad av förståelse och kunskap kan vara en förklaring till stigmatiseringen som fortfarande tycks omsluta denna patientgrupp. En omvårdnad där sjuksköterskan fokuserar på personen bakom funktionshindren och på personens förmågor istället för oförmågor ter sig som en rimlig strategi för att kunna säkerställa kvalitén på den vård- och omsorg som denna grupp av patienter har rätt till. Således kan implementering av omvårdnadsmodeller som innebär en koncentration av personcentrerad vård stödja sjuksköterskor för att motverka de hälsoskillnader och ojämlikheter som fortfarande verkar vara närvarande inom denna patientgrupp (Paper I). Det som alltjämt tycks saknas, är en bred kunskapsbas av vad som faktiskt fungerar bäst och krävs i klinisk praxis, särskilt inom hemsjukvården, för denna patientgrupp. Utbildningsprogrammen till sjuksköterska och sjuksköterskeprofessionen hade stärkts av en generell/allmän debatt om detta samt om vilka kompetenser och färdigheteter som behövs för att patienter med IF ska kunna erhålla den omvårdnad och vård som krävs för denna oftast komplexa patientgrupp (Paper II).

This thesis investigates the tensions that emerge as drama is implemented in the teaching at a primary school. The thesis analyses drama practice in relation to a rationalistic and a holistic theoretical framework, and employs the epistemological view that subjectification and socialization are as important as the qualification dimension in education. A metaphorical model was developed, Schooling–Ecotone–Art, in order to deepen the understanding of drama as a subject in relation to the educational discourse. The ecotone, a notion deriving from ecology, symbolizes drama and serve as a tool to explore the tensions created at the borders of the adjacent habitats. The study describes the developing diversity within the drama practice in relation to the staff’s teaching and the pupils’ learning and meaning making. The empirical data are gathered by field studies at a primary school in Sweden, during one year. A project was made possible by a grant from the local municipality, through which the school was able to engage in a collaborative project with a local culture centre in which teachers and drama pedagogues worked together on a weekly basis. The doctoral study was initiated by an invitation from the school and the culture centre. Anchored in critical ethnography, the data include observations, interviews with staff and pupils, video recordings, questionnaires and email correspondence. The findings reveal different levels of tensions as drama is implemented in the teaching, which reflects the materiality of the discursive order and institutional power in education. Further, the study demonstrates the levels of progression as drama is practiced regularly, in which carnival play was a factor in the initial turbulent phase, and thus a major challenge for the staff. The study suggests that the phases in the progress demonstrate that drama comprises a unique and subject-specific content, which is needed in a holistic epistemology in primary education. Additionally, the progress describes how diversity emerges in the staff’s teaching as well as in the pupils’ creative work and that questions of interculturality are illuminated. The study concludes that there is a need to deconstruct a rationalistic epistemology, and develop a holistic epistemology, in order to achieve a sustainable education. The thesis contributes with deepened knowledge of drama as a unique habitat, and the possibilities for diversity as the tensions created in relation to adjacent habitats, schooling and art, are viewed as possibilities rather than obstacles to avoid. 

There is a vast literature on plural policing and the ways in which non-governmental actors now have and are assuming more responsibility for crime control. This literature argues that the connection between policing and the state is being eroded, questioned and sometimes abandoned in favour of networks in which the state acts as one actor among many others. This thesis examines the Swedish policing of insurance and welfare fraud via an analysis of the ways in which power is organized and articulated by actors in the private insurance industry, and at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and police authority.

The three articles included in the thesis contribute to a field that has received comparatively little attention, particularly in Sweden but also internationally. The existing literature has primarily been interested in the control of street-level criminality and the operations of uniformed security actors. Investigation practices in general and the plural policing of white-collar crime in particular have received far less attention. In Sweden, studies of policing are primarily state-centred, and the interactions between the police and other policing actors require further consideration. When examining insurance fraud, scholars have not considered the ways in which the insurance institution controls fraud; instead, this literature focuses on the characteristics of fraudsters. Thus the current thesis furthers our knowledge of a field of policing about which we currently know relatively little.

The thesis takes as its general assumption the view that this form of policing is marked by a basic ambiguity between on the one hand being responsibilized and assuming responsibility for crime control, and on the other being responsible for other goals, such as promoting trust in, and the legitimacy and survival of the insurance institution. Existing research suggests that this ambiguity is resolved by simply denying compensation, adjusting premium levels, and cancelling policies or social benefits. My research shows that there is no Swedish exceptionalism in this sense.

Based on a Foucauldian understanding of power, the thesis furthers our understanding of how the insurance institution is organized to tolerate fraud. The uncertainty between crime control and additional organizational goals is embedded in attempts to police the policing actors themselves, which is reflected in forces that make the policing of fraud a professional risk for the policing actors. The thesis argues that power relations provide opportunities to ensure that organizational goals are not endangered, while at the same time maintaining the public image that crime is being controlled. In contrast with existing research, the thesis shows that the law and the state – analytical categories that existing research, and particularly post-Foucauldian approaches, tend to reject or avoid – are critical to the plural policing of fraud. It is further suggested that scholars need to pay more attention to the way different technologies of power shape relationships between the actors involved in plural policing and their definitions of their own roles. In particular, scholars need to consider the role of the state and the legal framework in such arrangements.