Browsing by Subject "agency"

The focus of this thesis is on environmental agency in two different video games, The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle and Final Fantasy VII Remake. The research questions aim to answer how the player can act as an environmental agent in these two games and what are the key differences between these games. The study is executed in a form of qualitative two-case case study with the help of close reading. With close reading eight different types of agencies that form the typology of this study, will be analysed in order to answer the research questions. The data for this thesis was collected by playing both games and taking notes by following close reading. The notes were then analysed with the different types of agencies. The results showed clear overlapping of the types of agencies, and it could be said that environmental agency can be used better in the game when the overlapping is happening. The agencies complemented each other and made the possible learning process in the game more fulfilling. The main difference between the game seems to be that The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle as a life simulation game offers more diverse possibilities for environmental player agency. The studies about environmental games are mainly focused on serious games and not so much on commercial games. Video games hold great potential to engage people in environmental things especially with the help of player agency. It offers the player the ability to make meaningful choices and if they are structure well, the player can see the consequences of their agency which serves as an effective feedback which could lead to positive learning. In this case, the environmental agency in the game could be transformed into real-life environmental agency. As video games have become more immersive and their environments more realistic, it could be worth considering that separating virtual environment from the real-life one might not be necessary anymore. Therefore, games like The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle and Final Fantasy VII Remake could serve as an example of how environmental agency within them could be harnessed into wider use.

Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract Objectives. The aim of this thesis was to describe, analyze, and interpret how a collaborative virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) can provide opportunities to learn and practice work skills that promote student motivation and agency to learn. The research questions concerned how students perceived their agency and autonomy in different learning environments and how this affected their motivation, as well as the cognitive potential of the VR learning environment and how it promoted agency in learning. The study applied the Cognitive Affordances of Technologies Scale, CATS (Dabbagh, Conrad & Dass, 2010), designed to examine the cognitive potential of technology-supported learning environments (TSLEs) with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of learning technologies in relation to the affordances in the environment. CATS was developed with the aim to help in improving the cognitive design of TSLEs to support purposeful and meaningful learner activities and learning interactions. Methods. The study involved 14 students participating in a forest machine course at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. The students studied both in the VR learning environment and in the traditional learning environment. A mixed-method ethnographic case study approach (Torres Colón, 2020) was used to combine rich qualitative data from on-site observations, interviews, and video observations to complement quantitative data. The aim was to provide a better understanding of the research problems than using either approach alone. In this study, the approach was a pragmatic combination of methods (Seppänen-Järvelä, Åkerblad & Haapakoski, 2019), using all the methods that best enabled the research questions to be answered (triangulation). Results and conclusions. The main results showed that students generally rated their autonomy higher in VR groups than in physical groups, learning in a VR learning environment was meaningful and had a positive impact on students' motivation, and learning opportunities supported students' autonomy through meaningful teacher-student interaction and promoted student agency. A collaborative virtual learning environment, where teachers warmly regulate emotions through meaningful classroom interaction, can provide opportunities for learning and practicing work skills, thus promoting student motivation and agency. The VR environment was shown to provide opportunities for students to explore subjects that are interesting and meaningful to them, increasing students' intrinsic motivation. The teacher's role in supporting students' autonomy and agency is important, as students should be encouraged and guided to use the affordances of the VR environment. Teachers need to monitor, evaluate, and adapt different teaching methods to take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology. In the future, this may help teachers in post-secondary education and skills training and immersive virtual reality (VR) designers to further develop technology to enhance learning in VR.

In different sectors of education percentage of school drop outs is highest in upper secondary vocational school even though dropping out has decreased in recent years. When discussed about dropping out, it's essential to recognize when it's about increasing risk of alienation and when it's necessary for individual's life. The purpose of this research it to offer a new point of view that considers life choices and turning points as process that continues individually and multidimensionally. In this research interest focus on agency behind dropping out and situational actors that lead to decisions to drop out. The theoretical framework concentrates changes in youth and working life, situational actors behind school drop outs and agency as individual's power to shape their life circumstances by choosing their actions. The research was carried out qualitatively. The data was collected in October 2015 and is based on open interviews that were analyzed using content analysis. In this research nine individual interviews were used. Interviewees were young persons who had quitted at least once in upper secondary vocational school and started another education or got employed after dropping out. Interviews indicated human agency as active operations that contain ability to picture alternative course of actions and possible future outcomes. In narrations agency can be seen as interaction that is strongly combined to time. Decision making is influenced by the past, present and future. As active and planned decision making, narrations show that agency is limited or allowed by structural and social actors that guide individual's actions and decision making. In narrations situational actors that lead to quitting, appeared to be set of various actors that eventually lead to limited agency and quitting school.

The thesis concentrates on the visibility and the political recognition of transgender women (mak nyah) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Through the theories of recognition, concentrating on the questions of gender and recognition, the thesis looks into how the institutionalized transphobia, the criminalization of transgendered practices and the lack of gender recognition affect the transgender women/mak nyah, often referred to as the most visible part of the LGBT community in Malaysia. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Kuala Lumpur between April and August 2017. The study rests on participant observation – carried out in various LGBT spaces, events, and the facilities of a Non-Governmental Organization – and on semi-structured interviews with a core group of 17 participants, including 14 members of the mak nyah community and three current and former workers of three key organizations working with the issues of sexual and gender rights. Participants come from multi-ethnic and multi-religious backgrounds, of which the majority are Malay Muslims. Since the 1990s, emerging from Hegelian legacy, there has been a resurgent interest in the notion of recognition. Recently in the field of political recognition, after the recognition theorists Charles Taylor’s (1994) and Axel Honneth’s (1995) publications, the new questions concerning the relationship of identity, politics, and gender recognition have been studied by social theorists and scholars such as Paddy McQueen (2015) and Eric Plemons (2017). These scholars discuss how gender is recognized in various surroundings and fields, including legal. Furthermore, they pose important questions, such as what happens when an individual’s lived experience falls outside of society’s 'normative' gender ideal. Taken further, it permits a closer examination of the relationship between individual and society, enables the observation of gendered spaces and their meanings, and allows the scrutiny of the public discourse. Furthermore, like Nancy Fraser (1990) and Michael Warner (2002) have demonstrated, in environments where such subjectivities are oppressed or excluded from the public sphere and the institutional world, alternative discourses and discursive spaces are created, known as counterpublics, serving as social and political areas for the marginalized groups. In the past decades in Malaysia, there have been legal and political constructions toward the non-heteronormative subjectivities and groups. In Malaysia’s two-court system, ‘transgendered practices’ are criminalized by the section of religious (Syariah) law criminalizing “cross-dressing” of Malay-Muslim backgrounded citizens and by a section of the national law that has been used for the arbitrary arrests and raids of transgender-identified persons based on “indecent behavior.” Malaysia that was formerly known as a site of “considerable fluidity and permeability in gender roles” (Peletz 2009), has now taken a completely different political approach to its sexual and gender minorities. This is partly a result of nationalist “Asian values” discourse that took root in the 1990s in various Southeast Asian countries and that views the non-heteronormative genders and sexualities as un-Asian. The political identity struggles that are characteristic of the post-independent Malaysia have had an enormous impact on the gender and sexual minorities of Malaysia and manifested in stigma, discrimination, criminalization, and violence. The thesis demonstrates that while the moral policing has shown signs of acceleration, it has also opened up new channels for the marginalized groups to speak up for themselves and about their issues; thus, the public visibility of their issues has increased. As the term 'transgender' is neither ahistorical nor acultural, it requires closer examination. Through the theories of sex and gender, the thesis looks into how Malaysian mak nyah have absorbed the global word transgender. The thesis also examines the topic of institutionalized ‘erasure’ by emphasizing the interlocutor’s experiences of health care. Moreover, by conjoining the theories of recognition with the concept of gendered spaces, the thesis shows how the interlocutors are altering their subject positions and gendered performances according to the spaces of interaction. Furthermore, the thesis suggests that the lack of institutional care has created self-organizing forms of agency, where the members of the mak nyah community are answering their own needs, because the current institutional services do not. Moreover, access to the 'safe spaces,’ and other communal spaces offer vital breathing spaces for the members of the community and within these spaces, they negotiate their identities and self-organize their institutional needs. More general level, the thesis shows that in spite of the strained social change, the public visibility of the issues of transwomen has created new opportunities for trans-identified individuals, such as opportunities to alter their public image.

The framework of the study was the support of the agency of immigrants as a part of the acculturation and integration process. The theories on agency in the background of the study have handled agency as a possibility to influence the course of events and as a part of the exercise of power, as an individual resource and as a way the individual continuously moulds the surrounding structures within their limitations and without being their passive victim. In previous research the visibility and exercise of agency was conceived as planned and meaningful work, self-conscious will to learn the language and the development of the individual with the support of the group. The function of the study is to examine what kind of meaning the adult education centre’s work can give to the agency of the immigrant and how agency can be seen to be supported in the work they do. The material of the study was three pieces of interviews of the experts in education of the immigrants at the adult education centres. The interviews were collected as thematic interviews while the research strategy was qualitative. Content-based content analysis was the research framework and the material was analysed through content analysis. The results of the study were the meaning of motivation in independent studies as part of exercising agency, developing of knowledge, skills and comprehension as part of expanding the limits of agency. The learning of the adult education centre’s students was best supported by student-based teaching methods, diverse course offering and the guidance and tranquil atmosphere provided by teachers. Learning can be seen to support the strengthening of agency with the immigrant students. The received results could be used in planning and evaluating the integration training of immigrants.

In my research I examined violence in secondary school from the point of view of the students. I asked, how the students themselves defined violence. I focused on who was considered to be someone who has information on the phenomenon or power to define it. In previous research it has been reported that mundane, everyday violence has been studied less than extreme acts of violence. In my research, I drew attention to the mundane aspects of the phenomenon and what it is at its limits. I tried to determine why some things were named violence, when others were not. In my research I regarded violence as gendered, since I wanted to study the phenomenon as a structure rather than as attached to specific individuals. In my understanding, violence and power are inseparably linked. Therefore I chose to approach the phenomenon from the perspective of a feminist theory. Key concepts in my research were violence, gender, school and agency. I used feminist ethnography as a method to both produce and analyze the data. In feminist ethnography it is essential to interact as respectfully as as possible with the people who are being studied as well as to maintain a critical attitude toward knowing and the hierarchies related to knowledge. The ethnographer tries to understand the world of the people she studies by participating in it. In feminist ethnography attention is drawn to power relations as well as in the intertwining differences. The data consist of field notes and interviews. For two weeks I observed the school days of the students of one seventh grade in one school located in the Helsinki metropolitan area. My observation covered classes, breaks and meal times, but I did not follow the students if they left the school grounds unless the classes were held there. I interviewed 17 of the 18 students in the class, in pairs or individually. Half of the interviews were done individually and the other half in pairs. There were 12 interviews in total. According to my research, the student’s status in the social hierarchy, their position regarding the norms in the society and the discourses related to violence or bullying in society were some of the factors that influenced the way the students defined violence or were affected by it. Violence in school appeared to be so normal that often it was not even noticed or regarded as such. An atmosphere was maintained actively where the possibility of violence was always present. The teachers used the threat of violence as a resource to emphasize their message. Gendered structures were also entwined with the normalization of violence. Violence or the threat of it was linked in particular with the correct representations of masculinity. In addition to gender other differences affected how it was possible to be present in school and how violence could be defined or used as a resource. According to my research, racism, homophobia and gendered structures limit the students' agency. The students seemed to be struggling to understand situations from other person’s points of view and to understand the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, the teachers did not seem to understand the students' perspective. I too shared the difficulties with identifying and naming violence. My conclusion is that even though no one is able to distinctly define violence, it is not to be accepted. Based on my research, violence should always be intervened, despite the difficulties of defining it.

Serial killing, although statistically rare, is frequently covered in news and entertainment media. Consequently, what has followed, is an extensive scholarly debate over the serial killer’s place in popular culture and the media as some have suggested that cultures promote serial killers by glorifying and overrepresenting them in the media. This thesis, guided by an interest in the problematic portrayal of this crime, explores the discursive portrayal of serial killers in two Finnish tabloids – Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat – by adapting a Foucauldian discourse analytical approach. Previous research has suggested that serial killers are most often portrayed as either monsters, celebrities or as mad or bad by the press. The celebrity portrayal of the serial killer is most often present in the American media, while the European media tends to lean towards a more monstrous portrayal. The results from this thesis correspondingly found that three Finnish serial killers; “the Serial Strangler”, “the Serial Drowner” and “the Poison Nurse” were most often portrayed as either mad, bad, or power hungry. The results presented in this thesis demonstrate how certain discourses are used to make sense of crimes that appear incomprehensible. These discourses determine how these offenders are seen by the public and place them in subject positions that in turn restrict their future possibilities of rehabilitation and reintegration. The discourses present in the Finnish tabloids tend to portray these serial killers as highly agentic, deviant individuals fully responsible for their violent crimes and thus beyond help. This thesis demonstrates that the Finnish portrayal of serial killers leans towards the more European kind: the Finnish serial killers were not glorified or portrayed as celebrities. Neither were they portrayed as killers motivated by fame, which suggests there are some cultural differences in the phenomenon. Serial killers do, however, even in Finland receive a lot of attention, exposure and recognition. Implications and meanings behind these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research possibilities are presented.

Modern views of learning emphasise the utilisation of students' pre-existing knowledge in teaching. Learning and information refinement occurs in social interaction, and for this reason school should also utilise more communal approaches to learning and teaching. Making use of students' existing knowledge is important also for student interest and engagement. The aim of this study is to find out how well teachers succeed in including student initiatives into teaching. The focal point is student-teacher interaction and how its quality is likely to affect student engagement. Earlier research has highlighted the importance of a good student-teacher social relationship, but on a level that provides no details of practicalities. A purpose of this study is to provide practical examples of different kinds of student-teacher interaction, and the interactions' effects on learning and engagement. This study is a qualitative analysis and the data is part of the data collected during the "Learning, Agency and Well-being" (2009-2014) project. The data of this study comprises of observational data collected from two upper secondary classes during 2010 and 2011. It consists of a total of 146 lessons that were concatenated into 52 episodes. From these episodes 109 interaction sequences that begun with a student initiative were included. In addition, 7 episode examples for selected for deeper scrutiny to form more detailed qualitative analyses and interpretations. Although teachers were fond of attempting to include student initiatives into teaching, only a few times was activity re-directed on the bases of the initiative. A good social relationship was found to be a significant factor for the creation of engagement fostering surroundings. Mutual trust and respect were found to be hallmarks of a good social relationship. Accepting students' somewhat on-task initiatives was found to be the best way of improving student engagement.

Objectives. The research task of this study is to describe, analyse and interpret the use of “migrant student” and similar terms in two documents of an international intervention project, which aims to make assessment more equitable for “migrant students”. More specifically, this study aimed to answer the research question “In what manners is the migrant student positioned?”. Positioning involves the assignment of attributes to people, either to another individual/group or the utterer/their ingroup (Davies & Harré 1990). On top of assignment of attributes, naming and agentivising of “the migrant student” were considered to contribute to positioning, and were thus investigated as well. Methods. The material consisted of two documents, a grant proposal and an informational document for stakeholders, written by multiple authors, who are researchers. Documents were analysed with quantitative and qualitative means, namely frequency analysis of agent-verb-object combinations and discourse analysis. Both analyses drew from semiotics, semantics, and enunciative pragmatics. Results and conclusions. It was found that “migrant students” are consistently othered (Jensen 2011) - positioned as disadvantaged, incompetent and challenging. It was argued that the unfavourable positioning of the “migrant student” could serve to convince funders and stakeholders of the necessity and the success of the project, which is essential for securing academic funding. The implications of conducting educational initiatives that claim to advance equity for students, but simultaneously other them, were considered. It is suggested that academic othering may be necessitated by the structures that impact the agency of researchers. It is also recommended that future research not only explores academic othering in other academic genres, but also involves those in powerful positions in structures like universities.

This thesis explores the link between South-South remittance and development. It attempts to establish improved understanding about the role of immigrants as agents of constituency growth and development. By doing so, it illuminates the dark corners of the policy implications that the unconventional development agency of immigrants might have for countries in the Organization ft Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The thesis problematises the existence of state-centric international cooperation as providing the recipe for failed Aid in the face of global poverty menace. In the last half a century, the relative shi of focus to non-state actors brought about the proliferation of NGOs. That, intrun, helped improve international access to crisis situations; however, their long-term remedial impacts on poverty and development have been contested. Major misgivings for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are, on one hand, low level goal-bound expenditures and lack of independence from influence of the state, on the other. Therefore, the thesis enterprises to empirically verify its fundamental question whether remitting immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the traditional players: the State and NGOs. Its main arguments are: due to states failures in bringing sustainable development in many countries of the South, the future of poverty reduction and development also rests in immigrants remittances. Nonetheless, in the last decade, remittance security-nexus dominated its discourse. Because of that remittance was viewed as something requiring global regime and restrictions. These temptations to tightly regulate remittance flows carry the danger of overlooking its trans-boundary nature and its strong link with livelihood of the poor. Therefore, to avoid unintended consequences of interventions, there need to be clear policy that bases itself on a discursive knowledge on the issues of North-South and South-South remittances The study involved both literature based and empirical research. It employed Discourse Analysis (C as main method for the former and snow-balling as its approach for the latter. For the first part the thesis constructed three conceptual models, these are: metrological model, police model and ecological model on remittance development-nexus. Through this modeling, the thesis achieved better deconstruction on the concepts remittance, immigrants and development agency. The protagonists of each model, the values and interests they represent, and their main arguments along various lines of dichotomies have been discussed. For instance, the main treats of meteorological model include: it sees remittance as transitional economic variable which require constant speculations and global management; it acts as meteorological station for following up or predicting the level, direction, flow and movement of global remittance. It focuses on official lines and considers the state as legitimate recipient of advic and positive consequence of remittance. On the other hand, police model views remittance as beir at best, development neutral or as an illicit activity requiring global regulations and tight control. Both immigrants and remittance viewed as subversive to establishments. It gives primacy to state stable agent of development and a partner for international cooperation. The anti-thesis to the police model is supplied by ecological model, which this thesis is a part. Ecological model on remittance and immigrants argues that, tight global regulations alone cannot be a panacea for possible abuse of informal remittance system. Ecological model, not only links remittance to poverty reduction, the main trust of development, but also considers the development agency of immigrants as critical factor for 21st century north-south development intervention. It sees immigrants as development conscious and their remittance instrument as most stable flow of finance to the developing countries. Besides, it sees remittance as effective poverty solutions than Foreign Direct Investment and international AID. This thesis focuses on the significance of South-South remittance and investigates the South Africa - Ethiopia remittance corridor, as case study; and empirically verifies the role of Ethiopian (Kembata and Hadiya) immigrants in South Africa as agents of local development back home. The study involved techniques of interview, group discussions, observations and investigative study. It also looked into the determinants of their migration to South Africa, and their remittance to Ethiopia. The theoretical models in the first part of the thesis have been operationalised throughout the empirical part to verify if the Kembata and Hadiya immigrants played the crucial role in their household poverty and local development in comparison with the Ethiopian state and the NGOs involved in the system. As evidenced by the research the thesis has made three distinct contributions to the discourse of remittance development-nexus. Fist, it systematized the debate about linkages between remittance, immigrants, development agency and policy of international cooperation by creating three conceptual models (school of thoughts); second, it singled out remitting immigrants as new agents of development in the South; third, it deconstructed concept of remittance and established South-South remittance as additional sphere of academic investigation. In addition to the above contributions, the thesis finds that Kembata and Hadiya immigrants have engaged in various developmental activities in their locality than usually anticipated. Hence, it concludes that Ethiopian immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the state and other non-state actors in their country, and the lesson can be applied to poverty reduction strategies in most developing countries.