In Sweden the studies will be conducted as distance education via the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, GIH. All courses are held in English.
Pedagogical perspectives in friluftsliv, 15 ECTS
This master's course in friluftsliv (outdoor studies) will provide opportunities for in-depth learning about some of the interconnected processes that shape our planet. Combine your passion for the natural world with helping humanity find a path towards more sustainable human-nature relationships. The underpinning theme for the course is place-responsiveness in education and eco-tourism through a posthuman lens. Due to the corona pandemic, the course will be taught online in the fall semester of 2020.
The course will highlight and problematize key pedagogical concepts and perspectives in order to challenge anthropocentrism and taken for granted notions of human-nature relations from different ontological positions, including post human theorizing. The anthropocentric notion of nature as other and the nature-culture dichotomy will be analysed from a range of disciplines and perspectives, such as phenomenology, critical pedagogy and relational materialism.
The course will consist of various forms of on-line meetings such as, lectures and seminars. During these meetings, you will be given the opportunity to interact with your fellow students, and engage in discussions concerning human-nature relationships from a range of theoretical perspectives, including posthuman theorizing. During the course you will also be doing some fieldwork, in an around your nearby places and spaces. This means that depending on where you live, you will explore a variety of landscapes and seascapes. These different places will form a starting point for discussions and analysis related to place-responsive, environmental and cultural perspectives.
Course coordinator: Jonas Mikaels, Senior lecture in Sport Science with a focus on outdoor studies
Friluftsliv in periurban landscapes, 10 ECTS
Outdoor life in urban landscapes is a master's course that relates to the importance of physical activity and nature encounters, not least for people living in cities. This is of great value from a health perspective. If this is to be possible, proximity to natural environments where people live is of crucial importance. The closeness to natural environments for people in cities presents specific challenges, not least for the management of this type of natural areas. After this course you will have a solid knowledge of various health perspectives related to outdoor life, green environments and how educational methods can assist in conceptualisation and understanding of nature, which includes developing the ability to read and experience landscapes. You will also be able to conquer a growing understanding of business management as well as organizational and political issues related to outdoor life in Sweden.
A quote from the coordinator
"Warmly welcome to the course! It will provide a professional level of knowledge about outdoor life and nature encounters from various health perspectives, as well as insights about societal planning for these values in relation to sustainable development in urban settings."
Course coordinator: Peter Schantz, professor in the multidisciplinary field of movement, health and environment
Quantitative Methods, 5 ECTS
Outdoor Research has become known as an innovative and spirited field of study in the recent two decades, which involves a variety of designs and methods. Quantitative methods in outdoor research emphasizes objective measurements, surveys, data collection, and manipulating data using computational techniques.
This course will cover the fundamental approaches of outdoor research, history and philosophy of outdoor study, research design, measurement, data analysis, interpretations, and ethics. The course is an introductory course on quantitative research methods but has a strong focus on the application of varied methods in real cases/examples in outdoor research. We will introduce one statistical software (SPSS) to the students, and demonstrate basic statistical analysis of a pre-existing dataset. This course will facilitate the students' ability to recognize different quantitative methods applied in outdoor research and to design and analyze their own research projects.
References
- Humberstone B and Prince H. Methods in Outdoor Studies. Routledge 2019.
- Almquist, Y. B., Kvart, S., Brännström L. (2019). A practical guide to quantitative methods with SPSS. Research Reports in Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, no:2019:2.
Course coordinator: Rui Wang, Associate senior lecturer sport science, Assistant professor in biostatistics and epidemiology