The object of this thesis is to direct attention onto female inmates who is a disregarded user group within the discipline of library and information sciences. This study has been performed on location at the Hinseberg correctional institution where nine female criminal offenders constitute the empirical foundation of our inquiry. The question proposed for solution is as follows: Is there a correlation between socio-cultural prerequisites and the reading habits of the female inmates - and if so how can it be described? Among the conclusions that we have drawn from our study is that the socio-cultural environment has an influence on the well-being of the inmates which in its turn has an impact on their reading. However, the effects on their mental state vary and consequently so does also their reading.

Studies show that some pupils with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) can have difficulties in understanding written texts. The present study seeks to examine whether pupils with ASD differ in their reading comprehension of a factual text and a literary text. Another aim of the study is to obtain a picture of the reading habits of high school pupils with ASD, what reading strategies they use, and how they work with texts in Swedish lessons in school.The study uses texts from PISA surveys from 2009 and 2000. The factual text Varmluftsballongen (The Hot-air Balloon) was taken from the try-out for the 2009 survey and the literary text Gåvan (The Gift) was taken from the 2000 PISA survey. To gain some idea of the pupils? reading comprehension of the texts, the present study used the tasks accompanying the texts, with certain changes in the questions about the text on the hot-air balloon.

Reading spaceFurniture for reading for the new city library of GöteborgThe main purpose of my project has been to inspire people to read books at the library. I wanted to create something very site specific and chose a room on the second floor of the new city library to work with. To be able to relax, feel inspired and to concentrate on reading, the visitors of the library need to experience a sense of security. My solution to the different conditions or problems in the room and the needs I identified is a seat hanging inside a frame. When sitting down in the seat, the frame is low enough to see over but it is still experienced as a private spatiality.

Author: Elisabeth Wahlberg Title: ??I?ll just get mum to help me?About Young Adults? Strategies for Coping with Reading and Writing Difficulties in Daily Life  This study investigated how seven young adults, who during senior high school underwent a syllable based intervention due to reading and writing difficulties, developed their literacy skills, and what strategies they used to try to overcome reading and writing problems, whether at work, during studies or in their leisure time. The period from when the participants had left school ranged between three and eight years. Qualitative as well as quantitative data was compiled for the study. Qualitative data consisted of  semistructured interviews and quantitative data of tests performed before the intervention and on two occasions after, in order to compare results over time.

This study aims to seek knowledge about what preschool teachers think about gender issues, and if it affects their work. The study has been performed in a multicultural district in Stockholm. A working party of three teachers, one male and two females, has been interviewed and observed. The empirical material from the interviews and observations has then been analyzed based on theories about gender, femaleness, maleness and cultural behaviour. The result proves that one of the three teachers considers that there are general typical female and male behaviour.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

The aim of this Master?s thesis was to investigate if one can identify a pattern in a family?s reading habits. Our empirical data was gathered in a survey distributed to a family in three generations, between the ages 15 to 82. The family was interviewed in a life time perspective, in a so called life story character. The questions addressed in this thesis concerned how the reading habits and the general attitude toward literature differ between generations in one family.

The purpose of this study is to examine how women?s reading of the Harry Potter books can be understood on the basis of gender theory and reader-response criticism. The empirical data is gathered through qualitative interviews with six female Harry Potter readers between the age of 21 and 35, and is analyzed through several theories regarding gender and reading. The results show that the readers are critical towards many aspects of the books, especially when it comes to the stereotyped depiction of women and men. The books are said to reproduce the gender dichotomy, the gender hierarchy and the heteronormativity in society.

Earlier research has shown the difficulty of defining insulting behaviour in the workplace. It has been noted that the individual and subjective definition is connected to the specific situation in which the potentially insulting incidence occurred. In this study we designed a quantitative questionnaire in order to hopefully elucidate the comprehension of insulting behaviour and furthermore enable a more in-depth investigation on how important the contextual meaning is. This study examined 140 (n=140) working adult?s attitudes towards insulting behaviour in the workplace and the importance of the contextual variables.

The aim of this study is to describe how pupils in fourth grade talk about their attitude of reading fictional narratives in school and on their spare time, their motives to read and how the school promotes fictional experiences. The study is based on interviews with 18 pupils from the same class, divided in four groups. The interviews were analyzed from a literature reception theory. The result shows that some pupils are very engaged in reading fictional narratives, while others more or less, are forced in to reading, because their teacher wants them to. All the interviewed pupils would like to read exciting, interesting books, but they feel that they don?t get the right support neither from their teacher, parents nor their friends. They describes that they don?t discuss the meaning of reading or things that the reader can read between the lines.

Gyms are populated by more and more people and there is an increased interest in wellness and health. However, there is a downside to the culture that people choose to step into. Exercise can go too far and take unhealthy directions. The purpose of this study is to examine how norms are created in the gym culture and how unhealthy behaviour is reproduced inside the walls of the gym. We have also done research about how a local gym identifies and handles deviant behaviour such as the use of doping and eating disorders.

Swedish university libraries traditionally collect recreational readingmaterial only to support the teaching and research interests of theirinstitutions. However many university libraries hold a substantial yetunspecified collection of popular fiction. This thesis investigates theextent of these collections and examines academic librarians' viewsabout students' recreational reading in the academic context and theirattitudes towards the role of fiction and of readers' advisory inacademic libraries. The theoretical framework includes literature andresearch about the benefits of reading for pleasure, collections' rolesand readers' advisory strategies. The empirical material was gatheredthrough quantitative surveys sent to academic librarians in Sweden.The results show that academic librarians are positive about thebenefits of recreational reading for university students.

The aim of this study is to examine the roles of the children?s librarian in a reading aloud context. To reach understanding in this subject, we have conducted interviews with four Swedish librarians working in public libraries whom are involved with reading aloud practices. Previous research shows that the reasons for reading aloud in libraries are diverse and plentiful. Such reasons can be to spread cultural experiences, help children develop their language skills and promote the library to the public.

The aim of the study was to examine the reading ability of adultswith intellectual and/or communicative disabilities. The group adults withintellectual and/or communicative disabilities consisted of 66 individuals.One control group consisting of 36 children aged 7 to 12 years and onereference group consisting of 14 adults were used. Participants were given anumber of language and reading related tests. Adults with intellectual and/orcommunicative disabilities had significantly lower results than the adultreference group regarding all tests and significantly lower results than thechild control group regarding phonological processing. There was nodifference between adults with intellectual and/or communicative disabilitiesand the child comparison group regarding word decoding and readingcomprehension.

This thesis advances an explicit, consequent, and wholesome ethnomethodological perspective on brand community. It recognizes brand community as a social problem ? something to be continuously solved and achieved. The two main perceivably stable features of the Nikonian community are (1) practical usefulness and (2) the social link. The authors suggest that both features are constantly accomplished through three types of aggregate behaviour (1) lurking, (2) ordinary membership, and (3) community citizenship behaviour (CCB).