This paper analyzes Allt, Martina Lowden's novel from 2006, from a media discursive perspective. The theoretical framework consists of Michel Foucault's discourse analysis, Friedrich Kittler's research on hermeneutic reading, and N. Katherine Hayles's studies of pattern?randomness controlled meaning production. Various examples on how communication technology influences the narrator?s act of writing illustrate the medial discourse surrounding the body of Allt.

The aim of this study is to study the construction of literary values. I have been looking at how literature awarded with sponsored literary prizes has been reviewed in four major English and American newspapers. I have been studying the reception of literature by Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín and Zadie Smith between 2000 and 2012. The prizes in focus are the Man Booker Prize, the Orange prize for fiction and the Costa Awards. There seems to be an increasing number of articles related to each author after they have been awarded a prize, however with little change in the content of the reviews.

This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

AbstractThe purpose of this work is to try to find out how young people's reading habits among students look at different types of secondary school, ie. both theoretical and practical, and what factors might encourage them to read more. My questions have been; do young people read today? Is there any difference between city, gender or program? What can a teacher do to inspire young people to read more? I have made a questionnaire survey among different students at two different high schools in Skaraborg. The first school is a high school located in a medium sized town, where I made inquiries to the scientific program, social program, Business and Administration Program and the Electricity Program.

This essay examines the speaking subject in Katarina Frostenson?s poetry through a phenomenological perspective. The study is focused on how the subject appears, the relation between the subject?s inner world and the outside world, and the relation between the speaking subject and language. The purpose of the study is to expand the understanding of questions regarding the subject in Frostenson?s poetry by using a phenomenological approach ? a perspective that is missing in previous studies.

The question is who should govern and administrate a municipality owned urban forest? Should societies and the public be invited to participatory planning, who are the interested parties, could they be treated like a group and what are their opinions on administration and management? The study is carried out in a municipal owned forest Vitberget Skellefteå that is widely used by associations and individuals for recreation and training.This has led to several discussions in the local media about the management of the forest, especially in connection to harvesting. The work undertaken here has been to identify who has any interest in the management of the area. After identifying the interested parties, a selection of the societies, schools and pre-schools that actively uses the area as well as random individuals met in the area was interviewed. The questions asked can be divided into six main groups:? Communication with the municipality?s managers for the area? Interference from other activities? Views on forest management? Views on nature conservation? The uniqueness of Vitberget? Development opportunitiesThe crucial factors identified as being needed to succeed in managing an urban forest are long-term administration, information and communication.

The landscape with its associated historical tracks and remains are an important part of our cultural heritage that we consider important to conserve. The stone walls are an example of historical remains that helps to build up this cultural heritage. It is a landscape element that today usually is being associated with the old cultivated landscape, where they mainly functioned as boundary markings and fences. Today, the stone wall is a valuable element in the landscape with ecological, culture-historical and aesthetic values. Since the stone walls arose as elements in the landscape a lot has been changed within the agriculture.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyse the private researchers encounter with the Royal Library, national library of Sweden. The main focus is on answering the two questions: who is the private researcher and what is his/her impression of the Royal Library? These questions are answered from the vantage point of the following theoretical perspectives: library anxiety, Bourdieu, library architecture, gender studies and service management. The methods used are qualitative interviews, and textual analysis using the printout of these taped interviews along with notes and an earlier user study as material. The conclusions are that barriers with staff is the most frequent factor of library anxiety in the private researcher at the Royal Library, and mechanical barriers the least frequent.

This study revolves around calculating the extent of appearance of both anonymously and named men and women as well as determining whether or not Yvonne Hirdman?s gender theory is applicable on two versions of a Swedish educational history textbook called Epos: historia: för gymnasieskolans kurs A (2008) and Epos [historia] 1b (2012), published for two different curriculum. Our qualitative investigation of two parts of the book?s content proves that the two principles of gender system are present in both books, although to a lesser extent in the latter version. Calculating the material, results have shown that anonymous men and women are almost equally presented in Epos 2012, which is not the case in the 2008 version.

This thesis aims to examine how the renowned swedish writer and critic Olof Lagercrantz wrote about communist China under Mao Zedong's leadership in the years 1970?1971. Lagercrantz served as editor-in-chef and as cultural director on one of Sweden's major daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, between 1951 and 1975. He travelled to China in 1970 as one of the first European reporters to get admission after the cultural revolution. This series of articles about China also changed the image of Lagercrantz, afterwards he was referred to as Maoist.

The goals of this essay are to identify rituals and ritual behavior at the department of archaeology and ancient history at Lund University. To do this a series of empirical examinations was conducted. Observations, interviews and polls revealed that some ritual behavior is in fact present. Two types of rituals were identified; the interaction ritual, as presented by Erving Goffman in the book Interaction Ritual, Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, in 1967. The second type of ritual is a ?problem solving? ritual, such as meetings.

This thesis investigated the possibilities to resume cultivation of an old manor house built of timber and what this would mean from an energy and moisture perspective. The building in this case study is named Sofiedals mansion and was built in 1858 in Valbo 11 kilometers west of Gävle.The structure of the house was documented and used as a starting-point for carrying out calculations focused on energy and moisture aspects. With the help of a number of computer programs and a conducted air tightness test, the buildings energy consumption were calculated and compared with the current building regulations.In addition, the building was analyzed considering energy retrofitting and what it meant for moisture problems. The energy retrofitting consisted of additional insulation, decreasing the buildings permeability through air sealing; window and door replacements. When a building is equipped with natural ventilation it is difficult to know its precise performance and how an energy retrofitting affects it.

My point of origin concerning this thesis was an interest for how school may develop students? reading comprehension. International surveys show that the results for Swedish students? performance regarding reading comprehension have declined and the current curriculum, Lgr-11, emphasizes the importance of incorporating this into all school subjects. The special teacher education programme has raised the awareness concerning the importance of including the students and that learning is achieved in an interactive setting.

According to the curriculum the Swedish school system should aim to let the democratic values permeate the school as a whole, and the school should assume each student's individual abilities in teaching. (Lpo -94) Democratic education is what the pragmatist John Dewey strongly encourages in his book Democracy and Education, which is why he stands for the theoretical framework of the concept of democracy in the school context. This study aims to examine whether and if so, the social roles in a classroom can affect students' opportunities for learning. The main research questions asked were:How can the social roles affect students' opportunities for learning in a classroom? How do students perceive that the social roles in the classroom affect their opportunities for learning? This has been investigated by two complementary perspectives.  Partly thru a student perspective to raise the students 'own experiences, and partly from an outside perspective to show how I, as an observer can see that social roles affect students' opportunities for learning.

This qualitative study is done with the purpose of creating understanding for the theoretical democratic content in educational materials for Civic Education courses 1a1 and 1b during GY-11, so teachers create an intentional approach when using educational materials in their democratic education. This was motivated as important considering the reduction in obligatory Civic Education for the vocational programs. The study was conducted using a hermeneutic qualitative reading method where the educational materials, more specifically two series with one book for each course, was read with purpose of creating understanding for the democratic content according to ideal democratic models: deliberative democracy, participatory democracy and electoral democracy. A text voice analysis was also conducted using Bakhtins theory of dialogic and monologue text that contributed to the general result concerning the democratic content. The results show that the electoral democracy ideal is dominant in all educational materials, there is hence no striking difference between the democratic content in 1a1 and 1b educational materials.