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.

All around the world there are several armed conflicts, where rape is used as a weapon of war against the civilian population. Many take refuge from their countries of origin and may end up in Sweden, where they build a new life for themselves. What preparation is there to welcome these women and help them obtain a deeper sense of psychological well-being? The aim of this study was to reach an understanding of how professionals view the meeting between themselves and women who have been subjected to rape in times of armed conflict, as well as how the work with this group could be improved. The study had a qualitative approach and has been carried out with semi-structured interviews.

According to international and national literacy studies (PISA, PIRLS) Swedish boys are inferior to Swedish girls when it comes to reading. There can be numerous reasons to that statement. One is that Swedish teachers require more knowledge about communication as an important component in literacy. In spite of this shortcoming, Swedish girls manage to gain sufficient literacy. Why is that? The aim of this survey was to examine if there were any differences between girls and boys regarding communication skills when they begin in school.The main questions taken in account were:Which differences and/or similarities in communication skills are discernible between boys and girls this particular preschool?How do boys and girls communicate with each other in different room contexts on this particular preschool?           To be able to answer the questions, I adopted observations and audio recordings from children aged five.

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.

Normal children acquire the necessary social habits without being consciously aware of this, they learn instinctively. (Author?s translation from Swedish to English) (Asperger & Frith, 1998, s. 21) This essay is about people who do not learn to socialize, the social habits, instinctively but through conscious learning. We have interviewed three adults with the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome with the aim to let them tell us about what it means to have a neuropsychiatric disability.

This in an essay concerning the use of humor in male communication. Primarily, I have focused on studying how jokes can be used as a sanction for the training of members in a (male) group. I have found great inspiration in Goffman?s thoughts on a social face and the use of humor to protect this perceived face.Initially I started to reflect on men?s reluctance to discuss masculinity and their thoughts about the meaning of being a man. Every time I tried to hold a serious conversation, my male friends made a joke out of it.

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.

Internet is used today as a traditional medium for information exchange and social interaction. One of these is virtual meeting places where people meet and exchange information, socialize and exchange knowledge with each other. The group has chosen to examine the factors affecting the use of web forums, one of the virtual meeting places that exist on the Internet today. And look at how people use the web forum today in the current situation and how to design a web forum.A survey was conducted to find out how people look at web forums today, 80 people participated, and they got to talk about what they think about different web forums regarding how and why the use these them. Guidelines on how a web forum should be designed were also developed.

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.

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.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the ways in which the constructions of heterosexuality and gender in three Disney movies about princesses affect the power relations between men and women in the movies, and how discourses on gender and heterosexuality have changed over time. Research questions were:How do characters in the movies talk about gender and heterosexuality?How does the interplay between gender and heterosexuality affect the power relations between men and women in the movies?What are the likenesses and differences between movies from different time periods?Discourses were mapped out using a model based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe?s political theories. These discourses were then analyzed with a theoretical framework consisting of Yvonne Hirdman?s concept of gender system and gender contracts, Judith Butler?s view on the heterosexual matrix and an understanding of power relations based on Michel Foucault.