Sweden is seen as one of the world?s most feminist societies. In January 2009 all grounds of discrimination were merged into a common law; Diskrimineringslagen. This paper examines representations of gender discrimination, linked to feminist perspectives, in the Parliamentary debate on Sweden?s new discrimination legislation through a discourse analysis.

Debates about suitable content in children's literature occur regularly. In spring 2010 such a debate took place in Sweden. The purpose of this Bachelor's thesis is to analyse the debate to identify ideas concerning the role of children's literature in society. A second aim is to examine how children's literature is described and which concepts are used by the debaters. The empirical material used for the analysis consists of ten articles, blog posts, radio- and TV- features published in March 2010.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union (EU) is one of the oldest fields of cooperation within the European Union. During the past decades the different Commissioners have made several proposals about changes in the CAP and many of them have not been passed but renegotiated. The present Commission has however published a report in 2011, which emphasizes that the CAP has three alternative ways to go in the future. This study aims to predict which one of these three alternative ways it is most likely that the CAP will take according to the historical institutionalist theory. When to be able to predict this text analysis is used.

The European Union is a self proclaimed leader in the field of climate change and has a common target for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. In spite of this, there are great differences between the member states capacity and dedication to the cause of implementing the Unions climate policy and reduce their emissions. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to an understanding of how different European states construct their identity in the context of climate change mitigation. By analyzing national documents from three European states and using tools deriving from discourse analysis, I aim to illuminate differences and similarities in their rhetoric. The result is that due to the states relationship to the European Union and the United Nations, there are great similarities in the way they construct mitigation and their identity.

Although Dan Andersson (1888-1920) is considered perhaps the most important of the early Swedish workingclassauthors, there has not been much research on his work. Through a perspective based on critical whitenessstudies, intersectionality and existential phenomenology, this thesis performs a close reading of Andersson?sKolarhistorier (1914) and Chi-mo-ka-ma (1920) in order to map the discursive formations of whiteness andblackness in the texts, as well as to expose how these formations interrelate with that of humanhood.Since an underprivileged situation of oppression and poverty is the point from which the fictional worldunfolds in both Kolarhistorier and Chi-mo-ka-ma, whiteness is not an existential style within close reach for thecharacters. In Kolarhistorier the charcoal-burners claim themselves as ?weary of whiteness? and accordingly thetext establishes what the thesis reads as a realm of blackness where the black, male body becomes a locus ofpleasure instead of despair.

The aim of this study is to analyze the change of Basque nationalism during the last ten years and discuss how the main nationalist party (PNV) tries to impose "we"- feelings and support for its cause. Theories of nationalism and national identity are used in the analysis.A textual analysis of PNV:s unofficial documents is discussed and compared with a discourse analysis of its official documents. Although the unofficial documents deal with similar view of basic political/territorial ambitions, language and identification, there are some differences in the latest documents regarding the view of who is defined as Basque and also to the detoriated relation to Spain. Although references are made to the regard that the Basque Country is for everyone, the persistence of emphasizing the uniqueness and myths of the Basque culture signals a different matter. The discourse analysis of the official documents supports this claim and although they contain an ambiguous relation to Spain it is clear that Basque nationalism has been radicalized.

This thesis is intended to respond to the extent to which South African textbooks on the subject of history is linked to the governmental policy documents and whether they are producing and reproducing national identity. The two textbooks are aimed at students in grade 10. Both books were produced in 2008 but published by different publishers.The essay is based on Norman Faircloughs critical discourse theory which has been supplemented by Michael Billings theory Banal Nationalism, which assumes that it is the national words that remind us daily of our homeland that is producing and reproducing national identity.  The survey shows that both textbooks are closely tied to the government policy document for the teaching of history. The textbooks refer to the policy, both explicitly and implicitly. The two textbooks reproduce a common national identity in South Africa based on the discussions taking place in society.

In this essay there will be four text books from grade 1 studied, the first one are from the year 1976 and it will be going forward to the year 2012. The aim of this study is to see how the genders are depicted and represented, as well as what roles the genders are given. I do also want to see if there is a notable change in this over time. I will be doing a study based on the quantity of the contents, and I will also be doing a critical discourse analysis.The result of the study showed that there were more gender-based constructions that referred to women in all of the four books, which indicates that women are represented more often in these reading books. It is most common to portray the genders in their stereotypical roles, which again are present in society, but sometimes these roles are depart from what?s present in society.

Usability studies are not a central field of research in library and information science. Although literature in library and information science treats the importance of usable user interfaces quite extensively, the literature does not significantly treat potential problems in measuring usability. The aim of this master thesis is to investigate, through a critical analysis, the methods used when conducting usability studies in library and information science. The critical analysis is based on potential problems in measuring usability identified through a literature review from the field of studies Human-Computer Interaction, the concept of usabilitys original domain. The material which is to be analysed, is chosen from one library and information science journal Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

Youth unemployement in Sweden is at an all-time high, a fifth of all university and college students live in poverty and the number of young on welfare is increasing. This study attempts to answer the question of how youth deprivation has been made possible as a consequence of political action, focusing on youth unemployment. I critically examine the role of the Swedish government, the Swedish Labour Organisation (LO), and the various government departments through text analysis, in order to answer the question of how the current discourse on youth position in the labor market. Because youth unemployment is not an isolated phenomena the analysis covers several policy areas, such as education policy, labor market regulation and housing policy. I use discourse theories drawn from Laclau and Mouffe to expose how language is used as an instrument of political power. I conclude that the current situation is a result of policy choices where the young have fallen behind due to lack of political organization. Their situation is not problematized to the required degree and is often explained on an individual level rather than on a structural level. .

This study is a comparative analysis of how Hollywood portrays people from the Middle East before and after 9/11. The films used to conduct this study are True Lies (1994), The Siege (1998), The Kingdom (2007) and Body of Lies (2008). With a qualitative methodology, discourse analysis and postcolonial theory this study analysed not only how people from the Middle East is portrayed, but also how the Americans in the films are presented and how the characters in the films changed in the movies produced after 9/11.     The results show that people from the Middle East are portrayed in a negative way and that Hollywood uses stereotypes. However, people from the Middle East are more gradated in the films post-9/11. There is a bigger focus on Islam in the movies produced after 9/11 and the study also shows that family values play a less central part in the story in the films made after 9/11 and that work is of more importance.

En diskursanalys på två av de mest frekvent använda historieböckerna på den svenska gymnasieskolan "Epos" och "Alla tiders historia A". Dessa läses med hjälp av en diskursanlys framtagen av Lennart Hellspong "Metoder för brukstextanalys". För att se om där finns spår av eurocentrism och om de motsvarar Lpf11s kursplan för ämnet historia. Resultatet visar på att de båda böckerna är allt för vinklade till Europas fördel och att de på egenhand inte motsvarar kursplanen..

The purpose of this study is, based on theories of gender and hegemonic masculinity, to studyhow masculinity and femininity is constructed and reproduced in one of the most popularSwedish podcast: Filip & Fredriks podcast. The main theory in this study is that gender issocially created and sustained by humans through language and interaction with others.The study's research questions is: How are gender roles/gender portrayed in Filip & Fredrik'spodcast? What characteristics are attributed to men and women in Filip & Fredrik's podcast?How does Filip & Fredrik's podcast represents conditions and power relations between menand women?Through an linguistic textual analysis, which is an application of discourse analysis, I seek toget beneath the surface meanings of texts and examine more implicit social meanings andideologies regarding gender. It includes an analysis of metaphors, word choices and syntax.The analysis shows underlying values and ideologies that indicates gender structures in abroader societal context. Choice of words and metaphores in Filip & Fredriks's podcastexpresses symbolism where men and male-typical attributes are highly valued, whilst womanand female-typical attributes is being devalued and representative of the opposite.Masculinities and femininities are also constructed and represented in various ways throughsentence constructions that guides the listeners in certain directions.

This master's thesis analyses the concept of equality between men and women in parts ofRegion Västra Götaland's area of operation. With critical policy analysis I analyse how theproblem of inequality is represented in the European charter for equality of women and men inlocal life (CEMR) and the Region Västra Götaland's plan of action for the charter. Throughinterviews with people responsible for gender equality in different areas I analyse, withdiscourse theory, the ways in which the concept of gender equality is articulated in differentareas of Region Västra Götaland, and what kind of politics these articulations enables.In the analysis I show that a discursive struggle of how equality is to be defined canbetter be understood as a discursive negotiation. Equality between men and women isunderstood in several ways at the same time, as antidiscrimination and basic human rights, asbalance between the sexes, and as an approach critical of norms and stereotypes. Within thesenegotiations certain understandings of gender are made possible or impossible.

The aim of our study was to examine how homosexual and heterosexual men and women are represented in the Swedish magazine QX, a magazine for gay, bisexual and transgender people. We wanted to find out what kind of roles the persons in QX appears in, and inquire the relationships that exist between them.We analyzed the texts in twelve magazines, from December 2008 to November 2009, in order to get the most current results as possible. We used a discourse analysis, with focus on identities, relationships and the representation of the world. Representations, gender, hegemonic masculinity and stereotypes have been significant theories to analyze our results.The results showed that the successful gay man is the most important person in QX. He is the perfect masculine macho fagot, who is highest in rank.