One of the main goals in this study is to investigate how young children's identity formation and social relationships are depicted by today's consumer society.  In order to reach the goals of the study I also concentrated myself on questions regarding the reflection of symbolic aspects consumption in younger children's interaction and preschool-teachers' ideas about how and in what ways children's consumption patterns are created and developed nowadays. In order to answer the presented research questions I used the theoretical arguments of researchers in the field of pedagogy Gert Biesta in connection with the ideas and concepts of the consumer society characteristics developed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.The thesis' methodological approach consists of a combination of semi-structured interviews with teachers and observations of children's interaction, which contributed to a systematic investigation of the thesis' problem area and served as a tool for obtaining answers to the research questions.The results demonstrate that consumption occupies a lot of space in young children's lives, which means that it greatly affects their social relationships today. Both consumption and knowledge of the known brands prove to be the child's path to the desired community on the one hand, and the children's way to the consumer world on the other (hand), which in turn points to an obvious dependence between children's consumption and their social relationships.The results also show that there is a tension between the perception of identity formation as preschool-policy-document on the one hand and the attitude of the identity prescribed by consumer society norms and regulations on the other..

The rates for teenage conception and motherhood in the UK are according to recent research, the highest in Wester Europe. The ongoing debate concerning these teenage pregnancies and teenage motherhood has therefore become political in a wide range. The government?s goal is to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies until the end of 2010 to prevent social exclusion among vulnerable young women. However, there is controversy in other research that describes teenage pregnancies more likely to be a result of social exclusion than its cause.The purpose of this study is to examine how young mothers in a borough of London, from their own point of view, experience their situation, their difficulties and possibilities in present and in future.

This bachelor's thesis is an investigation into the public libraries'actions following the debate of Stina Wirséns character LillaHjärtat, featured in picture books and films for young children.The character was accused of being racist, due to its similarity tostereotypes such as pickaninnies. Because of this, the books'existence in public libraries was questioned.The purpose of this study is to investigate how librarians havedealt with these books, and what they have based their decisionson. To explore the background of these decisions we have usedPatrick Wilson's theory of cognitive authority (1983). We haveexamined which cognitive authorities have been used in thedecision-making process of how to handle the books containingLilla Hjärtat, and why these cognitive authorities have beenchosen. The method used in the study is qualitative interviewswith seven librarians working in public libraries throughoutSweden.The results of the interviews show that the librarians? mostprominent cognitive authorities have been authors and illustratorsof children's books.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate how parents? in multilingual families perceive language learning and reading for young children, and how their practice of this can be understood in relation to their language situation and cultural background.This study focuses on the interaction between parents? and young children in the light of the literacy practice. Important concepts such as early childhood literacy and family literacy have been used to study language, culture and literacy practice as phenomena that interact. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural perspective. Through qualitative interviews with seven parents?, it was found that multilingual families have a strong ambition for their children to learn all the languages spoken in the family.

This essay discusses children?s rights and control and system of rules in HVB-homes that provide treatment for adolescences with drug abuse prob­lems or criminal behavior. The results of this study are based on interviews with four persons working in managerial positions on different HVB-homes and shows the difficulties of having a children?s rights perspective in a con­text where a higher level of control is necessary to protect the best interest of the child. The study suggests that the question of balance between children?s right and the need for controlling system of rules needs to be fur­ther dis­cussed to improve, and as far as possible guarantee that these adoles­cence receive best possible care and do not suffer unfair restrictions on liber­ties..

Our study aims to discover how young men aged 15-19 perceive the image of men in women?s magazines. To do this we let eight young men read the two women?s magazines most read by young women their own age, Vecko Revyn and Cosmopolitan. We want to find whether they consider this image to be representative of their own reality.

AbstractMaster?s Thesis in Comparative literatureTitle: Ghettoiserade Vampyrer. En studie av barnvampyrlitteratur och dess betydelse för vampyrlitteraturgenren (Ghettoized Vampires. A study of children?s vampire literature and its significance for the vampire literature genre)Writer: Peter KostenniemiDepartment of Literature, History of Ideas and ReligionSupervisor: Anna NordenstamExaminer: Yvonne LefflerKey Words: Vampire literature, children?s literature, Der kleine Vampir, Nattens BørnIn vampire literature research the focus usually lies on adult and, to some extent, young adult fiction.

The aim of this study was to understand how three selected football associations in three counties in Sweden work to include children and adolescents with disability in the age of 7-20 in their organization.  For this study we have used a qualitative method. The data have been collected through using semi-structured interviews with coaches and representatives from the board. When analyzing the data, we used Charles Tilly's theory Durable Inequality and research within the area of inclusion within sports, the significance of activities and the inequality within sports. The conclusions of the study showed that there was a stated lack of knowledge in the associations when it comes to their work with young people with disabilities and also in their work with the policies.

This study intends to examine why the Swedish children?s programme Bolibompa is produced the way it is during a larger catastrophe. Our intention was to find out how the editorial staff, in the children?s department in the public service television of Sweden (SVT),was handling the Estonia disaster, the September 11 attacks and the Asian Tsunami. To accomplish that, we first had to find out how the children?s programme looked during these catastrophes and also understand how the editorial staff was working with children?s programme during ordinary days.To achieve our purpose we have been interviewing five persons from SVT, who was involved in producing the children?s programme during these three catastrophes.

The aim with this study was to examine how social service statement in 3 § social-judgements LVU (Swedish care of young persons act) produce ideas about gender. We have taken an interest in the production of both boys and girls and their mothers and fathers because there are clear differences in the description of these. From a historical perspective, the differences between gender in social assessments occurred despite the fact that discrimination is prohibited by law and despite the fact that social service shall work on the basis of an gender equality perspective. In the analysis and interpretation of the rulings we have been inspired by a critical discourse analysis. 30 social-judgements have been analyzed where of 15 concerns girls and 15 involve boys.

The purpose of this study was to explore young people's participation and experience of participation in child protection investigations. The study was conducted using qualitative methodology and is based on interviews with four adolescents aged 13-19 years old who have experience of child protection investigations. Our chosen method has made it possible for us get a deeper understanding of young people's own experiences of participation. In order to analyze the material we have used Shiers (2001) model of children's participation, symbolic interactionism, and some concepts relating to shame and pride.The results show that all adolescents have had the opportunity to be heard during the investigations, but it is different to what degree they feel that someone has listened to them.Two of the young people have been involved in their investigation, been listened to and have had impact on the decisions taken. The results indicate that it does not seem to be the external factors, such as how many meetings they have had, or what quality it was on the information, that matters if the social worker did not manage to convey to the young people that what they told was of any importance.

The following paper is about degrading treatment in preschools and the essay discuss degrading treatment according to the Swedish school law, in preschools and the chosen focus for this study is three to four year old children. The aim is to see whether or not preschool children proceed with degrading treatment towards other children and if preschool teachers believe that children this young have the ability to do so. The questions for this study are: Can children proceed with degrading treatment towards each other? Which conflicts evolve through children?s interactions? Can children in pre-schools have a degrading behavior? To answer these questions participant observation at two preschools and interviews with four preschool teachers were chosen as method. The perspective of this paper is based on the view on children as actors, which is used to acknowledge and enhance the possibilities of letting the children?s own voices be heard.

This paper has focused on specific aspects of the law concerning the 3rd paragraph of The Care of Young Persons Act (1990:52), LVU. The purpose of this study was to examine the prerequisite other social destructive behaviour in four cases where youths has been under compulsory institutional care because of their computer gaming. The study was composed on a legal dogmatic method and a legal sociologist perspective. The legal dogmatic method implies to examine the law and its elaboration, the legal sociologist perspective focus on the consequences and causes of the court of law. The study shows that problematic computer gaming is an increasing problem in society and that other social destructive behaviour is a wide prerequisite that need new amendment in order to ensure citizens certainty..

This study aims to find more knowledge about preschool teachers? point of view on the situation of children living in economic hardship and how it affects them at the preschool. With economic hardship becoming more frequent and common amongst families with young children we find the subject important and in need of more attention. Studies have proven the negative effects of poverty on children?s development and health and since the preschool is a big part of children?s everyday life the study aims to see what perspectives practitioners have on the issue and how they plan activities and learning situations based on the needs of these children.

The aim of this thesis is to make a contribution to the field of design oriented theory, regarding young children and their way to digital competence. My research question is: How can a preschool with a certain pedagogical ICT-design give the children affordances for media play and for developing a digital competence?The European Parliament points out digital literacy as one of the Key Competences for life long learning. A digital competence is built on basic ICT (Information and Communication technology) skills. Skills you can develop any time during life, weather you are young or old.