The aim of this paper is to describe, visualise- and analyse media’s discursive representations of female politicians in Swedish printed media. The focus of the analysis is to show if, and how these images can be understood and interpreted in terms of a socially constructed gender stereotyped suborder. The paper takes it's theoretical and methodological departure in the discourse analysis, which is combined with feminist political theory. Feminist political theory is concretised in the use of what Yvonne Hirdman calls the "gender system" which arranges the sexes into their respective genders and is based upon two rules/principles/logics: 1) the rule of distinctive separation, and 2) the male norm. Closely related to the aim of the paper lies also the critical theoretic assumption that people has to be aware of their own part in the production and reproduction of the discourse in order to change make a change.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate mindfulness as a New Age phenomenon in the modern western society. Since a religious phenomenon does not exist in a vacuum, but is dependent on its historical and cultural context, my aim is to give a broad depiction of mindfulness and New Age in its wider context, the historical background and the societal implications of common values, themes and concepts that are frequent in the literature, how mindfulness is presented by the authors of popular literature and also how it is presented in science. In order to bring forward a deeper understanding of New Age and mindfulness? role in the modern western society, my intention is to see how the authors of mindfulness claim validity of their doctrines in the discourse. Mindfulness attracts a wide range of perpetrators and is used in many areas in the society today.

Swedish contract law is based on the main principle of freedom of contract, which means that a contract is built on a voluntary agreement of both parties. There are exceptions from the principle of freedom of contract. In some instances a party is obliged to contract (kontraheringsplikt), which also is the subject for this paper. Kontraheringsplikt can be described as an obligation for one of the parts in a relation to come to an agreement under normal circumstances with everyone who ask for it. The cases of kontraheringsplikt are rather different.

The persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority population in southwestern Burma has come to the fore in recent years. The aim of this study is to first analyse the degree and respects of biopolitical control in the case of political oppression. Secondly, the aim is to compare the similarities and differences when it comes to the causes, mechanisms and expressions of the two theoretical starting points in the case.Giorgio Agamben´s biopolitical theory, which tries to reconnect state control over life and death with modernity, forms the basis of the analysis. Will Kymlicka´s liberal theory on minority rights serves as a theoretical comparison tool. Methodological starting points to the specific bilateral purpose will be both of the textual and discursive analytical tradition.

The intention with this essay has been to examine how the public instances working with cultural heritage in Sweden deals with the housing built under the period of the so called miljonprogrammet (?the million programme?) during 1965-75. The interest in the built environment from the 1960s and 70s has increased in the last ten years within the field of cultural heritage. The purpose with this study is to examine which cultural values that are assigned to the housing of the million programme. The purpose is also, as mentioned before, to study how the field of cultural heritage deals with this type of built environment.

The Authorities attitudes towards Gypsies have been characterized by prejudice for a long time. This has lead to the relief actions of the Authorities being formed by discriminating acts. In purpose of eliminating the discrimination of the Gypsies, the Delegation for Gypsy matters formulated a strategy for solving this problem in the report ?Gypsy rights ? a strategy for Gypsies in Sweden?. Despite the goodwill of the Authorities this report has been criticized by Gypsies in Sweden. In the investigation of the derivation of this criticism the aim of this essay is to look at how the Authorities attitude towards Gypsies is shown in this report and how it affects the creation of their ethos.

The thesis ?Vi fixar och trixar oss fram till att hjälpa människor? focuses on social work in the field of prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. Through semi-structured interviews with social workers in the municipalities of Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö working with persons selling and buying sex, and through discourse analysis, the author analyses the perceptions among these social workers of the relation between human rights, prostitution and human trafficking, and the social work which they conduct.The thesis concludes that although the social workers perceive prostitution and human trafficking and social work in this field as human rights related, they are not explicitly using a human rights based approach in their work.The thesis concludes that the social workers identify several aspects that infringe on the rights of their clients in relation to the human rights principles of Universality, Non-discrimination, Accountability and Rule of law and the principle of Participation and Inclusion. They portray the human rights situation of street based sellers, especially those not being Swedish citizens and those affected by human trafficking, as severe.The thesis concludes that the social workers find several obstacles (legal as well as structural) that diminish their ability to strengthen their clients? human rights situation.

The aim of the present thesis is to examine discourses about teaching information seeking in upper secondary school teachers. The main questions are: (1) What different interpretative repertoires can be identified among teachers talking about teaching information seeking in relation to students? problem-based tasks? (2) How are these repertoires constructed and what functions can be observed? The theoretical framework is discursive psychology. Two teacher teams from two different upper secondary schools in the Gothenburg area participated in focus group interviews. Group A consisted of four teachers from the Individual Programme and group B of seven teachers from the Social Science Programme.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how six students who attend a high school relate to their multilingualism and emphasize how their multilingualism has affected their views of themselves and their identity. The fundamental questions were:How do six students who attend a secondary school relate to their multilingualism?How has students' multilingualism affected their views of themselves and their identity?I did use a qualitative research method in terms of interviews to receive answers for my inquiries.Carla Jonsson (2010) speaks inter alia about ?the third space? which concerns adolescents creating a ?third room?. Almqvist (2006) believes that adolescents that are exposed to discrimination and prejudices can lead to them turning their backs on society in disappointment. Boyd (1985) has, in his thesis, found that multilingual students communicate with the majority language and with their mother tongue with their parents.

This essay concerns the notion of how immigration politics, defined as a political discursive structure that explains and justifies how and why the movement of people into a state's territory is restricted and controlled, has come to present its purpose not as solidarity with the 'immigrants' wanting to enter the state but as a protective measure for the state's citizens. By using discourse theory combined with theories from the International Relations field I attempt to explain why and how such a discourse positions 'immigrants' as a threat to the state.First, I concentrate on why an immigration politics discourse would position 'immigrants' as a threat. I argue that in order for people to construct their identity, the 'outside' what they "are not" has to be repressed. In the same way, the state has to dislocate the "outside" and create threats to uphold its supremacy. These boundaries are set to create a feeling of predictability and security, and ultimately they are a way of making peoples' "world" coherent.

This paper aims to describe and elaborate on a recent discursive change within the new-age movement. Since the seventies and the publishing of speculative popular science books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The self-aware Universe by Amit Goswami, the idea that quantum physics resonates with spirituality has become the topic of hundreds of books and movies.The quantum-spiritual discourse has three distinct ways to approach quantum physics in its discussion on spirituality: The parallelistic approach which emphasizes the similarities between eastern philosophies and modern physics, the monistic-idealistic approach which tells us that mind is the foundation of matter and the scientific spiritual approach which tries to explain spiritual claims scientifically. In the quantum-spiritual discourse, quantum physical phenomena (e.g. non-locality and entanglement) are being called upon to validate metaphysical statements. The primary assumption of the discourse is that the shift of paradigm due to the establishment of modern physics also is a shift of paradigm of spirituality.With the object to examine the common claims made in the discourse, cross-references between spiritual arguments and facts of quantum physics are being made.

For almost a century the debate about women as ordained servants in the Church of Sweden has raged on and on. The decision to open up the priesthood for both genders in 1958 was a milestone in the women?s liberation movement as well as it marks an important time in the church history. The debate has mainly been about how to interpret scripture, who has the right to do so, and so on. Feminist theology has become one way in recent decades to paint a wider and more nuanced picture of history and how to interpret the texts often used to repress women.This essay surveys some of the steps towards that decision, as well as it paints a rough picture of what leadership among women in the church could involve before ordination became an option.

The European Union has been working to promote equality between women and men for a long time. Despite this, Sweden still have a gender segregated labor market where men generally has the leading positions. According to European law the member states shall promote gender equality and to take all appropriate measures. Statutory gender quotas for company boards is one such measure that some of the European member states have implemented in national law. The Swedish law has no provisions governing gender quotas and therefore the purpose of this study is to explain how gender quotas for company boards relate to current law, both of European law and national legislation.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how gender rolls influences the culture of substance abuse among women and their social situation. To demonstrate this we have concentrated our research to relate how scientists and the media describe problems of abuse among women. The method we used in our research was qualitative and we gathered information through literature, reports and articles.Our main questions are:Do the social attitude toward women and men differ and how does it affect problems of abuse among women? Do women use alcohol in a different way than men? How do social reactions and restrictions influence women? We also want to examine what position women substance abusers have in society. What similarities or differences are there between the image of women in general and women with substance abuse?The main result of the study is that we found discursive connections that show a rectification among scientists concerning substance abuse among women.

Att penisen inte haft en betydande roll inom den socialpsykologiska forskningen rörande mäns identitetsskapande, samtidigt som manskroppen blivit en tydligare fokuspunkt i media och samhället de senaste åren, är utgångspunkten för denna studie. En studie som syftar till att se hur män konstruerar sin identitet utifrån sin kropp. I denna studie antogs ett diskursanalytiskt angreppssätt för att söka svar på hur män i åldern 20-30 år konstruerar sin identitet utifrån sin kropp med ett särskilt fokus på penisen och dess inverkan. Det utfördes åtta stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer, som transkriberades och kodades i programmet Nvivo. Utsagorna analyserades utifrån valda delar av olika diskursanalytiska angreppssätt och även Goffmans dramaturgiska perspektiv och hans teori om stigma, samt Butlers performativa idé om kön och Connells teori om hegemonisk maskulinitet.