Participation is central to the concept of democracy. The role of the civic participation varies with different types of democracy, but a fundamental requirement is that the participation is free and equal. In spite of this, there are significant differences between possibilities to democratic participation in Sweden today.This essay seeks to understand how disability, historically and still today, is constructed as a social deviation from normality, and is constructed to Otherness.One way to regard freedom and equality is to examine the personal autonomy, the legth to wich a person decides her/his roles and activities in abcence of external limitations. Personal autonomy is theoretically central in deliberative and strong democracy, but should reasonobly be a demand for the fundamental definition of democracy.The explanation to why the lack of personal autonomy is accepted, is that the construction of Otherness results in that the persons are categorized and are given simplified characteristics, and are thereby not accepted as equivalent people.In the inteviews conducted, seven politicians contribute both whiteness, pathological discourses regarding disability and ideas of normality through discussing democracy, participation and disability. Simultaniously, they express interest and an awareness on the majority's power and symbolic violence on the minority..

This essay is about power, democracy, solidarity and equality in preschool. I examine three different situations to determine if I could have acted more sensibly in my interactions with the children. I portray: a ?children?s choice meeting? where children select an activity, a so-called emotional gathering and a dialogue at the lunch table about a popular movie that we plan to watch together afterwards. The purpose of this essay is to examine which norms and values form the basis of my actions, and if so, how these lead me to use my power to shape the children.I have chosen to use hermeneutic and norm-critical perspectives where I investigate and examine my norms and values and how I react and act, both consciously and unconsciously.

This examination project focuses on the pupils and teachers experience of written assessments and grades.  To highlight the significance of assessments and grades we will present the background to the development of the current educational view of knowledge, assessment and marking models.  Today?s current laws and policies are described as is a proposal for a future law and grading scheme.The project is based on literature we have read and the empirical material is derived from interviews with eight students and two teachers. Four of the students are eleven years old, the other four are between seventeen and nineteen. The teachers teach years four and five. Each sex is equally represented.  The interview questions are based on the students memories and personal development discussions in which the written assessments were presented.

The aim of this thesis is to highlight how male and female characters are portrayed in children?s books, that have football as a theme, and are written for children between 9-12 years of age. I have chosen this subject so that I, as a pre-school teacher, can adhere to the curriculum?s aim of maintaining the school?s responsibility for counteracting traditional gender roles. I aim to study how gender is represented in literature for children.I shall apply Yvonne Hirdman?s theories on the gender system which is built on the principals whereby the sexes are separate entities and there is a structural hierarchy between them.

Islamic masculinity which quite often associates with oppression of women has remained an underexaminated category despite its constant presence in the debate on honour related oppression. Honour has primarily been studied from a feminine point of view and theories of masculinity have taken insignificant interest in the issue of honour. The aim of this study is to understand what attitudes boys/young men from the Muslim world have toward native Swedish men and what these attitudes do imply for their own conceptions of masculinity and honour. The ambition of this study is also to make explicit the similarities, differences and connections between honour and masculinity.The empirical basis of this study consists of twelve interviews with boys/young men from the Muslim world about their notions of honour and masculinity. The theoretical platform arises from theories of masculinities and honour.Some prominent ?patterns? that I have found:- That religious norms and rules appear to be significant in how the masculine manners of conduct should be adjusted.- That honour and women as carriers of men?s honour, play a crucial role for the constitution of proper masculinity.- That the Swedish context and its policy of equality seem to threaten the obviousness of the islamic masculinity.

Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors.

Stress and burnout are two words that are commonly occurring in many contexts today. More and more people experience that they are stressed and that they does not feel well. The long term sick -leave increases as a consequence of people being burned out. These phenomena prolong over all ages, sexes, classes and professional categories, which probably means that the construction industry would not be spared.  In the construction industry, stress and bad health are no new phenomenon, already during the 1970s and big parts of the 1990 s, the construction sector were exposed to the phenomena.A sector that has a large turnover annually cannot presumably be faultless.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur lärare i samhällskunskap arbetar med begreppen jämställdhet och genus i skolan. Mycket forskning visar att det inte är jämställt i skolan idag. Vilka problem uppstår i arbetet med dessa begrepp i skolan, och varför är inte skolan jämställd idag? Frågeställningarna som undersöks är: Hur arbetar en grupp samhällskunskapslärare med begreppen genus och jämställdhet i dagens gymnasieskola? Vilka svårigheter identifierar dessa lärare i arbetet med dessa begrepp? Metoden är en kvalitativ forskningsintervju där fyra gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap har intervjuats. Utifrån Judith Butler och Reawyn Connells genusteorier analyseras materialet.

The Swedish society has trough decades developed into a multicultural society. Minority groups such as Sami have been a part of the country for a long time. By being separated from the majority through culture, language etc. minorities demand the right to become independent and have the ability to practice their culture. History show that minorities all over the world have been discriminated and abused by the majorities. Democratic procedures are often advantages for the majority.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has since the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 moved from a low-key position in exile to become one of the main actors in the political opposition. There appears to be a consensus among researchers today on the democratic commitment of the Syrian Brotherhood. However, ambiguity remains regarding its commitment towards gender equality, women?s rights and participation. This essay focuses on the gender discourse of the Syrian Brotherhood?s leadership, according to its policy-documents, from 2004 ? 2013.

The study deals with the causes of unjustified differences in pay between women and men in the banking sector. The purpose of this paper has been to examine how a gender project implemented in the private banking organizations from a gender-and implementation perspective. The aim of the project examined is to even unjustified differences in pay between men and women in the banking and finance sector. The main issues are: ? How has the project been implemented and what are the real and perceived results? ? How can the opportunities and barriers to successful implementation course with emphasis on gender? The method used is a qualitative study, where the empirical material consisted of focus group interviews.

In recent years the concern about the future of the European Union and itssupposed lack of democracy, efficiency and legitimacy has increased. Thisconcern has resulted in extensive debates and the establishment of a conventionwith the task to create a draft treaty for a European Constitution.The aim of this essay is to study how the three theoretical concepts,democracy, efficiency and legitimacy, have been described and used in the debateabout the future of the European Union. My main interest is to see how theseconcepts are described in a debate regarding a political system that goes beyondthe borders of the nation-state. I have made a comparative textual analysis of thedebates taken place in Sweden and Spain during a period of over two years. Ihave, for instance, found out that openness and clearness have a prominentposition as democratic values together with equality and justice (in Spain) and theinstitution of accountability (in Sweden).

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka relationen mellan styrdokumen­tens föreskrifter gällande jämställdhet och lärares hantering av detta i ensemble­undervisning inom jazz och populärmusik på gymnasiet. Jag har valt att analysera ensemblepedagogernas förhållningssätt och handlingar vid ensembleundervisning utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Denna studie tar avstamp i synen på genus som en social konstruktion, där genusmönster genereras i möten mellan människor, genom ständig upprepning av handlingar och beteenden.För att få svar på mina frågor har jag genomfört halvstrukturerade kvalitativa in­tervjuer med fyra verksamma ensemblelärare vid fyra olika gymnasieskolor. Efter att ha analyserat intervjumaterialet visar resultatet att alla informanter anser att synen på jämställdhet och människors lika värde är grundläggande för hela under­visningen. Tillvägagångssätten för hur pedagogerna hanterar jämställdhet i en­sembleundervisningen skiljer sig något.

Beyond the binary borders of sex -A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEORY AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT. GERGANA TOSEVA KARIN SELIN A thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012. The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transgender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transgender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions: 1. Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined? 2. In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary? 3. Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject? We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using ?fuzzy logic?(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead.

Uppsatsförfattaren undersöker om kvantitativa eller kvalitativa effekter när det gällerFörsvarsmaktens kvinnliga personal kan spåras till följd av ett ökat fokus på genusfrågor (bl.a.innebärande åtgärder för att rekrytera fler kvinnor). Med kvantitativa effekter avses här om flerkvinnor kunnat rekryteras, medan kvalitativa effekter avser kvinnornas kompetens. I uppsatsenundersöks fyra svenska bataljoner i Kosovo samt tre årskullar vid Yrkesofficersprogrammet.Med hjälp av detta underlag jämförs sedan dels hur andelen kvinnor förändrats under den aktuellaperioden, dels kvinnornas betyg och tjänstgöringsomdömen i förhållande till motsvarande manligpersonal.Undersökningen gav ett mer mångfacetterat resultat än vad som ofta framhålls i debatten omgenus. Vid yrkesofficersprogrammet kunde en ökad andel kvinnor inom armén konstaterasantagningsåret 2003, samtidigt som kvinnornas medelbetyg sjönk. Vid de olikaKosovobataljonerna ökade andelen kvinnor högst marginellt, samtidigt som dessas betyg generellthade ett högt genomsnitt, i en del fall högre än männens.