Through this thesis I aimed to further investigate how we can adapt our western and modern views of masculinity and femininity in an ancient population, here on the Pitted Ware population from Ajvide on Gotland. A questionnaire survey was used to compile the modern view of masculinity and femininity. This modern view was then compared with patterns which had become visible through statistical processing of the burial gifts found on Ajvide. The thesis is mainly focused around the concept of gender, but age and status have also been discussed. Through several performed correspondence analysis, it became clear that the current view of male and female differed from the one that became visible in the archaeological record.

Studies have shown that young people in residential care homes tend to be low achievers in school and are at high risk of entering adulthood with a low level of education. This group has also shown tendency to adverse psychosocial outcomes. The aim with this study is to reach an understanding of how teenagers and young adults view themselves and their future, what ambitions they have in life and how they see their opportunities to realize their goals. The study is based on a qualitative method and was conducted with semi structured personal interviews with five youngsters 15-21 years old in two different residential care homes. The theoretical viewpoints have been based on E.H Erikson?s theory about identity as well as the theory about resilience.The result of this study indicates that the persons we have interviewed have expressed difficulties in describing themselves.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the work situation of children's librarians looks like in the year 2000, after the changes in society which took place since the 1980's. Did the tasks of children's librarians change during the nineties, and if so, in what way and why have they changed? Which new knowledge needs emerged for children's librarians during the nineties, and what was the cause of these new needs? Finally I want to know which needs for professional development arose, and how these needs are fulfilled. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with children's librarians, library managers, library consultants, one representative of the Swedish school of Library and Information Studies and one member of SAB's children and youth committee. The study reveals that the identity of children's librarianship is strongly associated with the stimulation of language and reading.

Begreppet organisationsidentitet har vuxit i popularitet, både som teori för forskare och som strategi för företagsledning. Samtidigt ser vi en trend på den svenska arbetsmarknaden där det blir allt vanligare att hyra in arbetskraft istället för att anställa direkt i organisationen. Men vad händer med organisationsidentiteten när de anställda är tillfälligt där och dessutom har en dubbel organisationstillhörighet, både till konsultföretag och till kundföretag?Den här studien riktar in sig på konsulternas upplevelser av organisationsidentitet. Syftet är att bidra med kunskap till det teoretiska begreppet organisationsidentitet som tidigare inte har inkluderat tillfälliga medlemmar i en organisation, som till exempel konsulter i bemanningsbranschen.

The purpose of this study is to find out how the non-governmental shelters for battered women identify themselves in context of their dependence and cooperation with the municipality. Their legitimacy is also investigated which is based on, along with identity, key concepts of the neoinstitutional organization theory. The mutual dependency between these two actors is problematized along with the question of who is responsible for assisting the battered women, and who takes on the responsibilities for them. The empirical result that is analyzed was gathered through three qualitative semi structured interviews with employed personnel at three different battered women?s shelters in three different municipalities in Sweden.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to analyse the construction of European identity in three ofcontemporary EU initiated projects for the digitisation of collections from museums, archives, andlibraries. The source material consists of the web pages of the projects Minerva, MICHAEL, andEuropeana, as well as some other policy documents on digitisation and access from EU authorities.Theories on nationalism and construction of heritage are used as an overall context to the problem.After a brief description of the mentioned projects, the author undertakes an analysis of theways that the concept of ?European heritage? is depicted in the source material. The result is thefollowing: normally, the true European heritage is considered being united even though it isdiveded culturally, historically and linguistically.

 This essay has been investigate a Hindu swaminarayantempel in central Sweden, its activities and function from a diaspora perspective. Also to investigate the relationship between Hindu diaspora groups and in relation to South Asia. An ethnographic method was used.The result of this study shows that the key activities temple provides the puja. Pujan is the most frequent activity in the investigated Temple. The temple also provides other activities that often are linked to anniversaries and celebrations of festive calendar, such as Diwali or gods' birthdays.The investigated temple has a similar function as other diaspora groups.

The primary purpose of this essay is to study and describe how the concept of ?ethnicity? is introduced, defined and constructed at the Universities of Social Work Education through the perspectives of students attending and teachers/researchers currently employed at the University of Gothenburg. Also, this study attempts to describe what differences there are between the two groups and how these are expressed. The theoretical perspectives which we have used to analyse the empirical data are social constructivism and postcolonial theories. We have applied a qualitative method based on four interviews with teachers/researchers and two focus group interviews with 14 students.

The purpose of this essay is to shed some light upon the children who grew up in Sweden after their parents fled the war in former Yugoslavia. Did the parents spread their own opinions about the other ethnicities which they fought against in the war to the children, even though they live in a new country? And if so, was it an act of patriotism for the country they once lived in and who was to blame for the war? Did the children who grew up in Sweden share the same attitudes as their parents? To find out about this we used interviews with four people, all with heritage from former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia. What we found out was that the thoughts from the parents partially were passed down to their children, even though the children thought that they had formed their own opinions. In this case the thoughts didn?t relate to any kind of patriotism or who to blame for the war, they rather believed that they shouldn?t blame the other ethnic groups for the war.

This work derives from the question ?What is a beautiful road??. The question is being discussed in interviews with two employees at the Swedish National Road Administration and two former members of the ?Council of environment and beauty? at the Swedish National Road Administration. The interviews are summarized in my own discussion about the concept of ?Beautiful roads?.

Today more and more municipalities interact across a wide range of sectors. The reasons tostart interacting are varying and for those who succeed with this form of work, there arebenefits in terms of efficiency and knowledge exchanges. But are the reasons that interactalways obvious? Sweden currently has 290 municipalities of varying size and allmunicipalities have basically the same mission, to deliver services to its residents.Information technology allows municipalities to digitize much of the workload, but theintroduction of the technique is not without problems. For small municipalities, there are greatdemands to deliver reliability and support for their internal and external services.

In this essay a social perspective on the mind is explored and argued for. The essay moves from a discussion of a social collective foundation for the individual mind to a discussion ofthe main alternative ways of describing the shared social world, namely an action-centred perspective and a power-centred perspective. It is shown that these two perspectives are combinable. A combination of the two perspectives is therefore recommended for a more balanced way of describing the shared social world. In this essay it is argued for that the individuals? mind and her identity is dependent on the surrounding community.

Teaching materials are a constant matter of discussion as they represent the school curriculum and what the students are reading in the classroom. Within religious studies in upper secondary school, a new approach emerged since the new curriculum from 2011, which is to interpret religion in relation to gender. This study aimed to see which gender performances two selected teaching materials represented, in both their texts and images. This study was performed using both discourse analysis for the texts and content analysis of the images. The study showed that traditional gender performances appear both in the chapters that touched human identity and also ethics and morals, and also in the chapters that touched the world religions.

In light of the European Union`s 2012 theme year: Active aging and solidarity between generations I wished to gain an understanding of weather elderly immigrant are provided with equal possibilities and access to local community information as the majority population and their participation in activities arranged for senior citizens in the municipality where they live. I have done this by meeting with those who work in this capacity. I also chose to meet with representatives for immigrant organizations in the local community to enquire of their work with senior citizens within their own ethnic group. This is a qualitative study on a phenomenological ground based on nine interviews and four observations. I have had two theories to help me analyze my empirical material.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..