My thesis brings up the subject of power. In the 33 local authorities we have in Skåne, I have made a quantitative study, to see how many young people that are included in the power of politics, through local authorities parliament. This is the first of the two parts that I have devided my thesis into. The second part is qualitative and examines four young politicians, and their thoughts on holding a position that is so unusual to hold at their age. This is the basis for my analysis where I bring up age as a form of discrimination.

Abstract (Svenska)Den här undersökningen försöker ta reda på om orsaken till att människor bättre minns ansikten av sin egen etnicitet än ansikten med annan etnisk bakgrund ligger i mer holistisk än analytisk inkodning. Det testades även om kända och okända ansikten inkodas holistiskt eller analytiskt. Sammanlagt 51 personer deltog i undersökningen. Hälften av stimulusmaterialet var ljushyade (amerikaner av europeiskt ursprung) och hälften var mörkhyade (amerikaner av afrikanskt ursprung). 1/3 av stimulusmaterialet var bilder av mörka och ljusa kända personer.

This paper examines how remedial teachers and subject teachers in two secondary schools talk about pupils with special education needs (SEN) both in general, and more specifically about boys and girls who need special education. The study is based on 6 interviews with teachers in two secondary schools in the Stockholm area. In the analysis of the interviews, two different theories have been used. Firstly, the teachers´ speech has been analyzed based on three perspectives; a compensatory-, a critical- and a dilemma perspective (see Nilholm, 2007). Secondly, discourse analysis has been used to examine how the teachers in the study talk about boys and girls in the special education.

This study examines the effects of a person's appearence on grading. 80 teachers in Swedish have assessed a text, illustrated with a picture of the supposed author. The pictures were varied by attractiveness, personality in looks, and gender. Furthermore, a text illustrated by a drawing and an unillustrated text were also used in the study. The texts were sent to the teachers by e-mail and assessed on a scale from 1-10 and the Swedish grading scale IG-MVG (Did not pass ? Passed ? Passed with credit - Passed with great credit).

The aim of this research is to evaluate whether the social environment of Swedish high school students affects their views on the multicultural society. The research material was collected through the use of two focus groups containing high school students from two different schools, one group is used to a multicultural social environment while the other group is used to a less multicultural social environment. With the researcher acting as a moderator in the focus groups, the students discussed different questions regarding multiculturalism, gender equality and religion. The theory that this research is based on suggests that the social environment and the social capital affects the students views on the multicultural society. The results of the research were evaluated and connected to the theory.

The main purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine gender division in public libraries by reviewing literature and interviewing eight public librarians and two chief librarians. The reason why we decided to investigate this topic is the lack of research concerning sex-segregation in library and information science. By choosing this subject we intend to deepen the understanding of the significance of gender both within the public library and of the occupation in general. Some researchers claim that the low status of librarianship is a result of the large proportion of women in the profession. We want to find out how our informants view the relation between professional status and female domination.

The purpose of this study was to use qualitative interviews with students at Södertörn University to find out what drives the men who begin to study for preschool teachers, how they are treated and how they are influenced by others. I also wanted to find out what the informants believe is the cause to why so few men apply to the program and what they think need to happen to change this.This is a qualitative study based on the selected students' experiences. In order to get different perspectives, I chose to interview three students and former students. One of them chose to terminate their studies after half the time, the second is at the end of the program and the third graduated a couple of years ago and has been working for a while.I originated in the theory of ethical concepts of gender, gender contract, "token" and hegemonic masculinity. Previous research addresses that the perception of men in pre-schools can look very different.

Sweden had in the early 1930's the lowest birth rate in the world. Population Commission which was established in 1935 concluded that one of the biggest social problems was the working women?s heavy workload. To deal with the low birth rate reforms and programs were founded both in order to help the women but also in order to support the inadequate motherhood. Government grants were set up to start the so-called vacation home for housewives where the government?s visions of the vacation homes were active rest and recreation.     Based on the Leisure Inquiry report regarding vacation homes for housewives - the purpose of this paper is to examine how the government visions regarding vacation homes for housewives were practiced and how the future of prevailing gender contract affected the holiday home.

The aim of this study was to explore transsexuals? identity formation and experiences related to cross-sex hormone treatment, as well as to become absorbed in the narrative approach. To be able to participate in transsexuals? identity formation, life stories were well suited as a theoretical approach. Life stories can be seen as socially situated actions according to Mishler, where individuals? identity formation can be seen as both identity performances and identity claims.

The aim of this study was to look into why children receive the interventions contact person and contact family. This was done by studying case-files. The main questions were:-       How common is it that there are reasons for the intervention linked to parents and which are the most common?-       How common is it that there are reasons for the intervention and problems linked to children and which are the most common?-       Is there any indication of connections between reasons, age, gender or type of intervention? If so, what are the connections?The main results of this study were that most of the children lived with a single mother, often with a weak social network, and in need of relief. It was more common that reasons were linked to children then parents and the most common reasons indicated a need for an extra adult.

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Lifestyle magazines portray women in different manners and have an influence on how media consumers create self-images. The importance of knowing how different visual representation of the female acts out in magazines with large target audiences is therefore of weight for the magazines? readers to understand. This thesis analyze how the two lifestyle magazines ELLE and LOVE portrays women in images and how they in turn create ideal images of women.The thesis has been conducted through a qualitative analysis of 5 images from each magazine that represents the magazines artistic styles. The theories used in this study are semiotic image analysis and visual text analysis viewed from a gender- and discourse perspective.The conclusion of this thesis is that ELLE portrays women as strong, happy and feminine, with at tendency towards androgyny, while LOVE describes women as inferior and sexual objects constructed for the male gaze.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a recognized social problem. The IPV is common in all types of intimate relations, this essays purpose was focused on the violence performed by women against men. To find the social workers conceptions the study conducted a survey sent to local social service in Sweden. The essay had a statistic approach to visualize the social workers conceptions, and a discursive approach to focus on the language used in text answers. Different aspects of the violence were explored to find the conceptions.

According to TCO (The Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees) the worst threat to the Swedish welfare is that so many people because of bad health and unemployment are not a part of the labour force. If Sweden could make the number of people with health and unemployment problems half the size as today, the GDP would increase with more than five percent. In real money this means 110 billion Swedish kronor a year. According to SCB (Statistics Sweden) the difference between women?s and men?s absence owing to illness should be investigated more closely in order to get at better understanding of the problem.

Mitt syfte med denna studie är att undersöka och beskriva hur genus kan konstrueras i barnlitteratur. Studien avhandlar hur genus framställs och konstrueras i två stycken skönlitterära böcker som är skrivna för barn i åldersgruppen 6-9 år. Som metod har jag använt en diskursanalys vilket är en kvalitativ textanalys. Mina resultat visar en ganska stereotyp framställning av genus även om det görs små avsteg från normerna. Jag ser en risk i att barnen kan påverkas av dessa stereotypa framställningar och att de tvingas in i genusordningen utan att få möjlighet att utveckla identiteter med breda genuspositioner.Karaktärerna i min studie visade upp både feminina och maskulina drag vilket jag tror är ett problem som återfinns i alla genusstereotyper och inte enbart i litterära sammanhang Jag upplevde det problematiskt att strikt tolka karaktärerna mot ett motsatsschema.