This Master's thesis examines some aspects of children's books for 9-12 year olds, and the children's books market, from a gender perspective. The main objective is to make a gender analysis of attitudes among children and other agents in the book market towards children's books of different qualities. Children's reflections on gender roles in the books and the importance of gender aspects for publishers in the field, are investigated. A combination of methods are used, including literary analyses, surveys of publication lists of the BTJ group Bibliotekstjänst interviews with children and questionnaires sent to children as well as to Swedish publishers of children's books. The analysis of children's books clearly shows that images of gender roles vary in different kinds of books which supports theories of gendered literature.

This study concerns the complete oeuvre by the British author Helen Zahavi: Dirty Weekend (1991), True Romance (1994), and Donna and the Fatman (1998). Her novels are here read as a trilogy dealing with the dialectics of gender and violence in 20th century discourse, drawing on theories of how the construction of subjects is produced by power, of the relation between power and sexuality.The heroines of Zahavi?s novels try their best to move about in a world where their freedom of movement is limited to their female identity. In Dirty Weekend the protagonist tries to shoot her way out, claiming revenge on every man that is forcing himself upon her. She gains some freedom of movement by refusing subordination, but does not really change the order of power.

The thesis provides with the broad overview about the consumer awareness of the gender dimension within brand personalities. The research contributes to branding theory and gender studies and demonstrates that consumer gender influences does not influence the perceived brand personality gender. However, it also shows that consumers prefer brands with a clear gender, but not necessarily the same gendered brands..

This text aims to examine how teaching in literature can contribute to the schools work with creating an antidiscriminating environment. When it comes to the Swedish schools antidiscrimination plans, this essay focuses especially on those sections that concerns pupils and student right to their own gender identity and expression.The main theories in this examination are Judith Butler?s theory on gender and performativity, queer theory defined by Fanny Ambjörnsson and theories concerning adolescent psychology with focus on the adolescent identity and it?s forming. Together with Mikhail Bakhtin?s carnival theory the text examines how Jessica Schiefauer?s novel Pojkarna (The Boys; 2012) describes a young adolescent girl?s journey to finding and forming her own gender and sexual identity.

This thesis investigates gender equality at a few Swedish elementary school libraries, and how school librarians at these libraries work with gender equality issues. It is a semi-structured interview study conducted with staff at seven elementary school libraries. Several policy documents state that the school should be a gender-equal environment, but previous research shows that there is still a lack of gender equality, and that staff often treat boys and girls differently. It also shows that boys and girls are often portrayed in a gender-stereotypical way in children?s literature.

Abstract The main purpose off this essay is to understand what different ways women and men use to communicate and make themselves acknowledged by their co-workers.  This is done by interviews with people at an ordinary office and trough observations at the workplace. A qualitative method was entrenched and seven respondents, four women and three men, age 43-55 was interviewed. The theoretical frame contains theories from Goffman?s dramaturgic perspective such as roles, facade etc.  The theories concerning gender come from Hirdman?s different analyses on how the relations between men and women take form. The data collected shows that men and women use their body language, voice and accessories in different ways to make themselves acknowledge at the office.

My purpose with this study is to examine whether or how teachers are gender-conscious in preschool everyday situations. That is, if they are aware of their attitude and treatment of work on gender and what gender concept has relevance for educators. In much of the practical literature that I read, it appears that many teachers are not aware of their responses and attitudes to children based on gender aspect. I have examined how the gender work differs in the two preschools that I chosen to study.The questions that this study is based on isDoes the educators at the preschools work gender conscious in everyday situations?-Is it boys or girls who get the most attention from educators in everyday situations?What do the teachers at the preschool concept of gender?What approach have been the teachers of preschool to counteract traditional gender patterns in everyday situations?I have made ??a qualitative study where I interviewed five educators and made ??observations on the two preschools.

The aim of this study is to investigate how 20 children discusses norm breaking based on a children?s book with a focus on following questions:How do the children discuss norms based on the children?s book?Are there differences in opinions and comments between children with Swedish as their first language and children with Swedish as a second language, and if so, which ones?The investigation is based on four discussions of children?s literature, which are a method Chambers (2004) means enable the children to put their thoughts and feelings about the book into words.The theoretical frame of the study is founded on post-structuralism feminism and particularly Butler (Ambjörnsson, 2010) and Davies (2003) theories about gender and gender roles.The investigation shows, among other things, that the children are basing their discussions on the norms accepted by the society. But it also shows that there are differences in the way that the children with Swedish as a first language and Swedish as a second language discusses norm breaking. .

This master thesis is discussing ten pony books from 2006 in relation to the heterosexual matrix. It contains a rather extensive research overview regarding horse riding from a gender perspective, pony books, traditional feminist studies of girls? books and queer readings of girls? and children?s literature. The aim of the empirical study is two folded; firstly to show how the girl protagonists? horse riding is presented in terms of masculinity and femininity (as defined by Natalie Koivula), secondly to analyze the relations between the girls appearing in the books from a queer perspective attempting to find some queer leakage in the depictions.

This essay discusses how popular literature in general and Stephanie Meyer?s Twilight-series in particular can be useful in the classroom, despite, or rather, thanks to, its inherent problems concerning gender roles, relationships and the power systems within them. The essay takes a reader and teacher centered approach in describing both the problems of Twilight and the ways these problems can be worked with in the context of the school subject Swedish in upper secondary school. It makes an inventory of Twilight?s problematic aspects, and attempts to use them in conjunction with the governing documents of the Swedish school system.

The aim of the study is to investigate how clinicians in psychiatric care for adults consider borderline personality disorder to be manifested in men and women, respectively. Could there be a tendency to over-diagnose women and under-diagnose men? In addition, the purpose of the study is to bring clarity to the reasons for gender differences within borderline personality as perceived by the clinicians. The study is based on an inductive approach, in which interviews have been conducted with twelve clinicians working with borderline personality disorders to gain a deeper understanding of how the clinicians consider the manifestations of gender differences.The clinicians described tendencies for women to deliberate self-harm, have mood swings and problems in relations. Men with borderline personality disorders are described as having a higher degree of e.g.

The aim with this masters thesis is to investigate how gender is presented in Swedish picture books, in order to give librarians and other actors in the field knowledge about what kind of books they supply impressionable children with. I investigate if and how the changes concerning gender-equality in the Swedish society during the last 25 years are reflected in childrens literature, and compare how men and women are portrayed in four books from the early 1980s with four books from the 2000s. My study is delimited to three aspects of character formation, introduced by Maria Nikolajeva: description of psychology, actions and relations to other characters. It is carried through by consultation of Yvonne Hirdmans theory of how men and women are held apart and that the man in this relation constitutes the norm as well as Nikolajevas list of typical male and female characteristics. By reading and interpreting the chosen books, I analyse both text and pictures.

This Master's Thesis studies the attitude that library employees have regarding a sex and gender-neutral treatmentof their clients. The analysis is based upon replies to a questionnaire which was submitted though channels directedat library employees, like BIBLIST and BiblFeed. The respondent?s replies contained a number of welldevelopedcomments making the resultant analysis both quantitative and qualitative in nature.In performing the analysis a theoretical framework combining Hirdman?s gender system with symbolic interactionismhas been used together with literature about gender roles.The questionnaire showed that gender neutrality is a complex concept that can be interpreted in many differentways and is therefore easily misunderstood. It is obvious that sex is an important category when respondents aredealing with their clients, but also that sex and gender are problematic concepts which respondents find difficultto know exactly how to relate to.

This work presents the way exiled Tibetans I?ve met view gender and equality. The world is becoming increasingly global and in order to educate future world citizens it is important to make sure that they learn about gender and equality. Males and Females have different cultures and where manly is the norm female is the exception, but it is important to try and level out these differences while children are still in school. This work originates from studies of literature and several interviews with exiled Tibetans in the Indian city of Dharamsala. They are Tibetans with different roles in the exile-Tibetan society and also of different generations and gender.

The aim of this Masters thesis is, with an exploratory stand, to examine the thoughts regarding gender perspective at childrens library service that are expressed from childrens librarians as well as the staff in administrative management. The purpose of the study is to generate ideas for further research and discussion regarding a gender perspective on the childrens library service. A total of eight interviews have been carried out. Three persons at the administrative level and five childrens librarians were interviewed. We also have examined if a gender perspective is expressed in the control documents, from international level to a local level, which the libraries could use when developing and planning their work.