Title: Women's best beautiful will never be good enough: a rethoric and semiotic analysis of four advertisements for beauty products.Because of the medias central role in peoples lives in the modern society we today live in, they have become a reference in peoples processes of making sence of their subsistences and environments. Commercial companies also want to present an as good image as possible of them towards the recipients through their marketing. Both parts can lead to a distorted picture of the real och everyday and norms and ideals easily form, for example about the correct way a woman should act and be, as the media affect which references should be made available for society.The purpose of this thesis is to examine how four advertisements for beauty products produce ideals and norms of beauty as well as construct and reconstruct femininity through the ways women are represented. The study will also contain the question about how rethoric and semiotic tools are used to strengthen the messages and sell the products. The following questions will be answered within this study:How is femininity being represented in the advertisements?How can the advertisements contribute to the creation of ideals and norms of beauty? How do the companies use rethoric and semiotic tools in the four advertisements to sell their products and/or strengthen their brands?The study will be executed with a qualitative rethoric and semiotic analysis and the theories applied to it are Mediatization theory, Envisionment theory as well as a theory about gender and femininity.   The foremost results of this study has been that women are represented as constantly striving towards a better beauty to be able to also feel better about themselves, gain better self-esteem and to have more fulfilled and successful lives.

This master thesis concerns whether Swedish non-financial listed firms act in accordance with the optimal capital structure theory and/or pecking order theory. The examined period is 1998-2004 and we discover that Swedish companies neither follow optimal capital structure theory nor pecking order theory. From our results we conclude that there exists no single point of the capital structure which is optimal. Rather it seems as if the optimal point lies in-between an interval from 0 to the industry average, where firms tend to be indifferent to their debt-ratios. Our results show that Swedish companies prefer internal financing followed by equity and as last choice debt issuance..

The purpose with this essay was to see how the mathematic books showed sexual roles in pictures and if they confirm or deny the traditional sexual roles that school shall counteract according to the curriculum, Lgr11. The questions I focused on were this:How sexual roles are introduced on the pictures in the chosen mathematic books?What are the similarities and differences between the presentations of the gender in the chosen education materials?I used a semiotic method to analyze my pictures. The central parts of my theories were how we think that gender is created using characteristics and attribute. In my analyze I found out that the pictures in one of the book series showed more stereotypic sexual roles than the other book series did..

Abstrakt: Sedan en tid tillbaka pågår en intensiv debatt i Sverige kring könsneutrala ordet Hen och om man överhuvudtaget ska använda sig av ett könsneutralt ord och undvika att benämna kön i en del sammanhang. Syftet med denna undersökning var att undersöka hur könsneutrala pronomen ? Hen påverkar människors attityder. Det är en kvantitativ studie i experimentell design, utförd genom enkätundersökningar där frågor om känslor, beteende och uppfattningar om ordet Hen efterfrågas. Antas det generellt att en text handlar om män även om det inte är definierat? Blir samhället mer förutsättningslöst med användning av könsneutrala ordet hen? Attityder är inte lätta att förutspå, människor vet vad som är rätt och fel men agerar inte alltid utifrån sin vetskap, samt med tillräckligt stor påverkan kan en person ändra sin attityd.

New Age has often been described as a religion pertaining to women and studies has shown that women do indeed constitute the vast majority. A reversal of hierarchy between feminine and masculine attributes and values, common in a modern western society, has also been shown to occur.This study looks at how the feminine is visible in written text and pictures depicting people, more specifically in the periodical magazine Free that has a circulation of circa 25,000. The main bulk of the magazine is advertisements, and one reoccurring part is the article Frimodigt where several of the magazine?s advertisers take part in a short interview. Twelve of these interviews have been analyzed, along with depictions of 518 people from three issues.The theoretical framework that has been applied to the outcome of my analysis has been social constructivism, with particular emphasis on the paper Doing gender by the professors of sociology Candace West and Don Zimmerman.My findings indicate that the feminine, indeed, is thought of as very positive and sometimes contrasted with the masculine.

This text concerns itself with war, the just war theory, and the application of that doctrine on the ?war on terrorism?. I present different views on the theory's place in the discourse, its relevance for unconventional wars followed by the analyses of above mentioned empirical situation.Particular interest is given the criteria concerning proportionality, both ad bellum and in bello, due to in part its difficult nature, and the attention it has received from others. This paper asks the question: Is the just war theory adequate for analysis of modern war?There are few alternatives.

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between gender and self reported symptoms (physiological and psychological) and sense of coherence (SOC) and Job Demand-Control-Social support (JDCS). The sample consisted of 360 respondents (nfemale= 261, nmale= 99), in the ages between 19-53 (M=25,57, SD=5,77), all students from Växjö University. A quantitative work method was used in the study; data was collected using questionnaires that consisted of self-reported questions, based on three parts: A modified symptom checklist, SOC 13 and a modified JDCS questionnaire. The result of our study showed that both SOC and JDCS had an effect on self-reported symptoms but there were no interaction between SOC and JDCS. No significant gender differences were found regarding the level of SOC.

Through a discourse theoretical apparatus, this study examines Sweden's national curriculum, which is constructed for primary schools, pre-school class and leisure time classes. The study also examines the syllabus in physical education and the supplied comment material to the syllabus, the above mentioned material all valid from 1 July 2011. Using cultural researcher Marianne Winther Jørgensen's and communication researcher Louise Phillips interpretation of the political theorists Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's discourse theory, the study identifies several discourses in the new curriculums. The analysis shows that the curriculums writers construct their expectations through a rhetoric that is perceived as instructional and descriptive. The analysis identified eight discourses, woven into three "orders of discourse", the body, health and physical education.

The aim of this study was to examine if performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender predict the value of own or others life-stress (VLS). The aim was also to examine whether the variables were correlated significantly with each other. The investigation was conducted in a town in the mid-south of Sweden. The instrument consisted of two forms where the first measured Type A personality and the second tapped perform-ance-based self-esteem, perceived stress and the level of life-stress. The results showed that the level of life-stress could explain, on the basis of the predictors, performance-based self-esteem, personality (Type A), perceived stress, age and gender.

My essay is about me and my colleagues who have come to realize that maybe we are stuck in old habits when it comes to preschool indoor environment from a gender perspective. The insight has enabled us now face the challenge of how to deal with and move forward with gender issues and the indoor environment. The reviews between us educators differ greatly, making it difficult start of a process of change, or development, of previous work in the preschool. The difficulties of working with gender in preschool is that we do not know how teachers influence or shape the children. We educators controls many times the children, both consciously and unconsciously and sometimes benevolence tend to instead become a takeover.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate and analyze history teacher's didactic choices in the conflict between unequal educational materials and the requirements of equality in the curriculum of Swedish secondary school. The empirical data consists of interviews with five secondary school history teachers, observations of their lessons as well as analysis of their tests. The starting point was to investigate teachers' didactic work in the role as a bridge between the non-equal historiography presented in textbooks in history and the curriculum?s demands for equality. Three different approaches have been observed in the teachers' didactic work when considering gender perspective into their teaching: that women become extensions in a male-dominated historiography; that another part of the story is presented when a gender perspective is considered; and that the gender perspective is included in history teaching and becomes an integral part of all the content of the subject.Several of the teachers acknowledged that gender equality is less prioritized than the courses core content and related assessment criteria.

AbstractTitle: Anabolic Androgenic Steroids ? An analysis of how AAS is portrayed in Swedish media.Author: Jens SundénTutor: Philip LalanderKeywords: AAS, Anabolic steroids, social problems, media, drug abuse, genderThe purpose of this study was to investigate how Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) are portrayed and described in the media, how AAS is constructed as a social problem, and how society in a social context uses knowledge and power for disciplinary and educational means. The study is based on the perception of AAS as a constructed social problem and analyzes the discourses surrounding AAS depicted in three Swedish newspapers. The sample was prepared on the basis that it represents different aspects of daily Swedish press. The method used in the paper is a discourse analysis with social constructivism and gender as theoretical tools used to analyze the sample material.

This master?s thesis investigates how six Swedish public libraries integrate equality aspects in their user oriented activity. The theoretical starting point for the study is that Sweden is a part of a gender system characterized by gender separation and male superiority, as described by the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman and theories that argue that femininity and masculinity are social constructions. Another starting point is that the library sphere cannot be separated from the gender inequality in society. Since the library is part of a gender system that value individuals who are seen as males and separates men and women, some of the library users may be neglected.

The purpose of the essay has been to examine representations of immigrants in contemporary library and information science research in a Scandinavian context. By analyzing nine articles from the past decade we examine the perceptions that exist in the concepts of multiculturalism, culture, race, ethnicity, religion, gender and whiteness and what role and importance the library as a place is assigned in relation to immigrants as a user group. Our study consists of a qualitative text analysis, a critical oriented close reading method based on critical race and whiteness studies and intersectional theory. We have, with the help of Sara Ahmed´s theories of hegemonic whiteness, demonstrated how multiculturalism is partly presented as something desirable and good, partly as something potentially threatening.The discourse of multiculturalism can be said to express the notions of the other, which in the source material manifests itself by ascribing otherness to immigrants. We have, for example, examined how ethnical and cultural differences are highlighted by a separation of East and West, the library?s educational and assisting role in relation to immigrants as a user group as well as representations of whiteness, gender and clothes.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how six fantasynovels reflects or breaks the heteronormativity in society bylooking at how gender roles and sexuality are described.The theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler's theoryabout the heterosexual matrix which requires two separategenders and a compulsory heterosexuality and YvonneHirdman's two principles about dichotomy and hierarchy.The method used was idea analysis where dimensions basedon the theoretical framework were constructed. Thesedimensions were: behaviour, tasks, relationships and roles.The result shows that all of the books both breaks andreflects the society's values on gender and sexuality. Thereare some stereotypes present, for example that intuition isassociated with femininity and physical strength withmasculinity. However, the books also offer characters ofboth sexes that break the gender stereotypes, such asstrong women and emotional men.