This essay aims to broaden the understanding of intolerance towards people with religious and/or cultural Islamic association or background. This thesis has intolerance and Islamophobia as central components and starts with the question: In what manner do twelve pupils talk about Islam and Muslims in their third year of the vocational program, in small towns and in the countryside? The survey took place in the south of Sweden in a rural municipality where a total of twelve students from the industrial, electricity and vehicle program in the Swedish gymnasiums participated in two separate focus group interviews. The essay will use an intersectional analysis to see where the students position themselves and Muslims in relation to each other and to society. The essay also contains a comparison of Islamophobia in the country side and in the city environment.

This paper studies three Swedish textbooks for the A-course in religious studies, in the Swedish equivalency of high school, to see if the image of Islam and Muslims presented is diverse or homogeneous and exotic. The purpose of the study is to see whether or not the religious studies can contribute to the forming of islamophobic beliefs in pupils. Studies have shown that Islamophobia is widespread in Sweden, therefore it could be interesting to see if the schools play any part in the forming or spreading of islamophobic views. The conclusion reached is that this cannot be excluded as a possibility. There are still some textbooks that present Muslims in a homogeneous and exotic manner to some degree.

With this thesis I have sought to do a critical review on how Islam is perceived and articulated by secondary school students in a school in a larger Swedish city. The aim is to analyse how some secondary students in Sweden talk about Islam, as a religion and as a school subject. To achieve this aim, seven focus group interviews with 36 students aged 15-16 have been conducted. These focus groups have discussed the general picture of Islam depicted by the society, media and through the school. But also how, and in what way that depiction has influenced their personal view of Islam.

This essay examines on what kind of Muslim stereotypes exist in entertainment movies which are being produced in the West and particularly the United States. First, the focus will be on explaining the concept of stereotypes and Islamophobia and what role the media has in the movies' production of its contents. The incident at the World Trade Center will also be discussed briefly. By using semiotic and narrative analyses the essay investigates if a stereotyped image is being used about Muslims and how Muslim main characters that have the role of being protagonists, are visualized in entertainment movies. The material that is included in the empirical analysis consists of three selected movies.

This thesis examines the Swedish Democrats relationship to an islamophobic worldview. The party developed from the racist party Bevara Sverige Svenskt (Keep Sweden Swedish) and is today the third largest party in Sweden, which gives them a powerful position in the society. It is therefore important to investigate their view on minorities, and in this case Muslims. In this thesis I examine the Swedish Democrat?s material during the election campaign the years of 2006, 2010 and 2014 using Ernesto Laclau?s and Chantal Mouffe?s discourse theory.

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of Islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat Islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues.In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe ? especially when it comes to muslim identity?My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice ? the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe ? and what effect this may have on muslim identity in a European context.The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic.

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of Islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat Islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues.In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe ? especially when it comes to muslim identity?My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice ? the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe ? and what effect this may have on muslim identity in a European context.The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic.

Sweden is today a country with ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. My aim in this study is to study what view of Islam and Muslims that students at a Catholic school in Stockholm have. The reason why Catholic schools are interesting to study is that previous research has showed that Muslim students around Europe often attend catholic schools as they are regarded as more tolerant towards religion. This study is based on a questionnaire and personal interviews with upper secondary students at the Catholic school in Stockholm. The result is compared with previous research on students of the same age group (12-15 years).

This essay is a study of  textbooks in religious education for middle school. Textbooks are for many, the first contact with religion and they contain a shorter description of different religions. The study is supported by theories of 'Islamofobi' by Mattias Gardell as well as oriental studies by Edward W. Said. The purpose of the study is to examine how textbooks describe islam and muslims' situation in Sweden.

Det finns idag en ganska omfattande samhällsvetenskaplig litteratur om lokala och nationella protester mot planer på moskéer och böneutrop i västvärlden. Men det finns endast få studier som uppmärksammar växelverkan mellan sådant motstånd och olika former av stöd för muslimers religionsutövning. För att belysa rörelsernas retoriska inramningar analyseras ingresser till svenska namninsamlingar, Facebookgrupper och Facebooksidor. Innehållsanalysen visar bland annat att retoriken inte begränsas till praktiska lokaliseringsfrågor utan handlar i högsta grad om det svenska samhällets framtid. Moskéer utgör här viktiga symboler där de antingen representerar ett hot eller ett samhälle baserat på mänskliga rättigheter..

En ökad muslimsk invandring till västvärlden har medfört växande behov av att förstå muslimer och de sociala utmaningar de ställs inför. I denna forskningsöversikt sammanfattas och diskuteras 30 refereebedömda vetenskapliga studier som berör olika typer av socialt arbete med muslimer genom tre olika områden; utbildning socialt arbete, frivilligt socialt arbete och professionellt socialt arbete. Resultaten i studien visar en genomgående kunskapslucka i de tre områdena där det framförallt framträder stor brist på kunskap om kultur och religion. Denna brist på kunskap leder i många fall vidare till rädsla och därmed ovilja att anpassa socialt arbete till muslimers behov.  Slutligen presenteras områden med behov av framtida forskning..

This essay aims to determine how Muslims are produced in the public domain in Swedishcontemporary time. My study is based on three different materials; Hot mot demokrati ochvärdegrund ? en lägesbild från Malmö investigating Islamist radicalism and extremism inRosengård, articles on Omar Mustafa and his resignation from the Social Democratic Partyand Gun Holmertz article Islamismen får allt större fäste i Hjällbo and the following debate.The method used is discourse analysis as the purpose of the study is to examine howMuslims are produced within the prevailing discourse. Theoretical points have beenPostcolonial theory, Orientalism, Islamophobia and ?us? and ?them?.The results of the study confirm the results of earlier studies, namely that Muslims are not produced in a beneficial way.

After 9/11 and the following War on Terror, Muslims are often understood as global enemies. However, the idea of an international, Islamic enemy is in some circumstances criticized, not least after the actions of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011.This study analyses the North American, Emmy Award-winning television series Homeland. It centres on the War on Terror and the following social and political climate, and there are opposing understandings regarding how religion and ethnicity are portrayed in the series. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to analyse how such aspects are constructed in the series. A text analysis is used methodologically and the theoretical perspective contents of Semiotics, Eurocentrism and Orientalism in general, and Islamophobic themes in particular.This study shows that in Homeland, the portrayal of heroes and enemies plus good and evil is complex.

Måste det nödvändigtvis vara invecklat och svårt med interkulturella relationer? Innebär kärleksrelationer över gränserna mer komplikationer än andra förhållanden där man delar kultur, religion och etnicitet? Det finns uppenbarligen många människor som fattar tycker för varandra oavsett nationalitet och tro, men i flera skönlitterära romaner skildras en bild av att det är mer eller mindre omöjligt att få ett sådant förhållande att fungera. Jag vill dock gärna fortsätta att tro att kärleken beror mer på en sorts personkemi och attraktion människor emellan, något som man inte direkt kan sätta fingret på men som ändå finns där. I min uppsats skildrar och analyserar jag två populära och spridda romaner för att ta reda på vilken bild som framställs när det gäller kärleken mellan en mörkhyad muslimsk man och en vit kristen kvinna. I diskussionen redogör jag för mina egna tankar och åsikter om romanerna, samt beskriver hur jag tror de påverkar människor som tar del av dem genom bok eller film.

In the years between 2012 and 2014, Burma has been shaken by waves of violence against Muslims which has resulted in destroyed mosques and shops, at least 140 000 displaced and 200 killed persons. The person who is said to lay behind this violence is the Burmese Theravada monk Ashin Wirathu. Being the founder and leader of the radical Buddhist movement 969, he has been accused of indirectly motivating violence against Muslims and has been portrayed with titles such as ?The face of buddhist terror?. This essay investigates the relation between Wirathu and the anti-Muslim violence by applying the method of content analysis on a speech of him.