The bachelor thesis examines conceptions behind the Swedish public librarian?s opinions of the public library as a meeting place. The study uses the critical discourse analysis, developed by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, to analyze a focus group interview. The discourse analysis identifies four themes in the empirical material: the imagined arena of the meeting place, the behaviour in the meeting place, the meeting place?s librarian and the polemic against the meeting place.

Det övergripande syftet med studien är att studera vilka diskurser som framträder hos lärare i talet om hur stöd till elever i svårigheter bäst ska organiseras samtidigt som ett förändringsar-bete mot en skola för alla startas. Vidare syftar studien till att undersöka om det finns någon konflikt inom eller mellan diskurserna och om några diskurser dominerar över andra. Studien har sin teoretiska och metodologiska utgångspunkt i det diskursanalytiska angrepps-sättet som vilar på en socialkonstruktionistisk grund. Inom den socialkonstruktionistiska ve-tenskapssynen finns ingen absolut kunskap om olika fenomen utan man talar istället om ett sätt att presentera världen bland flera möjliga. När världen förklaras utifrån ett socialkon-struktionistiskt perspektiv används ofta diskursanalys.

Den här uppsatsen är en diskursteoretisk analys av debattören Johan Norbergs författarskap, med ett i stora drag enbart deskriptivt syfte som ämnar på ett strukturerat vis presentera det bakomliggande meningarna i Norbergs författarskap som ett uttryck för en politisk diskurs och beskriva dem i enighet med de teorier för diskursers formerande av Laclau och Mouffe som presenteras i uppsatsens teori och metodkapitel. Uppsatsens frågeställningar handlar om att identifiera de nodalpunkter och ekvivalenskedjor som utför centrala delar av Norbergs diskurs, vilket också görs i resultatdelen. I den mån uppsatsen går utöver en deskriptiv ansats så handlar det om att utifrån en ytlig analys av tidigare forskning kring John Lockes tyckande, jämföra Norberg med detta för att se i vilken mån Norbergs påstående om sig själv som en klassisk liberal överensstämmer med resultaten av analysen. De nodalpunkter som identifieras under analysen är frihet, kapitalism, globalisering och välstånd tillsammans med förklarande ekvivalenser. Resultaten tyder också på att Norbergs beskrivning av sig själv som en klassisk liberal är riktig även om det framkommer en del ganska stora avvikelser från Lockes synsätt..

The aim of this Masters thesis is to identify discourses within the school library field and to analyse which professional identities the discourses result in for school librarians. The empirical data consist of 71 articles from Swedish journals concerning school libraries and school librarians, between the years 2000-2003. The theory and method used is a discourse analysis which is inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. This form of discourse analysis was chosen since it was useful when identity was the focus of study. The analysis is accomplished in three steps.

This essay is a discourse and a feminist theoretical analysis that focuses on the alternative discourse that we consider Feminist Initiative to be constitutive of. Our theoretical stance, with base in Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory, builds on the notion that reality is characterised by conflicts between different competing discursive formations and that the social is an endless struggle over the preferential right of interpretation of meaning. More specifically, the essay focuses on the discursive struggle over the meaning of the term politics. It is our understanding that the dominant perception of politics necessarily excludes other understandings, which can according to Eduards, be explained as a consequence of a patriarchal distribution of power that renders the subordination of certain understandings of politics accordingly. Feminist Initiative, as an alternative discourse, can therefore be perceived as a threat to the dominating discourse of politics, which in order to maintain its preferential right of interpretation seek to illegitimatise and depoliticise the politics that the alternative discourse represents.

Youth unemployement in Sweden is at an all-time high, a fifth of all university and college students live in poverty and the number of young on welfare is increasing. This study attempts to answer the question of how youth deprivation has been made possible as a consequence of political action, focusing on youth unemployment.I critically examine the role of the Swedish government, the Swedish Labour Organisation (LO), and the various government departments through text analysis, in order to answer the question of how the current discourse on youth position in the labor market. Because youth unemployment is not an isolated phenomena the analysis covers several policy areas, such as education policy, labor market regulation and housing policy. I use discourse theories drawn from Laclau and Mouffe to expose how language is used as an instrument of political power.I conclude that the current situation is a result of policy choices where the young have fallen behind due to lack of political organization. Their situation is not problematized to the required degree and is often explained on an individual level rather than on a structural level..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to identify and describe thedifferent roles that are expressed in a public library by researchingthem in the four policy documents concerning Västerås public libraryin 2010 and by interviews with three specially chosen key persons.Further studied are the discourses that can be perceived in thematerial and whether or not the roles could come in conflict witheach other. Laclau and Mouffes discursive theory constitutes themethodical frame for this thesis and by using terms from discursivetheory the analysis was made in four steps.Seven roles were identified from the policy documents concerningVästerås public library and the interviews with the key persons. Thefirst role of the public library was the intermediary of knowledge andinformation, the second was viewed as a democratic role, the third asa marketing role, the fourth as a role that handled the collaboration,the fifth role was to improve literacy, and the sixth and seventh roleswere as a culture centre and a meeting place. With the help fromkeywords five major discourses were found within the material.

The environmental situation is becoming increasingly critical. The energy sector and other industries have a big impact on our climate and the public is raising their voice for companies to admit their responsibility towards the environment and society. Companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and happily disclose their responsible performance in annual reports. But what messages are they conveying in their CSR-reporting, and what attitudes towards CSR can be found underneath the explicit content? The aim of this study is to discover which discourses exist in CSR-reports from Swedish energy companies, and how these discourses operate.

Denna studie fokuserar på yrkeskunnandet på Barn - och fritidsprogrammet, ett av gymnasieskolansyrkesprogram. Programmet utbildar till yrken inom pedagogiska och sociala yrkesområden samtinom fritids- och friskvårdssektorn och har yrkesutgångar som väktare, personlig assistent,elevassistent, personlig tränare, barnskötare och personal inom boende för personer medfunktionsnedsättning. Eleverna uppmanas att skaffa sig både en yrkesexamen ochhögskolebehörighet.Inom en socialkonstruktionistisk ram och med en diskursteoretisk ansats studeras huryrkeskunnande konstrueras. Studiens empiri utgörs av styrdokument, informationsmaterial ochgymnasieskolors hemsidor. Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen för yrkeskunnandet på nyaBarn - och fritidsprogrammet.

Central labour market actors have come to an agreement ? Sweden is going to need labour migration. In spite of the agreement the actors disagree upon how the labour migration should be designed. This essay examines how the union organisation, LO presents labour migration in their rapports during the years 2000-2006. This is done through Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory and a merge with postcolonial theory.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka och belysa de normer kring femininitet som modemagasinet ELLE förmedlar genom text och bild. Genom kritisk diskursanalys av text och semiotisk bildanalys av annonser ämnar vi belysa hur tidningen konstruerar kön ur ett genusperspektiv. Vi har använt oss av tre metoder för att studera detta, kvantitativ innehållsanalys, kritisk diskursanalys och semiotisk bildanalys. För att analysera vårt resultat har vi använd oss av fyra olika teorier; Laclau och Mouffe?s diskursteori, Yvonne Hirdmans genussystem, Elwin-Nowak & Thomsson?s Att göra kön samt Judith Butlers modell om den heterosexuella matrisen.

Föreliggande uppsats avser att undersöka om lärarnas inofficiella diskurs om individualisering och nivågruppering stämmer överens med läroplanens officiella diskurs. Den aktuella uppsatsen är en fallstudie och görs ur ett maktperspektiv och den består av en diskursanalys av lärarnas diskurs och en av den officiella diskursen, det vill säga läroplanen. Analyserna utarbetas med hjälp av Laclau och Mouffes metodologiska verktyg för att sedan jämföras och därmed utröna om det finns någon kamp mellan de två diskurserna. Detta tillvägagångssätt används för att möjliggöra en koppling till de teoretiska utgångspunkterna, vilka är tagna från Focaults tankar om makt. Resultaten av undersökningen visar att lärarna i sin diskurs lyfter fram att huvudproblemet förefaller vara att de stora heterogena klasserna idag gör att de inte hinner stimulera alla.

The focus of this study is the ways in which the discourses of the three largest right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia ? Danish Dansk Folkeparti, Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet and Swedish Sverigedemokraterna ? are articulated and on defining which individuals they include and exclude. The discourses of the three parties are compared and analyzed to determine whether they constitute specific nationalist and culturally racist discourses. The problem is addressed by applying a social constructivist theory of nationalism and cultural racism, and specifically the binary opposition ?we? and ?them?, on a material consisting of the respective parties? member magazines from 2007.