This essay examines the decline of reading comprehension in Swedish schools, and also aims to provide insight into the debate concerning a literary canon and its usage in schools. While some claim that the literary canon is only a list of irrelevant white dead men which only serves to perpetuate feelings of alienation in, for example, female students, others see it as a means to bring society together using the only literature that stood the test of time. This essay will look to studies concerning reading comprehension, and questions regarding reading habits which our own students answered. It will also explain the different viewpoints of both sides of the canon debate.There are several studies that show this decline in reading comprehension, PISA and PIRLS being the foremost of them. They point to a trend where the reading skills of boys are much worse than those of girls, a trend which still has not panned out.Bloom and the different researchers who are the basis for Verhaest's thesis are of the opinion that canonical literature serves a purpose in that it teaches students aesthetic literary values.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine how some university students, who are using the libraries extensively, use and experience the public and the university library and what they expect from the two different library types. I also compare their expectations with the different tasks and aims of the two library types. To answer this I have interviewed seven students at the department of history of literature at Göteborg University. I have also studied some literature and research related to this subject, for example user studies about students and libraries and the information behaviour of distance students.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur lärare på gymnasienivå ställer sig till att använda populärkultur och medier i sin undervisning. Undersökningen behandlar vilka attityder som finns, vilken roll populärkulturen och medieanvändandet spelar i undervisningen och hur de tror att eleverna tänker kring användandet i undervisningen. Studien behandlar fyra olika områden av populärkultur och medier: TV, film, tidningar och Internet.Denna undersökning har underbyggts av sex stycken intervjuer med olika lärare på gymnasienivå. Intervjuerna har givit en frihet för resonemang och utläggningar, men samtidigt innehållit specifika och kompletterande frågor. Studien är kvalitativt inriktad, och tonvikten lades på analyser utifrån vad som sades på intervjuerna.Populärkultur och medier påverkar de flesta människors sätt att leva idag, och diskussionerna kring detta är många.

AbstractTitle: Dragshow on the seven seasNumber of pages: 51 (56 including enclosures)Author: Therése PlastrougiTutor: Ylva EkströmCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: My main purpose with this paper is 1) to study how film as a media can subvert traditional gender constructions and 2) study the character of Elizabeth Swann in the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean through four dimensions; Gender performance, Class, Desire and Power.Material/Method: My main material is the trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. I have studied Elizabeth?s character based on semiotic and narratological methods.Main results: Film as a media possesses the full potential to change traditional gender roles, but the full subversion is denied due to the heterosexual matrix. Elizabeth?s character almost completes her subversive journey throughout the trilogy, but since she too is a victim of the heterosexual matrix, a full subversion is not possible.Key words: gender performance, class, desire, power, sex/gender, subversion, narratologic, semiotic, queer, feminism, pirates of the caribbean, intersectionality, parody.

This essay deals with the relationship between subcultures and literature. It includes an analysis of what adolescents read if they get to choose fiction by themselves. The method used in this essay is a hermeneutic method. Five novels are used in the search for subcultures and qualities and ideals within them. The essay reveals five specific subcultures, and significant features of those are presented in the analysis.

Animals in zoos live in small enclosed areas. If a pathogen is introduced to the zoo, the animals are extremely vulnerable. The highest risk of introducing new pathogens occurs when new animals are introduced to the collection. Therefore it is essential that zoos have a protocol in place for disease prevention. This review has studied literature on the subject of disease prevention protocols when translocating animals between zoos.

In order to study how science and archeology was exploited for political means during the Third Reich this thesis investigates the scientific institute Ahnenerbe, founded in 1935. The thesis is built up as a literature study combining literature sources from the time of the eventas well as research done around Ahnenerbe after the war.The purpose of the thesis is to examine the official and unofficial purposes of the organisation. It investigates how scholars viewed Ahnenerbe at the time, and after the war. It further examines the scientific value of the material published by the organisation, where there is a specific focus on the material covering Germanic Männerbunds..

Hellström, Staffan. Tystnaden i ljudfilm - En studie i Jacques Tatis ?Mon Uncle?. C-uppsats. Falun: Institutionen för kultur & medier, Högskolan Dalarna.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine readers? advice in weblogs - frequently modified web pages with a series of archived entries. We have chosen to study a specific kind of entry that contains information about a book of fiction- not for children and young adults - and the bloggers? comments regarding that same book. The entries are published in ten weblogs that all deal with literature and reading.

While almost 23 percent of the students in the Swedish upper secondary school are foreigners, only a fraction of the school libraries? collections consists of literature written in other languages than Swedish or English. This study examines how five school librarians experience the task of working with literature composed in foreign languages in the multicultural and multilingual school of today. The results of the qualitative interviews are analyzed in relation to the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries are working by, and also in relation to the theoretical framework of sociocultural theory and the theories on second language acquisition developed by linguist Jim Cummins.The study shows that while multilingualism is discussed as an important matter in the legislation and policy documents that the school libraries work by, the librarians in this study largely view the question of foreign literature as peripheral. Most part of the librarians connects first language reading to leisure-time activities rather than curricular activities, and stresses that the Swedish language should be prioritized in Swedish schools.

Syftet med vår fallstudie var att undersöka om läraren arbetar med multimodala uttryckssätt, såsom bild, musik, drama, teater, IKT, spel, film och CD i sin undervisning och till omfattning. Vilka utryckssätt som genomsyrar undervisningen samt vilka som utelämnas.Metodvalet som användes för vår undersökning var observationer vilket gjordes under två hela dagar respektive en heldag och två halvdagar. De som observerades var två grundskollärare i årskurs 3 respektive årskurs 4, läraren för årskurs 3 kallar vi för Lärare 1, hon arbetar på en mindre skola ute på landsbygden några mil utanför en storstad i mellersta Sverige. Den andra läraren som observerats kallar vi för Lärare 2, hon arbetar i årskurs 4 på en medelstor skola belägen i utkanten av den centrala delen i en storstad i mellersta Sverige.Observationerna gjordes utefter ett framtaget observationsprotokoll (bilaga 3) där de olika mutlimodala uttrycksformerna bearbetades och sedan analyserades. Slutsatsen var att de båda lärarna tillämpade olika multimodala uttrycksformer i sin undervisning under vår tid som observatörer.

The study aims to examine how censorship and comics have been discussed in three debates. The aim is also to identify discourses and the orders and relations of power constructed in the debates, and to examine how librarians should handle debates about censorship and comics. Selected sources are articles from Swedish newspapers and tabloids about the debates on the Pox-trial, the manga case and the debate about Tintin in Kulturhuset. The results from the analysis indicates that the debates have been dominated by two main discourses: a discourse on freedom of speech and a discourse on social responsibility. Within the discourse of freedom of speech there is a range of perspectives that emphasize: artistic freedom, the need for open and free conversations, a discussion about how the comics are assessed in comparison with other media formats as well as a discussion about moral and moralism.

My problem comes out of the bigger question ?why the Catholic church is featured in horror films whenever a religious organization is in one?? I have detected in the horror films that I've seen that when a religious organization is in a horror movie it's the Catholic church that gets to act as church and religion. I have chosen the following problem: How is the Catholic church presented in the horror movies The Exorcist and The Rite, and how can one understand these presentations from a role theoretic perspective?Since role theory has it's background in the world of the theater with it's actors and roles, it came naturally to use role theory, and specifically Goffmans dramatic model. I've used this model in a film analysis of the movies.

In recent years coaching has become an increasingly popular phenomenon outside of the sports world. More and more people have found coaching to be a helpful tool for achieving greater performance and fulfillment in their lives. This thesis is a comparative literature study of three books about coaching where the authors use different theoretical bases to explain and teach coaching. The aim of the thesis is to explain how coaching as a phenomenon is described and compare these descriptions as well as to look at the ideals and norms that are produced and reproduced in the use of coaching. The study compares the three books from six different themes and shows that, in the use of coaching, the ideal of a rational and action oriented individual is constructed and the aim for this individual is some form of success.

This essay is about how and why teachers use fiction litterature as a teaching method. It´s based on a study among eight teachers in year 4-6 at a school in Mariehamn in the Åland Islands. The results show the high importance of using fiction litterature in education. Fiction literature is highly valued in all subjects as it stimulates the students development of language, empathy and fantasy. The curriculum´s aim of using fiction litterature is to stimulate the pleasure of reading.