This is a qualitative study based on five semi-structured interviews in Sweden. The aim of the study is to explore what experiences non-monogamous people have of dating and the social support surrounding them. The study investigates what effects norms and normative structures have on non-monogamous dating. This is done through a thematic analysis with queer theory, and the underlying theoretical concepts performativity, heteronormativity, mononormativity, relationship escalator and queer temporalities. To help analyze the social support, we have used Bourdieu's (1986) theory about social capital.

AbstractThis study is a critical analysis of three different views on human dignity and its function in the discourse of human rights: that of Christopher McCrudden, Jürgen Habermas and Elena Namli. The three positions are interpreted, analyzed and compared in order to see which is most reasonable.The conclusion is that Habermas?s and McCrudden?s view of human rights as legal reduces human dignity to a legal concept. Namli?s perspective of human dignity as a moral principle generates a wider understanding of human dignity and its function.

The purpose of this study is to research into the role of the citizen and the educational system in Sweden throughout periods of time based on previous theoretic works, and also to deepen the understanding of students with special needs in Swedish education focusing on the primary school years. This shall be carried out by illustrating the different points of view and choices within the educational system that are at hand for students with concentration difficulties and social difficulties.I will analyze these points through a cultural and social perspective on contemporary society in order to contribute towards today?s discourse on the norm. The result of this empirical investigation presents a dilemma existing in the democratic educational system of today. Nationally and internationally, the educational system has been structured around a normative system containing both rights and duties that effect everyone working within it.

This study is a qualitative content analysis which sets out to examine the representation of stereotypic masculine traits amongst the main characters in two films from The Swedish Institute of Film's (Svenska Filminstitutets) selection for ?School Cinema? (Skolbio). The study is operationalised through the use of a scheme, constructed by Lorraine Evans and Kimberly Davies for their study No sissy boys here, which maps stereotypical masculine and feminine traits and originates from Sandra Lipsitz Bems ?Sex Role Inventory?. The masculine traits in the scheme are: aggressive, competitive, argumentative, decisive, assertive, risk-taking, self-reliant and adventurous, and the feminine are: affectionate, emotionally expressive, impetuous, nurturing, panicky, passive, tender, and understanding.

This paper investigates how students in the humanities in four universities in Sweden reflect on their education and the current view on the humanities as an education and a science. I want to investigate what impact the past few years public debate about the humanities have had on the students. What kind of beliefs and identities do the students of the humanities form and how do they discuss the universities, the choices they made in life and how do they feel about the future.This study is based on interviews with seventeen students in Sweden from four different universities. The research is also based upon a report that The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) published in 2011 and the debate following that report. I have also made participant observations on the four universities to make a broader description for the reader.

 Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the ideological trends and positioning of the Swedish liberal party with the Danish social liberal party. This paper also aims to analyze the reasons behind the trends. By examine the development in these two Nordic liberal sisterparties, this paper contributes to our understanding of why and how party change is initiated. The paper commences with an intuitive notion that the Swedish party has in fact, made a lurch towards the right, during the past ten to fifteen years while the Danish party has retained their social-liberal position in the centre of the Danish political spectrum. The questions then asked are: can this hypothesis be verified empirically? If so, how can this phenomenon of divergence, be explained?The method used in this thesis is process-tracing and the empirical material does to a large extent rely on interviews with central agents as they are specified in the theory of each party.

This article discusses desirable political representation within the framework of representative democracy. In the desirable representation it is the responsibility of the politician to balance authoritative decision making with responsiveness towards the voters. The article intends to make visible the ethical complexity within representative democracy. Ethically the commission to represent is further complicated because the political parties constitute a central role in the political life and request loyalty of the politician. At the same time the politician is elected by the voters and thus the representative has to balance the dual representation.The politician can meet supplementary but also contradictory norms of action in decision taking.

This master?s thesis deals with problems and opportunities when it comes to cooperation between compulsory schools, upper secondary schools, school libraries and public libraries on Gotland. The goal of this thesis is to investigate which ideas exist among public librarians, school librarians and headmasters when it comes to taking responsibility for the students? information literacy, basic library knowledge and passion for books. It also examines some of the problems they meet when trying to work together around these tasks.

 Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.

AbstractIn this essay, policy change and learning is studied in the case of the Social Democratic Party and their policy concerning independent schools. Their policy differs clearly from the right-wing parties. Between 1991 and 1994, the right-wing government made substantial reforms concerning independent schools. The question posed in this essay is whether the policy of the Social Democratic Party has changed as a result of these actions, and if they have approached their right-wing counterparts.Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework, defining a policy as a result of the values the actor holds, the question is studied by applying the theory's assumptions of policy-learning across coalitions. The argumentation of the Social Democratic Party, as it is expressed in official text documents before and after the right-wing government, is analysed.

Gendered reading has a history of intense debate and negotiation. In this essay I will examine how feminine and masculine reading was construed in the early 19th century through three Swedish texts that all give a didactic, moral and instructive opinion about gendered reading. They consist of an advice manual, a collection of letters and a periodical featuring an assortment of suitable reading material, all published between the years of 1808-1815 and directed to a female audience. As the male sex was generally considered the invisible, desirable norm and the female sex tended to be viewed as deviant and problematic, gendered discussions are inclined to focus on the latter. I will argue that female reading is largely construed in relation to the bourgeois marriage while the male is construed in terms of citizenship.

This thesis applies a discourse theoretical approach in order to examine in whatways and with what possible meanings the library at KVINFO participates in the overall gender discourse in society. This means that our reading takes place at a metatheoretical level, focussing on the library as a constructor of meaning in relation to society's gender discourse.Besides the actual reading, the thesis argues for the fruitfulness of using both a discourse theoretical and a feministic perspective in the field of Library and Information Science. By looking at libraries in general through a lens provided by these perspectives, libraries are staged as battlegrounds for competing discourses,that attempt to promote its particular knowledge claim on how reality should be perceived.The reading shows that it is possible to perceive the library at KVINFO as amaterial articulation that takes shape by and is part in a feministic counterdiscourse against the masculinistic hegemonic discourse, which throughout ?hisstory? has positioned women as ?the other?, and established men as the normative category in society, including the libraries. Through its practise KVINFO has contributed to a change in the collective identity ascribed to women.

Poly, to live in several loving and intimate relationships at the same time, is one alternative to the mono norm. In Sweden polygamy is illegal yet in recent years poly has slowly started to enter the hetero normative political agenda and raise debate in the media. But what does poly mean, and how do those who identify with this type of relationship describe it in contrast to mono? The theoretical framework is based on a structural viewpoint of the changes in the organisation of the family and the growing de-traditionalism of society. Amongst other I use a Foucauldian perspective to explain the structural shift (yet not replacement) between an Alliance pattern and a Sexuality pattern.

 Prostitution has been intensely debated in Sweden for nearly four decades. Two major investigations have so far been initiated by the government and numerous propositions have been put forward in the Swedish parliament resulting in the sexköpslag from 1999 that criminalizes purchase of sexual services. The law aims at punishing the buyer and protecting the women in prostitution, thus making it possible for women to be helped by various social interventions rather than punished. Swedish society has undergone major changes in these decades. Globalization, the internet and the membership in the EU have changed the Swedish society and influenced the discourse on prostitution.This paper has a twofold aim, on the one hand investigating if and how these changes have had an impact on the prostitution discourse in texts produced by the government and analyze how female and male sexuality in connection to prostitution is constructed.