The purpose of this study is that through a discourse theoretical perspective, analyze young girls 'statements about living with self-injuring by sexual behavior. The aim is to locate the discourses that surround them, visualize how discursive constructions affect these young girls' identity as victims and/or actors in relation to self-injury, the sexual violence and in meetings with the professionals within the health authorities. In addition discourse theory as an analyze method, the authors also use Nils Christie's (2001) theory of the ideal victim and Ingrid Landers (2003) theoretical perspectives on normative femininity. The authors of the study show a diversity of discourses that surround the young girls. All discourses contain normative actor- and victim?s positions that young girls constantly are obliged to relate to, which partially conflict with social constructions of the idea of victim and femininity.

One of the main goals in this study is to investigate how young children's identity formation and social relationships are depicted by today's consumer society.  In order to reach the goals of the study I also concentrated myself on questions regarding the reflection of symbolic aspects consumption in younger children's interaction and preschool-teachers' ideas about how and in what ways children's consumption patterns are created and developed nowadays. In order to answer the presented research questions I used the theoretical arguments of researchers in the field of pedagogy Gert Biesta in connection with the ideas and concepts of the consumer society characteristics developed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.The thesis' methodological approach consists of a combination of semi-structured interviews with teachers and observations of children's interaction, which contributed to a systematic investigation of the thesis' problem area and served as a tool for obtaining answers to the research questions.The results demonstrate that consumption occupies a lot of space in young children's lives, which means that it greatly affects their social relationships today. Both consumption and knowledge of the known brands prove to be the child's path to the desired community on the one hand, and the children's way to the consumer world on the other (hand), which in turn points to an obvious dependence between children's consumption and their social relationships.The results also show that there is a tension between the perception of identity formation as preschool-policy-document on the one hand and the attitude of the identity prescribed by consumer society Norms and regulations on the other..

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate respectability and the construction of ?free love? in Swedish feminist debater and playwright Frida Stéenhoff?s (1865?1945) drama Lejonets unge (1896). In 1897 the first production of the drama was set in the small town of Sundsvall in Sweden and caused a public storm be-cause of its plea for free love for both men and women.Through an intersectional perspective, where the axes of class, gender, sexual-ity, religion, nationality and age are central and with a starting point in Beverly Skegg?s concept ?respectability? I investigate how ?free love? is constructed in the drama. I also link the construction of ?free love? to the historical context of the debate concerning sexual morality and marriage which was intense in society and literature in Scandinavia in the late 19th century.In the drama the plea for ?free love? is created mainly through the character Saga Leire.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how special education is done in relation to what is considered "normal". The aim is to discuss how the normalization discourse appears in a pre-school for all and, by extension, how the need of special education is articulated in relation to the normalization discourse. This study also intends to discuss how the perception of what is normal affects special education in pre-schools. The study draws upon previous research within the special education area through which we make our position. Since there is only a few studies in this chosen field which are based on empirical data, our study indicates the importance of more research in this field.

Gender balance within the business administration field at university level is an area that has gained increased attention in the last decade. As gender balance contributes positively to the scientific and educational achievements within all disciplines, many studies have tried to understand the decision-making processes of students when selecting a business specialisation. However, little attention has been devoted to the finance discipline although there is a remaining gender imbalance within the field at higher-level economic studies. This thesis was performed as a qualitative case study and is based on interviews with second-year bachelor students facing their choice of specialisation at the Stockholm School of Economics. Through an application of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), this study aims to examine factors that influence female business students' intentions to choose a specialisation.

Title: I saw it on Facebook ? Youth presentation of self on FacebookAuthors: Nicole Dreher & Anders SkoglundPresented: 01.06.2010Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the, in the study, participating youths make their presentation of self on their Facebook profiles.Methodology: The method used in the thesis was a social semiotic analysis focusing on the social semiotic concepts: semiotic resource, semiotic potential, affordance, denotation and connotation. A social semiotic analysis of composition was also used with the purpose to gain a deeper knowledge of the social semiotic affordances of Facebook?s composition.Theoretical perspectives: The theoretical base of this thesis consists mainly of Erving Goffman?s theory on presentation of self in everyday life as well as relevant theories to youth culture in sociology and identity in social psychology.Conclusions: The results show that the youth?s presentations of selves mostly takes place in their profile picture, status updates, groups, fan pages and through their communication with other users on their wall. The borders between front and back stage on Facebook entirely depends on the Norms that the reader expects the profile owner to uphold.

This thesis will deal with the development of the situation of the Roma minority in the Swedish school system in the period between 1954 to 2010, based on two Swedish Government Official Reports of the group's situation in the Swedish schools. The study is done by the report Zigenarfrågan (SOU 1956:43) and with the report Romers rätt (SOU 2010:55). The report Romers rätt was written by the Delegation for Roma issues and gives an updated picture of the situation of Roma in the Swedish school system. The state investigation Zigenarfrågan, is also important as the latter resulted in the Roma children enrolled in Swedish schools. This work will look at the various governmental investigations by the theory used for analysis called ?structural discrimination theory?.

The way you address people is depending on the existing culture, to be on familiar terms with people you don?t know or elderly people is totally unacceptable in some cultures. Some behaviour might be acceptable in one culture, and unacceptable in another. Culture exists on different levels in the society, and what combines people within a culture are that they share the same Norms and values.This study identifies and deals with the resemblances and the differences in the customer relationship within one specific organization with activity in several different countries. Two of these countries, which can be seen as each others cultural contrasts, were chosen for the study, Sweden and Spain.

The purpose of the thesis Masculinities ? Gender and its Impact on the Social conditions of individuals is to perform a critical study of how gendered Norms influence the social conditions of individuals. This has been done by a problematization and the attempt to answer the question of how the hegemonical masculinity can be analyzed as a discourse, and how the structural aspects of this discourse inflict on the social conditions of masculinities.The question was divided into the analytical themes: the boarders of the discourse, the institutionalization of the discourse, the actuation of the discourse and the agents of the discourse. The theoretical frame is constituted by the theory of discourse by Michel Foucault, the theory of the hegemonical masculinity by R.W. Connell and a subversive identity theory by Judith Butler.

Problem definition and purpose: A debated question in journalism today is if the mass media have the power to affect Norms and values in the society. There are therefore many who believe that the media must works for democratic and equitable news coverage. Studies have shown that there are still many differences in how women and men are being portrayed in the Swedish media, even if Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world. This inequality may affect the democracy and equality in the society negative.Previous studies have mainly been using gender as the only explanatory factor to explain the difference of coverage between men and women in the news content. The purpose of this study will therefore not only be to compare the coverage of the Green Partys two spokespersons, Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin, from a gender perspective but also to take in count other factors that could contribute to differences in the news coverage.Method and material: To find an answer to the purpose of this thesis a quantitative content analysis have been done on a total of 238 news articles in which Åsa Romson and/or Gustav Fridolin occur.Main results: The results of the content analysis show that Gustav Fridolin occurs more frequently in the news than Romson does, and that the articles he appears in is lager than the articles in which Romson appears.

Discussions of structural racism has now moved to the forefront of the Swedish society, and many researchers have sought to understand what form it takes, how it is manifested, how it is exploited and challenged. At the core of this debate we find the media, and its logic embedded with mechanisms of simplification and polarization.Media is our key source of knowledge and information, why it also affects our Norms, beliefs and preconceptions. Media thus has the power to mediate, amplify or challenge how we conceptualize the world, and subsequently our (unconscious) racist beliefs.To investigate how media content is influenced by underlying colonial or racist assumptions and stereotypes thus becomes a way to investigate our understanding of reality.In accordance with postcolonial thought, structural and symbolic racism is embedded in language and hidden in images, and surface in the form of domination and feminization, and the portrayal of the subaltern ?Other? as passive and irrational.This paper thus departs from postcolonial theory and media logic to undercover hidden patterns of structural, symbolic and historically contingent racism in one of Sweden?s most prominent in-depth foreign TV-magazines, namely Korrespondenterna.Adopting Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper explores to what extent racist and colonial stereotypes are reproduced and/or challenged in Korrespondenterna?s representation of Sub-Saharan Africa.In line with postcolonial theory it is found that historically contingent racialized stereotypes are prevalent in Korrespondenterna, and that tendencies of portraying Africa and Africans as passive, feminine and irrational are prevailing.It is thus argued that media logic, imbedded with mechanisms of simplification, polarization and intensification, contributes to the use of colonial stereotypes in media, and thus to the mediation of structural and symbolic racism..

This paper analyzes the content of eight Islamic Friday-sermons, held at Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg in spring 2010, organized by Chalmers Islamiska Förening (CIF) (Chalmers Islamic community).The forces of globalization, the accessibility of information and the Internet have given rise to discourses and movements that know no national boundaries. The accessibility of these global movements and discourses through media, Internet, etc., affect the way Muslims in Sweden interpret and practice their religion. Thus, this paper includes discussions and descriptions of global Islamic revivalist-movements, and relates the contents of the sermons at Chalmers to these movements. In the sermons, the imams often discuss the concept of a global Muslim community, the umma, and their perceptions of the prescribed ethics linked to this community. They often relate this discussion of ethics to frequently discussed issues in the West such as equality, justice and ethical standards in war.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how gender patterns are described in the modern picture book. Focus is on the description of men and women and their emotions and living conditions. Do the descriptions follow stereotypes in the form of binary opposites strong/weak, active/passive etc. in which one component of the pair, often associated with masculinity, is privileged or are there examples of breach of normative gender? The analysis is based upon forty of 149 picture books that are presented in a children's book catalogue published by The Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs Statens kulturråd, in the year of 2000.

Introduction: Although life expectancy had increased in Sweden for many decades and several health problems had diminished over time, there was no change in men's risk behaviour regarding for instance high alcohol and tobacco consumption. Many of the gender differences in health that existed in society explained were due to power structures and beliefs about behaviour based on gender; a social construction that resulted in the relatively high valuation of men with a more masculine behaviour. Aim: This literature review aimed to study and identify the scientific knowledge regarding paternity leave and its impact on men's health. Method: A literature- based study design was used and the material consisted of peer-reviewed articles from which six themes were identified: alcohol, tobacco, stress, isolation, social support and mortality risk. Results: Divided into three parts, the results described the socioeconomic background of the men who took paternity leave, as well as the impact of paternity leave and masculinity as an impact on men's health.

Det här är en studie i hur män och kvinnor avbildas och  beskrivs i bilder på sportsidorna under tre olympiska spel, OS i Amsterdam 1928, OS i Melbourne 1956 och OS i Los Angeles 1984, mot bakgrund av Anja Hirdmans uppsats Male Norms and Female Forms. Hon har i sin studie endast studerat nyhetsplats och inte idrottssidor och den här uppsatsen är ett försök att problematisera hennes resultat. I uppsatsen har vi valt att studera de båda svenska tidningarna Dagens nyheter och Idrottsbladet genom att använda semiotisk analys och textanalys. Vi kan visa att det råder en dikotomi i beskrivningen och avbildningen av män och kvinnor men att resultaten skiljer sig i detaljer mot Hirdmans studie eftersom sportsidor har en annan nyhetslogik än övriga sidor. På många sätt avbildas män och kvinnor på sportsidorna över tid mer jämlikt än på övrig nyhetsplats. Män och kvinnor får ungefär lika stor bevakning i förhållande till antalet deltagare, beskrivs ofta efter sina resultat och avbildas som ungefär lika aktiva och ungefär lika ofta som individer. Men på andra sätt är det tvärtom; kvinnor omnämns oftare med sitt kön, de ler oftare mot kameran, avbildas oftare som poserande och det saknas helt kvinnliga ledare under vår undersökningsperiod. Män avbildas oftare i helkropp, oftare som narcissistiska och begrundande på ett sätt som förefaller ikoniskt, i det att bilden av en allvarlig man som funderar är en viktig del av vår bildkultur och ofta återkommer som manligt ideal. .