This thesis is based on a conversation about gender identity and the pronoun hen in an episode of the radio programme Tendens on Swedish public radio, P1. The participants of the conversation are a scholar and a journalist/show-host. The goal of the research has been to analyse how the conversation is constructed from its context and which topics that occur. The goal of the research has also been to analyse how the participants of the conversation position themselves and how the conversation composes and re-composes norms and values regarding gender identity in society. Critical discourse analysis, completed by Conversation analysis has been the theoretical and methodological approach.

The technical achievements that have occurred in recent years have led to a greater use of the Internet around the world. Today, more and more people are using virtual communities, a place where communication occurs with people who have similar interest. Due to the option of being an anonymous user, the concept of trust plays a big part in how virtual communities are working. It is therefore of interest to investigate how trust develops between users in virtual communities. This report asks the following question:"How is trust formed between users at a virtual community?"A qualitative and netnographical study was conducted to answer the question above.

This thesis discusses the existential consequences for the human being in creatio ex nihilo, where the main subjects of discussion are contingency, freedom and identity. The starting-point of the discussion lies in the presentation of the history of the doctrine of creation, especially the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Once the historical and philosophical importance of the doctrine of creation is clear, the anthropological and theological consequences are obvious; creation is contingent and at the same time deeply dependent upon God. The contingency of creation may bring a sense of non-necessity among people, and therefore it makes the question of human freedom and identity in the doctrine of creation utterly important..

This project has resulted in an website at www.tinadunker.se, where you also can download the project in it´s written form to get a deeper view of the project. This project aims to explore fear of violence in public places. Fear of violence reminds us that there is a problem in our urban environment that leads to spatial consequences in using public space. Many groups in our society experience fear in their everyday life but this project has focus on women?s fear.

The aim of this study has been to achieve an increased understanding of the meaning of home for people in homelessness. The study is based on texts written by people in homelessness and a qualitative content analysis has been used to process the material. The result has been analysed with an inductive approach, using parts of the analysis method grounded theory. Three aspects of the meaning of home was identified in the texts; control, self-determination and independence. The lack of a home means a major limitation concerning these aspects, according to the texts.

The aim of this study is to understand how the library environment affects the experiences and feelings of public library users. In order to concretise this, the study sets out from the public library in Bollebygd. We wanted to find out how the library users experience the library environment. Does the library environment affect the meeting between library users? How does the environment affect their moving patterns inside the library? Which environmental factors influence the users' experiences? Our questions were: how do users experience the library environment - as a mediating space for information and culture? - as a social room and meeting place? The material used to attain the purpose of the study consists of qualitative observations and interviews, and literature studies.

Today's young people increasingly tend to sit at home and relax, instead of being out and meet friends. This is based on my observations from my experience as a teacher. They are more and more in front of their computers and living their lives through their various Internet sites. There I was, stuck on how they behave in their environment, both private and public but also to their friends and their families versus their "internetlife". Young people are more and more at home and even the daily discussion are now placed on the internet instead of face to face communications or on the phone.This essay deals with the subjects selfrepresentation and self-identity that Erving Goffman handled in his bookThe self in everyday life respectively Anthony Giddens in Modernity and Sef-Identity.

The key purpose of this research has been trying to understand, and study how assyrian/syriac youth create their identity under the influence of two or several different cultures. We have also looked upon how different factors such as history, religion, language, family and school play a role in the youths identity development.We have used a qualitative method in our study where we have interviewed six assyrian/syriac youth. Because of their Christian faith the assyrian/syriac group has been forced to migrate from their countries to different parts around the world. In the new countries the group has been forced to create and live in a diasporaculture. The city Södertälje in Sweden has developed to become a metropole for this ethnic group where they have founded a substantial diasporaculture.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how young members of Free Churches relate to issues connected with lifestyle and identity, based on the changed conditions for the self in late modernity. More specifically, I want to examine how they deal with the increased degree of detraditionalisation and institutional individualization in late modernity.My research-question is:How do young members of Free Churches relate to issues connected with lifestyle and identity, with the increased degree of personal freedom and institutional individualization in late modernity as a starting point?The empiric part of the essay is carried out by qualitative in-depth interviews with five young members of Free Churches. These semi-structured interviews are focused on a number of different areas of the changed conditions for the self in late modernity.My theoretical perspective has been constructed from the theories of Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. From these theories a focus on certain relevant areas of the condition of the self in late modernity, has developed.

This thesis has two purposes: (1) to analyze the emptiness in Blodbok by Christine Falkenland, and (2) to analyze my own reading of the same book. I have chosen to focus on how emptiness is expressed through the body, the language and the place in Blodbok, because of the deep impact these seem to have on the emptiness. The thesis discusses what kind of emptiness that is described, what it does to me as a reader, and how it is connected to other works by Falkenland. Cultural politics of emotions by Sara Ahmed, Uses of literature by Rita Felski and Pouvoirs de l?horreur by Julia Kristeva together form the theoretical framework.Blodbok is a poetry collection, about the loss of a mother.

The objective of the essay has been the studying of the importance of religion for children. To answer and satisfy my objective, I have some questions: How do children talk about their own and others? religions? In what way do children associate themselves to religion? Which meaning does religion have for children?s identities? Which thoughts rise about religiontuition in the school?To answer the problem formulation, I have done a qualitative interview study with five children of different religious and cultural backgrounds in a Swedish communal school. The results showed that children?s thoughts about religion are mostly inherited from the parents.

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..

Active ownership is widely regarded as positive for the development and performance of businesses. In this paper, we investigate the impact of ownership concentration and owner identity on return on equity (ROE) in Swedish companies between 1986 and 2008, and show that active ownership might suffer from opposing effects. We find evidence, albeit weak, that ownership concentration has a positive effect on profitability, but that it levels off at high levels of ownership shares. Furthermore, we propose that family ownership has a negative effect on profitability. Our results are dependent of choice of statistical method, but show nonetheless a need to reevaluate what seems to be a universally positive view of active ownership..

The water tower in Uppsala city forest was built in the late 1950's in what is now a nature reserve. The unique place was supposed to be visited by people, which is currently not the situation. This bachelor thesis aimed to perform an analysis and make a design proposal for the environment surrounding the water tower. The analysis was performed using the methodology previously described by architect Arne Branzell. The methodology focuses on how a space is perceived by a person moving through it.

A carnival can not be stopped! A design pedagogical study of children and norms In Basel, the only Protestant carnival in Europe takes place. The carnival is called Fasnacht. For three days, there is a wild and uninhibited play with tradition, crossing borders and social criticism.The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of the concept of the carnival, and how to use it for an educational purpose. Three children from Basel have been involved in an workshop where they designed and talked about norms and power structures through the carnivalesque principle. The study is based on the questions: How can you use the carnival as a starting point for designing and talking about norms and power structures together with children? And; How can the design process support such a project? To spot this, I made arrangements for a design educational project.