The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of 16th century Flemish art by approaching paintings by artists Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575), Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574) and Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569) from a different perspective. This is done by extending the discourse of art history, into a discourse of literary history and primarily 16th century novels by authors such as François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes. The paintings are studied in relation to these 16th century novels, by comparison and as a testament of this specific time period. A widening contextualization is also constructed in which a connection to the expression of the carnivals ambivalent form, as well as the notion of lower classes is explored.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the FRA-law. The focus of the study is to examine how Swedish politicians relate to the new draft of this law on intelligence. Key themes in the study are security, threats, surveillance and privacy. The power relationship between the individual and the state is also examined. Empirical data used in this study consists of a spoken plenary debate in the House which was held in connection with the adoption of the FRA law in June 2008.

This master's thesis in Library and Information Science examines how the genre division of the horror fictionis constructed at the children and youth department of a library by studying subject headings of the titles.The aim is to examine what is included in the genre, in the two labelings called vampire and nail-biter/spine-chiller, what separates them, and what difference there is between children and youth thrillers/horror fiction. Also the cover designs and how readers portray these books are studied. The study is made in order to develop the knowledge of the genre to help librarians and borrowers. The great popularity of the genre among borrowers and people in general, and the importance of having knowledge of things that borrowers are interested in, are the motivation of performing the study. The method is a case study and conducted with and based on genre theory which shows how a genre is defined, how it can be divided and what conventions there are for the horror fiction in particular.

Title: Images of Sweden in ItalyNumber of pages: 5252 (589 including enclosures)Author: Oskar GustafssonTutor: Martin NilssonCourse: Political Science C level ? Bachelor?s ThesisPeriod: Spring term 2010University: School of Social SciencesLinnaeus UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of my research study is to, through the use of political science theories on soft power and marketing theories about nation branding and in comparison to previous studies on the image of Sweden in Italy, gains a better understanding of the image of Sweden in Italy, with special focus on national political institutions and young Italians.Method: The method of analysis is a combination of qualitative methods: interviews where information about the image of Sweden amongst national political institutions were gathered and a survey where information was gathered about the image of Sweden amongst young Italians.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained it can be concluded that a positive and well informed image of Sweden emerges when it comes to cultural and social factors but a more restricted and somewhat negative image come to light when asking national political institutions and young citizens in Italy about their views and knowledge on Swedish domestic and international politics and economics.Keywords: Soft power, Public Diplomacy, Nation Branding, Images of Sweden, Italy..

The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of 16th century Flemish art by approaching paintings by artists Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575), Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574) and Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569) from a different perspective. This is done by extending the discourse of art history, into a discourse of literary history and primarily 16th century novels by authors such as François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes. The paintings are studied in relation to these 16th century novels, by comparison and as a testament of this specific time period. A widening contextualization is also constructed in which a connection to the expression of the carnivals ambivalent form, as well as the notion of lower classes is explored.

This thesis has focused on the construction of homosexual parenthood in Swedish law and preparatory work. The purpose was to describe the norms about legal parenthood and examine if and how homosexual parenthood was included in the normative parenthood. The study was jurisprudential and based on methods such as sociology with a juridical focus and critical discourse analysis of the juridical texts. The theoretical framework was the critical discourse analysis as well as a queer perspective, both influenced by social constructionism and a poststructional theory. The conclusion of the study is that parenthood is described from what is presumably best for the child, which is two parents of different sexes and biological origin.

The North-American sociologist Michael Lipsky has characterized social workers as street-level bureaucrats with a substantial discretion in the relationship between the welfare state and its citizens. Within Lipsky´s theoretical framework social workers appear as a powerful group that socializes the citizens to uphold certain expectations towards the welfare state and its (re)distributional programs. From this point of view, it is important to learn more about social workers and the attitudes they express towards the welfare state. The aim of this study is to analyze how the welfare-political attitudes of future social workers are affected by their social background (e.g. class background and ancestral homeland).

The purpose of this essay, ?Now they are chasing paper-less - A qualitative discourse analysis of mass medias depiction of the Reva-project and the work of the police?, is to analyze how mass media portrays the Reva-project and polices work with the project. The basis for the essay will be eight selected newspapers. The Reva-project implies collaboration between the Police, the Swedish Migration board and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service within the border police. The aim of the project is to enhance the efficiency and the execution of the border police work, in accordance with the government?s target.

We started out the study with a preconception of culture as something that creates difference between groups of people, which had been verified by our prior research. We also had a sense of culture as a polysemous term. Our assumption is also that there is an opinion within social work practice that Swedish social workers are faced with a cultural barrier when encountering immigrant clients.In this study our aim is to examine constructions of the terms cultural competence and culture. Constructions of the terms ethnicity and ethnic diversity are also observed, although the main reason for this is to show what relation these terms have to the terms cultural competence and culture, and how they may give each other meaning, according to the theory of social construction. In addition to constructions, we also aim to bring out discourses around the terms, upon which we will create a discussion about power and dominance informed by post-colonial theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

AbstractWith this c-composition, I am trying to give a view over what has happened in the political area and the issues that concerns environmental aid. My analyze starts in the 60-ies when the environmental debate took of. It continues trough the 70-ies, 80-ies and ends in 1994 with the report that considers the UN-conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992, ?Sustainable Aid? and what the results of the more and more important issue ?sustainable development? has offered the Swedish government ant there work with environmental aid.The question issue is: At what time in history, did the Swedisch government start to addrsess environmental aid? How did the environmental aid come to be addressed and developed in the political area from the Brundtlandreport ?Our common future? from 1987 to the UN-conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992?The result is that the environment is getting more and more important in the political arena as the knowledge about the escalating crises with the environmental problems are being taken more seriously. The problems with the environment has to be considered together with the rest of the aid- and developing questions like economy and the struggle to reduce poverty in the world.

AbstractIn the paper, democracy's development and change are studied in Swedish textbooks related to social science. The study?s starting point is that the picture of democracy provided to students has changed over time. The study aims to see how the view on democracy has altered in Swedish textbooks in social science. In order to examine this, I have studied seven textbooks, from 1945 to 2006, in social science.

AbstractRelationships between white women and black men have become a topic of interest in various discussion forums. By examining different arguments within certain discourses, it becomes clear that discourses that have a distinct autocrat outline, i.e. a closed and declaring nature which excludes alternative discursive arguments, also define these relationships as different and deviant in comparison to relationships that does not encompass and include the constellation white women and black men. As a result of the use of autocrat discourses the white women and black men who enter into relationships are displaced and positioned as subaltern. A position which, on the one hand, allows for uninhibited criticism, but, on the other hand, and most importantly, it is a position from where they can be defined by others.

This thesis is an attempt to shed light on how the authors of the Swedish Government Official Report, SoU 1999:83, speak about how the globalization affects democracy. The method used is critical discourse analysis and ideological analysis, with the main emphasis on the former. The results of the analysis are then interpreted with central parts of Jürgen Habermas? The theory of communicative action. One of the main conclusions is that an absolute majority of the authors, talk about how the globalization affects democracy in terms of the economic market and the European union.

The aim of this study is to discuss how public officials, who are implementing integration policies, describe and relate to ?immigrant women?. The analysis is based on interviews with eight public officials. Drawing on perspectives from discourse theory, multiculturalism, western feminism and postcolonialism, the diskussion tries to place the interview statements within a theoretical debate concerning the concepts of culture/ethnicity and sex/gender. The picture of the ?immigrant woman? seems to be somewhat revised.

The aim of this study was to examine how the Danish people and Denmark are represented in the daily Swedish press. We wanted to examine how the Danish people were represented, the characteristics given to the Danes and the differences we see between the different genres. We used theories about discourse, representation, stereotype and national community, too see what underlying messages was hidden in the texts. We analysed 30 texts from three Swedish daily newspapers: Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten, Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. The method we used was discourse analysis based on Faircloughs theories and methods.One of the most interesting results we found was that the Danish people often were represented as different kinds of stereotypes.