The aim of this study is to examine the media coverage of gender-neutral marriage from an intersectional perspective ? with particular regard to gender, sexual orientation and religion. By focusing on the spokespeople who appears in the articles we have made an attempt to answer questions regarding who was heard in the debate on gender-neutral marriage and how the homosexual couples are portrayed in relation to the above criteria.The collected material consists of 89 articles, published in 2009, in Swedish newspapers which have been analysed by using quantitative content analysis. Ten articles have also been selected for a critical discourse analysis based on Norman Fairclough?s approach.

This bachelor's thesis examines three books in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The aim is to increase understanding for what Harry Potter could contribute in terms of morality in religious studies, and how the story about Harry Potter, as a popular literary phenomenon, can be helpful for this. Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development is central to this essay.I have used an hermeneutic method for the analysis of the Harry Potter books. The result shows that the main character, Harry Potter, can be seen as kind of a role model when it comes to moral development. Pupils may benefit by reading this book series because it can open their eyes to life questions and moral values.

Right-wing populism has through the past decades flourished in several countries in Europe. Research has shown that right-wing populism is, with its political starting point in ?the people?, focusing on the majority and is sometimes excluding the minorities from the politics. Since human rights regulations are mainly a protection of minority rights, the aim is to examine if the politics of the Sweden Democrats, as a case of a growing right-wing populist party, is a threat to human rights and in that case, in what respects. The thesis is supposed to answer the question in what respects the politics of the Sweden Democrats contravene with the European Convention?s protection of minority rights.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att belysa de problem som har uppstått då indiansk andlighet har blivit en vara som produceras och konsumeras inom New Age rörelsen. Studien har genom-förts genom att tillämpa kvalitativ textanalys på insamlat material mestadels från Internet. Det insamlade materialet består av annonser där man säljer olika former av indiansk andlig-het. Material som berör indianernas motstånd mot försäljningen av deras andlighet har också insamlats från Internet. Analysen av texterna visar att det framkommer stereotyper i annonse-ringen inom New Age, vilket blir ett problem för indianerna i form av tillskriven identitet.

[Saknas].

This study describes how a larger investment by a private company in the northern interior can affect a municipality?s economy. The mobility to the municipality is expected to increase and some of the direct and indirect effects that this investment can implicate on their economy are discussed. The method for this study is qualitative. Interviews have been made with the initiative owner of the company LHG Learning Center and with civil servants in the municipality of Lycksele. The conclusions drawn in this study are that the establishment of LHG Learning Centers in Lycksele will include both opportunities and risks for the municipality?s future.

Den här studien använder sig av en queerteoretisk utgångspunkt för att försöka reda ut vad som kan sägas om genuskonstruktionen i två välkända religiösa berättelser: den hinduiska Ramayana samt Ruts bok som återfinns i den hebreiska bibeln. Studien använder en hermeneutisk metod och en queerteori med teoretiska modeller av Judith Butler och Yvonne Hirdman. Det kan ses i båda berättelserna att genuset hos både manliga och kvinnliga karaktärer ändrar sig under berättelsens gång, flera gånger och i relation till varandra. Slutligen diskuteras resultaten och det visar sig att den teori som används i uppsatsen, queerteori, saknar en förståelse för det slags dynamiska genus som finns att se vid en läsning av Ruts bok och Ramayana..

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks, the landscape of the freedom of religion has changed. The issues now facing freedom of religion varies greatly from the issues that the drafters of the universal declaration of human rights faced after World War II.In the light of the new issues that States face in the intersection of religion and societal interest, scholars have criticized the European Court of Human Rights to give too much leeway to the States in determining how the human rights should be implemented, by using the doctrine of margin of appreciation. Critics of the margin of appreciation claim that it is based on culture relativism and that the doctrine undermines the universality of the human rights. In order to decide if the margin of appreciation has indeed led to a relativization of the human rights I compared it to the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee and its use of the Syracusa principles. My conclusion is that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be considered to be based on culture relativism.

The aim of this Master´s thesis is to examine which type of regime the state Iran is. There has been much research on this issue and the discussion is not over yet. I have departed from three theoretical perspectives in order to understand which type of regime the Middle Eastern nation is: theocracy, democracy and hybrid regime. The theocratic regimetype is composed by David L. Websters archeological theory about governments ruled by God.

In a Swedish classroom today there will be students with different ethnicities, world views and religious beliefs.  The students will be taught religion through a non-denominational education, where as a teacher you are meant to be objective, open-minded and fair in the representation of different traditions. This representation is colored by the outsider-perspective and the students then learn about religion from a party which is not involved in the religion being taught. This essay discusses how to balance the outsider-perspective in religious education in the Swedish school with insider-voices. More specific, the use of Muslim websites when teaching about Islam.The material this essay studies are three Muslim websites: al-islam.se, islaminfo.se and islamguiden.se. In order to make a didactic analysis of the websites, they are compared to a standard Swedish textbook.

The secularization theses has over the last decade been a central issue within the sociology of religion. The two classic theses has been criticized for being one-sided and only focus on the change from traditional to modern society. The intention of this study is to evaluate this critique and to discuss what is defendable in the early secularization thesis in our contemporary world.This essay?s primary purpose is to compare the secularization theses Weber?s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Durkheim?s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. I use two analytical models, posing three levels and three categories of secularization, in order to make the comparison explicit.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att reda ut om det finns ett samband mellan religiös åskådning, nationalitet och etnicitet i Bosnien och Hercegovina och hur sex personer från landet påverkas av detta samband. Meningen är att undersöka intervjupersonernas identitet i jämförelse med begreppen religion, nationalitet och etnicitet. För att reda ut detta problem har sex intervjuer gjorts och fokus har varit på deras känslor och åsikter kring deras egen tillhörighet. Den teoretiska bakgrunden till uppsatsen utåtgår från Peter L Bergers socialisationsteori och Gellners definition av begreppet nationalism och etnicitet. Den tredje teorin utgår från socialpsykologen Mead, som förklarar hur människors identitet skapas.

This degree projects made on behalf of AB Karl Hedin to find out what private forest estate owners would like to have on a forestry-related website. The reason for finding out what estate owners think of the forest websites is to meet needs of the forest owners who are customers of AB Karl Hedin. Marketing and use of the Internet for information search for products and services are two key concepts in this study. To be able to perform the study, a telephone survey was made to find out what estate owners want and what they are missing on a forest site. The survey can be summarized at following conclusion: The marketing of AB Karl Hedin website must be stronger The forest owners want more information on forest business, prices and forestry services.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks, the landscape of the freedom of religion has changed. The issues now facing freedom of religion varies greatly from the issues that the drafters of the universal declaration of human rights faced after World War II.In the light of the new issues that States face in the intersection of religion and societal interest, scholars have criticized the European Court of Human Rights to give too much leeway to the States in determining how the human rights should be implemented, by using the doctrine of margin of appreciation. Critics of the margin of appreciation claim that it is based on culture relativism and that the doctrine undermines the universality of the human rights. In order to decide if the margin of appreciation has indeed led to a relativization of the human rights I compared it to the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee and its use of the Syracusa principles. My conclusion is that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be considered to be based on culture relativism.

The main aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe through a quantitative study the extent of support received by foster families, their opinion of the support and any areas that might need improvement. The foster families receive foster care support through a private agency. We concentrated on the following areas of support; education, health, contact with the children?s biological relatives and behavioral difficulties. These four areas have, in previous research, shown to be problematic for foster children.