Placing children in foster care is today considered the best alternative for children unable to stay in their biological environment. A nuclear family consisting of a father, a mother and a child is the most common family structure within foster care today. The purpose of this thesis is to gain insight on the family norms that control the foster care system. It's a qualitative study based on interviews with six professional social workers within the field of foster care. This method gave us empirical material, that was later analyzed from two main theories and one theoretical concept.

This thesis is a queer masculinity reading of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?s short story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). The analysis focuses on the dissonances, tensions and queerness that reside within the text itself. This has been done from my problem statement: How is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?s sexuality and masculinity portrayed within the boundary of the text? What is being said, what is hidden, and what is dealt with silently? To reveal these queer parts this analysis has been focused around five themes: the late Victorian male, the Woman, countertypes and decadence, the homosocial sphere and sexuality.

This thesis emanates from the understanding that it is of importance that transgender-themed literature is indexed in accordance with how people who identify as trans name themselves and interpret the concept of trans. Based on interviews with representatives from controlled vocabularies and LibraryThing users who tag transgender-themed material, existing attitudes towards user influence in controlled vocabularies are described and the significance of tagging for transgender-themed material is looked into. With queer theory and postcolonial theory as its main framework the analysis looks at what possibilities there are for users to influence controlled vocabularies and explores possible strategies for a future library catalog that includes the voice of the Other. The study lands in the understanding that many of the resisting attitudes towards user influence within the systems for subject headings in fact lie in the systems? limitations.

The purpose of this essay was to examine the role of the acquisition of the Swedish language for integration of adult immigrants given by the seven parties currently in the parliament and other players on the field. The questions were meant to bring light upon the arguments used by the different players concerning the role of the Swedish language, to enlighten which discourses that are constructed, and the contradictions that exist between these. We parted from a postmodern position and used social constructionism to back up our method and theory of analysis; discourse theory. The results revealed three different discourses concerning the role of the Swedish language in the integration process; the liberal discourse, the discrimination discourse and the social democratic discourse. The liberal discourse claims that immigrants have a responsibility to learn Swedish to be able to achieve employment and to provide for themselves.

This essay focuses on the construction of so called "computer game addiction" or "computer game abuse" in the Swedish press during 2000-2006. During this period computer game addiction went from an obscure phenomenon to a legit reason for the involuntary commitment of a fourteen-year-old.The study's theory is based on several social constructionist ideas. Kitsuse and Spector's theories about constructing social problems as claims-making activities are used for understanding the actions of the individual and groups involved. Hewitt and Hall's article about quasi-theory is used to explain the construction of explainations for the new social phenomenon. Blumer's five-stage model is used for categorizing the construction of the new social problem.

Vi ämnar undersöka hur attityder gentemot queerteorier har förändrats och påverkat några prästers yrkesutövande. Målsättningen är att synliggöra utifall queerteorier på Bibeln används på ett aktivt praktiskt sätt eller enbart på ett akademiskt plan. Vi har använt oss av queerteorier utformade av Judith Butler och Gayle Rubin. Genom en intervjustudie utförda med kvalitativ analys, har vi kommit fram till att queerteorier tycks sträcka sig enbart till den akademiska sfären. I diskussion ställer vi oss frågan: vad queerteoriernas funktion är och varför de inte appliceras i större utsträckning? Nyckelord: Queer, Bibeln, Svenska kyrkan, Heteronormativitet.

Beyond the binary borders of sex -A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEORY AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT. GERGANA TOSEVA KARIN SELIN A thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012. The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transgender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transgender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions: 1. Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined? 2. In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary? 3. Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject? We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using ?fuzzy logic?(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead.

The essay is about how teenagers around 18 years of age in a small town in Sweden talk about gender, body and sexuality. The study is based on two focus group interviews with five boys and four girls. We have then thematized and analyzed the material with queer theory.The results show how young people see heterosexuality as something 'natural' and gender as biologically determined. The teenagers are critical towards anything that deviates from the traditional nuclear family consisting of mother, father and children. Norms are created in their speech as some of them acts as so called "border guards" for these norms.

The study aims to examine how three books written for teenagers and young adults address topics that are generally considered as deviant to social norms in order to conclude if they can contribute to a norm critical pedagogy in school. Norm critical pedagogy is foremost based on gender- and queer theory and tends to discuss how social norms and power structures are constructed and reproduced in different social contexts. To work in a norm critical fashion the teacher must be aware of the present norms and work to make the pupils conscious of them. Thereby the focus is on existing norms, rather on the deviances. To use norm critical pedagogy correct it must be incorporated in all subjects in school.The books that have been analysed in this essay are Syskonkärlek by Katarina von Bredow, Henrietta är min hemlighet by Maja Hjertzell and Tusen gånger starkare by Christina Herrström.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how preschool teachers can reach the goal of the swedish educational plan to prevent traditional gender roles for children ages 3-6 through drama in education.This is answered by four hypothesis based on Judith Butler's queer theory, George Herbert Mead's social psychological theory and Gavin Bolton and Dotothy Heathcotes drama pedagogical theories. The hypotheses are tested against four teachers' examples of their work.The hypotheses areHypothesis 1: By using the expert's mantle and active observation in teacher-in-role indrama educational exercises, we can see how the children internalize the heterosexualmatrix and the outline of the internalized other.Hypothesis 2: By using the "mistakes" that occur when children repeat performativeacts that do not fit with the heterosexual matrix, these other possible behaviors can bestrengthenedHypothesis 3: Through drama exercises that are not normative teachers can widen theheterosexual matrixHypothesis 4: Through drama pedagogical methods like teacher-in-role teachers canprovide possibilities of other performative acts and the creation of a more tolerantinternalized other.The analysis show that the respondents work within all these hypotheses in different ways and thathypotheses 2 is the one with the weakest support in the interwievs. The examples are also weakregarding the use of Boltons drama pedagogical methods, but that there are a number of othermethods in use.Some of the conclusions are that more theoretical knowledge in the preschool drama pedagogics tocounteract traditional gender roles and patterns, as well as the drama of educational theory need tobe linked to queer and social psychology research. There is also no monitoring of the long term effects of the work..

Based upon theories founded on social constructionism, and criticism raised against these theories, this study aims to present a more complex perspective on non-heterosexuality from what has earlier been presented in Swedish lesbian, gay, bisexuality and transsexuality research. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with non-heterosexual women were analyzed using a discourse analytic approach. Four discourses about sexuality were described: "definition, preferably as either-or (heterosexual or homo-sexual)", "normality", "sexuality as constant and unchangeable", "sexuality as homogenous". Different ways of relating to and challenging the positions offered through these discourses were discussed. In conclusion, the study discussed which implications these findings have for psychologists working with non-heterosexual women, and how discursive positioning can be understood from within a psychological framework..

Abstract Author: Robert Andersson & Oskar KarlsjöTitle:?My first thought is a girl that cuts herself? ? A qualitative study about professionals in human service organizations description of self-injurious behavior.Supervisor: Ann OttengrimAssessor: Rickard Ulmestig The purpose of this study has been to understand how professionals in human service organizations (HSO) describe self-injuries behaviour, how they describe the individuals that self-harm and if the professionals describe any possible differences in how men and women self-harm as well as how professional?s knowledge concerning self-injurious behaviour is contructed. The study answers three questions;- What kind of actions do professionals in HSO describe as being self-injurious behaviour?- How is knowledge constructed by professionals in HSO concerning self-injurious behaviour?- How are people who engage in self-injurious behaviour being described?- How do professionals in human service organizations describe potential differences between men and women´s self-injurious behaviour? Qualitative interviews have been chosen as the method in this study to gather empirical data and the social constructionism theory has been implemented to analyse the empirical data.The result of this study shows that self-injurious behaviour is a complex and at the same time a dynamic phenomenon. There are a lot of different actions that are being describes as being self-injurious behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the female experience as it is spoken of in the novel Sindhia written by Rut Hillarp (1954) and how the main character in the book violates the experience from a queer perspective. My aim is to through a close reading highlight a number of discourses that underpin the book's imminent theme of love and submission.According to Norman Faircloughs critical-discourse analysis, the text one reads produces a certain amount of discourses that one consumes. This way there is a dialectical interaction that can be set into a practical analysis together with a suitable academic perspective. This is the method I use in this thesis.The academic perspective I add isJudith Butler's queer theoriessupported by Michel Foucaults social genealogyin order to understand/analyze the woman?s position in relation to a social empirical history.I came to the conclusion that Sindhia produces the woman's discourse from an ancient biblical/ mythological time up to modern time.

This paper describes a qualitative study of preschool teachers' beliefs about heteronormativity and its role in preschool. The purpose of this study was to examine preschool teachers' ideas and beliefs about heteronormativity and the ways in which it manifests itself in preschool, and to investigate how they perceive the possibility and the need to work on issues related to heteronormativity in preschool. The study is qualitative and is conducted through interviews with preschool teachers, and analysis of information letters from preschools sent to parents. The analysis of the letters was intended to critically examine how words and language could be linked to the heteronormative and also to determine which subjects was conveyed in these everyday texts. The study is based on queer theory and social constructivism.

Author: Jessica Liljekvist and Emmelie Wiss CedergrenTitle: A miserable wretch that you should feel sorry for ? If social workers see persons who prostitute themselves as victims or agents. [Translated title]Supervisor: Marie ErikssonAssessor: Anders GiertzOur purpose with this study was to examine if social workers see persons who prostitute themselves as victims or as agents. We also wanted to examine how social workers see male and female persons who prostitute themselves. This study is based on the qualitative method and the result was analyzed with social constructionism, postmodern feminism and labeling theory.