In Malin Kivelä?s novel Du eller aldrig (2006) the reader experiences the world through the body of Aija, the narrator; a middle aged woman living in Helsinki. Aija has no family or other social relations. Hers is a life of strict routine: she spends her time reading, cleaning and studying snowflakes. Critics of the novel have stressed that Aija?s way of narrating creates a strong sense of presence in the text, but also that Aija?s atypical social behavior evokes a sense of loneliness and alienation.

This study deals with how the Swedish school system handles questions concerning sexuality and normality. It is also an analysis of how the guidance material Någonstans går gränsen from RFSL Stockholm is used and could be used in teaching.The study consists of two parts. The first part is a study of literature that portrays how teaching concerning these issues is performed in schools, what methods that are recommended and what methods are actually used in teaching. The second part consists of interviews with people dealing with these issues in school and in organizations.My results show that schools often use a ?pedagogy of tolerance? while the guidance material and the research and theories concerning sexuality and normality advocate a more ?queer pedagogy?.

This essay deals with how young adult literature describes and characterizes young homosexual men. Two novels are analyzed within a framework of queer theory and cultural studies. The focus is on how sociality enforces heteronormativity. The analyses of the novels investigate how the characters think of themselves and their sexuality, what their view of love and relationships are, and how their closest friends and parents react to their homosexuality..

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The focus of this research is to investigate how the client's emotions can affect the social worker and how the social worker manages these feelings in order to make the right decisions. We have used a qualitative approach in our investigation. We have interviewed six social workers at social welfare bureaux in southern Sweden. Our theories are ?Nai?ve Theory? and ?Affect Theory?.

In Sweden prostitution is by many considered to be a social problem that primarily affects women. To counteract prostitution is a political priority and as a result the purchase of sexual services is prohibited by law. Since the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services entered into force it has been continuously debated and widely disputed. The aim of this thesis is to compare the image of prostitution found in the travaux préparatoires of the law with four sex workers? view of the phenomenon.

This essay analyzes three Swedish cartoon artists: Elias Ericson, Lisa Ewald and AmandaCasanellas. The aim is to examine how they construct feminist strategies through their workand how they convey this visually. The issue of whether these Swedish cartoons can be seenas a part of a bigger political platform is central. Through semiotics and post-colonial andqueer feminist theory, some answers to these questions are searched for.The result shows that all three of the artists can be seen in a bigger activist context, even ifthey work in and through different platforms. Casanellas questions the racism in Swedenand how we should prevent it.

This essay is investigating heterosexuality in Gun-Britt Sundströms Maken. With help from the queer theories of formost Judith Butler, but also to some extent the ideas of Michel Foucault, I have tried to answer the question of which norms are becoming clear and which are being broken in the novel. I have also looked at a few of Gayle Rubin?s opposites in her sexual value hierarchy. Some of the norms that are brought to light in the essay revolves around faithfulness, lust towards the ?right? person and for the ?right? reasons.

The aim with this paper is to investigate how the Social Democratic Party (SAP) deals with the question of economic migrants, or more specifically how the problem is represented by the Social Democratic Party, and how this representation has developed over time. The SAP's theory became recently contested by a competing theory that was caused by the predicted future demographic development in Sweden, combined with the EU's eastern expansion. The first factor contributed to the re-write of the theory, to a theory that saw economic migrants as a solution instead of a problem, in direct contrast to SAP's theory. The second factor was a direct threat to SAP's labour immigration policy. This leads to my second question, how did SAP respond to this pressure?The answers to these questions are achieved by using discourse analysis by applying a problem oriented theory on empirical material, constituting propositions, articles in mass media and parliamentary debates.

The aim of this thesis is to illustrate the principal problem of the study of national self-images and by questioning the congruent existence of one in the case of Sweden. Through the use of qualitative method and semi-structured interviews the ambition of the study is to compare and to understand the national self-images portrayed in a major Swedish town, Stockholm and to that of a smaller town on the countryside, Sjöbo. A social constructionist approach in co-operation with key temporal and spasial dimensions are used to penetrate the interviews at hand. The main conclusions drawn from this study highlights the difficulties in addressing the concept of a congruent national self-image. Several major discrepancies appear in the analysed material, mainly in the past and the external dimensions, both from a regional approach, but also very much within the local entities themselves..

In this essay I analyze Karin Boye?s first novel, Astarte, focusing on her views concerning norms,ideals and female liberation. The novel is written in a tone of irony, allowing for many of thecharacters to be viewed as caricatures. The theories and methods I use are drawn from genderstudies and queer theory. Queer theorist Judith Butler, and the concepts of performativity, interpellation, genealogy and the heterosexual matrix, are of central importance for my analysis.

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.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about how a group of newly graduated social workers reflect on the practical daily work and their positions working with clients who are in need of social and/or economic resources. More precisely the purpose is to find out how these seven newly graduated social workers viewed working with clients during theoretical and practical studies. The aim is to analyze which techniques and methods could be seen in these narratives. Furthermore the aim was to find out if and how these seven social workers reflected on the power relation between social worker and client.The material of this study consists of seven semi-structured interviews. Throughout gathering the data and analyzing it, the qualitative method in form of narrative approach was used.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relations of power within the discourse of integration and my focus will be on power relations and structural discrimination. The study origins from four qualitative interviews with employees from the County administrative board as well as from the Employment office.The theoretical framework is based upon Social Constructionism, Postcolonial Theories and with an intersectional perspective. The recent critical research from The Official Report on power, integration and structural discrimination (Utredningen om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering) is used as well as Foucault's theory of biopower which is discussed within the analysis.The study indicates that although integration often is addressed as a reciprocal process, it is still assumed that They should be integrated by Us. The present government's one-sided focus on employment has proved difficult for the employees to put into practise and when the responsibility of obtaining employment is based upon the individual alone, she/he becomes responsible for her/his own integration..

The purpose of this study was to examine and increase the knowledge about the way young, newly graduated social workers view their professional role considering their age and professional experience, how they experience the relation to their clients and colleagues and how these experiences all together affect the way the young social workers handle their professional role. Seven social workers in the ages between 23 and 25, who graduated from Socialhögskolan, Stockholm University, in January 2007, where interviewed. They also answered a questionnaire covering the similar questions as the interview. Little research had previously been made in this particular area, why the triangulation of methods was helpful in analyzing the results, with ata coming from two different resources. To analyze the data a multidimensional theory was used, containing coping theory, an experiential perspective, Antonovskys theory a sense of coherence, cognitive theory and role theory.