The purpose of this thesis is to present a number of examples of how the debate concerning same-sex marriages in Sweden was conducted in Religious media between the year of 2005 and May 1st 2009. I intend to examine if and how these debate articles can be descibes as examples of religion taking part in the public sphere according to José Casanovas theory of deprivitization and public religion (1994) and Jürgen Habermas theory of religion in the public sphere (1964, 1989, 2006, 2008). I will apply the theories to the material by using four criteria for public religion, based on Casanovas and Habermas two theories, designed by Marta Axner. I also intend to compare the arguments used in the material to the arguments found in Marta Axners dissertation Public Religions in Swedish Media (2013). To identify these arguments a textanalysis containing seven argumentschemes, designed by Gunnar Björnsson (1994), is applied.

This essay is written in order to expose the construction of collective identity in textbooks for Swedish as a second language. To help visualize the process that shapes and categorize sub-jects based on a relational identity formation I assume mostly from Ernesto Laclau and Chan-tal Mouffe's discourse analysis theory frame. The paper called it as discourse theory. There are two textbooks in Swedish as a second language to be studied. Based on the textual materi-al found in the textbooks I perform a discourse analysis involving mainly focus on relational identity construction.

This study concerns ways in which Muslims in Sweden construct their identities. The theoretical approach of the study is based on the assumption that people construct their identities through narratives. Circumstances such as time, place, and relationships affect how narratives are told and therefore how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.In the wake of 11th of September 2001, the old colonial narrative of ?the West vs. the East? has become powerful, and makes many question the possibility of successfully integrating Muslims immigrants in Western countries.

The purpose of this degree project is to clarify how five Kenyan Life Skills teachers discuss about hiv and aids education. Furthermore, to reveal whether the validity claims in their verbal communication refers to facts, morality or personal experiences. This, I will study by examine the teachers knowledge of, and attitudes towards, the disease. The teaching methods they are using and the basis of their validity claims. I have chosen to use semi-structured interviews as method and the theoretical framework is based on Jürgen Habermas theory of universal pragmatics.My result shows that there is a dilemma about whether the respondents knowledge is sufficient or insufficient.

This is a study of American Methodist Mission in Sweden and how this mission eventually formed the Methodist Church in Sweden 1876. The mission began as a consequence of returning Swedish emigrants and sailors who had encountered Methodism in America, mainly through the works of Swedish-American missionary Olof Gustaf Hedström on the Bethel ship in New York. During the 1850?s Methodist missionaries were sent to Scandinavia by the American Missions Society. The first to come to Sweden was Johan Peter Larsson, who spent two years in Sweden in 1854 before he was transferred to Norway.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Islam and Muslims are portrayed a) in results from studies on Swedish teaching materials, and b) in articles in Swedish media newspapers. The study was conducted through two separate studies. In the first study, five previous research reports on how Islam and Muslims are portrayed in Swedish teaching materials were analysed in order to discern the main results regarding the portrayal of Islam and Muslims. In the second study, newspaper articles from 11 Swedish newspapers were analysed in order to discern which central themes emerge in the description of Muslims and Islam in said newspaper articles, as well as which properties and features are attributed to Muslims and Islam in the articles studied. In both studies, the data was analysed inductively through a qualitative content analysis.

This study centres on the question of how interfaith dialogue can function as a meeting place for young people from different social and cultural backgrounds. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five young participants in an interfaith project taking place in Sweden in 2013 and 2014. For reading the material through a lens of late modern religiosity, Heelas and Woodheads thesis of a spiritual revolution was used. To be able to conclude whether the Religiousness of the participants functions as a social resource, Hammack and Cohlers term narrative engagement is used. Lastly Knitters models of theologies of religions was used in the analysis of how the participants reads and understands their own and the others faiths.The study shows that the participants meet in the common aim of defining a Religious identity in a late modern and pluralistic society.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att ifrågasätta den ofta antagna åsikten att en dialog mellan olika religionstraditioner kan skapa enhet, samstämmighet och en stadig grund för att lösa sociala problem, såsom diskriminering, fördomar, segregering och motsättningar. Nordirland valdes som fallstudie på grund av att religionen där förespråkas ha en betydande roll i historien, och för att en konstruktiv dialog mellan katoliker och protestanter ses som en möjlig åtgärd i syftet att lösa problemen i samhället.Slutsatsen är att religionen kan ha en värdefull roll i lösningen av konflikter och överkommandet av negativa stereotyper, fördomar och diskriminering. Det är dock problematiskt att godta denna funktion som den ultimata lösningen på konflikter och problem, och man bör inkludera andra faktorer som samverkar med religionen. Även maktrelationer inom den religiösa kontexten samt en utbredd segregering i samhället kan utgöra hinder för en interreligiös dialog. Med utgångspunkt i uppsatsens resultat kan man således ifrågasätta religionens roll som en del av lösningen på problemen i dagens Nordirland, där en alternativ lösning istället kan vara ett undvikande av den starka fokuseringen på religion och istället en uppmärksamhet på den nordirländska identiteten, som sällan förespråkats i historien..

Even though terrorism has been on the political agenda for several years there is no general accepted definition of the phenomena of terrorism. Several scientist do also apply that terrorism have changed after the 9/11-attacks. The purpose with this thesis was to analyze and compare the image of terrorism represented by the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, in an attempt to draw conclusions about similarities and differentials. The material that was used was these four nations individual counter terrorism strategy. This was made by using idea analysis and self constructed dimensions based on earlier science about security, terrorism and international law.

The following study is a comparative analysis on the usage of history in Ridley Scott?s epic Kingdom of Heaven. Based on the thesis that this movie has a lot to say about contemporary political values, it compares the theatrical version from 2005 with the 45 minute extended Director?s Cut, which came out on DVD in 2006. Firmly based in the popular-cultural context I tried to evaluate whether these changes related in any way, to matters concerning the current gender debate and post-colonial theory.

This study examines the differences between Bosnia and Herzegovina?s, Montenegro?s and Croatia's tourism development after the Civil War in the 1990s. In particular, this essay is about the town Neum, which is the only Bosnia and Herzegovina destination on the Adriatic, splitting the Croatian coast in two. Through information from books, the internet and interviews I´ve tried to find out why Neum is a special place to visit and how it differs from other destinations on the Adriatic coast. One of the findings is that many are not aware of Bosnia and Herzegovina having a small, but still, part of the Adriatic.

The purpose of this essay is to look upon the gender structure in Sweden, during the late Middle Ages. Mainly I focus on how the church viewed men and women, since the material of my research, the miracle stories of three saints, was found credible and was written down by churchmen. The saints, whose miracles I have studied, are Birgitta Birgersdotter and Katarina Ulfsdotter of Vadstena and Niklas Hermansson of Linköping. These miracles have earlier been studied by the historian Anders Fröjmark, who has noticed that there are fewer heeled women than men figuring in the miracles. Because of this, Fröjmark draws the conclusion that women were less able to leave their homes and travel as pilgrims to the holy sites of the saints.

This paper aims to describe how religion teachers in Swedish schools teach concerning questions about life issues and popular culture. To research the teachers' didactic approach to these issues, didactics has been defined with three educational questions: what, how and why. The essay focuses on teachers' effective implementation of teaching on life issues and popular culture, which we used a theory of offering meaningfulness describing what subject matter that may be imparted to the students. An offer of meaningfulness can be pursued and can be made visible in the context of what and how performs the teaching and also in the context where the teacher planned the teaching elements. The method that the paper has used is the interviews of four different active Religious educators in Stockholm and Uppsala area.

Since the 9/11-attacks several nations have been confronted with a new international threat, its nature traces back to the political- and Religious- radical movements of the 20th century Cold War. Ever since, various states have been under threat by terrorist organizations around the world due to mainly participating in worldwide counter-terrorist interventions created by western alliances. In Sweden, amongst other countries, the state took security-precautions that would imply total control of information throughout the territorial borders. The assigned proposition was accepted by the Swedish parliament in June 18th 2008, after this date wild spread criticism was still in effect ever since the Swedish government first publicly announced the proposition in May 8th 2007. This study emphasizes on understanding why the Swedish government chose to present this proposition to parliament, in order to complete this task the study will present the motives and the alleged threats that were the core of the proposition and its value-maximizing goal of creating a new surface for Swedish homeland security.

Since 2003 Saudi Arabia is under attack from domestic Al Qaida-cells which, by random shootings of westerners and bombings of compounds and official state buildings, is trying to challenge the stability of the royal regime. According to Al Qaida, the Royal family is attacked because of their friendly relations to the US and for not implementing Islam in the Saudi society as profound as they ought to. Political analyst finds it obvious that the Islamic Al Qaida-cells by terrorism is trying to erode the stability in the kingdom.An important foundation for stability for any government is legitimacy. The aim of this thesis is to examine the royal legitimacy strategy in the state bureaucracy of Saudi Arabia. The question at issue is: how has the royal family constructed the civil, military and Religious bureaucracies to maintain and promote stability and legitimacy?The thesis focuses on the on three different units within these three bureaucracies and it surveys the way they are staffed and organized to strengthen and maintain legitimacy for the royal family.