The focus of our dissertation is masculinity which is often a topic of debate in today?s society concerning areas such as violence, sport and paternal leave. Male studies are a relatively new field which means there is a lot remaining to be explored. We have chosen to explore how Social class reflects on male identity. The reason we have chosen Social class as a variable is due to a focus in the general debate of identity amongst the social sciences towards identities formed through consumption in the world of global mass-media.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the portrayals of class in four Swedish contemporary novels that have been mentioned as working class literature in the literary public sphere. During the 20th century, society has undergone vast changes due to globalization and technology development. The rise in standards of living for most people in the Western societies has led to changed consumption patterns. In consequence, there has been increased emphasis given to cultural rather than materialist explanations of social stratification.

The objective of this thesis was to investigate how young adults view their own employabilityand to see if there was a connection between their view and their social background. Themethod used in the thesis is qualitative with a hermeneutic approach. The interviews includedwere of semi-structured kind. The main result is that respondents in the thesis expressed similarviews on their perceived employability regarding commitment and energy at work, networkingand contacts and job discrimination but there were some distinctions noted regardingtheir view on education and working life experience. The respondents from working classbackgrounds tended to focus more on education than the respondents from middle class/uppermiddle class backgrounds.

The invisible entrepreneurship is a study of owners of businesses with foreign heritage. It describes the unexplored relationship between ethnicity and class within this group of entrepreneurs.The result of the study is a model which I have found to be suitable to use when depicting the relationship between the ethnic profile and class. The model indicates that the importance of ethnicity decreases as both the owner of, and the business reach a more prominent class. The method of collecting data has been interviews with owners of businesses and Grounded theory has been used to analyse this data. Theories on ethnicity, owners of businesses with foreign heritage, and class in relation to ethnicity have been discussed on the basis of social constructivism.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine a proposal for basic class 4 in UDC, which has been empty since 1964, and to pick out a negotiable subject for that proposal. The proposal is analysed from a theoretical perspective based on principles created by S. R. Ranganathan. Three principles are used.

The aim of this study was to get insight into refugee children?s perception about experience of the preparatory class, the transition to the ordinary class and the ordinary class. To get access to my informant?s perspective and also to get a more profound understanding of their experience, I oriented the study in a qualitative approach. This study will highlight the refugee children?s personal experiences and their point of view regarding the schools preparatory class, ordinary class, together with other pupils behaviour against them in the social interaction.

The aim of this study was to get insight into refugee children?s perception about experience of the preparatory class, the transition to the ordinary class and the ordinary class. To get access to my informant?s perspective and also to get a more profound understanding of their experience, I oriented the study in a qualitative approach. This study will highlight the refugee children?s personal experiences and their point of view regarding the schools preparatory class, ordinary class, together with other pupils behaviour against them in the social interaction.

The aim of this thesis is to study a job-searching process and elements that affects it. The elements I have focused on are gender, class and social network. The study is based on interviews and a survey study with students from the educational program of Social work (Socialomsorgsutbildningen), that graduated 3 years ago. Through the survey I have examined their social-background and their job-searching process. The interviews are the main focus in the study.

The aim of this thesis is to interpret and discuss the weapon-graves of Viking Age Birka. The weapon-grave phenomenon is deemed differential in relation to the rest of the grave-material of the site, and thus the questions that motivate the thesis is: who was buried with weapons and why? Further questions arise regarding the social aspects of individuals who were buriedalong with weapons. The theoretical approach will be to evaluate any differences in 'Social class', 'social age' and 'gender' between the weapon-grave contexts. By conducting qualitativeand quantified analysis of the grave-goods, this thesis adresses both overall and detailed patterns in correlation and constellations between weapons, other grave-goods and terms of burial..

The aim of the study was to evaluate the social integration amongst newly arrived students in the two different school systems Sweden welcomes them into. The first school system takes in newly arrived students into preparation classes whilst the other integrates the students directly into ordinary classrooms. The examination is based on qualitative observations in the classroom, canteen, and playground, and interviews with teachers and a select few students from each school system.The result of the study showed that newly arrived students in ordinary classes are socially integrated more into the school than the newly arrived students that are welcomed into a preparation class. Newly arrived students are offered a larger chance of being integrated into the school environment if they are introduced directly into an ordinary class. In preparation classes, social integration is narrowed down to between the classmates.

Bullying and harassment is a common phenomenon that usually is associated with schools, but bullying among adults at workplaces is not as much discussed. Previous research shows that discrimination occurs in various social areas because of the individual's gender and ethnicity. Based on this there was a reason to suppose that bullying, which is a form of vulnerability, could also depend of belonging to a particular social category. The aim of this study was to get knowledge about the correlation between bullying at the workplace and concurrent collaboration of class, gender and ethnicity. The results of this quantitative study show that there is no correlation between the simultaneous interaction of gender, class and ethnicity towards bullying and harassment.

The association between social parameters (i.e. socio-economy and level of education) and voting behaviour has been reviewed and analysed based on data from municipal council elections in Stockholm and Gothenburg in 2002. Some social scientists argue that the class voting is in decline and that new social cleavages have emerged. However, by using regression analysis techniques, this study implies a strong dependence of voting behaviour on social parameters, such as socio-economic status (SES) and level of education. Socio-economy appears to be a dominant predictor in the analysis.

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).

Since the 1950s new laws on higher education have led to a ?mass education phenomenon? in Sweden. This has led to a surplus of people with a university degree measured against available positions on the labor market. As a result of that development it must be assumed that in this over qualified society it is not anymore the degree but additional factors which are decisive for getting a job. In this respect the importance of the class background for getting a jobb that is equal to once level of education shall beexamined.The research was carried out by means of a Quantitative Analysis based on data from anational database called Undersökningar av Levnadsförhållanden (Survey of LivingConditions).

 Why is it that we still live in a society where an individual's social background plays such a big part in their chances of reaching a higher education? Despite the numerous educational policy reforms, especially in Sweden, it still seems that an individual's career choices are pretty much related to what kind of Social class they grew up in. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu claimed that Social class is reproduced in the school system, and that students from the lower classes are much less likely to reach a further education than students from the middle or upper classes due to injustice in the school system. One thing that plays a big part in this "Catch-22" situation is the concept that Bourdieu calls habitus. Habitus could be explained as an individual's taste, knowledge, ability to master the spoken language, etc. Your habitus is manifested in the choices you make, the music you listen to, how you dress and the way you speak, and it determines your relation to the education system and life in general. As part of my essay, I wanted to interview students from lower or working class at my school, Konstfack, to see if they have had any negative or positive experiences from their encounter with a higher education. And if so, could they be linked directly to their social background? As a reaction to my own and my interviewees? experiences and frustration, I use the concept of habitus in my practical work.