Syfte och frågeställningarDenna studie är en ungdomsundersökning genomförd i Longyearbyen på Svalbard, som syftar till att undersöka fritidskulturer hos ungdomar mellan 14-19 år. Ungdomarna ger sin syn på tillvaron i förhållande till sig själva och sin omgivning och beskriver fritidskulturen och de möjligheter till personlig utveckling som finns.FrågeställningarHur ser fritidskulturen ut i Longyearbyen enligt ungdomarna? Vilka resurser och lokaler finns till förfogande och vad prioriteras hos myndigheter? Är unga tillfredställda med fritidsutbudet och vad som prioriteras? Finns förutsättningarna till att skapa sig den identiteten man önskar i Longyearbyen?MetodUndersökningen är baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer av 9 ungdomar som alla studerade i olika årskurser vid Longyearbyen Skole och har bott i byn under olika lång tid. Intervjuerna har sedan sammanställts och analyserats enligt ett antal teoretiska begrepp och satts i perspektiv till tidigare forskning på området ungdomskulturer.ResultatResultatet visar en ungdomskultur som skiljer sig mot fastlandet och som rör sig som en stor enhet. Identitet och status tar också helt olika utryck i byn som präglas av nära vänskap, närheten till natur och snöskoterkultur.

 Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka hur avståndstagandet från sexuell praktik ? det vill säga asexualitet ? problematiseras inom vardagliga kanaler, så som inom film och media. I det samtida samhället utgör den heterosexuellt aktiva parrelationen en norm utifrån vilken alla andra intima relationer jämförs, granskas och bedöms. Genom att analysera och dekonstruera denna sexualitetsdiskurs traditionellt tvingande praxis, lägger uppsatsen vidare fokus på att synliggöra den asexuella erfarenheten i relation till nämnd heteronorm. Uppsatsens material utgörs av tre filmer som på sina respektive sätt presenterar, och samtalar kring, sex, sexualitet och sexuell identitet.

The topic of homosexuality was until recently a taboo in Russian public discussion, but has during the last years become a hotly debated issue. Analyzing what I call the new homophobic narrative I isolate and examine two ways of ?othering? homosexuals, constructing them as strangers, when sexual minorities are discussed in today´s Russia. Sexual deviants are portrayed as threats to the nation and are connected to the West and its influence. Using analytical tools from queer theory, security studies and postcolonial approaches I discuss different ways of configuring the relation between nation and sexuality, identities that are interwoven in the homophobic narrative.

 The main purpose is to investigate the main fea-tures of the discourse in the social medias about the legal view on cimes and criminals.                                                The special questions that are investigated are:1)    What specific features characterize the discourse in the social medias?2)    What are the legal restrictions for the freedom of speech on the Internet?3)    What attitudes can you find among lawyers towards the discourse in the social medias?4)    Are there grounds for presuming that the discourse in the social medias can effect the judgement in a special case?         .

 The aim of this study was to examine how social workers perceive and interpret the term ?barnets bästa? (?The best for the child?), within the framework of investigatory work and enforcement of Swedish law, which is carried out by the Social Services. We wanted to investigate if the interpretation of the term had any causal effects on the work carried out by social workers. Seven social workers from two municipalities participated in this study in which we used qualitative semi-structured interviews based around two vignettes. We focused on age, experience, legislation, and external circumstances to gain insight into how these factors alter social workers? perception of the term ?barnets bästa?. Our theoretical approach was based on two theories on social constructivism.

Introduction: How to implement and integrate cultural aspects in strategy making and planning in order for cities and regions to reap both social and economic benefits has been widely discussed in recent years. This method of working with culture, both as an economic, as well as an identity strengthening tool has come to be labeled as cultural planning. But in order for these ideas about cultural projects and institutions to become a reality, something has to be done. This is where the entrepreneur enters.The Glass Factory, a newly opened cultural establishment in the heart of the Glass Kingdom in Småland, Sweden, became the subject of empirical investigation for this paper. As this originally was an initiative from Emmaboda municipality the planning and start-up procedure could be viewed as a cultural planning process.

Människan är till sin natur en social varelse och många sammanhang förutsätter en viss social kompetens. Att ha social fobi innebär en stark rädsla för att bli utsatt för andra människors kritik och iakttagelser. Denna fobi leder till problem med många aktiviteter i vardagen, som t.ex. att läsa högt inför andra människor, gå på fest eller äta tillsammans med andra. Syftet med studien var att, med stöd av en arbetsterapeutisk arbetsprocess, undersöka hur några arbetsterapeuter arbetar med personer som har social fobi.

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues.In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe ? especially when it comes to muslim identity?My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice ? the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe ? and what effect this may have on muslim identity in a European context.The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic.

This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phenomenon concerning discourse, identity and politics, this duality forms the basis of a deconstructive and hegemonic analysis.I argue that the term social exclusion is a powerful and flexible political concept in that it obscures ideological assumptions and objectives as well as draws attention away from alternative social concepts. Throughout the thesis social exclusion is stressed as a social category constituting the relation between individual and society. Hence I argue that it is of vital importance that the values underlying its usage are made explicit and that social exclusion as a floating signifier is made an object of academic analysis..

The purpose of this essay was to investigate which factors the individuals found important in the process of becoming a person with a drug-free life. The framing of the questions we had were to get the experiences, thoughts and wishes of the drug users. The survey was based on thematised qualitative interviews and focused in the personal stories of the interviewees. We interviewed four women and five men, all of which had several years of drug-abuse behind them. We found similarities and patterns and we could identify that the three most important things was the own motivation, will and that the drug-abuser had the possibility to change their social network and had the ability to find other important things in life..

Denna fallstudie tar upp enskilda kvinnors upplevelser i samband med mediala diskurser och identitet utifrån deras position som tidigare utsatta för direkt patriarkalt våld. Vissa diskursiva begrepp diskuteras, exempelvis ?offer?. Centralt för respondenterna är att inte identifiera sig med dessa termer. Våldserfarenheterna har påverkat samtliga respondenter och det präglar hur de förhåller sig till diskursiva termer.

 The purpose of this study is to examine how individuals' social capital can affect the opportunities for finding a job. That is, what benefits social contacts can provide in the hunt for a new job. The main questions that will be answered throughout this study are:- Of what importance are social contacts when looking for a job?- What are the advantages and disadvantages that the respondents present with recruitment thru informal channels/social contacts?-What are the advantages and disadvantages that social contacts can provide in terms of personal recommendations when looking for a job according to the recruiters?The study is based on five qualitative interviews with mainly recruiters from various parts of the labor market. The collected empirical data that the study has yielded indicate that individuals' social capital of the highest degree is crucial for the opportunities they have to find a job.

The purpose with this study was to get a deeper understanding of how the social welfare secretaries experience the meeting with clients.Our main questions were how the social welfare secretaries thinks about their own way to behave in the meeting with clients, which difficulties/obstacles there can be a and which factors they think affect the meeting. What is it that makes the social welfare secretaries experience a meeting as good or less good.Theory used: ?naive theory? and ?theory of communication?. The social welfare secretaries emphasised the importance of respect and clarity in their relations with the clients. By contrast with literature, the hover between power and support was not found difficult.The goal is that the social welfare secretaries and the clients understand each other and that they reach the purpose with the meeting..

The purpose of my study is to gain insight into how the education system (particularly social studies) is morally-minded based on the governing documents, former students and a textbook. I wanted to find out what morally-minded means and if it has a big role in social studies. Through interviews with former high school students (when my thesis is aimed at high school) I wanted to find out how they felt their social studies were educational and which the values that they had taken on from the lessons. I also chose to analyze a textbook to get a broader understanding of how the morally-minded education is written in specific areas relating to social studies. My study is a qualitative study and what I came up with is that the former students consider their social studies teaching lacked to some degree when it came to the morally-minded education. My investigation concludes that the morally-minded education is important in social studies as the purpose of social studies is to promote active democratic citizens.

The purpose of this study was to investigate youth?s experiences of what meaning the nonprofit youth project Husby Marathon had on their social capital and self-identity. In order to answer the purpose a qualitative methodology was used based on interviews with four of the participant youths. Two teories were used, Social capital by Robert D. Putnam and Selfidentity by Anthony Giddens.