This thesis is intended to respond to the extent to which South African textbooks on the subject of history is linked to the governmental policy documents and whether they are producing and reproducing national identity. The two textbooks are aimed at students in grade 10. Both books were produced in 2008 but published by different publishers.The essay is based on Norman Faircloughs critical discourse theory which has been supplemented by Michael Billings theory Banal Nationalism, which assumes that it is the national words that remind us daily of our homeland that is producing and reproducing national identity.  The survey shows that both textbooks are closely tied to the government policy document for the teaching of history. The textbooks refer to the policy, both explicitly and implicitly. The two textbooks reproduce a common national identity in South Africa based on the discussions taking place in society.

There is a clear difference between types of regions and forms of regionalization. This theoretical division can point out other division lines on different areas and levels, like the one of discourses. In this article is urged that regional political discourses may be divided in West and East European ones. To argue for West and East differences in regional discourse the article shows division lines both in the history of regionalization but also in ideologies. The regional policy of the EU is one example for today's regionalization as a West discourse and the Transylvanian in Rumania as an example for the East discourse.

This study focuses on nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Anchored in theories that this region historically has been characterized by a nationalism that is based on the ethnic group rather than on liberal or civic concepts, it is the purpose of this study to explore whether these theories still apply in recent times when the region has been liberalized, for example manifested in the entry to the European Union. The research question has been tested through analysis of the constitutions of a number of Central and Eastern European countries in order to investigate what type of nationalism that the states have codified in their basic political documents. The results show that some of the states give expression to the historical ethnic nationalism in their constitutions, which indicates that the theories still are relevant..

The aim of this thesis is to examine expressions of power and racism in news reporting about the district of Rinkeby, Sweden, in two major Swedish newspapers. News articles are examined using Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis. The discourse theory has also been complemented with theories of media in relation to power, ideology and racism. The study has shown that news reporting about Rinkeby largely focused on stereotypical subjects such as violence, social problems and crime.

In this thesis, we have analyzed the Swedish debate about whether to impose a national canon, and make it compulsory in school curricula. Cecilia Wikström, a Liberal MP in Sweden, made the suggestion in July 2006, and the focus of our analysis is the subsequent debate during July and August 2006. Our materials are polemical articles from three Swedish newspapers, which we have examined to find the main ideas and arguments behind the various standpoints. Three issues have been our main focus; first, we have analyzed which concepts of culture the various debaters have used, where we have seen a difference between an anthropological and an aesthetical concept, but, surprisingly, found that there isn?t a very strong correlation between an aesthetical concept of culture and being pro-canon, or between an anthropological concept of culture and being anti-canon.

This essay examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the Swedish municipal election in 2006 and 2010. By using statistical methods it aims to explain which of three contradicting theoretical frameworks best can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The theoretical approaches tested in this essay are: a demand-side, an external supply-side and an internal supply-side approach. By using theoretically anchored proxies to determine the effect of the contradicting theoretical approaches this essay concludes that the internal supply-side explanation measuring the local party organizational ability of the SD had the most substantial effect when it comes to explaining their recent electoral success in the Swedish municipalities, as opposed to a more commonly believed demand-side driven explanation..

This essay is regarding the problematic facts about child poverty in Sweden. Since the beginning of the new millennium child poverty has increased, in Sweden. The last report which came out in the spring this year (2012) opened up for a lively political debate as well as big headlines in news papers and other media. The attention it got in Society became hard for the politicians to avoid. The Swedish section of Save the Children, demanded in their report concerning child poverty in Sweden that the Swedish Government need to do an inquiry about the increasing child poverty.  Today in Sweden, there are two big parties, and they have been the biggest for a long time now.

The essay aims to compare Swedish and Finnish decisions regarding refugee policies by tracing them back to the critical junctures when the policies were established, in order to explain why there are big differences prevalent today. The questions asked involve the motivations of the refugee policies and how they have changed over time.The theoretical framework employed is based on historical institutionalism and path dependency. By using a most similar system design and process tracing, material in the form of government declarations and government bills are studied and summed up in two analytical models. The results show that there might be a weak path dependency in the case of Finland. However it is more apparent in the case of Sweden, with frequent statements of a generous refugee policy that is characterised by humanity.

THE PAINTING CHILD. A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AESTHETIC PROCESSES OF LEARNING IN RELATION TO DEWEY´S ART AS EXPERIENCE.The aim of this study is to present a discourse analysis made on five-year-old children during art activities in a preschool in Sweden. The questions asked are: how does interaction take place between the children, or the child and the teacher, during art activities? And what does this tell us about the relationship to art in preschool? In Art as Experience John Dewey claims that art is separated from other experiences of life, but that it ought to be close to ordinary life-experiences. Today visual culture is important in society but not in school.

The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in law and other types of politicialregulation regarding unauthorized absence during the reformation of the Swedish schoolsystem in 2010. How was this ?new? approach on unauthorized absence established; whatmade it possible and which view on ?unauthorized absence? does it implicate? The study hasa discourse analytic approach in which it examines central policy documents regarding thetopic of inquiry. The study has found that the alliance-government?s education policy onunauthorized absence is pervaded by one hegemonic discourse termed the mono-culturaldisciplinary discourse.

The aim of this study was to examine the discourse of asylum seekers in Sweden from January 2009 to December 2013 in the newspapers Helsingborgs Dagblad and Dagens Nyheter. By using discourse analysis as a theory and method, combined with the theory of orientalism, I have analysed and compared news articles from these two newspapers. The findings of the study shows that asylum seekers are often portrayed as a group rather than individuals. Included in the group identity are several subgroups, for example asylum seekers are portrayed as victims, as a cost to society and as a highly suspect group that cannot be controlled. Furthermore, asylum seekers are depicted as ?the other? in contrast to the Swedish ?we?, where differences in culture and tradition are frequently mentioned.

Sweden is seen as one of the world?s most feminist societies. In January 2009 all grounds of discrimination were merged into a common law; Diskrimineringslagen. This paper examines representations of gender discrimination, linked to feminist perspectives, in the Parliamentary debate on Sweden?s new discrimination legislation through a discourse analysis.

This thesis aims to investigate whether the parties Danish People?s Party, the Progress Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats can be categorized within the same party family, based upon the parties positions regarding the EU and European integration. The thesis contributes to increased knowledge and deeper understanding about these parties stances toward the EU and European integration, with a particular focus on how euroscepticism is expressed within each party. The thesis addresses the following research questions: which category of euroenthusiast, europragmatist, eurosceptic and euroreject best describes each of the four parties? Do the parties fall within the same category, or are they dispersed across different categories? The categories are based on different conceptualizations of euroscepticism (Kopeck? & Mudde, 2002), which composes the theoretical framework along with an analytical scheme based on the different conceptualizations.

This thesis examines the boundary-work between the discipline of psychology on one side and religion and spirituality on the other. In Sweden, a country viewed as one of the most secular in the world and which has a rising interest in the neo-spiritual, this boundary-work is under-researched within the history of ideas. The research question for this thesis concerns how the contemporary dominant discourses in Psykologtidningen between 2010-2024 relate to the historical boundary-work that has taken place within the discipline. In this study the boundary-work will be examined through a combination of digital text analysis and discourse analysis. The analysis shows that terms such as mindfulness and soul have gone through a decoupling process: meaning that the terms are secularized and modernized to fit within the truth-narrative and the leading discourse of psychology. This discourse falls under a larger regime of truth where secular thought is seen as the main worldview which is compatible with the scientific ideal.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to study the discourses on culture as developed by EU Commission. The method applied is a discoursebased historical analysis, where analysis of arguments and metaphors are functional to the enlightening of the construction of discourses within EU cultural policy. EU official documents constitute the empirical material studied. The theoretical framework of the thesis draws upon cultural public sphere theory as well instrumentalist cultural policy research.