This thesis examines the National Heritage Board in Sweden and the way they look upon themselves, the surrounding world and their mission. Methodologically it?s a discourse analysis based on poststructuralist and social constructionist thoughts. This means, simplified, that nothing is taken for granted and that power relations and ideology always matters. There is no true or distinct heritage.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding of which images there are about the ?others? in the society. For this study, four women in the ages of 21-23 years old were interviewed during April 2005. The empirical material was analysed with Laclaus and Mouffes discourse analysis. One conclusion is that the images of the ?immigrant? and the ?immigrant women? are created opposite to the ?Swedes? and the ?Swedish women?.

The aim for this study was to examine betweenship as a phenomenon by focusing on identity. There is not very much research done on betweenship. I have used a qualitative phenomenological approach, based on four qualitative interviews. The four interviewees were all experiencing betweenship. To analyze their stories I used two theoretical frameworks; identity and affinity groups.

The purpose of this study is to show how the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet andDagens Nyheter reported on and described Dag Hammarskjöld as a man and a symbolat the time of his death in 1961. The method for the research has been a qualitativethematic analysis of the content in the articles published from the date ofHammarskjöld´s death to the day after the funeral. The study has been based on theoriesabout newspapers roles in the construction of imagined communities, the use of mythsand the objectifying of abstract ideas in news texts.I have found that the investigated newspapers described Dag Hammarskjöld assynonymous with the United Nations, the world peace and a hope for the future. He wasalso described as a link between the present and the past in the Swedish history at thesame time as he was described as a man of the people. He was representing?Swedishness? in an international context and the cosmopolitan.

Svenska myndigheter har ett flertal gånger påpekat att framtidens arbetsmarknad kommer att behöva kompetent och högskoleutbildad arbetskraft. Samtidigt diskrimineras unga högutbildade i arbetsmarknaden. En del av dessa ungdomar har utbildat sig i Sverige och väljer att arbeta utomlands. Konsekvenserna som detta kan ha i Sveriges framtida arbetsmarknad är oklara.Syftet med undersökningen är att studera varför vissa akademiska ungdomar med invandrarbakgrund som har växt upp i heterogena miljöer väljer bort Sverige efter högre studier. Målet är att förstå och förklara ett aktuellt fenomen.För att genomföra studien har en kvalitativ metod använts.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att redogöra för hur fyra svensksomalier ser på svenskhet och undersöka eventuella hinder de identifierar för att bli betraktade som svenska. Jag har tittat närmare på hur de ser på sin identitet och vilket samband det har med vad de betraktar som sitt hem respektive hemland. Jag visar att mina informanter förhåller sig på ett delvis varierande sätt till svenskhet och att det bland dem också finns flera gemensamma sätt att resonera på. Att bli helt svensk är något de både väljer bort och något de inte anser sig ha möjlighet att bli. Hur de betraktar sig själva är i högsta grad beroende inte bara av andras bemötande utan även vad de antar att andra har för uppfattning om dem.

Uppsatsen syftar kartlägga den känsla av social tillhörighet som individer med utomsvensk bakgrund upplever i dagens Sverige. Hur Sverige och svenskhet erfars och utefter vilka villkor vardagen struktureras. Kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes och den subjektiva verklighetsupplevelsen analyserades med hjälp av en abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet tolkades mot bakgrund av ett socialkonstruktionistiskt ramverk kombinerat med stigmabegreppet och behovet av tillhörighet för skapandet av identitet. Resultaten visar att det i Sverige existerar en strukturell diskriminering baserad på etnicitet och ett andregörande av individer med utomsvenskt påbrå, ett andregörande vilket har sin grund i ett förgivettaget vitt tolkningsföreträde. Maktobalansen tvingar individen in i en avvikande roll som paradoxalt nog krävs för att integreras.

This is a case study of work for gender equality, performed by the Employment and Competence Centre (Arbets- och kompetenscenter) in the municipality of Botkyrka. The aim of the study is to explore how gender equality is understood in the context of a municipality, and what underlying assumptions this understanding is based upon. The questions raised are; How is gender equality understood by the personnel? How do they understand gender? To what extent are women and men seen as homogeneous groups and what differences are (un)visible? What other power hierarchies besides gender are seen as important when working for gender equality? The analysis show that gender equality is a blurry vision, mainly understood in terms of equal conditions and rights, equal results for male and female participants and equal amount of women and men employed. Gender is seen as a binary system and differences between the genders are highlighted.

This study examines imagined boundaries between Swedes and non-Swedes. Rather than using pre-determined definitions as a starting point, the attempt is to examine the discursive construction of difference. The purpose is not to study the portrayal of immigrants per se but to examine how the ?immigrant-ness? is constructed. The result shows the perception of ?immigrant-ness? is linked more to a person?s origin than to the act of immigration itself. The selected newspapers are Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) for the period of 15th November ? 21st November, 1999.

This paper investigates the representations of Africans in the Swedish comic press around the time 1880-1920, with the purpose of establishing how Africans were depicted and how these representations can be explained. The sources consist of four comic magazines: Kasper, Söndags-Nisse, Strix and Naggen.Results show that images of Africans in the late 19th and early 20th century Swedish comic press highly conform to international representations. Traditional stereotypes and overall caricatures are widely applied, mediating racial difference and black subordination. The comic strips and jokes can be divided into categories, defined by their main theme: 1) Exotic animals and nature 2) Skin colour 3) The unintelligent or uncivilised savage 4) Cannibalism 5) The civilised African 6) Imperialistic overtones. The use of international stereotypes indicates that some comic strips might have been directly copied from foreign publications, and incorporated into Swedish contexts.Several theories, likely interacting, can be considered in explaining the imagery.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the media discussions of the rape in Bjästa 2009 and to reveal how stereotypical illusions of ethnicity, religion and gender affect how media understands and defines violence. The rape in Bjästa occurred in a ?Swedish context? but has been defined as honor related in other arenas outside media. This discussion occurred because the whole village turned against the woman that was raped and supported the perpetrator? a phenomena that speaks against the idea of an equal society and a behavior that is usually understood as honor related and something that the ?others? do.

AbstractTitle: Den mångtydiga svenskheten: En studie av det svensk-amerikanska föreningslivet i Kalifornien utifrån en etnisk aspekt 1910 & 1915. (The multiplicity of Swedishness: A study of the Swedish-American society?s associations in California from an ethnic point of wiew 1910 & 1915.Author: Joakim FranssonMaster Thesis in History (10p)Växjö UniversityThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish-American associations in San Francisco and Los Angeles and how they withheld or/and formed a Swedish or American ethnic identity. The primary source for obtaining that objective is the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad were the announcements from the associations are analysed. The thesis main questions are as following: Which ethnic aspects appears in the announcements from the Swedish-American associations in the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad 1910 and 1915? And What similarities and differences in the ethnic expressions appears in the primary sources during these periods?The conclusions can be briefed as there was a great variety of Swedish-American associations during the examined periods, there was a frequent occurrence in both religious and secular movements.

Nyckelord: Kulturell påverkan, etik och religion, konsumentbeteende, internationell marknadsföring och svenskhet.SyfteSyftet med detta examensarbete är att skapa fördjupad förståelse för hur kulturella faktorer, såsom religion och etiska värderingar, påverkar svenska företags utformning av deras internationella marknadsföring med fokus på den saudiarabiska marknaden. Utifrån denna förståelse syftar studien till att undersöka de svenska konsumenternas reaktioner på företagens eventuella åtgärder och anpassningar efter den saudiarabiska kulturen, studien syftar även till att se om de finns några likheter och skillnader mellan olika generationer, kön och låg- respektive höginkomsttagare.ProblemformuleringHur påverkar kulturella faktorer, såsom religion och etiska värderingar, svenska företags utformning av deras internationella marknadsföring i Saudiarabien?Hur påverkar företagens ageranden de svenska konsumenternas uppfattning av företaget och finns det några likheter och skillnader i attityderna mellan olika konsumentgrupper, såsom generationer, kön och låg- respektive höginkomsttagare?MetodvalStudien fokuserar på två stycken stora svenska detaljhandelsföretag som opererar på den saudiarabiska marknaden. Undersökningen bygger på både kvalitativ och kvantitativ data. De data som samlats in och som ligger till grund för studiens resultat och slutsatser är genomförd via litteraturstudier och en enkätundersökning på 171 stycken deltagare.Resultat och slutsatserKulturella faktorer har en stor inverkan på företagens internationella marknadsföring, men de har valt olika tillvägagångssätt.

The aim of this paper is to investigate and analyze practices in multilingual classrooms of mathematics in a compulsory school in Sweden where immigrant students have been known to succeed. The school is situated in a suburban and segregated area outside a major city where pupils come from mainly limited socio-economic backgrounds. The rate of second language learners are 70% of all pupils in this school.By using ethnographic methods, mainly interviews and participant observation, data was collected in four mathematics classrooms which corresponded to consecutive ages of education. The data include field notes and observation of artifacts in the environment as well as interviews and informal conversations with teachers and school leadership. Information from the school website, the authority in charge of quality in Swedish schools (Skolverket) and the municipality were also used.The analysis is based on a socio-political viewpoint that power is relational and reflected within schools.