The purpose of this paper is to examine the constructions of sexuality, which are produced when judgments concerning asylum are made, based on an asylum seeker?s sexual orientation. The question formulations are the following: Which constructions of sexuality are produced when necessary condition, fear of persecution due to sexual orientation, is applied in judgments regarding refugee status? Furthermore, how constructions of sexuality differ in the judgments where the asylum seeker has been consented and rejected is investigated. The empirical material consists of 13 judgments, which were announced between the years 2009-2013 by the Migration court.

In today?s society there is an ongoing debate concerning gender distribution amongst the top executives and there is a clear distinction between the men and women in leading positions. The reason for this can be because men and women to a certain degree conduct leadership differently. It is said that men are more focused on task oriented leadership while women seem to focus on a relation oriented and more interactive leadership. A leader?s success could be due to his or her ability to set up and use a network.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine outlines of literary history for students at upper secondary school from a gender studies perspective. Earlier theoretical work concerning outlines of literary history is sparse. There are three dissertations, but none with an explicit gender perspective. The theoretical approach comes mainly from theories in literary historiography and gender research. Also discussed are the following concepts: canon, literary field and literary valuation.

This thesis aims to investigate the positioning concept of industrial services. We chose to identify the reasons why positioning is used as well as to describe the positioning process. The research strategy chosen for this thesis was a case study of a consultancy firm Benima AB. This firm was chosen due to the fact that a new positioning concept during the latest year hade been implemented and therefore seemed like a good choice for our study. Of the six available theoretical reasons for positioning, we found that Benima AB had two of them: namely change in target market or their needs and demands and renewed company identity/personality.

Title: Learning to read music notation on the guitar ? an analysis of various guitar schools on the market with added own examples. Purpose: To analyse currently available teaching materials on the subject of guitar notation on the market. A comparative analysis is made of five chosen books on the topic. Four criteria for the analysis of these five books are stated: 1) Structure and progression of the study of reading music on the guitar.

Hedge funds? importance within the financial system has during the most recent years increased dramatically. These special funds are unique instruments that differ from traditional mutual funds in a variety of ways, however especially in how they expect returns. Due to the fact that hedge funds are able to hold short positions they possess the possibility to become market neutral investment vehicles.Because of this possibility to sustain positions neutral to market fluctuations, the concept of absolute returns became a unique selling point for hedge fund managers and promises of stable returns unchallenged by market conditions was assured. This research paper aims to examine the theory of absolute returns in hedge funds by examining hedge funds from the Nordic region during the last years of economic turmoil that has occurred by  analyzing the results from their strategies, partially by quantitative measurements as well as qualitative.  The results show that none of hedge fund strategies managed to deliver absolute returns over the chosen period..

Emission of nitrogen oxides as well as carbon monoxides is an inevitable result of combustion. A Swedish law "Law of environmental fee for emissions of nitrogen oxides as a result of energy production" (lagen om miljöavgift på utsläpp av kväveoxider vid energiproduktion (SFS 1990:613)) controls the emission of NOx from energy production by a system of fees. The system has resulted in a strong approach toward less emissions of NOx among the energy production plants. High emission levels, today exceeding 52 mg/MJsupplied fuel, leads to costs for energy production companies. This paper examines possibilities to reduce the emissions of NOx by optimization of the SNCR-technique in a biofuel fired heat and power plant.

This is an empirical study of how the mathematical talk of adult learners constructs/reconstructs different mathematical discourses. The study is to be regarded as an attempt to develop a discursive approach within the field of mathematics education and to complicate the status of mathematics in education and in society in general. My theoretical underpinnings consist of three possible mathematical discourses ? coercive, regulative and emancipative mathematics. From a discursive psychology perspective, I let these discourses function as analytical interpretive repertoires in relation to the adult learners? rhetorical use of mathematics and their claiming of mathematical subject-positions, named the coerced, the self-regulating and the responsible mathematician.

This paper aims to give an account of, and to discuss the view-points and theories of different researchers on the christianization of Sweden, especially the province of Öland, during the early middle ages. Its purpose is to investigate how, and in what sense, their positions can be said to correspond to what we may know of the historical ?facts?. This will be possible by comparing different points of view with a study of the development in a single parish. An overall difficulty however, is the nature of the sources relating to the time in question, they are scarce or even non-existent.Part I of the paper consists of an outline of the field of research and the different theories put forward on the subject.

The thesis explores how the category religion is used discursively in Swedish public debates and in what way the discourses can be related to debate-positions. The thesis also exploresquestions of power and how social identities are negotiated: which identities are madepossible ? and encouraged ? by the discourse, and which are being excluded?The specific cases chosen are: (i) the election of Omar Mustafa as a substitute member of the governing board of the Social Democratic party in April 2013, (ii) the appointment of Elisabeth Svantesson as Minister of employment in September 2013, (iii) the debate concerning male circumcision (2011-2013), and, (iv) the debate about Jewish home education(2012-2013).The theoretical and methodological perspectives used in the thesis are discourse analysis and Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of social fields, usually interwoven together. Discourse analysis is mainly used to explore how the category of religion is attached to central binaries in the debates such as faith/politics, private/public, secularism/fundamentalism, etc., and also how chains of equivalences are established. Bourdieu?s theory of social fields is used tocontextualize the discourses in the specific debates and relate them to orthodox and heterodox debate-positions.

The aim of this study is to obtain a deep knowledge about identity creation of preschool child-ren at the age of four to sex with creative pictures and its aesthetic learning processes with childrens perspective as a starting-point. The issues that I have used in this study are how childrens identity creation relates to the aesthetic learning processes in the preschool enviro-ment, how children experience the figuration of their own identity related to other individuals and the enviroment by taking different positions in aesthetic learning processes and how childrens identity creation becomes visible in preschool.In order to explore preschool childrens identity creation in aesthetic learning processes the qualitative research-oriented approach has been implemented with unstructured observations and the informal interview as the methods for data acquiring.This studys theoretical points are sociocultural perspective and symbolic interactionism. Both these theoretical perspectives emphasize the significance of communication, taking different perspectives and learning in an interaction between an individual and enviroment within given sociocultural frames of referens which results in an individuals identity development.Results from the study show that childrens painting is more than an occupation with a picture as a product. Childrens painting is rather a playfull aesthetic expression form and a relation-oriented, dynamic learning process which is related to the enriching of individual self, the consciousness and the creation of meaning within preschools frames of reference.My expectation is that my study will contribute to didactic discussions about childrens iden-tity creation while using aesthetic expression forms..

Abstract During the last 15 years, the former ?really existing socialist? economies have undertaken an extensive transition process. In this paper the development, measured as GDP growth, is analyzed using variables for economic policy. The analysis is both theoretical, taking as starting point current positions in academia, and econometrical with the linear regression model. We show that while economic policy variables of inflation, economic freedom and institutional quality affect economic growth, the results are not only the ones predicted by the theory.

Enligt läroplanen ska alla elever bli tillgodosedda det svenska språket och dess uppbyggnad genom undervisning. Vi fann det då intressant att utforma en gemensam lektionsplanering som skulle varieras utifrån tre olika teoretiska positioner, socialkonstruktivismen, individkonstruktivismen och behaviorismen. Vidare valdes att utgå ifrån ett lärandeobjekt, substantiv med inriktning på obestämd och bestämd form, i singular och plural form. Dessutom ska studien visa hur elevernas kunskapsutveckling ser ut efter genomförd undervisning, det gjordes genom skriftliga tester. De tre elevgrupper som ingick i studien var elever i årskurs 2, årskurs 2-3 och årskurs 3.

Background: A majority of strategic alliances do not create value for the participants. One of the main reasons for the high failure rate is an inadequate process for partner selection. If the correct partner is not selected, it can have serious effects on the management of the partnership. This is a serious problem since failed alliances usually are very expensive for the involved companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate which theoretical factors are important when selecting a partner for a strategic alliance.

Pairs trading is a relatively new trading strategy, the strategy has only been used during a couple of decades. A study made on the American stock market has shown that the strat-egy has generated a positive result. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if pairs trad-ing has been able to create a positive result on the Swedish stock market during the time period of 1995-2004.The data required for this thesis was collected from Stockholm stock exchange and is ad-justed for splits and issues.The pairs trading strategy involves two stages ? identification of pairs and trading signals. The pairs were identified during a period of 12 months.