This case study examines how a group of upper secondary school students in a multiethnical suburb of Stockholm reason about the theory of evolution. The theoretical background of the thesis is postcolonial and the questions raised were how spread the creationist thoughts are in the group; in what way the backgrounds of the students are relevant to their thoughts; how the students construct the notion of the theory of evolution; how they position themselves and others in relation to the discourse of the theory of evolution; if there are any differences between students at the collage program of natural science and the collage program of social science, and in that case, what differences; and who or what inspires the young in their thoughts about the theory of evolution. To answer these questions both a survey poll and interviews were used. The result of the case study showed that a majority of the students at the investigated school has creationist ideas and that the students profiled on social science have creationist ideas in a wider extent. Another result is that the religious background seems to be relevant to develop creationist thoughts, while the variables gender, home district and educational level did not differ the creationist group from the whole group.

The rise of the Swedish Democrats, as a political party in Sweden, has been surroundedby controversy both within and outside of the media. As such a polarizingtopic, the party has been the focus of negative and positive attention. On onehand it has been considered a racist and xenophobic party due to its policies onimmigrants. On the other, it has also been seen as a solution to what has been consideredby some to be a constant problem in Sweden, for those same policies.These policies are motivated by what the party perceives as a threat to Swedishsociety. That is to say, immigrants are a threat to Sweden because of thechanges they impose on the Swedish identity.

This research addresses the issues of identity and culture in Latvia in the context of the upcoming European Union enlargement in 2004. Political self- determination of Latvia was historically indebted to culture. The phenomenon of cultural identity, so important 12 years ago when Latvian independence was regained, is largely ignored by politicians in the upcoming enlargement process. This is especially worth attention since the 8-th parliamentary elections took place in October 2002. The obvious lack of interest in cultural issues on the part of politicians is compensated by the apprehensions in the society (reflected in mass media) to loose Latvian specific culture and identity when joining the big European family.

Self-destructive behaviour is a more and more occurring phenomenon in today?s society and there are mostly young girls who are affected by this behaviour. There are different explanations to why the phenomenon appears. The purpose of this research essay is to give a literature overview of the phenomenon of self-harming behaviour of young girls. Two research questions have been used to study this phenomenon; How can groups of friends contribute to reinforce an identity with the self-destructive behaviour among young girls? How can Internet contributes to reinforce an identity with the self- estructive behaviour among young girls? For the analysis this research essay uses the social constructive theoretical perspective.

The purpose of this study is to get increased knowledge of young people and their experience and thoughts about existential questions, and if the adults in Junior highschool take them into consideration. Our purpose to look at the result in a gender perspective was also a part of this work. Our starting point is the theory of youth, their existential questions and the importance of their identity-work in the late modern society. We interviewed six youth at the age of 15-16. We used hermeneutic theory to analyse the text.

The purpose of this study is to find out how the non-governmental shelters for battered women identify themselves in context of their dependence and cooperation with the municipality. Their legitimacy is also investigated which is based on, along with identity, key concepts of the neoinstitutional organization theory. The mutual dependency between these two actors is problematized along with the question of who is responsible for assisting the battered women, and who takes on the responsibilities for them. The empirical result that is analyzed was gathered through three qualitative semi structured interviews with employed personnel at three different battered women?s shelters in three different municipalities in Sweden.

Title: I saw it on Facebook ? Youth presentation of self on FacebookAuthors: Nicole Dreher & Anders SkoglundPresented: 01.06.2010Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the, in the study, participating youths make their presentation of self on their Facebook profiles.Methodology: The method used in the thesis was a social semiotic analysis focusing on the social semiotic concepts: semiotic resource, semiotic potential, affordance, denotation and connotation. A social semiotic analysis of composition was also used with the purpose to gain a deeper knowledge of the social semiotic affordances of Facebook?s composition.Theoretical perspectives: The theoretical base of this thesis consists mainly of Erving Goffman?s theory on presentation of self in everyday life as well as relevant theories to youth culture in sociology and identity in social psychology.Conclusions: The results show that the youth?s presentations of selves mostly takes place in their profile picture, status updates, groups, fan pages and through their communication with other users on their wall. The borders between front and back stage on Facebook entirely depends on the norms that the reader expects the profile owner to uphold.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding to how a national identity is constructed. Five women and five men at the age of 21-37 years old have been interviewed during November 2005 and January 2006. All of them lived Oslo at the time. The informants have been divided into two groups, `Swedish immigrants` and `Norwegian immigrants`, none of the people interviewed is ethnic `Swedish` or `Norwegian`. The empirical material has been analysed with the help of Billig´s theory about banal nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse analysis.

During a major part of modernity the concept of identity was something that in many ways was predetermined for the individual. People in general remained in the same social spheres as the generations before, shared common religions and beliefs and where more or less bound to a geographic area. Identity and lifestyle was something that was adapted quite unreflected from habit and tradition. Though, during the cultural modernisation process that took place in the twentieth century, previous shared patterns of interpretation vanished and became individual.  Finding references, constructing an identity and establishing a self became individual.

Our findings show that depending on the contextual setting and what sort of merger an organization goes through, the identity strategies will differ. We see that symbols and values are two objects of relevance in our case companies? identity strategies, but that there are differences in how they are being used. There is consensus around the fact that values are important to have, however their meaning to each organization differs and it has also proven to be dependent on what position you possess in the company. We have developed a four-fielder in order to further illustrate our findings.

Old Spice marknadsföringskampanj som lanserades under 2010 nådde snabbt stora framgångar och spreds som en löpeld över internet. Reklamfilmerna med ?the Old Spice man? sågs under kort tid miljontals gånger och en viral marknadsföringskampanj var född. Genom en fallstudie av denna kampanj analyseras fem olika faktorer; produkt, promotion, innehåll & utformning, spridning & interaktion. Detta för att granska deras inverkan på kampanjens framgång.Studien har skett genom en analys av sekundärdata, i form av Old Spice? reklamfilmer samt ett stort antal nyhetsartiklar och intervjuer som behandlade kampanjen.

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the ideology behind Sida's cultural aid by using postcolonial theory. We want to analyse the discourse on cultural aid that is found mainly in Sida's publications. The interpretation of the sources is made with a hermeneutic base and by using postcolonial theory in combination with Paul Ricoeur's theories on the function of ideology: 1. ideology as distortion, 2. ideology as legitimation, and 3.

The purpose of this study was to highlight LGBT asylum-seekers experiences of expressing their sexual identity or gender identity in the country of origin and in the asylum process in Sweden. By interviewing people who got permanent residence in Sweden because of gender or sexual orientation in Utlänningslagen (2005:716) we have been able to explore their own experiences from expressing themselves. This study analyse these experiences from a social psychological perspective, from this analysis we aimed to obtain a deeper understanding of how the experiences from the country of origin affects on the experiences in the asylum process. This study shows that LGBT asylum-seekers often is facing negative reactions from the environment in the country of origin, these reactions can limit their possibilities to express their sexual identity or gender identity in the asylum process in Sweden. The negative reactions they experience in the country of origin have contributed to that many LGBT people internalize feelings of fear to express themselves, feelings that often stays when they come to Sweden to seek asylum.

Research regarding the maintenance of the Sami language shows that the Swedish society has a big influence on the development of the Sami identity and also the maintenance of the Sami language. The assimilation of the Sami language and the traditional Sami religion was forced mainly by the Swedish education form and the Swedish church. In modern times many different forms of Sami identities have been developed due to the scattering of the Sami people, and also because of the urbanization of the Swedish society. The Sami nature religion is still alive in the Sami group, thanks to the mythological stories told and preserved by their oral  tradition. The purpose of this assignment was to make research of how the Sami identity is being presented in three current Swedish books.

As social interactions migrate to the ubiquitous Internet we are facing a change in theway we relate to each other, which presents interesting new opportunities foranonymity to create identities. An aspect of this radically evolving technology thatexhibits strong possibilities for altering or producing identities is the rapidly growingonline game genre MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) which isentertainment that millions of people all over the globe engage in daily. Thisrelatively new platform for socialising has become of cultural and social significance,which is why it calls for examination and research. Thus, the main research questionsasked in this thesis are as following: How does players of MMOGs utilise the nighcomplete anonymity to present or modify their identities online? In which ways areMMOGs used as a platform for socialising and development of social groupdynamics? After observing a large group of players in a popular MMOG, as well asconducting several interviews with key identities within the group, I discovered three fundamental parts of identity creation, and created a model for use and applicationin different social situations and constellations..