The Barbie doll is an icon filled with meanings; this thesis discusses the Barbie doll and herfeministic potentials and subject positions using a discourse analysis. The thesis analyzeswhat sort of femininity Barbie portraits in magazines, web series and films about her.Theories being used originate mainly from gender and queer studies, where the focus is on theperformative constructions of gender and femininity. Since the material mostly consists ofmoving images some influence is taken from feminist film theorists and semiotic theory,which focuses on signs and their meaning. The thesis centres around the questions: how isBarbie?s femininity challenged, strengthened and constructed in different types of mediaabout her produced by Mattel? And is there any feminist potential in Barbie?s subjectpositions in these media forms?.

A carnival can not be stopped! A design pedagogical study of children and norms In Basel, the only Protestant carnival in Europe takes place. The carnival is called Fasnacht. For three days, there is a wild and uninhibited play with tradition, crossing borders and social criticism.The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of the concept of the carnival, and how to use it for an educational purpose. Three children from Basel have been involved in an workshop where they designed and talked about norms and power structures through the carnivalesque principle. The study is based on the questions: How can you use the carnival as a starting point for designing and talking about norms and power structures together with children? And; How can the design process support such a project? To spot this, I made arrangements for a design educational project.

The aim of this study is to investigate how preschool teachers reason about gender stereotypical and gender neutral toys and other material. I would also like to see how the pedagogues reason about gender segregation when it comes to toys. To investigate the issue, I have interviewed three pedagogues from different preschools. The results showed that the work procedures differed a bit from school to school, although they all wanted to achieve the same goal. A goal that our curriculum mention as well: Not to make a difference between boys and girls.

In this essay there will be four text books from grade 1 studied, the first one are from the year 1976 and it will be going forward to the year 2012. The aim of this study is to see how the genders are depicted and represented, as well as what roles the genders are given. I do also want to see if there is a notable change in this over time. I will be doing a study based on the quantity of the contents, and I will also be doing a critical discourse analysis.The result of the study showed that there were more gender-based constructions that referred to women in all of the four books, which indicates that women are represented more often in these reading books. It is most common to portray the genders in their stereotypical roles, which again are present in society, but sometimes these roles are depart from what?s present in society.

Denna forskningsstudies syfte var att undersöka hur några förskolebarn och pedagoger resonerar kring genus och jämställdhet i barnlitteratur med inriktning på skillnader och likheter mellan pojkar och flickors val av aktiviteter. Studiens syfte var även att få en inblick i några pedagogers arbetssätt med genus i förskoleverksamheten. Som metod har vi läst boken Lia för en dag/Leo för en dag av Carin Wilke för 22 barn, som var indelade i åtta grupper, för att sedan föra ett samtal kring boken med barnen. Syftet med boken är enligt författaren att göra barnen uppmärksamma på de könsbundna skillnader som påverkar dem. Till studien gjordes semistrukturerade intervjuer med två förskolepedagoger.