The thesis aims to study how rainbows families are being treated by the authorities and the surroundings. It focuses on how homosexual parents are met in society. Although, homosexuals have the legal right to have a family and enter into marriage, the social norms are still far behind and rainbows families are seen as ?the others? and abnormal.  Earlier researches have been studding how the authorities still assumes that every family are living in a heterosexual family constellation. By this assumption they exclude families who are not living in a heterosexual family.

New family stuctures are constantly emerging in society. Are these changes mirrored in foster care practice? The aim of this study was to explore to what extent Homosexual families are represented when a child is given a foster home. The nuclear family has throughout history been assured a stable position both in society as well as in the foster care practice. During the last ten years a homosexual relationship has been legaly accepted through different amendents and it has also been more integrated and accepted in society.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family.

Previous studies have pointed out the potential risks involved with targeting homosexual consumers by using ads with homosexual imagery in mainstream media. Many of these studies have indicated that there may be drawbacks with exposing heterosexuals to these kinds of advertisements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this is true for all groups of heterosexual consumers. An experimental study was carried out to examine the effects of explicit homosexual imagery on a heterosexual group with a generally positive attitude towards homosexuality. Empirical evidence suggests that homosexual imagery does not elicit any negative reactions among these heterosexual consumers.

Background:Due to a more open climate in society for homosexual people several lesbian couples have given birth to children in their relations. Research has shown no differences between children in lesbian families and children in heterosexual families considering mental and social health. International research has also shown that lesbian parents often have bad experiences from meetings with healthcare providers.Theaim of this study was to describe lesbian child families/familyplannings and the lesbian parents experiences and expectations of the healthcare.Themethod for the study was qualitative interview with 9 lesbian parents. The data was analysed by the queer theory heteronormative concept.Theresults of the research was that lesbian families considered themselves as a nuclear family and at the same time distanced themselves from the nuclear family concept. The findings showed that lesbian couples are involved in a very long process when they try to become parents.

Background:Due to a more open climate in society for homosexual people several lesbian couples have given birth to children in their relations. Research has shown no differences between children in lesbian families and children in heterosexual families considering mental and social health. International research has also shown that lesbian parents often have bad experiences from meetings with healthcare providers.Theaim of this study was to describe lesbian child families/familyplannings and the lesbian parents experiences and expectations of the healthcare.Themethod for the study was qualitative interview with 9 lesbian parents. The data was analysed by the queer theory heteronormative concept.Theresults of the research was that lesbian families considered themselves as a nuclear family and at the same time distanced themselves from the nuclear family concept. The findings showed that lesbian couples are involved in a very long process when they try to become parents.

This thesis has focused on the construction of homosexual parenthood in Swedish law and preparatory work. The purpose was to describe the norms about legal parenthood and examine if and how homosexual parenthood was included in the normative parenthood. The study was jurisprudential and based on methods such as sociology with a juridical focus and critical discourse analysis of the juridical texts. The theoretical framework was the critical discourse analysis as well as a queer perspective, both influenced by social constructionism and a poststructional theory. The conclusion of the study is that parenthood is described from what is presumably best for the child, which is two parents of different sexes and biological origin.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of being a homosexual immigrant in the Swedish society. Our questions were how the interviewed homosexual immigrants experience being treated by the people in their surroundings and how they are influenced by their attitudes. We also wanted to know what kind of thoughts they have about affiliation considering origin and sexuality, and what positive and negative aspects they experience from the combination of being both homosexual and immigrants.To get the answers to these questions we used a qualitative method and interviewed seven homosexual immigrants between the ages of 25 and 40 years. We then compared our material with earlier studies of the living situation of homosexual immigrants in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. We also linked our findings to Goffman's stigma theory and to heteronormativity.The main result was that the combination of homosexuality and immigrantness can result in various difficulties.

Purpose This thesis tries to create an understanding of how male homosexual entrepreneurs, both as persons and as a concept, relates to the fact that entrepreneurship, as well as the society as a whole, is heteronormative. Moreover, it examines by what methods the male homosexual entrepreneurs cope with the seemingly paradox of a homosexual man who also is an entrepreneur. Method The method has been qualitative from a social construction-point of view. We have made semi-structured interviews with nine male homosexual entrepreneurs and structured the findings from the interviews with a computer programme and mind mapping techniques. We have compared the structured findings with theories, in an abducting manner, to find out an answer to the purpose of this thesis.

In our study we examined recurrent patterns and changes in the representation ofhomosexual persons in Swedish daily newspapers 1987, 1997 and 2007.We analysed articles about HIV-infected persons and articles with a view to portray thelife conditions of gay and lesbian persons from the three different years. We chose toonly analyze news articles that intend to represent real human beings, which mean thatwe did not analyze reports that only reproduce abstract knowledge from authorities.With analytical tools from semiotics and discourse analysis we identified some recurrentpatterns in the representation of homosexual people. We found that a recurrent pattern inthat when homosexual people are seen as groups, they are described as deviant,discriminated and some times as a threat. When portrayed as individuals the nonanonymouspersons appear in articles and pictures as normal, strong and healthy. Lesbianwomen are not represented in the articles from 1987, but in articles from 1997 and 2007they appear as unhappy when single and happy in a relationship.The results also showed some interesting differences in news representation ofhomosexual persons between the three investigated years.

The aim of our study was to examine how homosexual and heterosexual men and women are represented in the Swedish magazine QX, a magazine for gay, bisexual and transgender people. We wanted to find out what kind of roles the persons in QX appears in, and inquire the relationships that exist between them.We analyzed the texts in twelve magazines, from December 2008 to November 2009, in order to get the most current results as possible. We used a discourse analysis, with focus on identities, relationships and the representation of the world. Representations, gender, hegemonic masculinity and stereotypes have been significant theories to analyze our results.The results showed that the successful gay man is the most important person in QX. He is the perfect masculine macho fagot, who is highest in rank.

We believed that knowledge organisation of manga and manhwa with homosexual (including lesbian) themes might be a challenge for Swedish public libraries. One of the reasons for this is that these themes in manga and manhwa usually occur in genres not directed towards an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) audience. To see how Swedish public libraries treat such titles and why they treat them as they do, we examined a selection of public libraries, their collections, acquisitions, cataloguing and shelving of relevant titles. The theory used is mainly Grant Campbell?s binarisms, subject access to LGBTQ literature and critical analysis of knowledge organisation.

The purpose of this study is to identify and make attitudes among social workers towards homosexual and bisexual people visible, examine how these attitudes relate to their actions in their professional role and how these attitudes and actions can be understood by theories of heteronormativity and power. The study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey in the form of a questionnaire completed by social workers. The result shows that there are two groups among the social workers. One larger group that reproduces a norm of acceptance toward homosexual and bisexual people and one smaller that reproduces a heterosexual norm. This reproduction of heteronormativity increases the risk for homosexual and bisexual people to be made invisible and treated more negatively in contact with social workers, which in turn can lead to worse health among the clients..

The main aim of this bachelor thesis is to describe through a quantitative study the extent of support received by foster families, their opinion of the support and any areas that might need improvement. The foster families receive foster care support through a private agency. We concentrated on the following areas of support; education, health, contact with the children?s biological relatives and behavioral difficulties. These four areas have, in previous research, shown to be problematic for foster children.

The purpose of this study is to establish how a few youngsters have experienced their time in contact families and which, if any, significance their respective ?contact families? has for them today. The study aims to determine the life situation in the youth?s families at the time support through ?contact families? was initiated and the youths? own view of the reasons for this support. We also want to shed light on the meaning that the contact families had on the youth; considering both positive as well as negative meaning.