The purpose of this thesis in Library and Information Science (LIS) is to examine concepts related to Multiculturalism in Sweden. It aims to look beyond the rhetorical construction of these concepts, in an attempt to clarify the actual purpose of commonly emphasizing the importance of mulicultural library services. Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA) as well as theories on ethnicity and intersectionality constitute the theoretical frame. The material consists of selected anthologies, handbooks and articles in Biblioteksbladet from 1974?2014, as well as a small case study.

National identity, Multiculturalism and invisible norms are three conceptions focused on in this essay. They are discussed and analysed with the purpose of deepening deepen the understanding of their meaning. Further on they become instruments in a study of the Liberal Party's proposal for new politics of integration. My ambition is to distinguish signs of a Swedish national identity in this proposal and to interpret the party's relation to Multiculturalism.The method of this essay comprises partly a literature study and partly a qualitative analysis of text.My discussion and analysis ended in an understanding of national identity and Multiculturalism as complex and interrelated conceptions. I found parts of a Swedish national identity in the value of working, in the fear of the cultural unknown and of eventual anti Swedish culture, in the idea of Sweden as the best country in the world considering gender equality and in the strong defence for the Swedish language.

This study highlights how pre-school teachers in a monocultural Swedish district looks at the concept of Multiculturalism and what Multiculturalism and /or intercultural approaches means in their pre-schools. The study takes its starting point in Johannes Lunneblads thesis "Förskolan och mångfalden" (2006) and Lpfö-98 (2006). The present study is a qualitative study in the form of interviews and the study have an intercultural and intentional perspective. The study shows that preschool teachers in the area perceive multicultural work as a compensatory education for children with non-European background. An analysis of the interviews on a deeper level shows that there is a broader understanding of Multiculturalism that includes the class, sexuality and everyone of the children's "home culture?.

The aim of this paper is to study how Multiculturalism is expressed in the Swedish labour market policy. The method used for the investigation is a discourse analysis which study social and political processes in the society as created through language. The perspective of the discourse analysis is a social construction that considers that language is a social production created in a discursive way. It produces and reflects social process in the language.By using theories of national identity and Multiculturalism we aim to investigate how Multiculturalism is expressed in the labour market policy. With this method we aim to analyze the discourse of a political report made 2008 by the current government about integration strategies in Sweden.

The purpose of the essay has been to examine representations of immigrants in contemporary library and information science research in a Scandinavian context. By analyzing nine articles from the past decade we examine the perceptions that exist in the concepts of Multiculturalism, culture, race, ethnicity, religion, gender and whiteness and what role and importance the library as a place is assigned in relation to immigrants as a user group. Our study consists of a qualitative text analysis, a critical oriented close reading method based on critical race and whiteness studies and intersectional theory. We have, with the help of Sara Ahmed´s theories of hegemonic whiteness, demonstrated how Multiculturalism is partly presented as something desirable and good, partly as something potentially threatening.The discourse of Multiculturalism can be said to express the notions of the other, which in the source material manifests itself by ascribing otherness to immigrants. We have, for example, examined how ethnical and cultural differences are highlighted by a separation of East and West, the library?s educational and assisting role in relation to immigrants as a user group as well as representations of whiteness, gender and clothes.

The aim of this research is to evaluate whether the social environment of Swedish high school students affects their views on the multicultural society. The research material was collected through the use of two focus groups containing high school students from two different schools, one group is used to a multicultural social environment while the other group is used to a less multicultural social environment. With the researcher acting as a moderator in the focus groups, the students discussed different questions regarding Multiculturalism, gender equality and religion. The theory that this research is based on suggests that the social environment and the social capital affects the students views on the multicultural society. The results of the research were evaluated and connected to the theory.

AbstractIn the literature on Multiculturalism and group rights there is a strong tradition that sees diversity as something directly paradoxal to unity. In this tradition, scholars put forward a view of Multiculturalism as a divisive and exclusionary process which breaks down the cohesion and unity of society. Related to this notion is that of a neutral and universally valid frame of reference in which political dilemmas can be solved; for example a neutral civil sphere where the ?true essence? of society lies. In this essay I attempt to criticise these two notions.

The aim of this paper is in part to distinguish the ideas raised in the Swedish political debate on the new discrimination law in relation to protection of groups. Is protection by law against discrimination needed for the individual or the group? If it is needed for members of groups, are these groups viewed on as static or variable. Are there any conflicts present between group interests? We link these ideas to three different theoretical perspectives: Multiculturalism, feminism and intersectionality and further examine the differences and contradictions between the perspectives represented by members of parliament.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine and present six different texts produced by the Sweden democrats. This examination focuses its attention on the content and the technique of the arguments present in the texts. In addition, the results will be put in relation to the steering documents for the Swedish school system. The aim is to observe common features regarding content and technique present in the texts. More specifi-cally, I will examine how the texts produced by the Sweden democrats pose a problem to the Swedish school system.

The aim with this paper is to study how the integrational ideology of the Swedish parliaments party platforms, including the right wing Sverigedemokraterna, is formulated. The integration theories examined are assimilationism, Multiculturalism, universalism and residualism. In turn these theories are simultaneously applied to the party platforms extracting explicit or implicit messages of the four former mentioned theories. The Swedish history of integration as well as immigration, which per capita is one of the highest in the European union, pinpoints the reason why this subject is due to further investigation. The results show that most of the parties contain traces of more than one integration theory, with the exception of primarily Sverigedemokraterna which focuses on assimilationism.

It is in a time of changes when the human being mainly seeks for its identity. In today?s globalized and internationalized society where people meet whom belongs to various religions, talks different languages and are carrying on different values and previous experiences. This has resulted in a Multiculturalism and diversity in the "Swedish school". As a teacher and pupil in this school of Multiculturalism you are daily faced by individuals that either you define yourself as or in relation to.The purpose of my study is for me to show how pupils with foreign background look on the multicultural school, and also how they create their identity in relation to the diversity offered by the school.

Our intention with this study is to investigate teachers work in a multicultural classroom. For the purpose of this study, a web survey was constructed. The investigation was carried out among teachers on three different multicultural secondary schools in Sweden. 53 teachers informed us about their own experiences and thoughts concerning their work in a multicultural classroom. Conceptions as Multiculturalism, methods in teaching, the climate in classrooms, teacher cultures and interculturalism has been used in the study.

This thesis focuses on the problems involving immigrants and their voting behaviour in Sweden. We presuppose that immigrants vote in a far less extent than Swedish citizen according to general statistics. We try to explain and give solutions to this problem. To our help we use both integration theory focusing on Multiculturalism and electoral participation theories.Starting off in these two theories, we have further analyzed a number of policies issued to solve the participation dilemma. The policies were issued in order to elevate the socio-economic standards, inform citizens and close the distance between voters and politicians.Our results show that what work best is long term ventures aiming at integrating immigrants to the Swedish society.

The aim of this paper is in part to distinguish the ideas raised in the Swedish political debate on the new discrimination law in relation to protection of groups. Is protection by law against discrimination needed for the individual or the group? If it is needed for members of groups, are these groups viewed on as static or variable. Are there any conflicts present between group interests? We link these ideas to three different theoretical perspectives: Multiculturalism, feminism and intersectionality and further examine the differences and contradictions between the perspectives represented by members of parliament.

AbstractDue to the success of the Populist Party Sverigedemokraterna in the Swedish election of 2006, the daily paper Sydsvenska Dagbladet published a number of columns written by well-known academics, writers and debaters. Their aim was to address the question of why this happened in the election and what it is in the Swedish society today that brought forward these trends. The first and the last word was given to the writer Fredrik Ekelund, and therefore the debate was named Ekelunddebatten.The debaters are fighting to present their view of the world as the only option when categorizing different societal groups and appointing themselves as group representatives. My aim is to unravel these different conceptions of the world and to do this I use the Dicourse Analysis as a method. I discuss the results with Critical Discourse Theory as a theoretical base and also from the view of the current societal discourses: the working class discourse, the multicultural discourse and the discourse of political correctness.I mainly observe four different conceptions of the world with different posing of problems.