The aim with this thesis is to study how the phenomenon young people who run away from home (Runaways) is presented in the research literature. The question at issue in our thesis is: How does research literature present the phenomenon of young people who run away from home? We have selected seven primary documents that we consider gives a broad picture of the knowledge about Runaways. We have a postmodern and a hermeneutic approach in our thesis. Our material has been analyzed on the basis of social constructionist theory and the new sociological paradigm of childhood.

This thesis has been written within the research project ?Tillfälligt Uppbrott?, which concerns youths who have run away or been thrown out of their homes. The project is based on a na-tional poll among more than 3000 high school students. Our purpose has been to study youths who have left home and their own experiences. We have looked at all the question-naires in which the youths stated they had left home and focused on their answers to five open questions.

The purpose of this study is to examine how young people with experience of running away and/or getting thrown out look upon and understand the phenomenon. Another purpose of thestudy is to examine how the youth evaluate the help and support they did or did not receive at the time of their experience, as well as to examine what the ultimate help and support would be according to them. The study was done in a qualitative approach with the use of focus groups and individual interviews. The results were analyzed through the perspective of the ?sociology of childhood?.

The purpose of this study was to examine high school students conceptions of young people who run away or get thrown out of their homes. Earlier research shows that this group of young people often come from families were physical, psychological and sexual abuse is reappearing factors. They often face a life of homelessness, drug abuse and prostitution. Still there is little research done about this phenomenon and what kind of help and support these young people could need. This study was done in a qualitative approach with the use of focus groups.

The purpose of this report is to map the situation for girls residing in women?s refuges because of honour violence. The questions posed are: What forms of abuse have been described to staff working with females in refuges for victims of honour violence? What are the deciding factors that lead to a girl leaving her family and being placed in a refuge? What are the help needs of girls residing in women?s refuges because of honour violence? Five qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst staff from five different women?s refuges specialising in honour violence. The results were analysed using Foucault?s theories on power, victim vs actor, victim processes along with a victimisation perspective.

Homeless adolescents are in Sweden rather invisible, as a group. There is no established definition or description of the problem, nor any uniform terms regarding it. The purpose of this study is to investigate how four different organizations, based on their basic principles, describe the group homeless adolescents. We discuss why the organizations reason as they do, and what it leads to. In order to do so we have performed qualitative interviews with representatives from each organization.