The aim of this essay is to try to gain understanding and to get a more profound knowledge of suicide. The questions at issue were 1) What empirical factors are mentioned in the research as possible to explain suicide. 2) Which theoretical perspectives are discussed in research concerning suicide. To answer our questions at issue we carried out a selective research overview with a qualitative perspective. The primary documents that has been the foundation of this essay is constituted by nine of the leading researchers publications in the area of suicidology.

During the last decade executive coaching has become an increasingly popular method of management development. Few studies have been conducted within this area, especially in Sweden, and little has been said about the construction of management in executive coaching. The purpose of this master?s thesis is to study executive coaching from a Social constructionist perspective, focusing on the construction of management. The two research questions are: How is management constructed in executive coaching? How can we understand the construction of management in executive coaching? Additionally, we identify gender as a social construction of importance and thus include a gender perspective in our analysis.

This study examines counselors understanding of body fixation (alt: body image fixation) as a social problem among young women aged 15-25 years. Earlier research on this subject highlights the standards and ideals placed on the female body where happiness is associated with a slim body figure. Research has shown that young women that compare their own bodies with others are at higher risk at developing an unhealthy relationship with their body, which can lead to eating disorders. The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with nine counselors from youth clinics, schools and primary healthcare. The results were interpreted and analysed in the light of Social constructionist perspective as developed by Berger & Luckmann and Loseke's Social constructionist definition of social problems.

Unemployment and long term unemployment is a reality for a large number of people in Sweden. This may be the result of structural changes in the labor market, but involves a wide range of issues. Along with other actors, the social services are obliged to support the long term unemployed to find a job. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the work done by social workers towards the long term unemployed, 25-49 years old, in two municipalities. We performed altogether six qualitative interviews.

Social workers ideas about what domestic violence is influence their ability to recognize vio-lence in cases where this occurs. Social workers awareness and understanding of domestic violence can also influence the handling of these cases. Education on the subject domestic violence can increase social workers knowledge about, awareness and handling of violence. The present study aims to investigate how social workers in child protection investigations understand, recognize and interpret domestic violence and which interventions the social workers suggest. This is a qualitative vignette study in which semi-structured interviews was carried out with social workers working with child protection investigations.

The problem presented in this masters thesis is: How can pedagogical theory be used to illuminate and analyse attitudes of librarians in reading promotion activities for children and young people? The aim is to investigate librarians pedagogical role and attitudes in reading promotion activities for children and young people. The following questions are asked: · How can the pedagogical role of librarians be understood on the basis of different pedagogical perspectives? · How do librarians describe their pedagogical role in reading promotion activities for children and young people? · Is there a relation between pedagogical perspectives and the ways in which reading promotion methods are developed by librarians? Reading promotion methods investigated are booktalk, discussions on reading and summer reading challenges for children and young people. The methods used in the study are literature studies, qualitative interviews and observations.

The purpose of this qualitative sociological law study is to examine the relationship between the social services and civil court to apprehend if knowledge about the child's best interest is transfered from social workers to the legal system. This have been done by investigating civil court cases concerning custody transition from biological parents to foster parents according to 6 chapter 8 paragraph in the law of parenting, built upon the legal principle of the best interests of the child. Eight cases has been examined by using a method of qualitative text analysis and categorised into five primary categories and three concepts linked to sections of the law. The material has been analysed through a sociological law perspective, Social constructionist theory and attachment theory. The study shows that a variety of factors interacts when it comes to determining what?s in the best interest of the child .

The aim of this thesis is to illustrate the principal problem of the study of national self-images and by questioning the congruent existence of one in the case of Sweden. Through the use of qualitative method and semi-structured interviews the ambition of the study is to compare and to understand the national self-images portrayed in a major Swedish town, Stockholm and to that of a smaller town on the countryside, Sjöbo. A Social constructionist approach in co-operation with key temporal and spasial dimensions are used to penetrate the interviews at hand. The main conclusions drawn from this study highlights the difficulties in addressing the concept of a congruent national self-image. Several major discrepancies appear in the analysed material, mainly in the past and the external dimensions, both from a regional approach, but also very much within the local entities themselves..

The aim of this study was to examine the perceptions within social services regarding men who are victims of domestic violence based on how gender, sexuality, masculinity and victimhood was constructed in the social workers' statements. Eight qualitative interviews were conducted with nine social workers who work within the social services and meet people who are victims of domestic violence. A Social constructionist scientific approach has permeated the study and theories of gender, heteronormativity, masculinity and the ideal victim has served as the study?s theoretical views. The results of the study showed that some of the social workers ascribed men specific characteristics such as strength and fearlessness.

Previous studies of stress and coping regarding urban bus drivers describe an unhealthy occupation in areas of psychological and physiological factors. In the present study a Social constructionist approach was used to investigate Swedish urban bus drivers' constructs of stress and coping regarding passengers. Semi-structered interviews were performed with ten bus drivers, nine males and one female. The data was transcribed verbatim and analysed with the program QSR NUD*IST.Three main themes where found; passanger related context, coping strategies and promoting circumstances. The bus drivers' constructs describe passanger relations as part of a stressful work environment where successful coping is problematic..

In November 2006 and July 2007, changes were made to the Social Services Law and the Criminal Injuries Law, defining children who have witnessed domestic violence as crime victims. The objective of our study is to examine if these changes have affected how social workers responsible for child protection inquiries interact with children who have witnessed domestic violence, and to what extent these children?s need of support are taken into account. Qualitative interviews have been carried out with five social workers, with the aim to evaluate how they meet and become aware of these children. Our problem-formulation is based upon the question how social services implement the recent changes to the law.

Aims: The aim of this study is to describe how youth?s political exclusion is constructed as asocial problem. This is done through a study of a project which aim is to engage young peoplein politics.Method and theory: By interviewing the project?s manager and developer as well as eightparticipating young people different constructions of the problem of youth political exclusionhas been analyzed using the Social constructionist perspective on social problems.Findings: The dominant perspective found in the empirical material includes framing youngpeople?s lack of political knowledge and self-confidence as the reason for their politicalexclusion. Even though the Youth Board (ungdomsstyrelsen) in Sweden officially views allyoung people as a resource, when youth politics are implemented through projects, this is notthe view that young people meet.

The objective of this study was trying to understand bullying focusing on the bully. The questions at issue were: What can contribute in the making of a bully? What are the benefits and losses in bullying? What are the former bullies? thoughts on bullying, now in comparison to in their youth. This was investigated with a qualitative approach from a former bullys perspective, hence three former bullies were interviewed. The result was presented in themes and was then analysed from a social psychological and Social constructionist perspective.

The environmental situation is becoming increasingly critical. The energy sector and other industries have a big impact on our climate and the public is raising their voice for companies to admit their responsibility towards the environment and society. Companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and happily disclose their responsible performance in annual reports. But what messages are they conveying in their CSR-reporting, and what attitudes towards CSR can be found underneath the explicit content? The aim of this study is to discover which discourses exist in CSR-reports from Swedish energy companies, and how these discourses operate.

This essay focuses on the construction of so called "computer game addiction" or "computer game abuse" in the Swedish press during 2000-2006. During this period computer game addiction went from an obscure phenomenon to a legit reason for the involuntary commitment of a fourteen-year-old.The study's theory is based on several Social constructionist ideas. Kitsuse and Spector's theories about constructing social problems as claims-making activities are used for understanding the actions of the individual and groups involved. Hewitt and Hall's article about quasi-theory is used to explain the construction of explainations for the new social phenomenon. Blumer's five-stage model is used for categorizing the construction of the new social problem.