In this essay, I analyse the characters of Frodo and Aragorn in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s film trilogy in order to see if traits and relationships are consistent between the novel and the films. Any changes in characters and the ways they interact in relationships entail changes not only to the overarching narrative, but potentially to the most important themes of the story: friendship and heroism. This is important for the general discourse on the films as adaptations, since they have been accused of not being true to the thematic core of the source material. Peter Jackson’s claim that the intention was to always remain true to the spirit of Tolkien’s novel, then necessitates a closer comparison of the two works. Therefore, in investigating the characters I look not only for differences and similarities, but also for the repercussions these have on the story and the potential reasons behind them. By examining the characters from the perspective of the novel, the films and the filmmakers’ commentaries, I discuss how the removal of social class in the films changes the actions of the characters and consequently affects the themes of friendship and heroism. I also bring up the effects of changing from a novel to film as well as the symbiotic relationship between the character traits and the narrative as a whole. This essay shows that though the social class, character traits and the narrative flow are changed in a circular pattern. A closer look at the films reveals that the story’s core themes of friendship and heroism not only remain consistent, but are given more emphasis than in the novel.

Drawing on a Norwegian empirical study of girls’ and boys’ teacher-led classroom conversation participation, this paper focuses on how students attending an upper secondary school vocational programs, participate in classroom discussion when observed in homogenous groups. This quantitative study has shown that gender identities associated with heterogeneous conversational patterns as exaggerated when observing homogenous classroom participation. The discussion describes not only the influences of class and peer group pressure to explain this phenomenon, in addition clarifies the contextual difference in quality when girls take the floor in a homogenous classroom setting.

Sleep problems are one of the most common health complaints in the population. Furthermore, people often judge good sleep as crucial for everyday well-being and it has been shown that lack of sleep has negative health effects. However, sleep has not been a subject of much sociological study. In this study sleep problems are analysed in different ways. First, a cross-sectional analysis is done in order to find out whether sleep problems in the population have increased from 1968 to 2000. Secondly, a longitudinal analysis is done to see how sleep problems pattern from middle-age to old-age. Last, it is analysed whether there are any differences in the sleep patterns from middle-age to old-age for manual workers and non-manuals. This study shows that there has been an increase in sleep problems from 1968 to 2000 in the population. However the increase has only affected younger age groups (between the age 19-55), the elderly population is unaffected. The increase is found among both men and women. Longitudinal analyses of a cohort (born 1915-1925) followed from middle-age to old-age (for 34 years) showed that one out of four experienced an onset of sleep problems during the study. This is in line with earlier research stating that insomnia to a large part is age-related. Furthermore, it was found that manual workers had a larger increase of sleep problems across the 34 years than non-manuals, perhaps suggesting an accumulation effect. All analyses were separated for gender and women constantly reported more sleep problems than men. This is not surprising since this relation have been found across almost all cultures and times. Nevertheless, in this study no increase of the gender gap was found with advancing age, a relation found in most other studies. However more research is needed to understand the reason behind the gendered nature of sleep problems.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX78670.

This thesis considers the role of parents, teachers and peers in the school decision making processes of children at the end of compulsory education in England. This stage represents, in fact, the first and most important school transition when pupils will have to choose whether to enter post-secondary education or not, and in cases where they do, whether to choose an academic course or a vocational one, knowing that this will affect their next transition at the age of 18. This thesis is amongst the ones to most fully analyse the role of significant others in children’s education. All the quantitative analyses in this thesis are done using the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE). Most of the statistical modelling of this data is done using multivariate regression analysis. Some of the results are also based on evidence from qualitative interviews with children in their last year of GCSEs in two comprehensive schools in England and children attending an apprenticeship scheme in the London area. With regards to educational aspirations, minority students are those who show the highest and most stable aspirations during years 9 to 11, while White English working class students, especially boys, have lower and unstable aspirations. Among the explanatory factors for these results, along with social class and ethnicity, parental aspirations, friends’ plans and individual attitude to education have the strongest correlation with the intentions to stay on in school after year 11. Moreover, parental aspirations did not appear to differ with regards to social class, suggesting a different mechanism than the one indicated by Breen and Goldthorpe (B&G) (2000). Also, the fact that minority students have very high aspirations (and are high achievers), do not confirm the principles of the relative risk aversion theory by B&G. Among the types of parental involvement in children’s education, participation in school-related activities and feelings towards school and supervision of children’s school work seemed to have a positive impact on children’s entering A-levels in year 12, although the results did not highlight differences with regards to social class and ethnicity. Evidence from the qualitative interviews showed different results with regards to helping with homework - only educated parents do that – and with regards to supporting and encouraging their children’s aspirations, which is more effective with minority and middle class parents. Considering peer relationships, the evidence from qualitative interviews suggested a very small influence of peers, especially schoolmates, in children’s school decision processes; peers are, in fact, perceived as someone to share plans and common interests with, but not as well-informed and trustworthy sources such as family. Moreover, interviews suggest that school choices are not the results of long-term plans, and children treat school transitions as separate stages. This does not support Morgan’s model of prefigurative and preparatory commitment.

The aim of this paper is to make a cultural analysis of how young Swedes present themselves and review other’s presentations on the dating application Tinder. I have interviewed seven people between the age of 20 and 34 with experiences from using Tinder and/or other dating applications and websites. Characteristic for my informants is that they have a completed or ongoing higher education, that they call themselves feminists and have leftist political views. These common characteristics have influenced my results, which I have pointed out in my analysis.    I have done a thematic analysis, which means that I have highlighted interesting themes brought up by the informants during the interviews.  These have been further analyzed from the theoretical concepts of self-presentation, gender and social class.      In addition to the interviews, I have conducted a self-reflective analysis of how I present myself and judge other people's profiles on Tinder. Since I am a young university student and consider myself to be a feminist with leftist valuations, it could be expected that I have similar preferences and ways of interpreting other people's Tinder profiles as my informants.      As the results show, my informants have more or less deliberately used different strategies to control what kind of impression their profile visitors get of them. Most of the informants express a strong political awareness and believe that it is important that their dating partner have similar values ​​as themselves. They often make judgments of which values other people have based on what kind of clothing style, poses and gestures they present themselves with on Tinder. But even though my informants seem to have very clear criteria for what kind of persons they want to date, some of them also express a curiosity about meeting people with values, styles and tastes that differs from their own.        One of my informants had different experiences from Tinder than the others, since she was the only one who used the dating application to meet persons of the same sex. How LGBTQ people experience Tinder is a subject that would be interesting to do some further research on.

This dissertation is situated at the crossroads of sociology, anthropology, and marketing. Theories of the former two disciplines inform phenomena of the latter. The focal phenomenon is the role of aestheticized markets in contemporary formations of middle-class masculinity and femininity in the U.S. Aestheticized markets are those that incorporate refined notions of beauty, originality, and superiority. This process has been a core force in the expansion of consumer markets in early and late capitalism. In addition to opening up new markets, the aestheticization of markets opens up new subjectivities. It instills in individuals the desire to better themselves through the quest for novel, sensory-pleasing experiences, and it offers them renewed resources to define their social affiliations. My dissertation studies the formation of gendered and classed subjectivities using the empirical contexts of two middle-class, gendered markets that have been recently aestheticized in the U.S.: craft beer and knitting. Unlike three decades ago, craft beer drinkers can now indulge in a variety of flavors and premium styles, produced by more than 3,000 breweries. Likewise, knitters can now indulge in a variety of colors and premium fibers, as noted by a number of high-circulation magazines and scholarly papers. I studied these markets for about four years, conducting participant-observation, interviews, and document analysis. The results of this fieldwork are organized in two empirical chapters. The first focuses on the institutional and non-institutional processes that alter middle-class men's relationships with the aesthetic dimension of a particular market; the empirical context is craft beer. The second empirical chapter documents how middle-class women deploy the ideological and material resources provided by aestheticized markets in gender struggles; the empirical context is knitting. Together, these chapters explicate how gender positions shape the way middle-class individuals learn and display aesthetic expertise. The knowledge of these processes provides both theoretical contributions to the literature on taste, class, and gender, and managerial insight into how market institutions can develop programs that initiate a meaningful, long-term engagement with consumers based on classed and gendered approaches to aesthetic involvement.

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This thesis showed an analysis of what happened when global educational reforms were implemented in a local Moroccan culture context. Through analyzing and deconstructing discourses in policy documents, as well as qualitative interviews with teachers and pupils in municipal uppersecondary schools and comparing these to each other, a picture was given of what happened in the meeting between the new policies and the implementation of them locally; how they were implemented, resisted and negotiated by different parties concerned. The educational policy, advocating e.g. Education for All, and acquisition of foreign language skills, reproduced social hierarchies when implemented in the Moroccan context. Post-colonial languages, such as French, worked as a class cursor, creating a rift between the social classes and their access to higher education. Student-centered methods were resisted by the teachers, but negotiated by the pupils.

Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera påverkan av social klass och status i F. Scott Fitzgeralds roman The Great Gatsby med Max Webers teori om klass och status som utgångspunkt. Detta sker genom analys av karaktärernas relationer och beteende ur ett perspektiv där klass och status är centralt. Resultatet visar hur klass och status påverkar karaktärernas beslut, relationer och liv. Det leder till ett oundvikligt slut för Jay Gatsbys och Daisy Buchanans kärleksaffär samtidigt som konsekvenserna av karaktärernas handlingar påverkas av deras klasstillhörighet.