La tesi analizza la costruzione sociale di bulli e vittime nei quotidiani italiani (La Repubblica e il Corriere della Sera) e inglesi (The Guardian and The Times) attraverso il metodo della classical content analysis. La prima parte riguarda la rewiew dei principali contributi teorici e analitici in merito a: costruzionismo sociale, costruzione sociale dei mass media della criminalità, devianza giovanile e fenomeno del bullismo. La seconda parte, interessa l’analisi dei profili di bulli e vittime nei quotidiani italiani e inglesi. L’ultima parte è relativa alla comparazione dei profili emersi sia nelle due fonti di informazione, sia con i profili contenuti nella letteratura scientifica sul bullismo. I risultati evidenziano come i quotidiani sia italiani, sia inglesi seguano modalità stereotipate di rappresentazione in linea con i contributi scientifici relativi alla costruzione sociale della devianza giovanile e della violenza nelle scuole. / The thesis analyses the social construction of bullies and victims in a sample of Italian (La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera) and English newspapers (The Guardian and the Times) applying a classical content analysis methodology. The main scientific literature on social constructionism, mass media and social construction of crime and youth crime is reviewed as well as the theoretical and research contributions on bullying. The images of bullies and victims delivered by Italian and English newspaper are further assessed and compared to the extant literature on the topic. Differences emerge both between newspapers and in regard to the theoretical and research contributions on bullies and victims, underlying specific stereotyped ways of newspapers to depict bullies and victims. Findings are consistent with previous research investigating the way mass media have depicted youth crime and in particular school violence.

Public libraries are mainly employing women and have female managers. According to theories based upon so-cial construction we create our roles together in our society. The role of a manager has for a long time been viewed as the role of a man. The objective of my thesis is to gain knowledge on how a few women that work as managers in public libraries perceive and describe their roles. A parallel aim is to let a few future librarians de-scribe their managers and their own views on leadership, with a focus on gender issues. My questions are the following, how do the women construct their roles as managers of public libraries?, how do the female students describe the role as a female manager of a public library, and their own managers?, can stereotype views and attributes be distinguished in my informants tales on leadership and gender?The starting point of this thesis is theories of social construction of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, the thought that we shape our world through social interaction, mainly through our language. The theories of Yvonne Hirdman, regarding gender power structure, offers the political backdrop for my thesis. Alice Eagly has re-searched around leader stereotypes, leadership styles and gender. From her and her peers I take with me theories that claim that the leader stereotype is gendered male.The material I have used to answer my questions are interviews with ten informants, all of them women working at public libraries, five of them managers and five students. I have conducted structured interviews with open questions that I have then looked at by means of a method where different factors are intertwined, mainly language, social situations, political factors and theory. All these then used to interpret the empirical evidence. The basis of the method is interpretation and reflection.I found that my informants construe an image of the role as a woman and a manager of a public library as a complex role that does not fall into one unambiguous gender stereotype. They describe their one manager roles and their managers with attributes and characteristics that in recent research has been assigned to both genders. I could nevertheless identify the use of strategies that according to Eagly et al is used by women in manager roles to prevent them from suffering negative criticism or other consequences solely because of the combination of their gender and position.

Uppsatsen handlar om tolv unga högstadietjejers syn på sig själva som varandes tjejer och hur detta påverkar deras skolsituation. De övergripande frågorna har rört sig kring vilka könsmarkörer tjejerna använder för att definiera sig som tjejer men också hur dessa används normativt samt vilken betydelse de får i relation till andra tjejer. Det är tjejernas röst kring frågor om att vara tjej idag som ska få träda fram i denna uppsats. Studien är en kvalitativ studie, baserad på frivilligt medverkande informanter i en förortsskola i Stockholm under läsåret 2007/2008. Intervjuerna genomförda enskilt och i par, de är inspelade på band och efter transkriberade till text för att skydda informanternas anonymitet.  Informanterna talar om en norm som är svårgripbar för dem att beskriva men den unga tjej som bryter mot denna norm ber om kommentarer och betraktas kanske inte som ens som tjej. Normen skapas genom ett samspel mellan tjejerna där alla inblandade vet vad som gäller och vilket pris man betalar om man bryter mot normen. Normen skapas i det homosociala rummet, mellan tjejerna i deras vardag och är ständigt rådande. Studien utgår från intervjuer och den genomgående tanken är att studera det socialt konstruerade könet, hur det ser ut i denna grupp av unga tjejer och hur det sedan påverkar tjejernas beteenden gentemot varandra, den sociala interaktionen. Utifrån intervjuerna har svaren sedan analyserats och jämförts mot nyare forskning och olika genus teorier. Under intervjuerna användes frågor som rörde flera olika områden och arbetet är upplagt på så sätt att varje frågeområde redovisas för sig. Efter varje frågeområde följer en analys av svaren som också anknyter till den forskning som i dagsläget finns inom området. Varje delområde redovisas med en analysdel som kopplas till den forskning jag har funnit på området samt till de aktuella genusteorier som finns. Sist i arbetet ligger en sammanfattande analys av alla de delområden som analyserats under varje avsnitt. / Slapper, geek, bimbo or just a regular girl –identity  construction for young Swedish females. The aim of this dissertation is to study twelve young schoolgirls, to see how they view themselves as girls, and how this affects their situation at school. The main aim is to let the girls themselves voice how they perceive what it is to be a young girl today; what defines a girl, what are the specific gender markers, underlying norm system, and how does this in turn affect behaviour within the group with regards to responsibility, fashion, sub groups and role models. The emphasis of the study is to observe and analyse socially constructed gender norms, do they exist among this group, and if so, how does this affect the girls’ behaviour and social interaction? The study is a qualitative study, based on a selected group of volunteers from a secondary school in a Stockholm suburb during the academic year of 2007-2008. The students were interviewed separately and in groups, and the transcribed interviews have then been compared to other resent studies of similar demographic groups, and viewed and analysed in the light of resent research theories about gender and gender construction. Every cluster of questions regarding each specific research area is dealt with separately, with an analysis of the answers and comparisons to other theories and findings finishing off each section. The main claims from analysing the material, would be that it is important to live up to the socially created and culturally perceived norm, to adhere to the gender markers and not break the invisible mould. All the interviewed girls were very aware of the norm system surrounding them, and they also know that if you break the rules of what is expected of a girl, you can expect negative consequences, and might not even be perceived as a “real” girl. The norms are created and sustained in a social interaction, between the girls but also in interaction with the opposite sex. Some of the rules can appear arbitrary to the detached observer, but for the group of girls the rules are self evident and unquestionable. The norms are mostly created in the homo-social sphere, between the girls in their everyday lives, and can be hard to describe in detail, even for the informants themselves, although they can describe it clear enough when they perceive that the rules brought on by the norm has been broken. The thesis ends with a summary and analysis of all the previous sections, and with suggestions for possible further areas of research.

This PhD project by publication begins to explore how Scottish adult support and protection (ASP) policy and practice carves out its role and remit. It examines the ways that concepts like “abuse”, “vulnerability” and “protection” have been constructed, both by individual practitioners and at a policy level. The submission comprises five papers published in peer-reviewed journals and this contextualising document, which knits together the work and draws out overall conclusions and implications. The papers themselves report on a literature review, a further analysis of case study research into ASP practice and a critical policy comparison. The case study research was conducted immediately prior to legislative changes in Scotland with respect to ASP, and the policy comparison was conducted subsequently to these changes. Overall, the findings highlight the ways that a social constructionist approach can usefully deepen our understandings of ASP. That is, they show how understanding concepts like “protection”, “vulnerability” and “abuse” to be actively constructed in unique and complex contexts can promote criticality in policy-making, practice and research.

Societies are surrounded by unaware attitudes and views about what is masculine and what is feminine and this can contribute to people being raced differently. Boys and girls are shaped to think and act in different ways from an early age because of their gender. According to the curriculum in the Swedish school system, the school has an important task to prevent such perceptions young people have about sex and gender. Reading books are still a central source where students gather information in the Swedish school. Therefore, I find it interesting to examine how gender is produced in three Swedish reading books from three different periods (1950s, 1970s and 2000s) to see what similarities and differences there are between the texts and the study has been based on three questions: How are men/boys and women/girls described in the reading books based on their characteristics, interests and pursuits? How much space in the texts are represented by men/boys and by women/girls? What masculinities and femininities can be found in the texts and which ones are the most desirable? I have used a text analysis in my research to analyse the three reading books and based my theory on that gender is a social construction. My results show that the three reading books produce male and female structures based on the fact that men and women, boys and girls are opposites and are kept apart by qualities, pursuits and interests. Notions of what is masculine and feminine are also reflected in the texts by constructions of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. Further constructions concerning gender in the reading books are that men and boys have more space than women and girls and also that the personalities of men and boys grow at the expense of women and girls.

The dissertation assesses how the state is building the relationships with the child as an individual who has rights. It obtains knowledge how children as a social group and as individuals are supported by Lithuanian social policy. The study reveals the construction of one of the main contexts of humanistic pedagogies, when in the analysis of relationships between children and adults children are in the centre. Research aim is to ground theoretically and to asses empirically the meaning of the social-educational contexts of child’s rights and policy in development of understanding of Lithuanian welfare state and to demonstrate it as a paradigm of new knowledge. This is an interdisciplinary qualitative study based on a postmodern paradigm of phenomenology which analyse social educational contexts of child’s policy and rights in the development of Lithuanian welfare state in the first decade of Independence 1990-2001 and compares with six OECD countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom. The analysis is based on Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare states. The study has reveled that the pattern of Lithuanian welfare regime does not correspond the exact regime in Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare states from the perspective of children's policy. The development of Lithuanian children's policy demonstrates lack of understanding of a child as an individual and creates a weak background for child-oriented social-educational reconstructions. The study has... [to full text]

Poststructuralist and other critical analyses of sexuality, gender and identity are used to examine how New Zealand and Danish young adults drew on and challenged available discourses as they responded to representations of sexual interactions in the film Chasing Amy. The conversations about sexual practices in mixed gender, women only and men only focus groups illustrate the complex ways in which people construct their identities using subject positions available to them in different contexts as they responded to the movie, the talk of others and the researcher. The strengths and limitations of this approach to facilitating talk are examined as well as the conversations that occurred. The ways in which researchers in New Zealand and Denmark are themselves discursively positioned as theorists and investigators of gender and sexuality is also examined. The thesis illustrates how multiple connections and differences emerge across national and local environments. Talk about sexual negotiations among young adults recruited through university student networks suggests that assumptions about agency, sexual autonomy, reciprocity and women’s and men’s equal right to enjoy sex are still gendered while also challenging traditional understandings about men, women and sexual pleasure. This was, for example, highlighted in talk about receiving and giving oral sex in long-term heterosexual relationships and the ‘need’ for women to explore their bodies and become ‘capable (s)experts’ through masturbation. The thesis finally explores how gendered collective and individual identities sometimes intersect with social identities associated with ethnicity, religion, nationality and sexual identification. These intersections disrupt attempts in cross-national projects – including this thesis research – to form conclusions about national differences and other social identities.

Women are being elevated into more leadership roles in society - roles that have long been primarly held by men. Women are also rising within male-dominated professions, and recent studies indicate that more women are being placed in key management positions. In order to gain credibility in leadership, women must find a management style that exudes authority, but also corresponds with the expectations of appropriate female behavior within masculine organizational contexts. In examining women in roles that are traditionally held by men, we conducted an interview-study to investigate and analyze the communication strategies of female managers in male-dominated companies. The study included analysis of communication strategies used by women as compared to their male colleagues. We note that research in this area has previously been done, but there has been a fairly limited focus examining only female communication strategies. Our study shows that the women use a variety of communication strategies, rather than a single strategy, and the main conclusion we can draw is that the women are proficient in changing communication strategies and methods depending on their audience. The study also shows an unexpected fact that goes against the published research on female communication in typically male dominated roles: Women in male-dominated professions choose to take on the communication style of men, using straight, simple and factual communication, rather than detailed, less direct communication styles generally associated with women.

Syfte och frågeställningar Syftet med studien var att undersöka om och hur lärare i ämnet idrott och hälsa, utbildade vid GIH arbetar normkritiskt utifrån faktorerna klass, kön och etnicitet. Vidare har ett syfte varit att undersöka vilka pedagogiska verktyg som de har fått från GIH för att förbereda dem att arbeta med dessa faktorer. Frågeställningar: Hur arbetar lärarna normkritiskt i sin undervisning utifrån klass, kön och etnicitet? Hur har lärarutbildningen vid GIH förberett lärarna att arbeta normkritiskt med dessa faktorer? Metod Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ utgångspunkt där djupintervjuer användes som metod. Urvalet bestod av fem idrottslärare som undervisar i gymnasieskolan. Samtliga respondenter har gått lärarprogrammet på GIH och arbetat maximalt tre år som idrottslärare. En intervjuguide utformades utifrån syftet och Lindströms modell av Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). Vilken även användes vid analys av resultatet. Resultat Resultatet visar att de intervjuade lärarna till viss del arbetar normkritiskt när det gäller genus genom att ge utrymme för diskussion och genus-uppgifter. Resultatet visar även att lärarna i studien uppvisar pedagogiska ämneskunskaper när det gäller normer kring genus, något som saknas när det gäller normer kring klass och etnicitet. Vidare visar resultatet att alla respondenter fått en teoretisk utbildning från GIH när det gäller normer kring genus och en del praktiska kunskaper för tillämpning i undervisningen. När det kommer till teoretiska kunskaper gällande normer kring både klass och etnicitet delger alla respondenter att dessa kunskaper har ingått minimalt i undervisningen på GIH. De didaktiska kunskaperna kring samma normer menar alla intervjuade lärare att det saknades helt eller endast diskuterade vid ett fåtal tillfällen. Slutsats   Lärarna uppvisar liknande arbetssätt när det handlar om normkritisk pedagogik. Lärarna arbetar inte normkritiskt enligt Lindströms pedagogiska ämneskunskaps modell. Dock arbetar de normkritiskt till viss del då det handlar om genus, men detta arbete saknas när det kommer till faktorerna klass och etnicitet. Lärarna arbetar snarare aktivt med de normer och den värdegrund som styrdokumenten anger samt låter eleverna arbeta med genus på ett uppgiftsorienterat sätt. Att det ser ut på detta sätt kan kopplas till GIH:s lärarutbildning då den lägger fokus på genus medan de andra faktorerna hamnar i skymundan. / Aim The aim of the study was to investigate if and how Physical Education (PE) teachers, with an education from the Swedish school of sports and health science (GIH) and a maximum work experience of 3 years work with norm critical teaching according to the study factors social class, gender and ethnicity. Moreover, an aim has been to investigate what kind of pedagogical tools the interviewed teachers have received from GIH to prepare them how to teach with these factors in mind. Research questions: How do the teachers work norm critical in their teaching according to social class, gender and ethnicity? How has the teacher education at GIH prepared the teachers to work norm critical with these factors? Method The study was carried out in a qualitative perspective and in-depth interviews were used as research method. One PE teacher teaching in the Swedish compulsory school participated in the pilot interview and five PE teachers teaching at Swedish high schools participated in the study. All respondents in the study have finished a teacher program at GIH and a maximum of 3 years’ working experience as a PE teacher. An interview guide was created according to Lindström’s model of PCK. Results The Result shows that the interviewed teachers work in a norm critic way to some degree when it come to gender through discussions and gender tasks. Furthermore the result shows that the respondents show some sort of Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) when it comes to norms regarding gender, something that they do not have when it comes to norms regarding social background and ethnicity. Moreover the result shows that the respondents have acquired a theoretical knowledge and some practical knowledge about gender norms from GIH. When it comes to theoretical knowledge concerning social background and ethnicity norms all the respondents agree that this knowledge have been included minimally in their education. The didactical knowledge about these norms was not included in their education or was discussed at very few occasions. Conclusions The teachers of the study show similar working methods regarding norm critical pedagogy. According to Lindström’s PCK model, the teachers do not work norm critical. Though, they do in some extent work norm critical regarding gender, but this work does not exist regarding the factors social class and ethnicity. The teachers under study rather work actively with the norms and value principle stated by curriculum. Furthermore they work with gender in a task oriented way. The reason for this can be linked to GIH’s teacher program since the education focus on gender, the other factors, social class and ethnicity only is emphasized briefly during the education.

當代與飲食相關的媒介文本十分豐富，「古早味」更可說是其中討論不絕之重要主題，然而專論飲食懷舊現象的傳播研究卻不多，相關研究亦常將「懷舊」現象簡化為失真的歷史想像。 　　本研究聚焦於古早味書寫文本，認為對過往飲食經驗的懷舊反思具有正面意義，其乃「當代認同建構的過程」，且該建構論觀點也與敘事理論相互呼應。本文因此認為：觀察近年來盛行的古早味媒介文本，應可描繪當代社會的認同形貌。 　　研究發現，古早味敘事乃透過回憶場景、童年節日時光、直系長輩親人等來營造幸福質樸的懷舊氛圍。而個人身世背景、離散經驗與高度現代化社會下的焦慮皆成為結構性壓力，敘事者得以「親情聯繫」、「飲食意義」為刺點並以繼承尋根方式統合建構認同。 / The media texts of “Taiwanese retro food” increase gradually recently. However, there are few communication researches focus on this important phenomenon. Moreover, those researches also simplify nostalgia as “distortive imagination of history” constantly. 　Therefore, this paper aims to argue that the introspection of the past is the progress of identity construction and is also related to narrative theory. Through analysing contemporary media texts of retro food, we probably may depict the appearance of social identity of the time. 　Accordingly, the research found that nostalgic aura was cultivated by the narrative of the important scenes, good old times, and close family members. And the narrators tended to construct personal identity through pursuing family love and holding value of retro food.