The purpose of this thesis is to explore how gender norms are represented and depicted in the commercial sphere of fashion, affecting primarily females. The thesis will highlight the voices of several young females of today and their perception of how it is to be influenced and exposed to gender norms in regards to fashion. This thesis theoretical chapters consists of theories in gender norms, norm-critical design, fashion magazines, editorial design, fashion photography, norm-critical photography and intersectional feminism. Furthermore, the method used for this paper are interviews, a total of 17 people were interviewed, whereas five of them are currently working in either the commercial fashion industry or as creatives on a global level. The interviews occurred online, through both emailing and Instagram. This thesis concludes that several aspects, primarily based on the male gaze negatively influence gender norms in the commercial sphere of fashion. However, it is also concluded that there are several change agents, working towards breaking these toxic influences. The thesis is also part of a design project, which final outcome is exhibited at the exhibition Windows Of Opportunity. An online exhibition hosted by the program Design + Change and Visual Communication + Change, at the Linnaeus University in Sweden. https://2020.designportfoliolnu.se/studentwork/rewrite/

This thesis is focused on the L1 regression, a possible alternative to the ordinary least squares regression. L1 regression replaces the least squares estimation with the least absolute deviations estimation, thus generalizing the sample median in the linear regres- sion model. Unlike the ordinary least squares regression, L1 regression enables loosening of certain assumptions and leads to more robust estimates. Fundamental theoretical re- sults, including the asymptotic distribution of regression coefficient estimates, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals and confidence regions, are derived. This method is then compared to the ordinary least squares regression in a simulation study, with a focus on heavy-tailed distributions and the possible presence of outlying observations. 1

The ​aim​ of this study was to examine transgendered persons experiences of social norms andattitudes related to their gender identity. More specifically the study focused on thecisgender- and hetero norm and how these affect transgender persons transition process andtheir everyday life. The ​method​ used to collect data was by reading five autobiographicalbooks written by transgendered persons. Collected data was analyzed using queer theory andthematized into four different themes; ​The importance of passing, The environments attitudesand reactions, To be yourself or someone else ​and ​Social relationships​. The​ results ​indicatethat transgendered persons are highly affected by norms and are often victims ofdiscrimination due to their gender identity. To “pass” as either man or woman is thereforecrucial to avoid negative attitudes and harassment. The results also showed the difficulty fortransgendered persons to reveal their gender identity to society and their close ones and howdifferent reactions can either discourage or normalize the heteronormative structures thatexists in our society. The​ conclusion ​was that transgendered persons are affected bycisgendered- and heteronormative norms in both their transition process and their everydaylife. Society is categorizing people as either man or woman, and whoever doesn’t fit in thegiven gender roles is classed as deviant

Bakgrund: Unga hbtq-personer upplever mer diskriminering och sämre hälsa än andra unga. Skolan utgör en viktig arena för att skapa en inkluderande och hälsofrämjande miljö. Enligt skollagen och diskrimineringslagen ska alla behandlas lika oavsett kön eller sexuell läggning. För att förhindra att elever utsätts för kränkningar behöver normkritiskt hbtq-arbete genomföras under ledning av rektor och i samverkan med samtlig skolpersonal. Skolsköterskan kan arbeta med hbtq-relaterade frågor för att stärka skyddsfaktorer och förebygga ohälsa hos hbtq-personer. Flera skolor i Sverige har genomfört hbtq-certifieringsutbildning men forskning saknas om skolsköterskors erfarenheter av utbildningen. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka skolsköterskors erfarenheter av hbtq-certifiering. Metod: Datainsamling genomfördes genom intervjuer med sju skolsköterskor. I studien användes en kvalitativ metod med induktiv ansats, data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Tre kategorier framkom; Organisatoriska faktorer, Skolsköterskans hbtq-arbete samt Betydelsen av värdegrundsarbete i skolan. Slutsats: Studiens resultat påvisar att organisatoriska hinder föreligger för implementering av hbtq-arbete. En förutsättning för framgångsrika effekter av hbtq-certifiering är att samtlig skolpersonal under ledning av rektor är insatta i hbtq-arbete. Vidare framkommer utmaningar med hbtq-arbete med vårdnadshavare och elever i mångkulturella miljöer. / Background: Young LGBTQ persons experience more discrimination and poorer health than other young people. The school offers an important arena for an including and health-promoting setting. According to The Swedish Education act and The Swedish Discrimination act everybody should be treated equally regardless of gender and sexual orientation. To prevent that students get subjected to degrading treatment LGBTQ-affirming work with a norm-critical perspective can be organized by the head teacher and the rest of the school staff. School nurses can work with LGBTQ issues to promote protective factors and prevent illness in LGBTQ individuals. Several schools in Sweden are LGBTQ-certified but there is a lack of research about school nurses´ experiences of the education. Aim: The purpose of the study was to investigate school nurses´ experiences of LGBTQ certification. Method: Datacollection was conducted using interviews with seven school nurses. In the study a qualitative method with an inductive approach was used, the data was analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in three categories; Organizational factors, School nurses´ LGBTQ work and The importance of fundamental values in schools. Conclusion: The result of the study shows that organizational obstacles counteracts the implementation of LGBTQ work. A prerequisite for successful effects of LGBTQ certification is that all school staff lead by the head teacher are well informed about LGBTQ issues. Furthermore, the result reveals challenges with LGBTQ work with legal guardians and students in multicultural settings.

This paper explores the workshop as a tool to raise awareness about unconscious gender bias in AI voice assistants. To answer the research question of how tools can develop a norm-critical understanding of gender biases and stereotypes in AI voice assistants, a workshop was conducted. The workshop was executed with Computer Science students focusing on their perception towards voice assistants, different gendered voices, including a genderless voice, and the connection between biases and stereotypes within norms created by society. The results showed that the characteristics that students associated with female and male voices reflect earlier studies and are consistent with societal gender standards. Despite having people from many cultural origins, this demonstrates how deeply the common concept of gender norms are rooted. Participants were forced to confront their own underlying prejudiced thinking by pushing them to play extreme stereotypes, ask critical questions, and participate in a collaborative conversation. During the conversation, the students began to consider the origins of gender norms in society. After hearing a female, male, and genderless voice, all of the participants favored the female one, indicating that the genderless voice still need tweaking and improvement to meet market demands. Essentially, using a norm critical approach, the workshop forced unconscious biases to become conscious, spoken about, and collaboratively discussed. The students left the workshop feeling more aware and resolved to reflect on their unconscious gender thinking, according to the results of the reflective survey.

Background: For an organization to grow, it is important that projects are completed timely with good quality. This requires that projects are managed successfully. Attributes of project managers, sub-project managers and team leaders help them to steer the projects in the right direction. By using these attributes, project managers and sub-project managers, lead the team and direct them towards final goal. The traditional working style was that team members are located at the same physical location which helps them to interact and have face to face meetings. COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies to change their working style to remote working. As a result of this, companies are now shifting towards new norm by giving flexibility to their employees of working from home even when the COVID-19 pandemic is over. The impact of new norm on the management of project team is investigated in this thesis. Trust as a characteristics of project manager is studied to see its impact on management of project teams in the setting of ‘new norm’. Despite being a vital component for project success, little is known about factors affecting trust within the technical industry in general and electrical power industry in particular.  Objectives: The main objective of the thesis is to explore how the new norm has impacted the management of project teams within electrical power industry. Further on, the study aims to determine the factors affecting trust within electrical power industry.   Methodology: Qualitative research method using semi-structured interviews is used to gather the empirical data for answering the research questions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with project managers, sub-project managers, and design leads working in one of the companies within electrical power industry. The data was further analyzed and categorized into different codes and themes. Results: Using qualitative data analysis, the findings demonstrate how new norm has impacted the management of project teams. The findings also show the challenges that project managers, sub-project managers, and team leads have faced because of the change in working style. The analysis also revealed that factors such as open communication, competence, reliable behavior etc. are vital for building trust within project team. Conclusions: Our study shows that in new way of working, there is a need to tailor the way project managers are managing their project teams. The project managers had to call for extra meetings both individually and collectively to keep track of the progress and maintain a working relationship with team members. The amount of effort required to manage the team has increased while working in the new norm. Team members are relying more on the IT system compared to the face-to-face discussion before COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from the challenges, one advantage with the online meetings is that the number of travels has reduced which has saved a lot of time and money.  Trust is identified as a key component for the project success within electrical power industry. Competence, open communication, reliable behaviour, sincerity, project milestone, and integrity were identified as key factors which affect trust. Of all these factors, open communication was rated as the most important component for building trust among team members.

The purpose of this study was to investigate preliminary psychometric normative data of an English dynamic assessment of narrative language for a group of diverse school-age students with and without language disorder. This study included 364 diverse students with and without language disorder ranging from kindergarten through 6th grade. Students were confirmed as having a language disorder if they had an existing active IEP for language, and scores below a certain cutoff point on a nonword repetition (NWR) task and the narrative language measure (NLM). English language proficiency was investigated, and students were classified as being a dual language learner (DLL) based on student, teacher, or parent report of diverse home language, and poor performance on an English narrative language assessment. Participants were administered a nonword repetition task (NWR), the Narrative Language Measure (NLM), and the Dynamic Assessment of Oral Narrative Discourse (the DYMOND). Data were analyzed within groups of typically developing students and students with a language disorder to identify statistically different mean modifiability and posttest scores given various demographic factors. Results of this study indicate that modifiability and posttest scores for typically developing students were not found to be statistically different given gender or school location, however, significant differences were noted given grade and level of English proficiency or DLL status. The group of students with a disorder demonstrated no statistically different mean modifiability scores given any demographic factor. Students with a language disorder demonstrated significantly different mean posttest scores given school location and English proficiency and DLL status. Results from this study are consistent with previous dynamic assessment research in demonstrating excellent classification accuracy in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations. Students may benefit from a norm-referenced dynamic assessment of narrative language in order to provide less-biased standardized forms of assessment for CLD populations.

Denna studie grundar sig i sex förskollärares upplevelser kring jämställdhet och genus i förskolan. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur förskollärare arbetar kring normer om kön. Målsättningen är att jämföra och få förståelse för hur förskollärare och förskolor arbetar för att alla barn ska få samma möjligheter, oavsett kön Vi har använt oss av semistrukturerade intervjuer tillsammans med tre förskollärare på en mindre ort och tre förskollärare på en större ort, båda i södra Sverige. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån tre strategier om genusarbete i förskolan; könsneutral pedagogik, kompensatorisk pedagogik och komplicerande genuspedagogik. Resultatet visar att förskollärare idag inte använder sig av enbart en strategi i arbetet med genus och normkritik. Olika strategier används i olika situationer. Den könsneutrala pedagogiken används främst i frågor om den pedagogiska miljön. Den kompensatoriska pedagogiken används främst i syfte att utmana barnen. Resultatet visar att förskollärares tankar och arbetssätt främst går i linje med den komplicerande genuspedagogiken. De menar att barnet ska ses som en individ och att mindre fokus ska ligga på om barnet är en pojke eller flicka.

Under det självständiga arbetet på grundnivå synliggjordes en dominans av den enspråkiga normen i undervisningen. För att utforska normens fortsatta existens syftar den här studien till att undersöka F-3 lärares inställning till flerspråkiga elevers modersmålsanvändning i svenskundervisningen. Arbetet grundar sig i tidigare forskning och teoretiska begrepp som rör flerspråkiga elevers andraspråksutveckling. För att kunna besvara studiens forskningsfrågor har kvalitativa intervjuer använts vid datainsamlingen. Undersökningen bygger på sju semistrukturerade intervjuer med verksamma lärare och materialet har analyserats med hjälp av tematisk analys. Resultatet visar att lärare har en positiv attityd gentemot elevers modersmål och merparten besitter kunskaper om modersmålets betydelse för andraspråksutvecklingen. Dock är det sällan elever får möjlighet att använda sitt modersmål i svenskundervisningen. Slutligen diskuteras och problematiseras resultatet i relation till den tidigare presenterade forskningen och lärare uppmanas att vara kreativa i förhållande till användningen av olika språk i undervisningen.

EU’s international role as a normative power can be questioned as the current foreign policy of the Eastern Partnership implies a limit to the union’s ability to democratize. An alignment with EU norms is often seen through a dichotomy of compliance or non-compliance, overlooking other forms of resistance stemming from a nexus of international compliance pressure, and defiance pressure from hybrid regime structures. This applies to Georgia, a pro-EU country in the Eastern Partnership, committed to EU norms while maintaining a skewed playing field in favor of incumbents. Through the application of a theoretical framework developed in memory studies, a range of rhetorical adaptation strategies employed by the ruling party regarding electoral reforms delineates a norm navigation. A qualitative content analysis of statements and events relating to the long-contested electoral system during 2015-2019 shows a variation of strategies used, pointing in a direction of increased pressure to align with prescribed EU norms. Whether EU or domestic political forces can be credited is difficult to determine, yet the nuances of norm resistance are important to analytically separate from overarching labels, as states’ rhetorical commitments need a critical perspective to better understand the limits to EU’s normative power in the Eastern Partnership.