New ways to deal with the drug problem seems to be emerging in western countries. Sweden, however, holds on to its strict zero-tolerance approach. Within a historical perspective, this thesis aims at understanding how the Swedish drug model has developed in this direction and remained so, even in face of changes in the international arena in the form of harm reduction measures, decriminalization of consumption and legalization of light drugs. Through a discourse analysis of the drug politics debate in the two leading Swedish Newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, I argue that the discourses produced in such media vehicles allow for an interpretation of the material in terms of Bourdieu’s concept of field and Foucault’s concept of discourse. The dominant players in the field defend the goal of a drug-free society by using different types of discourses, such as those that conflate the war on drugs with a defense of the nation.  Although the legitimacy of their non-medical discourse is being challenged by those who want to redefine the issue of drugs in medical terms, the dominant players’ discourse still has the power to justify their dominant positions in the field.

Tidigare forskning visar att omklädningsrummen i skolan är en problematisk miljö utifrån faktorer som bland andra sexuell läggning, kränkningar, föreställningar om den manliga och kvinnliga kroppen. Studiens syfte var att ta reda på hur elever i årskurs 9 upplevde omklädningsrummen och hur de påverkade deras upplevelser av den efterföljande lektionen. I den komparativa studien medverkade 230 elever, varav 109 pojkar, 116 flickor och 5 elever med annan könslig identitet. Data samlades in genom en anonym, digital enkät. Bourdieus teori om habitus, kapital och fält användes för att skapa förståelse för resultatet. Resultatet visade att omklädningsrummen ansågs som en neutral miljö för de flesta eleverna men det fanns problemområden. Elever med annan könslig identitet deltog inte i undervisningen på grund av sin könsliga identitet och sexuella läggning. Flickor upplevde omklädningsrummen som problematiskt utifrån föreställningarna om kvinnliga kroppar. Flickor valde att inte delta för att de inte vill duscha i samband med undervisningen. Eleverna i studien ansåg att omklädningsrummen skulle bli bättre om det var städat och fräscht. Pojkar hade en mer positiv känsla i omklädningsrummen vilket oftare medgav en positiv känsla in i undervisningen. Studien visade att omklädningsrummen och arenan för lektionstillfällen sågs som två separata fält, oberoende av varandra.

This research compares and contrasts the life histories of eleven Bahraini Muslim women, aged between twenty five and fifty, who are educationally ‘successful’, defined as having one or more university degree. It analyzes their educational experiences to see if theories of social reproduction apply to their lives. To this end, the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of cultural capital in its institutionalized, objectified and embodied states are applied, where possible, to the women’s life histories, in particular their educational experiences and related areas. This work shows that embodied cultural capital plays a part in the educational success of the women involved in this study, regardless of social class. For some of the women, institutionalized and objectified cultural capital also played a part and the women who possess these tend to come from more affluent families. It also appears that significant others and critical incidents influence their educational successes. Significant others are those people who have encouraged them educationally in different ways: critical incidents include such things as government scholarships for university degree courses within Bahrain and abroad. Having these things may help other Bahraini Muslim women achieve educational ‘success’. Additionally, the women’s innate ability, their ability to juggle their many life projects and roles, other forms of capital (especially economic capital), their marital status, religious obligations and their culture, all influence their educational choices.

This Master’s thesis explores the staff responsible for children’s culture in the south of Sweden, in north-east Scania. This thesis seeks to answer the following questions: What kind of culture is offered to children in their spare time? Can children influence culture in the investigated region, and do the people in charge listen to the children’s ideas? How are children in the region informed about cultural events? In my research I used enquiries and worked with the investigation program Query & Report to collect the material. The study consists of the staff, i.e. six people responsible for the children’s culture. As my theoretical framework I used the work of Pierre Bourdieu who made many successful studies about people and culture. I also compared the results in my study to the literature and earlier studies on the subject of children’s culture, presented in the study. It’s my thesis that children have a right to culture and to influence its selection. Obviously not everyone chooses to practise that right. There is a difference between children with an interest in culture and those who don’t have one. The staff responsible for children’s culture tries in their work to reach as many children as possible. In their work they collaborate with schools, libraries, children and youth groups with the intention to provide a variety of cultural options in the region. I found that the library has an important role, because they offer free literature and culture for everyone in the society. I also found that the staff responsible for children’s culture in north- east of Scania try to reach the children using co-workers’. Together they provide for the culture regarding children and create possibilities for children to attend to culture both in school and on the youth’s spare time. / Uppsatsnivå: D

This thesis draws on a Bourdieusian perspective to explore the organisational mechanisms and dynamics in Palestinian politically motivated social movement. The consequent body of literature often lacks an integrated comprehension of Bourdieusian theory, and his three main concepts: field, habitus, and capital. Little has been understood about Bourdieu’s concepts in social movement context to understand the activists’ behaviours, practices, and practical reasoning in structuring their choices and practices. Being inspired by Bourdieu, the researcher relationally analyses and bridges between different subjectivist and objectivist perspectives on social structures and agents’ practices through employing the relational tool-kit of Bourdieu. To further understand the dynamics, mechanisms, and interorganisational and intraorganisational relations in social movements, an interpretive approach was used to gather context-rich data from ordinary activists, core activists and organisers. Findings showed that fields of practices, both external and internal, have specific doxa and species of capital, which shape the rules of the game inside this field, and its relationship with other fields. Data collected found that the ‘state field’ enjoys the most dominant doxa in the Palestinian context, which is deployed to legitimise the oppression of the politically-motivated youth movements that were studied. The external and internal fields’ doxa have a crucial influence on agents’ early socialisation, forms of capital, and field’s positioning. This variation and difference between the activists’ habitus caused multiple modes of domination and conflictual dynamics inside the movement itself in relation to features such as political credibility, recruiting parochialism, ideological conflicts, and repertoires of contention. This study contributes to a more dynamic understanding of the habitus as an open mediating concept and a reflexive space which transforms the activists’ behaviours and actions in some incidents. The findings have implications for social movement practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders such as activism groups and bodies, pressure groups, unions, and human rights and civil society associations. It is suggested that future research examining politically-motivated social movements should consider ethnographic methods to capture multiple observational data and contextual findings. In addition, it is suggested further examine habitus mechanisms in reproduction, change and transformation times.

This thesis explores the two year transition period leading towards the end of compulsory schooling. It asks how young people who live in disadvantaged locations make career related choices, and is concerned with why such people often do not choose in ways that are advantageous to them. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of how young people's career related decision-making is shaped, this study uses an approach that is both theoretically engaged and young person focused. Thirteen young people took part in the research over two years; interviews utilised visual research and analysis methods to engage with the experiences of these young people towards the end of their time studying at a secondary school in the North West of England. Data is analysed using a conceptual framework that incorporates selected 'thinking tools' from Bourdieu (1977) to explore the structural influences shaping career ideas that are typical for this group (i.e. 'field', 'habitus', 'social capital' and 'cultural capital'). The concept of reflexivity is also used to consider the presence of and potential for these young people to exercise agency within the structurally embedded context in which they are situated. The study demonstrates the ways in which the career ideas of these young people are heavily shaped by the environment they inhabit and, therefore, typically reproduce the existing, limited range of occupations already prevalent within the community. The social networks participants engage with when contemplating their ideas are critical in this process of reproduction since they mediate transference of cultural capital to the habitus. Such networks tend to be insular and made up of close family and friends. However, there is also evidence that reflexivity within this context is possible, and this can be vital in promoting social mobility - but this requires the creation of spaces where young people can reflect and discuss their experiences and options with actors who are genuinely seen as trustworthy (I argue that this occurred for some participants through this research process). Finally, the study concludes that although reflexivity is atypical for students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, in certain circumstances it shows the potential to be transformative.

Since the Children and Families Act 2014, young people and parents appear (on paper) to have a bigger role than ever in negotiating Special Educational Needs provision for themselves/their children. However, recent studies have suggested this is not necessarily the case (Craston et al, 2013a; 2013b; 2013c), particularly for young people with a hidden impairment, such as dyslexia (Ross, 2013b; 2013c). This current study explored the experiences of dyslexic young people, their parents/carers and their teachers in relation to dyslexia-related support interventions. Over 5 months in 2015, fieldwork was undertaken at Hilltop View School (pseudonym), in a ‘Pathfinder’ Local Authority (The Stationary Office, 2011) in the South-West of England. Young people, parents and carers, and teachers participated in focus group sessions and one-to-one interviews. Lessons were also observed. Participants’ understandings of dyslexia, it’s effect on young people’s self-concept and subsequent ability to negotiate social spaces to secure provision of resources were explored within a framework based on Jenkins’ (2008) ‘levels of interaction’, grounded in a Bourdieusien model of the social world. Through the use of this unique theoretical framework, participants were found to have differing capacities to negotiate their own social space at different ‘levels of interaction’ (Jenkins, 2008). Young people and teachers were found to have the best capacity to navigate their social setting at an ‘interactional level’ (person to person interactions), while parents appeared to have more opportunity to engage at the ‘institutional level’ (person/institution to institution interactions). This study provides an understanding of the experiences of stakeholders within a changing policy framework and provides a new theoretical framework within which to undertake investigations into the experiences of stakeholders in SEND provision.

The central aim of this dissertation is to provide a conceptual framework for people wishing to consider how their desires are shaped by forces often unnoticed by them and how they can regain some degree of control over those desires. To this end, it offers a model for desire that acknowledges the importance of social forces in shaping a person's desire, and consequently moral character. It examines the specific social context of American capitalism, and American consumption, in order to understand how it is that many Americans seem to desire and act in ways that appear contrary to their well-being. This dissertation is a work of descriptive Christian virtue ethics, meaning that it considers the desire for and consumption of material goods in light of a person's commitment to a greater system of beliefs and values. Taking the approach of virtue ethics, it considers how a person's desires are shaped by what she takes to be constitutive of her well-being, or her telos. It argues that many Americans participate in practices that dispose them to acquire habits of desiring, consuming, and enjoying material goods in ways that tend over time to distort participants' abilities to judge and reason well about the ends that are really worth pursuing, both on the part of individuals and on the part of societies. When a person participates in a practice she acquires habits of thinking, feeling, and acting that enable her to engage in such practices effortlessly. A practice is often oriented by certain rules and standards of excellence that orient the practitioners to certain ways of thinking, feeling, and acting over others. Taking advertising as a key example, participants often acquire habits that lead them to accept a conception of well-being that is based on the ideas that growth is always to be pursued and more of a good thing is always better. Such an orientation, in turn, can direct a person's desires so that she becomes disposed to satisfy her immediate desires without seriously considering whether those desires will contribute to her well-being and, more broadly, whether the vision of the good life she has in mind is truly worth pursuing. This dissertation offers a way of engaging in critical reflection that can enable a person to bring to awareness many of these unseen social forces, and consider the ways in which participation in her many practices does or does not contribute to her well-being. It suggests that, for Christians in particular, a vision of the good life might focus on the cultivation of virtue--especially the virtues of temperance and justice. Considering a person's practices in light of virtue can be helpful for articulating clearly and strategizing effectively about how to engage in consumer activity in ways that contribute to her well-being.

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This thesis contributes to discussion surrounding the importance of reflexivity in social theory and sociology by illustrating some of the paradoxes involved in the development of a reflexive social science. It does this by focusing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, arguably the main advocate of relexive sociology. It is argued that Bourdieu's emphasis on a 'science of practices' limits his ability to be completely relexive because it excludes moral reflexivity. This is ironic, given that Bourdieu believes that reflexivity increases scientificity. The thesis argues that Max Weber's work on religious rationalisation offers an insightful understanding of these paradoxes. His work reveals how and why Modernity witnessed a separation and tension between moral reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity. It also reveals, despite Weber's best efforts to do so, that such a paradoxical tension cannot be overcome. The thesis uses these insights to show the dilemmas and tensions facing any relexive sociology / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)