Notwithstanding the prominent focus on inclusion in the discourse of special education, students with significant intellectual disabilities in North America continue to receive a part of their education in segregated contexts (G. L. Porter, 2008; Schwartz, Mactavish & Lutfiyya, 2006; P. Smith, 2010). This situation creates an interesting and perplexing anomaly that I attempt to reconcile through an examination of the discursive conceptualizations of these students in Canadian introductory special education textbooks. My study is framed within (a) the academic field of disability studies, which re-imagines disability using new perspectives (Linton, 1998; Oliver, 1996), and (b) new philosophical concepts of “personhood”, which critique traditional definitions of personhood based on intellectual ability (Carlson, 2010; Carlson & Kittay, 2009; Nussbaum, 2006). Situated within social constructionism and discourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001), this analysis examines how students with significant intellectual disabilities are depicted in these textbooks. The language used in portraying these students suggests a discourse of individual pathology, medicalization and professionalization, distancing students with significant intellectual disabilities from other students because of their perceived lack of abilities, needs and behaviours. This discourse relies heavily on traditional understandings of people with significant intellectual disabilities as lacking in value. There is little discursive evidence to suggest that these students are presented in ways that challenge either historical or modern conceptualizations.

Notwithstanding the prominent focus on inclusion in the discourse of special education, students with significant intellectual disabilities in North America continue to receive a part of their education in segregated contexts (G. L. Porter, 2008; Schwartz, Mactavish & Lutfiyya, 2006; P. Smith, 2010). This situation creates an interesting and perplexing anomaly that I attempt to reconcile through an examination of the discursive conceptualizations of these students in Canadian introductory special education textbooks. My study is framed within (a) the academic field of disability studies, which re-imagines disability using new perspectives (Linton, 1998; Oliver, 1996), and (b) new philosophical concepts of “personhood”, which critique traditional definitions of personhood based on intellectual ability (Carlson, 2010; Carlson & Kittay, 2009; Nussbaum, 2006). Situated within social constructionism and discourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001), this analysis examines how students with significant intellectual disabilities are depicted in these textbooks. The language used in portraying these students suggests a discourse of individual pathology, medicalization and professionalization, distancing students with significant intellectual disabilities from other students because of their perceived lack of abilities, needs and behaviours. This discourse relies heavily on traditional understandings of people with significant intellectual disabilities as lacking in value. There is little discursive evidence to suggest that these students are presented in ways that challenge either historical or modern conceptualizations.

This thesis, titled A for Effort, examines how three organizations that are granted state funding by the Swedish Gender Equality Agency understand the concept of intersectionality. The understandings are put in relation to previous understandings of the concept, for example the feminist debate of its advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the analysis is conducted through discourse theory and Carol Bacchi's WPR-approach that together are applied as a critical eye to how intersectionality is represented in the texts of the organizations. The study finds that while intersectionality is understood as a way to inclusion, the understandings are also constructing divisions.

The aim of this study is to examine how politicians use language and communication strategies when discussing gang crime in the media. Through an ethnological approach, this study aims to delve into the narratives constructed by political figures about gang crime in media representations. By analyzing how different political actors articulate their opinions and select specific terms, the study seeks to shed light on the political perspectives and the overarching discourse on the topic. By exploring questions such as how politicians communicate about gang crime and the terminology they employ, the study aims to enhance our understanding of how language in the media can influence perceptions and discussions about gang crime.

Denna uppsats, ”Vilket utrymme för nyandlighet finns inom Svenska kyrkan – En kvalitativ diskursiv läsning av debatten rörande nyandlighet i Kyrkans tidning”, har som syfte att synliggöra den eller de diskurser som är framträdande rörande nyandlighet inom Svenska kyrkan samt hur bilden av nyandlighet konstrueras av Svenska kyrkan. Detta görs genom en närläsning av artiklar vilka berör ämnet nyandlighet i Kyrkans tidning under åren 2014–2015. Materialet analyseras med en diskursteoretisk ansats utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Resultatet påvisar tre stycken framträdande diskurser rörande nyandlighet inom Svenska kyrkan. Analysen av materialet belyser även hur den antagonism, som uppsatsen hävdar råder inom den svensk-kyrkliga diskursen, påverkar Svenska kyrkans framtid som samfund. Detta genom jämförelse med annan forskning inom fältet. / This essay, “What space is there for alternative spirituality in the Church of Sweden?” has as its purpose to discover the discourse or discourses that is to be found regarding spirituality within the Church of Sweden. Also to analyse how the picture of spirituality is created within the Church of Sweden. This will be done through a qualitative reading of articles published during the years 2014–2015 with connection to the topic spirituality in the magazine Kyrkans tidning (The church’s newspaper). The material will be analysed using discourse theory with a social constructivism perspective. The result of the analysis points out three main discourses regarding spirituality within the Church of Sweden. The analysis also puts light on how the apparent antagonism affects the future of the congregation. This through comparing the essays result with other studies in the field.

This study aims to address the longstanding questions surrounding the consistently low levels of support articulated towards the European Union (EU)by British citizens. Existing studies highlight that political identities are closely related to the levels of support citizens across the EU express for the process of European integration. Citizens who define their identity in exclusively national terms tend also to oppose the process of European integration and their country’s participation in this process. Present studies, however, fail to provide an adequate account of the emergence of exclusively national identities and their prevalence in member-states such as the UK. The citizens of the UK have expressed consistently low levels of support for the process of European integration and for British membership of what is now the EU, since Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) over 30 years ago. Similarly, the UK has one of the highest proportions of citizens who define their identity in exclusively national terms of any EU memberstate. The argument presented in this thesis is that the low levels of support for the EU and the prevalence of exclusively national identity constructions amongst UK citizens must be understood in the context of British discourses about the EU. I employ the conception of subjectivity developed by post-structuralist discourse theory in order to examine the emergence of an exclusively national form of British identity within media debates on the EU treaty reform process. Discourse theory offers a set of concepts and logics through which it is possible to investigate the structure of eurosceptic discourses. Furthermore, drawing on the insights from Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is able to account also for the strength and longevity of these constructions of national identity. This thesis identifies a eurosceptic discourse of British national identity characterised by an underlying logic of nationalism, according to which nations are seen as natural political communities and the nation-state the most logical unit of political organisation. This is evident not only in debates about the powers of the EU, but also in the relationship constructed between the UK and other member-states in the EU. In addition, the EU is itself constructed as a quasi-state and functions in these discourses as the ‘other’ against which Britain is defined. The former is seen as a hostile, foreign power bent on assuming ever greater control over the UK. These constructions of Britain and the EU feed into fantasmatic constructions of subjugation and oppression, which help account for the strength and resilience of eurosceptic discourses. The final part of the thesis examines the pro-European voices in the British media. However, it is not possible to discern a coherent pro-European discourse in the same way in which it is possible to identify the eurosceptic discourse. I outline the extent to which these pro-European voices challenge the predominant eurosceptic discourse, and offer alternative constructions of Britain’s relationship with the EU which may form the basis of more inclusive identity constructions.

This thesis explores the political struggles that followed after the appearance of irregular migrants in Sweden. The analysis starts from the assumption that the group’s precarious circumstances of living disrupted the understanding of Sweden as an inclusive society and shed light on the limits of the welfare state’s inclusionary ambitions. The overarching analytical point of entry is accordingly that the appearance of irregular migrants constitutes an opening for contestation of the demarcation of the welfare state. The analysis draws on two strands of theory to explore this opening. Citizenship theory, first, provides insights about the contradictory logics of the welfare state, i.e. the fact that it rests on norms of equality and inclusion at the same time as it is premised on a fundamental exclusion of non-members. Discourse theory, furthermore, is brought in to make sense of the potential for contestation. The study approaches these struggles over demarcation through an analysis of the debates and claims-making that took place in the Swedish parliament between 1999 and 2014. The focal point of the analysis is the efforts to make sense of and respond to the predicament of the group. The study shows that efforts to secure rights and inclusion for the group revolved around two demands. The first demand, regularisation, aimed to secure rights for irregular migrants through status, i.e. through the granting of residence permits, whereas the second demand, access to social rights, aimed to secure rights through turning the group into right-bearers in the welfare state. The thesis concludes that the debates and claims-making during the 2000s resulted in a small, but significant, shift in policy. In 2013, new legislation was adopted that granted irregular migrants access to schooling and health- and medical care. I argue that this was an effect of successful campaigning that managed to establish these particular rights as human rights, and as such, rights that should be provided to all residents regardless of legal status. Overall, however, I conclude that there has been an absence of more radical contestation of the citizenship order, and of accompanying notions of rights and entitlement, in the debates studied.

Uppsatsens syfte är att genom diskursanalys identifiera hur begreppet “partnerskap” tillskrivs mening genom olika diskurser inom ramen för hållbar global utveckling, med särskilt fokus på privatoffentliga partnerskap (POP). Genom att tillämpa diskursiva begrepp från Laclau och Mouffes diskursteori har tre huvudsakliga diskurser och tillhörande nodalpunkter identifierats: globalisering, governance och solidaritet. Dessa olika men delvis överlappande diskurser tillskriver olika meningar till partnerskapsbegreppet, likväl som olika roller och identiteter till privat respektive offentlig sektor. Partnerskap är konstruerat som en nödvändighet för att lösa globala problem, en ideal samverkansform för hållbar utveckling samt som ett uttryck för global solidaritet. Vidare framkommer att privat sektor tillskrivs en mer aktiv roll, medan offentlig sektor ges en mer passiv och stöttande roll. / By applying discourse analysis, the purpose of this essay is to identify how different meanings are assigned to the term “partnership” through competing discourses in the context of global Sustainable Development, with special attention devoted to Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). Using concepts from Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, three main discourses and corresponding nodal points have been identified: globalization, governance and solidarity. These different albeit somewhat overlapping discourses apply different meanings to the term partnership, and also attribute different roles and identities to the public and private sector respectively. Partnerships are constructed as a necessity for solving global issues, an ideal form of governance for sustainable development and as a natural expression for global solidarity. Furthermore, the results point towards a more active role appointed to the private sector, whilst public institutions are assigned a more passive and supportive role.

This paper is about how students, specifically those who have become marginalized becauseof neuro psychological divergences, depression and one case of narcolepsy, may, by usingself narration in art and media education, promote agency in order to develop the capability ofself advocating. Children must develop a perspective of themselves within society and itssocial structures in order to participate in the discourses concerning themselves as is theirdemocratic right according to the United Nations Conventions of the Rights of the Child.Educators of art and media are in a position to accommodate the intellectual developmentleading towards a meta perspective, by integrating the autobiographical into the ordinarycurriculum. Learning through storytelling is a method that can be applied in both visual artsand media to this end.The artistic manifestation of this work: seven students who attended Nikeungdom, an alternative high school program which does not lead to a degree, were asked toshare their life stories offering insight into how the autobiographical, narrating the self, can beaccessed and why it can be developmentally meaningful. These stories manifested in anedited audio file in which the students told about their journey through the educational systemand their experiences of performing in ways that do not fit inside “the box”. The audio filewas played as sound graffiti from speakers hidden in a tree outside of Konstfack, theeducational institution I attended. This symbolizes divergent students’ exclusion fromrepresenting themselves within formal institutions. The graffiti, subtle and subversive, is alsomade to be played outside of the Board of Education and the psychological institutions thatare supposed to care for these peoples’ development and wellbeing; their social inclusion. Theinstitutions that are in place to form children’s lives exclude these children’s own voices, theyare not enabled to represent themselves. The fact that there was no audience prepared to takethe time and make the effort to listen to the compilation of stories told by these outsiders wasmeaningful for the work. It was also important that the audio piece was not orchestrated as anextravaganza using showmanship to attract attention. It is the job of the authorities, theinstitutions, the politicians, the teachers and psychologists to listen and hear actively,encouraging social inclusion and self-representation within the governing institutions.

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