<p>In Stockholm there are currently five women, out of a total of 102 employees, working in public sports arenas. In sports arenas men are numerically superior amongst the workers as well as the visitors. These arenas are in many ways male dominated, masculinized environments. In this essay I investigate the reasons behind the uneven distribution, in terms of gender, among sports arena workers. I do this by interviewing seven female sports arena workers (the five current and two former), and by observing their workplaces. Through discourse analysis of their narratives, I seek to use these women’s experiences, as being part of a minority, as a way to render sports arenas more available for a larger public. In the study I have a feminist, post-structural standpoint, and I relate my results to theories on gender and organization as well as research on gender and sports. From a doing gender perspective<em> </em>I focus on how the women that I have interviewed talk about themselves, their workplaces and their choices of profession, as well as how they talk about gender and gender equality.</p><p>The aim of this study is to present these women’s perspectives on sports arenas as organizations, and to draw links between these particular workplaces and larger social discursive patterns. Another aim with the study is to problematize the very effort to achieve (numerical) equality between the sexes, and to uncover underlying biases. Except for gender biases I also consider intersections between gender and age, social class and sexuality. One of my main findings is that there are quite specific discourses surrounding this profession, reproducing it as masculine. An equalization of the distribution in terms of gender among the employees is not necessarily the entire solution to the inequality problem. A more qualitative effort is needed, for instance a redistribution of power resources within the organization. In the essay I present a list of concrete proposals on how to diversify the personnel in the future, based on the interviews. The main goal with this work is to destabilize the gender based gap in the Swedish labor market, and to increase the availability to all spheres in society, for everyone, on equal terms.</p>

In Stockholm there are currently five women, out of a total of 102 employees, working in public sports arenas. In sports arenas men are numerically superior amongst the workers as well as the visitors. These arenas are in many ways male dominated, masculinized environments. In this essay I investigate the reasons behind the uneven distribution, in terms of gender, among sports arena workers. I do this by interviewing seven female sports arena workers (the five current and two former), and by observing their workplaces. Through discourse analysis of their narratives, I seek to use these women’s experiences, as being part of a minority, as a way to render sports arenas more available for a larger public. In the study I have a feminist, post-structural standpoint, and I relate my results to theories on gender and organization as well as research on gender and sports. From a doing gender perspective I focus on how the women that I have interviewed talk about themselves, their workplaces and their choices of profession, as well as how they talk about gender and gender equality. The aim of this study is to present these women’s perspectives on sports arenas as organizations, and to draw links between these particular workplaces and larger social discursive patterns. Another aim with the study is to problematize the very effort to achieve (numerical) equality between the sexes, and to uncover underlying biases. Except for gender biases I also consider intersections between gender and age, social class and sexuality. One of my main findings is that there are quite specific discourses surrounding this profession, reproducing it as masculine. An equalization of the distribution in terms of gender among the employees is not necessarily the entire solution to the inequality problem. A more qualitative effort is needed, for instance a redistribution of power resources within the organization. In the essay I present a list of concrete proposals on how to diversify the personnel in the future, based on the interviews. The main goal with this work is to destabilize the gender based gap in the Swedish labor market, and to increase the availability to all spheres in society, for everyone, on equal terms.

Detta examensarbete är en kvalitativ studie vars syfte är att beskriva och förstå hur könsfördelningen ser ut i grundskolan i musikundervisningen utifrån fyra olika musiklärares perspektiv. Studiens syfte är att undersöka genusmönster i musik undervisningen och hur lärare förhåller sig till genusmönster och om hur lärare arbetar med stereotypiska könsfördelningar. Bakgrundsavsnittet, som är baserat på tidigare forskning i form av avhandlingar, skolans läroplan och annan litteratur, framkommer det att pojkar tar mera plats i klassrummen och dras gärna mer mot trummor och gitarr medan flickor är mer försiktiga och tar det som blir över eller väljer endera sång eller piano. Enligt forskningen kunde man konstatera att instrument och sång är könskodade. I metodavsnittet presenteras det att studiens resultat är baserat på kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra musiklärare som analyserats med kvalitativ innehållsanalys som metod. Studiens resultat visar att informanterna som arbetar som aktiva musiklärare generellt ser en skillnad på könen i form av dragning till olika instrument i högstadiet men att skillnader inte är stora i tidigare årskurser. Resultatet tar även upp hur informanterna arbetar med genus och hur de ser på skillnader och likheter i klassrummet / This thesis has been done at the department of education at Umeå university. The study’s aim is to explore and understand how the gender distribution in junior high school in music education look like from the perspective of four different music teachers. The purpose of the study is to study the awareness of stereotypical distributions in music and music education, how teachers work with stereotypical gender distributions and what development opportunities there are. The background section, which is based on previous research in the form of dissertations, the school curriculumand other litterature, shows that boys take more space in the classrooms and are more likely to be drawn to drums and guitars while girls are more cautious and take what is left or they choose either vocals or piano. In the method section it is presented that the study's results are based on qualitative interviews with four active music teachers who have been analyzed with qualitative content analysis as a method. The study's results show that the informants who work as active music teachers generally see a difference in the sex in the form of attraction to different instruments in high school, but that differences are not seen in previous grades. The result also addresses how informants work with gender awareness and how they view differences and similarities in the classroom

No description available.

In this study I apply social constructionism as propounded by Vivian Burr (1998) to show that although J. K. Rowling uses stereotypes in the Harry Potter series as a reflection of how gender is constructed across a wide range of societal institutions in contemporary Britain, she created complex characters who on an individual level subvert social constructs and thereby offers her readers alternatives to culturally defined concepts of gender. I explore the all-pervasive social phenomenon of gender and examine how it is constructed in present-day Britain and reflected in the series (bearing in mind that the first book was published in 1997 and the last one in 2007). My analysis of female and male characters in the books, and their interpersonal relationships, shows that Rowling's often tricky portrayal of femininities and masculinities gives us an honest view of teenagers’ lives and contemporary gender relations in an ever-changing, complex world. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

In this study I apply social constructionism as propounded by Vivian Burr (1998) to show that although J. K. Rowling uses stereotypes in the Harry Potter series as a reflection of how gender is constructed across a wide range of societal institutions in contemporary Britain, she created complex characters who on an individual level subvert social constructs and thereby offers her readers alternatives to culturally defined concepts of gender. I explore the all-pervasive social phenomenon of gender and examine how it is constructed in present-day Britain and reflected in the series (bearing in mind that the first book was published in 1997 and the last one in 2007). My analysis of female and male characters in the books, and their interpersonal relationships, shows that Rowling's often tricky portrayal of femininities and masculinities gives us an honest view of teenagers’ lives and contemporary gender relations in an ever-changing, complex world. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

I identify and analyse an emergent sub-genre of contemporary literature by women that I am calling ‘New Femininities’ fiction. This fiction is about the distinctly feminine experience of contemporary domestic life written by women about the lives of heterosexual female characters that are married or in committed partnerships, often with children. These texts are concerned with the nature of the self, with a self that is plural and ‘in process’, and make use of particular narrative devices – ironic voice, unreliable narration, free indirect discourse, and interrogative endings that exceed their roles as simply telling stories. ‘New Femininities’ fictions allow their language the necessary freedom to multiply meanings and enact the narrative conflicts they raise and by so doing, undermine the binary oppositions which structure a gendered world. In this dissertation, I argue the models of existing criticism would do a disservice to these texts because much of the criticism either overvalues the theoretical and ignores the literariness of the text or seeks to identify a ‘feminine’ language the definition of which serves to reinforce and revalue patriarchal notions of femininity. The readings that this fiction requires necessitate a negotiation with established models of feminist literary criticism. I attempt to identify the characteristics of their style that allows them to straddle binary oppositions and to look at the language these authors use without having to label it ‘feminine’ and by so doing establish, build, or reinforce a boundary with some undefined ‘masculine’ language which stands in for all occurrences that are not ‘feminine’. Additionally, I attempt to forge a transformed, adapted concept vocabulary for dealing with this group of writers. To this end, I make use of various discourses to show how the different authors either negotiate with that discourse or prove its inadequacy to describe or explain these new femininities.

This study aimed to explore how gender is constructed, negotiated and enacted in the customary practice of lobolo. Lobolo, sometimes incorrectly referred to as bridewealth or dowry is a practice that centres around the transference of wealth from the groom or a groom’s family to the bride’s family towards the formalisation of marriage. Framed within an African-centred feminist approach I analyse, through narrative discursive analysis, how 27 men and women ages 27 -71, from Johannesburg and Cape Town account for gender and power dynamics in their narratives of participating in lobolo. The African-centred feminist approach I employ critically engages with historical as well as present-day reproductions of patriarchy, capitalism, heteronormativity and other mechanisms of exclusion that are perpetuated through the cultural practice of lobolo. I show how masculinities and femininities are constituted, negotiated and disputed in the narratives of men and women who have participated in lobolo. By employing an African-centered feminist approach I show how gendered dynamics within the practice are shaped by historical and contemporary social, political and economic factors which enable and constrain the exercise of power in various ways. By exploring lobolo through an African-centered feminist narrative approach I demonstrate how the process is more than simply a transference of wealth but rather a complex practice that is used as an apparatus to exercise and expand power in the different stages of the lobolo process. Within this African-centered feminist approach, I argue that lobolo functions to legitimise particular gender positions that can be adopted through marriage; but it can also be used to challenge and contest these roles. The findings of this study suggested that the different stages and process of lobolo reflect a gendered script, which determines the position that men and women are able to adopt, and that this script sets the parameters for the ways in which these roles may be enacted. I find also that the meanings and descriptions of lobolo are embedded within, and reproduce gendered identities but that these identities are not fixed but rather are constantly renegotiated. I conclude that lobolo is not only a custom for formalising marriages but also a tool used by men and women to perform a range of sometimes contradictory functions, including at times establishing and strengthening hegemonic masculinities and femininities but at other times challenging and dismantling these. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Psychology)