Interpersonal violence and abuse in New Zealand is so widespread it is considered a normative experience. Mental health nurses witnessing the inscribed effects of abuse on service users are lead to consider whether we are dealing with a breakdown of the mind or a breakdown in social or cultural connection (Stuhlmiller, 2003). The purpose of this research is to examine the cultural context which makes violence and abuse against women and children possible. In 2003, the public debate on prostitution law reform promised to open a space in which discourses on sexuality and violence, practices usually private or hidden, would publicly emerge. Everyday discourses relating to prostitution law reform reported in the New Zealand Herald newspaper in the year 2003 were analysed using Foucauldian and feminist post-structural methodological approaches. Foucauldian discourse analysis emphasises the ways in which power is enmeshed in discourse, enabling power relations and hegemonic practices to be made visible. The research aims were to develop a complex, comprehensive analysis of the media discourses, to examine the construction of harm in the media debate, to examine the ways in which the cultural hegemony of dominant groups was secured and contested and to consider the role of mental health nurses as agents of emancipatory political change. Mental health promotion is mainly a socio-political practice and the findings suggest that mental health nurses could reconsider their professional role, to participate politically as social activists, challenging the social order thereby reducing the human suffering which interpersonal violence and abuse carries in its wake.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to investigate the discursive construction of school leadership in a gender perspective and the meanings attached to school leadership. Theoretically, I draw on discourse analysis, and feminist poststructuralist theories have been my source of inspiration. Discourse, subjectivity, subject positions and power are key concepts applied to the analysis of the data. Four male and four female school leaders representing eight primary and secondary schools were interviewed. Furthermore, interviews were carried out with two teachers at each of these schools: in total nine female and seven male teachers were interviewed.</p><p>The leaders and teachers talk about leadership in relation to four different arenas, which I have labelled the teachers’, the children’s, the parents’ and the societal arena respectively. Three main positions have been identified for the school leaders: (1) the supporter, (2) the manager and (3) the pedagogical leader. Most of the statements deal with the relation to the teachers, whereas the parents’ arena is not much talked about.</p><p>As for gender, both male and female school leaders construct themselves as leaders in rather similar ways. Both men and women activate the three positions in similar ways. Women do not repeat the supporter position more often than men, and men do not position themselves as managers more frequently than women. This indicates that traditional gender discourses do not govern the school leaders’ talk about school leadership. For the position of pedagogical leader, some gender differences have been distinguished. The men position themselves as pedagogical leaders, whose mission it is to take the lead in pedagogical issues, whilst the women talk about the importance of evaluating and reflecting on their pedagogical leadership. Gender discourses seem to affect the way teachers construct school leadership, as male leaders who act as supporters are sometimes positioned as deviant. Instead, especially female teachers expect their male leader to act as a manager. Furthermore, the female teachers construct female school leaders as supporters to a higher extent than the male teachers.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the discursive construction of school leadership in a gender perspective and the meanings attached to school leadership. Theoretically, I draw on discourse analysis, and feminist poststructuralist theories have been my source of inspiration. Discourse, subjectivity, subject positions and power are key concepts applied to the analysis of the data. Four male and four female school leaders representing eight primary and secondary schools were interviewed. Furthermore, interviews were carried out with two teachers at each of these schools: in total nine female and seven male teachers were interviewed. The leaders and teachers talk about leadership in relation to four different arenas, which I have labelled the teachers’, the children’s, the parents’ and the societal arena respectively. Three main positions have been identified for the school leaders: (1) the supporter, (2) the manager and (3) the pedagogical leader. Most of the statements deal with the relation to the teachers, whereas the parents’ arena is not much talked about. As for gender, both male and female school leaders construct themselves as leaders in rather similar ways. Both men and women activate the three positions in similar ways. Women do not repeat the supporter position more often than men, and men do not position themselves as managers more frequently than women. This indicates that traditional gender discourses do not govern the school leaders’ talk about school leadership. For the position of pedagogical leader, some gender differences have been distinguished. The men position themselves as pedagogical leaders, whose mission it is to take the lead in pedagogical issues, whilst the women talk about the importance of evaluating and reflecting on their pedagogical leadership. Gender discourses seem to affect the way teachers construct school leadership, as male leaders who act as supporters are sometimes positioned as deviant. Instead, especially female teachers expect their male leader to act as a manager. Furthermore, the female teachers construct female school leaders as supporters to a higher extent than the male teachers.

The aim of the dissertation is to highlight how different ideas about gender and gender discourses have created varying conditions for the formation of school leadership in different eras. The empirical material consists of historically documented material in a text-based study and interview material comprising interviews with a total of 18 comprehensive school principals from two interview studies. The period covered by the material is 1830–2006. The theoretical point of departure is post-structural theory formation, where Joan W. Scott’s and Judith Butler’s theoretical line of reasoning constitutes the basis of the dissertation’s gender and discourse analyses. The analyses highlight active gender discourses throughout the history of school leadership and which gender discourses regulate principals’ everyday work in the 21st century, how different gender discourses intervene and gain ground among principals and have significance for which gender and professional positions are possible for today’s principals to adopt and allocate to teachers and students. The dissertation highlights four active gender discourses: the essential sexual difference discourse, the sameness discourse, the difference discourse and a transgressive gender discourse. The results indicate the survival force of the essential sexual difference discourse, where femininity is always subordinate to masculinity. The greatest gender battle has been around femininity. Throughout its history school leadership has mainly been focused on and talked about in terms of female/feminine and male/masculine, but where femininity has always been questioned and subjected to constant definition and redefinition. Thus far in the 21st century the difference discourse’s femininity affirming dimension has been normalised and takes shape in a new and transgressive gender discourse where both femininity and masculinity are available for both female and male principals’ identifications and materialisations. However, at the same time as principals have related to new and transgressive gender ideals in certain situations they defer to the essential sexual difference discourse’s gender stereotyped and hierarchical divisions and expectations. The dissertation shows how the transgressive gender discourse contributes to the dissolution of gender polarity, with optional identities. Parallel with this and contrary to what in terms of gender could be described as the basis for a more democratic and equal school, the dissertation also shows how female principals and female teachers, together with certain groups of girls, sometimes find themselves in continued subordinate and vulnerable positions in accordance with a very old essential sexual difference definition.

The subject of this study is gender norms in the preschool and children who oppose those norms. The aim is to investigate how the discourses are linked with the way in which preschool teachers and teaching assistants talk about children’s gender identity. This study is founded in feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis, which was a basis for the interpretation of the results. My research questions are: • How do educators express themselves concerning gender norms? • What do educators need to work with a gender critical agenda? • How do the educators describe their work concerning gender, gender norms and children who oppose those norms? • For educators who have experience with children who do not identify with the gender they was given at birth, how do educators describe their own treatment of said children, and how would they describe the treatment from the other members of the teaching team? The study consists of qualitative interviews with five educators who were asked questions relevant to: norms, gender, gender criticism and how they work with those topics. I found both positive and negative aspects of gender work in preschool. Generally norms are seen as something you have to adapt to. Sometimes there are collisions between the different approaches from younger and older educators gender work, and sometimes this collision takes place between educators and parents. I found that the educators I interviewed generally want to question the heteronorm, only they sometimes dont realise how affected they are by it themselves.

Den här uppsatsen har till syfte att belysa hur heteronormativitet kan ta sig uttryck i förskolan, och vad några femåringar säger om hur de ser på familjebildning och kärleksrelationer. Undersökningen bygger på intervjuer om familjeformer med åtta femåringar. Intervjuerna genomfördes med utgångspunkt i ett antal bilder föreställande människor i olika familjekonstellationer. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är en normkritisk pedagogik, med rötter i feministisk poststrukturalism och queerteori. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att barnen i studien hade ett starkt heteronormativt sätt att prata om familjebildning. I ljuset av den tidigare forskning som redovisas i uppsatsen, blir det tydligt att förskolans sätt att arbeta med frågor om sexuell läggning inte lever upp till de krav som läroplanen ställer.

Interpersonal violence and abuse in New Zealand is so widespread it is considered a normative experience. Mental health nurses witnessing the inscribed effects of abuse on service users are lead to consider whether we are dealing with a breakdown of the mind or a breakdown in social or cultural connection (Stuhlmiller, 2003). The purpose of this research is to examine the cultural context which makes violence and abuse against women and children possible. In 2003, the public debate on prostitution law reform promised to open a space in which discourses on sexuality and violence, practices usually private or hidden, would publicly emerge. Everyday discourses relating to prostitution law reform reported in the New Zealand Herald newspaper in the year 2003 were analysed using Foucauldian and feminist post-structural methodological approaches. Foucauldian discourse analysis emphasises the ways in which power is enmeshed in discourse, enabling power relations and hegemonic practices to be made visible. The research aims were to develop a complex, comprehensive analysis of the media discourses, to examine the construction of harm in the media debate, to examine the ways in which the cultural hegemony of dominant groups was secured and contested and to consider the role of mental health nurses as agents of emancipatory political change. Mental health promotion is mainly a socio-political practice and the findings suggest that mental health nurses could reconsider their professional role, to participate politically as social activists, challenging the social order thereby reducing the human suffering which interpersonal violence and abuse carries in its wake.

My study examines trauma informed practice (TIP) policies in BC, Canada. My chosen methodology, what is the problem represented to be (WPR) (Bacchi 2009), makes politics visible in policies. I am interested in the effects of trauma policies on women who experience male violence. How does discourse produce certain effects and constitute specific subjects within these texts? I extend a politicized analysis of TIP policies, specifically, an in-depth feminist post structural analysis. I advance an understanding of the effects of policy, particularly for women who have experienced male violence and who receive services under the TIP guidelines. I note the absence of an intersectional analysis and the lack of attention paid to power relations, specifically associated with the provision of care within the health care system, the construction of the traumatized female subject and the absence of a social justice lens in TIP policies. My study addresses the meanings, and resulting practices arising from the TIP policy and its impacts on women's lived experiences. My feminist post structural analysis provides a critique of TIP policies glaringly absent from the literature. I examine available literature, which evaluates TIP. My analysis deepens the understanding of the policy's inherent assumptions by revealing the problem of trauma, as represented in TIP policies. I explore the emergence of the dominant concept of trauma in the completion of a genealogy of trauma. I uncover the commonly accepted trauma ethos, a set of principles and beliefs about violence against women that has set the path for a trauma discourse in BC's guidelines, policies, and programs. I explore my interest in iv the ontology of trauma, the nature of trauma itself and the way of being when trauma has occurred. While exploring this interest through a genealogy of trauma, I identify five historical figures; the traumatized female figure, the assaulted woman figure, the wounded veteran figure, the colonized Indigenous woman figure and the emancipated woman figure. My study explores how women are obscured and invisible in policies intended to address violence against women. I demonstrate that this invisibility results in gender-neutral policies-if there is no gender-based violence- we, therefore, do not have to think of gender-based treatment. The patriarchal erasure of women from trauma policies continually repositions what the problem is represented to be. These policies constitute women as the less valued subjects, fundamentally damaged and flawed. Trauma policies shape women as people who can damage staff; assuming they are a source of trauma infection; they can infect staff with their trauma resulting in vicarious traumatization of staff. Trauma policies characterize the traumatized female subject as fundamentally different from the staff or the professional expert. Only certain kinds of women can be traumatized, the mentally ill and substance-using women. My study exposes the presupposition embedded in policies that only certain women are violated, and other women are unlike them. This trauma discourse is grounded in racism, colonialism and sexism, built on stereotypical patriarchal representations of women, resulting in the stigmatization of women who experience male violence. / Graduate / 2022-08-25

Studien undersöker hur könsroller gestaltas ur ett genusperspektiv i bilderboken Se upp för krokodilen! (Moroni &amp; Eriksson, 2013). Syftet är att få djupare kunskaper om hur dessa skildringar speglar målen i läroplanen för förskolan om att motverka traditionella könsnormer och främja jämställdhet och likabehandling mellan könen. Forskare menar att bilderboken är ett användbart och didaktiskt verktyg för att fånga barns intressen och påverka deras tankegångar. Tidigare forskning (Kåreland, 2005) visar att könsstereotypa föreställningar lever kvar i en stor del av utbudet av barnböcker. I studien analyseras bilderboken Se upp för krokodilen! (Moroni &amp; Eriksson, 2013) både utifrån bilder och text. Analysen fokuserar på karaktärernas yttre- och inre personskildringar, det vill säga, karaktärernas utseende, ansiktsuttryck, kroppsspråk respektive karaktärernas egenskaper och personligheter. Studiens resultat visar att karaktärerna i boken, till viss del avviker från de stereotypa föreställningar om vad som anses som maskulint och feminint, dock visar karaktärerna att de båda har egenskaper som kan representera båda könen. / The study examines how gender roles are portrayed from a gender perspective in the picture book Watch out for the crocodile! (Moroni &amp; Eriksson, 2013). The aim is to get deeper knowledge about how these depictions reflect the goals of the Swedish syllabus for preschool that counteracts traditional gender norms and promote equality and equal treatment between the genders. Researchers consider that the picture book is a useful and didactic implement to capture childrens’ interests and influence their thoughts. Previous research (Kåreland, 2005) shows that gender-stereotyped conceptions persist in a large part of the range of children’s books. The study analyzes the picture book Watch out for the crocodile! (Moroni &amp; Eriksson, 2013) both from photographs and text. The analysis focuses on the characters external and internal personal depictions, that is, the characters appearance, facial expressions, body language and the characters properties and personalities. The results of the study show that the characters in the book, partially differ from the stereotypical conceptions of what is considered as masculine and feminine. However, the characters show that they both have properties that can represent both sexes.

Based on my research aim of covering a gap in the literature on corporate gender equality standards, I research the effects and limits of corporate gender equality standards through a feminist poststructuralist perspective using the case study of the EDGE standard. Based on a qualitative research design, I build an analytical framework on Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) approach to analyze the material in form of the five assessment areas of the EDGE standard. Based on the feminist post-structuralist perspective, my analysis showcases that the EDGE standard as a governance tool is not guided by tangible ‘problems' that exist ‘out there’ but rather through the representation of ‘problems’ as framed in the EDGE standard. The EDGE standard is thus a productive force that give shape and meaning to various problems of gender inequality which at the same time, the standard is also meant to address. I conclude that in some cases, the EDGE standard can have positive effects. However, the lack of an intersectional approach limits the EDGE standard too. This thesis contributes to the field by closing a research gap in the academic literature on the effects and limits of corporate gender equality standards analyzed through a feminist poststructuralist lens. / Jeg undersøger virkningerne og begrænsningerne af ligestillingsstandarder i organisationer gennem en feministisk poststrukturalistisk analyse af organisationsstandarden ’EDGE’. Baseret på mit mål om at afdække manglende forskning af ligestillingsstandarder anvender jeg et kvalitativt forskningsdesign som bygger på Carol Bacchis 'What’s The Problem Represented To Be’ for at analysere materialet i form af de fem vurderingsområder i EDGE-standarden. Med baggrund i det feministisk post-strukturalistiske perspektiv viser analysen, at EDGE-standarden som et styringsværktøj ikke styres af konkrete 'problemer', der eksisterer 'derude', men snarere styres gennem repræsentationen af ​​'problemer' som de indrammes og konstrueres i EDGE-standarden. EDGE-standarden er således en produktiv kraft, der giver form og mening til forskellige problemer inden for diskrimination og ligestilling mellem kønnene samtidigt med at standarden også er udviklet til at tackle disse ’problemer’. Jeg konkluderer, at EDGE-standarden i nogle tilfælde kan have positive effekter, men manglen på en tværgående og intersektionelle tilgange til EDGE’s fem vurderingsområder begrænser imidlertid også EDGE-standarden. Dette speciale bidrager til feltet inden for ligestilling og organisationsstandarder ved at afdække virkningerne og grænsningerne af erhvervslivets ligestillingsstandarder analyseret gennem en feministisk poststrukturalistisk perspektiv.