Den kvalitativa studiens syfte var att analysera, beskriva och förstå skollednings och lärares uppfattningar kring mångkulturellt arbete i förskolan, samt deras betydelse för förskolans verksamhet. Studien utgick från sociokulturell teori och byggde på intervjuer av skolledning och förskollärare på en mångkulturell förskola. I studiens resultat framkom att skolledning och lärare i förskolan menar att barn och föräldrar ska mötas med respekt oavsett kulturell bakgrund. Lärarna ansåg sig viktiga att förmedla läroplanens värdegrund samt det svenska språket och kulturen till förskolans barn och föräldrar. De uttryckte även att de upplevde olika kulturella bakgrunder som spännande och berikande, vilket gav dem en fördjupad kunskap om olika sätt att tycka och tänka. Barnens språkutveckling var det innehåll som studiens lärare prioriterade högst, både det svenska språket och barnens modersmål. I diskussionen jämfördes studiens resultat med teorier och tidigare forskning. Lärarens komplexa och mångfasetterade arbete problematiserades och det ställdes frågor hur verksamheten kunde utvecklas. Frågor om inkludering av barns olika kulturer och modersmål, värderingar samt barns dubbla kulturtillhörighet diskuterades. Dessa frågeställningar kan bidra till verksamhetsutveckling i en förskola där alla barn och familjers kulturella bakgrund är lika värda, och där alla barnens språk är inkluderade. / The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze, describe and understand the school leaders and teachers’ perceptions about multicultural work in preschool, and their importance to preschool activities. The study was based on sociocultural theory and built on interviews of school leaders and teachers in a multicultural preschool. The results of the study showed that the school leaders and teachers expressed that children and parents should be treated with respect regardless of cultural background. The teachers considered themselves important to convey basic values of the curriculum as well as the Swedish language and culture to preschool children and parents. They also expressed their experience of different cultural backgrounds as exciting and rewarding, giving them a deeper knowledge of alternative ways to think and believe. The teachers of the study considered children's language development as the most important content, both in Swedish and in children's first language. In the discussion of the study were results compared with theories and previous research. Teacher's complex and multi-faceted work were problematized with questions how the early childhood education could be developed. There were questions in discussion about the inclusion of children of different cultures and first language, questions about values as well as children’s dual cultural affiliation. These issues can contribute to develop early childhood education to a preschool where all children and families' cultural backgrounds are equal, and where all children's languages is included.

This dissertation provides an analytical framework for understanding the left-indigenous cycle of extra-parliamentary insurrection in Bolivia between 2000 and 2005. It draws from Marxist and indigenous-liberationist theory to challenge the central presuppositions of liberal-institutionalist understandings of contemporary indigenous politics in Latin America, as well as the core tenets of mainstream social movement studies. The central argument is that a specific combination of elaborate infrastructures of class struggle and social-movement unionism, historical traditions of indigenous and working-class radicalism, combined oppositional consciousness, and fierce but insufficient state repression, explain the depth, breadth, and radical character of recent left-indigenous mobilizations in Bolivia. The coalition of insurrectionary social forces in the Gas Wars of 2003 and 2005 was led by indigenous informal workers, acting in concert with formal workers, peasants, and to a smaller degree, middle-class actors. The indigenous informal working classes of the city of El Alto, in particular, utilized an elaborate infrastructure of class struggle in order to overcome structural barriers to collective action and to take up their leading role. The supportive part played by the formal working class was made possible by the political orientation toward social-movement unionism adopted by leading trade-union federations. Radicalized peasants mobilized within the broader alliance through their own rural infrastructure of class struggle. The whole array of worker and peasant social forces drew on longstanding popular cultures of indigenous liberation and revolutionary Marxism which they adapted to the novel context of the twenty-first century. These popular cultures ultimately congealed in a new combined oppositional consciousness, rooted simultaneously in the politics of indigenous resistance and class struggle. This collective consciousness, in turn, strengthened the mobilizing capacities of the popular classes and reinforced the radical character of protest. At key junctures, social movement leaders were able to synthesize oppositional consciousness into a focused collective action frame of nationalizing the natural gas industry. Finally, throughout the left-indigenous cycle, ruthless state repression was nonetheless insufficiently powerful to wipe out opposition altogether and therefore acted only to intensify the scale of protests and radicalize demands still further. The legitimacy of the neoliberal social order and the coercive power required to reproduce it were increasingly called into question as violence against civilians increased.

The thesis explores the ways in which Serbian ethnic media in Canada represent their own group and “Others”, specifically Croats, Slovenians and Catholics, Bosniaks, Albanians and Muslims, Montenegrins and the West. The research investigates the convergence of these representations with Canadian multiculturalism. The thesis epistemologically feeds from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s 18th century theories of recognition and patriotism, Stuart Hall’s (1997) theory of representation and identity and Edward Said’s (1978) theory of Orientalism, and is further guided by the theoretical frameworks of Charles Taylor’s (1994) politics of recognition, Benedict Anderson’s (1992) long-distance nationalism and Maria Todorova’s (1994) Balkanism. Qualitative content analysis through purposive and sequential sampling of Serbian ethnic broadcasting is conducted to gauge the programs’ representations of the “Self” and “Others”. Ethnic media provide a method to promote a minority group’s heritage, but also to facilitate communication between various cultural, ethnic, religious and racial groups. In the age of an increased critique of multiculturalism, the role of ethnic media rises in importance. The findings of the thesis show that Serbian ethnic media employ Canadian multiculturalism to promote Serbian heritage, but also to stereotype other groups. Applying the theoretical juxtaposition of multiculturalism, nationalism and “Othering”, this research argues that through negative identification of “Others”, Serbian ethnic media deviate from Canadian multiculturalism that calls for a positive recognition of all Canadian groups.

This dissertation examines the issue of intercultural understanding. I explore the role played by language in constituting human subjectivity in accordance with the common insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, in order to: (1) affirm the complexity and fragility of the process of building understanding in fight of our immersion in specific cultural-linguistic worldviews; and (2) demonstrate that human beings are ontologically predisposed to achieve understanding, and that this ontological predisposition is enhanced by a constant and inescapable process of crossing "language boundaries" in daily life. I argue that the very manner of human induction into cultural-linguistic worldviews suggests the means by which intercultural understanding might best be fostered: through the bestowal of recognition and the cultivation of dialogical relationships. / I assemble key elements of an assortment of different theories of intercultural understanding in which these techniques are assigned a central role; this exercise generates a Wittgensteinian "perspicuous representation" of the process of crafting intercultural understanding itself, and reveals the unique strengths of two convergent approaches in particular. Both the contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional ideal of intercultural understanding of the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en First Nations of northwestern British Columbia, and the recent writings of Charles Taylor on the subject of international human rights standards comprise variations of what I call the "shared horizons" paradigm. The great advantages of this paradigm are its ability to address the distortive effect exercised by power inequalities upon efforts to create intercultural understanding (demonstrated through a case study of the Gitzsan-Wet'suwet'en land claim), and its amenableness to a variety of distinct culture-specific normative justifications. The shared horizons approach does not offer a blueprint for achieving intercultural understanding, but rather, a modest and adaptable set of principles that can serve as the foundation for efforts to work toward the resolution of intercultural disagreements.

I present a qualitative study investigating the self-perceived health of recently arrived Canadian immigrants. The study develops health promotion’s understanding of culture as a social determinant of health, and conceptually locates it within a broader context of psychosocial factors. The study involves semi-structured individual interviews focusing on self-perceived health and well-being. The sample group consists of recently arrived (within the last 10 years) adult immigrants between 23 and 46 years of age, from a variety of cultural backgrounds, who participate with the YMCA Cross Cultural & Community Services’ Host program in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. I also interview two YMCA settlement program supervisors who discuss health care issues facing Canadian newcomers. Newcomer self-expression contributes to a better understanding of the social and cultural determinants of the Healthy Immigrant Effect. This study represents a theoretically and empirically informed personal examination of Canadian multiculturalism from a public health research perspective.

This thesis examines changes which have occurred since the late 1980s and early 1990s with respect to the representation of cultural diversity on Australian popular drama programming. The thesis finds that a significant number of actors of diverse cultural and linguistic background have negotiated the television industry employment process to obtain acting roles in a lead capacity. The majority of these actors are from the second generation of immigrants, who increasingly make up a significant component of Australia's multicultural population. The way in which these actors are portrayed on-screen has also shifted from one of a 'performed' ethnicity, to an 'everyday' portrayal. The thesis develops an analysis which connects the development and broad political support for multicultural policy as expressed in the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia to the changes in both employment and representation practices in popular television programming in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The thesis addresses multicultural debates by arguing for a mainstreaming position. The thesis makes detailed comparison of cultural diversity and television in the jurisdictions of the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand to support the broad argument that cultural diversity policy measures produce observable outcomes in television programming.

In the 1990s, the bubble of the Japanese miracle economy burst and the country fell into recession. Following this, Japan experienced considerable economic and social transformation, including a reconsideration of its approach to work and employment. Among the consequences of these changes, such as unprecedented mobility in the labour market and an increase in part-time employment, there was a shift in lifestyle values, particularly those of middle class Japanese. In contrast to the traditional Japanese work ethic and company-orientated lifestyle which prized collectivism and self-sacrifice, new lifestyle values were largely centred on attaining an improved life-work balance which was less structured and more ‘Western.’ These new individualised lifestyle values began to be reflected in a new-found interest in leisure, characterised by a shift from group-oriented leisure activities to more individualised and personalised ones. There has been another very significant change of great relevance to this thesis: an increased and unprecedented interest in overseas tourism and migration. This thesis discusses an intriguing new dynamic between the transformation of the economy and the Japanese engagement with tourism and migration. Until the 1990s, due to the guaranteed lifetime employment and the prevalence of seniority systems of Japanese corporations, there was a relatively stable life model among Japan’s middle class. In addition to healthy demand in the domestic labour market and work-dominated lifestyle, stable work opportunities meant this group rarely considered pursuing individual tourism and migration. However, since the 1990s, increasing numbers of young middle class Japanese began to drift from the safe and assured life model and chose to live abroad. This thesis, based on qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews with 31 Japanese migrants to Queensland, is a study of Japanese lifestyle migration to Australia. It draws upon several important topics and theories in contemporary sociology including globalisation, transnationalism, migration and tourism. The complex linkages between these themes are an important characteristic of this thesis and are discussed in the literature review of Chapter 2. The methodological issues of this research are presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 contextualises lifestyle migration against the background of broader history of Japanese migration to Australia. The chapters that follow examine three key themes pertinent to exploring the interrelationship between social transformation in Japanese society in the 1990s, changing lifestyle values and migration to Australia. Chapter 5 considers the implications of social transformation of Japanese society, specifically focusing on the lifestyle value shifts as push factors in a broad sense. Chapter 6 explores the pull factors and focuses on motivations for migration to Australia. Chapter 7 examines the lives of Japanese lifestyle migrants in Australia and highlights a unique settlement process characterised by the lack of upward social mobility, the absence of geographical concentration of Japanese migrants and the impact this has on the formation of a sustainable ethnic community. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the argument of this thesis and discusses its contribution to the field of sociology. Possible directions for future research are also outlined.

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In the 1990s, the bubble of the Japanese miracle economy burst and the country fell into recession. Following this, Japan experienced considerable economic and social transformation, including a reconsideration of its approach to work and employment. Among the consequences of these changes, such as unprecedented mobility in the labour market and an increase in part-time employment, there was a shift in lifestyle values, particularly those of middle class Japanese. In contrast to the traditional Japanese work ethic and company-orientated lifestyle which prized collectivism and self-sacrifice, new lifestyle values were largely centred on attaining an improved life-work balance which was less structured and more ‘Western.’ These new individualised lifestyle values began to be reflected in a new-found interest in leisure, characterised by a shift from group-oriented leisure activities to more individualised and personalised ones. There has been another very significant change of great relevance to this thesis: an increased and unprecedented interest in overseas tourism and migration. This thesis discusses an intriguing new dynamic between the transformation of the economy and the Japanese engagement with tourism and migration. Until the 1990s, due to the guaranteed lifetime employment and the prevalence of seniority systems of Japanese corporations, there was a relatively stable life model among Japan’s middle class. In addition to healthy demand in the domestic labour market and work-dominated lifestyle, stable work opportunities meant this group rarely considered pursuing individual tourism and migration. However, since the 1990s, increasing numbers of young middle class Japanese began to drift from the safe and assured life model and chose to live abroad. This thesis, based on qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews with 31 Japanese migrants to Queensland, is a study of Japanese lifestyle migration to Australia. It draws upon several important topics and theories in contemporary sociology including globalisation, transnationalism, migration and tourism. The complex linkages between these themes are an important characteristic of this thesis and are discussed in the literature review of Chapter 2. The methodological issues of this research are presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 contextualises lifestyle migration against the background of broader history of Japanese migration to Australia. The chapters that follow examine three key themes pertinent to exploring the interrelationship between social transformation in Japanese society in the 1990s, changing lifestyle values and migration to Australia. Chapter 5 considers the implications of social transformation of Japanese society, specifically focusing on the lifestyle value shifts as push factors in a broad sense. Chapter 6 explores the pull factors and focuses on motivations for migration to Australia. Chapter 7 examines the lives of Japanese lifestyle migrants in Australia and highlights a unique settlement process characterised by the lack of upward social mobility, the absence of geographical concentration of Japanese migrants and the impact this has on the formation of a sustainable ethnic community. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the argument of this thesis and discusses its contribution to the field of sociology. Possible directions for future research are also outlined.

In the 1990s, the bubble of the Japanese miracle economy burst and the country fell into recession. Following this, Japan experienced considerable economic and social transformation, including a reconsideration of its approach to work and employment. Among the consequences of these changes, such as unprecedented mobility in the labour market and an increase in part-time employment, there was a shift in lifestyle values, particularly those of middle class Japanese. In contrast to the traditional Japanese work ethic and company-orientated lifestyle which prized collectivism and self-sacrifice, new lifestyle values were largely centred on attaining an improved life-work balance which was less structured and more ‘Western.’ These new individualised lifestyle values began to be reflected in a new-found interest in leisure, characterised by a shift from group-oriented leisure activities to more individualised and personalised ones. There has been another very significant change of great relevance to this thesis: an increased and unprecedented interest in overseas tourism and migration. This thesis discusses an intriguing new dynamic between the transformation of the economy and the Japanese engagement with tourism and migration. Until the 1990s, due to the guaranteed lifetime employment and the prevalence of seniority systems of Japanese corporations, there was a relatively stable life model among Japan’s middle class. In addition to healthy demand in the domestic labour market and work-dominated lifestyle, stable work opportunities meant this group rarely considered pursuing individual tourism and migration. However, since the 1990s, increasing numbers of young middle class Japanese began to drift from the safe and assured life model and chose to live abroad. This thesis, based on qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews with 31 Japanese migrants to Queensland, is a study of Japanese lifestyle migration to Australia. It draws upon several important topics and theories in contemporary sociology including globalisation, transnationalism, migration and tourism. The complex linkages between these themes are an important characteristic of this thesis and are discussed in the literature review of Chapter 2. The methodological issues of this research are presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 contextualises lifestyle migration against the background of broader history of Japanese migration to Australia. The chapters that follow examine three key themes pertinent to exploring the interrelationship between social transformation in Japanese society in the 1990s, changing lifestyle values and migration to Australia. Chapter 5 considers the implications of social transformation of Japanese society, specifically focusing on the lifestyle value shifts as push factors in a broad sense. Chapter 6 explores the pull factors and focuses on motivations for migration to Australia. Chapter 7 examines the lives of Japanese lifestyle migrants in Australia and highlights a unique settlement process characterised by the lack of upward social mobility, the absence of geographical concentration of Japanese migrants and the impact this has on the formation of a sustainable ethnic community. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the argument of this thesis and discusses its contribution to the field of sociology. Possible directions for future research are also outlined.