This is a candidate’s thesis for the programme for Social Workers at the Linneaus University in Växjö. This study has the purpose to understand what protective-factors that may be important for children who grow up in a risk environment. This has been done through reading autobiographies written by adults who have been born and raised in destructive environments. The data has been collected with the use of a narrative analysis. The result has then been viewed and analyzed with the help of attachment-theory, a salutogene perspective and with ecological systems theory. The results from this candidate’s thesis shows that we have been able to identify protective factors in three major categories; Individual attributes, relationships and factors that exists outside of the family environment. These factors have been analyzed and explained through the perspective of attachment-theory, a salutogene perspective and with ecological systems theory. Our findings suggest that there exists several important relationships between our result, the previous research and what the theories suggest is important for children as protective factors. They are: basic need of security, need of development and understanding and finally an importance in the needs for children to have a sense of coherence.

Several discussions rose in western media when Swedish high-jumper Emma Green Tregaro competed with her nails painted in the colors of the rainbow during the athletic world championship in Moscow, in August 2013. This was meant to show her support for the gay movement, but was viewed as a protest against the new Russian law which forbids gay propaganda.  Western media critizised Russian media for failing to report the incident to their readers and that is where we got interested in making this research. We got the idea of comparing a Swedish newspaper with a Russian one, to observe differences in how they chose to report the event.  Due to lack of knowledge of the Russian language and the kyrillic alphabet we had to turn to an English-speaking newspaper based in Russia: The Moscow Times.  We compared the Moscow Times with the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, to see their differences in terms of: How they chose to cover the event, from a gender perspective; what structures of power can be found, how Emma Green Tregaro and Yelena Isinbayeva are portrayed and what meaning the protest is given by the narrators. We achieved our results through narrative analysis, a qualitative method. We applied theories such as gender theory and media logic in order to obtain answers to our questions.   We came to the conclusion that there are great differences in how much attention the protest achieved in the two newspapers. From the Swedish perspective, more focus were put on Emma Green Tregaro where she is a brave messenger of love, while in the Russian, more emphasis lays on Yelena Isinbayeva as a defender of the Russian stance. While Dagens Nyheter has put resources into sending journalists to Moscow, The Moscow Times has used a lot of material from news bureaus such as Reuters and The Associated Press instead of covering the event themselves.  Another interesting fact is that the institutions presented in the news flow such as the IAAF, IOC and the Swedish Sports Confederation are only represented by men, and through the power structural dimension of gender theory we can see tendencies of control or influence over the female sports profiles’ actions.

After sixteen intensive months, I quit my employed position as a security guard at a local hospital. By drawing on my autoethnographic experiences in the form of “ethnographic fiction writing”, as well as eight interviews with my former male colleagues, I explore how the guards’ constructions of masculinity intersect with their security assessment and subsequent application of force, chemical incarceration, and other coercive security tactics on involuntarily-committed mental health patients. The narratives are framed by the available literature on gender and masculinity within the security, police, prison and military institutions, as well as the theoretical notions of gendered institutions (Acker), hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt), doing gender (West & Zimmerman), and Dave Holmes’s application of Foucauldian biopolitical power to forensic healthcare settings. These concepts are used in tandem with a creative methodological tool to reveal the “messy”, “bloody” and “gendered” ways in which hospital life unfolds between the guard, the nurse, and the patient prisoner. By escaping more traditional forms of academic writing, I am able to weave raw, sensitive and reflexive thoughts and emotions into the research design and analysis. The analysis is divided into two narratives: “Us” and “Them”. “Us” emphasizes the gendered ways in which the hospital guard learns, reproduces, resists, lives up, or fails to live up to the masculine codes of the profession. Here, the guard must confront cultural demands to demonstrate physical prowess, authority and heroism during a patient battle. “Them” explores how hegemonic masculinity shapes the hierarchical and coercive relations between the guard, the nurse, and the patient, and reinforces psychiatrized discourses that promote punishment, pain, bureaucracy and control. Overall, these findings call for the abolition of physical restraint, chemical incarceration and other coercive security measures within our healthcare institutions, and encourage future research to give voice to the lived experiences of women guards and security management teams.

This study sought to hear the narratives of individuals that have recovered from self-harming, with the intention of bearing witness to both the narratives and remaining scars in order to better understand and inform clinical practice. A purposive sample of seven individuals was recruited. Participants were asked to photograph their scars and bring them to an interview. Narratives were generated and explored through a relatively unstructured individual interview. Both the images and narratives were analysed using a narrative approach exploring content, performance and structural aspects, emphasising researcher reflexivity throughout. Findings were understood through psychoanalytic theory and highlighted a theme of validation and ‘being seen’, evidenced in stories of past invalidation that had been internalised into the self-structure and defended against by presenting a ‘defended’ self. Self-harm enabled this ‘unseen self’ to be expressed, validated and contained. Recovery was storied in terms of internalising experiences of validation, which enabled integration of the invalidated parts of the self. Many of the participants highlighted how their scars told a story of discovery; of becoming, coping and surviving. In the healing of scars this recovery is evident, but they may also continue to convey the unseen and unspoken experiences of pain, incoherence and invalidation. Self-harm and remaining scars may be understood as connecting, containing and re-embodying the internalised invalidation and ‘unseen’ aspects of the self. These findings are discussed with reference to the clinical implications, strengths and limitations of the methodology and directions for future research.

The newly revised 2017-2018 British Columbian high school curriculum, as a prevention education response to a growing concern around children and youths’ mental health, indicates that students will learn the signs and symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression and be able to explain strategies to promote mental well-being (Province of British Columbia, 2016). Youth voices may help in shaping this curriculum objective. This study explores the meaning that five high school students, who were trained to facilitate an anxiety-prevention program, make of the problem of anxiety and prevention through their narratives, applying a narrative methodology and analysis. These youth narratives do not provide a singular explanation, truth or understanding of anxiety; like all narratives, they hold multiple truths. The youth narratives are drawn from the participants’ local experiential knowledge as well as prevailing discourses that shape their understanding. The types of narratives in this inquiry include: i) the quest for problem-free childhoods; ii) the genesis of knowledge; and iii) overcoming giant stigma by connecting. There are implications and considerations pulled from the narratives, including how a prevailing psychologized discourse may obscure contextual factors in making sense of anxiety and prevention. This inquiry may help educators and other professionals to imagine what else could be possible in conceptualizing the problem of anxiety and implementing prevention programs. It is hoped that this study will add to the current dialogue around prevention and support strategies in British Columbian schools and beyond. / Graduate / 0525 / 0680 / 0519 / 0533 / 0347 / arfelix3@gmail.com

This dissertation focuses on the experiences of second language pupils which involve linguistic encounters. The overarching aim is to analyse second language pupils' encounters with Swedish as a Second Language and the Swedish school, using a “curriculum theory” and a ”life story” approach". The goal is achieved by examining two empirical contexts which can be described as expressed and experienced curricula. In the first context, an idea analysis is carried out of the contents of the syllabi and curricula for Swedish as a Second Language over a period of time. In the second context, a narrative analysis is carried out of the life stories given by second language pupils of their encounter with Swedish as a Second Language and the Swedish school. Trainee teachers with Swedish as a Second Language participate by telling their life stories. A framework for interpretation emerges by reasoning about language and the creation of meaning, as well as about culture, cultural capital, similarities/differences, compensating/completing and limited participation/full participation. The reasoning leads to the construction of a theoretical interpretation framework and prisms through which the offered and experienced learning can be studied. The analysis shows that what is on offer in the curricula and syllabi is mainly monocultural. It shows that a new subject has grown up based on the need to teach pupils about the Swedish cultural heritage and Swedish norms. Moreover, both changes in the expressed educational ideals over a period of time and contradictory educational ideals become evident. It is also clear that those providing the information felt both different and excluded. They were not monolingual, and did not have Swedish as their mother tongue. To make up for this lack of Swedishness, they were separated from the other classmates and offered special teaching in an attempt to compensate. They also received mother tongue tuition, which was not in Swedish, and this became a problem for those around them, who considered this was an easy option. The second language tuition they were offered focussed partly on their mistakes and shortcomings, and partly on the Swedish cultural heritage. Their earlier experience and skills were not used.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise porte sur le concept d’identité organisationnelle, appliqué au milieu des organisations humanitaires. Le contexte mondial actuel dans lequel évoluent ces organisations leur impose de revoir certaines de leurs valeurs et façons de faire. En effet, les équipes des ONG sur le terrain sont confrontées à des conflits de plus en plus nombreux et complexes, qui remettent en question l’identité de leur organisation. Cette recherche vise à dresser un portrait du travail des employés de l’organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) lors de missions humanitaires, alors que ceux-ci doivent justifier et négocier la présence de l’organisation auprès de la population et des autorités locales. En nous basant sur le concept de sensemaking développé par Karl E. Weick, nous présentons une analyse narrative des récits de mission de cinq employés de MSF. Cette analyse permet d’étudier comment, au quotidien, les employés d’une ONG le terrain sont impliqués dans des négociations où l’identité organisationnelle est continuellement menacée et remise en question. / This thesis focuses on the concept of organizational identity, applied to humanitarian organizations. The actual international context is forcing these organizations to review some of their core values and procedures. Consequently, their teams on the field are confronted with more and more conflicts and complex situations where the organisation’s identity is at stake. The aim of this research is to produce a better understanding of the work that employees of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) do on the field during a mission, especially when they have to justify and negotiate the presence of their organisation with the local populations and authorities. Based on Karl E. Weick’s concept of sensemaking, we present a narrative analysis of fieldwork stories we collected by conducting interviews with five MSF employees. Not only does this analysis help us understand the roles employees have to play on the field, but it also provides insight into the different situations when organizational identity is being negotiated.

This thesis focuses on exegesis and interpretation of Judges 11, 29-40. Main method used in this thesis is narrative analysis, via which I investigate and interpret the chosen text as one story unit in its contemporal form. I focus on the course of action, how and with whom the characters act and what is the meaning of these in the whole narrative. I examine the structure of the text, because it's essential for the story told. I examine the context of the chosen text as well, because it's in the middle of broader narrative about Jephthah, of the book of Judges and of the Old Testament. Behavior and actions of characters, as well as facts used in the story, may have different meanings, which may not be apparent from the text itself. The aim of this thesis is to find one or several interpratiations, which will be based in the text itself and its context as much as possible. That will aslo enable me to deal with other intepratations. In the conclusion, I will shortly speak about text's influence on arts and present several themes for homiletic or pastoral use, which the story presents and contents.

The conclusion of this thesis brings an understanding of the deeper meaning of the book of Ruth and its role in the lives of God's followers. The application of the tools of narrative analysis clearly showed that on the background of Naomi and Ruth's deeply human story unfolds another one. It is the story of the Lord who is invisibly directing events and human destinies to present and reveal the work and mission of his Messiah to the whole mankind. The main characters in the story provide an eloquent example of faith to follow and in a very plastic way imply the role of the Redeemer. Thus the story builds up faith of people in the Lord and prepares them to recognize and accept his Messiah. And this may be the mission and function of the book of Ruth in the biblical canon. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The significations found in content aren't only explicitly present in the surface structures, but they're also built deep inside human mind as the basic semes - the minimum units with a signification. In the diploma thesis "Internet Marketing Influence on Internet Media Content and their Users at Czech Media Environment" we use a qualitative analysis method composed of the semiotic and the narrative analysis to describe and interpret the chosen samples of internet marketing content. The semiotic analysis helps us to interpret both the basic surface and deep significations present in the visual and text code of the interpreted samples. The narrative analysis unravels a narration the act is constructed from followed by interpretation. The application of both the methods allows us to identify myths in the narratives. The aim of application of both methods is to describe specific and repetitive deep significations and narrations individual communicates are built from and thus characterize internet marketing media discourse. The narratives form a basis of the interpersonal communication; they allow us to preserve and communicate significations through them. All the narratives of the interpreted samples of content were constructed with a basic conflict (or contradiction) and presented to the public...