The Higuamo River in the Dominican Republic is being polluted by a number of industries. The town San Pedro de Macoris is situated at the river mouth and the negative effects of the pollution are apparent for the fishermen and those living in informal settlements along the water. The waterfront has now been designated for development and the project explores hinders and possibilities for the implementation of practices of participation, as well as the challenges it poses to the planner.

Critics of Clarice Lispector often identify feminist themes relating to voice, gender, and the male gaze in her creative work. Lispector’s collection of short stories Laços de família demonstrates the way patriarchal society sets limits on the identity of women. Laura Mulvey’s concept of “the male gaze” provides a useful tool for understanding how men marginalize, objectify, and subordinate women through visual regimes of control, yet Mulvey’s concept does not fully encapsulate the scope of male oppression explored in Laços de família. In fact, Lispector draws upon a variety of senses and metaphors related to consumption through a mode I call food femininities to display how men consume their female counterparts in society. More specifically, Lispector’s collection Laços de família invokes, presents, and uses food, food imagery, food vocabulary, and food metaphors as a central way of defining gender roles determined by society and performed in accordance with the normative standards dictated by said society.

This study is a discursive analysis of the representation of the person Erika Girardi within the Reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. With a theoretical perspective anchored within Judith Butler’s (1999) theory of performativity and Beverley Skeggs (2000) research of class within feminism. The aim is to find how Erika Girardi is discursively portrayed within the series as well as finding and analyzing the various subject positions found within the material. The results are presented as eight different subject positions; Housewife, Showgirl, Gold Digger, Southern Mother, Bad Bitch, Daughter,Empowered Woman and Good Friend. These positions are then decoded into the various signs which build these up as well as the nodal points which are further found within the discourse of the selected episodes.

En esta tesis se estudian temas de educación y economía laboral. Por un lado, el primer capítulo tiene como objetivo estimar el efecto causal de la educación en las actitudes acerca del rol de género (en concreto, si las mujeres tienen que abandonar el mercado laboral para cuidar de la familia, y si los hombres tienen más derecho que las mujeres a un empleo). Para ello, utilizo reformas educativas que aumentan el número de años de educación obligatoria para obtener una fuente de variación exógena que se puede utilizar como un instrumento para la educación. Utilizando datos de la Encuesta Social Europea para 14 países europeos, observamos que las reformas educativas ciertamente aumentan los años de escolaridad, pero solo para personas de una familia con bajo nivel educativo (en particular, las mujeres). Los resultados indican que, para este grupo, un año adicional de educación reduce significativamente la probabilidad de estar de acuerdo con el rol tradicional de género de las mujeres en más de 11 puntos porcentuales. El segundo capítulo estudia el impacto en la fertilidad de una política que otorga a los migrantes un estatus legal basado en la nacionalidad de su descendencia. Nuestra atención se centra en España, donde el Real Decreto de 2011 reconoció la capacidad de los padres indocumentados para convertirse en residentes legales en caso de tener un niño español menor de 18 años. Usando un enfoque cuasi-experimental que explota el cambio en los requisitos de elegibilidad de residencia legal, mostramos que el Real Decreto de 2011 incrementó la fertilidad entre las personas potencialmente afectadas por la reforma en aproximadamente el 34 por ciento. En el tercer capítulo, estudio el fenómeno de la sobreeducación en España. La sobreeducación, definida como tener un nivel educativo superior al que es necesario para el trabajo, es un fenómeno del mercado laboral que tiene una incidencia especial en España. En principio, la sobreeducación no tiene por qué ser un problema si es transitoria, pero cuando se vuelve persistente puede ocasionar importantes efectos negativos en la economía. Este artículo investiga la persistencia de la sobreeducación mediante la explotación de datos de la Muestra Continua Vidas Laborales aplicando modelos de duración. Al controlar por las características observadas, encuentro evidencia a favor de la hipótesis que sostiene que la sobreeducación es un fenómeno persistente en España.

In recent years, stress has become one of the fastest growing societal problems. According to previous researches women tend to be exposed at a higher risk of developing stress-related illnesses than men. The purpose of our study is to investigate through qualitative semi-structured interviews how gender differences in the experience and management of stress are expressed among university students at Örebro University. The study has three different questions designed to answer the purpose, about management, experience, and gender differences. We have analyzed our empirical material using Bourdieu's theories about the masculine domination and habitus. Previous research in the field shows that women tend to feel more stressed but also, that they handle stress in a different way, more emotionally than men. However, one study shows that women, regardless of strategy, tend to handle stress more than men in general. The result of this study was similar to previous research, that women feel more stressed and seem more aware of how they handle stress and the feelings around it. Our female respondents showed a clear pattern that they managed stress through emotional support, but also throught physical activity. The latter which is considered more stereotypical for a man. / Stress har de senaste åren kommit att bli ett av de snabbast växande samhällsproblemen. Det är ett känt faktum att kvinnor löper högre risk att drabbas av sjukdomar som är relaterade till stress än män. Syftet med vår studie är att genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöka om det finns könsskillnader i upplevelse och hantering av stress, och isåfall hur det kan komma till uttryck bland universitetsstudenter vid Örebro universitet. Studien har tre olika frågeställningar som är utformade för att svara på syftet, om hantering, upplevelse och slutligen, könsskillnader. Med hjälp av Bourdieus teori kring Den manliga dominansen och habitus har vi analyserat vårt empiriska material. Tidigare forskning på området visar att kvinnor tenderar att uppleva mer stress men även att de hanterar stressen på ett annat sätt, mer känslomässigt än män. En studie visar dock på att kvinnor oavsett strategi tenderar att hantera stressen mer än män över lag. Resultatet av denna studie blev liknande tidigare forskning, att kvinnor uppger att de upplever sig mer stressade och verkar mer medvetna om hur de hanterar stress och känslorna kring det. Det gick tydligt att urskilja ett mönster hos våra kvinnliga respondenter: de hanterade stress genom känslomässigt stöd, men också genom fysisk aktivitet. Det senare som anses vara mer stereotypiskt för en man.

The goal of this study is to stimulate dialog in the research community around a model of learning linked to leadership in organizations. It is an attempt to integrate various communities of practice and divergent approaches by placing equal emphasis on developing a model of organizational learning as well as on embedding the development process itself into the context of a scientific dialog. A model of how learning in organizations can be conceptualized as a role negotiated between superiors and their subordinates is developed and investigated. The model postulates that individuals in organizations accomplish learning by specializing in certain learning tasks. This specialization is based on role behaviors and resources that constrain or facilitate learning opportunities negotiated in the workplace between subordinates and their superiors. How this learning may be shared to result in organizational learning and implications for theory development are discussed.

The overall aim of this study is to examine what roles newly graduated communicators are ascribed in the workplace, and what expectation the workplace places on newly graduated communicators. The theoretical framework is based on Anthony Giddens’ thesis on modernity, as well as a revised version of Erving Goffman’s thesis on roles, adapted to the roles of communicators. The study uses the qualitative method of interviews to examine the experiences and feelings of four newly graduated communicators working in the public sector in Sweden. Through interviews, the results show that not one specific role can be applied to a single communicator, and that the roles within the profession are flexible and constantly changing. The interviews also shows that the newly graduated communicators don’t necessarily experience any expectations of them and their skills inthe workplace, and that the newly graduated communicators believe it’s more important to be active and to try out things at every given opportunity.

Magister Theologiae - MTh / The aim of the study was to determine what the possibilities are that Ephesians 5:21-24 is misinterpreted when the conclusion is drawn from it that the husband today should be "the head of the wife" and that the wife should "submit" to him. The study assumes that many problems in Christian marriages arise because the biblical guidance with regard to the mandate that the male has in marriage is taken literally. The literature suggests that the average male in the context of the marriage is in crisis, because of the rise of feminism and the emancipation process from a previously male-dominated society. The study attempts to investigate the meaning of Ephesians 5:21-24, and to look for possible answers to questions posed by those who try to be obedient in a fundamentalistic way. To this end the problems of applying an ancient text to modem circumstances are investigated. The exegetical and hermeneutical investigation that follows reaches the conclusion that the passage in Ephesians cannot be used to justify complete male dominance in marriage. It does indeed imply a hierarchy within marriage, but this is relativized by clear statements in the rest of the epistle. There is a tension within the passage itself, but only one aspect has traditionally been emphasized. It is suggested that this one-sided emphasis amounts to a misinterpretation.

The aim of this study is to critically analyse the representation of non-ethic Swedes, gender roles and a class ridden society in Children´s literature published in Sweden. The structural discrimination is found within many areas in our society. I have analysed if this discrimination also is to be found in children´s literature. Is there a division between ”us” and “them” in children´s literature? I have analysed books for children from 1980s and 2000s to see if there are any differences between these periods of time. I found that there were differences only in the fields of gender roles. Girls have been given a greater power in the books from 2000s. Other ethnicity´s are hardly found in the books despite the periods of time. White people are still given most space. The meaning of the class ridden society is not to be found in none of the books.

Scholars historically have separated friendships and romantic relationships into two qualitatively distinct relationship categories. Contemporary research examining passionate friendships, however, has identified qualities within platonic relationships that appear to mimic characteristics typically associated with romantic relationships. Primary critiques of the existing passionate friendship literature include exclusively examining females, including samples that predominately identified as lesbian, bisexual or questioning, and research utilizing solely qualitative designs. The current study used a quantitative design to investigate 375 emerging adults' (18-26 years of age; 149 males, 226 females) friendship experiences. Specifically, four quasi-independent variables (i.e., biological sex, sexual orientation, gender-role orientation, and cross vs. same-sex dyads) were examined as factors associated with passionate friendship. Findings from this study indicated that both males and females experience passionate friendship, and that these experiences are not specific to individuals who identify as non-heterosexual. Additionally, results from this study shed light on the occurrence of passionate friendship experiences observed in both cross- and same-sex dyads. Characteristics of passionate friendships (e.g., levels of attachment, thought preoccupation, intensity of the relationship) were also examined using a newly created measure. Female participants and individuals whose closest friend was described a cross-sex friend scored higher on nearly every continuous scale of the designed measure. Additionally, sexual orientation and gender-role orientation yielded significant results on several of the identified subscales, with sexual-minority individuals and those who claimed androgynous or masculine gender-role orientation obtaining higher scores. Finally, predictability of passionate friendship occurrence was evaluated and indicated that passionate friendships may be predicted based on existing demographics or personality characteristics of an individual.