The thesis explores how the way athletically active old men and women make sense of their acting-space affects their participation in competitive sports and conversely how their participation in competitive sports affect their sense-making process and acting-space. It puts emphasis on the sociological point of intersection of three different research fields; sports science, critical gerontology and gender studies. Concretely, it is inspired by grounded theory research design and based on interviews with twenty-two athletically active men and women over the age of 65. The thesis consists of four articles, and together these show that men and women experience certain constraints of acting-space in the context of competitive sports, which primarily seem to be related to norms of age and gender. At the same time, the thesis shows that by practising sports old adults, especially old women, are able to transgress these constraints and possibly challenge dominant constructions of age and gender.

Klimpfjäll is a mountain village in the south of Lappland. In the middle of the 1970's a mine was set up in Stekenjokk about 20 km west of Klimpfjäll. A new housing estate was built, as an extension of Klimpfjäll, to accommodate the miners (about 170 people) and their families. This new part of Klimpfjäll was named, by the local inhabitants, Nybyn (The New Village), and the original village became known as Gammelbyn (The Old Village). For many of the people, the move to Nybyn was not just a case of being provided with the opportunity to earn a living. It was part of a life-objective. However, this way of life had an obstacle; the mine had a limited lifespan. A number of Nybyn's inhabitants could possibly remain in the village, even after the closing of the mine, but for the majority this was an impossibility. Nevertheless, the people still believed in the possibility of "saving" Nybyn as a whole, despite the unreasonableness of that belief. This was also the belief held by the local council, the state and the mining company. I have named this phenomenon "mystification". The future of Klimpfjäll became a mystery. The people would rather not discuss the future of Klimpfjäll because they know that it does not exist, they, nevertheless, want to believe in it. It is this mystification that made the establishment of the mine possible, and which holds Nybyn together socially. The Social Welfare Service in Vilhelmina had, for a long time, regarded Klimpfjäll as a social problem. The problem was defined as being traditional social problems, due partly to addiction and partly to loneliness. For this reason an action research project was started. But the real problem for the people of Nybyn was the uncertainty of the future. The project was doomed to fail. Why should the people of Nybyn "go to evening classes" when their village was being threatened with closure? The project became just one element in the continuing mystification. It was not possible to redefine the project as a "survival project", since everyone wanted to believe in a continue future for the mine. In this study I have attempted to understand why it was impossible for the action research project to succeed. In understanding its failure I believe that we can also understand the people of Klimpfjäll. / digitalisering@umu

This thesis examines the link between landscape and identity among the Sami in HandölsdalensSame village (sameby), one of the 51 administrative units that regulate traditional resourceuse in Sami areas in Sweden. Handölsdalen is situated in the Åre area in the southernpart of the Swedish mountain range. By tradition, the area is inhabited by South Sami, butother Sami groups have migrated into the area, partly as a result of government re-localizationpolicies. The study focuses on the period from around 1900 to the present. Thus study concentrateson the role of landscape in processes of identity formation, relating these processes alsoto various external influences, such as government policies concerning Sami culture and landuse, as well as the general modernization of society. Focusing on landscape and territoriality,the thesis traces the ways in which the Sami respond to, and perceive, the forces of change.The study is based on interviews with Sami who have access to the Sami village, on fieldobservations, as well as on a survey of literature and documents related to the area’s history.Thus, the study is an attempt to approach processes of identity formation from, as it were, theperspective of local Sami as well as the state. The thesis demonstrates, firstly, that the landscapeis an important part of Sami identity, on the individual and collective level. This landscape-based identity is affected, however, by state policies and what many Sami perceive asencroachments by the non-Sami society, as well as the modernization ways of life. Secondly,the thesis demonstrates that there are differences concerning the relationship between landscapeand identity. The dividing line seems to run between Sami who practice reindeerherdingand those who do not, but also between South and North Sami. / Forskarskolan i Geografi

<p>The purpose of this research was to ascertain how children in lowrisk, middle to upper income areas perceive violence and their experience of it. It explores their exposure to violence and how this may affect their view of the future in terms of their hopes and fears. The research was framed around Frantz Fanon&rsquo / s theory of violence and Urie Bronfenbrenner&rsquo / s Systems Theory. The aims of the research was to explore children&rsquo / s perceptions of violence and how this affects children&rsquo / s sense of wellbeing within the context of South Africa by: i) investigating how much children know and understand about the violence that is prevalent in the country, ii) discovering how this frames their perception of violence and finally iii) explore how this affects their sense of well-being. The participants of the study were 28 male and female grade 6 children, between the ages of 10 and 12 from a private school in the Cape Town metropole. There were three focus groups consisting of 8-11 children per group. This was a qualitative study. The data collection was interpreted through Thematic Analysis. The highest standards of ethical conduct and research practice were adhered to.</p>

The use of MRI for patient examinations has constantly increased as technical development has lead to faster image acquisitions and higher image quality. Nevertheless, an MR-examination still takes relatively long time and yet another way of speeding up the process is to employ parallel imaging. In this thesis, one of these parallel imaging techniques, called SENSE, is described and examined more closely. When SENSE is employed, the number of spatial encoding steps can be reduced thanks to the use of several receiving coils. A reduction of the number of phase encoding steps not only leads to faster image acquisition, but also to superimposed pixel values in image space. In order to be able to separate the aliased pixels, knowledge about the spatial sensitivity of the coils is required. There are several different alternatives to how and when information about the sensitivities of the coils should be collected, but in this thesis, focus is on the method of performing a reference measurement before the actual scan. The reference measurement consists of a fast, low-resolution sequence which either is collected with both the body coil and the parallel imaging coil or only with the parallel imaging coil. A comparison of these two methods by simulations in program written MATLAB leads to the conclusion that even if the scan time of the reference measurement is doubled it seems like there are numerous advantages of also collecting data with the body coil: • the images are more homogeneous which facilitates the establishment of a diagnose • the noise levels in the reconstructed images are somewhat lower • images collected with a reduced sampling density show better agreement with those collected without reduction. Furthermore, it is shown that the reference measurement preferably should be a 3D sequence covering all the volume of interest. If a 2D sequence is used it is absolutely necessary that it can be performed in any plane and it has to be repeated for every plane that is imaged.

The aim of my study was to investigate a few young peoples experience of their treatment. The study was qualitative based on interviews with three young persons at the end of their treatment there. The subject was chosen because this kind of youth housing is an interesting alternative to institutional care for young people, despite there is not much known about the results of the treatment. The results were analyzed from earlier research and central concepts from the theory of empowerment and Anton Antonovskys theory about Sense of coherence. The results of this study show that these young peoples are satisfied with their treatment at the youth housing. They felt that a positive change and an improvement of their self-esteem had occurred. Another interesting result of the study shows is that these young people have developed from being a hostile teenager at the edge of a life where they could see no future to living as responsible grown-ups with a much brighter perspective of the future full of hopes and dreams.

Syftet med denna studie var att förstå och beskriva upplevelser av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Studien utgick från fem intervjuer som utfördes hos personer som har varit långtidssjukskrivna och som har deltagit i olika rehabiliteringsinsatser. Intervjuerna bearbetades kvalitativ, textanalysen utfördes utifrån hermeneutisk teori och metod. Frågeställningen var inriktad mot klienternas upplevelse av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Resultatet visade att delaktighet har förekommit vid rehabiliteringen, men begreppet har olika ansikten. Det konstaterades att motivation är nära förknippad med graden av engagemang i olika rehabiliteringsaktiviteter. Även handlingsutrymme och inflytande i de beslut klienterna har deltagit i har spelat roll för individens delaktighet. Vidare alla klienter hade en hög grad av tillhörighet/ samhörighet. / The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the experiences of the participation during the rehabilitation process. The study started out from five interviews with persons who have been long term sick and who have taken part in different rehabilitation programs. The interviews were worked up by a qualitative method, the analysis of the text were made by a hermeneutic theory and method. The question of the study was directed towards the clients' experiences of involvement during the rehabilitation process. The result showed that the clients have felt an involvement in the rehabilitation process, but the concept has different faces. It has been established that motivation is close related to the level of commitment of different activities of the rehabilitation. The ability to private action and influence in the decisions where the clients were involved has also played a part for the participation of the individual. Furthermore all clients had a strong sense of belonging.

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Who am I? Who are we? And how are the two entities connected? These are key issues of this study. Socialization and other sense making processes create new social identities. One possible identity is a professional one. Professional identities are discussed as a construction where expectations and experiences of construed images, cultural and professional understandings are key elements. Social identities are fundamentally described as social and individual reflections. The purpose of the study is to extend the comprehension of how professional identities are constructed and to study new professionals navigation through the complex network of images and contrasting pictures that meet them in that process. The professional identity of Swedish police officers is focused. The profession is - by many of the ten informants in this recurrent, in-depth interview study - described as a dream from childhood. The first of four interview-series has been conducted in beginning of police education, the last after nine months work experience. There are two motives that all informants mention for choosing the profession. The first is a wish to care for others and for the society, the second is excitement. Other mentioned motives are the police profession regarded as teamwork with a high community spirit. It is expected to give good opportunities to develop as individuals and is thought to be a practical occupation, described with key words such as handy and flexible. The construed image, how informants believe that others view the profession, is described either as polices as the selected model or as prejudiced and hostile. The mass media is regarded the main intermediary of the second image. By the informants, a good police is regarded as being without prejudices and is presented as male. Male strength is one desirable quality, though the strength preferably can be combined with female softness. The care-giving motive is accentuated as the most important one in the first interviews, but replaced by excitement as the most important one in practice. Some general discourses are discussed. The first three - the social, the recruitment, and the distrust discourse - are discussed as sources of understanding to the frequently discussed notion of the police profession as constituting strong team spirit. Police identity is also presented as unprejudiced, male and young in the sense of engagement and activity degree. All discourses are often challenged in work- experience, from cultural as well as from image perspectives. On a highly generalized level the police identity can be positioned as one with a high degree of community. When the stories are scrutinized clearly disparate patterns between individuals however appear. The differences are expressed either in accentuation or definition of the common labels. Earlier research on the fields of identity reveals some shortages. The individual's role in constructing social identities and the pure locus of identity is overlooked. To reduce that shortage, this study introduces a professional identity model where the individual´s position is connected to the common identity by expectations and experiences of three key identity elements -Culture, Image and the Profession itself.

The overall aim of this thesis was to develop, test and use a simple, clinically useful instrument for the nutritional screening of older patients. Four studies were performed, with a quantitative approach, in a geriatric rehabilitation ward in western Sweden. The number of patients who par-ticipated was: 56 (I), 114 (II), 147 (III) and 144 (IV) older patients. A nutritional screening instrument, the Nutritional Form For the Elderly (NUFFE), was constructed (I) and tested regarding reliability and validity (I, II). NUFFE was used in a screening, and the screening results were related to the patients’ perceived health and compared to the nurses’ nutritional notes in the nursing documentation (III). The screened patients’ self-care ability and sense of coherence (SOC) were investigated and the patients’ perceived health was related to selfcare ability and SOC (IV). The collection of data was done through interviews with the instruments NUFFE (I-IV), the Selfcare Ability Scale for the Elderly (SASE) (IV), Antonovsky’s SOC scale (IV), a question about perceived health, healthrelated ques-tions (III, IV) and background variables (I-IV). Weight and height were measured (I-III). The nurses’ nutritional notes in the nursing documentation were collected (III). The screening instrument contains 15 threepoint items on ordinal level. The total score ranges between zero and 30 and a higher score indicates higher risk for undernutrition. Evidence of reliability and validity was shown (I, II). The determined cut-off points of NUFFE for identification of patients at low, medium and high risk for undernutrition were set to scores of &lt;6, ≥6 and ≥13 (III). The screening results showed that 31% of the patients were identified to be at low risk for undernutrition, 55% at medium risk and 14% at high risk. When the screening results were compared to nurses’ nutritional notes in the nursing documentation, it was shown that important nutritional issues were absent in many patient records (III). The patients at high risk were more likely to perceive ill health than were those at low risk for undernutrition (p=0.03) (III). Those at medium or high risk were more likely to perceive ill health (p=0.014) and to have lower self-care ability (p&lt;0.001) and weaker SOC (p=0.007) than were those at low risk for undernutrition. To perceive good health was associated with higher self-care ability (p&lt;0.001) and stronger SOC (p&lt;0.001). Lower self-care ability, being single and having been admitted from another hospital ward were three obtained predictors for being at medium or high risk for undernutrition (IV). In conclusion, NUFFE is a simple, useful screening instrument for identification of older nutritional at-risk patients. The instrument has sufficient evidence of reliability and validity. Using NUFFE in a screening of older patients, the prevalence of patients at medium or high risk for undernutrition was found to be high. Nurses’ nutritional notes showed deficiencies, indicating that all medium or high risk patients were not identified. Using NUFFE, associations were found between older patients’ nutritional risk and their perceived health, and their self-care ability and SOC, respectively. These associations indicate that being at low risk for undernutrition is concomitant with perceived good health, higher self-care ability and stronger SOC. Conversely, being at medium or high risk for undernutrition is concomitant with perceived ill health, lower self-care ability and weaker SOC.