In today’s Europe nationalist movements grow stronger. The Scottish referendum is a result of the nationalistic party Scottish National Party’s aim of an independent Scotland. Using a descriptive idea analysis the essay aim to answer how the referendum arose, its main arguments and how national and state identity is affected in the arguments. The essay examines what Scottish and British identity is, how it can be observed in the two campaigns and what tinged the two campaigns. The result of the essay is that there are features in both of the two campaigns’ main arguments that are influenced by identity of either national or state character.

The outcome of the Brexit referendum sparked a discussion in the media about ill-informed voters. There are few studies that investigate the information behaviour of voters, and even fewer of referendum voters. This thesis explores a small population of students at Scottish universities to gain insight in how they sought, received, and communicated information before the Brexit referendum. The aim is to investigate the students' information behaviour before they voted. Twenty-two students were interviewed, using a survey interviewing technique that also included open questions. The findings show that students were active, and interested, information seekers, but that they experienced a lack of quality information. Instead of trusting media sources, they turned to friends and family for information, although few changed their mind from their original conviction. The conclusions show that political awareness affected the information behaviour of the students, which is supported by Zaller’s Receive-Accept-Sample model, and that there was a high level of political awareness among the participants, in part because of the previous Scottish independence referendum. Wilson’s model of information behaviour was applied, and the analysis shows that intervening variables such as environment, role relations, and source characteristics affected information seeking, as well as other intervening variables like the lack of information and distrust of information sources.

The independence of Scotland from Great Britain has been a long-standing and complex issue, with roots dating back centuries. In recent years, the question of independence has been brought to the forefront again with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, commonly known as Brexit. After referendum in 2014, Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom, but most Scottish voters chose to remain in the EU in the Brexit referendum of 2016. This has led to renewed calls for independence from some quarters, as many in Scotland feel that their interests are not being represented in the UK’s decision-making process. The issue of independence is highly contentious, with arguments for and against independence being made on economic, cultural and political grounds. Those in favor of independence argue that it would allow Scotland to have more control over its own affairs and to chart its own course in the world, while those opposed to independence argue that it would create unnecessary division and uncertainty, Ultimately the question of independence for Scotland remains a matter of ongoing debate on the will of the Scottish people and the decision of the UK government.

In this Bachelor thesis, I conducted a comparative analysis of democratic citizenship seen through the lens of two countries’ academic curricula. The analysis examines how Sweden and Scotland express their ideals of a democratic citizenship, through curricula learning goals, capacities and courses, i.e., Scottish modern studies and Swedish social studies. The purpose of this study is to better understand which democratic ideals are taught in school and how democratic citizenship might differ between two similar, but distinct, free societies. In this study, the notion of democracy is assumed to be similar in both countries. However, they differ in how democratic citizenship is expressed through their curricula. To examine this area thoroughly, this analysis uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative method employed is an ideal type analysis, with its basis on democratic ideal types as defined in literature. The quantitative method used is a content analysis where the frequency of democratic related words is counted. The analysis shows that in the Scottish curriculum the notion of democratic citizens emphasizes a responsible citizenship. This includes the ideal of society as a collective beyond just the individual citizen. The analysis also shows that democratic citizenship in the Swedish curriculum centers on a concept of justice-oriented citizens with emphasis on development of the student as an individual.

<p>I avhandlingen behandles dannelse og utvikling av norrøne stedsnavn i tre sogn på Orknøyene fra norrønspråklig tid fram til i dag.</p>

I avhandlingen behandles dannelse og utvikling av norrøne stedsnavn i tre sogn på Orknøyene fra norrønspråklig tid fram til i dag.

ABSTRACT Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka Jacob de Wets porträttserie av skotska kungar som återfinns i Palace of Holyroodhouse i Edinburgh, Skottland. Uppsatsen är tematiskt disponerad där de två första kapitlen behandlar porträttserier i det tidigmoderna Europa, historiska texter om nationens mytologiska ursprung och det samhälleliga läget under de skotska restorationsåren mellan 1660 och cirka 1689. Detta diskuteras sedan tillsammans med Jacob de Wets porträtt vad gäller syfte, funktion och sedermera praktisk tillkomst. Bildanalyser med hjälp av Roland Barthes teori om myten som ett metaspråk fördjupar diskussionen om hur serien ska läsas och förstås. Undersökningen finner att serien har flera syften och funktioner sprungna ur diskurser om nationalitet och makt, grundat i kulturella och konstnärliga praktiker samt historiska händelser gällande politik och religion. Nyckelord: Jacob de Wet, restorationen, Stuart, porträtt, porträttserier, tidigmodern tid,Skottland, Palace of Holyroodhouse, semiotik, Roland Barthes.

<p>Turistiskt kulturutövande – en studie om autentiska kulturarv fiktiva kontexter i Skara och Skottland, är en magisteruppsats som studerar ett fenomen kallat för ”fiktiva kulturarv”. Två fallstudier, ”Arnfenomenet” och ”Da Vinci- effekten”, analyseras utifrån uppkomst, kulturturistisk form och marknadsföring. Turistiskt kulturutövande har allt mer börjat innebära samarbetsprojekt mellan kultursektorn och turismnäringen vilket fört med sig både positiva och negativa reaktioner. Uppsatsen presenterar hur det fiktiva kulturarvet med dess autentiska och fiktiva delar kan bidra till både möjligheter och begränsningar inom kulturturistiska samarbetsprojekt.</p> / <p>“A study of fictional context in the intermediary of authentic cultural heritage in Skara and Scotland” is a study about a phenomenon called “fictional cultural heritage”. Two case studies, “the Arnphenomena” and “the Da Vinci- effect”, are analysed from their origin, marketing and different aspects of cultural tourism. Cultural tourism has more frequently been used as collaborated projects between the tourism industry and the heritage industry. These projects have brought both positive and negative reactions. This study shows the “fictional cultural heritage” and how it’s authentic and fictional aspects can entail both possibilities and limitations.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to describe, critically analyse and provide information about gender equality in Swedish preschools, in relation to policy and practice. The main focus is on pedagogues’ gender equality work with children. The study includes a comparison between state gender equality policy in Scottish and Swedish preschools. The theoretical starting point for the analysis is a policy and gender perspective. Based on Bacchis’ (1999) and Marshalls’ (1997) work suggesting that gender equality policy issues and problems are socially constructed, a contrasting analytical framework is devised and used in the analysis. The main emphasis in the analysis of gender equality constructions is on underlying assumptions, competing constructions and “areas of silence”, relating to what is missing from a gender perspective. There is also some consideration of the agreement between constructions and concrete measures. The time-period studied was from the end of the 1960s onwards; emphasis was placed on the last fifteen years. The main empirical data consists of: Swedish and Scottish state official policy documents and interviews with Scottish researchers; Swedish local authority official documents and interviews with local authority officials from four municipalities; and interviews with pedagogues from three work-teams in three preschools. This information is complemented with documentation about the preschools’ gender equality work. In state preschool policy, pedagogues are depicted both as part of the solution to the gender equality problem but also part of the problem because there are “too few men”. Local authorities consider that pedagogues need more knowledge about gender equality. The pedagogues themselves make a distinction between the past, when their treatment of children was founded on gender-based stereotypes, and the present, in which they are aware but need to keep up the work. In both Swedish preschool policy and practice, gender equality has mainly focused on treating girls and boys similarly, based on assumptions that this is desirable; and this is still the approach. This similarity discourse has been quite constant in Swedish state policy since the 1960s. One exception, however, was the attention to biological differences which gained influence in the mid 1990s in policies mainly relating to compulsory schooling. Gender equality is, with respect to both policy and practice, largely constructed as a pedagogical preschool issue. Discussions about wider society mainly concern the public sphere and the labour market, whilst the private sphere is seldom considered. Children are mainly positioned as “girls” or “boys” and as recipients of pedagogues’ gender equality measures. In general, little consideration is given to hierarchies and variations among groups of girls or boys, or about intersections between gender and other socially constructed categories. Intersections were most clearly visible in practice, especially in one preschool studied; they concern gender equality, age and space. Issues concerning power and gender order are usually missing, and there seems to be a clear influence of gender role theories. Even though there is clear current emphasis on increased similarities, there is a tension concerning whether gender equality is about treating everybody exactly the same, treating everybody in quite similar ways or treating children as unique individuals. This also involves a tension relating to whether gender equality concerns girls and boys as individuals, or as groups, or both. The study demonstrated that the emphasis on gender equality is stronger in the constructions than in concrete measures. In practice, work-teams’ discussions about gender equality were more nuanced than the somewhat compensatory methods that these practitioners applied during their work with the children.

Turistiskt kulturutövande – en studie om autentiska kulturarv fiktiva kontexter i Skara och Skottland, är en magisteruppsats som studerar ett fenomen kallat för ”fiktiva kulturarv”. Två fallstudier, ”Arnfenomenet” och ”Da Vinci- effekten”, analyseras utifrån uppkomst, kulturturistisk form och marknadsföring. Turistiskt kulturutövande har allt mer börjat innebära samarbetsprojekt mellan kultursektorn och turismnäringen vilket fört med sig både positiva och negativa reaktioner. Uppsatsen presenterar hur det fiktiva kulturarvet med dess autentiska och fiktiva delar kan bidra till både möjligheter och begränsningar inom kulturturistiska samarbetsprojekt. / “A study of fictional context in the intermediary of authentic cultural heritage in Skara and Scotland” is a study about a phenomenon called “fictional cultural heritage”. Two case studies, “the Arnphenomena” and “the Da Vinci- effect”, are analysed from their origin, marketing and different aspects of cultural tourism. Cultural tourism has more frequently been used as collaborated projects between the tourism industry and the heritage industry. These projects have brought both positive and negative reactions. This study shows the “fictional cultural heritage” and how it’s authentic and fictional aspects can entail both possibilities and limitations.