Doctor of Philosophy / The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to come to a deeper understanding of clinical decision making from within the interpretive paradigm. The project draws on ideas from a number of schools of thought which have the common emphasis that the interpretive use of language is at the core of all human activity. This research project studied settings where health professionals and medical students engage in clinical decision making in groups. Settings included medical students participating in problem-based learning tutorials and a team of health professionals working in a multidisciplinary clinic. An underlying assumption of this project was that in such group settings, where health professionals are required to articulate their clinical reasoning for each other, the individuals involved are likely to have insights that could reveal the nature of clinical decision making. Another important assumption of this research is that human activities, such as clinical reasoning, take place in cultural contexts, are mediated by language and other symbol systems, and can be best understood when investigated in their historical development. Data were gathered by interviews of medical students and health professionals working in the two settings, and by non-participant observation. Data analysis and interpretation revealed that clinical decision making is primarily a social and linguistic skill, acquired by participating in communities of practice called health professions. These communities of practice have their own subculture including the language game called clinical decision making which includes an interpretive repertoire of specific language tools and skills. New participants to the profession must come to embody these skills under the guidance of more capable members of the profession, and do so by working through many cases. The interpretive repertoire that health professionals need to master includes skills with words, categories, metaphors, heuristics, narratives, rituals, rhetoric, and hermeneutics. All these skills need to be coordinated, both in constructing a diagnosis and management plan and in communicating clinical decisions to other people, in a manner that can be judged as intelligible, legitimate, persuasive, and carrying the moral authority for subsequent action.

<p>This study is a critical discourse analysis of Swedish newspaper articles about prostitution. The purpose of the study is to investigate which discourse/discourses about prostitution that is/are adressed in the articles and identify the power relations and meanings that are constructed by the different subject posititions in the articles. Apart from critical discourse analysis social constructionism and a discussion about gender are applied in the analysis. The results supports findings in earlier research about prostitutionin Sweden; that the debate is focused around prostitution as sexual domination or prostitution regarded as a voluntary choice which rises demands of human rights for sexworkers. No prostitutes or buyers of sex where given the opportunity to comment on the matter, only journalists, politicians, social workers and policemen. The prostitutes are represented mainly as women who are victims in relation to the buyers who foremost are represented as perpetrators and men with labours, significant others/wifes and children.</p>

<p>This work applies intersectionality to five Somali women self-narratives and focuses on their identities and positions in Swedish society, but also their relation to Somali society. Since people constructs in relation to the environment, this work studies the impact of environmental confirmations of their own self. Intersectionality is brought into the social work with an operational attempt, and shows how critics of power and interplay between theories and empirics can provide new knowledge. Intersectionality also demands some alterations of the social constructionists’ idea of the ego. Therefore this work outline a model of analysis that considers the critic of power. According to this work, intersectionality implies that social work is essentially about power. The women’s egos seem to be closely united different strongly. The more different identifications the women describes and the more ambivalent they are allowed to be in different milieus, the greater assets has the women in their ability to move between milieus and to pass between positions of power. But the tighter united some of their identifications are in their egos; the firmer is their assumptions of what constitute a good behaviour. And the stronger united the ego is, the space to pass through positions of power in different arenas is shrinking.</p><p>This work emphasizes the importance of making shifts of power in identification categories visible in order to localize resistance strategies among exposed individuals. This work also suggest that social work should consider the supplementary vulnerable situation that signify the position in intersection between power orders and contradictory norms, since that could lead to too simplified conclusions that create additional isolation. Being sensitive to the experience and resolution of these women’s own experiences and resolutions is therefore crucial in achieving good social work. Accordingly, lack of knowledge is an obstacle to resist discrimination and oppression. Another conclusion is that social work and social politics should aim to strengthen the ego of immigrant women in order to release their driving forces that in turn may lead to participation, not only to the Swedish society. These Somali women appear as peace endeavours, whose political voices has been marginalised both in the Somali and the Swedish context, which obstacle peace making in the Somali society.</p>

<p>This paper aimed to investigate to what extent there is an age cut-off for teenage boys in the women’s shelters of Sweden and how a possible cut-off is described and maintained. This occurrence has not been investigated earlier to a large extent, which emphasizes the importance of this paper. A mixed strategy was used to cover both the frequency as well as the explanations to the age cut-off. The quantitative survey was sent to all women’s shelters in Sweden and the result showed that 56 % of the shelters had an age cut-off for teenage boys from 12 years of age and above. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six women’s shelters in Stockholm to examine how the notion teenage boys was constructed and used by the respondents to deny them refuge together with their mothers. The teenage boys were described as young men, aggressive and in the same time need of support, which all had the consequence that they could not stay at the shelters with collective housing. The age cut-off was neither discussed nor questioned by the members of the women’s shelters and was upheld by its legitimation. From a social constructive perspective the women’s shelters could be understood as institutionalized.</p>

<p>This is a qualitative study about how young men in the age of 16-18 years can construct their masculinity. How do these young men describe a “real man”? What are their thoughts about themselves as adults? The purpose of this study includes a gender perspective in surroundings that cope with the sport football. To answer this study, six young men in the age of 16-18 years, whom are active football players in different levels, have been interviewed. The findings showed that the young men seemed to construct their masculinity in cooperation with the surroundings and the nearest family members seemed to have a very strong influence of the boy’s development to become a man. The results even indicated that the young men construct their masculinity by distancing themselves from what seems not to be masculine, for example male homosexuals.</p>

<p>The study sheds light on how individuals from different countries experience the labour action Komjobb. The study aim to examine in which consideration experiences of the action Komjobb differs among the participants. The study is based on eight qualitative interviews and analyzed by using the method of phenomenography. We have based this research on a theory about Social constructivism. Other theories that we have used are Bauman's theory about the changing value of work in the modern and postmodern society and Andersson's theory of unemployment as a social category. The result is also based on previous research about labour market policies. We have concluded that Komjobb to a particular part meets individual needs. Other conclusions are that there are some differences in whether people from different countries perceive the action as satisfactory. The participants feel that Komjobb strengthens their position at the labour market and in a positive way affect their other routines in everyday life.</p>

<p>Fokus i uppsatsen är begreppet mångfald och svenska Amnesty. Utgångspunkten är dels det oproblematiserade och positiva talet om mångfald som kommer till uttryck i den offentliga debatten i Sverige och dels det faktum att den svenska sektionen av Amnesty International nyligen tagit beslut om att införa ett"mångfaldsperspektiv"i syfte att genomsyra all organisation och verksamhet.</p><p>Syftet med uppsatsen är formulerat i två steg: som ett första steg analyserar jag uppfattningar och föreställningar om Amnesty som organisation, och om dess medlemmar och som ett andra steg gör jag - med särskilt fokus på etniska och kulturella aspekter - en analys av hur mångfald förstås i intervjuerna och hur denna förståelse relateras till svenska Amnesty som organisation. Kvalitativa intervjuer med sex aktiva medlemmar inom svenska Amnesty utgör grunden för analysen. Ett socialkonstruktionistiskt inspirerat synsätt används som teoretisk referensram och begrepp som etnicitet, kultur, mångkulturalism och kategorisering är centrala och används som teoretiska verktyg i analysen.</p><p>De huvudsakliga slutsatserna av analysen är att den bild av Amnesty, och dess medlemmar, som kommer till uttryck i intervjuerna är nästintill uteslutande positiv, vilket får till följd att en diskussion om utanförskap och diskriminering i rörelsen inte ges något direkt utrymme. Mångfald förstås i mångt och mycket i termer av en representation av olika"kategorier"av människor såsom "män", "kvinnor", "invandrare", "icke-akademiker". En oreflekterad och oproblematiserad förståelse av mångfald riskerar att"låsa fast"människors olikheter i"kategorier"och på så sätt riskerar olikheter att essentialiseras. Det problematiska i talet om mångfald är inte att man fokuserar på människors olikheter utan att olikhetsdiskussionen snarare utgår från olika kategorier av människor än från individer.</p> / <p>The focus of this study is the concept of diversity and the movement of Amnesty International in Sweden. The starting-point of the study is partly the unproblematic and positive way of referring to diversity in Swedish working life and the public debate and partly the decision taken by Amnesty in Sweden to introduce a “diversity-policy” in the association.</p><p>The aim of the study is expressed in two steps: firstly, my aim is to analyse the understanding of Amnesty as an organisation, expressed by active Amnesty-members in Sweden. Secondly, my aim is to analyse the understanding of diversity, expressed by the members, and the way this understanding refers to the movement of Amnesty in Sweden. The empirical material is primarily based upon qualitative in-depths interviews with six active Amnesty-members. Social constructionism is used as a theoretical frame of reference and concepts as ethnicity, culture, multiculturalism and categorizing are essential in the study and used as theoretical tools in the analysis.</p><p>The main results are that the image of Amnesty and its members given in the interviews, is, in principle, exclusively positive, giving no space for a discussion of discrimination in the organisation. The understanding of diversity is based upon a conception of representation of different categories of people, such as “men”, “women”, “immigrants”, “non-academics” etc. The unproblematic way of speaking of diversity run the risk of strengthen the conception of “difference” based upon different categories of people, not individuals.</p>

<p>What is identified as a problematic area in this thesis is our different relations with information technology which creates inequalities between possibilities to enjoy the advantages, or suffer the disadvantages, of the information technological development. The first step in addressing this area is to start with our conceptions of technological development, voluntaristic or deterministic, and the first argument is that it is important to create an awareness of our relation with technology. This thesis presents a perspective (with the help of social constructionism) which holds a possible method to create better conditions for awareness and finally, another relation. The relationistic approach highlights what sometimes is labelled the therapeutic purpose of IS (i.e. to create a mutual understanding between different agents through negotiated arrangements) which prevents some agents to be treated as inanimate objects instead of fellow human beings. And techno therapy not only for the IS researchers but for the change agents at the political level and perhaps most importantly, for the users themselves so that they will be able to formulate, communicate and mediate their needs and wishes. The aim is to come up with tools and instruments for creating opportunities for as many as possible to in an enlightened and equal way make their own choices regarding information technology use.</p>

Cette thèse porte sur les dynamiques identitaires et plus précisément sur l'appréhension et la présentation de soi en tant qu'individu de genre masculin lorsque celles-ci posent problème au sens schutzéen du terme, au travers de l'étude de la transgression des normes de la division sexuelle du travail opérée par les pères « au foyer ». La thèse s'articule autour de trois chapitres principaux. Le premier (chapitre 4) se centre sur les réactions d'autrui a la paternité au foyer, telles qu'elles sont relatées par les pères interrogés. Le second (chapitre 5) met au jour les stratégies mises en place par les pères au foyer pour gérer le manque de légitimité auquel ils sont confrontés. Le troisième (chapitre 6) propose une analyse phénoménologique de l'appréhension genrée de soi. Au travers de cette thèse, c'est une nouvelle définition de l'identité de genre qui est proposée. / This thesis deals with identity dynamics and, more precisely, with masculine self-presentation and self-definition when these become problematic. This is done through the study of gender norms transgression operated by “at-home” dads. The three main chapters of the thesis are the following. Chapter 4 is focussed on peoples' reactions to at-home fatherhood, based on the accounts of housefathers. Chapter 5 analyses at-home dads' strategies to deal with the lack of legitimacy they are confronted to. Chapter 6 proposes a phenomenological analysis of gendered self-definition. Through this work, the author proposes a new definition of gender identity.

Cette thèse porte sur les dynamiques identitaires et plus précisément sur l'appréhension et la présentation de soi en tant qu'individu de genre masculin lorsque celles-ci posent problème au sens schutzéen du terme, au travers de l'étude de la transgression des normes de la division sexuelle du travail opérée par les pères « au foyer ». La thèse s'articule autour de trois chapitres principaux. Le premier (chapitre 4) se centre sur les réactions d'autrui a la paternité au foyer, telles qu'elles sont relatées par les pères interrogés. Le second (chapitre 5) met au jour les stratégies mises en place par les pères au foyer pour gérer le manque de légitimité auquel ils sont confrontés. Le troisième (chapitre 6) propose une analyse phénoménologique de l'appréhension genrée de soi. Au travers de cette thèse, c'est une nouvelle définition de l'identité de genre qui est proposée. / This thesis deals with identity dynamics and, more precisely, with masculine self-presentation and self-definition when these become problematic. This is done through the study of gender norms transgression operated by “at-home” dads. The three main chapters of the thesis are the following. Chapter 4 is focussed on peoples' reactions to at-home fatherhood, based on the accounts of housefathers. Chapter 5 analyses at-home dads' strategies to deal with the lack of legitimacy they are confronted to. Chapter 6 proposes a phenomenological analysis of gendered self-definition. Through this work, the author proposes a new definition of gender identity.