In 2023 a committee directive was published by the Swedish government regarding a review of certain issues in the field of suicide prevention. The study aims to analyze the understanding of suicide as a phenomenon to explore how suicide is constructed through discourse and discuss the ideological consequences for social work. This will hopefully deepen the understanding of the suicide and suicide prevention in a Swedish context. The study adopts a social constructivist approach, and the research design was qualitative with Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) paradigm. Research data in the study was two government documents regarding suicide and suicide prevention. The data was analyzed according to Fairclough’s three-dimensional model: through text, through discursive practice and through social practice in a sociocultural context using Foucault’s term power-knowledge. The study discusses the implications of the findings in a wider political and social meaning. The research finds that the competing discourses on suicide in Sweden exists within the structural perspective of understanding the phenomenon, with features of economic-, medical- and individual -discourse and that there is a shift in social politics moving away from the individual and medical/pathologic discourse on suicide. The implications for social work are concluded to be future suicide preventive interventions designed for social services, and furthermore a broader take on individuals with suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

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This thesis investigates the Slow Food movement which started in Italy in the late80’s and today is an internationally spread organization with around 100 000 participants in 160 countries. The core aim within the Slow Food movement is combining everyone’s “right to pleasure” with social responsibility, summed up in their motto: “Good, Clean and Fair”. The movement is interesting from a global development perspective, since it looks at food in relation to the cultural, physical, social, environmental and political aspects of our lives, and relates to sustainability in a wide sense. In 2003, UNESCO started acknowledging so called ”Intangible cultural heritage” as a part of the common heritage of humanity, and a few years later some culinary traditions were inserted to the list. Departing from a social constructivist approach in how knowledge is constructed, combined with Pieterse’s ideas of the relation between culture and power, the key research question for the thesis is: How is the concept of Food as cultural heritage being expressed within the external communication channels of the Slow Food movement? Followed by the sub-question: How do these expressions relate to power dynamicsand to socially constructed assumptions of reality? Through a semiotic analysis, visual and textual material from Slow Food’s official websites have been analysed, using the UNESCO definition of Intangible cultural heritage as an analytical tool. The findings are that many fundamental ideas within the UNESCO definition are expressed in Slow Food’s external communication, but at the same time, that some aspects could be more highlighted in order to put a higher emphasis on the producer and the community. It is evident that Slow Food need to continuously address the critique directed towards them regarding issues of privilege and elitism, and keep a self-reflexive approach in their communication work.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine marked the end of a period of peace on the Europeancontinent and as it constituted a significant shift in the geopolitical environment thisevent likely influenced the actions and worldview of important actors in the region suchas the EU. The aim of this essay is thus to examine to what extent the Russian invasionof Ukraine caused a shift in EU’s defence- and security politics as well as their view oninternational relations. In an attempt to answer this question a qualitative analysis oftwo of the Unions strategic documents, the EU Global Strategy from 2016 and theStrategic Compass from 2022, was conducted. By utilizing ideal types of the theoriesliberal internationalism, realism, social constructivism and the Copenhagen School’swidened security agenda the analysis found that there has been a shift in the ideasunderpinning EU’s security politics from liberal internationalism towards more realismand that the military and economic sector had been successfully securitized. In otherwords, the EU's defence- and security politics shifted after the Russian invasion ofUkraine towards a bigger focus on military capabilities and towards a view of the worldas a more threatening and competitive place.

This study aims to find out how a selection of upper-secondary Swedish teachers engage their ESL students in critical self-reflection, as well as what their motivations behind these choices are. Specifically, this study aims to provide support for the hypothesis that teachers actively avoid social learning in correlation with critical self-reflection. Through an interview process and analysis, it was found that the interviewed teachers did, in fact, actively avoid social methods and activities when teaching critical self-reflection, due to a variety of reasons. The main motivations behind opting for solitary or individual critical self-reflections were age, group dynamics, student dispositions, and language proficiency.

This study explores the representations of religious concepts generated by Chat-GPT, an AI language model, within the context of educational discourse. Utilizing thematic analysis, the research investigates how Chat-GPT responds to queries related to religion, how it explains and presents religion, examining the alignment of its responses with the Swedish curriculum guidelines. Drawing on theories of social constructivism and educational paradigms, the study elucidates the potential impact of the framing of questions on Chat-GPT’s outputs, particularly in light of implicit biases embedded in educational frameworks. The findings shed light on the intricate interplay between AI technologies and educational context, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities presented by integration of AI tools in pedagogical settings.

The purpose of this study is to explore the idea and method of holistic education and if traces of these can be found in four preschool teachers’ statements about their practices in two private preschools located in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. Working holistically is something which UNESCO (Marope & Kaga, 2015) recommends when it comes to early childhood care and education. In a developing country like India primary education is important to growth and development. It is one of the main sustainable development goals and early childhood education is considered a means to reach this goal. This study aims to provide some insight into what a holistic approach to early childhood education can entail. In this study I have explored literature to gain a theoretical knowledge of the idea and working methods of holistic education through a literature review. I then conducted a qualitative interview study where I traced the ideas and methods found in the literature in four preschool teachers’ statements about their practices to gain an understanding of what ideas and methods found in a preschool setting can be considered to lead to holistic outcomes. The results show that the idea and methods of holistic education, as I understand it through the literature review, were evident in the teachers’ statements to various extent, and that that inclusion, balance and connections lead to holistic education. Even though the teachers do not explicitly work with holistic education as Miller (2007, 2010) describes it, this study found that the practices of the teachers, as described by them, promote similar ideas and the same methods could be found. This study can provide a concrete understanding of what a holistic approach to early childhood education can and should involve.

Research indicates that the number of individuals diagnosed with neurological, learning and psychiatric disorders has shown a sharp increase in recent years. An increasing acknowledgement of the importance of narratives and discourses in constructing social reality has stimulated much debate on the consequences of diagnosing individuals with such diagnostic labels. The aim of this study was to explore the ways in which such individuals construct meaning from their experiences of adapting to their diagnostic labels by reframing them as interpersonal metaphors. In service of this aim, a social constructionist epistemology was adopted and discourse analysis was used to analyse the results from three participants’ interview data. The results indicate that participants managed to construct meaning from their experiences with their diagnostic labels through a reframing process that serve to promote positive perceptions of self in relation to others. Furthermore, this meaning-construction process appears to be a reflective and interactional one, in that it relies on a negotiation of meanings between people in a retrospective fashion. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie navorsing word die interpersoonlike proses waardeur betekenissisteme deur dialoog in die terapeutiese konteks geko-konstrueer word, beskryf en gelllustreer, aan die hand van 'n gevallestudie. Hierdie navorsing is gegrond in 'n kubemetiese epistemologie wat impliseer dat probleme, oplossings en realiteite nie as 'n objektiewe realiteit beskryf kan word nie, maar eerder as 'n konstruksie van die observeerder. Terapie word beskryf as 'n dialektiese proses tussen die terapeut en die klient waarin betekenissisteme geko-konstrueer word. Die proses waardeur realiteite deur vertelling in terapie geko-konstrueer word, word gepunktueer in terme van 'n dialektiese beskrywingsproses tussen die sensoriese ervaring (dit sluit in kognitiewe verstandsprosesse wat deur konstruktivistiese teoriee verklaar word), en die beskrywing daarvan in taal (wat deur sosiale konstruktivisme verklaar word). In hierdie rekursiewe proses word betekenissisteme as intersubjektiewe fenomeen geskep en ervaar deur die individu betrokke in dialogiese en interaksionele prosesse. / This research illustrates and describes, through the use of a case study, the interpersonal process through which meaning systems are co-constructed by means of dialogue in the therapeutic context. The research is founded on the cybernetic epistemology which implies that problems, solutions and realities cannot be described as an objective reality, but rather as a construction ofthe observer. Therapy is described as a dialectic process between the therapist and the client in which new meaning systems are being co-constructed. The process in which realities are co-constructed through narratives, are punctuated in terms of a dialectic process of description between the sensory experience (that includes cognitive mental processes which are explained through constructivism), and the description thereof in language (which is explained through social constructivism). In this recursive process meaning systems as an intersubjective phenomena are created and experienced by the individual in dialogical and interactional processes. / Psychology / M.A. (Kliniese Sielkunde)

The aim of this study was to examine how professionals, in the field of social work, perceive and describes the phenomenon sex as a way to self-harm. By taking note of how professionals describes the meaning of the phenomenon and its function and examine their beliefs about gender differences, we wish to, with the help of selected theories, seek understanding of the phenomenon.   In our research for previous studies, we noticed the lack of scientific research, which made us curious about the phenomenon and wanted to seek for a better understanding. The study was conducted through a qualitative method based on a survey constituted by open questions. The survey was filled by different professionals that are working in the field of social work.   The conclusion of our study shows that the phenomenon is very complex and there are many different causes and aims to self-harm by using sex. The study also showed that the professionals that participated in this study had some beliefs about gender differences linked to the phenomenon.