This study aims at increasing knowledge about top managers' views on the climate of communication in an organizational context. The main question is "How do strategic managers describe the communication climate?" The study also concerns how the managers describe a communicative action that strives for voice and communicative action that strives for silence. The study also explore the influence of power on the communication climate. The study has a qualitative approach and builds on in-depth interviews with eleven experienced and senior executives. Through the sociologist Goffman's (2009) dramaturgic perspective and through theories of voice and silence, the study tries to interpret the respondents' views. The result shows that respondents describe the communication climate from opposition openness and silence. In an open climate there are open doors, creativity and focus on the business. In a quiet climate, the doors are closed. The focus is on tactics, policies and hidden personal agendas. Although the communication climate is not an established concept among the respondents, everyone strives for an open communication climate and they work differently to reach for it. The study's conclusions confirm previous research that the communication climate is a critical resource for the function and effectiveness of the workplace. The study's conclusions are also that managers should get support, for example from communication departments to learn to read the communication climate in their device and also get tools to develop the communication environment. Not least, managers need help to increase their self-awareness to understand how they personally contribute to an open or closed climate.

Vad händer när det som har varit din vardag de senaste årtiondena tar slut? Vad händer när det som kännetecknade dig inte mera finns kvar? Vem känner man social samhörighet med?   Att gå från att vara professionell idrottare till att pensionera sig och börja om från noll som till exempel 30-, 25- eller 20-åring. Man har skapat sig ett sammanhang som fullt ut har gått ut på idrotten. Vad finns kvar när idrotten försvinner? Vad gör man när ens yrke och vardag försvinner och hur skapar man ett nytt sammanhang och hur ser övergången ut?   I uppsatsen undersöks hur elitidrottare övergår till ett liv där de inte mera livnär sig på sin idrott utan i en övergångsfas måste skapa sig ett nytt socialt sammanhang och identifiera sig själva med nya statuspositioner. Att försöka ta sig fram mellan två parallella världar och sedan lyckas återintegreras i ett nytt socialt sammanhang. Fokuset i uppsatsen är på att belysa processen av skapandet av nya statuspositioner och hur dessa utvecklas genom de tre faserna i Arnold Van Genneps teori om övergångsriter, samt medvetengöra eventuell problematik kring övergången. Uppsatsen ämnar också belysa vikten av ett symboliskt agerande eller en konkret rit som symboliserar avslutet på karriären, för att idrottarna lättare skall kunna lägga det livet bakom sig.

I ett försök att identifiera hur social förändring kan ske i ett samhälle så har den här uppsatsen undersökt fenomenet utbrändhet, dess förändringsprocess i svensk massmedia och de faktorer som skapar dess plats i en social struktur. Den här uppsatsen argumenterar för att (1) Det i massmedia sker en aktiv och passiv förhandling kring vad utbrändhet är/bör vara och vad det betyder för samhället, och (2) Den förhandlingen kan förstås genom att se diskursen kring utbrändhet i massmedia som ett emergent fenomen vars egenskaper aktivt och kontinuerligt förändras i en process som drivs av individers reaktioner på avvikanden och överträdelser i deras sociala system. Detta har åstadkommits genom att med ett kvalitativt arbetssätt identifiera, tematisera och analysera artiklar i populära svenska dagstidningar där ”utbrändhet” samt liknande nyckelord använts över en period på 10 år. Materialet har sedan analyserats ur ett strukturalistiskt perspektiv med fokus på en modern och sekulär tolkning av Mary Douglas’ koncept kring smuts vilket i uppsatsen benämnts avvikelser. Genom att göra detta vill uppsatsen öppna för att renhetsperspektiv kan vara ett relevant perspektiv att använda för att förstå både moderna samhällen och förändringsprocesser. Uppsatsen argumenterar utöver detta även att det förstå förändringsprocesser är relevant för antropologin.

In this thesis, I sought to accomplish two things. First, the thesis is written in a reflexive and even an auto-ethnographic manner. It invites the reader to follow the ethnographer through the metamorphosis of the study, from the point of conception, through the ethnographic fieldwork to the interpretation and, finally, to the presentation of the result. Doing so was an attempt to give the reader a vivid understanding of the process of making an ethnographic text. The ambition with auto-ethnographic dimension is to unveil and problematize the condition for ethnographic fieldwork, as well as to add nuance to the stories of my informants. Second, the thesis strives to answer a simple question: why the UK? The genesis of the question finds its roots in the departure of my friend Kanan, and it was by tracing Kanan’s journey that I found myself in Calais. By focusing on a transit zone like Calais, I have aimed to depart from a dualist approach of migration theories that only focus on destination and origin countries as their analytical points of reference and to present the everyday experiences of exile and statelessness as a continuous journey. The conduit for examining the experiences of my informants will be Chris Dolan’s concept of social torture. Through the concept of social torture, Chris Dolan interlinks the exercise of everyday violence and abuse on a mass scale and torture by focussing on the impacts of such acts on the individual’s body and mind. By doing so, Dolan identifies debility, dependency, dread and disorientation as the four impacts to identify a victim of social torture. The daily life experiences of my informants in Calais were that of social torture.  In this regard, I seek to show how social torture was an apparatus used to force unwanted populations from the French territory and into the UK and other European countries.

The construction business is currently one of the most male-dominated industries in Sweden. The purpose of this thesis is to explore what requirement, expectations and opportunities women are experiencing in a construction company that is located in a big city and how can we understand it? I have interviewed six women on different positions in a company. By doing this I used the qualitative approach which has enabled me to generate an understanding for what kind of requirement, expectations and opportunities the women are experiencing in the company. The theories used in this thesis are mainly about gender systems, suppression techniques and glass roof. The study has shown that the women in the company must have a strong character and personality to be able to cope with the construction industry. A number of women testify on how they need to show that they are worthy of the position they possess. As a woman you must integrate into the current gender system that exists within the company and at the workplace, while it is not expected to take anything seriously when men discriminate and harass a woman. However, opportunities have been developed for women in the industry. Previously women had the administrative tasks assigned to them, now women are awarded new advanced jobs. This indicates that the industry has evolved where new work for women is available.

The idea of knowledge economy initiated by the World Bank, the increasing importance of English proficiency in the global labour market, and the expansion of Chinese higher education, all leads to the phenomenon of Chinese student migration to western countries for getting advantageous educational experiences and credentials. Through a qualitative, interview-based method and Bourdieusian sociological perspective focusing on species of capital (cultural, economic, social and symbolic capital), habitus and mode of reproduction, this study focuses on the analysis of the relation between social background of Chinese students and their adoption of a western education system and perception of future career through the trajectories of ten Chinese students at Uppsala University, one of the most renowned universities in Sweden. The study examines the role of various assets in the family of origin, as well as the importance of the students’ long journey in the Chinese education system. The findings indicate that the students came from a fairly well off Chinese middle class that had established itself in the parent generation through an upward mobility. Both inherited and acquired assets through family origin and the educational trajectory were important factors that affected the Chinese students’ decision of studying abroad. Among the three species of assets originated from the family, the economic asset played a particularly significant role in the Chinese students’ educational trajectory, irrespective of the composition of families’ capital resources. Family economic assets became increasingly crucial while students moved up to higher educational levels. It also investigates the students’ encounter with the “Western” world represented by an academic and international student environment. While most of the students said they appreciated what Uppsala University had offered in terms of academic life and cultural experiences, they somewhat contradictory kept a distance to both the new forms of academic culture they met and students from other countries. The habitus valued in their previous educational trajectory in China did not fit the criteria for academic performance in the western higher educational institution. It was instead partly contested. With regard to the future, the interviewed students expressed concerns as to the value of their experience and diploma on the Chinese academic and job markets due to the absence from Chinese contact and the culture rooted in social connection. A hypothesis emerging from the interview data is that the family-based social reproduction strategy expressed in the strong family investments in education leading up to the studies abroad potentially has as effect that the offspring, the students, become less dependent on this family-based reproduction. Instead, they regarded themselves as being entitled, by merit, to decide on their own future.

Labor market research has predominantly been concerned with extrinsic rewards, while a growing body of research has called attention to the importance of intrinsic rewards. The present thesis builds on this research by examining the relation between intrinsic rewards and the work structure. The questions posed are: (A) How do occupations in the Swedish labor market vary by intrinsic job characteristics, and to what extent is this variation related to occupational extrinsic rewards? (B) What is the relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for the individuals’ job satisfaction? Utilizing the Level-of-Living-Survey data between 1991 and 2010, occupational-level measures are constructed for intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The measures are compared, and regression-techniques are used to control for individual characteristics, and to answer the second question. Results show that occupations are ranked in an intrinsic hierarchy that is partly separate from the extrinsic one. Moreover, the occupations seem to affect job satisfaction primarily through the intrinsic reward dimension.  The implications are that intrinsic rewards outline an important aspect of labor market stratification that has largely been overlooked.

Syftet med denna studie är att belysa hur individer med ADHD-diagnos hanterar sin diagnos i olika sociala sammanhang och därmed utöka den redan begränsade forskningen på hur individer med ADHD-diagnos själv upplever sin diagnos i en social kontext. Närmare bestämt ämnar studien att undersöka om individer med diagnosen upplever att de döljer sin diagnos. Vid påträffande döljande undersöktes också hur och varför detta döljande förekom. Tidigare forskning visar även att det finns grund till stigmatisering och diskriminering vid ett innehavande av en ADHD-diagnos. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer, intervjuades 10 individer mellan 18-35 år som blivit diagnostiserade med ADHD. Resultatet analyserades med hjälp av Erving Goffmans teori om stigmatisering och att passera, Sara Ahmeds begrepp linjer, tillrättavisningsmekanismer och ‘habit-spaces’, samt Michael Olivers sociala modell för funktionshinder. Teorin, begreppen och modellen hjälper oss se hur ett stigma ser ut, hur ett stigma kan hanteras, hur samhälleliga responsen till ett stigma kan se ut och hur samhället konstruerar vad som anses vara ett funktionshinder eller inte. Vårt resultat av studien visade att det fanns tendenser hos individerna med ADHD-diagnos att dölja sin diagnos i vissa sociala sammanhang, vilka tidigare hade delades upp i skola, arbete, fritid och relationer, det sistnämnda med avseende på vänskap, kärlek och familj. Det mest förekommande var att dölja sin diagnos i arbetssammanhang, exempelvis för chefer, kollegor och nya kunder. Därefter fanns också tendenser att dölja sin diagnos i skolan, främst hos de informanter som studerade på högskola. Inom relationer förekom ett döljande vid nya vänskapsrelationer, dock inte under övriga kategorier. Inte heller under fritid återfanns ett döljande.

Trade of second hand goods between private individuals has increased substantially during the 21st century, particularly in the light of a growing e-commerce scene. Consequently, individual consumers more notably find themselves in the role of sellers in the marketplace and take on responsibilities traditionally performed by businesses. The study at hand builds on this phenomenon and examines how consumer online resellers at the online auction marketplace Tradera make sense of valuation and pricing processes related to their intended resale of pre-owned branded clothing. For this purpose, nine private Tradera-users have been interviewed. By drawing on theoretical contributions from economic sociology and the sociology of valuation, the study has contributed to an enhanced understanding of consumer online resale behaviour and the role of individual valuation and pricing processes for the ordering of an online auction market. The results show that the informants find it problematic to economically value and price garments that are to be resold in the market since they are considered, more or less, usable and meaningful possessions. The study has found valuation of garment condition to be the main source of uncertainty as it distinguishes the economic value of branded garments in the marketplace. The informants broaden the definition of what is judged “new” to make valuation processes more favourable in accordance to their perception of second hand markets. The study further finds that the informants facilitate individual valuation and pricing processes, and simultaneously contribute to market order, by referring to an informal and socially constructed scale for valuating product condition that is marketplace-specific and complements Tradera’s formal categorization system by adding nuances. To cope with the situational uncertainty of not knowing the auction outcome in advance, the study has shown that the informants appear risk averse when pricing garments and therefore avoid misplacing the value distribution.

In November 2016 the Swedish government requested a study where actions were suggested in order to strengthen the children's rights perspective for those children living at refuges. This resulted in the commission of inquiry "A window of opportunity- a strengthen children's rights perspective for children in refuges" (SOU 2017:112). The aim for this paper is to study how this inquiry is constructed and in which way it problematize children's rights and will be guided by three research questions: how is the concept ‘children's rights' problematized in the report SOU 2017:112, how does the problematization of children's rights position children living at the refuges in order to strengthen them as rights holders and what implicit assumptions are made as a way to increase the children's rights perspective for the children living at refuges? To investigate these questions this paper will do a policy analysis based on Carol Bacchi’s (2009) “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) approach. The method is chosen since the WPR-approach is used for the study of policies and especially studies the way a policy constructs a problem. This paper argues that the problematization of children's rights positions the children at the refuges as in need of protection and care and at the same time emphasizes their right to get their voice heard, as they are being active individuals. The urge to strengthen the children is argued to be a way to prevent the children who have experienced violence to become abusive themselves. As such, the conclusion is that a strengthen children's rights perspective for those children living in refuges transmits to them becoming ‘good citizens'.