Educational assortative mating and earnings inequality has both increased in both Europe and the United States in the last decades. As a result, educational assortative mating, or educational homogamy, has been suggested as a potential explanation for the increase in earnings inequality. According to this hypothesis increased sorting on education will lead to polarization between lower and higher-educated couples where the advantages of the latter will compound on one another and lead to increased economic inequality.   The majority of the studies to date report a non-relationship between educational assortative mating and earnings inequality, one of the exceptions being a study of Denmark. This exception has led sociologists to theorize that the impact of educational assortative mating could be especially strong in the Nordic countries. In this study I test this hypothesis by employing a novel decomposition method, the Theil-index, to answer if increases in educational assortative mating are associated with increases in earnings inequality in Sweden between 2000 and 2010, using data from the Standard of Living Survey (LNU).   The result is a non-relationship between homogamy and earnings inequality and an overall decrease in earnings inequality in the sample. The result is another null result for the hypothesis that educational homogamy leads to inequality, and points to a larger discrepancy between singles and couples than between couples. If corroborated, this decrease in earnings inequality would mean a divergence, in earnings inequality, between partnered individuals and the general population. Future studies should focus on the extent of this divergence.

In the society of consumers, consumption has developed into a basic social need where the purchase of clothing has become a proof of identity, gender and social status. For men, the interest in clothing consumption and appearance has become more accepted in recent decades. However, the interest in clothing consumption is still considered a feminine trait. The social sciences’ interest in clothing and consumption is based on human behaviour, where clothing and other consumed goods affect how individuals understand themselves and their social environment. For men, clothing is a tool that constructs masculinity and male status. The regulations for what types of clothes and colours that are acceptable for men to wear exist within various sets of norms. Since the body is a key element in masculinity research, clothing and norms become interesting factors in the creation and re-creation of masculinity and male gender. The aim with this study is therefore to contribute with further knowledge about the social factors that affect young Swedish men aged 21-27 regarding clothing and clothing consumption as well as how clothing and clothing consumption are included in the construction and re-construction of gender, masculinity and identity. The study’s theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler’s and Raewyn Connell’s presentation of the concept of gender, Connell’s theory of masculinity and Erving Goffman’s research on identity and self-presentation. The empirical data consists of six semi-structured interviews with men from southern Sweden. The results show that all interviewees have similar experiences regarding how they consume clothes, what kind of clothes they prefer and what they think is and is not acceptable for men to wear. Furthermore, a contradiction emerges where men are forced into a template based on norms and social expectations of how a man should look and act, which the interviewees both relate to and despise. This creates an ambivalence where men are expected to make an effort to look a certain way, and at the same time possess an attitude where they are interpreted as independent individuals who do not care about appearance.

Historically, women like other marginalized and discriminated groups, have been compared to the manly model of sport as ‘others’ and often it is their feminine characteristics that are focused upon. In the coaching profession, women have yet to break through and be seen as equals to their male counterparts. Even as the number of women taking part in sports is increasing and equity between men’s and women’s sports is growing, there still remains areas within sport where women continue to struggle to gain more influence and power. High-performance coaching is an area where growth has been slow for women to gain a more equitable foothold. Men continue to dominate the role as the coach and continue to dominate even more so at the high-performance level of coaching. The aim of this qualitative study is to examine and explore the experiences of high-performance coaches in three Swedish sporting organizations and contribute to an understanding to what factors surround the underrepresentation of high-performance female coaches in sports organizations that are relatively gender equal in participants and leaders. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 5 individual high-performance coaches (3 female; 2 male) across swimming, skiing and triathlon. The results show a continuation of a flexible masculine hegemony in the role of a coach, but also changing attitudes and norms towards women as high-performance coaches. It also questions the organization and structure of the coaching role taking into consideration recommendations for changes in the work of a coach to make the profession more sustainable for both men and women.

Title: The temporality of love – A study about the definition of love over time in love novels Subject: Sociology Authors: Penny Salomonsson The purpose of this study is to form an understanding regarding what love is in love novels from different periods, from the beginning of 1800s to the present, 2020. Previous studies have shown that the definition of love has gone from being about the couple to being about the individual. What love is has therefore become uncertain, which has led to discussion. The study of this topic is therefore of great relevance because it can show what love has been and what it is or at least what we want it to be, and that can say something about our society. This study is based on a qualitative research method. The method is conceptual history – the study of concepts which is an approach in text analysis. Ten love novels were included in the study, some of them are classic love novels because it probably gave a more credible picture of what love was during the chosen time periods. The theoretical perspective that the collected data is analysed through is Anthony Giddens theories about passionate love, romantic love and the pure relationship. Eva Illouz analytical tool “the great transformation of love” are also used. The result of this study shows that all periods during the chosen time period defines love based on romantic love in some sense. Romantic love therefore does not dominate the definition of love of all the different time periods, however, it does exist. Moreover, the study result also shows that characteristics is important for the definition of love and that reflection and development also has important place in the definition of love.

Derived from the education division of China, this study emphasizes the urban-rural divide in students’ results of the NCEE (National College Entrance Examination). The NCEE is the official selection examination for higher education and the final examination of high school in Mainland China. As the major criterion in higher education selection, the divide can be found in the NCEE results of urban and rural students in which urban students are able to get higher grades than rural students. Aiming to discover the urban-rural divide in the NCEE results from how students prepare the NCEE in their high schools, this study uses a case of graduates of a “super high school” as an example. A “super high school” is a type of high school where achieving top performances of the NCEE is the goal of all pedagogic activities. Both urban and rural students can be enrolled in a “super high school”. The “super high schools” are common in overpopulated areas of China. In one way, the differences of urban and rural students in their high school studies can be perceived within a “super high school”; furthermore, the certain pedagogical activities of a “super high school” may influence students’ behaviours and trigger the urban-rural divide. Based on the theoretical frameworks of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of capital, his theory of symbolic violence, and Erving Goffman’s theory of total institution, ten high school graduates as well as three of their high school teachers are interviewed in this study. The analysis focuses on three aspects, the differences between urban and rural students in terms of their educational resources and practices in high school, their behaviours in a “super high school”, and their attitudes towards the NCEE system. In summary, this study finds out that firstly, urban parents have more economic capital, social capital, and cultural capital than rural parents and they can offer more educational resources to their children in high school. Secondly, urban students are not very supportive of the “super high school” model but they can get more help from their teachers, while rural students strongly follow the “super high school” model but they don’t often get more help from their teachers. Last but not least, rural students attach great importance to the NCEE and their NCEE results, but urban students do not always think so.

I denna uppsats studerar jag hur olika samhällskunskapslärare agerar i rollen de har i den samhällsviktiga institution som är skolan. Jag har som utgångspunkt använt mig av sociologiska teorier som behandlar ämnet social kontroll. Jag har valt att lägga fokus på hur läraren behandlar sin roll i egenskap av lärare gentemot skolan som institution. Vidare har jag utgått ifrån det som Arlie Russel Hochschild beskriver som ”surface acting” och ”deep acting” i kombination med Ervin Goffmans ”frontstage” och ”backstage”. Dessa teoretiker menar att människor hela tiden tvingas balansera och handskas med olika roller i olika situationer. Därför har jag valt att studera hur dessa lärare går in i sina roller och hur de anpassar sig till de olika situationerna som uppstår i klassrummet, och hur det i så fall formar skolan som institution. Efter intervjuerna med de olika lärarna har jag kommit fram till att deras personliga erfarenheter och egenskaper lyser igenom i vissa delar av undervisningen då läraren blir tvungen att balansera mellan olika masker och även till viss grad anpassa dessa ut efter institutionens vanemönster och normer. Vidare finner jag att det förekommer variationer i undervisningen gällande vad de olika lärarna väljer att ta upp eller fokusera på. Därefter har jag valt att titta på hur de olika rollerna i kombination med den varierande undervisningen kan komma att skapa olika varianter av skolan som institution. Till min hjälp har jag tittat på Peter L Berger och Thomas Luckmanns teori om hur etablerade regler och normer i olika sammanhang formar olika institutioner. Trots sina olika variationer, och växlande mellan roller kunde jag se att lärarna på ett skickligt sätt anpassar lektionen för att nå målet med skolans läroplan som innebär att de ska fostra eleverna till att bli upplysta och demokratiska medborgare.

Denna uppsats har som syfte att studera sanningsanspråk, alltså hur uttalanden presenteras somrepresentativa för sanning och verklighet, och hur dessa görs i de politiska debatterna mellanDonald Trump och Hillary Clinton i presidentvalet 2016. Analys kring hur debatternas utformningkan gynna och missgynna dess deltagares argumentation görs också. Detta görs igenom en kritiskdiskursanalys dels av själva debatterna och av ett urval av amerikanska medier, både positiva ochnegativa gentemot respektive kandidat, för att på så sätt analysera kommunikationen mellan detpolitiska skiktet och civilsamhället. Betoningen läggs på mediematerial som kan tjäna som förstaintryck och rapportering för människor som inte själva tittade på debatterna. Genom denna analysframträder dels grepp som insisterande, övertalande och utelämnande av information som viktigagrepp för presidentkandidaterna och medier för att lägga fram sina sanningsanspråk, och dels kan entydlig fara med att i för stor grad avfärda själva konceptet "sanning" demonstreras utifrån dessadebatter.

The selection process in tertiary education in Greece is characterized by a competitive and grade-oriented system that lays the foundations for the extensive use of private educational services. Family inclination towards private expenditure in education raises arguments for the conversion of public education into a private commodity. This thesis examines how a specific middle class group in an urban setting, the city of Larissa, deals with the system of private investments in upper secondary education. In particular, in the light of Bourdieusian concepts, this study attempts to analyse parental choice and strategies that families set in action for achieving educational success and the social advancement of their offspring, investigating also the role of education for middle class parents. 15 semi-structured interviews were carried out, delivering insightful narratives of parents who had experienced the national examination process. Interviews gave prominence to the unquestionable value of educational credentials for a successful educational and professional trajectory. For the accomplishment of quality education, parents deployed their cultural, economic, and social assets, which enabled them to be effective in the educational marketplace. Choice presented a complex task for parents, which presupposed an intensive devotion of time and energy. Accordingly, educational strategies started from the child’s early upbringing, being employed systematically at the upper secondary level of education. In fact, parental strategies appeared to be a “natural” process pertaining to responsible and caring parenthood. Parents took for granted that children should be satisfactorily equipped with valuable educational qualifications, which were seen as a necessity for a successful future, and an upward trajectory.

Studien syftar till att få en djupare förståelse för statstjänstemännens arbete på Kronofogden och till den övergripande samhälleliga diskursen om skuld, genom att undersöka hur praktikerna på myndigheten upplever och handlar i sin tjänsteutövning. Studiens empiri utgörs av intervjuer med tjänstemännen och deltagande observation. Uppsatsen använder sig av kvalitativ metod i sitt tillvägagångssätt, genom hermeneutiskt och fenomenologiskt förhållningssätt i dess tolkning och bearbetning. Idealtypsmetodologin tillämpas i studien vars reflektion tydliggör de sociala fenomenens sammanhang och betydelser i samhället. Studiens teoretiska kontext relateras framförallt till Habermas kolonisering av livsvärlden, med termerna system och livsvärld samt av Webers rationalisering och idealtypbegrepp. Resultatet visar på att praktikerna på Kronofogden tampas med det professionella utförandet i förhållande till vad statstjänstemannauppdraget kräver i spektrumet av; arbetssätten inom myndighetsorganisationen med dess förväntningar och mål, samspelet med kollegor, samverkan med övriga institutioner samt den konkreta handläggningen av gäldenärs ärenden. Studiens analys och reflektion tyder på; att det myndighetsspecifika uppdraget sker genom olika förbindelser till en övergripande kontext, den om samhällskontraktet och myndighetens roll i stort, med växelverkande innebörder från de andra aktörerna på olika nivåer i samhället. Men framförallt om de direkta sociala konsekvenserna för välfärdssamhället genom skuldens olika förkroppsliganden och dess konkreta konsekvenser för människan under kapitalismen.

Measles is resurging around the world, and large outbreaks have been observed in several parts of the world. In 2019 the Philippines suffered a major measles outbreak partly due to low immunization rates in certain parts of the population. There is currently limited research on how to identify and reach pockets of unvaccinated individuals effectively. This thesis aims to find important factors associated with non-vaccination against measles using a machine learning approach, using data from the 2017 Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey. In the analyzed sample (n = 4006), 74.84% of children aged 9 months to 3 years had received their first dose of measles vaccine, and 25.16% had not. Logistic regression with all 536 candidate features was fit with the regularized regression method Elastic Net, capable of automatically selecting relevant features. The final model consists of 32 predictors, and these are related to access and contact with healthcare, the region of residence, wealth, education, religion, ethnicity, sanitary conditions, the ideal number of children, husbands’ occupation, age and weight of the child, and features relating to pre and postnatal care. Total accuracy of the final model is 79.02% [95% confidence interval: (76.37%, 81.5%)], sensitivity: 97.73%, specificity: 23.41% and area under receiver operating characteristic curve: 0.81. The results indicate that socioeconomic differences determine to a degree measles vaccination. However, the difficulty in classifying non-vaccinated children, the low specificity, using only health and demographic characteristics suggests other factors than what is available in the analyzed data, possibly vaccine hesitation, could have a large effect on measles non-vaccination. Based on the results, efforts should be made to ensure access to facility-based delivery for all mothers regardless of socioeconomic status, to improve measles vaccination rates in the Philippines.