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The main purpose of the study is to investigate how children use picture books in the everyday practices in the Swedish pre-school. More specifically, I want to study the use of picture books based on the child's interaction with the book. How does the dialogic process between the child and the picture book proceed? How is the peer group used in book practices? What draws children to certain books - as favorites of the individual or of the group? How do they use the pictures in the books? What do they do when on their own with books and how does this usage differ from teacher-initiated activities with the books? By focusing on the 3- to 5-year-old children's book interactions, the study contributes to our understanding of how children use picture books for their identity work. A basic assumption is to see children as social agentswho influence and are influenced by the world they live in. The empirical data comprises over 35 hours video recorded interactions. Episodes of child initiated book practices were transcribed in detail, and the theory of subject positioning was applied for its analysis. The study shows that children in their picture book activities, in the every day peer-group interactions, use the books as a contact surface between them. In addition they use the book arenas for negotiations of subjectpositions, where they position themselves or are positioned as powerful or powerless persons. Children employ a rich repertoire of strategies (verbal and nonverbal) for excluding and including themselves and others in ongoing book activities. The empirical material show clearly that the pictures constitute an 'idea box' for children, from which they can take inspiration or use as tools in activities such as play, fantasy, and conversation. We can see that preschool children also produce and negotiate the meaning of the pictures. In some cases, the children use all of the pictures while in others they use only isolated pictures that are pulled out of their context and "take on a life of their own." The children use the pictures in several different ways: as a play arena for their games and activities; as props for play in progress; as markers of positions in their play; and as pictures for creating stories. Children actively use picture books in their day-to-day lives at the educational institution. Through this use, children create meaning for the cultural content of the books by testing subject positions that the pictures offer. In their use of picture books, it becomes apparent that children are competent to use and discover books on their own and sometimes need to share the experience with other children and with adults. Through the use of picture books, the children acquire experience of books and use them to create meaning; that is, they create a sort of children's cultural competence for themselves.

This ethnographic study explores treatment practices and staff-resident interaction at a detention home for young men, drawing on video recorded conversations and interviews. It investigates ideological dilemmas inherent in the institutional setting and how these produce complex subject positions to uptake, negotiate or refuse. Study I explores a core treatment dilemma: coercion vs. freedom, involving the dual institutional goal of coercing residents into norm abiding behavior and of producing individuals who behave "properly" out of their own free will. It focuses on staff members’ talk about token economy, illuminating rhetorical resources deployed to avoid the troubled subject position of a disciplinarian. Study II investigates disciplinary humor, illuminating how humor is used both to impose and disrupt social order. It shows how staff members and youths skillfully deploy humor in negotiating local hierarchies related to authority, generation, and age. Humor was also found to be a useful way of navigating ideological dilemmas. Study III explores behavior modification practices, focusing on how selfassessment practices can be conceptualized as responsibilization that emphasizes self-regulation. It documents the participants’ engagement in strategic deployment of specific subject position relations, “young boy”-caregiver rather than delinquent-disciplinarian. In brief, the thesis shows that subject positions are essentially co-constructed, and how positions related to age are highly relevant in this institutional setting. Paradoxical aspects of subject positions provide discursive resources that can be deployed to navigate ideological dilemmas such as that of coercion vs. freedom, but also to handle issues of authenticity. / Denna etnografiska studie undersöker behandlingspraktiker och interaktion mellan personal och ungdomar på ett särskilt ungdomshem för unga män. Materialet består framförallt av videoinspelad interaktion och intervjuer. I studien utforskas ideologiska dilemman samt hur dessa producerar komplexa subjektspositioner att uppta, förhandla om eller neka. Studie I undersöker ett huvuddilemma: tvång vs. frihet, vilket involverar de dubbla institutionella målen att tvinga ungdomarna till önskvärt beteende och att producera individer som beter sig ”korrekt” av egen fri vilja. Fokus ligger på personalens tal om teckenekonomi och studien synliggör retoriska resurser som används för att undvika positionen ”disciplinär personal”. Studie II utforskar disciplinerande humor och synliggör hur humor används både för att skapa och omskapa den sociala ordningen. Studien visar hur personal och ungdomar skickligt använder humor i förhandlingar om lokala hierarkier relaterade till auktoritet, generation och ålder. Humor var också ett sätt att navigera ideologiska dilemman. Studie III undersöker beteendemodifieringspraktiker, med fokus på hur självutvärdering kan förstås som responsibilisering med fokus på själv-reglering. Studien dokumenterar deltagarnas strategiska användning av specifika subjektspositionsrelationer, ”liten pojke”-vårdare snarare än ungdomsbrottsling-disciplinär personal. Sammantaget visar avhandlingen att subjektspositioner i grunden är samkonstruerade och att positioner rörande ålder är ytterst relevanta i denna kontext. Paradoxala aspekter av subjektspositioner bidrar med diskursiva resurser vilka kan användas för att hantera ideologiska dilemman och för att hantera frågor rörande autenticitet.

This essay analyzes the narrative surrounding women’s right to autonomy in two novels in the Speculative Fiction genre, more specifically the 20th century dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985), and the anti-utopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932), while arguing for the pedagogical merit of both works. Matters regarding female independence and gender equality are in consistent flux, and any uprise in feminist movements and female emancipation has most commonly been met with resistance. In the overarching aims of the curriculum of upper secondary school it is stated that the education must promote values such as equality, solidarity and inclusivity. As women’s rights to their own bodies are currently under debate in several contexts, students are likely to have been exposed to contemporary discussions on gendered oppression. For these reasons, analyzing how the female body has been rendered in historical and contemporary texts is arguably both relevant and important. As this essay discusses, gender and power relations have remained relevant in political developments: reproduction rights continue to feature prominently, whether in narratives of future worst-possible scenarios, or in speculative fiction. Lastly, this essay proposes that using Speculative Fiction in the L2 classroom can increase learner motivation. / <p>Slutgiltigt godkännandedatum: 2023-06-02</p>

This thesis emerged from my emotional, tactile, and intellectual access to the actress, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (a.k.a. Ri Kōran or Li Xianglan), who embodied the cultural hybridity of Manchuria and represented a ‘modern girl’ on screen. I analyze four wartime melodrama-adventure films, in which she co-starred with Japanese actors: Song of the White Orchid (Byakuran no uta, 1939), China Nights (Shina no Yoru, 1940), Vow in the Desert (Nessa no chikai, 1940), and Suzhou Nights (Soshū no yoru, 1941). The formation of domesticity played an integral part in the making of modern nation-states. Intertexualizing with the discursive formation of the ie (house/family) between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries, I first demonstrate that Japanese film subjects are made to embody the imagined Imperial nation through gendered performances in Song of the White Orchid. The interior and exterior are constructed to mirror the notion of imperial nation and the Asian ‘other’. Next, I extend the analytical framework to the three films, China Nights, Vow in the Desert, and Suzhou Nights, which employ films’ specific locations for different operations of gendered and ethnicized positioning. I also pay attention to some of the climaxes, which unconventionally present psychological dramas outdoors and action scenes indoors. Especially, my interest in this part of analysis is in interrelating metaphors of bodily boundary and national border. As delineating the signification of body and nation, I situate the relay of the gaze in the simultaneous blurring of bodily boundary and national communities that coincides with melodramatic highlights located outdoors. In order to shape a Japanese imperial subject, the films symbolically negotiate with three levels of power dynamics: the establishment of a national identity, the mimicry of the West, and the significance of China in Japanese imperial modernity. The delineation of cinematic space and subject positioning in Ri Kōran’s films reveals that Chinese, Japanese and the West are constituted as shifting positions that respectively represent past/obstructions, present/a mobile agency, and future/the envisioned goal. Ri Kōran attracts spectators’ gaze and mediates multiple locations to identify with, while Japanese male protagonists embody the gaze by making his corporeality absent.

This thesis emerged from my emotional, tactile, and intellectual access to the actress, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (a.k.a. Ri Kōran or Li Xianglan), who embodied the cultural hybridity of Manchuria and represented a ‘modern girl’ on screen. I analyze four wartime melodrama-adventure films, in which she co-starred with Japanese actors: Song of the White Orchid (Byakuran no uta, 1939), China Nights (Shina no Yoru, 1940), Vow in the Desert (Nessa no chikai, 1940), and Suzhou Nights (Soshū no yoru, 1941). The formation of domesticity played an integral part in the making of modern nation-states. Intertexualizing with the discursive formation of the ie (house/family) between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries, I first demonstrate that Japanese film subjects are made to embody the imagined Imperial nation through gendered performances in Song of the White Orchid. The interior and exterior are constructed to mirror the notion of imperial nation and the Asian ‘other’. Next, I extend the analytical framework to the three films, China Nights, Vow in the Desert, and Suzhou Nights, which employ films’ specific locations for different operations of gendered and ethnicized positioning. I also pay attention to some of the climaxes, which unconventionally present psychological dramas outdoors and action scenes indoors. Especially, my interest in this part of analysis is in interrelating metaphors of bodily boundary and national border. As delineating the signification of body and nation, I situate the relay of the gaze in the simultaneous blurring of bodily boundary and national communities that coincides with melodramatic highlights located outdoors. In order to shape a Japanese imperial subject, the films symbolically negotiate with three levels of power dynamics: the establishment of a national identity, the mimicry of the West, and the significance of China in Japanese imperial modernity. The delineation of cinematic space and subject positioning in Ri Kōran’s films reveals that Chinese, Japanese and the West are constituted as shifting positions that respectively represent past/obstructions, present/a mobile agency, and future/the envisioned goal. Ri Kōran attracts spectators’ gaze and mediates multiple locations to identify with, while Japanese male protagonists embody the gaze by making his corporeality absent.