My dissertation explores two critical points in understanding John Updike's recent career. First, I examine him from a perspective outside the heavily-studied Rabbit tetralogy. Focusing on Updike's novel Terrorist, I attempt to counter the misperception that he offers little beyond the chronicling of middle-class, suburban America. Instead, this work digs for a deeper understanding of Updike. Next, I consider Updike's role as an artist, professional writer, and celebrity to draw out a sense of the writer's life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Using him as a case study enables the analysis to include his changing role as a literary writer who also had major bestsellers, as well as his standing as a celebrity and public intellectual. Rather than dismiss these cultural influences, I explore how they intersect with audiences, readers, and critics. Piecing together his commentary regarding fame and celebrity creates a model of the public Updike for scholars to examine. The central task of this dissertation is a close examination of Terrorist, including the themes Updike addressed and literary techniques he employed to advance those ideas. From this textual analysis, Updike's vision of America and the world in the twenty first century emerges. By reassessing Updike's evolution as a writer, both in subject matter and literary technique, one realizes how his work reflects an increasing preoccupation with global issues, from American imperialism to terrorism. This study broadens the general conceptualization critics and scholars hold regarding Updike's work by exploring the themes and literary devices he used to portray the broader world. Focusing on Updike the writer and Terrorist, his final standalone novel, this dissertation helps Updike scholars and critics address a central point that may well define his historical reputation: Is there an Updike beyond the Rabbit novels and is there an Updike beyond suburban nostalgia? I argue that Terrorist reveals a great American writer at his full powers as the world around him undergoes a watershed moment.

Internet has become increasingly ubiquitous and with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies and concepts it has almost become second nature for many Internet users. This study attempts to view the “social life” of this “new” online environment through its current manifestation in the form of the popular social networking site Facebook. It argues that Facebook has become a tool for the management of one's self both online and offline and that people's reflexive relation to their self-identity is made visible through their engagement with this social media. How such a new form of social media incorporates itself into everyday life but also how the media acts as an extension of the reflexive self has been the main focus of this study.

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The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how identity manifests itself in night workers narrations of their experiences with night work. Through examining this we aim to find a greater understanding of how night work might influence identity formation. To achieve this narrative analysis was applied to seven semi-structured interviews conducted with night workers. The analysis was based on a theoretical framework consisting of symbolic interactionism as well as theory related to both individual and collective identity. The analysis showed that the participants had many positive experiences with night work, including health benefits and better working conditions in comparison to both their own previous experiences with daytime work and their colleagues working daytime. It also revealed that their night work at times was perceived as being called into question by their surroundings, for example by the general discourse regarding night work, labor unions, employers and day time colleagues. This sometimes caused a need to defend both oneself and one’s decisions but also night workers as a group. Identity as a night worker manifested itself both as a sense of community among night workers and a distance between night workers and different non-night workers. Also, identity formation as a night worker appeared to be dependent on contextual factors such as the general discourse surrounding night work, research and norms.

Migration är ett aktuellt ämne i dagens samhälle som medför stora förändringar i människorsliv. Migrationsprocessen kan leda till ökad risk för psykisk ohälsa och en bristande hälsorelaterad livskvalitet, beroende på omständigheterna som en migrant har i mottagarlandet. Syftet med studien är att beskriva välbefinnande hos migrantungdomar som har migrerat från mellanöstern till Sverige. Studien tillämpar en socialpsykologisk ansats genom teorierna symbolisk interaktionism, KASAM och välbefinnande. De tio respondenterna som deltog i studien intervjuades med hjälp av kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer. Urvalet var begränsat till respondenter som hade ett ursprung från mellanöstern och ska ha bott i Sverige i minst fem år. Studiens resultat visar att de flesta respondenterna upplever en form av exkludering, vilket medförde att respondenterna isolerade sig själva. Detta i sin tur har påverkat deras självkänsla och välmående. Vidare beskrev respondenter att anpassningsprocessen har varit utmanande i början av ankomsten till mottagarlandet, vilket har visat negativa effekter på respondenternas välbefinnande och hälsa. / Migration is a contemporary social issue that brings about major changes for people. Migration often carries several mental health risk factors , usually based on circumstances faced by migrants in the receiving country. The purpose of the study is to describe the well-being of immigrant youth who have migrated from the Middle East to Sweden. The study adopts a social psychology approach using theories of symbolic interactionism, sense of coherence and well-being. The ten respondents who took part in the study were interviewed with the help of qualitative semi structured interviews. Selection criteria for the study is limited to respondents who had Middle eastern origins and must have lived in Sweden for at least five years. The results of the study show that most respondents experience a form of exclusion, which led them to isolate themselves. This in turn has affected their self-esteemand well-being. Furthermore, the results also showed that the respondents describe that the adaptation process has been challenging at the beginning of the arrival in the recipient country, which has shown potential negative impacts on the respondent’s well-being and health. / <p>Stavningskorrigerad titel: Välbefinnandet hos migrantungdomar</p>

Symbolic interactionism has scarcely been used as a framework in the field of music education. The purpose of this case study was to understand the verbal and nonverbal interactions of four fifth-grade general music students while they collaborated with peers to compose original songs. Through the lens of symbolic interactionism, data from video and audio recordings, student artifacts, and researcher memos were examined to answer the following research questions: 1) How do fifth-grade general music students interact with their peers during composition activities in a constructivist learning environment? 2) How do fifth-grade general music students self-indicate and create shared meanings through verbal and nonverbal symbolic interactions? A within and cross-case analysis revealed that students interacted with their peers through communicative acts, forming friendships, nonverbal gestures, and forming social roles. The participants self-indicated and created shared meanings as a result of shared responsibilities, musical dialogue, improvisation, and symbolic exclusion. Findings suggested that fifth-grade students develop social roles and engage in follower and leader behaviors in situations where teacher scaffolding is purposefully suspended. The results of the research contribute to an existing body of literature regarding fifth-grade general music students’ abilities to self-direct their own learning during collaborative activities.

From my own experience as a school counselor I have learned that the decision making processes in terms of supporting and helping the students is extremely hard and very individual. In different situations, a different approach between individuals is present. I thought about which factors effects the school counselor’s way of handling problematic situations. I soon realized that the individual has a great effect on the work itself. This brought my attention and I found it necessary to research the area more.This thesis is about the counselors in school and their assessments. The main focus is on differences in the decision making processes, if differences appear and why.By using theories that focus on interpretation of actions this thesis presents an insight in the school counselors work and provide the readers an explanation model to why differences appear. The theories used in this thesis are symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and social construction. These three theories are closely connected to one another and the selected keyword of each theory works as the foundation of the analysis. The main result of the study showed that interpretation of the situation and what references the interpreter has is critical to the result of actions. Many different factors however effects the interpretations based on the individual, such as emotional intelligence and the complexity of a professional relationship.

This is a theoretical study of intersexuality and of its medical and social implications. My interest of inquiry includes both exploring, describing and explaining. One could say that this study is a form of qualitative analysis of contents. The aim of the study is to fill a gap and to raise awareness of the notion intersex. The conclusions show that social models of explanation to today’s paradigm of intervention are valid.

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