Family vacations are an important part of life for many families. This paper will give an overview of family recreation and family vacations. Family recreation has many positive effects that influence family life and can lead to a better overall satisfaction for parents and children. This leads to certain advantages that many families experience while on vacation. Lastly, leisure constraints theory and family systems theory are described. These two theories serve as the theoretical framework of this study. In order to collect data a questionnaire was e-mailed to parents whose children attended a children's program while on family vacations. A qualitative approach was used to analyze the data from the structured electronic interview. The overall theme that emerged during this study is that stressful experiences that parents experience during family vacations can be eased through the children's program. Findings indicated that parents were very satisfied with the offered programs, children's participation in such programs provided opportunity for parental time alone, parents experienced positive emotions while their children were at the program, and the children's program eased general difficulties families may experience during family vacations. Future research needs to explore these findings more in-depth in order to better understand the benefits of such programs and to better explore what makes a successful youth program.

Each December thousands of Swedish families sit down to watch the annual "Christmas calendar", a series containing 24 episodes. Since the start in 1960, the Swedish public service television company, Sveriges Television, have broadcast a Christmas calendar every year, and is now seen as a firm tradition, attracting audiences of all ages, though the main audience is children. Research has shown that children’s television programs to a certain extent have the same function as news journalism has in agenda setting. Media, together with feedback and interaction with other individuals, plays a big role in the process of socialization. Researchers have though not yet been able to show how much media and media content matters when it comes to shaping people's perception of the world and reality. Thus, we are now concentrating on how gender is depicted in children's programs, in our case the Christmas calendars. How are men and women depicted? What characteristics do the characters have? Does this change due to time? Are there parallels that can be drawn to society as a whole? Our research resulted in ten overall analyses of Christmas calendars, picked from five decades, and five thorough analyses of episodes from these calendars.

Det finns inte mycket forskning kring hur genus förmedlas genom barnprogram. De få studiersom finns visar på att manliga karaktärer oftare förekommer än kvinnliga, och att de manligakaraktärerna oftast har större och viktigare roller. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur kvinnliga karaktärer framställs i barnprogrammen från deolika tidsperioderna. Analysen ska utreda på vilket sätt de kvinnliga karaktärerna framställs och omdet har förändrats över tid. Analysen ska även påvisa om karaktärerna kan benämnas somstereotypa eller inte samt om de följer de traditionella könsrollerna. Uppsatsen bygger på en semiotisk innehållsanalys med både denotativ och konnotativ ansats.Semiotiken är både insamlings- och analysmetod. Genom urvalsmetoden som delvis varslumpmässig bestämdes vilka sex barnprogram från tre olika årtionden som skulle utgöra detempiriska materialet. Vår analys vittnar om att det finns både likheter och skillnader mellan kvinnliga karaktärer frånolika barnprogram och årtionden. Det finns däremot inget direkt mönster för dessa likheter ochskillnader. Vår analys visar också att de kvinnliga karaktärerna inte är särskilt stereotypa i sittuppträdande. Det går inte att se någon generell förändring över tid vad gäller karaktärernasbeteende, analysen visar inte att de gått från att bete sig på ett vis till ett annat. / There is little research on how gender is mediated through children’s programs. The few studies that exist indicate the male characters more often appears than female, and the male characters usually have larger and more important roles. The purpose of this study is to examine how female characters are portrayed in the children’s programs from the different time periods. The analysis will show how the female characters are portrayed and if it has changed over time. The analysis will also show whether the characters can be referred to as stereotypical or not, and if they follow the typical gender roles. The essay is based on a semiotic content analysis with both denotative and connotative approach. Semiotics is both collection and analysis method. Through the sampling method which was partially random, the six children’s programs from three different decades were established to constitute the empirical material. Our analysis shows that there are both similarities and differences between the female characters from carious children’s programs and decades. However, there is no direct pattern for these similarities and differences. Our analysis also shows that the female characters’ appearance is not very stereotypical. It is not possible to see any overall change over time in terms of the characters’ behavior; the analysis does not demonstrate that they have gone from behaving in one manner to another.