In the American capitalist society, the media is often an agent used to perpetuate ideals and to inform consumers of products that they can purchase by using multiple advertising techniques. In an attempt to counter the thin body ideal for women, some companies have begun advertising their products by using plus size models, such as the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. The purpose of this research is to examine college women's perceptions of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, an advertising campaign whose goal is to reverse the stereotypical body ideal for women and broaden the definition of beauty. Some sociologists have criticized Dove for sending conflicting messages. This study is the first that focuses on women's perceptions about this potential conflict. Through the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study examined if, how, and when women changed their initial perceptions toward the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty based on two separate scenarios brought to their attention. This is important because the findings suggest how consumers can change their perceptions regarding a company, in this case one that is a part of a multi-million dollar parent company, based on how a company advertises its products.

The term sexual harassment was brought to light by legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon during the second wave feminist movement in the 1970s, and has since changed in its meaning over the past four decades, influencing policy, legal action, and the way we, as a society, treat this social problem. Millennials, or those born between 1980 and 2000, will be the next generation of working adults that will influence the way sexual harassment is understood and defined both legally and socially. The Millennial generation is typically considered liberal and socially conscious, prompting the research question of “How do Millennials socially construct sexual harassment in terms of gender and power?” Eighteen semi-structured interviews with adult Millennials up to age 33 were conducted. Analysis was informed by feminist theory, social constructionism, and critical race theory. Results showed while Millennials are quick to speak about inclusion of men as targets of sexual harassment, they did so at the cost of frankly discussing that women are targeted more often than men. Combined with the ability to discuss individual causes of sexual harassment compared to the structural, this led to my findings of“gender-blind” sexual harassment attitudes describing postfeminist beliefs among Millennials.

Studier av omständigheterna kring ett ämnes framväxt och utveckling är en del av pedagogisk forskning. Uppsatsen belyser ekonomisk utbildning i Litauen utifrån de förändringar som frigörelsen från forna Sovjetunionen inneburit och studiens syfte är att ge en bild av hur företagsekonomi som universitetsämne formats i Litauen 1988-1997. Utgångspunkten i studien är individen och individens närkontext. Den teoretiska referensramen utgörs av en modifierad modell av Bronfenbrenners utvecklingsekologi, kompletterad med Bergs nivåmodell. Insamling av data har primärt skett genom intervjusamtal med universitetslärare vid litauiska universitet och högskolor. Utöver dessa intervjusamtal har styrdokument i form av litteraturlistor, kursplaner och centrala dokument insamlats och studerats. Ett av studiens grundläggande antagande är att verkligheten är socialt konstruerad. Fokus i analysen ligger i individens uppfattningar utifrån tre huvudtema; omprogrammering, kursplaner och kurs-litteratur samt attityder och intresse. Studien visar att konstituering av företagsekonomi i Litauen formats av politiska/ideologiska, ekonomiska, institutionella och individuella faktorer. Bakom dessa villkor finns beslut fattade på olika nivåer såväl nationell (makro), lokal/institutionell (exonivå) som kollegial (meso) nivå samt på individ (mikro)-nivå. Internationella influenser har haft stor betydelse, och dessa influenser kan sägas representera en ytterligare nivå – en exmakronivå. En ytterligare faktor utgörs av mötet mellan en tidigare doktrinär, rigid föreställning till en ny sådan, som inte var doktrinär utan istället innebar en akademisk frihetsgrad, ett frirum som tidigare inte fanns, åtminstone inte i retoriken. En tredje faktor utgörs av det som konsekvenser, influenser och frirum fick på det konkreta ämnesinnehållet och undervisningen. / Studies of the circumstances surrounding the creation and development of a university discipline are a part of pedagogical research. This thesis highlights the development of management and economic education against the background of changes caused by the Lithuania’s emancipation from the Soviet Union and aims to present a picture of how management as a university discipline has been created in Lithuania between the period 1988-1997. The nexus of this study is individuals and individuals in context. The theoretical frame of reference is provided by a modified model of Bronfenbrenners developmental ecology, complimented by Bergs tier (level) model. Data collection has primarily been in the form of interviews with university staff from Lithuanian institutions for higher education. In addition to the interviews, literature lists, course schedules and other key documents have been collected and analysed. One of the studies primary foundations is that reality is a social construct. The analysis focuses on individual’s conceptualisation of three main areas: re-programming, course schedules and literature lists, alongside their attitudes and interests. The study demonstrates how the creation of management and economics as a university discipline in Lithuania has been formed by a combination of political/ideological, economic, institutional and individual factors. Behind these factors are decisions taken at a variety of different levels, including national level (macro), local/institutional level (exo), collegial level (meso) and individual level (micro). International influences have also played an important role and their effects represent an additional level, the so-called exmacro level. A further factor comes into play in the meeting between the previously rigid doctrine and the new doctrine, which isn’t so much a doctrine but rather more of an academic freedom; a freedom that didn’t exist previously, at least not one that was acknowledged. A final factor in the study is the impact that the consequences of change, the various influences described above and this new-found freedom, have had on the subject’s content and method of teaching. One of the study’s main contributions is to highlight the significance of the concept of academic freedom and to focus on the paradox, where constraint under the old system is replaced by another form of constraint. In this case, where the rigidity of the old Soviet doctrine is replaced by a new freedom; but instead of being given greater opportunities to influence and change the subject, the academic staff are forced into a position where, once again they are subjugated to the influences of outside (international) sources.

The question of what agenda drives NGO peacebuilding in post-conflict setting has been raised in a number of literatures which make generalized conclusions that NGOs tend to respond to the liberal peace agenda, and in the process co-opt local peacebuilding initiatives. Liberal peace agenda refers to the post-conflict peacebuilding approach based on the promotion of democracy, economic liberalization, human rights and the rule of law. As such, NGOs are seen as privatizing peacebuilding, marginalizing local initiatives and applying unsustainable approaches to peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Provoked by these assertions, I conducted field research in northern Uganda, which up to 2006 had experienced 22 years of conflict between the Lord¿s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). I contend in my findings that while to some extent the generalized observations made by liberal peace critics are true, they fail to fully engage with the micro aspects of post-conflict peacebuilding. The macro-analytic assertions of the liberal peace critics ignore the plurality of the NGO peacebuilding practice, the diverse internal organizational culture, and the complexities and diversities of the contextual dynamics of post-conflict settings. My research was based on a micro level analysis and demonstrated that the peacebuilding process in northern Uganda was interactive, and, as such, engendered diverse encounters of sense-making, relationship building and co-construction of peacebuilding discourse and practice between NGOs, donors and local community. The study shows that peacebuilding was essentially relational and developed through a process of relational constructionism, which denotes social processes of reality construction based on relational encounters.

No / FP7

The main purpose of this study was to describe and analyze how influencers and young people express themselves about anxiety on TikTok. To answer the purpose of the study a document study was conducted, where videos and comment fields were studied, the result was analyzed with a social constructionist perspective. The results showed that on TikTok influencers share videos with content related to symptoms of anxiety. Influencers and young people share their own experiences of anxiety or give tips on how to deal with anxiety. In social work, it is important to be where young people are, as today’s young people grow up partly in an online world. And therefore, it is of great importance that professionals working with children and young people are also on social media, as they can reach out to young people in a different way than they can do in real life. / Den här studiens syfte var att beskriva och analysera hur influencers och unga uttrycker sig om ångest på TikTok. För att besvara studiens syfte gjordes en dokumentstudie, där videos och kommentarsfält studerades och resultatet analyserades med hjälp av ett socialkonstruktionistiskt perspektiv. Resultatet visade på att influencers på TikTok delar videos med innehåll som rör symptom på ångest. Influencers och unga delar med sig av sin erfarenhet av ångest eller ger tips på hur man kan hantera ångest samt stöttande ord. Inom socialt arbete är det viktigt att finnas där unga är, då dagens unga till stor del växer upp i en värld online och därför är det av stor vikt att professioner som arbetar med barn och unga också befinner sig på sociala medier, då de kan nå ut till unga på ett annat sätt än vad de kan göra ute i den riktiga verkligheten.

Transparency International published its annual corruption perceptions index in 2022, where Sweden obtained the highest measured level of perceived corruption in eleven years. At about the same time, an investigation into corruption and undue influence was discarded by the newly appointed government. The purpose of this thesis is to examine two current political debates about corruption through Norman Faircloughs model for critical discourse analysis. In more detail, the objectives are to study which discourses that can be distinguished, the characteristics of the discursive struggle and which discourse that dominates the Swedish corruption debate. In this thesis, political debates are considered as usable contexts to illustrate both contradiction and consensus regarding the corruption in Sweden. By using critical discourse analysis as an approach, the ambition is to visualize how politicians construct the image of the increased corruption and to examine how certain statements are presented as more evident or true than others. This study shows that there are four discourses that can be distinguished in the two political debates on corruption: privatization, increasing crime rate, accountability and openness and trust. The observed discursive struggle generally has high interdiscursivity, a few cases of intertextuality, and seems to be open to changes. The discourse that dominates the order of discourse is "the increasing crime rate". The results indicate that current societal problems, that are mainly highlighted by the ruling politicians, appear to have an impact on the political discussion about corruption in Sweden.

Syftet med studien är att lyfta hur förskollärare resonerar om barn som anses blyga och inte tar en självklar plats samt hur dessa barn konstrueras i förskolans sociala miljö. Det finns sparsamt med forskning kring detta då fokuset brukar ligga på de mer utmanande barnen. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer har vi tagit del av förskollärares resonemang om blyga barn. Vår frågeställning: Hur resonerar förskollärare om sitt arbetssätt, bemötande och förhållningssätt till de barn som anses blyga i förskolan? Resultatet av studien visar att det finns en medvetenhet hos förskollärarna kring ämnet. Genom att ta del av hur förskollärarna framställde blyghet kunde vi skapa oss en uppfattning om hur bemötandet av barnen såg ut. Vi kan konstatera att förskollärarnas resonemang och förhållningssätt till de barn som anses blyga spelar in i hur de konstruerar hela verksamheten på förskolan. Det vi kan konstatera är att förskollärarna konstruerar hela tiden men att de behöver ha i åtanke att det inte endast handlar om förhållningssättet utan även vad de lägger i sina värderingar och normer. / The purpose of the study is to highlight how preschool teachers reason about children who are considered shy and do not take an obvious place and how these children are constructed in the preschool's social environment. There is scant research on this as the focus is usually on the more challenging children. Through semi-structured interviews, we have taken part in preschool teachers' reasoning about shy children. Our question: How do preschool teachers reason about their way of working, treatment and approach to the children who are considered shy in preschool? The results of the study show that there is an awareness among the preschool teachers about the subject. By taking part in how the preschool teachers portrayed shyness, we were able to form an idea of how the treatment of the children looked. We can state that the preschool teachers' reasoning and approach to the children who are considered shy play a role in how they construct the entire activity at the preschool. What we can establish is that the preschool teachers construct all the time, but that they need to keep in mind that it is not only about the approach but also what they put into their values and norms.

Women are still strongly underrepresented in the ICT field. It is worrying that even children can hold stereotypes about gender and technology, which discourage girls from engaging with technology early in their development. Previous research has found that encouraging collaboration and the integration of storytelling in programming are successful approaches for introducing girls to coding. In practice, children often collaborate with friends since they tend to engage in the same activities. This study explores how existing friendship influences collaboration between preadolescent girls participating together in a storytelling-motivated programming experience. Results reveal that when girls collaborate with a friend, they feel comfortable and confident to express their ideas and to reject or elaborate on their friend’s suggestions. The openness of friends towards each other and the social setting of friendship may impact collaboration. Role assignment in the form of task allocation supported productive collaboration, while dominance impeded it. The project indicates that the design of solutions that aim to motivate programming through storytelling has to provide enough support in adding narration elements through code. Additionally, it proposes suggestions for the design of inclusive workshops and hackathons. / Kvinnor är fortfarande starkt underrepresenterade inom IT-området. Det är oroande att även barn kan ha stereotyper om kön och teknik, vilket avskräcker flickor från att engagera sig i teknik tidigt i sin utveckling. Tidigare forskning har visat att uppmuntrande av samarbete och att integrering av berättande i programmering är framgångsrika metoder för att introducera flickor till programmering. I praktiken samarbetar barn ofta med vänner eftersom de tenderar att delta i samma aktiviteter. Den här studien undersöker hur befintlig vänskap påverkar samarbetet mellan unga flickor som deltar tillsammans i en historieberättande-motiverad programmeringsupplevelse. Resultaten visar att när flickor samarbetar med en vän känner de sig bekväma och självsäkra i att uttrycka sina idéer och att avvisa eller utveckla sin väns förslag. Vänners öppenhet gentemot varandra och det sociala kontextet av vänskap kan påverka samarbetet. Rolltilldelning i form av uppgiftsallokering stödde produktivt samarbete, medan dominans hindrade det. Projektet indikerar att utformningen av lösningar som syftar till att motivera programmering genom berättande måste ge tillräckligt med stöd i att lägga till berättande element genom kod. Dessutom föreslås förslag för utformning av inkluderande workshops och hackathons.

Like many former colonised countries, Haiti has been plagued by insecurity and conflicts caused by internal and external influences as well as natural disasters. In 1804, after a protracted conflict between slaves and French colonialists, Haiti became the first black country to gain its independence through a revolution. Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, ranking 153rd on the Human Development Index and a significant number of humanitarian organisations are present on the island aspiring at improving the standard of living of the population. The following study examines how the relationships of power emerging through the relationship between humanitarian and local leaders affect their perceptions of each other and identified the emotions emerging from these perceptions. The perceptions identified are the coloniality of power, corruption and distrust, the occurrence of conspiracy theories and the obstacles encountered in the implementation of a relief-development continuum model envisioned by general humanitarian policies. These perceptions create tensions between the humanitarian and local leaders, contributing to fuelling negative emotions such as regret, sadness, sense of failure, disappointment and anger. Negative emotions in this study affect the collaboration between humanitarians and local leaders, diminishing the positive influences and impact of humanitarian action on the well-being of the Haitian population. One of the components to increase these positive influences of humanitarian action is to lessen the asymmetricality of power between humanitarian and local leaders through the adoption of a Cultural Competence model by humanitarians.