Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån en medieanalys synliggöra framträdande diskurser kring ungdomskriminalitet kopplat till socialtjänstens arbete när det gäller barn och unga. Med stöd i kritisk diskursanalys inspirerad av Fairclough har 59 artiklar analyserats. Tre framträdande diskurser har identifierats: diskursen om den nya brottsligheten, diskursen om den otillräckliga socialtjänsten samt diskursen om kampen mellan hårda och mjuka åtgärder. Resultatet visar att media framställer ungdomskriminaliteten som ett nytt fenomen där utövande av brott förutsätter svaga band på en kollektiv nivå. Den nya brottsligheten presenteras som en avvikelse från den normala ungdomsbrottsligheten. Socialtjänsten beskrivs vara en viktig aktör i kampen mot ungdomskriminaliteten, men kritiseras samtidigt för sitt bristande engagemang. Hur ungdomsbrottsligheten ska hanteras delar samhället i två bestämda läger där den ena parten kräver hårdare tag, vilket bland annat innebär förslag om hårdare straff; medan den andra sidan efterlyser mjukare och förebyggande insatser. Genomgående i diskurserna förekommer uttalanden från svenska politiker vilket visar att politiken har en betydande roll i diskussionen gällande hur ungdomsbrottsligheten bör förstås och bekämpas. Studien understryker hur medias framställning bidrar till konstruktionen av hur ett fenomen som ungdomsbrottslighet i relation till socialtjänstens arbete bör förstås. / The purpose of this study is to highlight prominent discourses within mass media   concerning young people who commit crimes; and how responsible actors such as the social services are considered to handle this phenomenon. Based on a critical discourse approach inspired by Fairclough, 59 articles have been analyzed. Three prominent discourses have been identified: the discourse on the new crime, the discourse on inadequate social services and the discourse on the struggle between hard and soft measures. The results suggests that the media present juvenile delinquency as a new kind of phenomenon which presupposes weak collective ties. The new type of crime is also considered to deviate from an earlier form of normal crime. The social services are described as an important agent in the fight against juvenile delinquency. The criticism that is presented by the media consists of the social services' lack of commitment. How juvenile delinquency is to be solved divides society into two specific camps where one part demands a tougher grip, which means, among other things, harsher punishments; while the other, softer side emphasizes the need for more preventive measures. Throughout the discourses, statements from Swedish politicians are embedded, which illustrates the impact that politicians have in the discussion regarding how juvenile delinquency are to be understood and combated. The study underlines how the media presentation becomes an important factor in the linguistic construction of how a phenomenon, such as juvenile delinquency in relation to social services, is to be understood.

It is important that the authors of textbooks for religious studies think about how they express themselves. They could easily be misunderstood, or they could unknowingly create truths they themselves may not stand for. This study focuses on how authors express themselves when they write about Muslims, what is expected of them, the authors, when they are governed by the syllabus. Several previous studies show tendencies of othering/second-rate of Muslims in teaching materials for religious studies. These previous studies point to a problem, that the authors should avoid othering of Muslims. What my study shows is that there are traces of othering of Muslims as practitioners of Islam, if you do not include other aspects, like for whom is “this” textbook produced for. I highlighted the requirements of the syllabus and placed the textbooks for religious studies in a larger context, which led to the othering being erased. The study shows that the authors do not second-rate Muslims in the teaching materials. Instead of second-rate Muslims, the authors problematize different traditions and rituals within Islam in the material. Admittedly, some traditions and rituals violate the norms we have in Sweden and the western Christian world, but most Muslims do not agree with the conservative and sometimes violent interpretations that we hear through the media, among other things. The teaching materials meet the requirements of the syllabus Religious Knowledge by pointing to a diversity within the religions. And creates understanding that Muslims are not a homogeneous group that act and think alike.

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Female sexual offenders have recently become the subject of increased medical, legal and public attention. However, the medical and legal systems insist that female sex crimes are rare regardless of the fact that when sexual victimization experiences are surveyed, the incidence of female perpetrated sex crimes is often higher than expected. Additionally, lay discourses concerning female sexual perpetration remain charged with expressions of disbelief and the vast majority of attention on sexual crimes therefore remains focused on male offenders. As a result, female sexual offenders are understood and treated differently to their male counterparts in the media and medico-legal contexts. In light of the continued denial of female sexual perpetration, this research explored how such beliefs around female sexuality shape the self-knowledge of female sexual offenders. By doing so, this investigation aimed to illuminate how disciplinary power acts to produce self-knowledge that, in turn, leads to the discursive coordinates by which female sexual offenders come to define themselves. This was achieved by interviewing female sexual perpetrators and thereafter drawing on critical discourse analysis in order to interpret the transcriptions of these interviews. The results demonstrated that the participants’ subjective experiences as agents and non-agents in the perpetration of sex crimes relied on social constructions of men, women, motherhood, sexuality and religion. All of the offenders constructed themselves as characteristically female- maternal, passive, vulnerable, victimised and innately virtuous. Their responses drew discernibly on rationalising discourse, gendered discourse, inversions of their femaleness, perceptions of the legal and correctional systems, institutionalised discourse, discourse on rehabilitation and expressions of morality and docility. Most of these discursive patterns, as both instruments and effects of power, simultaneously replicate and reproduce broader social discursive practices that imply that women are harmless, nurturing and incapable of female sexual perpetration. The availability of medical, academic and legal discourse on gender and sexuality allowed the participants to draw on victim discourse, histories of abuse and claims of psychological ailments to justify their crimes. These rationalisations also worked in conjunction with gendered discursive strategies that implied that men are aggressive perpetrators whilst women are harmless victims. As such, the perceived responsibility for the participants’ crimes was most often displaced onto their male accomplices. In this way, the participants upheld their subjective innocence as well as assisted in the maintenance of the construction of the female sexual perpetrator as an unfathomable and impossible construct. This was further emphasised by the fact that not a single participant believed she was guilty of a crime. Such a belief is in line with gendered constructions of criminality as a predominantly male activity. As such, the participants’ reproductions of traditional sexual scripts foreclosed alternative understandings of female sexual perpetration. While dominant patriarchal structures utilise discourse as a means to transmit, produce and reinforce power, this study drew on discourse as a means to resist traditional gendered understandings of sexual offending and to create new configurations of knowledge power by offering counter-knowledge of sex crimes. In doing so, academics, policy makers and the general public have access to a different and novel understanding of female sexuality in light of sexual offending. This has practical implications for the acknowledgement and awareness of female sexual perpetration as well as for future preventative efforts.

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the media constructs sexual offenses. This was concretized into two research questions focusing on examining representations of solutions to sexual offenses as well as representations of perpetrators and victims. The study has a scientifict heoretical starting point in social constructivism and furthermore the used method was critical discourse analysis. A choice was made to review debate articles from two of Sweden’s major evening newspapers; Aftonbladet and Expressen. The articles were analyzed with both a qualitative text analysis and a critical discourse analysis. The data was analyzed with the concepts of transitivity and modality. The results showed that several different solutions were presented in the articles, these formed discourses. The dominating discourses were: “More police officers”, “Stricter legislation”, “Valuation- and normchange”, “Deport foreigners”and “Society’s responsibility to change”. The result showed that sexual offenses sometimes are given less priority compared to homicide and gang-related crimes. The authors pointed out that this could lead to a greater need of police-officers. In some of the articles the authors thought that the legislation regarding sexual offenses was too vague, they wanted a more straight forwarddeportation and harsher punishments. Other articles focused on how sexual offenses are handled and how they become apparent is controlled by society’s norms and values. The authors arguedthat, for example, a patriarchal structure and bad male norms influence this, but also that the school has a responsibility to operate sex education. The result also showed that victims and perpetrators were portrayed differently in the discourses, with for example the use of “men’s violence against women” but also with a gender-neutral approach. In some of the articles neither the object nor the subject of the problem emerged.

The war in Ukraine has led to the displacement of millions of Ukrainians. Refugee policy hasalways been hotly debated and the Swedish political debate has been divided since Swedenhas received refugees from a lot of war-torn countries. Previous research has shown thatrefugees from different parts of the world are portrayed in different terms. Therefore thisstudy aims to compare discourses in the portrayal of Syrian refugees during the years2014-2015 and Ukrainian refugees in 2022 respectively in the Swedish political discourse.Specifically, it will be examined how the parties Sweden Democrats and the Moderates haveexpressed themselves in political statements about the Syrian refugees in the years 2014-2015compared to the Ukrainian refugees in 2022. The aim is also to critically analyze thesediscourses and how "us and them" identities are constructed. In order to carry out the study, acritical discourse analysis and Fairclough's three-dimensional model has been applied to theempirical material. The theoretical framework that has been helpful in analyzing the politicaldiscourse on refugees has been the postcolonial theory, the theory of racialization andOrientalism. The study concluded that Syrian and Ukrainian refugees are portrayeddifferently. Syrian refugees are mostly talked about in negative terms, while Ukrainianrefugees are described in positive terms. The result of the study also showed that the Syrianrefugees were mostly excluded to be described as "them" and the Ukrainian refugees wereincluded in a "us". These findings align with results from previous research in studies ofrefugee portrayal.

Political speeches are complex in nature and call for a thorough exploration to unravel the underlying messages. Politicians tend to simplify their speeches by using conceptual metaphors as a means of taking a shortcut. When examining political speeches, an interesting factor to consider is how politicians utilise conceptual metaphors influenced by their gender, as gender impacts both our language usage and how we are perceived in the world. This research examines the impact of conceptual metaphors used in political discourse pertaining to gender in two African nations: South Africa and Liberia, where one male and one female politician is selected from each country. In order to examine and interpret the corpus, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was conducted, and metaphors were identified using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). Broadly speaking, the research findings indicate that the four politicians established their identities through the utilization of conceptual metaphors. Furthermore, they commonly employed metaphors related to JOURNEY when discussing the progress and growth of their countries. In terms of gender distinctions, women tended to place a higher priority on establishing a sense of togetherness and connectedness with their community.