Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses.

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Denna studie syftar till att analysera hur förskollärare i Tornedalen konstruerar genus i förskolan. Studien är av kvalitativ karaktär med utgångspunkt i det socialkonstruktionistiska perspektivet. Datainsamling till studien har skett genom skriftliga intervjuer med 13 förskollärare som är verksamma inom yrket i Tornedalen. Resultatet visa att förskollärarna konstruerar genus utifrån tre områden: Förhållningssätt, miljö och språk. Vidare visar resultatet på en osäkerhet kring begreppet genus men även olika utmaningar som konstrueras i förskollärarnas arbete att motverka traditionella könsnormer.

This study contributes towards understanding the complex dynamics that are inherent in the transformation of institutional culture in the higher education environment in South Africa. Innovative use was made of gender-based change as a case study of social transformation in a case institution, the University of Cape Town. A feminist, qualitative approach was used to map gender as a component of institutional culture and to explore how the institution's culture influences the dynamics of gender-based change. A gendered lens was focused on three different sources of data: the leadership discourse from 28 years of annual Vice Chancellor's Reports, and interview and documentary data around two purposively selected feminist initiatives to further women's career development in the higher education environment. The integration of analyses of different types of data from these three sources proved to be a powerful tool for exposing contested meanings and highlighting discrepancies between the logic of the organization and experienced realities. My research corroborates numerous previous studies of universities worldwide and reveals the case institution to have a conservative, patriarchal culture. In addition to the formal hierarchical and collegial structures typical of many universities, aspects of the institutional culture that contribute towards its marked conservatism were identified. The analyses revealed how the hegemony of academic and androcentric discourses resulted in a culture which 'others' people into differently empowered groups and how this interacts with a dominant liberal discourse that values and privileges individualism. The resultant mystification is exhausting and confusing to those who are not part of the dominant group, and combines with fragmented understandings of purpose to stifle institutional change and thus strengthen conservatism. Beyond the male hegemony, the most significant aspect of the gendered institutional culture is the persistent vanishing of gender on the campus. There is little evidence of any ability to engage seriously with gender or any recognition that this might be a priority. The gender-based change initiatives that were studied were the result of spontaneous action of tempered radicals, insiders within the institution who felt alienated by aspects of its culture and thus were positioned also as outsiders. Both initiatives have resulted in successful programmes but an analysis of the dynamics around their establishment shows the power of the institutional culture to neutralize and de-politicize their impact on the gendered culture, despite the pervasiveness of the liberal discourse. I suggest that for change to succeed it is necessary to purposely reduce the power that the conservative institution can exert. This can be achieved by avoiding direct confrontation with the dominant patriarchal culture and by forging appropriate, sympathetic external alliances with those who have influence and access to resources. My research suggests that transformation of the institutional culture is unlikely to be led by those who, by conforming to the culture, have attained hierarchical leadership positions and are thus most threatened by change. Transformation is most likely to be brought about by those who question norms, seize opportunities and focus on small wins. The liberal discourse common to many universities leads to a tolerance of mavericks, and I suggest that this can provide opportunities to surface the silent voices that must inform debates around transformation. However I have revealed how resistant the sector can be to cultural change. My analyses have shown how even ostensibly very successful initiatives can be assimilated and how their ability to result in institutional change can be disempowered using political structures and micropolitics. Effecting transformation of the complex institutional culture in higher education will require a deep engagement with these powerful conservative forces.

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Sweden has made enormous progress when it comes to gender equality hence its ranking as first among other states with a score of 83.9 percent. Despite all the progress, there are still challenges that create a huge gender gap in gender-based professions where some professions are considered male whereas others are termed female. It is obvious that gender segregation still prevails in occupations that are traditionally gendered. The purpose of this study was to identify barriers within the construction industry that are maintaining the gender gap and frustrating Sweden's efforts to steer towards a complete gender equality. The study was analysed based on three theories, glass ceiling (Blackwell ,2017), gender theory (Connell (1996) Simone de Beauvoir, 1949) and gender system (Yvonne Hirdman, 1988) as the main theory. Seven interviews with five women in the construction industry were conducted. Discrimination in working hours, pay gap, sexual harassment, lack of role models are some of the barriers that this report highlights. The findings show that the gender gap is generated by macho culture, male superiority and firmly ingrained masculine norms as well as beliefs.

Women accused of murdering their partner when faced with intimate partner violence (IPV) may be perceived in a unique light. However, there is little research on whether people's implicit and explicit gender bias plays a role in how they react or perceive women accused of murdering their partner. Therefore, this research aims to see an association between explicit and implicit gender bias in determining guilt in murder cases involving women suspects. The methods used for this research are an online survey, an implicit association test, and an ambivalent sexism inventory test. These tests will be put into the Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Some key findings were that the absence of Implicit Association Test and the discrepancy between the two explicit biases were linked to a less severe outcome. In contrast, only one case with a high level of all three gender biases was linked to severe outcomes. These results could be due to more psychologically rigid, naïve, or one-sided mindsets regarding the participants' perceptions of women.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / An increasing number of working age adults are choosing to delay or forego parenthood entirely, but little research has explored how voluntarily childfree adults are perceived and treated in the workplace. While a large body of research has examined the impacts of motherhood on working women, little work has been done to understand the experiences of voluntarily childfree women. This study explored perceptions of working women based on their reproductive choices and whether these perceptions relate to differences in promotion decisions. Based on social backlash theory, I hypothesized that voluntarily childfree (VCF) women would be penalized in promotion decisions, and that perceptions of agentic-dominance and communality would explain this relationship. Using a sample of 220 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, I tested my proposed mediation model and found no support for my hypotheses. Counter to expectations, no evidence of the motherhood penalty emerged either. Despite the lack of significant findings in this study, future work should consider assessing the relationships proposed with different experimental design.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to study the media's portrayal of rape based on how, andwhether, the use of language has changed in the media discourse before and after Metoo. Theaim was to shed light on the consequences that the use of language in the media could havewhen it comes to reproducing unequal power structures. A qualitative approach with scritical discourse analysis was used as a method. The material is based on articles from two ofSweden's largest newspapers, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, where ten articles wereselected from 2015 and 2019 from each newspaper. As a theoretical framework, criticaldiscourse analysis and an intersectional perspective were used. The results of the study andanalysis showed that there are some changes in the language used after Metoo in the mediaarticles reporting incidents on rape. One result showed that a woman is described as beingvulnerable instead of being a victim. Another result is that the discourse about rape hassomewhat broadened and the problems around human trafficking, prostitution and thepurchasing of sex are beginning to be discussed within this discourse. A third change is anincreased credibility both for the crime and for the woman, and that there has been a partialshift in the burden of responsibility from the woman to the man. A fourth change is thediscussion about the man's exercise of power. Despite these changes, the study shows thatunequal power structures continue to be reproduced in the media discourse on rape, where itis mainly about patriarchal power structures. These power structures are seen in a systematicway that benefits men, and in particular white men, while at the same time it disfavourswomen as well as people with a foreign background. Keywords: intersectionality, critical discourse analysis, media discourse, Metoo, rape

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