My essay is about me and my colleagues who have come to realize that maybe we are stuck in old habits when it comes to preschool indoor environment from a gender perspective. The insight has enabled us now face the challenge of how to deal with and move forward with gender issues and the indoor environment. The reviews between us educators differ greatly, making it difficult start of a process of change, or development, of previous work in the preschool. The difficulties of working with gender in preschool is that we do not know how teachers influence or shape the children. We educators controls many times the children, both consciously and unconsciously and sometimes benevolence tend to instead become a takeover. We also want to develop a norm-critical approach to preschool. The dilemma is how it should be done in a natural way as the children in our preschool has homogeneous family situation and we educators do not have enough experience on standard critical perspective. The purpose of my essay is that based on my experience, discuss the pros and cons of striving for a gender-neutral indoor environment. That will I do by highlighting and portray my experiences from when we started the nursery in 2001 and until today in 2013, to gain perspective on the indoor environment. With the help of my own and theoretical reflections, I will look at how working has changed in our workplace, but that we noticed or been aware of it. I want to make impact in how the discussion of gender in preschool has changed over the years. I also want to problematize what is a good or less good indoor environment for children in preschool through a pedagogical approach to the standard critical perspective. Something I want to mention is difficulties that educators face in working with a gender-inspired preschool. My reflective along with my preconceptions, I have lead me to approach the dilemmas that gender norms create in my daily task at the preschool. Through my encounters with colleagues, parents and children. I have reflected on the events that occurred during these meetings. My own reflections and thoughts have provided the basis for this investigation. I have been using a variety of theoretical perspectives to sort my reflections and thoughts. The theories I have used are for example the current curriculum for the Swedish preschool (Lpfö 98/10), as we as literature by Elisabeth Nordin-Hultman and Klara Dolk. My research question is formed with thoughts on how I, along with my work colleagues can create more awareness of the preschool indoor environment from a gender perspective, to develop a gender neutral environment in our preschool. Some obstacles to get further arise from colleagues we have shared opinions about what is good practice. The standard critical perspective is something we are interested in and started to explore, but there have also been new problems to work on. Who and what those difficulties might be and consist of, is something that I raise in my essay. My conclusion is that by letting the kids get more involved in preschool indoor environment from a gender perspective, a common change happen. / Min essä handlar om mig och mina kollegor som har kommit till insikt om att vi kanske har fastnat i gamla vanor när det gäller förskolans inomhusmiljö ur ett genusperspektiv. Insikten har gjort att vi nu står inför en utmaning om hur vi ska hantera och komma vidare med genusfrågor och med inomhusmiljön. Åsikterna mellan oss pedagoger går isär, vilket försvårar igångsättningen av ett förändringsarbete, eller utveckling, av det tidigare arbetet på förskolan. Svårigheterna med att arbeta med genus i förskolan är att vi inte vet hur vi pedagoger påverkar eller formar barnen. Vi pedagoger styr många gånger barnen, både medvetet och omedvetet, och ibland kan välviljan tendera att istället blir ett maktövertagande. Vi vill även utveckla ett normkritiskt arbetssätt på förskolan. Dilemmat är hur det ska ske på ett naturligt sätt när barnen på vår förskola har homogena familjeförhållanden och vi pedagoger inte har tillräckligt med erfarenhet om normkritiska perspektiv. Syftet med min essä är att utifrån mina erfarenheter diskutera för- och nackdelar med att sträva efter en könsneutral inomhusmiljö. Det kommer jag göra genom att lyfta fram och skildra mina erfarenheter från när vi startade upp förskolan år 2001 och fram till idag år 2013, för att få perspektiv på inomhusmiljön. Med hjälp av mina egna och teoretiska reflektioner kommer jag att se över hur arbetssättet har förändrats på vår arbetsplats, utan att vi märkt eller varit medvetna om det. Jag vill göra nedslag i hur diskussionen kring genus på förskolan har förändrats med åren. Jag vill också problematisera vad som är en bra eller mindre bra inomhusmiljö för barn på förskolan ur ett pedagogiskt synsätt när det gäller normkritiska perspektiv. Något jag vill ta upp är svårigheter som pedagoger möter i att arbeta med en genusinspirerad förskola. Min metod har varit reflekterande och tillsammans med min förförståelse har jag försökt närma mig de dilemman som genusnormer skapar. Genom mina möten med kollegor, föräldrar och barn vid förskolan, har jag utgått från och reflekterat kring de händelseförlopp som uppstått under dessa möten. Mina egna reflektioner och tankar har utgjort basen för undersökningen. Jag har med hjälp av olika teoretiska perspektiv, kunnat sortera mina reflektioner och tankar. De teorier jag har utgått från är till exempel läroplanen (Lpfö 98/10), samt litteratur av Elisabeth Nordin-Hultman och Klara Dolk. Min frågeställning handlar om hur jag tillsammans med mina arbetskollegor kan bli mer medvetna om förskolans inomhusmiljö ur ett genusperspektiv, för att utveckla genusarbetet i förskolans miljö. Vissa hinder för att komma vidare uppstår av att vi kollegor har delade åsikter om vad som är bra tillvägagångssätt. Det normkritiska perspektivet är något vi är intresserade av och har börjat utforska, men det har också kommit nya svårigheter att arbeta med. Vilka och vad dessa svårigheter kan vara och bestå i, är något som jag lyfter i min essä. Min slutsats är att genom att låta barnen bli mer delaktiga i förskolans inomhusmiljö ur ett genusperspektiv kan ett gemensamt förändringsarbete ske.

The focus of this study lies within gender coded musical instruments. This concept concerns the unconscious thought of musical instruments as either feminine or masculine. The aim of this study is to acknowledge the existence of this concept amongst pupils in Swedish upper secondary schools, and to demonstrate how it can affect pupils’ choice of main instrument. The study presents earlier studies that show signs of the existence of gender coded instruments. It also explores the concept of sex and gender in different situations. These include the use of gender in the Swedish language, in music, and in an ensemble situation. Fifteen pupils from two different schools were interviewed, and the conclusion is that the gender coding exists. When the pupils were asked to categorise different instruments as feminine or masculine, the results revealed that singing and piano were considered feminine. Some of the masculine instruments were electric guitar, electric bass, and drums. According to the pupils, the reasons behind their main choice of musical instrument can be put into five different categories. These are; Role models, Parents’ influense, the accessibility of musical instruments, Norms and Biological stereotypes. Three of these categories; Role models, Norms and Biological stereotypes are also what they believe are reasons behind gender coded musical instruments. The aim of this study is to raise awareness of this situation as the Swedish school values show that schools and their teachers are supposed to work towards equality between the genders, a task which cannot be done if this continues.

In this thesis, I analys suburb- and housing planning and interior decoration carried out primarily in Stockholm between the 1930s and the 1950s. Functionalism, the overall concept of the period, has perhaps been interpreted in terms of ideological concepts, interpreted as "democratic" and as a progressive dividing line between the past and the future. I examine how housing and suburban planning in Sweden in the mid-20th century was affected by how housing and town planning related to that period's clear class boundaries and well-defined gender roles. I analyse both rhetoric and physical planning. Whether the architect had explicit ambitions to achieve spatial differentiation of socio-economic categories, how suburban planners dealt with their historical inheritance and the principles about categorisation and spatial separation. I also analyse how ideas of class, gender and spatial differentiation of family members affected the organisation and design of rooms in the housing planning of the mid-20th century. The general conclusion of the thesis as a whole is that ideas about class, sex and familial hierarchy were reflected in functionalist housing and interior decoration. The planned suburbs in Stockholm involved explicit strategies for differentiating population categories in different suburbs. The planned suburbs, which were regarded as paradigmatic cases for the suburban planning of the period, involved explicit strategies for differentiating population categories in different suburbs, a strategy that was concretised in physical suburban planning. Terraced housing in one area, småstugor in another, blocks of flats in a third, detached houses in a fourth. Sociological arguments justified this type of suburban planning. The emotional affinity between neighbours was considered to be better if the neighbours belong to the same socio economic category. Planned homes, which were regarded as paradigmatic cases for the housing planning of this period, involved explicit strategies for differentiating family members into different rooms, distinguishing between private and public rooms within the sphere of the home, a strategy that was concretised in physical housing planning. I analyse how the magazine's editorial content contributed to producing a middle-class housing ideal. A central aspect of modern housing planning and the debate in around 1930 was the launch of the home as an essentially private sphere. The editorial team behind the magazine Hem i Sverige launched the home as a reaction against the idea of the home as essentially a private sphere, with a clear spatial hierarchy and division between different family members, between private and public spheres. I examined the participation of the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in the 1930 Stockholm exhibition. As an influential commercial actor, the store's management had a strategy of combining consumption with both benefit and enjoyment, dreams, pastimes and goal-oriented purchases. The starting point for Nordiska Kompaniet's interior decoration approach was the organisation and content of the upper middle-class home. The drawing rooms, the dining room, the serving area, the homes with clear dividing lines between private and public sphere. Family structures and familial hierarchy were emphasised on the basis of the upper middle-class family's tradition. / Forskarskolan för estetiska vetenskaper