The study aims to examine the implementation of the Swedish discrimination law on a regional level when it comes to transgender people’s right to a non-discriminatory health care. The study examens two health care institutions in Region Östergötland, Linköpings university hospital and health center Ödeshög. Interviews are being held in order to examine how the discrimination law is being implemented on a regional level, focusing on transgender people. Following questions are examined within the two different health care institutions. Is there knowledge and education on a regional level when it comes to transgender's right to nondiscriminatory health care? Are there any resources available on a regional level in order to maintain transgender's right to non-discriminatory health care? Lastly, does the health care institutions have interests, commitments and professional ethics when it comes to maintaining transgender’s rights to a non-discriminatory health care? It is possible to find friction when it comes to implementing the discrimination law at Linköping university hospital and health center Ödeshög. The absence of productive educations in LGBTQ and the lack of time are factors that are hindering the discrimination law to be fully implemented. Furthermore the lack of education in LGBTQ may lead to a lack of interests when it comes to maintaining transgender’s rights to a non-discriminatory health care.

This essay deals with the Chinese mega-project Belt and Road Initiative and investigates whether itis possible that it could have a positive impact on regional peace. Previous research, as well as thetwo major IR-theories realism and liberalism, have assumed the project will lead to more tensionand even increase the likelihood of war in the future. According to the constructivist securitycommunity theory this does not have to be the case. By applying Adler and Barnett's rendition ofDeutsch classical theory to the case of BRI through a literary analysis the possibility of a peacefuloutcome is investigated. The analysis concludes that at the moment of writing BRI does not live upto the criteria necessary to be classified as a nascent security community. However, three of the fourindicators, establishing of multinational institutions, coordination of inter-state relationships and acore power leading the integration are fulfilled. Only when it comes to expression of sameness inpolitical, cultural, ideological or social areas is BRI lacking. If more focus is placed on cultivating acommon identity, the possibility of BRI developing into a security community can not be ruled out.

In recent years the concept of empowerment has flourished to a large extent, not least in development studies. Empowering marginalised communities, poor people and women has become a priority for development agencies and organisations. This thesis aims to assess how women are empowered by a top-down approach through International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) and a bottom-up approach through the women themselves. The paper is based on a field study that took place in the coffee farms of Uganda where women face enormous challenges as they work in an exploited industry and live with husbands who often withhold the income of the work the women have done. Drawing on Naila Kabeer’s definition of empowerment, this paper looks at if and how the resources, agency and achievements of the women have led to empowerment in the levels of household, workplace and community. The research strategy used for this paper is data collected from semi-structured interviews with women working in coffee farms in Uganda. The results show that women become empowered to a large extent in the workplace and community levels but struggle in the household level. There is not sufficient transformative power from IWCA and the women themselves to change the structures regarding gender-norms that are vastly embedded in the culture. There is a need to raise more awareness and knowledge, not only for women and organisations but for the men as well, in order to reach women’s empowerment and gender equality.

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During recent years the stigmatised phenomenon of menstruation has received increased attention, revealing various challenges faced by menstruating women and girls. The prevalence of these have shown to be particularly profound in low- and middle-income countries. Despite an enhanced understanding of how menstruators may be affected by having their periods the focus within the growing body of literature on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) remains narrow, often focusing solely on the practical aspects of MHM, whilst failing to acknowledge the social dimensions of menstruating. Women who work have been notably overlooked within the existing research, which almost exclusively has targeted schoolgirls. This study aims to widen the understanding of MHM, entailing both social and practical aspects. It also seeks to shed light on the experiences of working women, as a previously neglected group. To investigate how menstruation may affect women within their working environment, a field study with respondent interviews was conducted in Accra, Ghana. The narratives of the respondents, consisting of women working within the informal sector at markets, disclosed challenges that relate both to the social and practical aspects of MHM. The results point to the continued need for including working women in the research on MHM. It also demonstrates how practical and social aspects overlap and thus needs to be linked to gain a full understanding of menstruation and how it affects the menstruator.

Menstrual health management can be a difficulty for menstruating women and girls, especially in low- and middle-income countries or other areas of poverty. Menstruation being characterized by stigmatisation, myths and taboo makes it especially troublesome, preventing women and girls to handle their menstruation safely and with dignity. Male attitudes have been argued to play an important role in perpetuating these stigmas and taboos, yet little is known about them. This study sets out to investigate male menstrual knowledge and attitudes, the role of religion in shaping menstrual attitudes and the potential consequences for menstruating women and girls. Qualitative data from group interviews with 24 boys aged 15-19 in a Senior High School in Accra, Ghana is used as basis for analysis. The results are organised along three themes, reflecting the three sub-research questions guiding the study. Findings demonstrate how schoolboys have an elemental understanding of the physiological process of menstruation yet demonstrate a deep understanding of cultural restrictions and the way menstruation may be experienced. Attitudes contain both positive and negative elements, including menstruation as normal and natural on the one hand, and the menstruating girl as unclean and impure on the other. Religion seem to play in important role in perpetuating negative menstrual attitudes, reinforcing the idea of menstruation as impure and unclean. Potential consequences of these attitudes risk menstruation continuing being considered as unclean and impure in addition to be neglected as a “girl’s matter”. However, respondents also identified menstrual difficulties which may foster supportive involvement in menstruation. The findings suggest the importance of continuing to address the surrounding communities of menstruating women and girls, including within and outside of educational and religious institutions.

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This paper assesses the relevance of social investment in relation to the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), targets, and indicators. The research question is: How could social investment support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals? The thesis conceptualises social investment, sustainable development, and sustainability, before turning to the issue of how social investment could enhance its impact by focusing on areas of policy that it has not considered typically. This thesis goes beyond addressing the SDGs themselves to consider other issues that shall arguably be significant in relation to achievement of the 2030 Agenda, such as the contentious matter of limits to growth. The thesis includes a content analysis of the global indicator framework for the 2030 Agenda, based upon social investment-related search terms and focused reading of particular examples from the social investment literature. The first part of the analysis suggests that social investment in its current form can contribute towards Goal 4 on quality education and Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth; and to a somewhat lesser extent towards Goal 1 on no poverty, Goal 5 on gender equality, and Goal 10 on reduced inequalities. The analysis considers subsequently further SDGs that social investment could ultimately support. While recognising the value of social investment as understood usually for policymaking to achieve the SDGs, the concluding section suggests that a broadened version of social investment could strengthen policy relevance.

No description available.

In political science literature, the development of social trust is often explained in terms of the influence of different environmental factors, socioeconomic status (SES) being one of the most important. Yet, even though there is empirical support of a genetic component in the expression of social trust, less is known about its interaction with environmental factors. The present study aims to explore heritability of social trust across socioeconomic status using a twin-design that tests potential gene-environment (GxE) interactions. Moreover, the study explicitly tests the hypothesis that different levels of SES may moderate the influence of genetic and environmental effects on social trust. Data comes from the Swedish Twin Registry and consist of 1535 twin pairs born between 1943–1959. Social trust was measured through self-report on a scale of 1–10. Socioeconomic status was assessed as a dichotomized variable of high/low SES, determined on the basis of the father’s occupation during the twin’s childhood or adolescence. To test whether SES interacted with genetic and environmental effects for social trust, I used structural equation modeling (SEM). Results from the best fitting model show that social trust has a significant genetic component, with an estimated heritability of 0.41 in low SES and 0.33 in high SES. Results showed no evidence for a significant difference in heritability between low and high SES. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the results of the study do not support the hypothesis that SES moderate the influence of genetic effects on social trust.