This retroductive study aims to examine in what way paradoxes figure in contemporary political discourse, and what political effects arise therefrom. To this end, the study will address an extreme example – Swedish right-wing nationalism - which often is accused of being paradoxical; for example, when right-wing nationalistic discourse – often explicitly anti-feminist – begins to appropriate a feminist analysis in order to engage in contemporary political events. Such was the case when news of what happened in Cologne on New Year’s 2015/2016 reached Sweden. An important theoretical framework for this study is Michael Billig’s Ideological Dilemmas, and his theories on common sense and intellectual- versus lived ideology. According to Billig ‘doxa’ constitutes various contradictory values, and in this way, doxa is inherently paradoxical. Therefore, in order to understand and define the figure paradox, first we need to investigate how our own liberal doxa operate paradoxically, and what are both the rhetorical and political implications of the paradoxes constitutive of liberal common sense. The analysis of this study suggests that liberal discourse has, to a certain degree, facilitated the growth and effectiveness of right-wing nationalist discourse that has drawn on cultural differences as a permissible ground for a debate surrounding the future of western liberal principles and the defence of women’s rights.

This thesis deals with the construction of identity going on in Swedish students' societies, which is analyzed as an intersection of gender and social class. Theoretically, I draw on discourse analysis. Foucault's genealogical method is applied in order to understand how discourses of the past are active today in students' identity construction. The study is based on interviews with members of the board of three different societies. In all, 28 interviews were made. Furthermore texts and pictures from each society's homepage were examined. Overall, the study shows that two main discourses are activated in students' identity construction. The members of the male-dominated society belonging to the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology represent a specific form of masculine identity in accordance with medieval ideas of student life. Being a student means to be without responsibility, to drink and have fun, and women are constructed as 'the others'. The members see them-selves as rather ordinary men in the future. Women and men are active in equal numbers in the society of students belonging to the Faculty of Social Sciences. They activate the meritocratic discourse dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries as they construct themselves as future men in power with the right to speak. Women can however also represent this identity. In the society of students belonging to the Faculty of Medicine, women constitute the vast majority. They also activate the meritocratic discourse. However, they attach new meanings in accordance with the female symbolic gender to what should be regarded as merits: responsibility, respectability, care, and nicety. Thus, they represent a feminine identity, but the few male members do not adhere to these female symbolic norms. The society is an arena for the members' resistance against hegemonic discourses of gender and class that would confine them to subordinate positions in their future working-life. Each society provides valuable symbolic capital that might be important. Key words: class, discourse, gender, genealogy, ideal identity, identity construction, ideological dilemma, intersectionality, mass university, students' society, symbolic capital, the other.

This dissertation is a study of a relatively new teacher function in nurse education, a teacher function that can be called clinical teacher, link lecturer, link teacher or lecturer involved in practice. The study departs from a constructivist perspective and the aim is to study the introduction, performance and regulation of this teacher function. The material consists of internationally and nationally published research 1978-2009, reports from the authorities, job ads for clinical teachers, job descriptions and contracts, archive material, evaluation studies, professional journals, texts on the Internet and 15 interviews with clinical teachers in Sweden. Using discourse analysis this material is studied in terms of interpretive repertoires, subject positions and ideological dilemmas. The primary focus of this dissertation concerns what problems the new teacher function is supposed to solve, how the problem should be solved, the effects of the chosen solutions and what´s staged, challenged and reproduced. Secondly, this dissertation highlights what categories of teachers are required and in demand for the new teacher function, how the teachers themselves manage their function and how the teacher function is maintained and challenged. The analysis identifies and highlights current interpretive repertoire, teachers possible subject positions and ideological dilemmas and how they are governed and challenged in the teaching function.

This thesis set out to study the debate on circumcision of boys in Sweden. The study concerns itself with how categories and positions become rhetorical resources in the debate and how categories andpositions thus are made relevant. In order to get at what is made possible through the use of theserhetorical recourses this study has analyzed debate articles, official Swedish governmental documentsand the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Three interpretativerepertoires surfaced as distinct in this material and they are; Religious identity and belonging,medicine and the UNCRC. The analysis will therefore be structured and guided by these repertoires.As the debate is centred around the Human Rights Paradigm there is an ingrained ideological dilemmain the debate that can be explained as the tension between a Universal and a Cultural relativisticinterpretation of Human Rights. This tension will be discussed throughout the study. Severalconclusions can be drawn from the analysis: The various and contradictory positions allowed for bythe use of the UNCRC makes it an elusive tool in both theory and practice. The ideological dilemmatends to coerce the participants into opposing positions and even question the rhetorical tools utilizedin the debate. The child surfaces in various categories and at the end of this thesis the question remain;Is it a religious child or is it a child of religious parents?

Background Within trauma teams, effective communication is necessary to ensure safe and secure care of the patient. Deficiencies in communication are one of the most important factors leading to patient harm. Time is an essential factor for rapid and efficient disposal of trauma teams to increase patients’ survival and prevent morbidity. Trauma team training plays an important role in improving the team’s performance, while the leader of the trauma team faces the challenge of coordinating and optimizing this performance. Aim The overall aim of this thesis was to analyse how members of trauma teams communicated verbally and non-verbally during trauma team training in emergency settings, and how the leaders were positioned or positioned themselves in relation to other team members. The aim was also to investigate the use of a communication tool, closed-loop communication, and the time taken to make a decision to go to surgery in relation to specific factors in the team as well as the leader’s position. Methods Eighteen trauma teams were audio and video recorded and analysed during regular in situ training in the emergency room at a hospital in northern Sweden. Each team consisted of six participants: two physicians, two nurses, and two enrolled nurses, giving a total of 108 participants. In Study I, the communication between the team members was analysed using a method inspired by discourse psychology and Strauss’ concept of “negotiated orders”. In Study II, the communication in the teams was categorized and quantified into “call-outs” and “closed-loop communication”. The analysis included the team members’ background data and results from Study I concerning the leader’s position in the team. Poisson regression analyses were performed to assess closed-loop communication (outcome variable) in relation to background data and leadership style (independent exploratory variables). In Study III, quantitative content analysis was used to categorize and organize the team members’ positions and the leaders’ non-verbal communication in the video-recorded material. Time sequences of leaders’ non-verbal communications in terms of gaze direction, speech time, and gestures were identified separately to the level of seconds and presented as proportions (%) of the total training time. The leaders’ vocal nuances were also categorized. The analysis in Study IV was based on the team members’ background data, the results from Study I concerning the leader’s position in the team, and the categorization and quantification of team communication from Study II. Cox proportional hazard regression was performed to assess the time taken to make a decision to go to surgery (outcome variable) in relation to background data, the leader’s position, and closed-loop communication (independent variables). Results The findings in Study I showed that team leaders used coercive, educational, discussing, and negotiating repertoires to convey knowledge and create common goals of priorities in work. The repertoires were used flexibly and changed depending on the urgency of the situation and the interaction between the team members. When using these repertoires, the team leaders were positioned or positioned themselves in either an authoritarian or an egalitarian position. Study II showed that closed-loop communication was used to a limited extent during the trauma team training. Call-out was more frequently used by team members with eleven or more years in the profession and experience of trauma within the past year, compared with team members with no such experience. Scandinavian origin, an egalitarian team leader and previous experience of two or more structured trauma courses were associated with more frequent use of closed-loop communication compared to those with no such origin, leader style, or experience. Study III showed that team leaders who gained control over the “inner circle” used gaze direction, vocal nuances, verbal commands, and gestures to solidify their verbal messages. Leaders who spoke in a hesitant voice or were silent expressed ambiguity in their non-verbal communication, and other team members took over the leader's tasks. Study IV showed that the team leader’s closed-loop communication was important for making the decision to go to surgery. In 8 of 16 teams, decisions on surgery were taken within the timeframe of the trauma team training. Call-outs and closed-loop communication initiated by the team members were significantly associated with a lack of decision to go to surgery. Conclusions The leaders used different repertoires to convey and gain knowledge in order to create common goal in the teams. These repertoires were both verbal and non-verbal, and flexible. They shifted depending on the urgency of the situation and the interaction within the team. Depending on the chosen repertoire, the leaders were positioned or positioned themselves as egalitarian and/or authoritarian leaders. In urgent situations, the leaders used closed-loop communication as part of a coercive repertoire, and called out commands and directed requests to specific team members. This repertoire was important for making the decision to go to surgery; the more closed-loop communication initiated by the leader, the more likely that the team would make a decision to go to surgery. Problems arose if the leaders were positioned or positioned themselves as either an authoritarian or an egalitarian leader. The leaders needed to be flexible and use different repertories in order to move the teamwork forward. It was notable that higher numbers of call-outs and closed-loop communication initiated by the team members decreased the probability of making the decision to go to surgery.

This thesis identifies and describes the diversity aspects of police discourse based on the accounts of police trainees in their final year. Specifically, the focus is on culture, religion and ethnicity, and four main questions are addressed: What is said about diversity? How is it articulated? What subject positions are offered and assumed? In what ways are discourses of diversity sustained and challenged? The analysis of discourse in use is based on field studies conducted at the Swedish National Police Academy and focus group interviews with police trainees in the educational setting and during their trainee placement period. The analytical concepts of interpretative repertoire, ideological dilemmas, subject positions and discursive devices are employed to identify how different meanings are ascribed to diversity. Three central discourses of diversity are presented: diversity as inescapable difference (a hegemonic practice), diversity as political goal (recognition of diversity) and diversity as potential likeness (regulation of diversity). These are competing discourses on how police officers should be and how their role is understood in relation to a pluralistic society. The study shows that the contradictory diversity discourses reflect a struggle of different ‘us’, which regulates the conception of the ideal police officer, professional conduct and the performance of policing. In addition, five dilemmas originating in the tension between the discourses are outlined. Diversity is found to involve ideological dilemmas regarding how policing should be conducted in relation to profiling and social categories, how humour and jargon are viewed and handled, and how lack of knowledge may mean attributing subject positions to others with discriminatory implications. The thesis contributes to showing how diversity discourses reproduce the social order by affirming the social categories that the representatives of diversity are assumed to embody. It closes with a discussion of some practical and theoretical implications of its findings. / Ordningsmakter inom ordningsmakten visar hur mångfald, med fokus på kultur, religion och etnicitet, ges skilda betydelser i blivande polisers samtal och att det pågår en kamp om hur samhällets mångfald ska förstås i relation till polisens sammansättning och arbete. Kampen mellan diskurser är vare sig en ny kamp eller exklusiv för polisen. Däremot kan striden om hur mångfald ska förstås ses som en modern företeelse, som ställs på sin spets inom polisen vars uppdrag är att skydda demokratiska värden och lagar om människors rättigheter. I denna avhandling beskrivs hur kampen tar sig uttryck inom ordningsmakten. Hur kan vi förstå det paradoxala i att polisen har som uppgift att arbeta mot fördomar, samtidigt som vissa arbetsuppgifter motiveras av fördomar? Vad innebär ett behov av ökad kunskap om olika grupper, som samtidigt sätter dessa grupper i en diskriminerande utgångspunkt? Varför förekommer en diskriminerande humoristisk jargong i ett yrke som har i uppdrag att främja rättvisa och motverka diskriminering? Detta är några av de frågor och dilemman som mångfald aktualiserar i en polisiär kontext. Avhandlingen synliggör hur mångfaldsdiskurser återskapar social över- och underordning och att kampen mellan diskurser är en kamp om olika ’vi’.

This thesis identifies and describes the diversity aspects of police discourse based on the accounts of police trainees in their final year. Specifically, the focus is on culture, religion and ethnicity, and four main questions are addressed: What is said about diversity? How is it articulated? What subject positions are offered and assumed? In what ways are discourses of diversity sustained and challenged? The analysis of discourse in use is based on field studies conducted at the Swedish National Police Academy and focus group interviews with police trainees in the educational setting and during their trainee placement period. The analytical concepts of interpretative repertoire, ideological dilemmas, subject positions and discursive devices are employed to identify how different meanings are ascribed to diversity. Three central discourses of diversity are presented: diversity as inescapable difference (a hegemonic practice), diversity as political goal (recognition of diversity) and diversity as potential likeness (regulation of diversity). These are competing discourses on how police officers should be and how their role is understood in relation to a pluralistic society. The study shows that the contradictory diversity discourses reflect a struggle of different ‘us’, which regulates the conception of the ideal police officer, professional conduct and the performance of policing. In addition, five dilemmas originating in the tension between the discourses are outlined. Diversity is found to involve ideological dilemmas regarding how policing should be conducted in relation to profiling and social categories, how humour and jargon are viewed and handled, and how lack of knowledge may mean attributing subject positions to others with discriminatory implications. The thesis contributes to showing how diversity discourses reproduce the social order by affirming the social categories that the representatives of diversity are assumed to embody. It closes with a discussion of some practical and theoretical implications of its findings. / Baksidestext Ordningsmakter inom ordningsmakten visar hur mångfald, med fokus på kultur, religion och etnicitet, ges skilda betydelser i blivande polisers samtal och att det pågår en kamp om hur samhällets mångfald ska förstås i relation till polisens sammansättning och arbete. Kampen mellan diskurser är vare sig en ny kamp eller exklusiv för polisen. Däremot kan striden om hur mångfald ska förstås ses som en modern företeelse, som ställs på sin spets inom polisen vars uppdrag är att skydda demokratiska värden och lagar om människors rättigheter. I denna avhandling beskrivs hur kampen tar sig uttryck inom ordningsmakten. Hur kan vi förstå det paradoxala i att polisen har som uppgift att arbeta mot fördomar, samtidigt som vissa arbetsuppgifter motiveras av fördomar? Vad innebär ett behov av ökad kunskap om olika grupper, som samtidigt sätter dessa grupper i en diskriminerande utgångspunkt? Varför förekommer en diskriminerande humoristisk jargong i ett yrke som har i uppdrag att främja rättvisa och motverka diskriminering? Detta är några av de frågor och dilemman som mångfald aktualiserar i en polisiär kontext. Avhandlingen synliggör hur mångfaldsdiskurser återskapar social över- och underordning och att kampen mellan diskurser är en kamp om olika ’vi’.