Single mothers have considered to be a vulnerable group in the society, both economically and socially. But how do they experience their everyday life in relation to be a single mother and at the same time pursue a university or college education? This qualitative study aims to explore how five single mothers experiences their everyday life. Through the use of Lone Rahbek Christensen's life-mode theory and Bourdieu's defintion of social and economic capital, the purpose of the study is to explore how life-modes affect the mother's former, present and future life situations. The result shows, among other things, that the mothers to a large extent, show signs of being carriers of the same type of life-mode. They also seem to use similar strategies to cope with difficult situations in their everyday life. Also, the social and economic resources where very important for all of the single studying mothers in order to manage their life situation, and at the same time live up to the requirements of their surroundings to be accepted as a "good mother".

The present dissertation develops a specific theory about everyday life called realist life mode theory. This theory is based on critical realism and consists of "work", "love" and "life mode" as central concepts. The background of the theory is the Danish life mode analysis developed by Thomas Højrup in the 1980:s. The aim of the study is to develop the central clusters of concepts in the realist life mode theory - i. e. "work", "love", "life mode" in a theoretical way. These concepts are seen as clusters since other related concepts are developed in connection to the concepts mentioned above. In connection to work I also discuss the concepts of "labour power", "labour receptor", and "work form"; in relation to love, "love power", "love receptor" and "love form" are discussed. And "life mode" is connected with the concept of "everyday life" in a more exact way than before. The argument of this study is that realist life mode theory is about two fundamental types of dominance - personal dominance and structural dominance. "Personal dominance" is used synonymously with "ownership". "Structural dominance" is dominance between non-personal, non-conscious entities. Life mode theory is a theory about ownership surrounded by structural dominances both beneath the owning person (sub-personally), and above (socially). Personal dominance - ownership - is produced via two human and societal processes - work and love. Work is defined as doing and occuring in the sphere of necessity. In work there especially are possibilities for ownership of the material surroundings. Love is defined as doing and occuring in the sphere of freedom. In love humans produce each other as self-owned persons through transaction of love power. Both work and love has great emancipatory potentials, and this theme is discussed in the present study. But, unfortunately, really existing work and love practices are to a great extent exploitative. Labour power is exploited in capitalism, and love power in patriarchy. When it comes to structural dominance, this study focuses on the following dominances: The dominance of labour receptor over labour power in men´s working life; the dominance of love power over love receptor in women´s love life. The dominance of work over love in men´s everyday life; the dominance of love over work in women´s everyday life. And on a more social level we find the following dominances: in the male life modes the work form dominates the love form. In female life modes the love form dominates the work form. And finally, in society as a whole male life modes have dominance over female life modes. When the dominance between social structures is analyzed, a distinction is made between "dominance form" and "the substance of dominance".