This research examines limitations presented to gay men living in south central Appalachia that are produced by Appalachian culture itself, in regard to community formation. This qualitative study intersects existing scholarship on rural sexualities, gay communities and Appalachian culture in order to gain insight into the complexities that effect men in the region. The data is synthesized through a contextual dialectics framework in order to position both the Appalachian culture in its entirety, and gay men residing in the region, as agentic actors that are simultaneously informed by and produce tensions between the two. This study explores ways in which gay men in south central Appalachia determine and rectify obstacles that are perpetuated by their conservative culture in regard to forming social bonds with other non-heterosexual men. The current study extends the body of scholarship on rural non-heterosexualities, and underscores contextual complexities specific to the Appalachian region of the US.

<p>Denna uppsats har som syfte att, genom kvalitativa intervjuer, belysa fem kvinnors intresse för spel (dator- och tv-spel) och hur dessa kvinnor i sin tur talar om spel som en del av sin identitet. Frågorna som ställs till empirin handlar om vilka erfarenheter informanterna har av spel som intresse och vilka slutsatser om deras spelande man kan dra av detta. Vidare får vi en inblick i hur det normala ser ut inom spelvärlden, utifrån informanternas berättelser. Sist men inte minst så ställs frågan vad föreställningarna om det normala inom spelvärlden får för konsekvenser för informanternas identitet, och därmed vad detta leder till gällande de möjligheter och begränsningar som dessa kvinnor ställs inför, i relation till sitt intresse och den värld som omger det. Uppsatsen visar på att det inte bara finns en norm för hur en kvinna ska vara som Gamer utan det finns också en normativ femininitet som man bör förhålla sig till. Studien visar också på att informanterna ständigt tolkas som avvikande (på ett positivt eller negativt sätt) och att detta i sin tur får konsekvenser för informanternas identitetsprocesser och de strategier som de använder sig av för att behålla spel som intresse.</p> / <p>The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the interests of five women regarding their relation to video and computer games, as well as how they intend to talk about games as reflecting a part of their own identity. The questions asked to empirics concerns the informants´ intrinsic experiences of games as an interest, and which conclusions that can be drawn according to these results. Further on, through the stories retold by the informants, an insight of what is normative within this specific sphere is provided. In addition, the important question of how the current normative conceptions in the field will affect the identity of the women is raised, and thereby possibilities and restrictions revealed, in relation to the interests of the informants and presuppositions of the surrounding society. The paper displays that there is not only one single norm for a female Gamer but also a normative femininity one should apply as a woman in the field. The survey also suggests that the informants often are referred to as deviant, both in a positive or a negative manner. This, moreover, seem to affect the internal identity processes of the informants as well as their strategies used to retain this specific interest.</p>

Denna uppsats har som syfte att, genom kvalitativa intervjuer, belysa fem kvinnors intresse för spel (dator- och tv-spel) och hur dessa kvinnor i sin tur talar om spel som en del av sin identitet. Frågorna som ställs till empirin handlar om vilka erfarenheter informanterna har av spel som intresse och vilka slutsatser om deras spelande man kan dra av detta. Vidare får vi en inblick i hur det normala ser ut inom spelvärlden, utifrån informanternas berättelser. Sist men inte minst så ställs frågan vad föreställningarna om det normala inom spelvärlden får för konsekvenser för informanternas identitet, och därmed vad detta leder till gällande de möjligheter och begränsningar som dessa kvinnor ställs inför, i relation till sitt intresse och den värld som omger det. Uppsatsen visar på att det inte bara finns en norm för hur en kvinna ska vara som Gamer utan det finns också en normativ femininitet som man bör förhålla sig till. Studien visar också på att informanterna ständigt tolkas som avvikande (på ett positivt eller negativt sätt) och att detta i sin tur får konsekvenser för informanternas identitetsprocesser och de strategier som de använder sig av för att behålla spel som intresse. / The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the interests of five women regarding their relation to video and computer games, as well as how they intend to talk about games as reflecting a part of their own identity. The questions asked to empirics concerns the informants´ intrinsic experiences of games as an interest, and which conclusions that can be drawn according to these results. Further on, through the stories retold by the informants, an insight of what is normative within this specific sphere is provided. In addition, the important question of how the current normative conceptions in the field will affect the identity of the women is raised, and thereby possibilities and restrictions revealed, in relation to the interests of the informants and presuppositions of the surrounding society. The paper displays that there is not only one single norm for a female Gamer but also a normative femininity one should apply as a woman in the field. The survey also suggests that the informants often are referred to as deviant, both in a positive or a negative manner. This, moreover, seem to affect the internal identity processes of the informants as well as their strategies used to retain this specific interest.

Abstract   The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to shed light on, explain, and problematize women’s and men’s paths both to and within the profession of engineer. Computer and mechanical engineers are in focus and the overarching issues that this thesis attempts to answer are: How can women’s and men’s paths to the profession of engineer be explained and what has governed/motivated their choice of education? How do women’s and men’s career patterns look in professional life, and how can these patterns be explained?   This study is based on a social-constructivistic approach, entailing a focus on how choices of education and profession have been negotiated through social and cultural practices, norms, and values. The thesis combines work science research with research into the gender and technology fields. In particular, the relationships between gender, technology, and labour market gender segregation are of key importance in this thesis. The four part studies of the thesis are based on three qualitative studies and on one quantitative study. The qualitative studies consist of interview surveys with a total of 24 computer and mechanical engineers and 22 IT consultants. The quantitative survey is an exhaustive survey of 3,662 working IT engineers.   My studies show that the career patterns of women and men in the profession of engineer differ. Men’s paths both to and within the profession tend to be “straight” while women’s are often “winding”. The thesis shows that historically established, often stereotypical, conceptions of gender contribute towards recreating these different paths for women and men. At the same time, tendencies towards change are indicated. This is made visible through a gradually changing view of both father- and parenthood, which in and of itself is creating new prerequisites for women and men in working life. In concluding, the thesis proposes a new term, technology career, as an analytical tool for continued studies of gender segregation in technology and engineering professions. The aim in using this term is to capture the social complexity and cultural dynamic as regards how technology and gender are co-produced. / ”Jag har ju en yngre bror som har stöttat mig i det här. Han har ju samma utbildning som jag men han valde ju rätt med en gång [   ] han gick mera den raka vägen än min krokiga.”   Såhär säger Kristina om sin väg till ingenjörsutbildningen och till ingenjörsyrket. Till skillnad från hennes yngre bror var hennes väg ”krokig”, medan hans var ”rak”. Denna avhandling tar sig an den könssegregering i ingenjörsutbildningar och i ingenjörsyrket som Kristinas berättelse återspeglar. I fokus står data- och maskingenjörer. Detta är två av de mest könssegregerade ingenjörsgrenarna, och betraktas ofta som ”mansyrken”. Genom såväl kvalitativa intervjuer med ingenjörer och en kvantitativ totalundersökning av över 3000 ingenjörers karriärmönster, undersöker avhandlingen vilka tecken på förändring som syns i ingenjörsyrkets könssegregering. Vilka är hindren för kvinnor att ta plats inom yrket, och vilka möjligheter finns?   Line Holth är forskare i arbetsvetenskap och verksam vid Handelshögskolan och Centrum för genusforskning vid Karlstads universitet. Detta är hennes doktorsavhandling.

This multi-site case study examines literacy practices across four theatre companies for young adults. The study draws upon ethnographic methods including interviews, field notes, and video data to show how composing practices situated with acts of design fostered multiple entry points through text, a multimodal stance when reading, collaboration, play, shared response, and sustained engagement in the orchestration of available modalities in the creation of characters. Drawing upon theories of multimodality, play, and masculinities, the study links literacy practices in drama with the configuration of historically subordinated, non-normative masculinities, including self-identified gay youth. These young men reported excessive self-monitoring and identity management strategies within heteronormative school contexts, but took-up a plurality of masculinities as they engaged design practices that encouraged play, risk-taking, and the appropriation of available media in their design of characters. The study cultivates an awareness of how literacy practices in drama intersected with affirming construction of non-normative gendered and sexual identities typically subordinated in school settings, but that were reportedly more aligned with informants’ sense of self. The study draws implications for how educators may help young people critique structures of heternormativity and hegemonic masculinities that often limit the identities and masculinities available in school. In addition, the study draws implications for classroom practice in the language arts that position youth as designers of multimodal texts that allow for multiple representations of the self. / text

This dissertation examines how honor was fashioned in the New South by examining the masculine roles performed by William Greene Raoul, Jr. Raoul wrote his autobiography in the mid-1930s and in it he reflected on his life on the New South's frontier at the turn of the century as change came to the region in all aspects of life: politically, economically, socially, sexually, and racially. Raoul was an elite son of the New South whose memoirs, "The Proletarian Aristocrat," reveals a man of multiple masculinities, each with particular ways of retrieving his past(s). The paradox of his title suggests the parallel organization of Raoul's recollections. The "aristocrat" framed the events of a lifetime through a lens of honor, sustained by southern gentlemen who restrained masculine impulses on the one hand and avoided dependency on the other. Raoul the "proletarian" cast honor through an ideological retrospective whereby traumatic memories of disappointment and failure were re-fashioned through a distinctly politicized view constructed rather than recalled. Raoul's business failures led him to re-conceptualize masculine honor as a quality possessed more by the emerging working class than the rising commercial class. Memory operates in this project as more than mere methodology as assumptions about access to the past through memory are subordinated to an examination of the meaning of the memories rehearsed by Raoul. Raoul wrote his autobiography at a bittersweet moment in his life. While his personal fortune had been nearly wiped out by the stock market crash of October 1929, he clearly looked back on his career in the New South as a committed radical with delight as the Great Depression called into question the legitimacy of the capitalist system that he had long held responsible for his own professional failures in a variety of endeavors, from the cotton-mill industry to box-car building and from saw manufacturing to a practicing accountant. Raoul converted to Socialism in part to join what he regarded as society's most progressive and virile force. It is these two voices, the proletarian and the aristocrat, that are under examination here.

While studies in masculinities and globalization are a rapidly growing field, few studies address the role of marriage in shaping masculinities. This project explores the emerging pattern of young, urban Fijian men who marry non-Fijian women and in doing so, challenge neo-traditional marriage formations and gender roles. In this particular project, I investigate how Fijian men experience these types of marriages with non-Fijian women and how they negotiate their masculinity within their marriages. I also explore how the confluence of colonial experiences, current globalization trends, and culture affect how these men understand their masculinity. I employ several methodologies including multiple interviews, participant observations, and visual anthropology methods. Through these methods, I explore how the relationship between Fijian men and non-Fijian women alters men’s experiences of masculinity and identity at the individual level. Results illustrate the importance of work in defining manhood, according to these men. As well, results suggest that the wives play a powerful role in influencing their husbands’ values with regards to work ethics and the general acceptance of global values. These relationships show the intersection and complexities that emerge between evolving ideas regarding masculinities and marriage, Fiji’s colonial experience and current global values.

This thesis aims to show how gender is done in the Swedish Armed Forces, against the backdrop of its transition into an international defence organization and the international resolutions that call for gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations. In the so-called “New Armed Forces”, traditional demarcations that have separated civilian employees from members of the military officer profession are no longer self-evident. At the same time, what it means to be men and women in the military is changing. Three empirical studies form the basis of the thesis. The first consists of qualitative interviews with women pioneers in the military officer profession, and discusses how gender relations in the Swedish military have changed since the inclusion of women. The second addresses the intersecting relations of gender and occupation and is based on interviews with strategic and executive actors in the Armed Forces Headquarters. The third, ethnographic, study follows a military unit preparing for a peacekeeping mission. It focuses on gender relations in everyday work and shows how the ongoing transformation changes what it means to be military men and women. The thesis is informed by feminist studies of organization, critical studies of men and masculinities, research on professions and occupations, and military studies. A “doing gender” approach and a relational view of both gender and occupations guide the analysis. The analysis shows how established ways of doing gender are changed and reproduced in military practices, how the emphasis on peacekeeping reshapes gender relations in military work, and how organizational boundaries are maintained and deconstructed in organizational practices. Theoretically, the thesis contributes by developing tools for analysing the practising of gender in organizations. The concept of boundary work is elaborated into a tool for analysing how demarcations of gender and occupation are accomplished in work practices. The concept Repair work is employed to capture the complexities of doing masculinities in organizations, by looking closely at situations where the everyday practising of gender is disturbed. / Denna avhandling syftar till att visa hur genus görs i den svenska Försvarsmakten, mot bakgrund av organisationens förändring från invasionsförsvar till insatsförsvar. Denna process kopplas till kraven på jämställdhetsintegrering inom fredsbevarande arbete. I den så kallade ”nya Försvarsmakten” är de gränser som tidigare skilt civilanställda från yrkesofficerare inte längre självklara. Samtidigt förändras de innebörder som kön ges i organisationen. Avhandlingen bygger på tre empiriska studier. Den första består av kvalitativa intervjuer med några av de första kvinnliga yrkesofficerarna i Sverige och diskuterar hur genusrelationerna har förändras sedan kvinnor gavs tillträde till officersyrket. Den andra, som inriktar sig på hur genus- och yrkesrelationer samverkar, bygger på intervjuer med aktörer på ledande och strategiska positioner i Försvarsmaktens högkvarter. Den tredje studien är etnografisk och följer ett internationellt insatsförband under förberedelserna för en fredsbevarande insats. Den undersöker hur genusrelationer skapas i det dagliga arbetet och visar hur den pågående förändringen omformar de betydelser som kvinnor och män tillskrivs i militären. Den tidigare forskning som avhandlingen knyter an till är genus- och organisationsforskning, kritiska studier av män och maskulinitet, forskning om yrken och professioner samt samhällsvetenskapliga militärstudier. Genomgående används ett ”doing gender”-perspektiv samt ett relationellt förhållningsätt till genus såväl som yrke. Analysen visar hur etablerade sätt att göra kön förändras och reproduceras i militära praktiker, hur betoningen på fredsbevarande arbete omformar genusrelationer samt hur gränser upprätthålls och dekonstrueras i organisatoriska praktiker. Avhandlingen bidrar med nya teoretiska verktyg för att förstå genuspraktiker i organisationer. Begreppet gränsarbete vidareutvecklas till ett begrepp som visar hur genus- och yrkesgränser görs i det dagliga arbetet. Begreppet reparationsarbete tydliggör de komplexa praktiker genom vilka maskulinitet görs då det vardagliga genusskapandet sätts ur spel.

The overall aim of this dissertation is to explore the connections between rhetoric and civic and moral education. In the Latin schools (trivial schools, cathedral schools, and gymnasiums) in eighteenth-century Sweden, rhetoric still had a prominent position. In examining school rhetoric under the Swedish School Act of 1724, the study takes on rhetoric education in the broad sense, asking questions about teaching design and content, and about which texts were read and written. In addition to this, the dissertation discusses the moral content of the education as well as the function of the texts and exercises of rhetoric education in character and identity formation. The study also demonstrates the practices of rhetoric in schools and gymnasiums. Everyday classroom activities as well as ceremonies and festivities are treated as arenas for the display of erudition, asking questions about eloquence as a possible catalyst for the raising of schoolboys into men and citizens. Drawing from curriculum history, the investigation focuses on the content of the education. The analytical framework regards educational content as multilayered, ranging from conceptual content to content related to school subjects, syllabi and educational programmes, and further to socialisation content. Therefore a number of theoretical and methodological perspectives have to be employed in order to analyse a multitude of sources: from textbooks and records from schools to written curricula. The curriculum history foundation is therefore supplemented by theoretical inspiration from among other things the sociology of education and the sociology of literature, from the history of rhetoric and from gender history. The concept of virtue is given a special role in the construction of civic ideals and masculinities, two important aspects of an erudite identity cultivated in the early modern Latin schools. The dissertation shows that during the long period of time that the Swedish School Act of 1724 was effective – a total of 83 years, until 1807 – school rhetoric changed very little, and the changes that took place did so only slowly. A number of factors explain this rigidity. The same textbook, Elementa rhetorica by Gerardus Johannis Vossius, was used used in Swedish schools throughout the entire period studied. A shortage of textbooks led to older copies being used, and to a manual reproduction of textbooks and educational content.A canon or publica materies of classical, especially Latin, texts connected the branches of the trivium. It also worked as a common resource, read throughout the school: from fables and the short texts of compendia used in the first forms of the trivial schools to the philosophical and literary works used in the gymnasiums. The proximity between school rhetoric and the exemplary classical texts offers a further explanatory factor for the slow changes of 18th century rhetoric education. The rhetoric education in schools and gymnasiums appears as one of the most distinct illustrations of the early modern Swedish school's twofold objective to transmit knowledge and instill virtue. The rhetorical pedagogical programme was not just about the arts and crafts of linguistic ornaments. School rhetoric had an even larger aim, combining knowledge and virtue into the training of an orator. Through the reading of the exemplary texts and the moral lessons taught by them, and through pupils' own co-creation and rhetorical (re)production, a classical, medieval, Renaissance and Reformation legacy was passed on. In this legacy, the aim was virtuous eloquence. The learned world in and around schools and gymnasiums can be considered a premodern or early modern public sphere, filled with rhetorical ceremonials as a display of erudition and scholarly status. At the school level rhetoric was a representative resource that could justify the position of the scholarly community and the clergy, demonstrate the standing of the school and the church site in the city, and distinguish the learned from members of other social groups.

The extant South African literature base on male homicide is relatively small and reveals a paucity of qualitative studies. This study aimed to elicit discourses embedded within the narratives of men involved in homicidal encounters, and to analyse them from a social constructionist perspective. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 30 male prisoners who were convicted of murder. An analysis of narrative forms, followed by a critical discourse analysis of the narrative contents, was conducted and aimed to assess the social and ideological significance, functions and effects of these discourses. Participants' talk included masculine performances that allowed for positive self-presentation and ways of constructing meaning of their actions for themselves, the interviewer and an `invisible audience'. Narrative forms of stability/continuity, decline, and transformation/growth that relied on normalising, reifying, tipping point, propitiatory and rehabilitatory lexical registers were deployed as a means to position participants as reasonable, normal, rehabilitated, and as `successful' men. Within the narrative contents, participants constructed homicide through exculpatory and justificatory discourses to rationalise and minimise their agency, and drew on essentialist, moral and deterministic notions of male violence. Discourses of spectacular and instrumental violence were also evident. References to male honour, status and power; a defence against emasculation; the assertion of control over commodified female partners; the maintenance of referent familist and ageist discourses; and the normalisation of male violence as a utilitarian tool to access resources in unequal social contexts, underpinned these discourses. The homicidal acts thus represented adapted performances of hegemonic masculinity in a noxious context where this dominant form of masculinity is often unattainable. While participants' talk reproduced hegemonic constructions of masculinity within broader social contexts, it also contested hegemonic orders of moral discourses that govern the legitimacy or illegitimacy of violence. The findings reveal how contexts of discoursal production have a contradictory response to violence - denouncing it, but also simultaneously acting as a pernicious incubatory environment for male homicide. It concludes that the prevention of male homicide must involve the de-linking of masculinities and violence at material, structural and institutional levels, but also within systems of signification, if non-violent masculinities are to gain ascendancy. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil.(Psychology)