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The purpose of this study is to investigate if and how preschool teachers work with and relate to children’s interest in popular culture, what opportunities and challenges they see in using popular culture as an educational tool and what experiences preschool teachers have of parents’ attitudes, with regards to preschoolers' use of and interactions with popular culture. Media and popular culture are a big part of children's life today and the curriculum for preschools (Lpfö 18) emphasizes that we should work with digital tools, as well as dictating that the education should be based on the children's interests, which in our experience is often centered around popular culture.  This study is qualitative, based on empirical material obtained through qualitative interviews. Eight preschool teachers from six different preschools have participated in the study. The results were analyzed using the sociocultural perspective as well as previous research on popular culture.  The result of the study shows that most preschool teachers work with popular culture in preschool in one way or another. The study also shows that preschool teachers' personal views and attitudes with regards to popular culture affect whether and in what way the children's interest in popular culture is utilized. Although preschool teachers are aware that children have a strong interest in popular culture, some of their interests are excluded because the teachers mean that they are not exploratory or educational enough. The preschool teachers in the study describe both the challenges and opportunities of working with popular culture as an educational tool. Above all, they mean that many programs, films and games contribute to norms and stereotypes, but that they see it as an opportunity to explore such issues with the children. Using the children's interest in popular culture as a starting point, they see opportunities to develop different learning processes and children's identities. The conclusion of the study is that preschool teachers' awareness regarding, interest in and knowledge of popular culture is reflected in the nature of the interactions with the legal guardians, and in how the preschool teachers choose to take advantage of popular culture in the educational activities.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to study the discourse regarding the traditionalperception of libraries and how it’s portrayed in the most popular literary genre inSweden – crime fiction. The purpose of the study is also to examine how thedescriptions of the library as a traditional place contributes to enforcement of thetraditional library discourse in society.The study is done by using Winther Jørgensen och Phillips interpretation of ErnestoLaclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse analysis and discourse theory. Accordingto the theory, the world is structured by our language which affects different socialphenomena. These phenomena generate through language multiple perspectives ofthe reality that are created by discourse. Using this theory, as well as methodologicalstarting point, four nodal points were found that signifies the traditional librarydiscourse, The aged library, The book-oriented library, The quiet library and Therestricted library. The nodal points show in which ways the traditional librarydiscourse are most commonly portrayed, as well as what other signs or concepts arebeing used to describe the nodal points. Examples of these other signs, structured bythe nodal points, are dusty, valuable, deserted and selective.My findings show that the traditional library discourse is frequently recurring in thecrime fiction that I studied. The library is being portrayed as an aged, dusty andhistorical place where books are considered valuable. When entering the library,visitors should keep quiet and respect that there might be an inner circle ofindividuals who are considered more important than others while at the library. Thetraditional perception of libraries does however not necessarily seem to be negativein the eyes of fictional, nor ’real’ visitors. The frequently portrayed traditionallibrary discourse in crime fiction may contribute to the fact that it’s a common way,among visitors, of perceiving libraries in real life. This is in itself not an issue, butsince librarians and other library staff often view the library in a more complex way,this might create some difficulties amongst staff and visitors regarding what alibrary should be.

Euphoria is a popular tv-series that has become a part of popular culture with its dark imagery and strong characters. The characters became a big discussion in social media and mantras that people are taking inspiration from. The series has become a phenomenon in social media where people recreate the characters makeup and outfits. This study looked at how female characters are portrayed in Euphoria from a female stereotypic and gender identity perspective. And we wanted to see if the female characters are challenging heteronormativity that is reflected in our society. We used a narrative analysis and mise-en-scéne to analyze the chosen scenes, the theories we used were gender theory, gender role theory and queer theory. The result showed that three of the characters are shown as the typical female stereotype and two of them are not. The three females that are more like the stereotypes are portrayed in a sexualized way and their bodies are shown for entertainment and selling purposes. Meanwhile the two female characters that challenge heteronormativity are portrayed as norm breaking and they are not sexualized. The gender roles are shining through when some of the feminine women are acting from what is expected of a woman. They are seeking after what the ideals are and how they can be their most beautiful selves based on the stereotypes while some of them do not.