This paper studies the theological anthropologies of the Catholic thinkers Alice von Hildebrand and Margaret Harper McCarthy. I place my research of these two theologians, categorized as religiously conservative thinkers, among other contemporary research on women in traditional religions by using types of agencies inspired by researchers such as Phyllis Mack, Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood. This paper analyzes how the two theologians construct their anthropologies, systems that see man in a relationship with a God-given order that dictates the role of freedom and responsibility in both the relationship with fellow human beings and his or her teleological goals. I argue that this anthropology comes from their reading of biblical passages and interpretations of real life experiences that break with secular, liberal and individualist patterns of thought. Using a hermeneutics aware of the tensions between secular readings of religious texts and readings that focuses on a self-transcendence, I present a reading of the theologians' systems of thought as a balancing act between liberal and poststructuralist feminist critiques. I argue that both Hildebrand and McCarthy reject the liberal and poststructuralist anthropologies because of their conviction that the liberal and poststructuralist anthropology is inadequate by not addressing the ontological reality of the human complementarity of the sexes. I also identify a tension in the theologians critique of feminism and what I take to be a dialectic between criticizing and appropriating feminist goals for women.

Muslim women’s rights, and gender equality in the Muslim world, are commonly discussed subjects within the academic world. Feminism, as a term, is often connected to this topic of discussion. This thesis aims to analyze two different perspectives concerning how these rights should be achieved: Islamic feminism, using internal resources, and Muslim feminism, using external resources. Islamic feminism, as a strategy, proposes that by interpreting the Quran, the ultimate revelation of God, Islam could provide the central and egalitarian meaning of the Quran. There is disagreement within the academic community whether Islamic feminism would enable these rights. Muslim feminism, as a counterpoint to Islamic feminism, proposes that the state must become secularized. Rendering Islam and the state as separate entities.    This thesis will utilize the theoretical perspective on Islam and feminism from five feministic academics. They all have different backgrounds, standpoints, and approaches towards the development of Muslim women’s rights, as well as what strategies they suggest to improve them. These strategies encounter different kinds of difficulties. The Islamic feminism, which uses the Quran, runs the risk of being too heavily associated with already established interpretations of the Quran. It may be seen as intertwined with existing fundamentalist views. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Muslim feminism may create a divide between Islam and women’s rights. This thesis aims to present the potential of different theoretical perspectives on Islam and feminism as well as the limitations on suggested strategies for improvement of Muslim women’s rights.

This study is about whether the ban on hijab and niqab in France violates human rights. Also, if there are contradictions between the human rights conventions and the french ban on hijab andniqab. That is the purpose and question of the study. The topic was chosen for an interest on whether the French ban violates human rights, and if so, why is the ban still a law? To fulfill the purpose of the study, the study will be using human right conventions and a case from the European court of human rights. The study will also use a human rights based approach to further analyze whether the french ban violates human rights. The human rights based approach will also focus on the rights themselves and the implementation of the rights. The second theory used in the study is a theory on multiculturalism. The theory will focus on the term “blind fordifference”. In other words, are human rights blind for difference?The method used in this study is a qualitative content analysis. The method was chosen to analyze the content of the french ban of niqab and hijab but also to analyze the content of the human rights conventions. The result showed that there are some contradictions between the french ban and the human rights conventions. The French ban on hijab and niqab showed potential violations towards human rights articles in the human rights conventions.

<p>The title of this essay is Project: The Veil – an investigation of the trends in the Swedish veil debate compared with the veil debate in France and Great Britain written by Cecilia Lindvall. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how the argument has been conducted by the Swedish politicians from the time when the veil was first recognized in Swedish media up until today. The questions I wanted to answer was each countries definition of the three concepts secularization, freedom of religion and multiculturalism, how Islam as a faith with Muslims has developed in Sweden, France and Great Britain and each countries integration politics with the politicians attitude towards the veil. The method being used is a qualitative study with three kind of theories for analysis; two who derives from a feminist point of view where the first one advocates for the rights of each women, the second for the rights of religious groups and a third theory which discusses different models of integration logics. The study shows that Swedish politicians turned from a negative approach to the veil to advocate the rights of every woman‟s right to wear religious cloth. Sweden and Great Britain chooses similar direction in their national integration program – which protects group rights – while France promotes individual rights on a basis of assimilation politics.</p>

The title of this essay is Project: The Veil – an investigation of the trends in the Swedish veil debate compared with the veil debate in France and Great Britain written by Cecilia Lindvall. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how the argument has been conducted by the Swedish politicians from the time when the veil was first recognized in Swedish media up until today. The questions I wanted to answer was each countries definition of the three concepts secularization, freedom of religion and multiculturalism, how Islam as a faith with Muslims has developed in Sweden, France and Great Britain and each countries integration politics with the politicians attitude towards the veil. The method being used is a qualitative study with three kind of theories for analysis; two who derives from a feminist point of view where the first one advocates for the rights of each women, the second for the rights of religious groups and a third theory which discusses different models of integration logics. The study shows that Swedish politicians turned from a negative approach to the veil to advocate the rights of every woman‟s right to wear religious cloth. Sweden and Great Britain chooses similar direction in their national integration program – which protects group rights – while France promotes individual rights on a basis of assimilation politics.

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain how the separation between state and church effects the power relations between state and religious groups and organizations. Former state church, The Swedish church, is in this paper, not included in the definition of religious groups. The reform (“stat-kyrka reformen”) took place between 1995 and year 2000.I’m examining if religious groups had any influence on the reform. My expectation is to give a clearer picture of religious groups and its power position in Swedish politics and society. A process-tracing method is used. I use different theories, theory of power and influence and theory of collective action. The reason for the decision to separate church and state was to handle social changes such as increasing secularism, pluralism and multiculturalism. This paper can however conclude that the state, after the reform, has shown an even greater, less secular, determination to connect with religious groups. I can also conclude that these religious groups had influence on the reform itself, partly because of its power resources and partly because its ability for collective actions.

De konfessionella friskolorna har de senaste åren varit ett hett diskuterat ämne med omfattande debatter och medial uppmärksamhet som följd. Kritiker har menat att skolorna bedriver en verksamhet som inte är förenlig med de värderingar det är avsett att skolan skall förmedla, medan försvarare har hävdat att skolorna är nödvändiga för att uppfylla kravet på religionsfrihet. Denna studie undersöker om och på vilket sätt de konfessionella friskolorna kan sägas svara mot de krav som ställs på dem utifrån de centrala styrdokumenten. Detta görs genom en idéanalys och kategorisering av de centrala styrdokumenten vilket resulterade i dimensionerna jämställdhet, funktion och kunskapssyn som särskilt viktiga pelare i skolans arbete. Detta kopplas sedan till en systematisk morfologisk analys av samtliga konfessionella skolors senaste tillsynsärende och samtliga anmälningar dessa skolor fått emot sig mellan 2013 och 2016. Studiens resultat visar att även om det finns flera områden där de konfessionella skolorna kan anses sköta sin verksamhet helt i linje med de centrala styrdokumenten så finns det också flera områden, särskilt inom jämställdhet, identitet, innehåll samt verklighetsorientering där de uppvisar allvarliga brister. Vidare bidrar studien med en analysmetod som framgångsrikt kan appliceras inom studiet av ideologiska värdekonflikter.

The aim of this work is to analyse the progress made by Turkey in human rights area and identify how important role of Islam there is. The work attempts to refute the idea that Muslim society is not possible to create a functioning legal system that takes sufficient account of the protection of human rights. Reforms of 20 and 30 years of the 21st century were used as theoretical basis. For the analysis of advances in the field of legislation was used Turkish Constitution as the basic document, which is the most important from the point of view of the European Union. A key part of this thesis is an analysis of current problems in the field of human rights and criticism of the international community, especially the European Union that Turkey must face. The work attempts to identify how important role is played by Islam in the issue.

Detta arbete undersöker hur Riksdagspartiernas uttalanden om religion kan tänkas påverkareligiösa elever i skolan. I huvudsak har tre teorier används: Bronfenbrenners ekologiskasystemteori, Saids teori om Det Annorlunda och Goffmans teori om stigma. Arbetet hargjorts som en textanalys, där material från partierna samlats in och sedan analyserats.Frågeställningarna som guidat arbetet är: ● Kan Riksdagspartierna bidra till stigmatiseringen av religiösa elever?○ Vilka direkta och indirekta budskap finns i partiernas textproduktion gällandereligion och religiösa människor? Undersökningen visar att problemet är väldigt komplext, och att ett enkelt svar inte går attutröna. Det finns dock ett tydligt samband mellan Riksdagspartiernas uttalanden och religiösaelevers vardag i skolan, samt mellan detta arbetes resultat och den tidigare forskningen.

This essay studies the implicit and explicit perspectives of Bruce Lincoln, Jürgen Habermas, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, Charles Taylor, José Casanova and their approach to secularism as a phenomenon. This is done by categorizing them into three categories. The categories,enlightenment-centered theorists, critical theorists and implicit-theological theorists, all have explicit accounts and implicit forms of reasoning that shape and contextualize their respective approach. The Enlightenment-centered theorists tend to regard secularism as a neutral and peace-keeping statecraft. This approach implicitly contains the idea of a clear division between secular and religious. This implicit form of reasoning I argue is problematically non-reflexive to the theorist’s own standpoint and risks becoming a form of secular ideology. The theorists categorized as critical theorists view secularism more as a type of discourse where what is seen as religious and the secular is inherently fluid. This is then analyzed by them as a special strategy for Western sovereignty. The perspective of the implicit-theological theorists is similar both to the Enlightenment-centered and the criticaltheorists' perspective in that secularism is primarily peace-keeping and that the categories are often fluid. I show that their approach contains theological assumptions that religion responds to a realm which challenges the immanent world. In the last chapter of the essay, I give a normative evaluation of the three approaches to secularism where I argue that while the enlightenment-centered theorists have useful explanatory models, the critical and to a lesser extent implicit-theological approach to secularism are more fruitful for religious studies. They allow for more flexibility in studying the relationship between secular and religious groups as they do not determine the categories in advance. The essay also contains a concluding discussion on the type of problems for philosophy of science and religious studies that arise when secularism and what is seen as the secular is deconstructed.